sixthiterationlogs | burn, baby, burn

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burn, baby, burn

WHO: Steve Trevor
WHERE: Diana's House
WHEN: August 22nd
OPEN TO: Diana Prince
WARNINGS: Mild sickness

It's been a long few days that have started to blur together for Steve. He'd watched men get struck down with the flu in between trips to the front and missions behind enemy lines, but he'd never been one of the unlucky ones. Apparently, that's just because his luck has been saving it all up for here. He suspects it had been that lunch where he'd picked it up, seeing as he'd started to feel rough that day, but then the fever had come and the rash. He'd spent days hallucinating wildly, not entirely sure what was real anymore.

He kept waking up, lost, not sure where he was, convinced that he was dead and in heaven (when he saw Diana) or hell (when he had to drag his limp, lifeless body out towards the springs, which were slowly managing to make him better). It's been hell, but after two trips out there, he's finally feeling like a person again, even if that person has more rash than actual healthy skin.

It means that he's been neglecting finding food and other supplies for himself and Diana, which makes him feel guilty. His energy is so low, though, that all he can manage is a few flowers and herbs, both separated and tied together with twine. Stumbling up towards the house Diana's claimed as theirs (something that's so wonderful that he needs to be healthy again so he can properly appreciate). He almost trips face-first into the door, sweating bullets, and stumbles forward, only stopping himself from taking a feverish dive into the ground because of the door handle he manages to grab at the last minute.

"Diana?" he calls out roughly, trying not to crumple either bundle in his hands. "Are you here?"

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Diana had worried non stop about Steve when he'd come up sick. She'd stayed by his side when she'd been able to keep him in bed and had done everything she could think of to help make him feel better. She'd only leave the house when she was sure he was asleep, and only when they needed things.

Like food.

Luckily she was able to hunt since she was able to borrow a bow and arrow from the community weapon stash. She had managed to shoot a couple of rabbits and by the time she heard the front door of the house opening, she'd already skinned and dressed both the rabbits and was currently working on washing the skins. She was thinking she could make Steve a pair of slippers he could wear around the house.

Her head snapped up though and she quickly wiped her hands on her thighs as she rushed to the door. She frowned seeing Steve and was just as quick to wrap an arm around his waist to help support him. "I thought you were sleeping. What are you doing out of bed?" she asked as she steered him over to a chair to sit.

"I went to the spring," he replies, still feeling a little flushed, but more than willing to let her guide him with those lovely fingers of hers, so long and lovely and touching him (there's a slight chance that the spring didn't do as much for his feverish state as he'd hoped, though he's not so bad that he'd passed out, which is a win).

He remembers the food and the flowers belatedly, shoving the herbs up first, then the flowers, then the herbs again. "I found these on the way back," he says. "They're for you. One's for eating, the other is because I wanted you to have them," he says, straining to get the words out while staring at her, reaching out with his fingers to cup her cheek. "You're so beautiful," he says, sadly, like she's not actually there. "Sorry," he says, after, grimacing. "I still feel terrible, I think the fever is on its way to breaking, but we're not there yet."

"Why didn't you tell me? I would have gone with you." But she figured he had left the house when she'd been out hunting. It worried her that he was out and about while still so obviously sick. What if he'd passed out somewhere out there? What if he'd tried to get into the wrong house? So many what ifs will springing up that she almost had to mentally slap herself to get out of that mind frame.

Her gaze dropped to the flowers and the herbs and she couldn't help but smile. Even in his illness he was thinking of her, trying to take care of her when she should have been taking care of him. "Thank you. The flowers are lovely," she said and carefully took both bundles from him. The flowers she could put in a vase and the herbs would actually work good with the rabbit she was going to be cooking for them.

Her heart fluttered in her chest and really she couldn't figure out how she'd been so lucky to get Steve back in her life. Despite being a spy and all the other things he was, he made her smile and made her happy and sad and just everything. "Come, we'll go sit in the kitchen. I have some mint and lavender I can make into a tea for you. Maybe you'll actually get some rest after it."

There's no lasso of Hestia to compel him to tell the truth, but it turns out that cooking your brain with a fever can have a lot of the same effects, Steve's learning. "I don't actually remember making the decision to go. Or going. At one point, I think I mistook a door frame for you and told you that I was going," he adds, but that could just be a hazy sleep memory fading into reality.

He's just sat down in his chair, but his body is already accustomed to following orders and he pushes himself up slowly, reaching out for her shoulder for something to balance onto, trying to keep himself from scratching the still-itchy parts of his body. "Next time, you can come with me. Maybe we can relive our first time in the springs," he can't help but joke. "You can let me brag like an idiot about being above-average."

