kore_logs | but you'll fight and you'll make it through

Entry tags:

but you'll fight and you'll make it through

Who: Ned and Daneel
What: ~~The human is malfunctioning~~ Ned is feeling under the weather.
Where: House 20
When: Evening, day 93
Warning: Contains illness. Does that earn a warning? Idk better safe than sorry

Ned's in denial for most of the day. He tells himself that the stinging in the back of his throat, which has been getting more and more pronounced since the night before, is nothing. At most, he's developing an allergy to something he ate. The fatigue, too, is only to be expected. That's what comes from having his dreams meddled with by insane scientists - even if the strange nightmares stopped several days ago. The heat, he dismisses as the change in the seasons; he makes the concession of taking off his usual cardigan and only wearing a t-shirt.

As the hours wear on, however, it gets harder and harder to justify the lie and ignore the fact that he's coughing almost as much as he's not-coughing. He tells himself that he's spent most of the day out of the house because he has things to do, but that's only partly true. He can't lie to himself. He knows that he's hiding, staying away from the house and from Daneel or possibly River. It's cowardly - particularly after he and Daneel had been over this before. He'd said that the next time something happened to him, that he was weak or injured, he wouldn't run away and avoid everyone.

So, shoulders slumped in defeat and increasing discomfort, he drags himself back to the house. He can't quite make himself go and knock on Daneel's door, but he tells himself that he's not being a coward. He isn't hiding, he just isn't making himself known, either. It's a proccess.

Instead, he slinks into his room and gets back into bed, even though the sun hasn't gone down yet. The coughs are deeper, now, starting to rattle in his chest in a way that actually quite hurts, and doesn't sound too pretty. The feeling of being too hot has passed and now his body has decided that it's cold, so he piles every blanket he has and a few jackets from the closet on his bed and curls up underneath them, trying not to make too much noise when he coughs and still breathe.

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Daneel has been out in any case, but when he returns, he's immediately aware of something amiss. Ned's presence is obvious to him, as soon as he draws near the room, but... the discomfort, the distress, the defeat, it's all very alarming. He thinks of wild animals and dangerous individuals, and he -- for once -- lets himself into Ned's room without pausing to knock.

Illness is nearly an entirely foreign concept for him. Spacers simply don't get sick, and he's never witnessed any disease, from the minor to the fatal. The closest he's ever seen was Elijah, when he was dying, and even that was different, though no less upsetting.

So to find Ned curled up under blankets and various jackets is distressing in the extreme. Daneel is at once at the bedside, gingerly placing a hand on Ned.

"You are... you are ill." He has no basis for comparison, no idea if this is serious or not. Ned cannot be ill, cannot be allowed to come to harm, an he's completely at a loss.

Ned had started to doze lightly; when Daneel comes in, the sound of the door stirs him awake. He recognizes Daneel's footsteps, opens his over-bright eyes to see that familiar face come into focus, backlit from the window and tight with worry. It catches up with him, belatedly, through the lightheadedness, that Daneel doesn't have much experience with illness. He'd been to Earth those few times, but people didn't get sick on Aurora, he'd said. Not like this, anyway.

With someone else, he might try to deny it. But Daneel deserves better than that, and Ned doesn't doubt he would be able to feel the change in his temperature, even more accurately than a human could. "It'd seem so," he croaks. He opens his mouth to try to reassure Daneel that it's not too bad, but coughs instead, covering his mouth with his fist and trying to stay as quiet as possible. A second elapses between the tail end of the rattling cough and when he can manage to inhale again; it's a short span of time, but a painful one, and Ned can't help his involuntary spasm of terror when he can't seem to breathe.

He struggles to sit up straighter, grimacing and rubbing a hand against his chest. "Sounds worse than it is," he mutters.

"But it sounds very serious," Daneel protests.

He touches his fingertips to Ned's forehead, ever so gently, and frowns. "Your body temperature is above what is normal for you. That is a fever. Is that not something serious?"

He's really not sure. It's not something he's ever had need to learn. Obviously, this is something he should rectify at the first possible opportunity, but for now... Ned's predicament is nothing less than frightening.

"Should I fetch medical aid?"

Daneel's fingers are pleasantly cool against his skin; he swallows, shutting his eyes and nodding softly to indicate that Daneel is right. He probably has a fever: it certainly feels like a fever. There's no other way to explain the way he can't seem to stop shivering, how weak he feels even when he isn't coughing.

