Simple Today [leon]

[MERCY REGIUS]

Mercy, somehow, was always up just before her alarm. Just as the little red numbers ticked to 7:25, she was out of bed and in the shower, beginning her morning routine. Shampoo her hair. Shampoo again. Condition. Wash. Rinse. Towel off. Then the alarm would go off at 7:35, and Mercy would curse herself for, yet again, forgetting to switch it off before. She would rush to shut it up, still in her towel, apologize for waking Leon and instruct him to go back to sleep, then return to the bathroom to finish up. Moisturize. Makeup. Hair. Just like when Mercy was little, she would have her clothes picked out from the night before, get dressed, and she was ready to begin her day.

Mercy took a certain pleasure in routine, most especially recently. Leon's injury and subsequent lifestyle changes had obviously altered their lives, and what Mercy couldn't deal with emotionally was channeled into manageable activities. She made lists, and schedules, and tried as hard as she could not to move things around their apartment too much (though it was surprisingly difficult to always put things back in exactly the same place as before). She did whatever she could to ease Leon's way without making him feel entirely helpless (well, she tried—she was admittedly overbearing sometimes, and she knew he hated it), and generally tried to be as perfect as she could, for him, and for herself. She needed a manageable life, but more importantly, a manageable life with Leon in it.

Even if that meant watching herself more closely when she was around him. Ever since Leon came back from his mission blinded, he wasn't the same. It wasn't just his eyesight—he'd before admitted to her that he felt this strange compulsion to answer questions truthfully, no matter the question. What was more odd was that Mercy had asked him about this… new habit… and when he replied thus, he delivered it in a strange, monotonous voice she'd not heard before. And the way he simply knew things was rather frightening, but, as stated before, Mercy needed consistency. This was just going to have to be another thing to deal with via her obsessive organization.

It had been working tolerably well for the last year, though Mercy had noticed they'd been fighting more and more. Nothing major, just a lot of little things--he would blame her for intentionally not putting things back if she were angry at him; she would deny it and claim he was making things up. She would get frustrated that he answered any question she asked, even absent ones, and he would get just as frustrated that she didn't understand the compulsiveness of the response. These spats would sometimes escalate to a point where Mercy's patience was severely tested, and she certainly knew how to hold a grudge. But in the end one of them would always break down and right the wrong, and they'd continue along their bumpy road.

But no relationship was without rough patches, and it was just that Leon and Mercy's rough patches were particularly... rough. Big, terrible things had happened to Leon, and it changed him, changed them. There was no denying it. Mercy felt more on edge, more suspicious, and more concerned than she ever had before, and it was stretching her a bit thin. She could only imagine what Leon was feeling. And it wasn't like she could just ask him--it wasn't that simple anymore.

So Mercy mentally checked off the tasks she completed as she moved to the kitchen of their minimally furnished, open-plan apartment. She padded lightly over the floor, her feet bare and her tread quiet so as to let Leon sleep as long as wanted (or as long as he could, anyway). Selecting a grapefruit from the bowl of fruit on the counter (expensive, those, this time of year), Mercy was just reaching for a knife when she heard their bedroom door open. An apology was already on her lips when Leon came into the kitchen, sorry again for having woken him. "I swear tomorrow I'll remember to turn off the alarm," she said to him as she cut the grapefruit in half. "I promise," she added as an afterthought, a smile in her voice. Mercy turned from the counter to look at him, making a happy sort of humming sound as she crossed the kitchen to kiss him on the cheek. "I'll make breakfast," she stated rather than questioned, letting Leon answer for himself.

[LEON NOEL]

In much the same ways that it was surprising for Mercy to always be up before her alarm, it was unusual that Leon usually slept until it went off. Considering his military career, he'd been very used to getting up very early, operating on little or no sleep if the situation called for it and generally being an adaptable little machine. About a year out of the military, he called 9:30 late, but 7:25 was becoming a bit early for him on his own. The few days that Mercy remembered to turn the alarm off before she got in the shower, Leon slept until she offered breakfast. It was...strange to him, but part of it very well may have been that he was very aware before of lighting, and it was possible to sleep longer if there was no way that sunshine coming through the window was going to wake you up. In the field, he'd learned to doze off just before dawn, then wake up as the sun came up to ensure that he didn't sleep too long and find himself vulnerable. There was no threat if he slept past sunrise here and now, so at least it wasn't actually a problem, but he still wasn't sure he liked this change in his schedule.