Of course he didn't remember really leaving. He was sick and his fever had been out of control for a couple of days now. She was just glad that he'd managed to get there and back without getting hurt or lost. "Did you? Hopefully you'll be able to tell me and a door frame apart next time." She wasn't annoyed, if anything she was slightly amused.

She ducked back under his arm, her free arm wrapping around his waist to help support him and so it was easier to direct him towards the kitchen. It took a little longer than normal to get there, but she would have stayed by his side should it have taken all day. She helped him to the kitchen table and squeezed his waist gently.

"Once you're up to it, I'd be more than happy to relive that first time."She studied him for a moment before helping him sit down. "And I think you can brag all you like," she teased gently before turning to go and fill the kettle so she could make him the tea.

Steve doesn't think it's so funny, because he might have been looking at someone's hat or coat and thought it was her hair, which isn't something to admit out loud. If any of their other friends were here, right now, he doesn't think he'd be able to live down the teasing, so lucky Steve, that Sami and Chief and Charlie are far, far away. Unlucky, too, because maybe it wouldn't be so bad to hear their teasing again.

He fumbles a little as he regains his balance, Diana close and holding him, the smell of her powerful and intoxicating and sweet. He takes slow, dragging steps, but tries to make sure he can walk of his own volition and isn't just letting her drag him in there.

"It's pretty okay, right?" he can't help the slight boast, his sense of shame having come crumbling down with a few other boundary barriers since the fever kicked in. Settling in the chair, he leans all his weight against the back of it, half slumped over.

She still felt horrible that Steve had got sick and she hadn't. She knows others there are just as ill as he has been, but while she might be worried about them, she just cannot worry about them the same way she had been worrying about Steve. But then again, she was positive that she won't worry about anyone the way she worried about Steve, even if he wasn't sick.

She hadn't seen them die and then she hadn't had to live without them for a century. She just couldn't even allow the possibility that anything like that might happen again. She wasn't sure she could survive it. And that was why she'd been hovering over him and why she would continue to do so.

Diana looked over her shoulder at him as she set the kettle on the stove to heat up. "It's more than okay, Steve," she assured him and he was. She'd been with other men since him and truly, he would always be the best in her mind. No one had quite measured up with him. She wiped her hands on the front of her pants and reached for a cup so she could get him the tea as soon as it was done.

"Did you want to try some broth? I have some left over from last night...."

"Yeah," he breathes out, unable to help how determined and eager he sounds, because right now, broth sounds like the very best thing in the world, as far as he's concerned. "So, is cooking a thing that you learned in Themyscira or is this something you picked up since then?" It takes him a lot of energy to focus on a sentence so well put-together and determined, but he thinks it's good to focus his mind on something so it doesn't wander away on him.

He's still angry at his body for giving out on him, especially now. With the both of them living under one roof, he's been meaning to work his way around to asking if she'd allow them to share a room, a bed, a space, but now this fever is the only thing either of them are worrying about.

Diana nodded and went to the icebox and pulled out the broth they'd had the day before and brought it over to the stove to heat up along with the water. She glanced over at Steve and smiled. It was honestly very nice to have him up and talking again. "Well, we were all taught how to hunt and survive off the land should the need ever need to arise. I learned basic recipes but nothing outlandish. It wasn't until... Well, I lived in Paris that I truly started taking a liking to actually cooking."

She moved over to the kitchen table and pulled the chair out beside him and sank down on it. "When you're feeling better, I can actually cook you something if you'd like." Granted cooking over a wood stove wasn't the same as cooking over a gas range, but she was still a pretty good cook regardless.

"I like everything you cook," he promises, which probably sounds like a man trying his best to charm the woman he loves, but Steve's pretty poorly afflicted when it comes to the fact that he's stupidly in love with Diana and probably would choke down ashes and char, still finding some goodness in it. Of course, then he'd probably also try and subtly suggest they both learn to improve, but that's besides the fact.

Steve searches her face, still amazed that she's here and he's here and that he's alive. "What would you like?" he asks, swallowing the lump in his throat as he absently scratches at his still-present rash. "Maybe I want to cook for you?"

"I'm glad," she said, feeling more pleasure in knowing that than she probably should have. But after so many years separated, she didn't want anything she did to displease him. It was stupid and she knew that but she didn't care. She just wanted Steve to be happy and truly, she wanted to be the one to do it.

"Me?" Diana's eyebrows lifted in surprise. He was asking her what she wanted? "I didn't realize you could cook," she began and then realized how that sounded. "I'm not surprised since you are a man of many talents." She smiled at him and seeing him scratching at his rash, she reached out and took his hand in hers. "I'd be happy with anything you would cook for me. I'm truly not a picky eater."

