smash_logs | (no subject)

He wasn't planning to enter the room. He didn't want to meet the other legendary after what he did a week ago.

It probably took good ten minutes of him just staring at the door in front of him until it opened and he was face to face with the rainbow legendary looking just...horrible.

"I am terribly sorry for..." He could hear his voice get smaller by the word.

...He really didn't want to talk to the other, he hadn't even sorted out his thoughts from last week.

Ho-oh smiled. Or he would have smiled but he coughed violently then. Using the door as a prop, he licked his sighed heavily. What had Lugia just said? Something Terrible? He scrunched up his nose, making a face. That silver chicken was probably talking about how he looked.

"R-rugia..." Even with his voice sounding so rough and scratchy, he could still manage a good low whine. "Do not make fun of me I am dying."

He would have stamped his foot and given the other a lovetap on the shoulder under normal circumstance, but just talking seemed to zap all the strength out of the rainbow pokémon.

"I-I am not here to make a fool out of you." Lugia replied, a bit hastily. That was what he exactly did last week, and he didn't want to do that ever again.

"...You look horrible, Ho-oh. W-was it from the weather from last week...?"

He reached over and placed a hand over to touch the other's forehead only to jerk his hand back.

"You are burning up!"

With that said, Lugia lightly pushed Ho-oh back into the room, following behind closely and guided him to the bed to force him to sit down.

"The weather?" He sniffed as Lugia ushered him to bed, shuffling along at a snail's pace. Sitting down, he weakly took hold of Lugia's hand. "I feel horrible."

It must have been the time when he ran out into the rain to chase him down. Lugia felt horrible.

"I am sorry..."

He let the other hold onto his hand for a while before pulling away.

"Have you changed? Staying in damp clothes will do no good for you." He lightly pushed away the other's grasp and headed over to Ho-oh's drawers to pull out a clean set of clothes for the other to change into. He placed it right next to Ho-oh.

"Perhaps a soup will be nice as well. Do you have a request? I may not be a decent cook, but I can manage to prepare simple soup."

When Lugia appologized, he found found himself feeling happy even though his whole body ached. Reluctantly Ho-oh let the silver pokémon move away. He said nothing when he gave him some lose clothing to change into but dutifully obeyed.

Slowly Ho-oh stood up and stripped off his clothing, giving Lugia a chance to look him over without the obstruction of the blanket. He was pale, washed out where he was usually tan, with a rib or two more visible then they had been only a month ago. When he sat back down it was with a tired sigh as he huddled the blankets around himself once again.

"There is chicken broth in the fridge. Some little onions. Rice noodles in the cup-" His voice got a little raspier with each word resulting in a coughing fit towards the end. Once it passed, Ho-oh sat back with his eyes watering and face looking absolutely miserable.

Way to make Lugia feel even worse, Ho-oh. Show off your unhealthy body. He frowned at the sight before grabbing a box of tissue and handing it over to the other to keep at his side.

"I will be back in a few minutes."

Lugia left the bedroom and walked into the kitchen and got an apron on before starting to look for the ingredients.

Let's see, the chicken broth was in the fridge, where were the onions? Ah there they were, and then the rice noodles were in the cup... cupboard?

After he got the ingredients together he started cooking, chopping up the onions...

Oh god the tears aaaa. He sniffed as he kept on cutting.

Sorry Lugia, but that's what happens when the only thing you've consumed in the last week is water and the occational cracker.

Taking the tissues, he set them on his lap until the other had left the room. Once Lugia was gone, Ho-oh blew his nose, a loud 'HAWNK' followed by some sniffling. He closed his eyes and leaned back into the piles of pillows. He might not have been able to smell anything, but he could hear Lugia hard at work in the kitchen.

Soup... It'd probably be horrible. He had never let the other legendary cook for him, taking most of the responsibility in the past for keeping them both well fed. Still, it couldn't be too horrible. It was not as if the silver chicken had starved completely in his absence. There was a good chance that he might have gained some culinary knowledge in the last forty or so years.

....

By the time Lugia came back, Ho-oh was dozing almost peacefully.

He was pretty satisfied with how the soup turned out. He almost burned the onions, woops but overall the taste was alright. Yes, he tasted it. It was pretty good. Ho-oh better like it.

He frowned ~~if he could even more~~ and drew out a small sigh before moving over to the side of the bed to gently shake the other's shoulder to wake him up.

"Ho-oh, the soup is ready."

It was no kiss from a knight in shining armor come to rescue him from his dragon of a cold, but the shaking did wake him up. His eyes fluttered open and he snuffled loudly.

