Chapter Text
The blazing heat of the afternoon has come and gone, and dusk has swept her purple-amber hues over your home by the time you’re back. It’s evening now, and you’re absolutely aching, everywhere.
Your muscles feel like they’ve been shredded, stiff and torn, clinging desperately to your bones. Your joints flare with a hollow ache, your blood vessels strangled by one another.
And, you’re half sure at least one part of your body is on a hellfire that nobody could see, but that only you could feel.
You plop yourself down onto the couch, exhausted, as Kenny sets down your pile of medications on the coffee table. Stan emerges from his room, alerted to your presence by the sounds of shuffling, and smiles at the two of you in greeting, moving to meet Kenny with a light peck on the cheek.
“Hey Ken. Hey babe. Welcome back. Did everything go well?”
You stare blankly at the veritable mound of boxes and pills in front of you. Stan raises a brow.
“Whoa. Are we starting an illegal pharmacy or something? Damn.” He whistles.
Kenny throws him a bland stare. “It went okay, but I don’t know about most of it. Don’t worry, when Kyle gets home, he’ll yell you all about it,” he waves flippantly, retreating into the kitchen to grab some water.
Stan, meanwhile, quietly surveys you. You’re seated on the couch, staring blankly at your medications, not a mote of emotion in your expression. You’d filtered back into reality on the drive home, and now you were just… Tired.
He furrows his brows with worry.
Approaching you, he says your name softly, which gets your attention. You look up at him, and he takes in your weary features.
“You okay? What are you stressed about?”
Your expression turns grim, darkened by hopelessness.
“They’re putting me back on medications that never worked for me, but at a higher dose. I can’t help but think they’re just throwing shit at a wall to see what sticks, and I’m… tired.” You mutter, reaching out to thumb idly at a box.
Stan’s face twists in discomfort. “Well, it’s a step forward, right?”
You scoff. “Yeah, sure. A step forward where I have to put myself through these side effects, have to worry if I’ll stop breathing in my sleep. Going through the stomach pains, the nausea, the sleepiness and drunkenness – all to replace a single opioid that took care of the pain. They’re respiratory depressants, or something. What if I just stop breathing in my sleep?”
Stan takes a seat next to you, pulling you in for a half hug, and stroking your arm in comfort.
“I’ll be there,” he affirms, quietly. “Through the side effects, through everything. I won’t let you stop breathing, and I’ll take care of you.”
“Correction, we’ll be there, to take care of you. Don’t forget that, okay?” Kenny says, reappearing with a glass of water in hand for you. He drops to a knee by the table with your medications, looking them over, and inspecting each box as if he were checking them for mistakes.
Stan shrugs. “Yeah, well, I work from home, so I’m just saying.”
Kenny rolls his eyes, a well-meaning scoff curling his lips. “I know, just reaffirming. Anyway, you gotta take this tonight,” he tears open a box, and pops out a pill. “I have to leave for my… night shift, soon. So could ya watch em’ for us? Track their breathing, an’ all.”
Stan nods resolutely, and you shrink deeper into yourself, enclosing the little tablet on your palm in tense fingers.
“I’m… Sorry for all the trouble, guys.”
Both Stan and Kenny wave you off.
“It’s nothing, babe. We just want you to recover.”
You grimace, guilt gnawing at you. “I know, but… Even mentally – I was so useless today, Kyle had to step in, then you, and now, Stan… It’s just another big fat burden on you.”
Kenny’s lips twitch into a frown, and Stan winces, shushing you – shifting himself to sit just a little closer to you.
“Hun,” Kenny breathes, cupping your face in his hands, “everyone has bad days. Today just happened to be one of yours. And lookin’ after you ain’t a chore, or a burden. I love you, I want to be there for ya.”
At your silence, Stan adds a weak, “... What he said. It’s not a big deal for me, and you’re not stopping me from doing anything – I can work and check in on you. It’s really alright.”
You bit your lip, unconvinced – but not wanting to say any more, lest you take up any more of their time. Unfortunately for you, Kenny spots the discomfort in your features, and sighs.
“Listen, if you gotta see this as transactional, wouldn’t you do the same for any one of us if we felt the way you do, now?”
