lee_fallon | PSL - Susan Pays Lee a Visit

Lee was more than a little excited to have Susan come to his apartment. It wasn't as if he'd never had visitors before, but his relationship with Susan was a unique one, and the fact that she wanted to come to his space and see him felt like an important moment between them, a new step in their friendship.

In preparation of her arrival, Lee had gone and bought some of the beer she liked, made sure he had wine on hand that he thought she might find happy, and had procured a coffee grinder as a gift, one he thought she'd appreciate and enjoy. He didn't have much in his place to clean, but he made sure everything was tidy, burned some pleasant incense to assure it smelled nice, bought some pastries, savory and sweet, in case Susan was hungry.

As far as Valentine's Days went, spending time with Susan today wasn't a bad deal at all. Lee enjoyed her company immensely, and he looked forward to being able to share his afternoon with an amazing woman, an intelligent, fascinating person, and a good friend.

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Lee shook his head softly, and he wanted to tell her that he was apologizing because it was such an unpleasant thing to have to witness, for one, and she was here as his guest. But he was retching again before he had the chance to speak, shivering and sweating with a sudden fever. It was like out of the blue he'd gotten the flu, with no warning whatsoever.

After a bought of dry heaving, he was able to stand and turn on the tap, rinse his mouth and wash the mess down the drain, and he was about to ask if Susan wanted to go, feeling like the sudden illness wasn't about to disappear as quickly as it had come, when Susan swore.

Lee had never heard Susan use a word like that, so he blinked at her with wide eyes, water dripping from his chin into the sink. "What's wrong?" he asked, tone worried, hoping she wasn't about to be sick herself.

"It is the chocolates, the problem. And this isn't even their first advance. You're lucky, you could have been fallen in love with me. Lucky in a way." Susan could barely look at him, and she knew that no ill person wanted to discuss luck, so instead she walked back and forth behind him. "A young man I met at the masked ball, he was infatuated with everyone he saw, he admitted to eating chocolates. Is this city Darrow seriously a place where one can't eat chocolates?"

"But we have to get you better first." Her teacher part kicked in, and Lee may be far away from a crying student with a tummy bug bug bug, Susan knew that she had the right knowledge to at least soften his pain. Or discomfort. "I think you should lie down somewhere. Soft, so bed or couch."

Lee laughed when Susan suggested that him falling in love with her would be worse than this, though the notion of being infatuated with a woman was more than a little amusing for Lee, a man who had only kissed a girl once a long, long time ago. Moreover, Lee wasn't all that surprised that this city would have chocolates that made a person violently ill, or fall in love at first sight. After the animal attack on New Years Eve, Lee was starting to think the unusual here was more the norm than not.

Swallowing, Lee stood straight and assessed how he felt. He was still dizzy and sweating, shivering from the sudden fever, but he didn't feel like he was going to vomit again, at least not immediately. "Yeah, the couch, I think," he agreed, then had the idea to reach under the sink for a large mixing bowl, just in case.

He walked gingerly toward his sofa, feeling lightheaded and terrible. Was it not enough that he was dying from cancer and sick all the time from his treatment that he had to have magic flu too? He laughed softly to himself as he lowered himself onto the couch, setting the bowl on the coffee table. "I'm glad you didn't eat the chocolate too," he told Susan as he looked up at her. "But I'm sorry it's ruining our night."

"You're not ruining anything. The chocolates are, and I'm very disappointed in the, the person that would abuse them for such a thing. I'm going to return to the store as soon as I know that you're doing better. Better under your circumstances." She put his feet up and looked around for a blanket. "Can I enter your bed room to get you a blanket? And do you think you could handle some watered down beer? In my experience, it's better than water or tea, for an ill person. Soothes the stomach, I always assumed."

Susan took a step back, giving herself room to think about what else she could do. "Is there a headache? Should I close your curtains and shut up? Or are you distracted by my incoherent babbling and would you rather have me continue? You would have to give me subject suggestions, you know I'm not good at small talk."

Susan seemed to have snapped into some kind of a caregiver persona, suddenly animated in her desire to play Lee's nursemaid. And while he appreciated it, he felt guilty that she'd been put in such a position. "You can go into my bedroom, of course," he told her, leaning back against the arm of the couch and breathing, hopeful he might be able to stave off another round of vomiting by taking pressure of his stomach.

