Roleplay Schmoleplay

   Chomper groaned as he got out of bed, even though he was responding ok to his chemo he was still in a lot of pain most of the time. He shambled over to the bathroom, his retching waking up Eddy. Just another unfortunate side effect that had recently cropped up. Eddy shivered when his warm body hit the cold air of the room, but he got up quickly to check in on his husband.

“You ok?” an all too common question Chomper got these days.

“Yeah, yeah I’m just taking a breather.” he lied, “Gimme a sec.”

“Awright.” Eddy stood awkwardly on the other side of the door, he hated that he couldn’t do anything to help, “Well I’m, uh, I’m gonna get the mail and start the heater.”

Chomper nodded even though Eddy couldn’t see him, “Ok, I’ll be out in a sec.”

   Eddy let out a breath, trying to be quiet so Chomper couldn’t hear him sigh, then took his time getting dressed. He liked to still be in the room when Chomper got out into the shower, which he knew would be next since Chomper had a strict routine, just in case something happened. Not that anything would, he reassured himself, since Chomper was still a strong youngish man. Despite how much it felt like he’s aged in the past few weeks. The sound of the showerhead coming on and the soft thump of Chomper’s paws stepping onto the tub floor let Eddy know he got in ok. Which of course he would, Eddy was being silly for worrying that he wouldn’t.

    Much quicker now, Eddy walked into the living room to turn on the heater. Because of Chomper’s nausea he didn’t start cooking until after Chomper had taken his medicine, so instead he switched to making sure the room was as comfortable as possible. It was something he could do. The heater grumbled as it got to work, and Eddy moved on to his next task. On cold mornings like this he was thankful that they had a mail slot in the door, and not a mail box like the other houses he used to live in. He shuffled through the various letters and circulars, almost all were ads, so he separated the mail between real letters and more ads about the grocery store. Honestly, not much was left. Two notices from Chomper’s doctor (which from the size of the envelope they were no doubt reminders about appointments he would have in the next month), a christmassy square envelope without a stamp from Louisa that was probably the McCollough’s yearly Christmas card, and a grimy envelope with no return address for...himself?

   More curious than worried, Eddy walked back to the bedroom to open the letter so he could hear Chomper better while he was reading. He sat down on the foot of the bed, over the unmade covers, and set down Chomper’s things to put his full attention on this mystery mail. He looked at the post mark, which showed it was from New York City but that was all. Not taking a moment to think about who could’ve sent it, after all there was a lot of shit in NYC, he ripped off the top of the envelope. Not like he needed to save it for the address or something. It was a handwritten letter with very small writing, so he’d need his glasses to read it, but the fact it wasn’t printed out caught his attention. It probably wasn’t an auto generated place then, unless scammers somehow didn’t want their computers looked or whatever. He didn’t know much about technology.

Putting his glasses on, he read the letter. The first line putting him more than on edge.

‘Edmund,

    You know it’s been a while and I’m no good at writing so I’m gonna get straight to the point. Dad’s gone and Mom seems to be going with him. If you want to say goodbye you should probably come soon, the doctors don’t think she’s long for this world. I would’ve called but I don’t know your number.

    Stay warm,

    Jaime

PS sorry for being an ass and not writing the address, since I knew you’d throw it out if you saw it was from us. We’re still in the same building.’

   On the bottom there was shakily and poorly drawn flowers and animals. The weird familiarity of the drawings struck Eddy, remembering watching his brother doing that to mail on the subway rides to get more stamps from the post office and eventually getting in trouble when their mom found out that he’d drawn something obscene on a letter to their uncle (who had thought it was funny). Though mostly Eddy was angry.

“Woah what’s got you so worked up?” Chomper said, a towel around his midsection and a very guilty look on his face.

   The anger had distracted Eddy so much that he hadn’t heard Chomper get out of the shower. He opened his mouth a few times to try to explain but nothing came to him. He gave up and just handed the letter to him.

“This.”

   Chomper, unlike Eddy, didn’t need his glasses for close up and feverishly began reading to see what had upset his man so. Thankfully, Eddy thought, Chomper was a fast reader. The siren lowered the lined piece of paper down from his face, looking at Eddy, who was slightly crying.

Eddy looked up at Chomper, who was making a face that was very difficult to read.

Finally he spoke up.