Chapter Text
Adam's breath trembled as he walked. His hands were shoved into his pockets and, despite wearing three layers of fur, he was so cold.
He and Rex were walking in a more resigned corner of the camp, having just finished their second mealtime of the day. Snow crunched satisfyingly under their feet as they spoke.
Rex was discussing some scrap between a few mogadorians from earlier that week, but try as he did, Adam just couldn't pay attention to him. He answered in hums and nods. His head had started to throb and he was trying to work out a good breathing rhythm to ignore it.
Rex must have asked a question and gotten confused when Adam didn't reply, because the taller mogadorian stopped and looked down at him.
"Hey, are you okay? You've been acting kind of weird today."
Adam looked up and mumbled something that could maybe be interpreted as english. He felt feverish and sweaty, but freezing cold at the same time. He prayed he wasn't sick, but didn't have very high hopes.
Rex went to place a hand on his forehead but Adam flinched back before he could. Gathering up enough energy, he spoke.
"I'm fine, Rex."
Rex scowled slightly.
"Just because you're one of the heros that saved the world, doesn't mean you can't become ill. Don't act strong just because you feel like you can't show weakness in front of the others here. The days are getting shorter and colder, so getting sick is not a go-"
Something about way the taller mogadorian spoke about him, the condescending tone, really struck a nerve in Adam so before Rex could finish he interjected.
"I didn't ask you to baby me. You're not my caretaker, so stop acting like it."
Adam practically spat at him, backing away. An anger he hadn't felt in years settled upon him with a heavy weight. His head was now pounding.
Rex blinked, obviously surprised with the hostility. Adam had honestly surprised himself as well.
But something nagged at him from the back of his mind. A new voice, one he didn't recognize, telling him that Rex was too nosy for his own good. It spoke in an unusually nasty tone, asking why should he care if Rex was concerned? He was fine and didn't need to be bothered about it.
Adam coughed to clear his suddenly dry throat and rubbed his eyes to clear the hazy blur which had settled upon them. Rex stood in front of him, looking shocked and more then slightly pissed off.
"Move."
Adam snarled. He needed to get away; the sun was beginning to burn his eyes and it was forcing him to squint.
Rex's expression changed for the worse, ominously familiar dark lines creasing his forehead. The older mogadorian paused for a moment before he spoke.
"I don't know what has gotten over you, Adamus, but you need to get yourself together. Don't give me shit."
Rex growled. His teeth were sharp, sharper then Adam's. Not that it mattered.
Adam raised his voice, the shrill voice telling him to bare his canines to get his point across.
What?
"I said I was fine. Just fuck off and bother someone else-"
He was cut off as Rex grabbed his collar and he felt his legs momentarily give out from underneath him. Adam immediately straightened back up again, but his mind had already been triggered into a frenzy. Dichotomous thoughts raced through his mind, fleeting and senseless.This wasn't like him at all. How dare Rex provoke him? He needed to apologize and stop trying to fight his friend.
The malignant voice returned, sneering at his voice of reason.
Are you just going to take that? Who does he think he is?
Adam's thoughts were jumbled and oddly histrionical. His feelings of remorse were starting to seep away, and all he could gather was that Rex was talking to him like he held some kind of patronizing power over him. He hasn't let someone talk to him like this since before the war. He promised himself he wouldn't. He wasn't a child.
He'd show him.
Adam swung at the taller mogadorian, taking them both by surprise once again, and caught him square on the nose. Rex shoved him backwards and hissed, clutching his face.
Adam lost his balance from the momentum and fell onto his side. An odd sort of weakness has spread across his body, leaving a feeling like static in its wake. He felt his head smack the snowy ground with a muffled thump. Stunned, he felt a flicker of gratitude for his foresight to wear his thickest hat this morning.
The voice murmured and ceased, his thoughts quietening down to a whisper. Even with the lingering headache, he felt he could finally think clearly for a moment.