Whatever. There were a lot of points in his schedule he didn't care for. Having to relearn how to read was no fun, either, but he'd been working on braille almost since he was first injured, so if he wasn't utterly spectacular at it, he was efficient. He didn't read books in it, preferring audiobooks instead, but most things in the city were labeled in braille anymore. It helped, and made him more capable of functioning normally without having to wait for Mercy to get home to do something. His schedule was slowly getting easier to deal with, if boring and predictable. He needed some kind of job to keep him busy, but that was easier said than done, since nobody wanted to deal with figuring out how to train a blind man to do a job they could just hire a normal person to do. It was discrimination, yes, but that didn't mean it wasn't happening, and Leon couldn't content himself with a mind-numbing occupation. He'd rather try to entertain himself in other ways, especially since the military didn't seem to think he was going to be working anytime soon, if ever, and were paying him very well for his 'sacrifices', as it was worded to him.

Just because he woke up with Mercy's alarm didn't mean that he actually got up immediately. He may have even thought about going back to sleep after feeling for her in the bed beside him, not finding her there, and then tilting his head in the direction that her quiet apologies were coming from. Go back to sleep? Not a terrible idea, but other than a sleepy yawn and a nod acknowledging her words, whether he was agreeing or not, he didn't speak up just yet. He did drag the covers up to his chin and shift around a little before releasing a deep, satisfied breath and just soaking up the warmth while he woke up a little more. Leisurely wake-ups had been a possibility for him for about a year now, and he still wasn't entirely used to them. He didn't know if the novelty would ever wear off, and he wouldn't mind it too much if it didn't. He just wished Mercy was off that day so that she could crawl back into bed with him.

It was true, of course, that they fought and argued. Every couple did eventually, and they had plenty to irritate them into it, though most of that was Leon's fault and he knew it. Being blind, unable to continue his career, having his entire life turned upside down and then dealing with whatever weird mental disorder he seemed to develop after that blow to the head was just too much without frustrating the hell out of him as he tried to figure out some kind of balance and lifestyle that worked for him. He wasn't the only one adapting, and that was the problem, since Mercy was trying and it wasn't always easy for her, either. It made them both testy, and sometimes, they took it out on each other. That didn't mean he didn't want to draw her right back into that warm, comfortable bed, or that he wouldn't slip out of that warmth to follow her into the kitchen a short time later. It also didn't mean that he couldn't admit (at least to himself) that he might be wrong sometimes, and she really was trying, just like he was. He sometimes wanted to think that she asked things on purpose because she knew he had to answer, or that she purposely put things in the wrong place when she was pissed off, and it might have been true on occasion, but this morning was a good example of the times that she was very clearly putting out the effort not to. She didn't ask him if he wanted breakfast or if he wanted her to make it, or anything, for that matter. She told him she was making breakfast, leaving him more than capable of saying whatever the hell he wanted in response instead of compulsively reacting. He appreciated it.

"It's not a big deal, I don't have to sleep all day, anyway," he told her, though her not asking if he minded was for the best, since the honest answer was that he'd prefer not to be woken up by her alarm, especially because that particular alarm sound was annoying as all hell. That was pretty much the point of an alarm, so he really wasn't complaining, but knowing what you SHOULD do (like get up earlier) and saying what you WANT to do were two entirely different things. "What's for breakfast?"

She hadn't gotten started, yet, so he couldn't guess from the smell or even the sounds of certain packages, but he wasn't much of a picky eater and she was obviously in a good mood just from the sound in her voice, which drew a little smile out of him immediately. That he could hear it was one of the things he loved about her, and the whiff of her perfume letting him know just how close she was right before she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek was another. He reached up and brushed his fingers over her cheek as she kissed him, ensuring that he knew exactly where she was before he tilted to kiss her lightly on the lips in return. Morning breath. He wasn't going for more than a peck until he'd eaten and taken care of that, even if they'd been together long enough that it didn't really matter.

