Cale woke up to the feeling of his head pounding. It was so loud and uncomfortable that it took him a while to figure out that his head wasn't the only thing pounding, someone was banging on the door too.

He groaned and curled further under the covers, pulling them over his head to protect him from the sun's rays. But no matter how much he tried, it was impossible to ignore the noise.

"What?" he eventually managed to croak out, his mouth dry.

"What do you mean what, it's lunchtime, you've missed half your classes!" Julius announced from the other side of the door, an edge to his voice that meant that he wasn't in the mood for any bullshit.

Cale groaned and pushed his head out under the cover's protection. The sunlight immediately attempted to blind him and he groaned again. He pressed a hand over his face, pressing down onto his eyes as something pounded behind them. He could almost hear the pounding in his head and he was quickly getting sick of it.

He managed to squeeze out, "What are you doing here?"

"Hallow sent me because you missed his class, idiot. Are you sick? Aren't you supposed to be better?"

"I'm... fine."

"That was a long pause, you're not fine." A deep sigh was followed by footsteps as Julius left. "Damnit, I'll tell Hallow so don't you dare leave your room. I swear if I catch you in the library sick, I'll..."

Cale didn't manage to hear the rest of Julius' words as the boy moved out of range.

He pushed himself as best as he could off of the bed, ending up in some kind of weird position where he was sitting crouched on his knees, his head pressing down on the pillow and the covers still pulled up to his shoulders. He pressed his head harder against the pillow, his closed eyes almost stinging with the force of it.

He needed to get out of bed. He needed to get to the bathroom where his medicine was stored and take the potions. Really, he needed to do a lot of things, but he couldn't seem to move.

He huffed, put his hands next to the pillow and pushed off it the best that he could. He managed to raise his head by a couple of decimeters, and then his strength promptly abandoned him and he fell back down on it. He grumbled out a garbled noise and felt his eyes slip closed again, exhaustion hitting him like a train running late.

Just a few minutes of rest couldn't hurt, right? He'd get up in a minute and take his meds, he just wanted to close his eyes, they were hurting so bad...

Ah, Calla's body was really weak, wasn't it? He hadn't really felt the effects of it, but he guessed that that was just a lucky break. Because his head really hurt, and no matter how much saliva he pooled in his mouth, it didn't seem to keep the dryness at bay.

His body fell to the side on the bed as he fell closer into the grip of sleep. Cale yawned and tried to blink his eyes open, but they closed shortly thereafter anyway.

He was really... really very tired.

It felt like Cale had only just closed his eyes when his body shook to wakefulness as the banging on the door started up again. He frowned and this time managed to crawl out of the covers, immediately starting to shiver from the cold. He stared at the door with bleary, half-awake eyes and asked, "Who?"

He didn't manage to get the rest of the sentence out, but he trusted that it could still be understood.

"It's me." came Julius' distinctive voice from the other side of the door.

Cale narrowed his eyes and pressed his hands against his head again. The headache hadn't gotten any better from his brief rest. "Why?"

A single word at a time was still the best that he could do.

He winced when the headache got particularly stabby with him. He was sitting on the bed with his legs crossed and his elbows leaned on his thighs, his hands gripping his head tightly. It hurt so badly that his eyes started tearing up from the pain, unused to it as he was. The medicine... why had he put in the bathroom? He had a perfectly good bedside table, why didn't he do the smart thing and place it there?

"Unlock the door, Calla. I have food and medicine." Julius ordered. Contrary to his words, his voice was hard and unsympathetic.

Cale muttered a curse under his breath as he slowly moved his legs over the edge of the bed, the lure of medicine too tempting to resist. He stumbled a little as his feet hit the ground and a dizzy spell attacked him at once, the whole world feeling like it was spinning beneath his feet. Well, technically it was, but it shouldn't feel like it.

He fought his way over the short distance to the door and fell against it. He leaned his whole body against it, only held up by the door. Finally, after some fumbling around, he managed to locate the lock and turned it.

Instantly, Julius turned the doorknob and opened the door. The boy, despite being four years younger than Calla, caught Cale before he slipped to the floor and succeeded in supporting him while at the same time closing and locking the door again. The sudden movements only made the pain worsen and he clenched his eyes shut, his teeth pressing down harshly on his lip.

Julius dragged him over to the bed and put him down on it, dropping Cale roughly on the soft mattress. Cale felt his body being moved fully onto the bed, Julius walking around him. With his eyes closed, he couldn't see what Julius was doing, but he was in too much pain to pay attention to it anyway.

Julius dragged Cale into a sitting position on the bed and supported his body.

"Medicine." Julius said and pressed a cold glass bottle against Cale's mouth. Knowing better than to argue, Cale opened his mouth and dutifully swallowed the horrible tasting potion.

"Ugh!" Cale managed to swallow most of it before it became too much and he barely managed to keep the rest from coming up again. He coughed violently and crouched over, his hands covering his mouth.

Finally, the coughing subsided and he brought his cold hands down again. He pressed them instead onto his head and winced at the headache that was currently assaulting him like a battering ram.

"Better?" Julius asked and gripped Cale's hand, bringing them away from his head.

Cale licked his lips and shook his head slightly.

Julius hummed as he left the bed.

Cale did his best to breathe deeply and steadily. Slowly, he brought himself out of his crouched position and sat up straighter. It felt like all of his limbs were made of lead, so heavy were they.

Blinking to get his eyes focusing, he saw the darkness outside of the windows. Somehow he had missed the sun setting, but now that it was no longer attacking him, he felt relief flow through him. He shivered from the cold, his whole body shaking, and gripped the covers around him tightly. Slowly, so slowly that it was frustrating, he swept them up and around himself, burrowing down into the warmth. He brought his knees up to his chest as he pulled the covers all the way up over his head and pushed his head down onto his knees.

All he wanted to do was ignore his own existence, forget all of the pain and the unbearable agony. He bit down on his bottom lip again and clenched his eyes shut, hoping against hope that things would improve within the next few minutes.

He wasn't used to this kind of pain.

For all that Cale spent most of his time at home reading and watching TV, not getting much exercise or keeping in shape, he didn't often get sick. Certainly it never came this fast nor affected him this badly.

And in the process of getting acquainted with this world, he had forgotten the basics.

Calla's body was weak, so weak that he spent most of his time bedridden.

And Cale hadn't been treating it well; staying up too late studying, running all over the castle in his search for more information, forgetting to get a full meal, getting up early in the morning for his classes and in general, just working too hard.

Honestly, when he thought about it, he was surprised that this hadn't happened sooner.

Julius sat down next to him on the bed, carrying a tray of food with him. "Here," the boy said and held it out in Cale's direction. "Eat this."

Cale peeked over the edge of his knees and glanced at the tray. There was a bowl of soup on it, a spoon right next to it. Despite feeling absolutely shitty, Cale could still feel his stomach making its demands known in the form of growling.

Painfully slowly, Cale crawled out of the protection of the cover and gripped the spoon. Bit by bit, he carefully ate the soup, most of the time simply sipping up the broth.

Eventually, most of the soup was gone and Julius finally shifted it away from him. Tiredly, Cale dropped the spoon on the bed and surrounded himself by the covers once more. He yawned and mumbled, "Sleepy."

"So sleep, idiot."

Within moments, Cale followed Julius' orders.