“Young man, it’s your turn to take dinner,” Steven said from his spot by the window. He was holding a steaming mug of coffee, clad in his usual suit and a yellow tie.
Leo perked up from his half-asleep haze. “Huh?” he looked at the time, “Oh. Yeah. Right. I’ll be back soon then.”
“If you see Zapp, tell him to haul his ass back here,” Chain called out after him.
Steven and Klaus watched the young man leave the hall, and shared a worried look.
“Was Leonardo always this unbalanced on his feet?” Klaus asked.
“He is surefooted,” Chain remarked from her spot by the bookshelves. “Steady on his feet, except when encountering surprises.”
“Ah, well he seemed pretty tired,” Steven shrugged, “maybe it’s that. Nothing to really worry about.”
Klaus, however, was still worried.
~
Leonardo returned to the office an hour later, carrying a steaming take out cup.
“What you got there, pube-head?” Zapp asked as he placed his elbow on Leo’s head, using it as an arm rest.
“Tea.”
“You’re a tea drinker?” Zapp looked down to the young man, “Man, I knew the boss liked tea, didn’t put you down for a sophisticated tea drinker.”
Leo scrunched up his nose. “I’m usually not.” He didn’t elaborate.
Ignoring Zapp, who was still waiting for the usual Leo-tastic response to his teasing, Leo moved to the sofa and sat down with his steaming cup. He left Zapp standing rather hilariously with his elbow still in the air, but leaning on nothing, which of course made him lose balance and stumble.
“What kind of tea is that, Leonardo?” Klaus asked from his usual place by the computer.
“How could you te—oh nevermind,” Leonardo sighed, “It’s just some regular boring ole’ mint tea.”
Klaus and Gilbert shared a look, and the stately butler slipped out silently. Chain waved at him as she entered the hall from the back, returning from her own errand.
“Here’s the latest from the information broker,” she said, placing a file on Klaus’s desk. “It wasn’t a very productive visit.”
Klaus opened the file and browsed its contents, and hummed to himself. “Did he ask for full price too?”
“Tt, yeah, but I set him on the correct mindset,” Chain admitted.
The office slipped into well-known monotony. Steven was making phone call inquiries into various open cases, Chain was bothering Zapp, and Zed was nowhere to be found.
(When asked about Zed, Zapp intelligently said, “He’s busy chatting up some gal of the piscine variety, probably relating to tentacles.” He was ignored.)
A sneeze from Leo interrupted the daily monotony.
Zapp burst out laughing. “You sneeze like a kitten!” he managed to get out between breaths.
“I do not!” Leo rebutted.
“He’s right,” Chain said, “you do sneeze like a kitten.”
Leo was wracking his slower-than-usual brain for a clever seply, when Gilbert saved him and placed another steaming cup of mint tea in front of him. He left again without a word, leaving the three to stare at the invasive cup.
“Woah, you’re in for a treat!” Zapp smiled, “Gilbert’s teas are apparently the best, not that I would know anything about it.”
Leo looked around somewhat lost, searching for the butler. “I wanted to thank him…” he mumbled, and brought up the cup to his nose. He imagined that it would smell very nice if only his sense of smell was functional. All-Seeing-Eyes-Of-The-Gods or not, they can’t help you through a stuffed nose. Speaking of said eyes, it was getting kind of hard to control the amount of information he was seeing, even with his eyes closed.
“You alright, Leo?” K. K. asked. She entered the room when Leo was busy contemplating the cup of tea, and he didn’t notice. Way to go, you who is supposed to have the best eyesight. A+ awareness.
“Y-yeah, nothing to worry about!” he laughed and scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. With one hand still holding the china teacup, he could feel a cough building up. Not good. Now that he thinks about it, he hasn’t really gotten a cold after getting the eyes. Oh crap.
When Leo finally couldn’t put off the itching in his throat, he began coughing. For a moment, the only sounds in the office was the coughing and the soprano of the china cup shattering. He temporarily lost control over his All-Seeing-Eyes and hijacked the eyesight of the person he last looked at – K.K.
She stumbled, alerting Chain, who materialised at her side in a moment to steady her. Clutching her head, K.K. turned to face the direction she thought Leonardo was in.
The fit subsided, and Leo covered his eyes. “I am so sorry, K.K.!”
Steven joined Chain at K.K.’s side, and Klaus worriedly looked at the scene. “Are you getting ill, Leonardo?”
