Look After You.

A dusty window attempts to shield a sleeping figure from the outside world, but the grime is not thick enough to stop tangerine segments of light melting on a sour-cream face. The room is filled with a sound similar to that of an out of tune accordion, played by an apathetic amateur who can’t produce a clear note. Irregular and faulty, like a boat running out of fuel on a thunderous sea, the soft croak does not perturb its source: a bulge in the sheets, curled in the small space that is dense with humid breath accumulated over the course of the night. A moulded pillow is dented and flattened, preserved with a moist layer of perspiration and the waste products seeping from the weary lungs of the skeleton resting there. The lump shudders, is still, and then returns to the irregular routine of sleep.

In the one shadowy section of the bedroom is a door. The handle seems to scream as metal components protest against one another, yet the resonance does not cause the inhabitant of the bed to awaken. A sock-clad foot ventures onto a carpet that can’t remember seeing a vacuum cleaner, and the owner takes an erratic gulp of sticky air. He closes the door behind him and reaches to turn a knob on the heater, the mother of the warmth in this room, and then moves slowly into the soft light that bathes the pile of blankets and flesh. Taking a disapproving look at the cloudy dirt on the glass panes to his left, he slowly sinks down on the occupied mattress and bites his lip.

“Ryan?”

The boy in the bed does not respond. His visitor refrains from speaking again but instead narrows his eyes in worry, his hand trailing over the only clean piece of material in the room – the duvet cover. He himself had washed this only yesterday, taking utmost care to deliver it back to its owner in the softest condition he could manage, but he doubts Ryan noticed. Maybe it was better that way. He didn’t want him to get worked up again at the thought of someone else cleaning for him.

Rough, bare fingers almost taint themselves with the oil affixing clumps of unwashed, hazelnut hair to a smooth forehead, but they refrain from touching the skin. They instead settle for a flannel sleeve, which provides a strong barrier to any cold that might be lucky enough to penetrate the room. The material is warm and almost clammy, but the same cannot be said for the hand poking from beneath the waves of blanket.

“Bren?”

The arrival’s head jerks slightly at the sound of Ryan wheezing his name into the near-silence. The continuous rhythm of harsh breathing pauses for a second, preceding a heavy cough which causes Ryan’s whole body to convulse.

“Of course it’s me,” Brendon replies softly, and Ryan’s thick eyelashes peel away from his lower lids so he can focus in on the brunette before him. “How’re you doing?”

“Doing great,” Ryan sighs, mouth jerking up slightly at the corner. Brendon’s hands finally find the courage to travel up to his best friend’s hair, pushing under his fringe to move it from his forehead. It comes with more reluctance than usual, positioning itself in a lazy quiff where fingers leave it. Ryan never sweats this much, not even during the night. “Pretty sleepy, though.”

“I know,” Brendon whispers. “I’m sorry, Ry… but it’s Saturday morning.”

Ryan’s pallid fingers grip the sheet beneath them, his bones attempting to slit the skin and snap the blood vessels that drape over them. His pupils contract as he stares up into the bright sunlight, and they gradually weave up through the room to Brendon’s face. The younger boy smiles to disguise his true emotions, moving his hand right next to Ryan’s, but not so close as to touch it. As the head on the pillow twitches, the morning illumination refracts from the sea of tiny liquid beads that are born at his hairline, trickling all the way down to the crooks of his eyes – and Brendon quickly reaches for a cloth, knees hitting the floor as he bends over Ryan at a more approachable angle.

“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” he gabbles, a shaky palm guiding the handkerchief round the contours of Ryan’s features. His breath quakes and he disguises it as a cough.

“Mm, fine,” Ryan mumbles under the sound of Brendon clearing his throat, his eyes narrowing a fraction. “You don’t sound too good, Bren. You haven’t been working too hard again, have you?”