Your eyes dart to his – an earnest, pleading, turquoise blue. “Of… Of course I would, but-”
“And would you think of us as a burden, or a chore?”
You flinch on instinct at the accusation, “No! Absolutely not, I-”
“That’s how we feel about you too, baby. So wipe that frown off your face, I’m here cause I wanna be.” Kenny leans in to plant a kiss on your left cheek, maneuvering your face around to kiss at the other one, then at your forehead, and you’re suddenly assaulted by a barrage of pecks – and you try, but fail to swat him away.
Eventually, you’re laughing, and Stan swoops down to your aid, peeling Kenny away from you with a fond, faux-annoyed smile.
Satisfied at seeing you smile, Kenny drew back from the two of you of his own volition. “I’ll catch ya later, alright?” He settles his fingers on the back of Stan’s neck, sweeping him into a strong kiss.
You, exhausted, simply plopped your head on Stan’s lap, and he threaded his fingers through your hair, petting softly.
“Stay safe, Ken,” he mumbled, when the kiss broke – and Kenny leaned in to press their foreheads together.
“Always. Take care, and call me if somethin’ comes up.”
…
The world spun around you, the dry capsule of the medicine you swallowed seeming to lodge itself in your throat, clinging to it stubbornly.
“What if it doesn’t work again?”
The words filtered out of your mouth with great difficulty, and you found that the thoughts waded around in your foggy mind sluggishly. It was all you could do to keep awake, and keep your eyes fixed on the television – where Stan had been quietly mixing some music.
He perks up at the sound of your voice, and a hand darts up to quickly shift the headset clamped over his head, freeing an ear to hear you speak.
Looking down at you was… Honestly sort of eerie.
For the past two hours, you’d been laying with your head on his lap, staring blankly at the screen, or at the table, or at the ceiling. He’d figured it might have been a good idea to shift your pile of medications elsewhere, lest you fixate on them, but… It looked like you didn’t have problems fixating on even the most mundane of subjects.
“Then… we’ll just keep going,” Stan murmurs quietly, after some thought. He removes his headset entirely, tucking his chin to his chest to look down at you, fingers brushing your hair from your face. You made an expression like you’d just tasted something sour, and he can kinda guess what just crossed your mind, however briefly.
What if I give up on myself?
The thought comes lagging, slow. Like it had been dragged across the crevices of your mind, scraping across your brain.
Stan frowns at the flash of self-loathing on your expression, and he hugs you tighter to him, craning his neck down to murmur in your ear.
“Hey– hey,” he soothes, still stroking you tenderly. “What’s up?”
You shift slightly under his touch, but without the usual filter behind your teeth, you let the words flow, unbidden.
“Sometimes… Sometimes I just want to take a melon baller, and carve the aches and pains from my flesh. I want to take a paring knife to my skin and shave off the numbness, just slice myself open, and let the blood and pain flow out of me. Perhaps that would actually do something, since I can’t just reach into myself to get at that fucking…”
You try to communicate the emotion through hand gestures, but your fingers simply clench and unclench and curl around nothing. A tight ball of misery curls into your throat, making swallowing that much harder. But, no tears fall, or even accumulate at the corners of your eyes.
You drop your hands, and just keep staring, unblinkingly, at the cup of water on the table, as your brain finally catches up to your words, and you plaster your lips shut.
Stan didn’t need to hear any of this. Any of what you told yourself, fantasized about, on a daily basis.
He would look at you differently. Think of you as weak, which you were. Perhaps the more accurate way to think about this, would be that he would finally realise you were weak. Weak and pathetic.
He does none of that. Instead, he just grips onto you tighter, and breathes your name in a soft, pained whisper.
“I’d never think of you as pathetic, or weak,” And ah. It appears that you had been speaking aloud.
“This pain isn’t who you are, and it’s not made you any lesser. If anything, I think you’re strong as hell, that you’re going through this and still holding on. I’m proud to be your partner, and all this is making me want to do, is help you more. So we can get through this together.”
He slips out from under you, and carefully places a pillow beneath your head, then clasps your hands in his warm palms, threading your fingers together as if he were making a wish.
“So don’t give up, yeah? You’re a fucking warrior,” he insists, and presses a kiss onto the back of your hand.