"Sorup?" He sniffled again before blindly grabbing for the tissues. He blew his nose, twice in fact, then tossed the tissue to the floor. Falling back on the pillows he whined, shaking his head. "I hate this. If I ever recover I will never tease you again."

"...'If?'" Lugia repeated the word, drawing his brows together in slight frustration. He drew out a small sigh and sat down at the edge of the bed before handing the bowl of soup with a spoon dipped in over to the other.

"You will get better, you rainbow pig, as long as you get plenty of rest."

He had his gaze on the tissue that was left on the floor haphazardly as he spoke. After a while he got up and started picking up all the tissue that were lying around in the room.

"Are you going to stay?" The words tumbled out of his mouth as Lugia worked to pick up after him.

Immediately he shifted his gaze to stare at his soup, stirring it and stirring it before finally taking a small sip. It was good as far as he could tell. Nice and flavorful even though his sense of taste was weak.

"Did you make a lot of soups? What else can you make?" Ho-oh 'mmm'ed and 'aaaa'ed. Hopefully he could turn the conversation away from the true thing worrying him since Lugia had shown up at the door.

Lugia paused for a moment at the question, not sure how to answer it. Was he going to stay in the room, or go in the living room, or the apartment room itself? He went back to picking up the trash around the room. God, this place was a complete mess!

"...It would depend on whether you would want me around or not." He replied in a soft voice as he walked out of the room while the other tasted the soup, to throw out the trash. He came back a little while later to continue cleaning up.

"I unfortunately cannot make much other than soups." Lugia replied with a small laugh, now putting away the dirty laundry into a basket. "I have attempted stir-fry before... it ended up being black and burnt."

Ho-oh pouted. His eyebrows came together and his nose wrinkled. For a moment it looked as if he was going to sneeze.

"Of course I want you to. You are.."

He got flustered before he could continue and mumbled into a spoonful of the warm liquid. Stupid. Silver. Chicken. Ho-oh slurped the soup loudly, trying to drown out his embarrassment as Lugia cleaned. At least there was food. He could talk about the various ways to cook for hours on end compared to the awkward conversation regarding last week.

"Stir-fry is difficult. Because it uses oil, it burns up easily. I think it was.. the second? Third time I tried it on my own, I caught the oil on fire while I chopped the vegetables." He smiled, a little bit of colour returning to his cheeks. "Soup is a good place to start though. Once you get that down you can make stews and sauces, then you can begin on dishes that are not all cooked in one pot."

Even Ho-oh had a time when he couldn't cook well? Lugia couldn't help but let out a small laugh, shaking his slightly as he finished picking up the laundry before stepping out to get a chair into the room so he can have somewhere to sit beside the bed.

Honestly, he was really glad the other hadn't brought up the topic about last week. Even for an absentminded bird as Ho-oh, no one would easily forget an incident where someone treated him so horribly, at least that's what he thought, and he had himself be prepared for anything near that topic while he was cooking.

"It is hard to imagine you having difficulties in preparing a dish." He responded with a smile.

The funny thing about Lugia and about Ho-oh's feelings regarding Lugia was that he could remember more about the other then he had any other person or event. From his birthday to his interests, from the way he bared his teeth then upset to the hazy smile he'd get when reading a particuarly good book, there was just something about the other pokémon that he could never forget.

If only other things stuck with him so well. He still forgot which classroom was his own on occasion.

Even though last week had hurt, and it had hurt, more then he ever expected it to, Lugia was someone.. he was.. well, he put up with him. That spoke volumes about how much the other meant to him. It just wasn't easy to put those kinds of thoughts and feelings into words.

Before he realized it, the soup was gone. He set the bowl aside and smiled happily.

"I can sort of remember the first meal I tried cooking for myself. I wanted to make something I had eaten as a child and having hands for the first time, was positive I could do so." Ho-oh's voice dropped to a strained whisper. "It was horrible. Later in the night I even threw up. To this day I still have trouble with sweets..."

Unfortunately, for Lugia, it wasn't easy to see how others felt just from how they acted. He needed the feelings to be put into words, be spoken of how one felt. That was probably the biggest difference between the rainbow legendary and himself, he thought. Sometimes he wished he wasn't so afraid to look into another person's behavior to see how they felt.

He couldn't help but smile to Ho-oh's smile when the other finished the soup. He cleared his throat to cover it up, hoping the other didn't see it.

"...You have tried to make sweets as the very first food to consume?" He asked, raising a brow. "What is it that you have attempted to make?"

He stayed away from talking about his own childhood. It would just break this comfortable atmosphere they have right now. Plus, the other was talking about himself for once, especially about his childhood, something he hadn't talked about to him even after so many years.

