Spacewives Oneshot

14mattex

Rest your head on my shoulder

TheSpaceHairAndTheSpaceIdiot

“Did you get any sleep last night?”

Instead of words, as expected, Matt’s question was met with a series of sneezes, each one coming more forcefully and at increasing decibels. He turned from the mirror he was fixing his hair in and glanced over his shoulder to where a red-nosed and heavily congested Alex lounged lifelessly in their bed. He turned to face her properly and shot her a sympathetic grimace. “Bless you. You got that much, huh?”

Alex waved her newly-soiled tissue at him in thanks as her sneezing was quickly followed up by an uncontrollable coughing fit. While she got herself back under control, Matt abandoned his spot in front of the mirror, his morning primping forgotten in favor of a higher priority. He walked the few steps over to Alex’s side of the bed and sat down on the edge, his hand reaching out to rub her leg soothingly through the covers.

When the coughing had subsided and Alex had flopped back into her pillows with one arm thrown over her face in defeat, Matt reached his other hand toward the fresh water glass he’d placed there only minutes before. He carefully held it out to her. “Take a few sips. It’ll help.”

One green eye cracked open to stare balefully at him for a moment, considering his proposal and whether the benefit would be worth the effort. Decision made, she started the arduous task of trying to sit up. Seeing her struggle, Matt set the glass back down and helped her into an upright position and adjusted one of the pillows behind her to help keep her comfortably reclined. When he grabbed the glass again and handed it to her, she took a few small sips from it, paused briefly, then took a few more. It was almost like watching a kitten take it’s first drink, but made him feel infinitely more helpless.

She reached out to set the glass on the nightstand herself when she’d finished, the simple act obviously exerting quite a lot of her depleted energy reserves. She leaned back against the pillows, head resting against the headboard. “Thank you, darling,” she rasped weakly.

“Anytime, Kingston. Now, back to my question: did you get any sleep at all last night? Cuz I feel like I heard you up all night.”

“I got enough.”

He raised one brow sternly, willing her to come clean.

She sighed. “I drifted in and out most of the night.”

Not quite the truth he imagined to actually be true, but better at least. “You should really try and catch up on some of it. You need your rest, You’ll get better faster if you do. No offense, love, but you look like hell this morning.”

Glaring apparently required no energy because she showed no trouble shooting one at him with enough power to impress the sharpness of a jagged dagger into Matt’s mind. “Such a bloody charmer, you are. And to think, I beat out the throngs of young, beautiful women lining up to throw themselves at you. How very lucky I am.”

“Hey now,” Matt said defensively, throwing his arms up on either side of his head, “whoever said it was an unattractive look? Hell looks incredibly sexy on you. That thing with the chain of sneezes and the hacking up a lung? Is it weird that I found that to be a total turn on?”

Annoyance faded, or perhaps feigned, Alex laughed out loud. She laughed that bright, twinkling laugh he always loved and Matt considered that a massive victory in his favor. Alex’s laugh always made him feel like a little bell was ringing in his chest and with her feeling positively miserable for three days and counting, he hadn't been able to hear much of it at all.

She’d spent the first couple of days trying to power through, running around to auditions and meetings and errands like a woman on fire, citing her superpowers of motherhood as able to get her through any illness without so much as break for excess fluids. Unfortunately, she had been on fire, almost literally, with a temperature reaching 39 degrees. After a much-protested trip to the doctor, she’d woken up the next day a lethargic, achy, dripping mess, her ability to continue powering through finally snatched from her grasp. It took much persuasion on Matt’s part to get her to agree to stay in bed and rest for a few days, as the doctor had ordered. But apparently reminding her of how sickly she looked wasn’t the best way to get her to feel any better about being forced into bed.