“But what if everything changes?” You can’t help but add, quietly.
Stan just shakes his head. “Then we adapt. Even if everything changes, you remain constant. I remain constant. Nothing in the world would make us leave your side, and we’ll deal with it together. I promise you.”
“And if you get tired of me?”
At that, Stan blanches.
“I won’t get tired of you. I might get tired, but then, Kyle or Kenny can step in. They’re… They’re much better at taking care of you than I am, anyway,” he laughs awkwardly, scratching at his head with a nervous edge.
You frown, sad, and reach out to thread your fingers through his hair – your thumb cresting over his cheekbones. “Well, hey… I’d say you’re doing pretty good now,” you murmur, exhaling softly. He smiles at you, and leans into your touch.
“Thank you, Stan. I… I think I needed to hear that now. And… If you could, could you pass me my rescue medications? I’m… It’s starting to fucking hurt, a lot.”
Stan’s alarm is clear on his features, in his wide eyes and lips pulled into a thin grimace.
“Yeah, yeah of course. Kyle sent a list of…” he yanks his phone out, eyes scanning through your medications and instructions on how to take them, “Ah, yeah. Alright, be right back.”
Night soon falls, and when Kyle returns home, he’s pleased to find you, sound asleep – wrapped in a weighted blanket, head on Stan’s lap as he remains focused at work.
The boys exchange quiet greetings, deciding against waking you up for dinner, instead quietly washing up. And when it’s time for bed, Kyle sweeps you into his arms to ferry you to your shared bed, and Stan groans under his breath, stretching his legs for the first time in a while, allowing the blood to rush back into his previously numb limbs.
In the corner of his mind, he reflects on how often you felt like this, often for no reason at all. To him, it would be maddening.
But it’s in the middle of the night, where he feels something… Off.
He’d woken up a little past midnight, sweating and warm, to one of his bedfellow’s restless legs kicking at him in the dark. Groggily, he felt around for his phone, intent on maneuvering to the temperature control panel. He slipped out from under the covers, and felt a bracing chill sweep him.
That woke him up.
Why the hell had he been so warm, if the room was so cold?
And who the hell was kicking at him so insistently? Kenny wasn’t in bed with them tonight, and he was the most restless sleeper, so…
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he patted around the bed, feeling for you and Kyle – the latter of whom was snoring away without a care in the world, with you curled up in his embrace, but…
When he felt you, you were burning up. Your skin positively seared against his fingertips, and he let out a startled hiss, then nearly jumped when he heard his name mumbled out in a breathless little whisper.
“Stan,” you choked, breathing shakily, “I th-think something’s happen… happening.”
No shit.
He tore the blankets off of you, feeling around your forehead, your neck, your arms – all scorching hot.
Kyle groaned at the activity, cursing under his breath as he was roused to wakefulness by all the urgent movement.
The redhead sat up, and Stan took that as permission to turn the lights on – and when the bulb cast its warm glow across the room, he turned around to see that Kyle was up, and alert.
“What’s going on? Why’d you wake us up?” He asked, voice still scratchy from sleep, before he turned to look at you – still lying in bed, twitching erratically, sweat pooling beneath you, staring at him in fear.
“Wh-why am I-I sh… shaking s-so much?”
His eyes widened. “Shit, Stan– What medicines did they eat today?” Kyle asked urgently, maneuvering you to the edge of the bed, where he pulled you into a seated position and knelt in front of you, hands bracketing your shoulders in an attempt to keep you still.
“Night time medications, and one of their stronger pain pills… I-”
Kyle used the edge of his phone to gently knock against your knee, and your foot shot upwards violently – though it seemed Kyle was expecting that, and he twisted out of the way in time to avoid your kick. Your eyes widened.
“I-I I’m sor-sorry, I-I don’t-”
Kyle shushes you, lying you back down, feeling for your temperature and hissing. He turns to rip open a drawer to extract a thermometer, and winces when it reads that you’re having a high fever, surprising no one.
“It’s serotonin syndrome, your medications must have interacted poorly and… Stan, get a cold, wet towel – we need to get their temperature down, now.”
Stan doesn’t even acknowledge the command. He just races off, soaking a fresh towel in chilling water, and rushing back to the sight of you stripped down to your undergarments, trembling on the bed.