Coffee. While she made breakfast, he reached out for the counter nearest him to properly gauge the distance (sometimes, he got caught up in her and forgot exactly where in the room he was, and a small miscalculation could cause stubbed toes or banged knees and hips), then felt for a specific groove in the natural wood texture of the cabinets that meant it was the one holding the glasses and mugs. He was one too far to the right, so he found it a second later, pulled a mug down and reached for the coffee pot that they kept just underneath that cabinet. If he held the mug just the right way, he could rest the angled pouring area of the pot against the mug and feel the heat of the coffee as it filled up. When it got close enough to his thumb that it almost burned a little, he knew it was enough. Sugar, he just knew how long to hold it (as long as it was filled, which hadn't been the case once, but he could tell by weight now if there wasn't enough in there for his timing to be right) over the mug, and he only took a splash of milk. The sugar jar was right next to the pot against the wall, and the milk was always on the door of the fridge, furthest on the right.

See? This was why he needed organization and to keep putting things back right. If the salt was in the sugar spot, he could be totally thrown off, especially since it wasn't only Mercy who filled the sugar container. He'd once put salt in the wrong one, and been all kinds of confused when it wasn't right later. There had been a lot of little 'learning mistakes'. Yeah. Frustration understandable?

[MERCY REGIUS]

Mercy grinned widely when Leon put his hand out to touch her cheek, staying still a moment while he figured out where she was. To be honest, and probably to be also a really horrible person, Mercy found the bits of Leon's injury like this a little romantic. Mercy had always been known for her looks and really, that's probably what helped secure Leon in the first place. Now that he couldn't see her, however, she felt an odd mixture of relief and disappointment. The disappointment was understandable, but the relief--that was out of character. And moments like these, when he would touch her face, or she would notice him pause and breathe in as she walked toward him, well. There was no denying the fact that it taken their relationship to a level not at all like what they had expected, but the difference wasn't always half bad.

He kissed her quickly on the lips in return after having asked what was for breakfast, and Mercy took a breath before answering, returning to her senses after losing them to fantasy and romanticism. "Um," she said plainly as Leon walked to the opposite side of the smallish kitchen to make himself coffee, "well I think we have eggs and... things," Mercy hesitated, abandoning the fruit on the counter and opening the refrigerator to take a look at its contents. "I see eggs, I see bacon, and there's fruit." Again, Mercy declared this as a statement, not asking him if that sounded good to him or 'would that be enough?' The man was perfectly able to hold up his end of the conversation without having to be prompted by questions, and now that Mercy's eyes had been opened to it, she was beginning to find, in fact, that the whole 'how does that sound to you?' song and dance was really a bit childish.

Maybe this manner of speaking and falling into the habits of articulating thusly seemed a bit blunt when Mercy talked to other people now, but it honestly didn't bother her. She simply gathered the eggs "and things" from the fridge to the tune of of Leon making coffee behind her, set them on the counter, and selected a frying pan. She figured simply frying everything in the same pan was good enough, and frankly it would have to be, as Mercy's culinary skills were not exactly world renown. She'd never had to make things on her own before, growing up or during school, and when they had first moved to New York and Leon was away relatively often, she had eaten out for the most part. She didn't even own proper dishes for the longest time, and it wasn't until Leon's injury had permanently grounded him that Mercy thought she ought to try her hand at making something.

Her first attempts were downright comical. There was an awful lot of more-burned-than-really-grilled cheese sandwiches and any-idiot-can-boil-pasta spaghetti in those first months. As she slowly expanded her culinary cookbook to include such daring recipes as, gasp, chicken, and oh my, rice, Mercy was rather decided that she wasn't ever going to be one of those girls who took to the kitchen like it was her god-given duty to feed her man. She had pretty much stopped at salad, but at least she could fry an egg. Luckily, Leon 1. didn't complain/expect much and 2. was not a sexist, demanding pig, so for the most part they continued to eat out or order in and that was that.

But as she turned the stove burner on and cracked two eggs into the pan, Mercy felt the oddest, most overwhelming sensation that this was actually beneath her. She felt a little sick at her own ego, but couldn't, for the moment, shake the feeling that this was servant-type stuff. She paused in the middle of cracking a third egg into a separate bowl with the intention of removing the yolk (for herself, this one), and the feeling slowly passed. She tried to stop the idea from continuing to linger in her mind, however it had the same sort of effect as telling someone not to think about elephants. It plagued her mind for a while as the eggs fried in the pan, and Mercy was silent all the while.