"Yōkan." It was only after a moment of silence that Ho-oh realized Lugia probably had no idea what that might be. "It is a block-shaped desert, a bit like a very sturdy gelatin, commonly given as a gift. Little girls would often leave it as an offering before I left the Tin Tower. I had wanted to make a variation that used green tea powder as a flavoring, but I had no recipe nor any idea where I could even find the items I would have needed so I improvised. Needless to say, just because they are both red, azuki beans and kidney beans are no more interchangeable then agar and lime flavored jell-o."

He laughed, or tried to, as it resulted in a small coughing fit and an irritated sigh.

Ho-oh never really cared for talking about his past. Like many things, if it didn't have a direct impact on his day to day activity, he never put much though into it. But as he caught the brief smile that crossed Lugia's face and the hint of curiosity in the other's voice as he asked about the desert, it didn't seem like such a silly thing to talk about if Lugia thought it was interesting.

"I was a rather greedy child. Offerings varied from season to season but I would guzzle them down regardless. If they did not please me, I made an awful fuss. I do not recall his name any more, but one monk even tried feeding me by hand once. When he ran out of food though, I bit him. I suppose I have not really grown up though..." He made a face. "I am still a monster when it comes to not getting what I want."

Lugia couldn't help but feel a bit grossed out at the attempt Ho-oh as a child had done to make his own snack. Oh, how one would go so far to get what he wanted... He couldn't help but be a bit envious of the other's determination at such an early(?) age.

He let out a laugh before he immediately calmed himself down.

"That is quite true." He agreed, not being able to hold back the chuckles that came out, even with his hand over his mouth. "But I do think you have grown up slightly at least... You do not bite a person's hand when they run out of food to give to you. ...Or do you?"

Maybe that was a little mean. Oh well, at least the other seemed to look a lot better than when he first met him at the door.

Lugia you jerk. Yet even though his voice was scratchy and his sinuses were stuffed, it didn't stop Ho-oh from laughing along with the so-called guardian of the sea.

"I might. It depends." He sat forward, snapping his jaw at Lugia. "I hope you made plenty more soup."

"Ah yes, there is plenty of soup left." Lugia responded, taking the bowl as he stood up. He gave a smile to the other before leaving the room, picking up the basket full of dirty laundry with him as he left. He wasn't going to do laundry any time soon, but he figured it would be better if he had them out of the bedroom to prevent it from getting even more dirtier.

He can back with the second serving of warm soup along with a bottle of water for Ho-oh to replenish what he lost through all the sweating, and a book. Ho-oh needed his rest, and if he were to keep on talking to the other, he wouldn't be able to even close his eyes.

He handed the bowl over to the rainbow legendary and set the water bottle down on to the stand besdie the bed before sitting back down on his seat.

"It will be a good idea for you to get some rest after you finish that bowl."

"Thank you!" Soup and water... he was pleasantly surprised. Even if Lugia was only doing so out of guilt, it filled Ho-oh with happiness to know the other was thinking of him.

He wouldn't bite Lugia after all. Not for a lack of food anyways.

The soup was much better a second time around although he didn't finish it all. Between the water and warm broth he found himself feeling comfortably full rather quickly. It wasn't enough to put him asleep though and Ho-oh found himself staring at the ceiling as Lugia read. There was something more troublesome then a cough keeping him from his rest.

"Lugia?"

Lugia, on the other hand, was still in his cheery mood as he took the bowl from the other and set it off to the side before returning to read his book. He continued to read the book when he heard the other speak after a while.

"Yes?"

If he glanced up, he probably could have realized how serious the other was. If he did. Instead he had his eyes down at the book in his hands.

He took a deep breath. Unsure of how to go about it, he tried to focus on the ceiling as he talked, certain that looking Lugia in the face would cause him to lose his nerve.

"About last week..." He scratched the side of his nose. Why couldn't there be an easy way to go about these things? "Lugia... I really care about you. What happened then, I wish I could say I had some sort of epiphany where I suddenly knew what to do and how to make things work between us but in reality I just wanted to die. I did not want to fight you, I was not even sure I..."

He swallowed hard. What he said now would effect everything he'd been working towards since he showed up at the academy to teach.
It was tempting to just cover his head with one of the blankets.
In fact, it was such a tempting idea that he wrapped the blankets around himself, his heart pounding as if he had just run a marathon.

"You will always mean everything to me. I love you."

A frown appeared on his face as he listened to the other speak about the incident. It was something he wanted to worry about later, when the other legendary was feeling a whole lot healthier.

Why right now?

