Downtime - Robin, John Stoker, Kira Burke, Cody Dayton

John brushes Robin’s damp hair off his forehead and smiles when the kid’s skin feels no more than comfortably warm to the touch. The kid’s been running a fever for the past four days, after he picked up some kind of fae sickness from an informant he was talking to. In the past, letting Robin handle their fae and part-blood contacts has been the smart thing to do. This time, John regretted that they ever let the kid walk into that bar.
Robin had assured them, between bouts of painful coughing, that the disease wasn’t contagious to humans, which really did nothing to make John feel better about the situation. If he’d gone in there instead of Robin, the kid wouldn’t have been miserable for days on end.
Since it was a fae illness, they’d taken Robin home to Rowan House after some protest from the medical team at Chimera. There’s been painfully little research done in the human community on how to treat fae-specific issues, and chances were they’d only make things worse.
It took John two days (and the appearance of the red flecks in Robin’s eyes) to find enough information in Robin’s fae tome to diagnose the problem. The healers’ section, with the spidery handwriting in Gaelic and Seelie, was hard enough to wade through, but trying to match diseases to symptoms without the help of fae senses was even harder. Much of the work of a healer, it appears, lies in reaching out their own magic to interact with the sick fae’s, to help diagnose the problem.
Still, once he’d narrowed it down to a particular illness that targets the magic of fire fae (which explained the raging fever that scared John sick until Robin reminded him his body is made to handle much hotter temperatures than a human), he’d been able to put together the necessary cures. And now, two days later, Robin seems to be on the mend.
Robin rolls sleepily into the touch of John’s hand and blinks. His eyes are fully blue now, none of the strange spark-like red flickers in the irises, which John takes as a good sign.
“How are you feeling?” John asks.
“Tired.” Robin blinks again. “I woke up once, went back to sleep.”
“You probably need it.” John runs his fingers through the kid’s sweat-stiff hair.
Robin makes a face. “Feels gross.”
“I can run you a bath if you think you’re up for that.” John’s impressed with the water supply at the Rowan, there’s rarely any rain here in California but there always seems to be enough water for what they need. Maybe it’s part of the magic.
“Sounds good.” Robin rolls over again, half-burying his face in the pillow. “Might fall asleep though,” he mumbles.
“I can stay with you if you want.” John doesn’t want to make things uncomfortable for the kid, but he also doesn’t want Robin getting hurt. Not that the Rowan isn’t perfectly capable of keeping Robin upright and not-drowned. John is sure that’s been a needed capacity more than once, given the states Robin is given to going home in, he still hates the Chimera locker rooms and only showers there when he has to. John doesn’t blame him.
He gets the water ready, then picks Robin up and carries him down the hall. They’re not risking him falling and injuring himself when he’s just begun to feel better.
Robin relaxes happily into the warm water, and John washes his hair, drying it the best he can afterward to keep Robin from getting chilled. He remembers Momma doing that for Gabe when he got sick in the wintertime; his thick curls always held water for a long time. It’s far from cold here, but John knows how sensitive Robin is to the chill. He might be made to endure heat, but that comes at a price, an inability to endure in cooler climates the way humans and even some fae are able to.
Robin seems perfectly happy to stay here all day, even starting to drift off to sleep like he claimed he would, but John’s not willing to risk him getting chilled and relapsing. Robin regretfully leaves the warm water and John bundles him up in a soft towel, and a pair of his own sweatpants and Robin’s favorite worn out hoodie.
When he has Robin comfortably nestled in bed again, (and wrangled the three cats and puppy vying for the best spot on the coverlet), he hears a knock on the door.
“Come in,” Robin says quietly, and the Rowan opens the door. Cody and Kira are on the other side, Kira holding a mug of tea that smells both sweet and earthy, and Cody with a couple of the western series John introduced Robin to and that they’re slowly making their way through the library’s selection of.
Robin takes the mug, wrapping his fingers around the warm, hand-painted clay, and John takes the top book off the pile. Cody and Kira pull chairs out of the corners, and all of them settle in to enjoy the peacefulness of Robin being on the mend and out of danger.