#fever cw

He had the afternoon off, and the next day too. He tossed his keys onto the counter, hooked his phone onto his charger. Zee was on the patio, potting herbs he’d planted for the windowsill and getting bagged soil all over the place, under his fingernails too. He had a streak of it on his cheek. 

Alex leaned in the doorframe. “They big enough for outdoors already?”

“Yeah,” Zee replied, squinting in the sun. “Should be. Did you… did you need me? I can…” 

Alex waved him off. “You’re good, bro. Do your thing. Just saying hi.”

Even now, Zee fell into the role of boxboy more often than Alex would like. He tried to give him things to do, ways to keep busy that weren’t housework, but it was limited with his aversion to reading and his steady urge to please. He still got pangs of guilt sometimes when Zee cleared his plate for him, or folded his clothes out of the dryer. He stopped halfway in the door. “Oh hey, did Cam leave?”

Zee looked past Alex at the empty living room. “I-I don’t think so? He didn’t say anything. But I can look-”

“It’s okay.” Alex waved him off again. “I promise you’re good, Zee.” He winked at him for good measure and shut the sliding glass door. Cam didn’t seem to be anywhere in the apartment, but his shoes were by the door, his keys on the hook. He peeked into Zee’s room, which he generally stayed out of so Zee would feel he had a place that was truly his own.

Cam didn’t seem to share that idea, because he was sleeping in Zee’s bed, on top of the blankets.

Alex called out to him. 

Nothing. 

He pushed the door the rest of the way open and went inside. “Cam? You awake?” He shook Cam’s foot, which only got him a whimper. 

He sat on the edge of Zee’s bed, the bedspread and sheets they’d picked out at the mall together. He touched Cam’s shoulder. “Yo. You can sleep in my bed, man. C’mon.’

Cam pulled away from him as if he were dreaming, and not of anything sweet. He whimpered again. Alex put a hand on his forehead, front and then back. He was hot, clammy. “Shit,” he whispered, resting the back of his knuckles on Cam’s cheek.

Cam moaned, batted at his hand. “Don’ touch me,” he whispered, frowning.

“Okay,” Alex said, hoping fever-Cam would hear him. Perhaps he thought he was someone who wished him harm, someone at the house even. “I won’t.”

He went to the kitchen cabinet for medicine, looking through his supply of over the counter medicines for something that might help. He was looking over a label for the words “fever reducer” when he heard the unmistakable sound of retching coming from the open bathroom door. He brought the pills and a half glass of water, headed back and found Cam on his knees in front of the toilet, vomiting stomach bile into the bowl. He sat on the lip of his tub and placed his hand between Cam’s shoulder blades. 

He moaned, racked by a violent shiver. 

"It’s okay," Alex said. “Get it all up. There you go.”

He kept his hand on Cam’s back until he was finished and even the dry-heaving stopped, reminded of how his mother would sit with him when he was little and he would get sick, how she was calm and patient and pressed cool cloths to his forehead. He could even remember the linoleum tiles of their old bathroom, black checkers on white, the frosted shower doors.

Cam spit, turned his head to look at him. His eyes were glassy. “I don’t feel very good.” 

Alex clicked his tongue in sympathy. Ya think, baby? He lowered himself onto his knees beside Cam, held the glass of water to his lips so he could take a sip. “Rinse first,” he instructed. “Good. Will you take a pill for me?”

Cam nodded, more lucid than he’d been just minutes ago on the bed. He shook two pills into Cam’s palm and helped him take another sip of water to get them down.

“C’mon, tough guy,” he urged, helping him up from under the armpits. “Let's get you in my bed instead.”

***

Zee asked if there was anything he could do, and Alex shrugged. “He's sleeping.”

Zee made himself a cheese and mustard sandwich without asking and sat on the couch to eat it instead of the floor, which were two things he'd slowly started doing that Alex took as good signs. He balanced the plate on his knees, eyebrows furrowed in worry. “What if he doesn’t get better?”

“I’ll take him to the hospital.”

“He won’t let you. He doesn’t have insurance.”

Let me, my ass, Alex thought, but did not say. Zee pulled a piece of his sandwich off and broke that piece into smaller bits the size of oyster crackers, putting them into his mouth one at a time. It reminded Alex of his kid brother Rob, who for years had separated all his food enough that he could drive a matchbox truck through the spaces like roads.

"I probably shouldn't have said that,” Zee realized, glancing at him. “About the insurance."

Alex huffed, rubbed his eyes. "Forget it. You're good."

*** 

A few hours later, he checked on Cam in the cool dark of his bedroom. He could smell the sharp scent of sweat when he got close, and saw he was all twisted up in the sheet, his hairline drenched.

He flinched when Alex touched his forehead. 