"It's not serious," he pronounces, putting conviction into the words. It's easier to breathe now that he's sitting up. He hates that Daneel is seeing him like this. Part of it is force of habit - he's used to hiding this kind of thing - and part of it is the fear and urgency he can hear in Daneel's voice. Ned hates distressing him for any reason.

The offer to fetch aid earns an immediate and vehement shake of Ned's head, an almost snappishly impatient, "No." Ned rubs a hand over his eyes, irritated at himself immediately for speaking sharply to Daneel, explains, "Bruce is gone, anyway. And I- I don't trust that other lady. I'd rather not give her the opportunity to cut me up just because I've got a cold-" he breaks off into another loud cough that goes deep into his chest, makes his bones ache.

Daneel freezes at the sound of that one, vehement syllable; it has the force of a command behind it, and it's enough to make him pause where he is while he weighs out the First and Second Laws.

"I would not let anyone cut you up," he says after a moment. "Do you believe she would? I realise that with Bruce gone our options are limited, but if you must have aid then there may be no other choice."

There is nothing quite so terrifying as this sort of violent cough, and he has no idea of what is appropriate help in this situation. "If I cannot fetch medical aid then I must provide it, if I can. What do you need?"

Ned hesitates to answer. Of course, he believes that Mina would experiment on him, with or without his permission, but even in his feverish state some part of his mind realizes that his own fear of doctors and paranoia may be playing its part in that conviction, rather than the facts as they stand objectively.

"I don't know," he admits, voice small and rasping, as he tries to remember the exact details of what had been said, "I only spoke with her once, to explain my powers, because I was worried, since she's undead, that if we touched on accident she'd get hurt. I didn't want that to happen. Only then she started asking how it worked and if I would give her blood samples and- and it wasn't so much what she said as the way she said it." Ned admits, finally, "She frightens me."

Daneel is so still, looks so worried, that Ned concedes, "If it gets bad, I promise I'll go and see her, so long as... so long as you go with me?" It's a childish request, and a selfish one. He shouldn't treat Daneel this way, demand his presence, set ultimatums. But he's feeling weak enough that his usual inhibitions and hesitations are already worn down.

In the meantime, though, Daneel's offer to look after him instead is far preferable. Doctors, he isn't comfortable with, but self-medication is how he's gone so long without needing to see them. "If you don't mind... there's probably medicine in the clinic. Over the counter stuff - something for coughs and fevers." He feels bad, though, making Daneel fetch for him, so he pushes the blankets from off him and moves to stand up, "I can come with you."

"No," Daneel says at once, and he places his hand on Ned's shoulder to hold him down. "You are in no position to go anywhere. You must stay here, in bed, so that your condition does not worsen."

He doesn't have enough experience with Mina to judge why she might frighten Ned so badly, but he wouldn't inflict her on him without due cause. "I will come with you to see Mina if it is necessary. I will not let her take blood samples unless she can convince me that she must do so to treat you." It's a promise, a very solemn one.

"For now, though, you should stay here. I will go find medication for you. You should stay here, in bed, and I will be swift."

Ned shouldn't be up and about, anyway, and Daneel isn't keen on leaving him behind, but he can move far more quickly without him.

Ned doesn't argue; he gets back under the covers without fuss, pulling them all the way up to his nose and peering out at Daneel. It is still a bizarre thing, letting someone else take care of him, but oddly... nice. Or at least, it would be nice, if it didn't come hand in hand with feeling like something the cat had dragged in, and the knowledge that he's scaring Daneel.

"I'll stay here," he promises, letting his eyes slip shut. It's an easy enough thing to agree to, considering how much his head is spinning from that small amount of movement. He probably made it worse, he thinks, pretending he didn't notice the early signs all day, wearing himself out. "Thank you, Daneel."

He smiles, then, a small and wavery thing, to show that he really is okay, for the most part.

Daneel nods, but it's a hesitant gesture, and he looks intently at Ned for a moment. He's weighing a number of things: how likely Ned is to comply with this request, the need for medication, the unhappy necessity of leaving Ned alone.

"I will be as quick as I can," he promises, and he turns to go.

Once he's out of the house, he breaks out into a sprint, and he can move quickly and tirelessly when he needs to. It makes for a short trip to the clinic, and he finds what he needs easily enough, reading the labels and considering his options.