“I think so – and ah! I’ll clean this up right away sir.” He wasn’t quite sure if he’d be able to handle cleaning it up, feeling as he was currently feeling, but he couldn’t just leave this mess.
Chain stopped Leo from getting up from his spot on the sofa, and K.K. arrived at his side.
He looked pitifully up at her, “I’m so sorry—“
K.K. stopped him before he could go any further, “It’s not your fault,” she said. The sniper placed her palm on his forehead as she had done many times to her own son. “You have a slight fever, someone should take you home.” She pondered for a moment, “Then again, you live alone, so maybe one of us should just take you home with them.”
Leo turned bright red, “N-no thank you! I’m an adult; I can take care of myself just fine!” To illustrate this point, he got up and made for the door, only to trip over the table and almost fall. Zapp caught him by his arm at the last moment, looking worried.
“Your eyes are troubling you,” Klaus said. He had moved from behind his desk, standing beside Steven. “Due to your unique situation Leonardo, it might be best if someone stayed with you.”
“Yeah especially since he managed to miss something as big as this table,” Zapp added.
Steven nodded, wearing an expression he reserved for mission briefings. “Very well,” he started, “who is free tonight?”
“For the last time, I don’t need a babysitter!” Leonardo said, wrenching his arm from Zapp’s grip. He turned to Steven, “I’m taking tomorrow off.”
With that, he turned to the door and left the members of Libra stunned.
K.K. recovered first. “I hope he’s not about to drive home like that.”
Steven brushed his bangs back. “Oh boy, we might have been a bit too forceful on him.”
Klaus shook his head. “No, we were correct. There is no telling what even the common cold can do to him with those eyes.”
Getting the clue, Chain said, “I’ll follow him back to his apartment.”
“Thank you Chain,” he said
“I’ll switch stakeout with you later,” K.K. volunteered, “I’ll find a nice perch on a rooftop somewhere and watch him through my scope.”
Zapp grimaced, “That sounds like an awful invasion of his privacy, poor kid.”
Chain smirked. “I don’t think we need to worry about him getting into “enjoyable” activities, unlike some piss-smelling monkey in the room right now.”
“What did you say, you dog-woman!”
Chain was gone by the time Zapp turned around.
~
Almost crashed into a car but survived. Chain sent to the rest of the members. She almost leapt down to interfere and blow her cover, but Leo recovered fast enough.
She had no idea how the illness would affect the All-Seeing-Eyes, but she really didn’t have an idea about normal colds either. If she wracked her brain enough, she could remember Steven mentioning something about blood techniques providing stronger than usual immune systems, and she was a werewolf…
“Seems like only K.K. would know…” she mumbled.
Leonardo didn’t have blinds - Chain thought that they’ll need to fix that later - so it was easy to see what he was up to, especially with the lights on. He was walking very slowly, his balance was off. The rest of the windows in the building were dark, it was quite late.
They were lucky it was so, because Leo stumbled and Chain felt a sudden wave of nausea and her sight was taken over for a moment. He doesn’t know she’s here, so it could not have been a targeted attack like with K.K.
Chain frowned. Another sight episode, this time untargeted. She texted to K.K. and Steven.
u ok? came the reply from K.K.
Yeah it was short.
Predictably, there was no reply from Steven.
After a quick trip to the bathroom, Leo entered the bedroom and closed the light.
Chain yawned and got out her cellphone for some games to pass the time.
After playing through all the games installed on her phone and killing a few hours, she got back to Leo-watching. Thinking back, he didn’t really have a pre-sleep meal. Do humans need those? Probably. Who wouldn’t want extra food?
She could spare a few minutes to run down to the convenience store she spotted on the corner and dump some food at the foot of his bed.
The convenience store was a small privately owned store by a Beyondian and so didn’t keep usual huma hours. She picked up some cool ranch doritos, nuts (gotta be healthy), pop, and a Beyondian snack that didn’t quite look like eyeballs but it did (the wrapper assured her that this was fully vegetarian). Paying the half-asleep cashier, she ran back to Leo’s place and materialized in his bedroom. In any other case, this would have been really awkward, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
She carefully dumped the pile of food on the floor - she considered the mattress but didn’t want to wake him - and winced at the crackling. The sick kid just gave a barely audible sigh and rolled over onto his stomach.
“Heh, he’s kinda cute sleeping,” she smiled.
He chose that moment to sneeze, and his eyes acted up. Chain swore. The fit lasted longer than the earlier ones, Leo taking a few moments after the sneeze to re-orient himself.
