~*~
It is sometime after midnight when I feel the abnormal heat radiating from his side of the mattress, and it wakes me up.
At first, I have a thought that perhaps he’s passed gas or something in his sleep, and I start to make a mental note that I need to tease him about that in the morning. But then, I remember that he has that nasty cut on his inner arm from work, and that it looked really irritated yesterday. I remember that we debated scheduling a doctor’s appointment, just in case it was getting infected. Because infection is something that happens to him so easily because of the immune deficiency, and can be deadly under the wrong circumstances.
Then I am awake. And then my mind is racing.
“Anon?” I ask into the dark of our now shared bedroom.
I try to keep the tremble out of my voice.
There’s silence, and for a hopeful moment I think that maybe he is sleeping, having a nightmare at worst. That I can go back to bed, and that this is just me worrying too much again, like I always do. But he moves a little next to me, and I know he’s awake now, but still silent. And he wouldn’t be silent like that unless he is having trouble choosing his words. He doesn’t want to let me know something is wrong, and he can’t just say he’s okay, because it would be a lie.
He’s not okay.
This isn’t him having a nightmare. But it is mine.
“Anon?” I say louder, more urgently, like a demand rather than a request.
“Yeah?” he says beside me in the darkness.
“Are you okay?”
I know his answer before he says it.
“…No.”
The word explodes in my head like a gunshot. I sit bolt upright and turn to him with wide eyes, trying to see through the shadows to his body beside me. I think I swear. I don’t hear my voice, but it seems like something I should do right now at least. All I can hear is my own heart pounding, and simultaneously his faint, shallow breathing, going in and out far faster than it should.
I flip on a light, and I find that part of the bed is dark with sweat. He’s been like this for some time now, enough that it’ll probably leave a stain. How didn’t I notice until now? How could I have been so careless?
“Fever?” I ask him simply.
He turns to me and his eyes look sunken, pushed in like he’s been punched. His face is deeply flushed, but pale at the edges, like he’s angry and afraid all at once. I don’t even look down at his arm to where the infection must be, I just stare into his face, feeling my mouth ajar as I try to remember how to breathe like I normally do. Nothing about this feels normal.
He nods.
“Hospital?” I ask in the same stern voice, like a teacher asking for the day’s homework.
“No, not that bad,” he says, and I almost believe him.
“I can call them, tell them we’re coming. We can go right now.”
“No, just… need to catch my breath. It’ll go away. Always does.”
That there has to be an ‘always’ attached there is so heartbreaking to me. But at least I can trust him when he says this, for now. This isn’t the first fever, and it won’t be the last. At least I hope not.
Before he can protest, I hold my hoof up to his forehead, with the back of it against his skin. Even through the sweat, his skin feels dry and taught. Almost like mine when the liver disease is really rearing its ugly head. And it feels warm, far too warm for my comfort, definitely warm enough that I want to go to the hospital. Right now. But I also know that, if his fever is this high, if it’s this bad right now this suddenly, it means that his body is trying to fight whatever infection he has. It just doesn’t know how to do it right, and might kill him instead.
This time, I do hear myself swear.
“Berry…” he says, trying to soothe me.
I’m having none of it. Panic mode is engaged, this is serious and what’s happening now feels like I’ve been hit by a truck. I want to throw up, want to scream, cry, beg him to be okay. I want to run to him to take care of it and take care of me, because I’m afraid right now. I’m horribly, sickeningly afraid that I’m about to lose him, and when I’m afraid I always turn to him for comfort, like he’s a superhero that can always save me. There’s a blind faith there, a childish feeling that when he’s around he can protect me from everything, even my own thoughts. But this current situation has reached the point where immediate action is needed. His temperature needs to come down, right now, and we can deal with more long term medical care afterwards. He can’t comfort me right now. I don’t have time to be afraid.
All at once, it’s like a switch flips in my brain. I know everything I have to do, what order to do it in, and my emotions snuff out, with barely a waft of smoke to show that they’ve been there. I have a task now, and an eerie calm washes over me, some form of comfort perhaps in not feeling helpless. I can help. I will help.
Anon looks into my face as I pull my hoof back and shake my head hard. His face is almost pleading with me, but I get the sense he’s more pleading with his own body, as I know I sometimes do. Don’t do this, I’ll whisper to it. Not now. Not when I’m out with friends. Not when I’ve already had a bad day. People will worry about me, please don’t put me through this in front of someone I care about. Don't put them through this. I suspect that’s what he’s saying to himself now too.
But I keep shaking my head. We have things we can do now, even without a hospital trip. I know the routine. Again, heartbreaking to realize that there is a routine for this by now.
“I’ll get the shower started,” I tell him. “You stay here, you drink water. I’ll bring you your pills.”
For an instant, I think he’ll protest or try to do some of it himself. But then he closes his mouth and nods.