Finally, with what seems like a likely supply, he sprints back, not wanting to leave Ned alone any longer than necessary, because he is not convinced that Ned will be all right. He slips back into the bedroom, anxious and eager.

"I have found some things I believe will help, Ned." He draws near, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

Ned might not be the best when it comes to tending his own health, but he is the sort of person who keeps his promises. When he tells Daneel he's going to stay in bed, he means it. It isn't as if he'd really have time to do much, either. It seems like only a matter of seconds before Daneel is coming back through the door. The trip is so quick, in fact, that Ned is sure that he encountered some problem, came back prematurely to ask another question. But he sees the boxes of pills clutched in Daneel's hands and just has to conclude that he must have run there and back. As quick as he can is clearly very quick, indeed.

"You're like a rabbit," Ned comments, and it takes longer than it usually would for him to realize that the sentence probably makes very little sense to Daneel. "I mean, that was really fast."

When Daneel sits on the bed, Ned perches his chin on his shoulder, leaning on him a bit more heavily than is usual. It's nice, too, how warm Daneel is. Ned clings to him, looking down at the various options. He picks one that looks promising and opens it, shaking out a few brightly-colored capsules into his hand and swallowing them without delay.

"I'm glad you didn't get sick when you were a human," Ned says. The usual process of filtering his words, considering their impact and advisability, seems to have been compromised along with his health. "It's not all that fun."

"It does not seem to be an enjoyable experience," Daneel agrees.

He's monitoring Ned's dosage carefully, notes its appropriateness, has already memorized the maximum recommended dosage on the packaging. No harm will come to Ned that way, either. He slides an arm around Ned supportively.

"I ran. I did not wish to leave you alone and unwell for any longer than was strictly necessary." His anxiety is clear. As far as he's concerned, Ned isn't permitted to be ill. If something is amiss, then he has to fix the situation.

And humans cannot be fixed in this manner.

"You would tell me, of course, if this is a serious matter that does require prompt medical attention?" Because he can't tell. He doesn't have the experience.

Ned can hear that anxiety and frustration, can feel it in the way Daneel can't seem to stay still. Anyone else might not think it were possible for a robot to be fidgety, but they would be entirely incorrect.

If he were thinking more clearly, he might be able to provide more solace, make a logical argument for why Daneel didn't need to trouble himself so much. And he does try, mumbles, "I'd tell you. It's just a little fever. Happens to people all the time. Surprised more people haven't been getting sick, considering the food's rationed and the... lack of sleep thing."

But that was no good at all. He oughtn't be making Daneel paranoid that there are more ailing humans around the Cape, or that there will be. "Should last a couple days, maximum. That's normal." Daneel is still looking at him with that half-panicked confusion, so Ned rubs a hand up and down his back, knowing that touch doesn't have quite the same comforting effect for Daneel, but hoping that the gesture will translate well enough. He is trying not to think too hard about the strain that seeing him like this might cause to Daneel's positronic pathways. But he can only not-think so much, so he says, mirroring Daneel's phrasing, "And you'd tell me, of course, if seeing me like this were... were hurting you in any kind of permanent-?"

Which is as far as he gets before another wet, horrible cough shakes through him, leaving him momentarily unable to inhale. When he does manage, it's a high, frightened sound, shaky with exhaustion and fear from that second of not being able to breathe.

"Lie back," Daneel insists, pressing Ned back into the bed. It isn't the fever that alarms him so much. He's at least intellectually aware that fevers can be beneficial, are part of the immune system response, even if it's new and unfamiliar and worrying. That cough, though -- that is horrendous, and he doesn't know how to deal with that.

Watching Ned be ill is distressing, but probably not permanently so. Were he to die -- well, he doesn't know. He doesn't want to find out.

He's also worried enough to not answer Ned's question aloud.

"What can be done to ease your breathing? The medication will surely help, but that will take some time to have an effect. What in the meantime can make you more comfortable?"

Ned knows that Daneel heard him. He takes Daneel's silence as a very bad sign. If Daneel thought his honest answer would upset Ned, he would probably choose to not answer, wouldn't he? Which means that that is likely the case, now. Which, in turn, would mean that seeing him ill and not being able to immediately ameliorate it could be hurting Daneel, significantly, irrevocably.