[LEON NOEL]

There was no real way for Leon to be aware of Mercy's feelings on the subject of his blindness without having been asked about it or her outright telling him, and neither had happened, yet. Frankly, he probably didn't want to know, though there was the fact that there was nothing he could do to fix the blindness, so he might as well get some satisfaction in his ability to turn on his lady still. He wouldn't have wanted to think that there was a chance to preferred this (which she very well might, considering it meant she got to have him around so much more regularly), but if there were little things he did that she enjoyed, maybe he should have known about them. He actually couldn't help wondering why she wanted him at all, considering the frustration and trouble he'd been causing her for the past year.

Lack of faith in himself aside, he thought she affected happiness, or at the very least contentment, most of the time. He'd gradually gotten less difficult to live with and be around as he got more accustomed to his change in lifestyle, became more capable and regained a little of his confidence. Even now, the most frustrating thing in the world to him was being unable to do something that he felt he should be able to. Cooking, sadly, was an example of this, though he didn't mention it often. That was one of those things that he was working up to, and might actually try out sometime soon. In the meantime, Mercy's cooking was just fine with him. "Eggs and things sounds great," he offered, smiling a little and not concerned with what those 'things' were, and when she clarified, he was right not to worry about it.

She hadn't yet fed him anything he wouldn't like without a warning that it was burnt or only so-so. One thing he'd definitely give Mercy was that even if she wasn't a fantastic cook, she knew it and she was absolutely honest on that front. It wasn't nearly as bad as she thought it was, but then, she also didn't know the things that Leon had called meals in the past. Out in the wild during a mission or even while still in training, meals were sometimes scarce or built around luck and whatever else you could get. He wasn't complaining, especially if he wasn't stepping up to do it himself. He used to be able to cook fairly well (not gourmet craziness, but pretty decent dishes, some of them kind of complicated), but playing around with heat and raw ingredients worried him, and as much as he didn't want to screw it up and make a production of it, he also didn't want to have to have a babysitter and make a production of it.

Thus why he was still working up to it, and hadn't really done it, yet. One of these days, though, he would. He was getting antsier to try as time went on, and honestly, he'd like to do it for Mercy; not leaving her to cook at least one night would surely be a relief and he liked impressing her, which he didn't feel like he'd been able to do in a very long time. Actually, he still wasn't sure that he'd feel like he was at all impressing her, since it was such a simple task and he really didn't want to feel like a child who'd tied their shoes for themselves, but dealing with accepting help and the fact that some (basically all) tasks held a bit of a challenge for him was another thing he was working on. It was an uphill battle.

It was the fact that Mercy had been forced to make so many challenging changes that upset him the most about his own uselessness, though. He'd been very worried about being able to take care of her and provide for her, about assuring her parents that he was good for her, and now look at them. She was doing so much that she hadn't needed to before, and her parents thought he was a waste who was just a drain on their daughter. It was a serious blow to the ego.

With some of these thoughts so strong in his brain, namely the issue of cooking that had been hitting him more often lately, he took his coffee to the island counter and settled onto one of the stools without incident so that he could enjoy it and try to wake up a little. Mercy was being unusually quiet this morning, which he wasn't entirely sure was anything wrong (they'd gotten to bed a little late the night before), but it still got his attention after he'd gotten a few sips and she'd been cooking in silence. Maybe she was just tired? "How'd you sleep, baby?"

God, he hoped he hadn't kept her up again. He'd been better lately, but she'd said he talked in his sleep sometimes, and he'd had nightmares since the accident. He didn't remember anything odd, but he might not remember if he'd been talking.

[MERCY REGIUS]

The eggs were beginning to whiten and snap in the pan, demanding to be turned over, but Mercy only stared down at them. Servants? Since when did she think herself royalty? Pampered and well-off were the Regiuses, to be sure, and Mercy had a proud streak a mile wide, but she'd never gone so far as to entertain freaking caste system ideology and act like her advantages in life gave her reason to pass off her work to others. Mercy had always striven for personal achievement and would be the first to admit to the advantage her situation in life gave her. But servant-type stuff? That was cold, even for her.