"I'll try the beer too," he said, and he'd never heard it was helpful, but he knew better than to question Susan's knowledge of such things. "If you don't mind staying, I was really looking forward to your company tonight," he added. "But I understand if you'd rather not stay and witness the rest of this..." he finished, waving a vague hand at himself.

"I'm the cause of your disease, what kind of person would leave a sick person after making them sick? Is that normal human behaviour? Because that's one side of normalcy I don't want to participate in!"

Disease and illnesses make her nervous. It's like the start line, but without knowledge of if and when the shot will sound. It even makes her think in metaphors. Lee is so close to her by now, she doesn't want the last piece of his life to be bothered by more pain and trouble. A little amount of people always deserved more pain, Lee wasn't one of them.

"I'm sorry. I'm not very good around diseases and illnesses. They throw me off." Honesty was a good way to rein oneself in. "Please don't think that you should hide any signs from me. I'm a middle school teacher, I know biology, there is nothing ugly, weird or peculiar about what the body can do or offer."

Lee laughed weakly at Susan's indignance, and though she could sometimes be abrupt or coarse, she truly had a good and caring heart. He wondered if that's what caused her so much displeasure at the idea of carrying on her grandfather's work, the urge to be a caregiver, to aid and support.

"I appreciate you staying," Lee told her, and smiled at her to show he was genuine in his gratitude. "If it the chocolates making me sick, at least you should be in the clear," he said, shivering under another wave of chills.

"I think I have a fever," he said after a moment, reaching up to feel his own cheek. He felt cold all over, but his skin felt clammy and warm. "In the medicine cabinet in the bathroom is some Tylenol," he told Susan. "Would you mind getting it for me?"

"Tylenol. And your blanket. Fevers aren't necessarily bad, it means that your body still has enough energy to attack the enemy element. When your temperature cuts down completely, you'll know you're, well. Past." No need for her to say what they both knew.

The blanket was easily found and neatly folded, her hands not bothered by the little stress level movement inside the rest of her. When there was a blanket, you folded it. A lady's upbringing. The Tylenol, and what an ugly word if words could be ugly, took her a bit longer, but Susan returned with both in little over four minutes.

"Do you need water to take the Tylenol?" She found his beer and put it on the coffee table. "I don't know if this is the kind of medicine you can mix with alcohol?"

Lee nodded at Susan's logic, and it was really good, even a little amusing for someone so close to passing as he was, but he felt so awful he didn't have the energy for much more than a weak smile. He closed his eyes as Susan went into the bathroom for the Tylenol and then his bedroom for a blanket, and he blinked them back open again when Susan returned.

"Thank you, Susan," he said as she handed him the bottle. "Water would be better for taking it, but I can have the beer afterward," he added with a soft laugh. "You said it would be good for my stomach?" he asked.

"That's what I have been told. Watered-down beer, that is. It calms the stomach, and that way you can give it to children without parents protesting the school for delivering their protégées drunk."

She moved to the kitchen for a glass and water, slowly regaining a sense of control. Susan wasn't a nurse, but a teacher definitely had nurse-like qualities. If she could stick to that, she could get through the night without making Lee worse in any way.

"As your an adult", she continued after finding both glass and water, "watering the beer down might not be necessary and distract you a little from your situation."

Lee laughed as he took the glass of water from her, nodding his thanks. "I'm willing to give it a try," he told her, opening the bottle of Tylenol and shaking two pills into his palm. He popped the tablets into his mouth and swallowed them down with the water, finishing off the glass and setting it on the coffee table.

"You can sit by me, if you want," Lee suggested, tucking his knees up under his blanket to make space on the couch. "Oh, and there are pastries in the kitchen I got for today, if you're hungry," he added, sighing as he relaxed back into the cushions.

"What are these Tylenol precisely?" She made to sit down next to him, got up as soon as he mentioned pastries. Maybe that's where she should change her interest to, away from chocolates that were disappointing. Maybe she was a bit hungry as well, Susan couldn't remember the last time she ate.

"Won't me eating in front of you make you feel worse, or have the nausea return? That I don't mind vomit doesn't mean I'd actively go looking for a situation to experience it."