Even at the best of times, Ned's sense of proportion can be somewhat skewed. In matters concerning Daneel, it is even moreso, because Ned cares about him so much. Add to that the way the lack of oxygen just now has his head spinning, and the effects of the fever, and he's in a very irrational state. A more reasonable Ned would explain to Daneel that hurting himself looking after Ned would only hurt Ned more in the long-run; a more reasonable Ned would come up with a plan, would trick Daneel into leaving him for some other reason. But he isn't capable of that kind of cunning right now, so what he does instead is babble:

"If being around me's gonna hurt you, you need to leave. I don't want you-" the sentence is broken in half by another cough, smaller this time, more brought on by the urgency with which Ned is speaking than anything else. During that gap he changes his mind, "-but I shouldn't kick you out, that's- I'll go to River's. There are some empty rooms there, I'll go stay there for a few days and you won't have to worry. I can take care of myself. I took care of myself plenty of times before and I can do it again. I've got the medicine now-" Ned reaches over to take the rest of the bottle, pushing it into his pocket, "-and thanks for getting it for me. You really helped. I'll just make some tea when I get there and it'll be like I'm not even sick."

At which point he rolls to the other side of the bed, where Daneel is not, sitting up and reaching for his shoes, trying not to cough as he bends down to pull them on with every intention of walking out of the house that moment. Daneel had told him, after the incident with the tiger, not to do this kind of thing, but Daneel doesn't always know what's best for himself, Ned thinks.

"Don't worry about harming me, Ned. You are in far worse condition than I am."

Daneel takes hold of Ned's elbow, and his grip is gentle but also inexorable. "You are not going anywhere. I will not permit you to go anywhere. You are in no state to travel even so short a distance. I will ensure that you stay in bed as much as possible."

Such a rare thing for him to give commands like that, and in a sense they are exactly commands, but at this point, the First Law is very strong, far stronger than the Second, far stronger than anything else. He takes away Ned's shoes, and steers him back into the bed.

"I will make you tea, if that will help."

Ned reaches for the shoes after Daneel snatches them away, but he doesn't have it in him to fight back any more than that. His own weakness is proving Daneel right and he absolutely hates it. He doesn't resent Daneel's uncharacteristic assertiveness so much as he does his own corresponding passivity. He sinks back into the bed and turns so that he's facing away from Daneel, curling his knees up close to his chest. It may be childish, but he doesn't care. What's the point in acting stoic about it when he knows Daneel would see right past it, to the roiling guilt and concern and self-disgust underneath. He can't seem to stop himself from shivering, hates himself fervently for acquiescing so easily even though it might be detrimental to Daneel.

It's such a familiar pattern of thinking, after all; a fear so well-worn around the edges that it's easy to fall prey to, with his faculties compromised. Letting himself get into this state (and he does think of it that way, as if it's his fault for getting sick) hasn't just left him feverish and miserable: he's made Daneel miserable in the process. "I can't just decide not to worry about you, you know."

The only option (because he knows he's no match for Daneel even on his best day - if Daneel wants him to stay in that bed, he is staying in that bed) left for him is to make as little fuss as he can and hope that the illness runs its course quickly, that Daneel doesn't stress himself too much in the meantime.

"There are a few tea bags in the cupboard by the stove," he says. Then, more quietly, he adds, "Sorry about all this."

"You don't need to apologise," Daneel insists. He smooths his hand over Ned's face, a gentle touch. "I will take care of you."

And he will. Even if he doesn't know all the details he can learn, and he will do what he can, and Ned will be fine -- because the alternative is something he can't even think about properly.

He tucks the blankets in around Ned, finding some comfort in action, at least.

"I will make you tea. Be still."

Daneel slips from the room, down to the kitchen to make some tea. Tea, unfortunately, cannot be hurried, and every moment that he is away from Ned with him out of sight is difficult.

He returns with tea presently, a steaming mug of it, and he approaches the bed carefully.

Daneel touching his face like that, tucking him into bed so carefully, sends a wave of emotion through Ned, an odd mixture of sadness and what he thinks of as fragility, threaded inside gratitude and surprise and something quite close to adoration. It lingers, even after Daneel has walked out of the room.

When Daneel comes back Ned sits up, glad for the interval alone to get a hold of himself, wrestle his emotions beck to some semblance of normalcy. For Daneel's sake, if not for his own.

"Too good to be true," he croaks, reaching up for the tea and smiling at Daneel. The tea is a great help, and he sips it tentatively while it's still very hot. If he doesn't breathe too deeply, his chest doesn't hurt quite so much, either. What he most wants now, despite himself, and despite his continued worry, is company.