It was Leon who brought her back to her senses, piping up after what Mercy hadn't realized was a bit of a while. "Hmm?" She started, looking up and behind her when he spoke. "Oh," she said as the question registered, and "Oh!" again when she realized the eggs wanted turning. She quickly picked up a spatula and tried to flip the eggs, but ended up breaking one yolk completely, and poking a sort of hole in the other so that the yellow seeped out slowly. Mercy swore softly but there was really nothing she could do but give it up as a bad job. She sighed a little at the mess in the pan, and reached for the bacon. "Fine," she finally answered him as she dropped a few pieces into the pan, the bacon instantly sizzling loudly so that she had to wait until it quieted to say anything else. "Pretty well, actually. Hope I didn't wake you--it was a bit cold last night." There was a sort of apologetic tone in her voice, and she didn't know Leon was thinking along vaguely the same lines in terms of waking up the other. Mercy had a habit of burrowing into Leon's side when they slept no matter what temperature it was, so it having been cold last night meant Mercy was in ultimate-clinging form. She'd never thought to ask if he minded, actually.

She was about to, but stopped herself when she thought she maybe didn't want to know the answer in the brutally honest form with which Leon would have been forced to answer. Plus, there was this super cool new wave of almost nausea that momentarily overtook her (on top of her previous woes), when something inside insisted that Leon should be so lucky as to share her bed anyway, like it was some sort of privilege. Alright. What the fuck was going on here? Where were these sick thoughts coming from and how could she make them stop? Mercy had to actually put down the spatula and lean on the counter for a moment when she thought she was going to hurl, but was careful to stay quiet so as to not worry Leon.

She didn't at all feel that way. If anything, she was still happy she'd made the right choice to dump Charles and live with Leon, and was relieved that Leon hadn't pushed her away when he was first injured. He certainly had enough on his plate then without having to worry about a clingy girlfriend too, and Mercy had really tried hard to tone it down for him. So these thoughts, whatever they were, were extremely unwelcome and extremely upsetting, and Mercy wondered vaguely, as she laid her head carefully on her folded arms to catch her breath, if she was going mad.

Breathing in was good. Breathing out was good. The pattern was good. She was just going to focus on that for minute while the the bacon burned in the pan. Steadily the wave of nausea subsided and Mercy slowly picked her head up. "Oh no," she groaned softly after peeking into the frying pan--breakfast was certainly ruined. "I destroyed your breakfast," she admitted as she clicked the burner off, staring dejectedly at the blackened mess that was previously eggs and things. "I'm sorry. Gimme a sec, I'll try again." Mercy sighed a little and scraped the mess into the garbage, then had to work up the courage to in fact try again.

If these thoughts were going to become a regular disturbance, Mercy wasn't sure what she was going to do. Maybe she was just stressed--her job had been hectic recently and she was constantly worried about getting things right with Leon. This certainly wasn't helping matters...

[LEON NOEL]

Without being able to see the trouble that Mercy was getting into with the cooking and the unusual thoughts, Leon at first sipped at his coffee as he woke up some, but the distracted way that she initially responded to his question was curious, and then there was no response after the more startled 'oh!', only movement and the sounds of cooking. He set the mug down and his brows furrowed in that direction at the soft sounds of her cursing, and the only reason he didn't get up and make his way over there right then was because she actually answered his question a second later. It sounded normal enough, so maybe whatever was bothering her had passed?

"No, I slept just fine, don't worry about it," he told her, not realizing that she was tempted to ask him if he minded when she went into clinging mode, or he would have told her without leaving her in suspense; he didn't mind in the slightest. When she was clinging to him in bed, that was more about comfort for her and less about smothering him with attention because he needed too much help. He enjoyed whatever moments he had that he could be strong and capable for her, and he sure as hell couldn't resent her wanting attention and affection after all of the trouble he'd put her through. There were plenty of days that he didn't understand why she wanted him around anymore, so when she actively sought out love and affection, he was more than willing to give it.

She went silent again after the sizzling of the bacon calmed down, and he went back to his coffee, guessing that perhaps she just had a lot on her mind about work or something, but his brain was picking back up on that red alert feeling when the smell of something burning struck him, and the mug went back to the counter and this time, he did get up. "Mercy?" he called, and just in time for her to apparently realize that she'd burned it and let him know she was going to try again. He stayed standing, one hand on the counter, and frowned in her direction, not so certain about the situation. This was one of those times that he absolutely hated what had happened to him, knowing that there was probably something wrong, but unable to grasp the full extent of it because he couldn't see all the details. It was so unbelievably frustrating that he sometimes couldn't stand it.

Fortunately, he didn't dissolve immediately into ridiculous levels of frustration, instead hesitating where he was standing. "I can do cereal or something for myself, if you want, it's not a big deal. Are you sure you're okay?"