He noticed her. “Ch-ch-chain!” He pulled up the covers to his chest.
Chain, sense of balance coming back gradually, belatedly noticed that he was sleeping with his chest bare. Keeping a poker face, she waved in what she hoped was a trippy manner, and disappeared. Hopefully he’ll think that it was a figment of his imagination.
~
In about an hour, K.K. came to relieve Chain of her shift. Funny how they were treating this like a stakeout mission rather than… whatever this was.
“Anything interesting happen?” K.K. asked, making her way across the roof.
“Except where I convinced Leo that he hallucinated me dumping food in his room, nothing,” Chain answered in deadpan.
K.K. raised an eyebrow.
“Well he didn’t have a second dinner, so I bought some food at the convenience store on the corner, and he sneezed when I was in his room…” Chain looked sideways, pouting.
K.K. laughed. “You were in his room?! Oh man that’s great. What’d you see?”
“Nothing! This isn’t Zapp!” Chain pouted and looked away. K.K. was the last person she would confess to trespassing on a half-naked Leo in the middle of the night. God knows what rumours K.K. would cook up.
K.K. waved her hand dismissively. “Whatever, go get some sleep. Thanks for your efforts!”
Chain waved back and disappeared.
K.K. set up her gun and studied the darkened bedroom through the scope. No movement.
“Oh well, no news are good news,” she shrugged. The first hints of dawn were licking at the horizon, but it would be a while before the actual dawn. Her son was used to waking up without her there, so there’s no problem on that front and judging from what Chain said, Leo slept through the majority of the night.
She managed to drowse a bit, leaning against one of the wall outcroppings on the roof. When she came to next, it was already morning and the bed was empty.
K.K. rushed to her scope, fishing out a granola bar from her pocket. Chewing on it, she scanned the visible area of Leo’s apartment. He wasn’t anywhere in his bedroom, so she moved to the living room. Some parts of the room were outside her field of vision, but the window was still large enough to give a good enough field.
“Come on Leo, where are you…” she whispered moving her scope. On the edge of the visible area, she saw Sonic jumping up and down and tugging on something. Following the tugging, she saw it to be a pant leg, and the monkey moved outside her field of vision. Leo was on the ground.
K.K.’s eyes widened. “Oh no.”
Packing up her rifle into the suitcase, she made her way down to ground level. Wait. Too long. There’s a nice cable connecting the two buildings. Good. Making her way to the roof of Leo’s apartment complex, she rushed down the stairs. These are the sort of times that she was happy about being a sniper; her skills getting into the best sniping points also double as break and enter skills.
His door was locked - at least the kid still has a sense of safety - so she picked the lock in no time.
Entering the apartment, she found that it was pretty spartan. Leo-like. She didn't have time to appreciate the decor because there was Leo lying face down on the floor. He had a loose fitting t-shirt on and some oversized sweatpants. Sonic spotted her and aborted his tugging on Leo’s hair, and instead jumped onto her shoulder and started pulling on her hair.
K.K. swore. That couldn’t be a good sign.
She kneeled beside him and turned him over, checking for injuries. He had a mark blossoming on his forehead and his nose was a bit red, but otherwise he seemed unharmed. She felt his forehead and had to retreat her hand almost instantaneously. Sonic jumped down from her shoulder, and chirped sadly.
“You’re burning up kid!”
She chewed on her lip thoughtfully. Making up her mind, she grabbed a duffel bag that was helpfully stationed by the door to the washroom and set about packing some necessities.
Duffel bag in one arm, rifle case in another, and Leo on her back, K.K. locked his apartment and left for her car with Sonic following close behind.
“Taking you to the hospital would be useless with your special eyes,” she mused aloud as she was driving, stealing occasional looks at the backseat. “Gilbert’s fine hospital it is,” she made up her mind.
She fished her cellphone from her pocket, hitting Klaus’s speed dial. It was only about seven in the morning but time is irrelevant at moments like this.
“K.K.?” Klaus’s voice answered. K.K. could tell that he just woke up, and only because she had many years of experience.
“Klausie, if you could come down in a few minutes? I have important luggage.”
“Luggage?” Klaus was also quite slow in the mornings.
“Leo developed an abnormally high fever overnight, I’m bringing him to HQ.” She almost missed a truck in her lane but managed to veer in time, regardless of whatever crashed behind her car. Not her car, not her business.
“What about the hospital?”
“With his eyes, Klausie?”
“Fair point. Someone will greet you at the entrance.”
