Us Against The World

The morning after, I woke with a crashing headache and feeling of utmost crappiness. Did I also mention the itching? Because there was a lot of that. Ugh, my back felt as if ants had taking a good hacking at it with their evil little pinchers. To make things even worse than they already were, when I scratched it, it was as if someone had poured gasoline over my skin, then flickered a lit match onto it. Pure agony.

I would probably have screamed out if I could have done so - but my throat was dry and I had my head buried into a pillow, too exhausted to take it out. Despite having a good ten hours of sleep, I was still too tired to move even the slightest fraction of a distance. After finishing making the muffins and having Quince walk out on me with a sudden attitude change, I had suddenly become so fatigued that I went straight to bed after completing whatever homework was compulsory due in for the following day.

About ten minutes later, Stephen walked in dressed in just his boxers and shirt, hurriedly knotting his tie. "Eva, get up. It's seven thirty - you're going to be late for school." I couldn't even be bothered to give him a garbled groan in reply, as our daily morning fashion was. As per usual, he reappeared some time later, fully dressed this time, and even more stressed. Tearing my duvet off of me - this, again, was not any different - his expression changed from exasperation to one of somewhat horror. "What's wrong with your legs?

In a vain half-attempt to raise my head and look at them, I was punished with a lightening bolt of pain shooting across my temples. Planting it back down into the pillow, I just managed to moan into it "Smore."

"Smore? What does that mean?"

With a great deal of effort, I just about managed to turn my head to the side, rasping out a clearer "Sore. I feel like complete shit."

His worry seemed to let him overlook my use of language, for he slowly nodded, chewing his lower lip. "Yeah, you look it."

"Gee, thanks."

"You had it coming." He huffily defended, quickly turning back to his concern. "Do you think that you can make your way downstairs? I want Mel to look at those things on your legs - she'll know what they are better that I do."

"Unless by some miraculous feat that my headache disappears within the next ten seconds, I highly doubt I'm going to get further than the end of the bed without help."

"Well, your speech has improved greatly within the past couple of minutes."

"Have you ever drunk a bottle of bleach?"

"No, why?" He questioned. I could see his surprised face from my partially obscured view by the bedding.

"Because if you haven't, don't even try to pretend that you know how I feel."

"Stop being such a drama queen." But, all whilst grumbling over my 'patheticness', he scooped me up bridal-style and proceeded to carry me out of the room and stagger down the stairs.

I couldn't even be bothered to protest as I was scraped along the walls, which really was saying something. From this view, however, I had a much better view of my legs which Stephen had seemed to be concerned about. Small, red blistered covered them and itched like fucking wildfire, if you'll pardon my French. It really was a time where swearing summed every single damn movement up. After placing me down in one of the kitchen chairs, I plonking my head immediately down upon the table, Stephen disappeared in search of Melanie.

The two of the reappeared not long after, Melanie took one look at me, said "Chickenpox" and hurriedly walked straight back out.

"Chickenfuckingwhat?"

"Chickenpox." Stephen answered me. "Haven't you ever heard of them? And don't swear."

I chose to ignore his last comment. "Of course I've fucking heard of them. But you get them when you're little."

"Not always." He replied, switching on his well-used coffee maker. "Some people get them as adults, especially if they've never gotten them as kids. It generally gets worse as you get older. And don't swear."

"You're fucking telling me that it gets worse."

He sighed as he grabbed a mug off of the rack, disheartenedly murmuring "Don't swear."

My predictably foul-mouthed response was cut off by the creaking of floorboards and heavy footsteps coming from the annex staircase, which led down into the kitchen. Lifting my head off of the tabletop, I was met with the strange sight of Cyrus standing there, dressed in the most informal clothes I had ever seen him in; a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a long-sleeved t-shirt. He dejectedly stood there for a couple of moments until Stephen burst out laughing. "It's not funny!"

"No, you're right." Stephen snorted. "It's absolutely hilarious."

It was only then that I realised his face, the only part of his skin which was exposed, was covered in the same spots as my legs, and presumably rest of my body, were. Pulling out the chair opposite me, he sat down on it and scowled a seriously horrible frown at me. "This is your fault."

"How?"

"You gave them to me." He accepted the mug that Stephen passed across to him, taking a sip and wincing.

"No, yougave them to me."

Plonking himself down on another spare seat, Stephen smirked, passing the sugar jar over to Cyrus, who immediately dumped three heaped teaspoons into his drink. "It's most likely that both of you got it from the same source at school."

Stephen only received a grunt, and I another glare before Cyrus spoke again. "Aren't you worried about catching it?"

"Nah," Stephen leant back in his chair, taking a large slurp of his black coffee. "had it as a boy."

"You canget it more than once."

"Not very likely. Anyway, I'm not a pansy; it wouldn't do any harm. Mel, on the other hand-" He stopped himself, frowning to himself and occupying himself by raising the cup to his lips once more, downing the rest in one motion.