You hiss when Stan carefully drapes the towel over your forehead, your teeth chattering and neck spasming.
“I-I’m cold,” you rasp, and Stan grits his teeth.
“Kyle, are you sure-”
“Yes,” he affirms, tersely, “Your temperature is way too high right now, we need to cool you down. And if the tremors get worse, we might need to bring you to the hospital.”
You try to sigh, but what comes out is a stuttered choke, and Kyle flinches.
“Love, try to relax, alright? Do you feel like we need to go to the hospital now? Is it getting better or worse?”
Though you try your best to shake your head, it only comes across as jerky spasming. Stan’s heart clenches in his chest.
“N-no, my… my-my insurance won’t…” you chatter, and that was enough for them to get the picture.
“It was… was worse- worse just now, I think what-whatever this is is calming… calming down,” you grit out through clenching and unclenching teeth, tears rolling down your eyes in fat droplets.
Still, through the pain of forcibly tensed muscles – from which you’re sure to get muscle aches from the next day, you manage to spit out a vitriolic, “Fu… Fuck this- these medications. I wanna… wanna just…”
You let the sentence trail off as you groan, Stan flipping the towel to rest the cold side against your forehead. Kyle has already pulled out his phone, and Stan can see the number for the hospital on his screen.
His eyes dart back to you, and the strained expression on your face, muscles coiled and tendons twitching.
“You’ll get through this,” Stan affirms sternly, resting one hand on your searing abdomen, and the other cradling the back of your burning neck, trying to will the heat into his palms, to seep from your body into his.
“We’ll find the right balance of medications for you. We’ll shoulder your pain, we’ll get over these fucked up side effects. But we’ll be here, okay?”
Don’t give up, he wants to say, but he fears even saying the words would get you to consider it.
Your pupils sweep over to him, trembling and blown wide. But then…
Then, you close your eyes, and nod shakily, taking in a frail, bracing inhale, then an exhale, blowing your warm breath across your body.
Stan turns to Kyle, an ardent determination in his gaze. “Is there anything else we can do to help?”
And Kyle looks at him, sharp eyes softened at the edges with a helpless fear, and unshed tears.
He holds his boyfriend in his grip, palms warm from your heat grasping his shoulders.
“Babe, I need you to think. What do we do now?”
With a hand trembling from panic, Kyle shakily puts his phone back down on the dresser, and grounds himself by taking a deep lungful of air. Stand strokes his arm, soothingly.
“... Water,” he rasps, after a moment of thought, “and… and a cooling blanket, but we don’t have that, so…”
Stan delves deep into his memory, and a sudden, obscure piece of knowledge surfaces.
He rips his shirt and pants off, and Kyle gapes at him openly. “Stan-! What the hell-”
He ignores the redhead, and instead hooks an arm around the back of your neck, turning you over and plastering himself to you.
Despite the fact that he usually ran warm, warmer than the rest of the boys, he felt your impossibly scorching back radiate heat into his front – your shoulders digging into his chest and back flexing and contracting against his torso.
For once, he’s thankful for his broadness – all the more surface area for him to absorb some of your heat from.
Stan tugs you closer to him, immediately feeling sweat break out on his form, and Kyle finally understands what the other man was doing.
“Call Kenny,” Stan commands, an uncharacteristic determination to his tone, “He… He can… control his body temp, yeah? I can do this in the meantime.”
Kyle’s eyes come to life with the idea, and he seems to return to himself once more, haphazardly swiping at his phone in hopes to reach the blonde.
“I gather that he’d be happy to hear that his fucking powers have an actual use beyond just punching goons, or whatever he does at night,” he rolls his eyes, performatively, angling to get a laugh out of you. It does – a shaky, warbly one, but a smile nonetheless. He puts his phone up to his ear, tapping his foot impatiently.
And when the line goes through, a grouchy, hoarse voice splinters through the silence of the room.
“Yeah?”
“Come home, now.”
“What’s wrong? Kenny’s modulated voice fizzles through the speakers, but it’s clear that it had been swept with an undercurrent of apprehension.
“They need you,” Kyle responds simply, urgently – hoping his terse tone properly conveyed the severity of the situation.