~
It ended up being Klaus after all. “Gilbert is setting up inside, I said I would help.” He looked a bit frazzled, if only because his glasses and usual vest were missing.
“Thanks.” K.K. said around her burden. She carried Leo in herself because last time Klaus carried him, he jumped off a building, leaving her case and Leo’s belongings to Klaus. He knew better than to challenge her choice of burden. She could feel Leo’s heavy breaths against her neck, and his heat through the multiple layers of clothing between them, including her leather coat. Gritting her teeth, she made way into the elevator.
Once inside, Klaus freed a hand and reached to touch Leo’s forehead. His eyes narrowed slightly and his jaw moved. “Have there been any other episodes?”
“Chain said there was one in the middle of the night when she dumped junk food in his room - don’t ask, the logic of werewolves is a mystery - but I haven’t experienced any yet.”
Sonic was waiting for them with Gilbert in one of Libra’s many empty rooms. The butler prepared a bed and various basic medical necessities. As soon as K.K. set Leo down, Sonic was all over him, pinching at his face. Gently swatting him, K.K. chided, “Stop that Sonic, let him rest.”
All the moving around must have agitated Leo though, for he opened his eyes blearily and looked at the gathered. He brought a hand up to his face, “Where am I…?”
“HQ,” K.K. answered, “Your fever is really high so I brought you here.”
“Oh,” he said simply. He let his hand fall down back beside him and Gilbert used this chance to place a compress on his brow. “You guys are very bright today.”
They paused.
“What do you mean, Leonardo?” Klaus asked.
Leo turned his face to Klaus, letting him see his open eyes. “Y’ll usually orange, but today y’re like rlly ornge,” he slurred, finishing with a wide yawn.
K.K. patted his leg and covered him with a blanket. “Go to sleep Mr. See-it-all. You’ll feel better later, I promise.”
~
When Leonardo awoke again, there was no one in his room. The compress was warm, and he felt hot and cold at the same time. He had forgotten what a nuisance colds were. Not to mention colds with All-Seeing-Eyes-of-the-Gods. He sat up and immediately regretted it. His vision blacked out for a moment and then went into overdrive to the point where he was seeing carousels and bright lights but black and white at the same time. He felt bile rising in his throat, but he forced it down.
“Okay Leo, you need to go piss, so you need to get up,” he rasped. He also stank, but the shower would have to wait.
He placed his feet down, testing them. Sitting up seemed alright, albeit dizzy after that short episode. He was seeing everything and nothing at the same time. Moments like these, material objects fell away into the abyss and all Leo could see was the immaterial. Which, truth be told, wasn’t all that useful when you needed to piss.
“Up we go.” He pushed off the bed and stood. All for a brilliant two seconds. He felt himself sway and managed to cushion his fall, landing on his fours. He heard a crash. Oops.
“Leo!” came a shout from somewhere on the left. He turned his head and saw another bright orange aura cutting through the other cacophony of colours. This one was more cutting than Klaus’s or K.K.’s, but at the same time it was warm. Really warm. The edges curled in, like a fire. Heh.
“Leo!” the voice was closer this time, and he felt someone’s hand on his shoulder.
“Zapp?” he recognised the voice.
“Yeah man, what the fuck? Why’d you think it’s a good idea to get up in your condition?”
“Needed to piss. Was your aura always this sharp?”
“Aura--? Now’s not the time to play I Spy, pubehead!” Zapp moved his hands to help Leo up. “Up you go, and let’s get you to the washroom.”
The sudden change in elevation made Leo feel vaguely ill. “I think I’m gonna hurl,” he said.
“Aw shit,” Zapp sighed. Picking Leo up, he ran to the washroom and put him down in front of the toilet. “Here worship the ceramic god.”
The problem was that Leo still couldn’t see the material world. He felt around for the rim through the cacophony of colours and threw up what remained of his dinner from last night - which wasn’t much, he didn’t have much of an appetite last night. After that, all the energy seemed to leave him and he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.
Next thing he knew, Zapp was gently slapping his cheek. At least Leo thought it was Zapp. The aura still matched his. “Don’t fall asleep here, dickhead.” Yup. Definitely Zapp.
“Sorry,” Leo mumbled. “Still need to piss and like wash my face. I feel gross.”
The cutting orange aura became a bit more muted, no that wasn’t quite right, it became a bit more warm. “Think you can manage on your own?”
Leo considered his position. “Help me up?”
