Empyrean Iris Story Collection

Nest

Sunny was mad.

Sunny was also worried, but that was mostly overshadowed by just how pissed she was. Adam was being an idiot, the biggest idiot, the king of the idiots. If he kept this up any longer he was going to upgrade himself to the god of all idiots, and it seemed like it was up to her to get something done.

Adam was in a bad way.

He could be fine, she thought, if he was given the time he needed to rest and recuperate. He was exhausted, and short twenty minute naps were going to do nothing to help that exhaustion. She knew enough from Krill to know that the human body required sleep to recover from injuries, and the Steel Eye armor had practically destroyed his body. There was muscle strain, extreme inflammation, the overdose, internal damage, nerve damage, stress fractures etc. etc, and despite all that he was still answering the call of the UNSC.

The stress of his job, and his inability to say no to other people and their needs was going to kill him. He felt obligated, by his job to make sure that everything went well, he assumed because of who he was that he was in charge of protecting earth, even the entire universe if he had to. He was taking on weight that he was not obligated to take on.

Even the UNSC was well aware of how sick he was, and despite taking his help, they seemed concerned about him, and she had no doubt they would be ok if he decided to take time off to recover. There were other men and women in the universe who would be willing to take on the weight he was trying to bare.

Yet he wouldn't listen to her.

Sitting on his chair in the UNSC command room, fighting back sleep, and no ability to walk, he was running himself into the ground.

She needed to find someone who could rein him in.

And she thought she had just the idea.

She left him, though she didn't want to and made a quick call before walking into the room and quietly whispering to some of the Admirals standing off to one side of the room during break.

"I will not be accepting no, but I thought you should be aware."

They looked at her and nodded, "We can take it from here."

"Thank you. I hope you understand that this isn't a reflection on him."

"The reflection on him has to do with the fact that he refuses to leave. Do what you have to."

She nodded turning and walking over to where Adam was sitting slumped in his chair half asleep pale as a ghost. He had insisted the IV be removed so he wouldn't be so distracting. She had argued, he had been stubborn

She walked over putting her arms around him and hauling him to his feet. His head lifted in exhaustion bright green eyes glazed over with exhaustion,"Sunny?"

"Just relax. We are going to go get you some sun during the break."

He was too tired to be sceptical, and just walked with her.

She could feel his feet dragging, and occasionally his legs would give out under him, but she wrapped one arm around his waist and the other arm around his chest to hold him upright until they finally made it outside to the front of the building. In comparison to the inside, where the lights were dark and the mood was darker, the day was bright and warm. The sky overhead was blue and the ground before them was lush and green. Overhead the sun was warm and bright.

An automated lawn mower was roaring in the distance filling the air with the sound of freshly cut grass.

It made sunny mouth water.