"You're not... used to this, are you?" Ned asks. He's not used to people taking care of him while he's sick, and Daneel's not used to being around people who are sick (though caring for people isn't even second nature, for him - it's his first nature). "Didn't you say once that on Aurora people don't really get sick?"

He watches Ned sip the tea with a certain amount of unease -- it is very hot, after all -- but he sits on the bed, trying to contain himself.

"No. The worlds colonised by Spacers had no native bacteria or viruses that could infect humans, at least none that survived terraforming. Simple sterilisation techniques ensured they brought none with them. Disease was not a concern." He shakes his head. "After so long, they lost most of their resistance to disease. Even a very minor bacterium could have been fatal to them."

He wants, in a way that's strange to him, to hold Ned's hands just to communicate how very worried he is, how precious Ned is to him. Ned's handsa re busy. He restrains himself.

"The only time when I saw any human being ill in typical way was when I visited partner Elijah. He was very old, and dying."

Ned is a fleetingly jealous when Daneel confirms that Aurorans lived lives entirely free of disease. True, Ned dislikes being ill as much as the next person, but he has no particular bas associations with disease. Illness has not played a large or tragic role in his life thus far. He has never lost anyone he loved to it, has never been gravely ill himself, either as a child or as an adult. Which is why, upon reflection, he decides that it's not really preferable, after all.

So he continues to take little sips of the tea, blowing across the surface to cool it now and then, letting his thoughts gradually form themselves into something cohesive. When he speaks again he sounds a touch better, the scratchiness in his voice less pronounced for the moment. "Aurora sounds so... dull. Not dull like an afternoon lecture on the history of taxes, I mean dull like a knife that needs sharpened. It seems to me that the things which make life worth living are often equal parts joy and misery, and on Aurora, they were so eager to get rid of the misery that they accidentally threw out the joy, too. The whole baby and the bathwater conundrum."

When Daneel says he visited Elijah when he was old and dying it puts a stop to Ned's other trains of thought and focuses his diffuse attention on Daneel. He always pays closer attention, when Daneel speaks to him about Elijah; he knows what a huge role he played in Daneel's early life.

"That must have been incredibly difficult for you," he murmurs. Something about the way Daneel's holding himself, some signal or quality in his voice or features, makes Ned lean his cheek against Daneel's shoulder, heaving an inadvisably long sigh that devolves into small, gasping coughs at the end. He is quick to palliate them with sips of the tea.

"Perhaps this is true. It was certainly my opinion that such a society was doomed to stagnation, and eventually collapse, as society on Earth also was. It was an unfortunate situation."

Daneel peers anxiously at Ned while he coughs. He wants to intervene, but it's all too clear to him that he can do, should do nothing, at least not yet.

"Partner Elijah himself on more than one occasion made it clear that in some circumstances, preventing him from carrying out a particular action which would harm him would cause him more harm than the action itself. To me this seems contradictory, but I also can accept it as true. Sometimes humans must force themselves through harm to achieve something better."

But to think of Elijah now... He chooses his eyes a moment, reliving that memory, running through every word, every strained breath, every line on Elijah's face. If it were not so troubling to think of, he might draw that.

"Partner Elijah was very old, and very ill. I could not recognise him, in fact, which was troubling." Daneel shifts, holding Ned against him. That is comfort for them both. "He would not let me stay, for fear that seeing him die would cause me harm, but he wished to see me. Once I had left the room, he... I believe that the term is 'let go.'"

The thought of Daneel not being able to recognize Elijah in his advanced age gives Ned a quick, unexpected chill that has nothing to do with the fever. Even in the best case scenario, in which the two of them somehow remain together for as long as possible, he is going to age. He is going to grow ill, the way Elijah did, become unrecognizable. Ned's never been all that frightened of aging, of illness, of death, for his own sake. Of all the things that frighten him in the world, those had no hold.

But it's different, now that he's become involved with Daneel. Now that he knows Daneel cares for him, in his way, without being like him. Daneel will not grow old, will not get sick, will not 'let go' within the foreseeable future.

"That was kind of him," Ned murmurs. Smart, too, considering the Laws, but also a mercy in its own way. It occurs to him that Daneel hasn't always had that luxury. He'd been right there, with Giskard dying in his arms. He must know that, Laws or no Laws, watching someone you care about die is a very difficult thing. "It sounds to me like he cared about you a great deal."