"They're medicine," Lee told Susan, tracking her as she went into the kitchen to fetch the plate of pastries he arranged for her earlier. "They're used for reducing fevers and also as pain relievers," he went on as Susan finally sat on the couch beside him.

"Please eat," Lee said as she voiced her worries. "It won't bother me, I promise," he said, and though his stomach was roiling a bit, he didn't feel ready to vomit right away. He took a deep, calming breath through his nose. "I've had a lot of nausea in my day," he assured her. "I'm a professional."

"Yes, I understand that they're medicine. You wouldn't poison yourself further over a bit of a fever and some barfing." Susan was being overly firm again. "I mean, the working components. What kind of medicine. Is it a pain killer, a fever subdue, a sleeping pill? I could have phrased my question differently."

"I'm just surprised by how disappointed I am by chocolates", she admitted in a gesture of good faith and apology. "Chocolates. How can I still stay that I like them when I know have negative experiences with them?" She broke off a piece of flimsy pastry.
"And thank you."

Lee tipped his head back, nodding in understanding. "Sorry, it's, um, they have an analgesic," he told her, the throbbing in his forehead making it a little harder to think than usual. "And a fever reducer. Nothing about sleep, though, I don't think."

He laughed breathily when Susan spoke of the chocolates and they're betrayal. "I've been betrayed by wine before," he said. "But I can never stay mad. I've alway end up forgiving wine in general for the trespasses of a bad batch."

"Analgesic." Susan was only familiar with half of the word, and felt no need to elaborate on some free thinking about how it would tie back to helping out fevered men. "Right."

"You don't", No, would she really explain to Lee the connections from chocolates to infatuation to fond memories? Or did the one come before the other? It was much too intimate. "This is a nice pastry. Very soft, but not in a worrying way. And I think there's filling."

"It does," Lee replied in regards to the pastry. "Peach, I think. Do you like peach?" he asked, and he had to swallow, thinking about the filling making his stomach roll a bit.

"I'm sorry I don't have any chocolate to give you," he said, reaching to take a small sip of his beer. "Untainted chocolate," he clarified.

"I never thought about peach like that before." But of course, it was a pastry holder, and no doubt there were no rules here about what you could and couldn't fill your pastries with. Thinking of Ank Morporkh's infamous mud pies, Susan was sure it wasn't a reality back home either.
"But it is a good flavour and a nice mouth experience. So I do?" She looked at him with more need for assurance than she had planned on allowing to escape, to show. "Is it that easy to like something? After an one time experience?"

"I don't need chocolates." Was Susan less Susan without an impressive liking of chocolates? "You just worry about getting it out of you. I hope you got the worst with vomiting, but if magic is involved it may last longer than ordinary food poisoning. This suffering is superficial, though. It's not affecting any of your essential parts", she added to sound caring, instead of condescending.

Susan didn't know it, but the way she asked that question hit Lee in a very particular way, and despite the unpleasant, sickly feeling in his stomach, a warmth that had nothing to do with his fever rose to his cheeks. "I know it is," he replied, his heartbeat joining in with his blush. "That's the best way to like something," he went on. "After the very first taste."

Susan wasn't the type who asked for clarification, so he didn't expect her to question what he meant by his words. But he couldn't help thinking about the night he met Eric, how quickly they'd hit it off, how fast they'd fallen in love. He'd liked Eric almost instantly, and the feeling only got stronger the longer they were together.

"I'm glad my essential parts have been spared," he replied, smiling fondly. "And I hope I'm done throwing up too," he agreed. "I'd hate for you to have to see that again," he added, grimacing at the thought.

"You can't go around tasting everything. Especially others with characters and individu attached. I'm sure that's not socially accepted." Probably another reason why vampires were such outcasts, they did try everything, teeth first.

"Is your fever picking up again? You flushed for a moment. It could be the end sprint, which would be nice and surprisingly quick. What a fool, these chocolate makers."

"I rather have vomit than soiled pants. Poop seems to always find a way to the smallest creases."

Lee laughed, and the idea of tasting people was equally exciting and unsettling. "It's not bad to taste some people," he said with a wink, not sure Susan would understand. "I think my fever is actually going down," he went on, feeling his own forehead with his fingers. "I was just thinking about something that made me feel warm, that's all."

