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“You know,” Conner says consideringly, staring down at her prone form on the couch, “If this is what the flu looks like, I’m surprised that Parasite’s sickness didn’t kill you.”
M’gann wants to keep her face buried mostly in the pillow, but turns it to the side so she can glare at him. He’s standing with his arms crossed, just observing her, but there is more sympathy in his gaze than it sounded like. He softens even further when he sees her face, which she’s sure is unattractive as hell with the blotchiness and red nose that she saw when she looked in the mirror earlier.
“Did you say that just to get me to move?” she asks. Her voice is also weak and raspy, and she has to swallow hard to keep from coughing.
“You haven’t moved for hours. I was getting worried,” he admits. He leans down so that he’s right in her face, putting a hand on her forehead. His brow furrows, and he withdraws it. “You don’t sound like you’re feeling better yet.”
M’gann laughs against her better judgement, clearing her throat of the coughing fit and waving him off when he looks concerned. “You… You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”
Conner makes a face at her. “Kind of.”
“Then… why did you put your hand on my forehead?”
Conner shrugs. “I saw it on TV?” he admits sheepishly. “I think you feel for a fever or something, but you always feel cooler than me, so…”
“You’re adorable.” M’gann coughs, swallowing to soothe the ragged edges, but manages a smile for him. “I don’t have a fever. I took my temperature earlier.”
“Okay. Okay, that seems like a good sign.” Conner rocks back on his heels, biting his lip as he thinks; M’gann has to work at holding down her giggles. She never had someone, on Mars, who would have looked after her and made sure she was okay like this. So far, it’s a highlight of coming down with the flu.
“Look at us,” she says, smiling. “Doing human things like we know what we’re doing.”
“We’re the best at pretending like we know what we’re doing.” Conner leans forward and kisses her forehead, but draws back immediately, making a face. “Ugh, you’re sweaty.”
M’gann laughs. “Conner!”
“What? You are!”
“So don’t linger!” She almost says you’re not supposed to say that to your girlfriend, but that would make him feel bad. And he is trying. She can appreciate that, considering the chances that she ever needs to return the favor and take care of him is slim to none. But she does kick him a little from underneath her blanket. “Blame your… your enhanced senses.”
“They’re not always the best,” Conner admits, tilting his head with his smile. “So. Since we don’t know what the heck we’re doing, do you know what you’re supposed to need from me?”
“Honestly?” She takes a second to flip through the movies she’s seen where someone gets sick—again, she can’t mock him too much, since she has the same frame of reference—to think about what might help the most. “I think maybe a cool towel on my head?”
“Got it.” Conner stands, tucking her hair behind her ear and giving her a soft smile. “Anything else?”
M’gann swallows. Her skin is flushed uncomfortably all over her body, but where he trails his fingers over her scalp and neck the nerves skitter pleasantly instead. “Come back and do that again?”
Conner blinks a second, then laughs and shakes his head. “Okay. I’ll be back in five minutes.”
Five more minutes of being uncomfortable and alone. She’s dealt with far worse. M’gann snuggles into her blanket, sighing. “Five minutes.”
Conner disappears down the hallway, leaving her alone, and she lets her eyes drift shut. It will feel better if she just… rests her eyes…
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M’gann wakes up, not to the lovely soft feeling of Conner’s hands in her hair, but to dog breath.
She sputters awake, spitting what she’s pretty sure is fur on her lips. “What…”
“Wolf!” Conner hisses, coming into view with an exasperated sigh. “What the fuck. Why would you do that?”
Wolf huffs and steps away from her, and M’gann laughs aloud at the dejected look on Conner’s face. Which turns immediately into a terrible coughing fit, as if her body has been storing it all up while she was sleeping and has to let it out this second. By the time it subsides, Conner is lightly rubbing her shoulder, peering at her closely.
That part is nice. Everything else sucks. “That was longer than five minutes,” she accuses grumpily.
Conner gives her an apologetic smile and shrug. “You fell asleep within four. Since you weren’t coughing, I thought I should let you sleep.”
It does make sense, she’ll admit. “You were nice and quiet?”
“Actually, you were really out. That wasn’t the first time Wolf tried to wake you up.” He gives Wolf a baleful look, who just yawns and settles down next to the couch. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”
Jealousy, M’gann thinks privately, biting down a smile. He doesn’t like sharing Conner’s attention, which led to him also sulking the first time that Krypto came to the base along with Superman. “He did that earlier?”
“And howled.” Conner rolls his eyes and stands up. “But it wasn’t just him. You also slept through a long phone call.”
That makes her frown. “You hate talking on the phone.”
“Yeah.” He ducks out of sight for a second, reappearing with a bowl and a shy smile. “So this might suck, but I did try. Ma walked me through every step.”
Her nose is plugged enough that none of the steam rising from the bowl has any scent, but when he sets it down in front of her, she recognizes it. Again, from the shows, so many of them that it seems familiar even though she’s never actually eaten it. She swallows down her emotions, trying to keep her voice steady. “You… learned to make soup?”
“Ma walked me through every step,” he repeats, which means he’s more nervous than he seems. He takes a seat across from her, setting the soup to the side. “Literally every one, including how much is ‘a dash’ of salt. I think she’s the most patient person in the universe, for not hanging up on me.”
It might just be the general miserableness that’s messing with her head, but M’gann has to blink rapidly to keep from tearing up. In her shows, making someone soup when they’re not feeling well is an expression of love. For Conner, trying something new when he hates messing up is an expression of love. She knows very little about being human, but she does know how this is supposed to work, and… and this is more than she had ever dreamed about having.
“M’gann?” Conner asks, leaning towards her with a worried look. “Is everything okay?”
She sniffs. “No,” she says wetly. “I want to kiss you and I can’t.”
Conner blinks for a second, and then relaxes and gives her a sideways smile. “I mean, you can.”
“’m sweaty. And gross.”
“I never said gross!”
“I’m saying it. I feel gross.” Conner would kiss her anyways, she knows that, but that actually probably wouldn’t be a good idea. She sighs. “Just… come here?”
Conner mutters something that might be don’t burst into tears on me under his breath—fair, considering her weird emotions today, if they were reversed she would also be freaked out—and starts to take off his boots. “So you don’t want to eat? Because you can’t do both.”
“I want you more than the soup.”
“Wow.” Conner kicks off his shoes, looking bemused, and takes a seat on the couch next to her. “You really do love me, to turn down food.”
“You know that,” M’gann mutters drowsily, sighing when Conner starts to thread his fingers through her hair. “Just keep doing that, please.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he promises, picking up the remote. “And since you’re not feeling good, what musical do you want to watch while you fall asleep?”
“I love you.”
Conner sighs, scratching lightly at her shoulder. “Love you, too. Don’t go getting sick on purpose or anything.”
She wouldn’t go that far, but this is pretty damn nice. “We’re good at pretending to be human,” she mutters. “We’re nailing this whole… sick thing.”
Conner laughs, too. “We’re the best.”