~
Klaus - now in his glasses and vest - observed the gathered members of Libra.
“I sure hope no Blood Breed decides to attack right now, we’re practically defenseless,” Steven began.
“Yeah I don’t like it,” K.K. said. “As it stands now, we’re way too dependent on the kid.”
“Unless you got a better idea for finding their names, Leo is all we got,” Steven took a sip from his coffee.
“What are we going to do about his fever though?” Chain asked. She stopped by Leo’s apartment on her way to HQ and picked up the discarded snacks that K.K. missed and was now happily munching on them.
“I tried giving him fever reducers, but they were practically ineffective,” Gilbert remarked from his post at Klaus’s left side. “A cold compress seems like the best alternative right now along with waiting for him to fight through it.”
“Yeah but if his eyes go haywire again, it won’t make his fever better,” Chain said between chewing. “He’ll only overwork them again and raise it again. He’s going to sleep only for so long, you know.”
“Zapp texted me that Leo’s awake now,” Steven supplied. “Maybe we should ask him?”
They migrated as a worried bunch to the guest room that now doubled as Leo’s recovery room. Zapp gave a lazy salute from the couch, and Leo was sitting up in bed.
At their entrance, the sick boy covered his eyes with both his hands, swallowing visibly. Chain wasted no time in appearing at his side.
“Are your eyes troubling you?” Chain asked, laying her hands over Leo’s.
“He’s seeing extra shit,” Zapp commented from his place on the sofa, “said my orange is warm or whatever. Feeling around like a blind man too.”
“Traitor,” Leo whispered.
“Would you like some of us to leave?” Steven asked.
Leo flustered. “I w-wouldn’t want to impose or anything--”
“Okay--” K.K. interrupted. Walking over, she grabbed Zapp and pulled Steven along on her way out, she added over her shoulder, “We’ll be doing our usual work. Which I don’t have any. But you know, it’s the premise of the thing.”
That left Chain, Klaus, and Gilbert in the room with Leonardo. The sick boy cautiously took one hand off and removed Chain’s palms, blinking sluggishly he surveyed the room. He then withdrew his other hand and took a deep breath. Sonic ran up to the bed and curled up by his thigh, regarding him with big black eyes. Leo smiled and ran his hand down the monkey’s back.
Gilbert was at his side, something Leo usually couldn’t tell for the butler masked his presence really well, and felt his forehead. “You still have a high fever,” he hummed. “Are your eyes troubling you less with less people in the room, Mr. Watch?”
“Yeah, though I still can’t see the material world very well.”
“What do you mean?” Klaus asked. He kept his distance, fearing that being closer would agitate the eyes even more. Though with Chain and Gilbert there he wasn’t sure how much more of a strain an extra person would be.
Leonardo searched his vocabulary for how to describe it. “I don’t really see people, but more like their essences?” he began, “and like colours, but they’re also monochrome? I can’t describe it.” He finished with a big yawn.
“Fever suppressors do not work on you,” Klaus started, “and your eyes are just making it rise.”
“Sounds like a problem,” Leonardo pondered. “I end up activating them by accident whenever I cough or sneeze, which I can’t really control.”
“What of Abram’s eyepatch thing?” Chain asked. “Didn’t he use it to heal Leo’s eyesight that one time?”
“That could work,” Leo agreed, “It didn’t suppress my eyesight fully but it should help.”
“I’ll contact him then,” Klaus said.
Feeling a lull in the discussion, Gilbert turned to Leonardo, “Are you hungry?”
Leonardo suppressed another yawn. “Not really, no.”
“Very well.” He guided Leo down to the bed and replaced the compress with a cooler one, and left.
“I’ll stay with him for a bit,” Chain said to Klaus for Leo was already asleep with Sonic on the bed.
“Please do,” Klaus nodded to her, “Let us know if there are any changes.”
As soon as he left the room, Klaus took out his cellphone and dialed Abrams.
“Abrams,” came the usual greeting.
“It’s Klaus, I have a favour to ask.”
“Shoot away.”
“Do you have the eyepatch you used for Leo but in blindfold form?”
“Why would you need something like that? Putting the kid in timeout?”
Klaus sighed. “No, it’s nothing like that. Leonardo contracted a cold and it is wearing on his eyes, we are seeking to lessen their impact.”
“Oh is he overusing them and making his fever spike?”
“Yes, he can’t control them during coughs or sneezes.” Klaus was almost back at the main hall, passing the kitchen on his way. He could smell chicken soup.