To be honest, he wasn't feeling well, but he was feeling less sick and more delirious now. Maybe it was the beer, or a combination of that and the chocolates, but his head was definitely spinning a little.

"No, I prefer vomit too," he said, meeting Susan's eyes. "But either way, I wouldn't make you clean up after me," he assured. "It's nice enough of you to stay here with me and keep me company."

"Isn't it?" He was probably talking about something emotional or physically intimate, something Susan didn't know anything about and after the embarrassment with Sirius didn't want to learn more about. "That's good. The fever going down, I can't judge the other part."

She finished her pastry and took another one from its plate, her body giving her faint hints of hunger. "Pastries aren't expensive here, I hope? If they are, I will leave some for you to enjoy tomorrow, instead of being the guest that emptied out your storage. Pastries are best enjoyed fresh, is what the bakers say. Which makes sense, because they want to sell their wares. Could this be another flavour then peach?"

Did she had to tell Lee again that she wasn't the person to desert people? Or was this just some kind of small talk?

Lee smiled kindly at Susan, and he felt a little bad, letting himself resort to innuendo that way with someone he knew didn't have a frame of reference. Though it did make him wonder if Susan had the same sorts of feelings he did sometimes, attraction, desire, any kind of interest in sharing herself with someone else, emotionally or otherwise.

She seemed so hemmed in a lot of the time, very aware of herself and sure of who she was, never mincing words or worrying about saying the wrong thing. It was one of the things Lee liked most about her, how blunt she was, how refreshingly genuine. But there was a level of guardedness sometimes, though Lee thought it was more for his benefit than hers. He wondered if there would ever come a day when she would share more of her feelings with him, as a friend.

"No, they weren't expensive," Lee replied in regards to the pastries. "Please, eat as many as you like," he added. "There are two more peach ones, and three lemon almond ones," he told her.

"Lemon almond."

She peered into the pastry to make sure that both mentioned were represented. What kind of combination was lemon almond? Although it had a pleasant ring to it, which could work in its favour when needed to be sold. Marketing touched everything, even death and taxes so definitely food.

"I think I like this one", she offered after another bite. "Better than the other one, so I li- I li", Susan could like several things at the same time. That was quite human, even. So why was she hemming and hawing like her amounts of likes were scarce? Why would anything or anyone care how many pastry favours she liked?

"How are you feeling?", she went for instead.

Lee watched with curious eyes as Susan seemed to struggle with the concept of enjoying both types of pastries, and he felt a flash of sympathy for her. What kind of life had Susan been made to live where she didn't have the experience of enjoying more than one thing at once? Especially something as simple as food.

He felt bad for staring at her, especially given how embarrassed she seemed to get as she struggled with articulating her feelings. He smiled at her softly when she asked after him, more than happy to change subjects with her.

"I'm okay," he told her honestly. "Not ready to go out and run a marathon, but I'm pretty sure I'm not going to throw up again."

"That's not a serious test of someone's health, is it? Their ability to be able to run a marathon?" She put her pastry on the table in front of them, deciding to give herself some more room for decision.

"This had been a weird day. Mostly because of the chocolates." And other things. And the lesson that there was no end to the amount of things you could like and how small that made Susan feel.

"Is there something on my face, Lee? You're staring at me like you don't understand something but don't know if you can own up to it either. I'm a teacher, I recognise that stare."

Lee laughed, and though it was genuine it was a bit weak with a slight twinge in his stomach. "No, not normally," he replied. "But it is a thing I've been known to do," he added with a bit of smile.

Then he took a breath, trying to decide how to answer her second question, not wanting to offend his friend. "Nothing on your face, no," he said, meeting Susan's eyes. "I was just wondering about your life before, in Discworld," he admitted honestly. "Were you happy there, Susan?" he asked carefully, tugging his blanket up a little higher on his chest.

Happiness. Happiness was family and good food and whatever else people tried to sell to you. Happiness was spring for some, but not for snowmen. It was a very human question, but not one Susan had heard for a long time.

"I was, definitely when my parents were still alive. And time spent with my grandfather was always nice. Happiness is such a weird thing to define though, isn't it? Can you be full time happy or are you just pleased with life then?" She wasn't sure if this was a good answer or if she was philosophizing. "I guess usually I'm the default feeling for mortals? Life is going on? Happy feels like sisuch a children's word, I think."