Cyrus, on the other hand, seemed to take great enjoyment in trying to bring his apparently best-friend down. "It can make you sterile."

"Well, that's only something for you to worry about, Quincey boy." With a grin, Stephen stood up, patted him on the shoulder and walked over to place his dirty cup in the dishwasher. "It's quite convenient actually; I was going to have to stay home to take care of Eva, but you can look after each other now." And without another word, he headed for the car, where Melanie had bolted for after seeing me, and they both left for work.

The room was in silence, other than the tick-tock of the kitchen clock, until the front door swung shut, signalling that Cyrus and I were alone. Only then, did he acknowledge me once more, although I wouldn't have called it a blessing, for all he could do was to hiss in a low voice. "I hate you."

That, I found to be rather amusing; it was not to be completely serious, more like his and Ceri's argumentative sessions. So, I decided to play along with it. "I hate you more."

"Filthy, infecting child."

"Annoying, poncy git."

"Indulged, spoilt brat."

"Self-conceited, prude bastard."

"Debauched, lascivious, impudent bitch."

"Irr- What?"

He smirked, standing up. "And intelligence wins the battle once more."

"That was not intelligence; it was swallowing the dictionary."

"You're just jealous of my vocabulary. If you don't feel that such a thing can't quantify a person's brain capacity, then ask me any maths question."

"Six hundred and twelve thousand, four hundred and eighteen times by twenty four, divided by eighty-three?"

He thought for all of three seconds. "One hundred and seventy-seven thousand and eighty-four, point seven two three to three decimal places... Is that right?"

"I haven't a fucking clue."

Laughing to himself as he poured the remainder of his drink down the sink drain. "My, my, you do have a potty mouth, don't you?"

"You obviously do not have this shitty virus as bad as I do."

"No, I just don't see the need to moan about it, nor to have profanities spewing from my mouth."

He received a scowl of my own then. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"I could ask you the same question." The ass retorted like a seven year-old, thinking he was oh-so-funny. Ha ha. Note the sarcasm.

"I livehere."

"So did I... Before you kicked me out."

"Diddums. Get over it. And you never answered me; why are you here?"

"Poker night." He replied, as if it was blindingly obvious. "Stephen usually holds one in the basement every third Monday of each month."

"Why on a Monday?"

I received a roll his eyes in return of all of my questions. Really, I just wanted to piss him off. "Because I don't drink, Jamie works late shifts, Peter doesn't work on Tuesdays and Stephen can mask a hangover extremely well, with a little help from a strong coffee of course."

"And the four of you have a little game of poker in your man-cave? How cute."

"How else do you expect me to pay my bills? Card counting makes up for teaching does not."

"So you steal from your friends by cheating?"

With a minor pout of his lower lip, he shook his head. "It's not cheating nor stealing; it's using odds to my advantage. Anyway, don't you feel that out of a doctor, lawyer and architect, I'm the one that needs a little extra on the side?"

"If you feel that the pay is so bad, then why did you become a teacher? Surely with a doctorate, you could have found a far better-paying job?"

"I do a little accountancy on the side." He skirted around the main bulk of my question, taking a long time to answer. When he did, however, his words were slow and thoughtfully placed out. "When I was back at school, my teachers helped me return to top-level grades after a bit of a..." He paused, searching for the right phrase at this point. "Lapse in learning. Not only did they take time out of their personal lives in order to help me catch up, they continued after, in order for me to exceed in knowledge, hence why I graduated school early. In becoming a teacher, I suppose that I feel that I'm giving back what they gave me."

I observed him for a moment, holding a gaze with those peculiar coloured irises for longer than I ever had before. They no longer seemed cold, to be exact they now were the opposite, but still they held a mistrusting hardness. "So you wanted to become a teacher to return that favour?"

"Less of a favour, more of a gratitude. Look where I am now; they gave me that."

"What? A dead end job, chickenpox and being stuck in a house with me for the unforeseeable future?"

A low chuckle rumbled in his throat - his hand strangely coming up to it for a split second - before slowly shaking his head, feet shuffling upon the tiled floor. "I have a PhD in mathematics - something which could get me a lot of work. But I don't want anything like that; I wantto teach. Whilst I may not show it, I'm proud of what my pupils can achieve under my guidance. One day, I do hope that I can help one of them in such a way that my own professors aided me; I would have gone in a completely different direction if it were not for them. Only once that had happened, will I feel as if I've done well." He slowly blinked, his mouth staying open slightly, as if it were dry. "Because otherwise, everything just seems pointless."

His words, I felt, had a lot more depth than first thought - I had just scratched at the surface of what seemed to be a greatly hidden meaning. He had seemed to be talking more to himself than to me at that point, so that only thing I could only think of asking one question which had been playing since he had mentioned the topic. "This lapse, as you put it, what was it?"

The faraway look upon his face faded as he looked down at me, jaw setting harshly and frowning. With one more question, he had clammed up once more, just as he had upon our first informal conversation in the kitchen. "None of your business."