Page 36 of Another Chance
16
The next few days passed in a blur for Eric, who was suddenly much more sympathetic toward his crew. They had all had this, and he was now fully aware of just how much it sucked.
He slept. He ate what little he could, and when he had any energy at all, he clung to Theo. Theo was not always there, not always right beside him on the bed, but he was always close enough that Eric calling out his name would bring him right to his side.
One night, and Eric wasn’t sure if it was the next one, or the one after, or maybe even the one after that, Eric blinked open his eyes, which were glued together with some sort of gummy gunk. He rubbed at them and then gave a soft groan. He was covered in sweat, dripping with it, soaking the sheets and the blanket.
“Teddy!” he called, and his voice came out so quiet, so weak that he wasn’t sure the Teddy would hear him. He was freezing. For the last little while, he’d felt like he was inside an oven, or maybe dead in the middle of the baked landscape of the Sahara desert. All of a sudden, he’d apparently been transported to the middle of Antarctica. Or maybe into the middle of the ocean around it.
Theo came into the room, holding something which smelled heavenly, rich and meaty and irresistible. It was in a cup which steamed gently as Theo walked, sending up a trailer of white behind him.
It hurt to look at it. Everything hurt, even his eyes. He closed his eyes and fell back, his throat and lungs aching, his head throbbing terribly. Someone was playing the drums in there, Eric was sure of it.
“Oh, good. Your fever’s broken,” Theo said, and Eric, with his eyes closed tightly, felt the younger man’s weight settle down on the bed. “Here, drink this. It should help.”
Eric slit his eyes open and groaned as he sat up, with Theo’s help, enough to accept the mug. He took a cautious sip and then a bigger one. It might just be the best thing he’d ever tasted, he decided, and he groaned his approval as he drank more.
“It’s just broth,” Theo said, as though amused. Eric thought that he might like to smack the man, if only he had slightly more energy. And, of course, if he wasn’t so grateful to the guy for taking care of him.
Because that was the thing,Theo had been there the whole time. Through all of Eric’s restless sleep, he’d been aware that Theo was there, and that Theo would care for him. It had made him feel much safer.
“You can cook broth for me anytime,” Eric murmured, his own voice sounding strange and rough, through lack of use, to his own ears. But he meant it. For the first time he could remember, he felt the desire to have someone around him all the time.
He’d always thought that it might be nice, at some point in the future, to get married, maybe have kids. The American dream, right? He definitely wasn’t opposed to the idea. It was only that he’d never met the person that he would want to do that with.
Not until now.
“Maybe I’ll take you up on that,” Theo whispered, and Eric could swear he heard a chorus of Hallelujahs as Theo swung his long, gorgeous body into the bed with him and wrapped a comforting arm around him. “Yeah, your fever definitely broke. That’s why you’re all sweaty. I almost took you to the hospital.”
Eric smirked a little as he sipped down more of his soup, letting the salty taste roll around his tongue and warm him from the inside as he swallowed it.
“What is it with you and trying to take me to the hospital? You got a doctor fetish or something?”
Theo rolled his eyes, then rested his chin on the top of Eric’s head. Without hesitation, Eric, still feeling like his muscles had been replaced with jello, snuggled up to the taller man and let his head loll on his strong chest.
For a moment, everything was perfect. He had Theo back, and from the way Theo was treating him, from the things Theo had said to him, he thought that it might not be as temporary a thing as he’d assumed at first. Why would Theo take such good care with him if he wasn’t invested in this?
“Hey,” Eric finally broke the silence, because there was something he needed to say and he wasn’t sure that he was going to be able to make himself say the three words that he so badly wanted Theo to hear unless he was still slightly dazed with the remains of his fever. It was deniability. If Theo freaked out about it, Eric could always say it had been the sickness talking. So he took a deep breath and then opened his mouth again. “Theo. I …”
A low, heavy thudding started, and Eric groaned and gripped his head. Maybe he wasn’t being cooked by the full fury of the headache, but he still felt like crap and the thickness of the headache,which had settled, throbbed perfectly in time with the pounding he was hearing in the house.
“Someone’s at the door,” Theo, apparently oblivious to what Eric had been about to say, rose to his feet and stretched. He even gave Eric an incredibly sweet little kiss on the forehead before pulling away. “I’ll get it.”
It was things like that. Those little gestures, the way Theo would take his hand or spontaneously kiss him, even in a non-sexual way. This was about more than sex, more than desire, Eric could swear to it, and despite feeling an awful lot like Hell reheated, he still smiled as he watched Theo leave the room.
Maybe he dozed. If so, it wasn’t for very long, because exhaustion still gripped him, lead weighs around his wrists and ankles, dragging him down toward the ground.
When he opened his eyes again, Theo was there, and it was Theo with a very careful, remote expression on his face. It didn’t make any sense to him until Theo stepped aside and there was Faith, a bright smile of welcome on her pretty face.
“You have a guest,” Theo said, and then he was gone, right out of the room. Giving him privacy, Eric realized, and he watched him leave with his heart sinking down into the very pit of his stomach.
Theo was upset. He tried to hide it, but Eric had known him for far too long, and Theo hadn’t changed that much. The question was, about what? Had Faith said something rude to him? It wasn’t impossible, he had only known her a short time, but he knew she was pretty blunt.
“Missed you at the bar Friday night,” Faith commented, sitting on the edge of his bed, wrinkling her pert little nose at him. “You look like hell, man.”
“Thanks,” Eric saiddryly, but the corners of his lips twitched in reaction. Theo had been somewhat less abrasive about it, but Eric didn’t actually doubt that Faith was telling the truth.
“So who’s the studmuffin?” Faith leaned in, speaking, thankfully, in a more quiet tone of voice. “He’s hot. Is he your boyfriend?”
There was no need to panic, Eric told himself firmly. No need at all. She didn’t know anything. She was just guessing. But was it that obvious, how Eric felt about Theo? She’d seen them together for all of about two seconds, and Theo had been pissed at the time.
No, it had to be a shot in the dark. She was probably trying to make him feel uncomfortable. Eric forced a smirk to his lips and gave her a bit of a look.
“Come on. What is this, high school?” he asked, and Faith laughed and thankfully, she changed the subject.
It was nice to have her drop by, nice to know that he had friends who cared, though he felt bad that she was probably going to get this Martian Death Flu from him. Still, it made him feel a little bit better to see her.
The only thing was when she had left, Theo didn’t come back in. And when Eric called out for him, feeling alone and lost and pathetic suddenly without him, Theo didn’t so much as answer him.
The only response he got was from the only other living being in the house, Jupiter, who came to investigate why Eric was making so much noise. Theo wasn’t there, and after sitting and watching Eric from the doorway for a few moments, Jupiter got up and wandered off, and then Eric really was all alone.