Lee loved the way Susan spoke, because it always called to mind lessons that Lee had read when he'd first started studying Buddhism, made him think more truly in that mindset. "Happiness is the absence of suffering," he said, thinking in that vein. "Or I guess at its pinnacle it is. I don't think many people manage to eliminate all the pain from their lives."

Lee paused for a moment, taking quick stock of his own life. His cancer, obviously, caused him pain, but it was the sort that Lee had learned to accept. Physical suffering was a fact of biology, and though Lee could mitigate it, he couldn't force his biology to change. Not naturally, at least. Having met Eric, fallen in love with him, Lee's emotional well being had been both enhanced and damaged, joyful that he had someone beside him but now more unhappy about his drastically shortened life.

"It's really in the balance," he said finally. "If you have more good times than bad ones."

"The absence of suffering?" That sounded quite determined. "So instead of being active for happiness, you have to be active to prevent suffering? Does that mean that you think that happiness or pleasure or all those similar can't be achieved through passivity? Something you always have to work for?"

She was going to finish that pastry, after all. The taste was almost gone from her mouth, and Susan knew that she rather renewed it than lost it.

"Everything is balance and in it." She shrugged a shoulder. "It's not an exciting lesson to learn or share, but it's a necessary one. That's how I feel."

Lee thought about it for a moment, taking in Susan's expression, the easy way she could take what he said and distill it down into something simple. "I don't think it's passivity," he said after a moment. "It's more like finding happiness and pleasure in existing without excess."

He smiled then, shaking his head softly. "I'm not very good at it," he admitted. "There was a time when I found ways to be happy on my own, just being in the moment, but it's hard to maintain that when you meet people and start getting attached to them."

Taking a breath, Lee reached for his beer, drinking a small sip. "Balance is easier," he went on. "I'm not bad at that."

Susan knew that there were different levels of excess, but there had to be some for everyone to prevent just being instead of living.

"I don't know why you're the only one who can think so broadly, and speak along the lines of his thoughts. It's not your looming death, death doesn't necessary make someone well-spoken. There are always surprises of course, but usually there is no one-hundred eighty twist on the verbal abilities of a dead person."

"Attachment works again moments, that's definitely true. But I'm pretty sure attachments are viewed as one of the things that build and uphold a character as well. So it's one way or the other. A painfree life, or a painful memory of a good time. Again, balance."

Lee shrugged, relaxing back on the couch, letting his muscles sag and tugging his blanket up higher on his chest. "Dying is part of it, I think," he said after moment. "It makes you do a lot of soul searching. You learn what kind of person you are very quickly. I wasn't this calm at the beginning," he admits.

"There's a difference between being ready to die and wanting to die," he said then, and he could tell the topic made Susan uncomfortable. "I don't think anyone really wants to die. Sometimes it just feels better than the alternative. I know a little bit about that too," he told Susan, baring a little bit of one of his deeper secrets.

"No-one is calm at beginnings. Any." It was clear that the magic was starting to wear off, either by biologically or enchantingly leaving Lee's system. "I am glad that the worst seems to have come and gone. It leaves the memory of this gathering on a less sour note."

"I haven't yet met the person that wants to die, definitely. Even those that don't want to live any more are surprised and rattled by death. It's the one permanent change that can't, in any way, be unchanged. Reversed. It ends and starts there, nothing to be done."

"I'm sorry about the sour note in the middle," Lee replied with a dry chuckle. "I do feel better," he added with a small smile. "I'm glad I only had one piece of chocolate."

Tucking his blanket around his lap, Lee shifted to sit up more fully on the couch. "I know death is inevitable," he said, looking at the blanket stretched over his knees. "I don't want to live forever. I think that would be unbearable. I just..." He sighed, and he knew he couldn't look up and see Susan's face as he went on. "I'm not ready anymore. Not yet."

"Yes, definitely. I don't want to know what would have happened if you would have been a chocolate glutton. A maelstrom of bodily fluids, possibly?" Susan knows it's a bit rude to eye the last pastry on the plate, but it's not Lee will eat it any time soon, and how rude can accepting a sweet piece of food really be?

"You're not ready to die anymore?" This was what she had worried about since meeting his Eric. "Is it because of the romantic love in your life now?"