Thinking of Daneel's safety, wanting to see him at the very end of his life. It flits through Ned's mind that perhaps someday Daneel will be speaking of him to someone else, the way he's speaking of Elijah to Ned now. It's hard to ignore the fragility of his own body, in its current compromised state. So he drinks a little more of the tea and says, quietly. "I'm not dying, Daneel. You don't have to worry about that." He knows how things can get tangled up in a mind, how Daneel may be associating his own comparatively minor illness with losing Elijah.

"I... I believe he did care. He did not like me initially, and resented that he had to work with me, but he came to consider me a friend." It's only fact, and he explains it calmly, but it's a precious thought for him. Partner Elijah was his friend, perhaps his first. "I do know that he requested his first grandson to be named for me."

And that was a significant gesture, he knows, even if he's not sure why Elijah did it.

"Partner Elijah spoke to me, then, of humanity as a tapestry, and of the relative unimportance of individual threads, though all are a part of the greater pattern."

But his attention is on Ned, and Daneel puts a hand on Ned's knee. "I know that you are not dying," he says, earnestly, "but you are suffering, and I can do nothing to stop it. I wish I could do more, but I am powerless. It is.... distressing."

Ned is glad that Elijah was able to overcome his resentment and prejudice (which as far as Ned is concerned is the only reason anyone could not like Daneel from the moment they met him) and become so close to Daneel.

"He named his grandson after you?" Ned asks, though he heard Daneel just fine the first time. "That's- you must have been extraordinarily important to him, for him to do that."

He thinks of that image - of humanity as a tapestry. It's an interesting way of looking at it, and not one that might have occurred to Ned on his own. It's all a bit too large for him, to try to encompass the whole, even conceptually. He's always been the type to focus on individual threads: the threads which are the lives of those around him. Ned never has been, and doesn't think he ever could be, the kind of person who could see the pattern of the tapestry. Not enough distance. But he can do what is in his power to make the people around him just that little bit happier, and all that effort will have a ripple effect, will spread out and touch people he's never even met.

"I'm not suffering," Ned insists, backs it up with a little smile, "I'm just... a tiny bit uncomfortable, and it shouldn't last more than a few days. Always had a pretty good immune system." That may be an understatement of how wrecked his body feels at the moment, but he does honestly think the word 'suffering' is too much. "And you're not powerless. You made me tea and you're keeping me company. That's totally powerful."

"I did not know of his decision until many years later," Daneel says. "I became acquainted with a descendant of his, Daneel Giskard Baley, known as D.G. Apparently, both names were common in his family."

He looks at Ned carefully a moment or two, assessing the truth of what he says. How powerful can this be, sitting here with him and making tea? It seems like very little, far too little.

"This is a very unsatisfactory way for an immune system to function," he says. "Ideally, it would be possible to fight a biological threat without you becoming so ill."

That makes Ned smiles even more, though in a quiet sort of way; Elijah must have been a very particular kind of man, to name his grandson after Daneel and then never tell him about it - to want to speak with him before he died, but to leave him in doubt that he cared about him. Though that last part might be down to Daneel's own reluctance to believe he could mean anything to a human, rather than any lack of overt affection on Elijah's part. There's no way for Ned to really know. Everything he's heard about the man has been filtered through Daneel.

"No arguments about that here. I'm sure all this-" and he waves a hand vaguely at himself, flushed cheeks, fever-bright eyes, his raw from coughing, "-has some biological purpose it's serving, it's just r-" he gets cut off by another hard cough, ends up pushing the still quite full mug into one of Daneel's hands in a mute plea to hold it for a moment so he doesn't spill it. Once the cough has raked its way through him and left him wheezing for air, he finishes, in a voice made tiny by the strain, "-ather inconvenient. Much like needing to breathe all the time. Not at all ideal."

That, Ned thinks, may be a sensation that Daneel did experience, if for different reasons. Their rather ill-advised trip to the beach back when Daneel was human and they were only just getting to know one another. He'd been tumbled by the waves, had been underwater for a short interval. It's not quite the same, but close enough for Daneel to understand why it causes him that instinctive pang of fear, each and every time.

But he's determined to keep talking, to draw Daneel's attention as much as possible from his own temporary discomfort and towards the fact that he's still lucid and as content as can be expected given the givens. "I can't imagine not needing to breathe. Or never getting sick, never feeling tired or hungry or sore. Design versus evolution, I guess. Robots are really much more ideal. Humans bodies are... not very durable."