What the hell just happened? Why did he just hit Rex?
The feeling of someone pinning him down yanked him from his thoughts. He looked up and saw Rex, focusing on the dark blood that was steadily flowing from his nose and dripping onto Adam's coat. He opened his mouth to apologize, but Rex beat him to it.
"Stay quiet. I don't know what's wrong with you, but once you've calmed the fuck down, I'm bringing you to the medical bay. You're burning up. Don't you dare try to resist."
It was like a switch went off in his head. Rex's gruff voice had flicked it back on, and suddenly the voice was back.
Don't you dare try to resist? Who did he think he was? It hissed to him, accompanied with a feeling of rage that churned his stomach and burned his throat.
He also couldn't stop staring at Rex's bared teeth, which were now tinged red. They seemed to shine menacingly in the white reflection from the snow.
Adam growled at him, shoving Rex's loose grip away. He burst upwards and onto his feet with sudden energy, vaguely noticing the sounds of shouting and footsteps running towards them. His vision was tinged black along the edges, barely able to make out Rex stepping away and staring incredulously at him. His tunnel vision worsened with each rattling breath he took, and his neck pinched with a sharp pain.
The voice in his head had gotten so loud that it was like someone was screaming inside his ears. Another chorus of hatred and vile sentiments he couldn't make sense of combined itself with the overstimulating noise, each of them shrieking for his attention. His head throbbed. God, they were so loud. Why were they screaming?
Above the cacophony of noise, a name was whispered into his ear.
Rex.
It was Rex's fault.
His logic was without reason. At this point, he was desperate to put an end to the uproar that seemed to come from within the pit of his skull. His knee gave out again as he tried to step towards the other mogadorian and he stumbled onto the ground.
The voice was telling him to continue fighting him, make him pay for the noise, but he physically couldn't.
He couldn't move. He couldn't see. His eyes had rolled towards the back of his head and everything had gone a fuzzy sort of grey-black. His throat felt like it was closing and suddenly he was gasping for air. He lost control of his muscles and they began to cramp, unresponsive. Everything ached with a dull throb as his muscles clenched uncontrollably.
He was terrified.
He could initially feel hands shaking him and then pinning him down, familiar voices calling his name. Telling him to wake up, to snap out of it. He tried to, he really did.
But he was tired.
Oh, he was so tired.
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Adam awoke to the smell of sterile alcohol and disappointment.
The medical bay.
He could hear people talking near him, but he didn't have the strength to open his eyes. They sounded familiar. That wicked voice from his head was gone, but a pounding headache throbbed it's greeting.
The conversation faded in and out of his ears, never long enough for him to catch more then just a few phrases.
"He has a fever.... rate is stable....clonic seizure.."
Seizure?
Adam's stomach dropped to his gut. He'd never had a seizure before. He forced himself to focus and strained to listen to the hushed voices.
"Will he be okay?"
Adam heart dropped as another person piped in. With a pang of shock he recognised who the voices belonged to. He hadn't heard them in far too long; just thinking about it made his heart throb.
John replied to a slightly distraught Malcolm, "Yeah. I healed him where I could, but that chip needs to be taken out. It's infected and it'll lead to more damage if it's left in. That's all that Dr Subbere filled me in with." John's voice appeared quite steady, but a tremor of worry was impossible to miss in his last sentence.
"We should bring him back with us. He could live with you at the village." Malcolm sounded hopeful and that was when Adam quickly decided to bring his attention elsewhere.
So, the chip had been infected? An infection would explain the mood swings, headache, and perhaps even the voice. He couldn't hear it anymore, which was maybe a good sign. Hopefully it was gone for good.
Adam thought about the others. What if they were infected too? He would check their chips as soon as he was well enough to go back to the dormitory. He pictured Kelly with an angry red circle around the back of her neck and cringed. He needed to get up.