He let the book slip from his hands when he heard the last few words that came from Ho-oh's lips. He just looked down at his hands that wasn't holding the text anymore, afraid to move his gaze to anywhere else.

"I..." Lugia started to speak, only to trail off, not sure what to say back. He wasn't expecting the last bit at all. How was he supposed to reply to that? That he always cared about him so much too? No, there was a time when he loathed the other so much...

"Y-you must be tired. Get some sleep." Lugia replied, trying to change the topic. He got up and pulled the covers over the other so he could stay warm.

It was impossible to tell if Ho-oh was red in the face from the temperature or the subject matter. It was the perfect time to let the subject drop, to pretend it was just some babble brought on by the fact that he wasn't feeling well.

Ho-oh was too stubborn to listen to that little voice in the back of his head to take good advice when it was given.

"Will you stay here with me?" He grabbed Lugia's hands. If he wasn't so weak he would have pulled the other into a more intimate hold. "Please?"

Lugia obviously thought he needed a towel to cool off; he almost stepped away to leave the room so he can come back with a bowl filled with cold water and a clean towel. When his hands were grabbed and he heard what the other said, his face turned bright red.

"I-I..." he quickly pulled his hands away, stammering. "...L-let me get a cold towel for your head..."

He hastily left the room, mumbling to himself as he did. After a small moment he came back holding another bowl with cold water with some ice cubes along with a towel in it. He placed the bowl off to the side and squeezed the towel out from the extra water before putting it on top of Ho-oh's forehead rather clumsily.

He flopped down onto the chair and looked down at his hands, at first not sure what to say.

"....I will be here."

Exhausted, Ho-oh could only manage a weak smile as Lugia pressed the cool towel against his forehead. It felt wonderful in contrast to the warmth from the blankets he had surrounded himself with. As he closed his eyes, he could hear Lugia as he sat down, could hear the words he spoke with so much trepidation... In responce, his smile grew wider.

Within moments Ho-oh was fast asleep.

Oh that goofy smile of his. Lugia couldn't help but smile timidly back as he watched the other fall asleep. With a small sigh before picking up his book to resume reading.

He had no idea what he had been dreaming about but when Ho-oh woke up he felt happier then he had in the last week and a half. He laid their in silence, not really thinking of anything before he got up and used the bathroom.

That was the problem with soup. It went right through him.

Walking back he took a few experimental sniffs. Still stuffed up. Just as well though, if anything that gave Lugia a reason to stick around.

Lugia!

He had almost forgotten that the other was there. Had he left? He couldn't recall seeing him when he got up. It was a relief.. and a little disappointing to find the other asleep in the chair he had been sitting in when Ho-oh dosed off. Well he did keep his promise. That silver chicken had stayed there all this time... Ho-oh smiled stupidly as he sat at the edge of the bed.

"When you get old and gray..." He muttered, taking a blanket from the pile he had smothered himself with and covering Lugia with it; "Your back will bother you from sleeping in chairs all the time."

He suddenly felt a lot warmer, not to mention it had a familiar scent... He opened his eyes to see a blanket over him with Ho-oh sitting at the edge of the bed with a huge smile on his face. He leaned away from the other slightly, careful not the fall off the chair as he raised a brow, adjusting his glasses that were slipping off.

"Are you feeling better?" He asked. It seemed obvious, but it never hurt to make sure.

"A little." He nodded. "Still stuffy but I think the worse is over. I do not feel like my whole body is on fire any more."

After giving Lugia's thigh a squeze, Ho-oh drew his legs up to sit indian-style.

"Thank you for staying."

Lugia squirmed under the other's touch, his face involuntarily turning red with slight embarrassment. Yep, he was back to his usual self.

"I-it is nothing." Lugia responded as he partly buried his face into the blanket, muffling his voice. He was slightly flustered, but overall he was relieved. He moved closer to the other to check his temperature.

"...Your temperature seems fine, but getting some more rest will be good nevertheless." He said before a small yawn escaped his mouth. He stood up and stretched before starting to collect the bowls and other trash that may be lying around on the floor. This place needed cleaning, yep.

Immediately as Lugia turned to pick up the dishes, Ho-oh's hand shot out to smack the other right on his rear. Not hard enough to leave a red mark but more then enough to make the diving pokémon jump.

"Have I told you that I missed you?"

His face was a picture of innocence.

And he did jump. He scowled and frowned the other.

"...No, you have not, but I certainly do miss you when you were ill."

"Admit it, you love me."

Ho-oh laughed, which gave way to a fit of coughing, which then gave way to the wet sputtering and hacking that followed the horrible retching sound as Ho-oh leaned forward, the soup from earlier making a rather unwelcome reappearance all over the floor between the bed and the chair Lugia had been sitting in. The rainbow pokémon gasped and whined, blinking rapidly as his eyes filled with tears.