"You," Steve agrees, feeling like if he just keeps his mind focused on one track of thinking, then he won't veer off track. "I was on my own for a while and Chief didn't always get me the food I wanted," he says, closing his eyes when they feel hot and burning, the relief instantaneous. It lets him think about other things, like those hot meals that had been a treat when Chief had rolled around. "I mean, beans are a specialty," he confesses, which probably isn't something she'd enjoy.

Opening his eyes to find his hand in hers, he goes red not just because of the fever, exhaling his fond disbelief that they're here, doing this. "What did you eat on Themyscira? Mortal men?" he quips.

Diana's forehead creases in concern as she watched him. He still wasn't well. She'd been hoping that he was getting better but it was obvious that he was still sick. She just wanted to wrap him up in a blanket and hover over him until he was well. She promised herself that she wouldn't leave his side again until he was truly up and on his feet.

"I am quite fond of beans," Diana said softly, her thumb stroking over the top of his hand as she offered him a warm smile. She laughed though as she squeezed his hand. "Mortal men were are rarity. But, we ate olives, grapes, figs and cheese. We ate lots of bread, and beans. We ate fresh fruit and vegetable... Because we lived by the sea, we also ate a lot of fish, squid and shellfish."

"Mmm, yeah, what was it?" His eyes are closed, but the dreamy and fond smile on his face is there because he's remembering lying in that boat with her and talking to the most beautiful and incredible woman he'd ever met in his life. "Men are unnecessary for pleasure? That was hard to hear, I won't lie," he says, rubbing a hand over his heart as if he's making a show of the pain.

Really, he's doing it as an excuse to scratch the damned rash again, feeling like he's become some kind of test subject for a lesser Dr. Poison. "Maybe after we eat, you'll come with me to the springs? I swear, it helped, I'm feeling better," he says, even though it's probably hard to believe, given his current state.

"I didn't know any better at the time," Diana pointed out. "You were after all the first man I'd ever seen in person." She squeezed his hand again. She'd been going by what she knew and since she'd never been with a man before Steve, she had nothing to compare what she'd had against.

"Would it make you feel better if someone was to tell you that maybe Clio was wrong as long as you've found the right man?" Her gaze searched Steve's and she sighed again and reached for his other hand. She knew what he was doing and she didn't need him somehow scratching the rash open and scarring himself.

The kettle started whistling and with another squeeze of his hands, she released him and pushed to her feet. She looked down at him, still smiling. "Of course. I'd do anything to see you feeling better," she admitted before leaning over and kissing his forehead. "But let me get you your tea and the broth should be warmed up enough for you."

Sometimes, he still can't believe that he's the first man that she'd ever seen, but what makes him think a little more is the fact that clearly, she's seen many others since. Back then, he could imagine that maybe she'd been so ready to experience things with him because she didn't have anything else to compare, but she does now.

"Am I the right man?" he asks, knowing that he should probably be waiting to say these things until he's in his right mind, but the trouble is that they're tripping off his tongue. "Now that you've met so many more, am I still that man? Or has there been someone else out there worthy of disproving Clio?"

Her back stiffened slightly as she stood in front of the stove. Her grip around the handle of the tea kettle tightened until her knuckles were white and she had to remind herself that he was sick and that he hadn't meant it to sound the way it had.

But still, his question hurt - no matter how warranted it might be.

She finished pouring his cup of tea and then quickly ladled the broth into another cup. She kept quiet as she turned and carried both cups back to him and set them down in front of him. She took a seat and looked over at him and though she tried to push her hurt back, she couldn't keep it from her gaze.

"Just how many men are you thinking that I've met, Steve? And do you think that if I had found someone else worthy of disproving Clio that I would have.... That I'd be the type..." Her lips pressed together and she tried to think of a way to finish vocalizing her thoughts.

"Do you think I'm the type to string you along while I wait to see if this place brings this person you think might exist?"

"Diana," he protests, as soon as she's talking, taking it the wrong way, because that's not what he meant at all, even though he's sure that his hazy mind hadn't exactly done a very good job communicating that. "Diana, I just mean that in a hundred years, I can't have been the only decent man that you met," he says. "I would've understood if you had, I'm just grateful you didn't," he promises.

"Trust me, I am not letting anyone get between us, now that we have a second chance," he says, as his eyes go hot with emotion (and also most likely illness) and he stares her down. "I just didn't know if there'd been anyone else above average in the meantime."

Diana's eyebrows furrowed and she drew in a deep breath. "I won't lie to you, Steve. I've met and even liked people since..." She didn't even want to say it, but she could do this. "Since you died. But that doesn't matter because not one of them was you."