“I’m in the area, I don’t have a blindfold but I can make two eyepatches.”
Klaus chuckled, it appeared to be a funny sight. “Thank you old friend.”
“No problem,” Klaus replied before he disconnected the call.
“Will Mr. Abrams be joining us for lunch?” Gilbert was at his back as he entered the main hall.
Klaus, long used to Gilbert’s coming and going, replied in tandem, “I do not think he will stay for the meal, but he should be coming around soon.”
“Aw man,” Zapp groaned. “That’s the last thing we need right now.”
K.K. for once agreed with Zapp. “How’s Leo?”
“Asleep,” Klaus replied. He sat down at his desk, booted up some prosfair, and became dead to the world.
Zed was by the bookshelves and regarded the party, confused. “What’s wrong with Leonardo?”
“The dickhead went and got a cold which is making his eyes go haywire,” Zapp supplied, leafing through a magazine. “Can’t use medication to treat it too ‘cause of his fucking eyes.”
Steven threw down the papers he was looking at onto the desk and looked at Zed, “He insisted on going home last night but K.K. found him this morning passed out on his floor, so she brought him to HQ. So if his eyes fuck up, he takes us and not civilians in the apartment complex he dug up for himself.”
“Logical,” Zed deadpanned. “What room is he in?”
“Chain is with him right now, yeah Klaus?” Steven turned to the boss.
Klaus managed a nod.
“But he’s in the guest room down the hall,” Steven finished.
“Thank you,” Zed left.
Being only half huma, Zed could already feel the sickness in the air when he approached the room. If he had lips, he would probably be chewing on them right now. It felt foreboding, with the slightest tinge of death hanging over the area. He knocked on the door, and heard Chain’s muffled come in.
“Heya Zed,” she said. “Come to pay your respects to our sickened deity?”
“Is there anything we can do to alleviate the fever?” he didn’t return her jibe.
“The boss called Abrams for an eyepatch we used in the past, hopefully that should dim them a bit. He’s been seeing things that usually he needed to focus really hard for.”
Zed nodded and sat down beside her on the couch. “I shall keep vigil with you then.”
~
“We will not be using his sickened state to our advantage!”
“This is the ultimate chance, Klaus! If he’s seeing even more than what he did back then, we can probably obtain much more information--”
“I won’t repeat myself again, Abrams!”
“Now now, K.K., Abrams, don’t get worked up…”
He was gonna cough. He was gonna cough and he was gonna take over everyone’s eyes. Fuck. He needed to keep it in. But he can’t. Fuck.
For the minute that he hacked up a lung, he saw nothing and everything at once. There was the guest room he was staying in with its elegant furniture and there was the bacteria currently floating around the room and there was a passing spirit - wait what - and there were people and there were colours but there also weren’t and there was Klaus and Abrams and K.K. and then there wasn’t and there was only their souls and he could see anger and worry and exasperation and he could see the smell of chicken soup and it was too much and he blacked out for a few seconds. Blissful, unmoving blackness.
When he opened his eyes again, Klaus was swaying dangerously by his bedside and looking a bit ill, but at the same time worried. He still had that orange hue about him, and Leo could see the worry taking over the exasperation but also helplessness. “-onardo? Leonardo? Can you hear me?”
Leo blinked a few times, trying to clear the black spots to no avail. “Yeah.”
Abrams stumbled in, clutching his head. “Wow kid, you pack one hell of a punch.”
“Punch…?” Leo blinked owlishly at him. “Juice…?”
“No, not juice,” K.K. crashed on the couch, “you took over our sight again. How do you survive with seeing that?”
The black spots have stopped flashing, and just started drifting across his vision. “I usually don’t. See that much, I mean. I’m hungry.”
Gilbert appeared at the doorway with a laden tray. He looked completely nonplussed, but the experienced could see his gritted teeth and slightly narrowed eyes. “I am glad to hear that, Mr. Watch, it would mean that this food will be appreciated.”
“Ah, Gilbert,” Klaus smiled, “perfect timing.”
Abrams reached into his pocket. “Before that, here you go kid. I would prefer taking you to the vampire lair once again, but someone’s very against it.”
“Last time he went, his eyes actually bled!” K.K. snapped from the couch. “I’m not letting you take him there when he’s ill, what are you, insane?! I’ll put a bullet through your dick before you set one foot outside that door with Leo.”
Leo would have liked to remark that this was the pot calling the kettle black, but the chicken soup looked - smelled - amazing.