Oooh boy. That is going to take a while to clean later. Lugia drew out a heavy sigh as he placed a hand over his face, shaking his head. He went to the bathroom and grabbed a towel and hurried back to where Ho-oh was to hand it over while practically dragged him out to the living room and made him sit down onto the couch. He disappeared into the bathroom again and brought out a bucket for Ho-oh to keep at his side.

"...If you need to vomit more, do it in here, not onto the floor." Lugia replied as he rolled up his sleeves to get cleaning supplies to clean out the bedroom.

Moaning loudly, Ho-oh let Lugia remove him from his nice warm bed to transplant him onto the couch.

"I thought you said I was getting better!" He whined as Lugia got the cleaning supplies. Admittedly, he did feel well compared to earlier despite vomiting, and chances were he wouldn't have even done so if he had listened to Lugia's advice to continue resting instead of making an ass of himself and teasing the other. He sat there with the bowl in his hands, head tilted back as Lugia cleaned up after him. He sniffled and sighed, doing a wonderful job of acting misserable until the other legendary had finished.

"I am sorry. I did not mean to..." He commented with a pout. He was about to ask the other if he was mad with him, but instead he turned his head to the side, feeling a little silly and embarrassed, not wanting Lugia to see his face.

"I had told you to get some more rest!" Lugia replied from the bedroom, close to snapping at the other in slight frustration as he cleaning. Okay, the blanket was also smeared with the vomit as well. Uuugh.... When the floor was cleaned off and the blanket was taken off the bed, he came back out to head to the bathroom to wash the blanket. But before doing that, he got out a spare one to cover the sick legendary up.

He went over to the other to cover him up with the clean blanket.

"It is not your fault." Lugia responded. "But now that you understand you are not completely well, you will be sleeping for the rest of the day."

With that said, he walked into the the bathroom to wash off the vomit splatter.

"I do not want to sleep!" He called after the other. Just in case Lugia hadn't heard him over the running water he repeated it again when he was done washing up. "I do not want to sleep, I want to spend time with you."

"Do not be such a child, you are not one anymore." Lugia replied in a strict voice as he returned with a damp blanket to toss into the basket. "Do you wish to hurl your lunch onto the floor again?"

He shoved a water bottle into the other's hands before heading back into the bedroom to open up the window to air out the room. The mess was cleaned with water and soap, but the smell wouldn't go away on its own. He returned to the living room and sat down at the table to reopen the book. Luckily, the other had missed the book when he vomited.

Cheeks puffed out, Ho-oh made a face as he grudgingly accepted the water bottle. Quickly he replaced it with a frown as he sighed and took a sip from the bottle before laying down.

He hated it when Lugia had a point.

Tossing and turning, until the blanket was around him like a cocoon and he was on his belly, Ho-oh watched Lugia read with tired eyes.

"So what are you reading?" Not one to admit defeat so easily, he suppressed a yawn by clearing his throat.

Lugia saw those cheeks puffed out, mister. Way to act mature. He frowned when he heard the other speak after a while; he hadn't gone to sleep yet??

"I am reading a mystery novel." Lugia responded, showing the cover to the other. The title was dreadfully long, but it was something about a curse-murder case.

Ho-oh was the master of maturity, thank you Lugia. He was so mature that he's not even going to fuss over how completely and utterly boring that book's title sounds.
Admittedly, he did wrinkle his nose when he read it though.

"Is it good?" He knew nothing of mysteries or what made for a good one, but he was interested in what Lugia found so appealing in page after page of black-on-white text.

To Lugia, the "black-on-white text" was like a piece of artwork.

"It is quite interesting. I have only started reading this novel, so I have only gotten to the part where the main character is introduced to the other cast of the story." He explained.

"Would you like me to read to you?" He replied with a small grin. Sorry Ho-oh, this silver legendary will be treating you like a child today because you are a sick ~~rainbow pig~~.

"Really?" He sniffled slightly.

The unfortunate truth was that Ho-oh wasn't the sharpest knife in the draw. Every now and then Lugia's teasing went above his head, like it had right now if the excited grin on the smaller man's face was any indication.

After all, how often did Lugia offer to read to him? Normally the other legenday would shoo him away when he interrupted his reading. The only thing that would have made it better was if Lugia could have laid with him, but considering the smallness of the poor old couch and Lugia's own risk of getting ill, Ho-oh would have to settle for what he could get.

"Are you going to come closer?" There was no point in hiding his desire to have that chicken close to him however.