Brendon shakes his head, feeling that the best approach is to lie. He won’t tell Ryan that he’s slept like an insomniac on coffee these fast few nights, spending his time not in the spare room but downstairs instead, armed with dusters and cloths and bottles of detergent. He won’t tell Ryan that he spends the majority of his recent nights building up the muscle fibre in his arms, scrubbing and scrubbing at the surfaces in Ryan’s house that haven’t seen a scouring pad or a tin of polish in weeks. He won’t tell Ryan that even though the work gives him something to do with himself, it’s not enough to take his mind away and cleanse the tear-stains from his cheeks.

“Can’t believe you’re trying to look after me,” Brendon answers finally.

Ryan’s chest shakes, but instead of forming a cough, it’s a soft laugh. “S’my job, remember? You’re my best buddy. Can’t let you go – let you go wearing yourself out,”

Slick eyelids flutter closed, and the moment they do so Brendon’s dry, scabbing lips fold round each other as if to soothe themselves from anguish. The skin at the corners of his eyes crinkles and he raises a hand to banish an overwhelming sob; the dying, violet petals beneath melting chocolate irises are the first to receive a salty shower, before the tears start to flow over his cheekbones. A soft moan breaks from Ryan’s lips as he exhales, his ribcage forcing discomforting air from his lungs, and his hand moves towards Brendon’s as he whispers, “Stop it.”

“Dammit, Ry, I’m not going,” Brendon chokes, welding his fingers around his friend’s. “I – I just can’t leave you like this…”

“I’m fine, Brendon,” is the reply, a little more forceful this time. “I’m just tired… it’s early.”

“It’s eleven,” Brendon states. He tears his eyes away from Ryan’s, moving them and his other hand towards the place where the two clutch one another, and runs it repeatedly over the other boy’s colder skin. His breath hitches at the layer of chilled sweat glazing Ryan’s wrist; he finds the touch depressing and quite the opposite of reassuring, but he knows he could hold it forever. “You’re usually past the grogginess by now.”

Ryan’s silent for a minute, and Brendon is on edge for every second of it. He smoothes back the mop of hair again and again but he’s not sure whether the action is to comfort himself or the bed-ridden figure in front of him. His eyes stick to every movement Ryan makes – the gentle parting and closing of his lips as he breathes, as natural as the tide; the bewitching rotation of his eyes beneath capillary-iced lids as he attempts to open them; the contortion of his nostrils as he takes a deep breath and then coughs it back out, spluttering and groaning as he does so. Brendon exhales loudly, dampness dripping from his nose now, and raises their hands to his cheek, closing his eyes to the touch.

“You must, Brendon. Press is important and you need a change of scenery; it’ll do you some good,”

Brendon shakes his head slightly – he doubts this very much. He knows that from the moment he steps out of the front door, he won’t be able to sleep soundly, talk coherently or eat properly because each minute will be a waste without Ryan in the vicinity.

“I’ll be fine,” Ryan persists. “The nurse is going to come round twice a day. She’ll take care of me if I need it.”

“That’s not enough, Ryan,” Brendon replies through a clenched jaw, his hand shaking as he tries not to clench his grip too hard. “You need someone here, someone with you at all times. We can still arrange for you to go back into hospital if –”

“No,” pale lips whisper in defiance, and Brendon falls silent. “No hospitals. If I had to be in there, they wouldn’t have let me out in the first place.”

Brendon sighs and opens quivering lips, biting back a reply to the inaccurate, delirious judgement. He’s almost ready to tell Ryan the other reason he doesn’t want to leave, almost ready to confess why he’s holding onto his hand so tightly, but he’s pulled back from the edge by fear. “At least let me call someone, then. I know Jon and Spence can’t come until Tuesday, but Pete said he’ll drive down here if we needed him. If I call now he can be here in –”

“I don’t want Pete to see me like this. He can come round… when I’m better.”

And right then, as Ryan utters those last three words, Brendon’s universe comes crashing down over his head with a dizzying force. His lungs trip and his eyes dilate, his worn down heart stuttering protests of Ryan’s hopeful naivety. His vision isn’t blurred by salty drops anymore and he’s frozen on the spot – not moving, not feeling. The only thing he senses is the slow breeze of Ryan’s breath dusting their linked hands and despite the muggy texture of the air in the room, his skin gives birth to a choppy ocean of goose bumps.