Yeah, the breakfast was totally not a problem. Really, he didn't honestly expect her to cook much of anything, not knowing how uncomfortable with it she was, so he was usually prepared to either get something out or fend for himself now that he wasn't so sure about the cooking thing, either. He really just needed to fix that problem and get some practice in so that he could take some of that strain off of her, and he would have done it right then if he wasn't worried that it would turn into more stress on her if she felt like she had to babysit the venture. The idea of approaching her, so that he could at least try to read her body language, occurred to him briefly, but he didn't immediately try to. She was dealing with the stove and all, so he didn't want to just be in her way, which was one of the reasons he tried to plant himself at the counter any time she cooked. Should he retreat back to his seat?

[MERCY REGIUS]

Leon was standing and Mercy was fretting over upsetting and really, this very innocent venture had turned into something much more difficult than it needed to be. Mercy replaced the pan on stove and sort of looked at it, while Leon hesitated and offered to make himself cereal. "...Yeah, maybe that's a good idea," she resigned to his offer, placing a hand to her forehead. "I think I'm just gonna... sit..." She trailed off. She put the grapefruit halves into two bowls, informed Leon that half was his, then took her own to the island and didn't sit so much as slump onto the stool.

"I'm okay," she added when she lay her head on the cool surface in an attempt to dissuade any nausea from returning. "Might be getting sick, though. You should probably stand clear," she offered with a small laugh, though she was mostly just hoping that this was in fact just a very sudden case of the flu and not anything ominous. Because it felt ominous as hell. She couldn't pretend that was a good sign.

So far, this head-on-the-counter thing seemed to be working. It was keeping her from dry heaving into the nearest trash can, at any rate, which was appreciated. It gave her a moment to clear her head, and it didn't take too long before Mercy was filing whatever weird episode this was into manageable, distracting tasks, so she wouldn't have to focus on how much it overwhelmed her. She could instead focus on eating her breakfast. Then doing the dishes. Picking up the dry cleaning.The little tasks kept Mercy's thoughts distracted enough that she finally picked her head up and took a steadying breath.

"Anyway," she tried to say brightly as she considered the citrus before her, "tell me your plans for today." Her tone was inquiring but it wasn't technically a question. It wasn't really a demand, either, more of just an idle conversation starter in a way in which Leon could actually participate as Leon. Mercy tended to use these sort of command/question combos to side step the automatic answering, and she was a bit glad to have this intonation already established. Her brain wasn't really working right now--she wasn't up for being clever at the moment.

[LEON NOEL]

It wasn't like Leon was utterly starving, so once she agreed that maybe letting him do cereal for himself instead was a good idea, he was done with the whole breakfast plan for a little while. He could wait until she was gone off to work before he bothered, if she was going to work. If she wasn't feeling good, that was probably a worse idea than remaking breakfast, but it was strangely about as difficult for her to call out of work as it would have been for him before he left the military. It just wasn't something they really did unless it was really necessary, so she was probably going into work.

That didn't mean he wasn't concerned by her behavior, though. This was unusual, and even without seeing her with her head on the counter like she was, he recognized some of the weirdness. Could it just be the flu or something? "Sick, how?" he asked, walking back around the counter to where she'd sat down in one of the stools and definitely ignoring her suggestions about keeping his distance. Instead, he felt for her forehead, trying to figure out if she might have a fever. She didn't feel warm to his hand, so he leaned in and pressed his lips to her forehead (someone had told him that didn't work, but his mother had always done it, and she'd always been a good judge of fever and not), but she didn't feeling unusually warm. Maybe it wasn't a fever, but that didn't mean she wasn't sick.

"You don't feel like you have a fever, baby," he pointed out, kissing her head briefly before retuning to his own seat and his coffee. He also had half of a grapefruit to keep him occupied until he made some breakfast, so he was all set, and actually started messing around with the fruit as she asked about his plans for the day without actually asking. It was true that she sometimes sounded demanding and aggressive when she did that, but he appreciated it so much more than the questions for the sake of not sounding like she was handing out orders. He didn't take it in a demanding way, and he preferred to avoid the questions when he could.

