storypaint | Lovesick (Eriol/Sakura)

Comm: 10hugs
Words: 1092
Title: Lovesick
Series: Cardcaptor Sakura
Character/Pairing: Hiiragizawa Eriol/Kinomoto Sakura
Set: #2
Theme: #2, ice
Rating: G
Word Count: 662
Disclaimer: Cardcaptor Sakura belongs to CLAMP.

Excerpt: When he awoke next, he felt a cool hand on his forehead and heard a low contented humming as someone tended to him. Her touch was heaven to him.

Hiiragizawa Eriol coughed again, a deep-throated cough that caused pain in his already belabored sinuses. He followed the cough with a sniffle and a bit of self-pity. He hated this...

"Suppi, please tell Nakuru to hurry with the ice," he said to the sun guardian waiting attentively at his side. Spinel was so concerned about the master that he didn't even notice the hated nickname. He couldn't remember that he'd ever seen Eriol sick. It wasn't something that happened to powerful magicians.

Spinel flitted off to hurry his sibling and Eriol leaned back into the sheets, sighing. His porcelain skin was tainted with fever-blush and his normally sharp eyes were glassy. He put his hand on his forehead, but pulled it away as he felt the heat.

When Nakuru came back with the ice, she arranged it around the master with such obvious care that he waited for her to leave the room before he rose up and brushed the cubes from his face and neck. She had neglected the towel that most people wrapped ice in.

"The thought that counts," Eriol muttered blearily, and went to sleep.

When he awoke next, he felt a cool hand on his forehead and heard a low contented humming as someone tended to him. Her touch was heaven to him. He couldn't even open his eyes to see her face (who had Nakuru fetched when she noted him worsening?) but he liked her.

"How could I do without you?" he muttered feverishly. "You will make someone a very happy man someday."

"I hope so," the woman answered, stroking his cheek. Her voice was calm, but she seemed troubled. Even through his illness, he could sense that someone had hurt her very badly once. He got a flash of angry amber eyes and a man's voice desperate as he spoke to shadowy figures. Desperate or not, he hadn't won. And she'd lost too.

"I can't do without you," he said. "Marry me."

"You're delirious," she said, sounding sad and amused.

"I think I love you," he said. He felt dizzy.

"Don't be silly," she said, and he drifted back into the darkness. It was too warm, but her hand on his forehead calmed him through and through.

When he awoke again, feeling as though the coolness in her hand had slid through all his body and made him well, there she was, sitting in the corner, asleep. He wondered how long she had been patient with him. She was certainly tired if she had fallen asleep with her swan neck curved against the wall like that. In her sleep you could see how heartache had aged her, in the fine lines around her eyes and the dark circles bruised under her eyes. He doubted that she slept much anymore. She'd always been a dreamer, after all, and now her dreams were gone.

She sensed him awaken and her eyes slid open, the jewel green orbs seeming to look right into him. He wondered when she'd acquired that piercing gaze. It was one of Clow's looks. It must have been sometime before he'd returned to Japan, sometime after her true love left again for good. He was Clow, in some ways, and that look still made him shudder inside.

"Good morning. Feeling better?" Sakura said. He nodded. She seemed to be purposely ignoring his sickbed confession. He was regretting it a little. When one feels as though one might die, one's inhibitions are lessened. But he never should have even implied that he loved her in a way much different than the feeling he had had for her when he left the first time. She was still hurting--would probably always hurt. Separting soulmates is always a difficult thing. She was the only thing that had kept him going when Kaho had passed away. She took care of his emotional pain--he had cried with her, something he had never done before. She had let him--indeed, encouraged him. She had let his head rest on her breast as he sobbed, and she sobbed with him. After that they were just as close as they had been when he left, closer in fact. And now she had taken care of his physical pain. God, she was amazing.

He really did want to marry her, but he had looked at it with a critical eye, with Clow's eye, and knew that they wouldn't be able to give their hearts to each other in a way that would be good for them both as well as permanent. Anything they built wouldn't last, built as it was on shared heartache and a twisted paternal bond, and they both needed something steady. They didn't need to fall apart again.

She smiled and it was beautiful. "Don't sit up," she said when he tried. "You had a pretty bad cold and you're probably still weak."

What she didn't say was that he was gorgeous, a blue-haired Adonis with a smooth pale chest only half-covered by his button-front pajamas, his face still attractively flushed from illness. What she didn't say was that lately her dreams had been eased by a navy-haired gentleman with a sweet smile. She didn't think it was appropriate to mention her changing interests to a man bonded to her with paternal feelings mixed with sympathy. She needed someone to be strong for her, as strong as she used to be when backed by her number one.

"I feel much better," he said and smiled. "Thank you so much."

"You're welcome," she said, rising from her seat. She grabbed a soft cloth and ran it over his face, perhaps hesitating too long, but she liked the feel of his fine English features under her hand. He grabbed her wrist and gently pulled her down to him. Before he could reason it, he kissed her.

"I wasn't being silly. I meant what I said," he said.

"You were delirious," she said, trying not to get pulled in, trying not to get hurt, but he didn't have to pull her in for the second kiss.

They didn't need to fall apart again, but perhaps they could fall together.

He kissed her deeply and then they broke apart and she pulled away. He reached for her and she laughed a little.

"Hey, you're going to make me sick!" she said.

"I'll take care of you," he said, and she felt as though he really meant it.