Dick woke up to a fire beneath his skin. Yes, they knew what fire was. The humans were fascinating with it during the cold months, but that wasn't the point. The point was Dick wasn't supposed to feel this warm.
He groaned, sitting up and looking around. His room was blurry, and the light was too bright. Unfortunately, he couldn't sit around all day. He had a job to do, and he needed to do it. Maybe today would be an easy day.
That idea was quickly nixed when he ran into one of the columns in his room. His headache only got worse, and now his nose hurt. Since when had that been there? It didn't help that the columns looked very similar to the water, so he was having trouble telling them apart.
Was he going to tell anyone? Hell no! This was his problem to take care of, not theirs. It was probably his stupid Alpha pride, but he didn't care. He had to take care of it. He'd deal with it later if he had to. He didn't want to burden the others with his problems.
"Hey, Dickie! How is the most beautiful merman in the world?" Wally popped his head in the room. "Hey, Walls." Dick smiled at him, trying to play it off. Of course, Wally sniffed it out right away. "You're sick, aren't you?"
"No, I'm fine." Dick tried to convince Wally. "I can see right through you, Dick. You look like you got sunburned, and I know for a fact you haven't been near the surface for a while. Back in bed, mister." "Walls, I'm fine, honest!"
Wally sighed, wrapping an arm around Dick's waist so he couldn't swim away and putting the back of his hand on the younger's forehead. "You're burning up, and it looks like you hit something, based on your nose. You can't see where things are well, and you're only gonna get worse if you keep going. So bed."
Dick groaned, leaning his head on Wally's shoulder. "Can't. I have work." Wally chuckled, swimming over and tucking Dick into the bed. "I'll take care of it. You get some rest. I'll tell Bruce about this." Dick sighed, but nodded. "Can you close the curtains? My head hurts." "Yeah. Just a second, Dickie."
Dick didn't want to admit he couldn't get out of bed to close the curtains. The blanket was sucking him in, and the fire was getting worse. Was that yellow blur Wally? But he'd been over by the window a second ago, how'd he get to the door?
His head was pounding, threatening to break his skull. It felt like there was no room left, like his brain was trying to get out of his head. What had he caught? He hadn't been this bad a few minutes ago.
He eventually drifted off, trying to escape the pain in his body. Even with the normal bustle of city life, and the care he was given by his family, nothing seemed to wake him. Wally was convinced a pod of whales could swim through, and he wouldn't even budge.
Eventually, Dick did wake up. Merfolk were swimming around in his chamber, talking quietly, as if not to wake the sick Alpha. There was chanting, and…were those his brothers fighting? They never stopped bickering.
Dick managed to peel his eyes open to see his bed surrounded, but his vision was too blurry. He saw a yellow blob and a black blob, both floating close to him. There were blue blobs behind them, and three different blobs behind the blue ones. He couldn't make out the colors.
One of the blue blobs held something to his lips. Dick would've recoiled from the foul taste, had the blob not been holding his head. It tasted like death was on his tongue.
Dick went back to sleep after that, not wanting to taste that awful substance again. It made his stomach churn just thinking about it. Once he got better, he was going to figure out what that stuff was. It was horrendous.
The next time he woke up, he was curled against a chest. A hand was carding through his hair, and someone was humming. The fire was smaller inside of him, and his head didn't pound quite as much.
"Hey, Dickie. Feeling better?" Wally whispered, kissing his forehead. "Yeah. How long have I been out?" "Well, the first time you were out for three days. Gave your dad a heart attack, so he called the sorcerers. Turns out you had a very nasty case of the flu. They gave you something, which I don't think you liked, then said you'd be fine. You've been sleep for a day and a half. You really weren't feeling well, huh?"
Dick hummed, snuggling back into Wally's chest. "You could've told us you didn't feel well. We would've understood. You didn't have to try and hide it." "Key word tried. You didn't let me get very far." "It's the Alpha pride. We both know what that's like." "Yeah. Night, Walls." "It's morning." "Time is a social construct." "Whatever you say, Dickie."