His plans, like he had sooo many. "Well, you know me, busy busy. I'll do breakfast, hit up the dishes, you separated the knives out? Yeah, I'll take care of those, don't stress it. Maybe listen to some more of that Stephen King book. I'm gonna head out to the gym some time this afternoon, too. That's about it until you get home, and then I'm up for whatever you have in mind," he told her, and the sad thing was that his days typically looked something like that. He did laundry, but it was just the two of them, so they didn't use much, especially when Mercy had a bunch of nice things that couldn't go in the dryer and had to be washed in a delicate cycle that he didn't deal with (some of them were easy to pick out of the rest, some weren't), and he had a fancy Mac that talked to him so he could screw around on the internet and all, but he was bored.

Who could blame him? His days needed something more, like a job, but he hadn't really had a whole lot of luck with that, and he wasn't even really sure what Mercy's opinion of it was. He wasn't sure he even wanted to discuss it with her, but he'd asked around a few places about hiring, just to see. It didn't sound good.

"What about you? What kind of shoot are you doing today?"

[MERCY REGIUS]

Dammit, she hadn't meant to worry him, but Leon's blatant disregard for his own health even when Mercy had warned him against coming near her made her upset. She was going to tell him that it was okay, she'd be fine, but his hand had found her forehead like he was taking her temperature. "Sick how?" He asked before leaning to press his lips to her forehead in a manner he'd done with her before, once when they first started dating. Mercy hadn't encountered that as a way of taking a temperature before, so the situation at the time threw her off--what was he doing? She asked him, and Leon had told her it was something his mother had done to check his temperature, and Mercy found that seven different kinds of adorable and let him continue. That he was doing it now made her close her eyes and take a breath, comforted by his unwavering consistency.

"Mphm, dunno," she muttered when he leaned in, trying to think of an accurate way to describe the sickness she'd felt--just, minus the weird thoughts. "Nauseous, I guess. Light headed. It helps if I sit down." She smiled a bit weakly as Leon kissed her on the head and reported she didn't have a fever. "Oh," she commented smally, nodding a bit. "Good." She didn't need to be sick right now. She couldn't easily take off work and had before had to go whilst sick, so Mercy was good at publicly disguising her ill health. At home, however, even if she tried not to worry Leon, Mercy needed to be able to let herself just... be sick sometimes, since she couldn't be so anywhere else.

Leon sat down again and started picking at the fruit before him, talking about what he'd be doing that day while she was gone. Mercy smiled at his "busy busy" comment, though she couldn't help feeling a bit bad that Leon's days were nothing short of probably mind-numbing for him, especially when compared to his life in the SERE before his injury. Mercy "mhmm-ed" and "okay-ed" when necessary, listening to him as she scooped out a piece of grapefruit. She was about to pop it in her mouth when Leon returned the question, and Mercy paused with it halfway to her mouth. "Just a couple pages for Seventeen," she said carefully when she realized the smell of the grapefruit was a bit... off. "It's not going to take long. I should be back--ugh, god!"

Mercy quickly spit the piece of fruit out, frowning heavily and looking confused. It tasted horrid. Was it going bad? they only bought these a couple days ago! "Hold on, don't eat that!" She stopped Leon as he fiddled with his own half. "I think it's gone bad. Ugh," she groaned, "that was nasty." Mercy wondered if she really just sick after all (those thoughts, perhaps, some weird fluke). That was going to make the shoot today miserable but she'd have to bear it--maybe they'd get done quickly today and she wouldn't have to stick around after. She glanced at the clock--a little after 8--and sighed. She'd have to leave pretty soon. Maybe she should just skip eating altogether... Better to not puke all over the photographer, strictly speaking.

[LEON NOEL]

Leon wasn't really worried just yet, since she might not feel good, but didn't seem just yet to be terribly ill, but even if he had been, he wouldn't have kept his distance. That was unfortunate, since he had caught whatever nastiness she'd gotten the last time she was real sick, and it was a miserable experience. It was hard enough going about his daily routine sometimes as it was, but while sick, it was just brutal. It made him feel unsteady and sometimes disoriented, which didn't help him feed himself or get around; thank god he knew the layout of their apartment so well by now.

She'd told him in the past that his way of detecting temperatures was silly, but his mother had never failed to do it, so it was just ingrained in him. The theory was that your hands changed temperature based on the surroundings, what you were touching and what you were doing, so it was hard to tell the temperature of someone's skin; it made sense to him, since his mother's hands (and toes, damn it, like all women) had been prone to being cold pretty often. Your lips maintained their temperature, and were sensitive to differences, so feeling someone's forehead with your lips should make it easier to tell if they were too warm. He didn't know how accurate it was, but again, his mother had been a good judge of his temperature growing up, so he wasn't about to doubt it for no real reason. Mercy didn't feel like she had a fever right now, so he was willing to bet that she didn't have one, but that still didn't mean she wasn't sick. He hoped she wasn't, but she could still have some kind of bug without a fever, especially if it was a stomach thing. Ugh, he hated those.