He lifts their arms safely away as he scrambles onto the bed, lying in the little space there is between Ryan and the edge of the mattress. His throat could be convulsing to produce the uneven breathing pattern that mimics Ryan’s, but he knows it’s just anxiety and desperation that are the cause. He himself now contributes to the moisture on the pillow as he leans into the material saturated with Ryan’s scent, inhaling deeply as he places his head as close as he can get without touching. He lifts his other hand warily, trembling as he waits for Ryan to open his eyes – and when he’s finally calmed by the gaze he’s come to accustom as the one he could live under for the rest of eternity, he finds the strength to fit his palm to Ryan’s cheek. He knows that if he doesn’t say this now, he could shatter into a million shards before Ryan does.

“Ry… don’t – don’t tell me I’ll be fine without you, b-because I won’t,” he begins, faltering because he always imagined this moment to be something stupidly happier and less desperate – but he knows he’s let all chance of that slip away. “Don’t tell me that I shouldn’t be here, because there’s no p-place on earth I’d rather be. I know you didn’t want me to come stay with you but in all honesty I couldn’t have lived, knowing that you were here on your own all the time. It was hard enough having to g-go home from the hospital each night, and I longed f-for the day you were able to leave…”

“And then it came,” Ryan breathes, smiling slightly. “What-”

“Please, just – just let me talk or I’ll never finish,” Brendon stammers, and as Ryan frowns in confusion he curses the fact that every little action has been reduced out of weakness. “I wish I had as much strength as you. Every time I come in here and I wonder if you’re – you’re… God, I can’t deal with the thought… I won’t be able to function on this stupid interview trip because even though I’m flying out and then coming straight back, I won’t be able to know you’re okay. I won’t be able to see your face and I…”

Ryan’s hand quivers violently from the effort Brendon summons to try and control himself. Sobs rupture his body and they shake the mattress, an earthquake tearing apart the lives of two broken boys. Ryan grips Brendon’s hand back as tight as he can and Brendon’s conscience refuses him the right to utter the last part of his speech, the line ripped from his throat by the hope in the shiny oak eyes a few inches from his own. I fear that if I go, this could be the last time I ever do.

“I’ll be right here when you get back, Bren,” Ryan whispers, the words almost incomprehensible as they become forced through whimpers. “I promise you.”

“I’ll look after you, Ry,” Brendon chokes, smudging the path of Ryan’s tears with his thumb. “Just one day, and then I’ll be back. I won’t let this disease get you, I swear to God.”

His companion nods, eyelids forced shut to squeeze back the droplets growing in his eyes, and he clutches his bottom lip with his teeth. Brendon moves his hand to the nape of Ryan’s neck, smoothing the sickeningly cool, sweaty skin with fingers that won’t stop shaking to comfort properly, and he hears the impatient horn of the cab that’s pulled up outside to take him to the airport. He swallows as much of his fear down as possible and leans forward, placing the first tender kiss on Ryan’s lips, and never wanting to pull away.

A moment passes where the whole room is still. Neither of them moves for a minute, and then Ryan squeezes Brendon’s hand to tell him to leave.

Warm lips form a goodbye on Ryan’s forehead, and Brendon moves off the bed. Trembling, he lets go of Ryan’s hand and walks backwards, stumbling as he refuses to look away from the almost motionless lump peeking out at him from under the bed covers. One smile from Ryan is all he needs to muster up the courage to turn the door handle, wincing at the rusty squeak it gives to signal Brendon’s exit, before he turns away and stumbles down the stairs.

Ryan listens to the sound of his closest soul move around in the kitchen, gathering the bare essentials he needs with him on his trip. He’s too weak to cry and too overcome to breathe, and he feels his lungs suck his ribs deeper into his body. The hand that Brendon held reaches up to clutch his chest in an unseen gesture of love and pain, and as the taxi cab pulls away from the house and down the road, the boy under the duvet is still.