Sick!Daken (art and story)

[Parksborn]

So I was on the X-Men kink meme and I saw this prompt:

"Daken has a cold (despite his powers)

I'm not going to be super specific, but I'd like to see him sneezing and some snottiness..."

Naturally I was kind of excited when I realized it had been filled:

Common Cold (Daken, Wolverine is here too???) [a fair bit of snot, mention of sex]

[A/N: This hasn't been beta'd, so apologies for any errors. Sorry if this isn't really what the prompter was looking for, not written anything like this before and it sort of took on a life of its own as I went on. Hope you enjoy it to some extent anyhow!]

Daken tried to lead a life free of regret. Regret served only to make one lose focus on his goals, made a man weak.

But, as he lay miserably cocooned in a duvet, frequently wiping at his incessantly running nose with a now slimy forearm, Daken couldn’t help but indulge himself.

He really fucking regretted taking those Heat pills.

The pills had damaged his healing factor to the extent that he had fallen sick with none other than the common cold. Daken had never been ill before in his life, never afflicted with something so painfully... ordinary. And, as it turned out, having a cold was an entirely unpleasant affair.

The disease had crept up on him gradually. The man whose flat he was currently residing in had been snuffly when Daken fucked him into the bed on the first night of their meeting, but such things had never been potential problems in the past. Alas, Daken had awoken the next day with a vaguely stuffy feeling in the bridge of his nose, his usually excellent sense of smell blunted somewhat – annoying and inexplicable, but tolerable. A couple of days later, the symptoms were unbearable and infuriating; his nose was either entirely blocked, leaving him to breathe out of his dry mouth and hack up phlegm, or else it was streaming continuously. Daken had endured many types of torture in his lifetime, but found himself unable to recall one that had been nearly as frustrating as having a cold.

Daken had killed the man who gave him the cold on the third day of his own suffering. Curled up in his snotty blanket burrito a day later, he somewhat regretted the decision; now he had no one to cook for him or to whinge to or to go and fetch more cold and flu medication and tissues, and he couldn’t bring himself to face the outside world. After all, he looked awful, and his sense of smell was completely shot. No. He would have to ride out his cold alone and without the need of any more silly human medication.

A tickling sensation rose in Daken’s nose and he lifted his hand in time to catch the worst of the sneeze that came. Thick strings of snot hung between his fingers.

‘This is gross even for me,’ he conceded in his head. Unable to find the motivation to move and hunt for a usable tissue (not as if there were any left, anyway) Daken wiped his hand on the dirty bed sheet and groaned unhappily.

A loud thud originating from the living room made Daken jump a little and tense – having severely muffled super senses was so unpleasant. He tried to sniff and catch the scent of whoever – or whatever – the intruder might be, but instead his nose just made a hollow gurgling sound and provided him with no sensory feedback. Still, he could discern footsteps now, but, too miserable to move, Daken just retreated fully under his duvet and grumbled to himself. He was in no mood to be dealing with anyone right now.

The door latch went and the ‘intruder’ stepped into the room.

“Daken?” came an uneasy, familiar voice.

Daken groaned unhappily.

The last person he wanted to see right now was Wolverine. His old man must’ve got his scent and come to investigate.

“Daken, what the hell’s goin’ on here?”

“Go away.” Daken replied grumpily from his place under the duvet. He didn’t even have it in him to be snarky or angry.

“Why the hell’re you under that duvet?” Wolverine paused and glanced around at the numerous disused tissues littering the floor, at the unpleasant stains on the linen of the bed. “Are you... ill?”

Daken thought hard about being a petulant little shit and waiting until Wolverine got frustrated enough to just attack him or start shouting. However, he decided that what he really wanted was more medication at that point, so he decided to play the pity card.

Daken crawled out from beneath the duvet looking very sorry for himself.

“Shit, son,” Wolverine grunted. “Ya look awful. The hell’s wrong with ya?”

“Just a cold,” Daken replied, sniffing loudly. When Wolverine looked like he wanted an explanation of just how he caught a cold, Daken continued: “Can you get me some tablets?”

Wolverine looked as if he was considering it for a moment, but then shook his head.

“Son, I’ve seen the body o’ the man you killed in the other room. Ya can’t go ‘round –“

Wolverine was cut off by Daken sneezing rather impressively over his uniform. He looked distastefully down at his slime covered midriff.

Daken wiped his nose on forearm and looked up imploringly at his father (well, as imploringly as one can look when they have rheumy eyes and snot dripping down their chin).

“Get me some tablets for it?” he requested again, amping up his pheromones (‘at least they still work’). Wolverine still looked uncertain and was about to continue his lecture, when: “Please, dad.”

Wolverine’s resolve crumbled.

“Yeah... yeah, alright. But when I get back, don’t think you’ve got outta talkin’ about that poor guy in there.” He paused. “Do ya need anything else?”

Daken listed off a few more items (soup and tissues among them), and Wolverine obediently rushed off to gather them.

Still miserable, but smug about his victory, Daken settled back under his duvet, using a corner of it to wipe some of the excess snot and phlegm off of his chin. If being this sick had afforded him what he was going to count as a victory against his father, he could handle it.

Another vicious sneeze came out of nowhere. Daken looked down at his snot-covered hands and grumbled. Wolverine had better hurry.

AND THEN when I went to go check one of my favorite artist's tumblr (squidbuiscuit), there was this.

Everything is awesome okay. Everything.

(Also, feel free to move this topic if I've posted it in the wrong place... I wasn't sure whether or not to post it in stories or here, so...)