“Yeah,” he says. “Thanks.”
Now I know it is serious, because he’s letting me help with no questions asked. He knows he needs my help. And that’s a grim realization for both of us, I’m sure.
My steps from the bed are quick and feel mechanical to me. First to the shower. Run the water and test it with your inner wrist. Get it to a cool temperature. Cool, not cold, we don’t want to send him into shock.
From there to the medicine cabinet. Get the fever reducers, the over the counter ones, and the antibiotics, the ones his prescription for is probably out of date now. Pray that we have enough. There has to be enough.
Make sure we have towels, and a washcloth, so I keep him warm enough just in case his temperature fluctuates. He’ll feel cold either way, after the shower, and he’ll still shake, because that’s what these vicious, petty fevers do. Then, with all that done, back to Anon, who will still be sitting in bed, who will still be waiting for me there. Who will still be alive.
I’m almost ashamed to admit that I feel a wave of relief when I come back to find him not dead.
I extend the pill bottles to him, and he takes them with only slightly shaking hands. I hope I’m not scaring him, making him worry about me or making him think that he’s in more danger than he is. I don’t want him to have to worry about me or take care of me right now, the focus in my world is him. I’m taking care of him right now, and it can’t be the other way around.
The water glass beside the bed is still half full, and I watch him take his medicine, almost as if I’m afraid he won’t for some reason. Like he’s a child who might spit the pills back out or turn bratty and refuse. But he expertly gulps them down as he has so many times before, and looks back up to me for any further instructions.
“Is the shower ready?” he asks, his voice sounding thick and syrupy.
“Yeah. It’s pretty cool, so prepare yourself for that.”
He nods and moves to get up. As the cover falls back I can see that he’s naked, and that the flush has spread over his entire body. I had never really known that humans could change color like this until I’d seen him get a fever the first time, and even then I had laughed a little at how strange and pink he had looked. Now I feel no tinge of laughter, instead replaced by some sort of creeping nameless dread that I still suppress in the name of efficiency. As he goes to stand, I put myself at his side and keep his hand over my shoulder, my arm tucked around his waist.
“You don’t have to do that,” he says, and I suspect he would have blushed if he wasn’t already so red.
“Gonna anyway,” I say.
“I can walk just fine.”
“I’m sure, but you can lean on me if you need to, and I’m not letting go of you.”
I’m not letting go of you.
I again think that he will protest but he allows me to tug at his arm over my shoulders, so that at least a little of his weight is on me. It’s awkward and lopsided, because I’m so much smaller than he is, but we make our way to the bathroom together, and I do feel a slight sway in his steps. It feels like a mile from the edge of the bed to the shower, like I’m a soldier carrying a wounded comrade across a now-quiet battlefield, but I don’t feel heroic. Just desperate.
I deposit, more than gently set, him into the shower, and he immediately slumps against the wall with a shudder. I check the temperature, and it’s a little too warm, but at least I know I won’t put him into shock. Without any hesitation, I climb in as well, and huddle down beside him in the flow of the water. With one hoof, I run a washcloth over his back, to stimulate blood flow a little and get his system working. I’m shuddering too, and I know my tremors definitely aren’t from the cold.
I look at him, trying to analyze if this is helping, doing any good yet, somehow demanding instant gratification against any sort of logic. The water is flattening his hair to his head, quickly changing it to a darker color, and the red in his flesh is becoming more brilliant in hue. But I know that’s normal. That’s how this works at first. This is how we get a fever down quickly without causing damage. No ice baths, no freezing showers, which means it does take some time to work, but it’s much safer. I have to be patient.
I watch his shoulders tremble as he hugs his knees towards his chest and leans forward, like he’s trying to catch his breath. His body heaves with sighs and maybe gasps, as his body tries to adapt to its new surroundings and my gentle rubbing. He looks vulnerable, like some sort of snail without his shell, not ugly but very raw. He looks like a wound in between dressing changes. When he at last looks up at me as I put the cloth down, his eyes are less sunken, but it seems like he might be crying or laughing. Maybe his face can’t decide which.
“I’m sorry,” he says, with a shake of his head.
And all at once, I find I’m angry at him. So stupidly, inexplicably, impotently angry. I’m not mad that he’s sick, and that I now have to deal with it. I’m not angry that he let it get this far without telling me. I’m not even angry that we’re both like this, both stuck in this endless loop of being well, then being trapped in bed feeling like shit, then being well, then sick again. I’m angry that he would dare say sorry to me right now. That he would waste time and energy apologizing to me, worrying about me, when I’ve tried so hard to be a rock for him right now. When I’ve made sure not to show my fear, when I’ve never once said anything about him being a chore or a burden. He’s none of those things to me, and all his energy should be on him right now, on getting well. Thoughts of me are wasted thoughts. I don’t want them.