He found the strength to open his eyes and tried to push himself up into a sitting position, but moaned in pain. His whole body ached. His vision went spotty, that familiar black tinge returning, and he had to lay back down again before the nausea took over.
The others noticed him.
"Adam, you're awake."
"Hey, stay still."
Both of them spoke at the same time, making his head pang. He groaned in reply, hearing footsteps coming closer.
A hand was placed on his forehead and John spoke again. Adam wriggled uncomfortably as the warmth of his hand seeped into his skull, making the headache worse.
"He's still too warm; like I said, his fever hasn't broken. I can't do anything about that aside from help cool him down, we have no idea how human medication will interact with him. We'll have to wait it out before we decide what to do. "
It was true. Despite lengthy research completed with any mogadorian willing to earn more rations, there was much to discover about how mogadorian physiology worked in humanity's context. Mogadorian, lorien, and human alike all experienced illness with their own similarities, but most trials involving medication with either alien species didn't fare well.
Adam had always been astonished at the chances of three alien species being capable of breathing the same air and eating the same food, so had never felt hugely bothered with this.
Well, until now.
They continued to talk but Adam continued sweating uncomfortably, wishing he was anywhere else but here. He hated being feverish.
When he was eleven, he had gotten sick and endured a bad fever that had lasted four days. He had been bedridden and covered in damp cloths; his father refused to visit him because of his "weakened state." He remembered seeing Kelly poke her head around the door of his room, with a look of morbid curiosity, during a particularly bad bout of chills before Ivan had dragged her away.
In the mogadorian way, when dealing with any mild sickness, it was deemed unnecessary to interfere with the suffering it caused. His father surely saw it as an opportunity to toughen Adam up some more.
However, his mother had always seen a softer side to life. She had taken care of him, replacing the cloths and soothing him after his fever dreams.
But his mother wasn't here now, she was nowhere to be found. Probably dead.
Adam didn't particularly like to think about the probability of his mother's survival, so he concentrated instead on the irritable feeling of Johns hand lingering on his forehead.
Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. Opening his eyes blearily, he managed to turn his head away from the pair so that Johns hand slowly slipped away.
"Can you grab the other thermometer for me?"
John asked Malcolm. There was a shuffling noise and the sound of a drawer opening. A moment later John spoke softly to Adam.
"Adam, can you open your mouth for me please?"
Adam obliged groggily and felt something slide under his tongue. It tasted of glass. John waited a few moments before taking it back out. Adam kept his eyes half-open and looked up at him through his fringe, trying to examine his expression. He'd missed John but the worried expression he wore ate at his stomach.
John's eyes widened slightly and he quietly cursed. Malcolm asked him what it read.
"One hundred and ten degrees Fahrenheit."
One thing was for sure, despite the huge gap of knowledge surrounding mogadorian physiology, their normal vital signs were practically the first thing researchers discovered. Interestingly, mogadorians ran a little hotter than humans.
However, his temperature was certainly higher than it should have been.
Malcolm sucked in a breath.
"That's higher than it was earlier, I'll go tell Dr. Subbere."
John looked back down at Adam as Malcolm hurried away to meet the doctor, meeting his blurry gaze. He placed his hand back on Adams forehead, this time activating his legacy to cool him down.
Adam felt he could almost tear up in relief as a cool wave swept through his body, lowering the overwhelming sensation of heat a little. His headache eased too and he let out a small, relieved sigh. John lowered his hand so it was resting on his chest, cooling his core.
They sat in an almost comfortable silence, were it not for his aching head. As time passed, he slowly began to feel better, so Adam worked up enough energy to speak. His eyes fluttered open and shut. He hadn't realize how exhausted he was. His eyes decided to stay closed, encouraged by the feeling of a cool hand fixing his hair from his sticky face.
"Thank you." He finally murmured, his voice as raspy as he expected.
"You're welcome. Here, are you thirsty? Drink this."