"Are you going to be okay to go in today?" he asked, 'glancing' her way more out of habit than for any other real reason; he maintained mostly normal body language, including 'looking' at someone while conversing, just for some attempt at fitting in socially. People preferred it if you looked at them so that they knew they had your attention.

It wasn't like he didn't have faith in her ability to work through a bug, but stomach stuff...that was rough. He'd gotten some kind of food poisoning (he'd guessed) from something he'd eaten while stranded somewhere once, and he could push through, but it was a bitch; it was also a hell of a lot easier to take a second away from what you were doing in the woods to puke your guts out, but during a modeling photoshoot? Yeah, not really. Not that he thought Seventeen would want to reschedule, but did they want their model looking sick and throwing up? God, he hoped she didn't actually get that sick with it. Maybe it would pass and she'd feel better. Yeah, he was going with that until she stopped him from eating his grapefruit, telling him that she thought it had gone bad and how nasty it was, and his brows furrowed in confusion. It hadn't smelled bad from what he'd noticed.

"Are you sure it's bad?" he asked, sniffing at the piece she'd stopped him from eating, smelling only normal grapefruit, and without any real hesitation, popped it into his mouth. Yeah, he could be infuriating that way, but it didn't smell or taste bad. "Mercy, it tastes like grapefruit. Unless you were expecting orange, I think it's fine."

He didn't rush into the rest of the fruit, instead paying very close attention to any sounds or movement out of her, a little concerned now. She must not be feeling good. "Maybe you shouldn't go into work today. That, or try something else and see if you can stomach it. You can't go all day without eating."

[MERCY REGIUS]

"I really haven't got a choice," Mercy had resigned when Leon asked if she would be alright to go in today. Well she did, she supposed, have a choice. It was more of an ultimatum, really, like go in or never be hired back. Not to mention Mercy was already 26 years old; she didn't have much time left in this industry anyway, so she tried to get the most out of it while she still could--but she digressed. Leon returned to his seat and Mercy frowned down at herself, as if willing her stomach to cooperate with her today. Just a few hours, she begged herself before the grapefruit incident, and then she felt she wasn't really in the position to take orders anymore.

Leon attested that the fruit tasted fine and the tone in his voice fairly screamed how crazy she was being. Mercy wrinkled her nose at the plate and watched wearily as Leon took a bite for himself (the man was hopeless). Mercy gave him a flat sort of look when he did, entirely for her own benefit, but sometimes when he glanced at her the way he did, she felt like the message still got across. Not that it could: Mercy had gotten used to Leon's looking in the direction of the speaker, though of course his unfocused gaze was different than true eye contact. It comforted her nonetheless, to have him behaving in ways that made other people uphold routine (of such Mercy was a true advocate), but at the same time could only hope it wasn't a bother for Leon. Was it more of a habit?

"Maybe you shouldn't go into work today," Leon suggested, his dark eyes staring through hers. Mercy didn't have a chance to entertain the idea before he was offering her to at least try to eat something else, see if she could stomach it. Mercy glanced at the clock again and worried her lip, considering. "I haven't really got time," she said, hopping off the stool on that note (giving herself a moment to steady herself when she reckoned another wave of sickness was ready to take over). "I'll just grab some coffee at the shoot." Mercy's voice was calmer now, as much trying to convince herself as Leon. She walked around behind him, trailing her hands across his shoulders and giving them a quick squeeze as she leaned in to kiss his cheek. "I'm fine." She took a breath and kissed him again. "Or will be. I'll call you later, baby--let you know." The smile was back in her voice as Mercy began to regain control, and she was already grateful for the normality. She lingered a moment or two longer behind Leon, reluctant to leave when he had been so supportive.

But eventually Mercy turned to gather her things, taking a second or two longer that she normally would have just to keep herself in check. The day had a bit of a rocky start, granted, but Mercy was certain of her ability to push through it. Again she busied herself with little tasks (put on your shoes, button your jacket, grab your handbag), but still couldn't quite shake the idea that something was off. Just ignore it. Ignore it. It will go away. It will.