"Coughing," Daneel says uncertainly, "is a reflex intended to rid the lungs of obstruction, to clear the airways of debris, irritants, or excess mucous. It is... unfortunate that it can also be so uncomfortable."

He doesn't think of his own body as being superior, only different, and to hear Ned say so is... well, something of a surprise. He's in the very unique situation of having experienced both, after all.

"I would not say that my own construction is ideal." He shakes his head, very slightly. "I am different, but that is all. You are more vulnerable, but you exist with an intensity which I lack. I... I remember pain, and discomfort, and fear, and these are unpleasant things of course, but to also experience the joy and intense pleasure you are capable of is perhaps an equal exchange."

Ned can't help but smile when Daneel recites what sounds like a very basic dictionary definition of coughing, so ingenuously, as if Ned really didn't understand. He takes the mug of tea back from Daneel's hands, drinks some more of it, and the warmth of the tea is very soothing to his aching throat. It's also possible he's let himself become dehydrated, because now that the tea has cooled enough to manage it, he finishes it quite quickly, sets the mug on the bedside table. That done, he nestles himself against Daneel, head falling to his shoulder, listening to his arguments.

He's got a point, of course. He may never have to gasp for breath, may never go hungry or feel asleep on his feet, but he also can't feel the warmth of sunshine on his skin after waking up from a summer nap, can never eat a perfect slice of peach pie, can't do a hundred other things that Ned takes for granted.

"You're right," Ned concedes, with a little exhale, letting his eyes slip shut. "I wish I could give you all of the good without any of the bad, if you wanted it. I hate the thought of having something that you can't have. It seems so selfish."

Daneel cradles Ned against his side, considering.

"I don't wish to be other than what I am, Ned." He shakes his head, very slightly. "I... enjoyed my time as human, but I also found it to be overwhelming in a way that I cannot properly process. Perhaps I would become accustomed to it in time, but... I am comfortable with what I am."

But that's not quite true. He has to be honest with himself; self-deception is not something he's comfortable with.

"I did enjoy taste. I remember your pie. If it were possible, I would like to be able to taste again."

Ned is quite flattered by that. If there's one thing he knows he is really good at, one thing he takes pride in, it's his ability to bake pies. He's glad that he had the opportunity to share that with Daneel, and that Daneel enjoyed it enough to miss it now, even though he is otherwise happy with his body and the way it experiences the world.

Beaming, he says, "Stranger things have happened. Maybe you'll get a chance. You only tried one kind, after all. There are so many others. If the opportunity arises, I'll make you as much pie as you can eat."

As they are talking, Ned starts to feel himself shiver. He gets under the covers and drawing Daneel with him and keeping him close, shamelessly stealing whatever body heat he can. "It's funny isn't it? Looking back on that day. I barely knew you. You must have thought I was pretty strange. I didn't realize- I didn't know things would turn out the way they did."

But he's so glad they did, wouldn't change it for the world.

Daneel settles himself around Ned, holding him close, protectively.

"I did not think you were strange at all," he says. "It was kind of you to indulge me when I was exploring new experiences. Not everyone would have been so patient with me, nor so understanding when I found it overwhelming. I... appreciated it."

He's silent for a moment, then adds, "I did not expect anything like this either."

To say the least -- he hadn't known that he could be so drawn to an individual, that he could be permitted this sort of thing.

"I have been very... very lucky."

"You're not the only one," Ned murmurs. He is the same, though for different reasons. If someone had told him, before he'd come here, that he'd be where he is right now, with someone like Daneel, loving and trusting him in the way that he does, he wouldn't have believed them. A tiny part of him is still worried that it's all a dream, a hallucination, that he'll wake up in his apartment and none of it will have been real.

Things certainly have a strange air of the unreal, right now, as the medicine starts to kick in. He notices that he's breathing easier, even though he's lying down, that his head is light and it's hard to keep his eyes open, to regulate what he's saying out loud. Had he said all that, about it being like a dream, or only thought it? Ned lets his mind drift over the memories of that first afternoon with Daneel, over the next one, and all the times since.

"Stay?" Ned mumbles, even though Daneel already said he would, even though he'd said there was nowhere he'd rather be.

"Of course, Ned." Perhaps he said that already, but he doesn't mind repeating it. Reassurance is such an easy thing to give, after all, and Daneel does nothing insincerely.

"I will be here."

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but you'll fight and you'll make it through

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