A hand was placed carefully behind his back and John helped him to sit up a little more. Adam slowly edged himself up and opened his eyes. He took the plastic cup from John and swallowed it in small sips. It tasted cold and refreshing.
He whispered his thanks, sitting back on the slightly uncomfortable bed underneath him.
However, having water so soon was clearly a mistake; his stomach lurched as soon as he had settled. John, prepared as usual, snatched a sick bag from a nearby rack just in time as Adam retched. His stomach cramped and he felt tears involuntarily forming at the corners of his eyes.
Adam distantly felt a hand rubbing his back, between his shoulders, and heard John whisper words of encouragement. He retched again, his whole body shaking from the effort, and felt disgusted by the taste of bile on his tongue.
The pounding in his head returned and worsened with each time Adam vomited up whatever was left in his stomach. The white lights of the room did little to help. Pain began ricocheting around his skull, arcing from one temple to the other in a cruel dance. He moaned and curled into himself, reaching his hands to his head. He couldn't bring himself to care that he must have reeked of vomit and sweat; didn't have the energy to put on a facade for John's sake.
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John's reassuring hands were steady, trying to show calmness and stability, but the concern plastered across his face conveyed quite the contrary.
It had been so long since he had seen Adam. His hair was longer, almost covering his eyes. Most of Adam's warm layers lay on the floor in a pile next to the bed, thrown there after he had been stripped by the medical team. His undershirt was soaked with sweat and it stuck to his skin. John noticed that despite the lean muscle he'd always kept, Adam appeared thinner. Shadows crawled under his eyes, and his normally very white skin was almost translucent.
The blonde man felt anxiety crawl up his stomach and into his mouth, he had never seen Adam, no, anyone, so sick before. He didn't really know how to deal with it either. It was entirely different to healing an acute wound, like something caused by a blade or explosion. His Recupero legacy didn't help much. They were caused by other lifeforms, like bacteria, right? Maybe it didn't work with them.
Whatever was the case, watching the agony on Adams face made his heart ache.
When Adam began to curl up into a small ball on the bed, gasping and groaning, John felt that anxiety turn into a spiky ball of pure white fear.
He couldn't heal this and he didn't have the power to take away pain. He felt the need to run, to try find someone who could do something, but he couldn't leave Adam by himself in this way. He knew Marina was on the way (maybe she would know what to do?), and that Malcolm and Dr Subbere would return soon, but it did little to ease how difficult it was to watch the mogadorian suffer.
"I'm so sorry, I know it's painful.. I'm sorry,"
John whispered, his heart stretching and threatening to snap. He bent down to be eye level with the mogadorian. He reached a hand out and stroked it gently along his back again, praying for it all to pass.
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Adam didn't feel real anymore. His skull and neck had begun to throb in unison and he had started shaking again. He felt himself- no heard himself begging for it to stop. John's soothing voice no longer made sense, his reassurances sounding jarbled, and the patting on his back just added to the overstimulation.
There was no dark voice trying to tempt him this time, instead it was just anguish.
More voices joined his chorus of misery, all of them he recognized. He was just barely able to catch glimpses of who was present- John, Malcolm, a woman in scrubs, Rex.. Marina?
Someone was touching him again. Please stop, he gasped. But they didn't let go, and he felt that familiar tingle of energy pass through him as someone used their legacy on him. He tried opening his eyes again, but all he could see was white. Pure white, white, white. He couldn't remember where he was. All he could think about it the unbearable heat which had returned to his body, and the feeling as though every one of his synapses was lit on fire.
Someone was trying to tell him something, but he couldn't listen. His whole body was cramping and his lungs were squeezing in a painful way that made him gasp.
He was begging now, tears wetting his cheeks. Whether it was in English, mogadorian, or a mangled mix of the two, he didn't know. He didn't care, just wanted whatever it took to make it stop.
Just as he was about to believe that his suffering was never going to end, the same black wave from earlier came thundering over him and washed away his torment into a dark, peaceful silence.
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