“Shhhh,” he soothed. “It’s Alex. It’s me.”

He thought maybe a cool shower would do the trick. Maybe it would bring his temperature down. At the very least it would feel better than layers of sweat sticking to him like a second skin. He swung Cam’s legs over the bed first, pulled him up to a sitting position. “Can you help me?” he asked, getting his shoulder underneath Cam’s right arm. “Can you walk with me?” 

Cam tried his best to stand, leaning heavily on Alex as they hugged the wall of his bedroom, out into the hall. Alex reassured him the whole way, not even hearing what he was saying. Words of encouragement, repeating little phrases. It didn't matter. Cam used his other hand to brace on the wall and slowly, they made it into the bathroom. He sat Cam on the toilet seat to run the water, waited until it felt lukewarm to him to strip him out of his sweaty tee shirt. 

“C’mon,” he urged, trying to get him to stand. “This’ll feel good. It’ll help.”

Cam let him peel off his shorts, stepped out of them when he tapped each leg like he was a horse. Alex realized he was going to be taking this shower too, or neither of them were. Cam felt wobbly, like he might fall and hurt himself without any support. He couldn’t strip his own clothes off without letting go of Cam, so he decided to get in clothed, as weird as it felt. He helped Cam maneuver one foot over the lip of the tub, until he seemed to realize where they were headed.

“Nnno,” he said, almost slurring it. 

“Yes. Other foot, Cam. C’mon.”

“No.”

“It’s okay. C’mon.”

Cam turned away from the water, his face blotchy and red. “Don’t wanna… please-”

Alex shushed him, held him tight by the biceps. 

He’s just confused.  Alex thought. He doesn't know what's happening. Or that it's me. He’ll figure it out when he feels the water.

When Cam accidentally scratched him, he cursed under his breath, wrangled him the rest of the way into the tub and held him there.

At first, he groaned like the water felt good on his burning skin. See? He thought. I got you, dummy. But maybe he was just dizzy from Alex’s rough handling, because soon he began to duck his head away from it, trying to cover his face with his hands. “No,” he wailed, hitting the tile with the heel of his palm. “No no no no-”

Alex was alarmed at the persistence, the fear. Cam was taller than he was, but slighter, too. He wasn’t hard for Alex to maneuver unless he was actively fighting. Alex pinned his arms to his side and held them there, held him tight. “It’s okay, Cameron. We’re just cooling off. I'm not gonna hurt you."

Cam sobbed, an alarming, harsh sound that seemed to come from deep inside him. Suddenly, he tried to wrench away. Afraid he’d fall, Alex tightened his grip. At this point, he only wanted to keep him from hurting himself, calm him down enough to get back out.

Cam’s father had been a real asshole when he was alive. If he was right about his hunch, it was physcial. That made him feel worse, worse than earlier when he wondered if Cam might think he was the guys from the house.

“No, no...” Cam pushed and twisted, trying to get away from him. Healthy, he could’ve done it. Alex knew that from experience. He would’ve sent them both toppling onto the floor, ripping down the shower curtain. As he was, he was far too weak. He began to cry in earnest. “Please, don’t. Please, don’t. Don’- don’t-”

Alex blinked away water that ran down his face, shook his wet hair out of his eyes. His stomach felt hot and sick that Cam thought he was hurting him… that he was doing something to him. He remembered fighting in Cam’s room two semesters ago, how intent they had been on hurting one another. Cam had been someone else to him then, and he could not have fathomed the tenderness he would someday feel when he looked at his sleeping face, watched him doing homework in his apartment.

“Cam!” he hissed, holding tight under the cool spray. "It’s okay, man. It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re right here with me. You’re safe.”

“Nonononono. No!” He pushed against him again, but his body simply would not cooperate with him. Weak and exhausted, he sagged into the other boy’s arms, crying like Alex had never seen him. He shook with it, unaware and unselfconscious, gasping and shuddering, his hair drenched and sticking to his forehead. 

“Shhhh,” he soothed, holding the back of Cam’s neck and rocking them under the spray. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

When Alex was sixteen, he worked a summer as a counselor at the outdoors camp he went to every year as a kid. A few boys got into a fight one night- it turned out over a disputed pair of cleats- and he’d been the first counselor on the scene. The other boys had already run, leaving one camper slouched against one of the bathroom stalls guarding his bleeding face, refusing to lower his arms or open his eyes. Cam reminded him of that boy that night- unreachable and inconsolable. He hated how useless it made him feel. How powerless. 

When it became clear Cam wasn’t going to fight him anymore, Alex reached over and stopped the water. He pulled a towel off the rack and patted Cam dry, towel-dried his hair. He wrapped it around him so he wouldn't be naked. Next he stripped out of his own soaked clothes, left them in the tub and got a towel for himself. 