“On my way.”
It’s only minutes later that Kenny, draped in his purple cape and ridiculous spandex suit, comes swinging in from a window.
“I’m here, what’s…” He starts off urgently, but falters when he takes in the image before him.
You, clad in nothing but your undergarments, trembling and twitching, with an equally unclothed Stan and Kyle, plastered to you, forlorn expressions all around.
“What… am I looking at here? Did you seriously interrupt my shift for a foursome?” Kenny waggles his brows, trying to defuse the tension.
Kyle only sighs explosively, pinching the bridge of his nose. “No, you idiot, we-”
“We need you to use your fucky wucky powers to lower your core temperature. They’re burning up and we don’t have a… what was it?” Stan interrupts the redhead before he could drive himself into further anger.
“Cold blanket,” Kyle finishes, lamely. Then, you twitch involuntarily, and Kyle’s attention drifts to you, shushing you quietly.
Kenny looks for a long moment, then shrugs and disrobes. “Medically sanctioned cuddles? I’m down for that. Stan, scoot. You’re usually warm.”
Stan obliges, shifting out of the way, and Kenny places an unnaturally cold hand on your shoulder, and flinches, hissing.
“Whoa, fuck. Guys, they’re really fucking heating up, are ya sure we shouldn’t go to the hospital?” He asks, worriedly, getting into bed regardless. Stan leaves to refill that little bowl with a fresh batch of chilled water.
“The hospital would just do the same thing, anyway, just charge us out of house and home for it,” Kyle grouses, maneuvering Kenny over you – who was drifting in and out of sleep. The redhead wrinkles his nose when he feels Kenny’s unnaturally frigid skin.
“Fuck, dude. That’s fucking cold. Gives me the creeps, man.”
Kenny shoots Kyle a wry look as Stan returns with a fresh bowl of water. “How ‘bout a, thank you Ken, for keeping our partner alive?”
“Thank you Ken, for keeping our partner alive,” Stan muses, draping a fresh towel over your head. You shiver slightly, but then close your eyes, bleary and unfocused as you try to get back to sleep.
“What happened to ‘em?” Kenny finally asks, and Stan winces.
“Cross reaction with their medications. It’s rare, but…” Kyle looks down at you, a tight grimace lining his features. Kenny sighs.
“So that’s our first medication crossed off the list, huh?” Kenny says dryly, pressing a cold hand to your cheek, hoping to draw the heat from your skin.
Stan pulls on his joggers and shirt, climbing into bed beside Kyle, and shrugs. “Guess so.”
“... They could really use a break,” Kyle mutters, and Kenny just breathes a shaky, skeptical laugh.
“When they get better, I guess. We could go on a trip or somethin’.”
“... They will get better, right?”
Stan directs his quiet question to Kyle, as he checks your temperature once more. It’s going down. Good.
“... Yeah. I’ll make sure of it,” he promises, solemnly.
Kenny uses his frigid fingers to thwap Kyle on the forehead, and Stan chuckles at Kyle’s aggrieved hiss.
“We’ll make sure of it. Just ‘cause you’re the only one in the medical field don’t mean all the responsibility lands on you, babygirl.”
“Call me that one more time,” Kyle growls, “And return that card you took from my wallet.”
Kenny raises a playful brow – though whatever he had lined up to say next is interrupted by a low, muffled murmur.
“... Thank you guys. I love… I love you so much.”
Kenny and Kyle’s eyes soften, looking down at you.
“We love you too, sweetheart. Now, don’t worry about a thing, and go to sleep,” Kenny murmurs, as Kyle places a soft kiss in your hair.
Stan smiles, turning off the lights, and cradling both Kyle and you in his arms.
And the whirlwind frenzy of the night dies down, with you sandwiched between your boys, falling asleep to their tender assurances, until they, too, fell asleep.
Then, you’ll wake up in the morning. And the morning after. And then one more after that, and you’ll keep going.
Knowing that, despite your disease – despite your hopelessness, your pain, or whatever agonies you would face, that your boys, your loved ones, would be there with you through thick and thin.
They loved you, and you loved them.
And you would fight this damn disease with all your fucking might.
"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places." — Ernest Hemingway