@FanPrompt "warning"
Rei's body had warned him that he was getting sick.
But he'd been so focused in his painting he'd ignored the signs (throbbing head, congested lungs, vague sense of nausea). When he'd put the brush down, his remaining strength in his limbs left him with a sigh.
That's how Basara had found him, passed out on the ground and burning up.
"Tengenjibashi…"
Now he wakes up to the familiar, soft calling of his name. He's laying on a cushioned surface so Basara must've carried him to bed. Yet it's not his Shikigami who he sees when he blinks his bleary eyes open: Yotsuya sits on the edge of the bed by his side, fingers carding through Rei's hair, his expression pinched. When their eyes meet, some tension eases off him and Yotsuya smiles, bending towards him.
"Yotsuya…what are you doing here?" speaking tickles his throat and sends him into a small coughing fit. Yotsuya tilts his head up and brings a glass of water to his lips, from which Rei drinks greedily until the itching subsides. He lays back down with a groan.
"I wanted to see your face," Yotsuya's voice is a mere whisper and for a moment Rei thinks he may cough again from how the honest words tickle his chest, "How do you feel?" Yotsuya's knuckles brush his cheek and his hand is cold against Rei's burning skin. He leans into the touch and hums when Yotsuya cradles his face.
"Tired," he replies hoarsely, "It's just a cold, though."
"Just a cold, huh…" Yotsuya echoes as his thumb rubs Rei's cheekbone back and forth, eyes half lidded and tender; it's as though his gaze is caressing him too. "You gave poor Basara quite a fright when you collapsed."
"Ah…" he'll have to apologize to Basara later. His Shikigami had insisted he rested earlier and he'd paid him no mind.
Yotsuya is still gazing at him with some deep emotion. Knuckles brush the length of his throat, a palm rests over his heart. His other hand settles on Rei's head and cards through his hair, eliciting a content noise from him.
This moment…it mirrors the time when he'd been weak and faint from the curse. Yotsuya was at his side then, too, caressing him gently; looking at him with some deep emotion that Rei refused to acknowledge, lest he make himself believe something that wasn't truly there. But that emotion is there again, now, so fragile and so precious that it threatens to crush his heart.
He wonders if Yotsuya is thinking of that time, too.
"Yotsuya," he holds the back of Yotsuya's neck and gently hides him down until their foreheads rest together. The point of contact is meant to reassure him, but it settles the knot in Rei's chest, too, "I'm fine."
A cold sigh fans his lips. Yotsuya's eyes fall shut and he relaxes into him, nose lightly nuzzling his.
"…Rei," he murmurs in the space between them, kissing the word to his mouth, "May I remain by your side a while longer?"
"Mnn," Rei wraps his arms around Yotsuya and pulls him into his side, "Stay with me."