❅ Oh! What Fun ❅❅ Giovanni + Brendan
He’d thought he had the flu. Giovanni had felt positively miserable for going on two days now, a sore throat and persistent cough accompanying his ceaseless headache and feelings of exhaustion. He ought to have stayed in his hotel room and taken it easy, but Giovanni was not the type of person to let such a thing stop him from continuing on with his business. Especially not on this particular day. Anything would be preferable to being alone with his thoughts on Christmas eve.
There really was no escaping the holiday, though. He emerged from his hotel and traveled through the city to see streets filled with loving couples holding hands and enjoying themselves. Worst of all, though, were the lights on every building, lamppost, tree, and bush, sparkling in the night. It could’ve been beautiful—if he hadn’t felt so physically and emotionally drained by it all.
Even with the over-the-counter medication he’d taken before leaving the hotel, his symptoms were still persisting and the sourness he felt at the festive atmosphere was making him reconsider his plan. He was alone no matter where he went; nothing was going to take his mind off of the thoughts that plagued him every year around this time, and wandering around sick and tired was a pointless exercise in futility.
He was just beginning to turn back to his room when a sudden wave of dizziness overcame him. A prickling sensation started up across his skin and his vision blurred, causing him to lose all sense of balance and stumble forward. The headache that had followed him all day intensified to the point of striking, awful pain, and he was overcome with the need to sit down; he was going to pass out if he didn’t sit, he was going to pass out, he was—-
Giovanni woke with a jolt, finding himself lying on a bed in a clean white room, the scent of cleaning products and antiseptic pervading the air. He took in his location with slight rush of panic. He didn’t like hospitals on principle, and liked them even less since leaving Kanto. It felt unsafe to be there, all sick and vulnerable, and this was no exception. The memory of what had happened helped to calm him, however. He’d been more sick than he’d thought, apparently.
Which hadn’t changed, either. He still felt as awful as he had before, but now he was stuck in a hospital—with an IV in his arm, no less. And a roommate, he realized, finally taking a good look around. What a merry, merry Christmas he was in for.