Klaus reappeared at his side, holding two pieces of black cloth. “This is the same eyepatch you wore back when we showed you the Blood Breed hand. We are going to put them over both your eyes, which should dim the effects slightly.”
Leo nodded. It sounded fine. He probably affected everyone in the building with that coughing episode, and himself too. He felt really cold, occasionally shivering which he was not doing before, and that was never a good sign.
Klaus slipped the eyepatches on. His hands felt warm, calloused fingers gently affixing the strap at the back of his head. Leo saw the orange aura that usually surrounded Klaus, now with blue tones - could it be his soul? - and it looked warm - though of course he couldn’t feel it. That all cut out when Klaus affixed the two eyepatches. The world faded to a single monochrome scale, and Leo was seeing everything in muted greys. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to activate the godly aspect of the eyes now unless he really pushed it, and that fit him just fine. Last time when they put it on one eye only, that eye cut out completely. Could his eyes be adapting to this form of magic? Leonardo pushed those thoughts away. He’ll deal with it in the future.
He smiled reassuringly at Klaus, “Thank you Mr. Klaus. I feel better already.”
“I am glad.”
“Well then,” Abrams fixed his coat, “I’m done here. Get better soon, boy.”
With the human disaster magnet gone, Gilbert placed the tray on the night table and Leonardo wasted no time tucking in.
There were a few moments where Leo almost dropped the spoon, the bowl, both spoon and bowl, and himself, but there were no heart attacks for K.K. and Klaus.
“His temperature is still hovering at about the forty degree mark,” Gilbert noted after Leo fell asleep again.
“That’s still really bad,” K.K. was standing by the bed, frowning. “Hopefully with those eyepatches, it would stop him from bringing the fever back up.”
“Let us give him his rest.”
~
Leo drifted in and out of consciousness. Sometimes he ventured in the waking world to find Zapp and Zed sleeping at his bedside, and sometimes it was Steven reading a book with the chair kicked back and legs crossed.
Once, when he awoke from a particularly vivid nightmare of what-ifs, K.K. was the first thing he saw. The black of her eyepatch stood out much more than usual due to his own eyepatches, but the worried expression was clear, even in monochrome.
“K.K.,” he said, and coughed. It wasn’t the hacking out a lung cough, and for that he was relieved, but it was still annoying.
“Hey there Sleeping Beauty,” she smiled. “You thirsty?”
Accepting the drink from her, Leo sighed. “Did I do anything… weird?”
“Nothing you should worry about,” she pet his head. “Go back to sleep, you worrywart.”
Another time he awoke to Chain straddling his blanket covered form, studying his face. He would have yelled if his lungs had the capacity for such complicated actions.
“Oh,” she said, “you’re awake. Good. You were starting to smell weird.”
“Um Chain, why are you straddling me?”
“I was worried.”
“And this helps…?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
And Leonardo drifted off again. He couldn’t really tell how long passed, but his returns to consciousness were starting to last longer and longer, until he was awake for pretty much the good part of the day.
“You are not allowed to move around yet,” Gilbert said from the doorway.
Leo froze. “I wanted to see the view from the windows,” he said. Really, he wanted to get up from that bed.
Gilbert didn’t move from the doorway, and Leonardo begrudgingly made his way back to the bed. Which Gilbert rewarded by giving him his food.
“You are still wearing the eyepatches, but I believe we should be able to free you of them today if you are up to it.”
Leo’s excitement was felt in the air, and he managed to say between mouthfuls, “Yes! I haven’t had a fit in ages, so it should be fine.”
The butler was gone when he looked up once again.
He amused himself with the various trinkets that have been given to him, mainly handheld consoles (which he couldn’t afford, but don’t look a gift horse in the mouth) and books. Books were hard, his eyes unable to focus on the small print. The games too, but he didn’t need detail in a racing game. Truth be told, him and books hadn’t mixed ever since he got the Eyes of the Gods, mostly due to the overload of information he got and not just the printed words. If a book was written well enough, it could come to life before his eyes, which ended with a major headache.
He was interrupted from his musings by Klaus, Zed, and K.K. coming in.
“Are we having a party?” he joked. It was usually one of them keeping vigil - especially during the fever-induced nightmare period - so all three was unusual.
“Yes,” K.K. waved, making her way to the couch, “we’re celebrating the liberation of your eyes.”
Zed came to rest on one side of the bed. “There is something amusing about watching K.K. watch you get eyepatches removed.”