She looked down at the table for a moment. "I understand you wanting to know, but it's truly an unfair question since for me you've been dead until this place." She looked up at him. "It would be like me asking you about the women you'd been with before me." She quickly held up a hand to stop him before he even thought to answer it. "I don't want to know. Can we... just be happy to be here together?"

Since he died. It's still surreal to hear it, even more to think about it, but they're just stating fact. He'd died. She'd gone on and he'd died of his own choice because he's the one who decided that it was up to him to make sure that Diana got a chance to save the world, and he'd been right. Right?

He's even managed to get a second chance out of it all and with her so maybe someone up there is happy with him. He hadn't really ever thought himself to be faithful, but if there's an Ares and those gods exist, why not one big guy, too? He flushes a little, not wanting to talk about the woman before Diana and the heartbreak that goes with her.

"We can be happy together, but I still want to know about your life," he says. "No matter what happened between then and now." He's rubbing his eyes and his face, so the words are mumbled. "If I could've figured out a way to stop that plane and survive, you have to know I would. I'd have done anything to be with you."

She wasn't stupid, nor was she naive enough to think that she had been the only woman Steve had ever cared about. He was handsome, kind, funny, smart and in her opinion he was utterly fantastic. To have not had a woman realizing that before her, well, it would have been a travesty. That didn't mean she wanted the details, didn't need to know about her because she must have been extraordinary and she didn't want to be jealous of a woman who for her had been dead a long time.

Diana reached for his hand and intertwined her fingers with his. "I know but I think that is a conversation for us to have when you are feeling better, that way both of our minds are clear." She offered him a small smile and pushed the tea a little closer to him. "And I know. You did what you had to and so many people are alive because of it. People were able to get married and get houses together and have babies. Because of you. You made me very proud."

Her eyes had teared up a little but she still managed to keep smiling at him. He had made her proud, but that had come after she'd been mad at him and mad at the world. But then she had understood and Steve had helped her ultimately defeat Ares. She swallowed and squeezed his hand. "So drink some of your tea so we can go to this pond to help you feel better."

"I think all of our conversations are best had when I feel better," Steve agrees, seeing as there's a part of him that's genuinely believing that he might not remember a good deal of this. He hopes he does, because he doesn't want to forget the tenderness and kindness of her making food for him, touching him, being with him. He swallows the lump in his throat and knows that he shouldn't broach the topic while he's sick, but it's on his mind.

Does she want that? They've already got the house together, but he's not sure about the rest. Do people even do that in a place like this? Is that something he should even be thinking about?

Even sick, though, he can see her getting somewhat upset and he reaches his palm out to cup her cheek. "Diana," he breathes out, stroking his thumb over the warmth of her cheek in slow brushes. "Sweetheart," he murmurs. "I just wanted to make sure you got a chance," he vows. "I knew that you could do it. You could do anything."

His smile is a little shaky, but he slides his hand from her cheek to the tea, not letting go of her hand as he makes a show of sipping a lot of it, staring at her like it's the first time he's seeing her again.

"You're probably right," Diana agreed. She knew that having a serious conversation with him right now probably wasn't the best idea. Who knew what he'd remember saying or if he'd remember what she'd said. She didn't want either of them to say anything that one of them would regret because he was sick and he might not have as much control over what he said. That's what she was telling herself.

She nodded, her gaze searching his. She knew he'd wanted to give her a chance and he had. Part of her still wished that there had been some other way though. But it wasn't something she was wanting to focus on. She'd lived through it all, grieved and had managed to continue on with life. But did it even matter now with him sitting there with her? She smiled and turned her face into his palm and kissed it before he had a chance to slide his hand away. "I was only able to do it because of you."

She made sure to squeeze his hand again as she watched him sipping on the tea. While she had no idea where they were, she was grateful for it. Maybe she should have been made because she'd been brought there but she was sure she would gladly stay there as long as Steve was there.

This is their past, now, isn't it? There's no perfect happy ending for them because Steve died to give her a chance and the only way they're together is because they're in a place he doesn't understand. Every time he starts to look into a way out, he feels guilty and feels like he should stop, but what if he can find her a way out, if only to give her the option? Better than that, what if he finds a way out and he gets out too.

Maybe he is alive, maybe some Greek or Roman god figured he'd done enough and breathed life back into him like a kid's art project, all over again. Tiredly, he finishes with the tea and tugs on her hand just lightly enough to want to bring her closer.

"I know this is going to sound irresistible," he mumbles, exhausted, "but wanna come sleep with my clammy, sweaty body while I pass out?"

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burn, baby, burn

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