“Don’t be,” I say, almost cruelly. “None of that right now. No sorries.”
“But I kind of get to be sorry for this.”
“No,” it’s a sort of low bark. “You wouldn’t let me apologize if our places were reversed. So none of that.”
He hesitates, then nods a consent, and at last leans back to let the water drum softly against his chest.
With that, all at once, the switch flips again, and my emotions are back. A dam breaks. The river splashes down, and it’s all I can do not to scream.
I slowly lean over and rest my head against his shoulder, and put a hoof around his back again to hold him near me. I shut my eyes as I rest there, listening to the thunder of his heartbeat through his skin. My whole body aches now, and I bite my lower lip so hard that it probably bleeds to keep my sobs bottled in. I can only hope that the drops from the shower hide the tears in my eyes well enough to fool him. Even now, I'm still so afraid.
I want to apologize to him, but I also know that wouldn’t be fair, considering what I just said. Instead, I give a pitiful little laugh and shake my head, so that I nuzzle his arm with my cheek.
“We shouldn’t have had sex tonight,” I say quietly. “That probably got your temperature up way too high.”
“Nah, it was nice, and it would have been fine,” he says, with an equal little laugh. “I just shouldn’t have pushed myself so hard during. I should have known better than that.”
“This isn’t your fault.”
“It’s not yours either.”
“Fair.”
We sit in silence a moment, likely both trying to believe in what the other has said. After a while, I reach up and gently, achingly kiss the side of his head, right below his ear. His skin is hot against my lips, but better than it was.
“Still, we know better for next time,” I say in a near whisper. “And if I see you with anything that might be infected again, you’ll take the antibiotics early. And no sex.”
“No sex?
“Not until after I’m sure you’re well enough.”
“There are worse things than death by sex.”
“I’d prefer no death at all, thanks.”
They’re morbid jokes, but that’s how we work. That’s how we get control over this situation, feel like we have some power over what our bodies are doing to us. If we can laugh at them, they don’t own us. Even then, it’s hard to laugh right now.
“Want me to read to you?” I ask, probably sounding childish. “Or sing to you?”
“You don’t have to.”
“Would it help?”
He pauses, then shrugs.
“I don’t think so. Maybe later though and… thanks for the offer.”
“Is there anything else I can do?”
It’s a silly attempt to stave off the feelings of helplessness beginning to creep in on me again, but I still want to offer. Sometimes my singing has helped him lower his heart rate, or feel a little less pain when he's trying to get through it. I'm not the best singer, but it's nice to know I'm good enough for that. Right now, I know there’s probably nothing more I can do, but even a word, a touch, any little thing would make me feel useful to him. Perhaps I need that more than he does. He’s quiet for a while, and all I hear is the hiss of the shower streaming down on us.
“Just… stay with me?” he says at last.
I smile, and it takes every nerve and muscle in my body to do so.
“Of course,” I say. “Always.”
It is three thirty AM when he finally falls asleep again.
I sit on my side of the bed and stare down at his sleeping form, gently running my hoof over his damp hair. He has told me not to worry, that his temperature is normal now, and I double checked so I know it’s true. He has said he’ll be fine through the night, and that we’ll go get checked by a doctor tomorrow. He needs his rest, so I’m glad he’s asleep, but I know I’ll be up the rest of the night. Keeping watch. Here to scare death away if he comes scratching at our door again.
It’s all I can do.
My body occasionally shakes with crying, but I always swallow it down. I hurt for him, so much, knowing that this is what we’re both destined to go through over and over again. I love him, he loves me, and I wouldn’t want it to change at all other than to have us both be well. It’s a good relationship, and I feel an occasional swell of anger that experiences like these are regular footnotes that will continue on in the stories of our time together. And I also feel sorry I was ever angry at him. He’s got a fever, and my anger is misplaced and stupid, and he doesn’t deserve it. Now, after the fact, I almost hate myself for feeling it in the first place.
As I sit there looking down at him, I still see my slumbering superhero. This doesn’t change the way I look at him, the way I love him. He’s the same person he’s always been, my Anon, my dear, sweet, strong Anon. And I still know that, when I’m afraid, I’ll still ask him the scare the monsters out from underneath our bed.
It's Just that as he's lying there, peacefully, he’s deceptive in a way. I never for an instant forget that my body is broken. I can never forget that I can sense it dying around me like a shell I can’t shed. I can pretend, sure, but I never really forget. But with him, my life is so good and so wonderful, full of joy and new experiences. It barely feels real, like I might be dreaming and horrifyingly wake up to find I’m alone again, as I always have been.
It’s all so seductively deceptive, my dearest Anon, that sometimes I have a brief, blissful moment where I forget you are sick.
I won’t forget tonight. Maybe ever again.
-END-