K.K. threw a pillow at him, which he dodged.
Klaus approached the bed from the other side. “I will remove them now, if that is alright Leonardo?”
“Yes, go ahead.” Leo was practically vibrating with excitement. He never thought he would learn to miss the cacophony of visual noise his daily life became.
The sudden overload of visual information was a bit too much, and he yelped and shut his eyes.
Klaus’s hovering intensified, and K.K. interrupted her conversation with Zed to study Leo more closely. “You okay there, Leo?”
He grimaced. “Give me a moment, it’s been awhile since I had to control them.” He accounted for what he saw with his eyes closed, which still closely resembled what the normal person sees except with upgrades. Cautiously, he opened his right eye. He saw Zed standing there with his iridescent blue aura, looking lightweight like the wind but flowing like water at the same time. Further back was K.K. with her electrical aura - funny how their auras matched their blood techniques - which was charging the area around her, causing the couch to faintly glow.
Opening his left eye, he was met with Klaus’s hovering form. His aura was a wall of solid orange, seeming to almost leave indents on the floor. But at the same time, it looked so amazingly soft that Leo had to repress the urge to reach out and try to grasp it.
“Okay, I think we’re good,” he said. “I got the added bonus from this fiasco of being able to see auras in more detail.”
“Oh?” K.K. turned her head to get a better look at him.
“What do you mean, Leonardo?” Zed asked.
“I can see your auras do different things depending on your personality,” Leo began, “I’m unsure how to describe it. But I think I can guess the personality of the person based on their aura?”
“That would prove to be quite a useful skill,” Klaus said. “Can you see the material world now?”
“Huh?” Leo blinked. “Yeah, it’s back to normal. See?” He got up from the bed and walked around to prove his point.
Satisfied, K.K. jumped to her feet. “Awesome, now you get to see what improvements Chain and I made to your apartment!”
Leo paled. “Can I shower first?”
~
Leonardo - now showered - and K.K. arrived at his apartment complex.
“Ah, home sweet home,” he said. “How long has it been since I was here? Days?”
“Two weeks,” K.K. supplied helpfully, stomping out a cigarette. “Okay, let’s head up.”
“Two weeks?!” Leo exclaimed, following her to the stairs, “you’re joking!”
“Wish I was.”
K.K. fished a key out from her pocket, and turned the lock.
“Will I be getting the key later?” Leo asked.
“Yeah,” she smiled, “you and like half of Libra. You’re a trouble magnet, I’d prefer not to have to break down your door every time you get your ass in trouble.”
Seeing Leo’s expression, she laughed. “Don’t worry, Zapp isn’t getting a key. Neither is Steven.”
Chain was waiting for them in the middle of the corridor. “Nice timing K.K., where should I set up the camera?”
“Camera?!” Leo rushed forward and took the box from her hands, “you’re not setting up a camera in my apartment! I have to draw the line somewhere.”
Chain was laughing now, and K.K. joined her.
He looked inside the box and there was only upholstery materials in it. Sonic jumped down from his monkey bed near the covered windows, and climbed his way up to Leo’s shoulder, chirping happily.
“Don’t worry Leo,” Chain said, “we know where to draw the line. We didn’t do anything like that, promise!”
He studied her dubiously.
“I swear on my guns!” K.K. held up her right hand in a swearing motion.
His face became even more dubious.
K.K. waved him off. “You can live in paranoia if you’d like. Anyway, here’s the rundown. Klausie paid to have bulletproof windows set up - yeah by the way we bought this place, and don’t make that face, you’re a valuable asset of Libra and we look after our own- and we got you curtains. Do you know how easy it was to watch you at night? Yeah. Easy sniping target. You fail at self-safety.”
Chain continued, “We also got you new locks. Your copy of the key is on the table over there, and K.K. insisted on outfitting your fridge with healthy foods ‘cause apparently nuts aren’t healthy.”
Leo laughed. “Okay, okay, I get it you guys. Thank you very much.” He rubbed the back of his neck, “I’m not quite sure how to deal with all of this,” he gestured to the apartment, “but really, thanks guys.”
“Deal with it by surviving,” K.K. said. “And don’t hide shit like that from us again, you’re a hazard to yourself and everyone around when sick.”
He smiled. Yeah, if it wasn’t for Libra, he wasn’t sure how he would have gotten through this illness. They took care of him and put up with his unique situation, he owed a lot to them. So he smiled at K.K. and Chain, and managed a small bow. “Thank you both so much for taking care of me.