The walk back to his room was not so precarious as the way there. Maybe the water had helped, after all. He got clean sweatpants and a dry shirt out of his own dresser and helped a slow and groggy Cam into them, got him back into the bed. He was pulling on a pair of briefs when he heard Cam stirring. He turned, watching him curl his long body around a pillow as if he could absorb it into himself. He pressed his mouth tight into it and began to cry.

Alex didn't bother with a shirt. He climbed in on the other side of his bed and scooted close, but not touching. He laid a hand on Cam’s slim hip, over the covers and rubbed slowly up and down, shushing him softly in the dark. 

He woke hours later, in the early hours of the morning. The only source of light was the faint glow of the city from behind the blinds- just enough to make out the shape of his dresser, the closet door. Cam was still beside him, he realized with relief. He reached out in the dark to try and find his forehead. It felt better.

“Yup. I’m alive," Cam said dryly.

“Dude, don’t blame me for checking. I didn’t know you were awake.”

“Mhm.”

“How you feelin’?”

“Mmm, like I got hit by a truck.”

“You scared me a little bit.”

Cam was silent. Alex had no way to know if he remembered vomiting, or the shower, or crying himself to sleep. He wondered if Zee felt abandoned out there in the apartment, like they were ignoring him. He wondered if he heard any of the commotion. 

“Cam?”

“Huh.”

“I put you in the shower earlier. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“I know. I remember, kinda.”

“Okay.”

Outside, a car horn blared twice and another answered. 

"I’m sorry I was so...messy," Cam managed.

Alex shook his head on his pillow. “Nah. You were sick dude, you couldn’t help it. And besides- it’s just me.”

He thought that was going to be the end of it, because another five minutes went by in silence but Cam turned his head toward him. His eyes had adjusted enough that he could see the outline of him in the dark.

“When I was little, I got sick," he said. “A bug, or something. You know, like kids do. And my mom… she put me in the tub. Probably to cool me off, or, clean me off, I don’t know. But then she went back out to watch her program...her soaps, she called them, and big surprise, she nodded off on the couch. And I guess… I guess I didn’t get out of the fucking tub for some reason and…” 

He paused, swallowed audibly. His voice was rough and thick from sleep and sickness. “My dad came home from work and found me. The water was freezing cold by then. I was… I guess I had inhaled some of it at some point because he took me to the ER and he wouldn’t take me if it was nothing. I was sick for like, a month. Got pneumonia or something.”

Alex remembered the cool cloths, the songs his mom would sing to him at night, and later his siblings. He tried to imagine her leaving one of them sick in the tub and couldn’t. 

"Cam." 

“She was passed out still when we got back. TV blaring.”

“Cam…”

He sniffed. “Don’t. Please. Anyway. I don’t remember much of earlier, but I remember that shit got a little weird. So. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Alex told him. “For real. Don’t be. I’m sorry if I was rough. I really thought you might fall.”

“Thanks. For that. And for letting me crash here in the first place.”

“Don’t mention it.  Zee likes it. I like it. I don't want you over there anyway. You…” he paused. Cam didn’t usually let his guard down this far, wasn’t usually this sincere about things. He didn’t want to pry. He tried not to, especially with Cameron. “You can tell me anything you want. I know you don’t like to talk about some things and that’s legit, I get it, but… I’m here. If you wanna say it, I want to hear it. That’s all.” 

Cam was quiet. Alex thought for sure he’d say something snarky to make sure he cheapened the moment, but he didn’t. "Okay," he said, and lifted his head, flipped over the pillow to the cool side. “Sure.”

***

In the morning, Cam walked gingerly out to the couch when Alex got up to make coffee. He allowed Alex to coax him to take two more pills and a small glass of juice, but then he pulled a blanket over himself and fell asleep.

He finally stirred around noon, eyes ringed in dark circles, lips chapped. Zee was waiting with his saintlike patience, the way Alex imagined he must’ve waited outside his door at the fraternity house, back when he was too timid to knock and ask to come in. Cam draped an arm off the couch for him. 

Alex’s fingers paused over his laptop keys as he watched Zee scoot closer on the floor so Cam’s fingers could brush his cheek. 

"Hey, Zeezee," he whispered.

Zee rested his face in Cam’s palm. Alex had thought he looked naked without his collar, those first few days they’d come to live here together. He felt bad for thinking it. He was used to it now. Zee looked like any other guy their age, with his new clothes and his collarless neck, away from that place where it was so clear he was something other than they were just by his body language.

Cam invited him under the blanket with him and Zee crawled in, snuggled close. He didn't fully understand the truce that had happened between the two of them, but he liked this better than how it was before, when Zee had been afraid.

He watched Cam adjust the pillow so Zee could share it, click the remote to open Alex's Hulu account on the TV.