Healing Gabriel (BoyxBoy)

✠ Chapter Thirty-Eight ✠

      "If you don't let me take your temperature orally, I'm going to flip you over and stick it up your butt," she threatened, making my eyes widen.

      "You wouldn't--" I started, but she already dove for the kill and slipped the thermometer past my parted lips. I scowled in defeat and just lied there, breathing heavily. All that kicking and screaming had really knocked the last bits of remaining breath out of me.

      An eternity later, Mom finally pulled the metal piece from my mouth and turned the device towards her. "One-hundred-one point two degrees fahrenheit," she read aloud, her tan lipstick-painted lips frowning. "Your temp rose a whole tenth of a decimal since twenty minutes ago."

      I widened my eyes theatrically this time rather than for the fate of my ass. "A whole tenth of a decimal?" I gasped, trying to suppress my coughs, which made my shoulders tremble.

      "Don't get smart with me, Evander," she warned, giving me the Look every mother gave her child when s/he was pushing the limit. She glanced down at the thermometer again and pursed her lips. "I was going to run to the grocery store, but maybe I'll just stay and have Dylan do it . . . "

      "No, it's fine, just go. I'll be okay. Besides, you know he never buys the right things, anyways."

      "I know." She shook her head. "That boy can be such a pain."

      "Your fault, you birthed him," I pointed out, earning an eyeroll.

      "I love how you still manage to keep your smartass-ness when you're nearing the possibility of an emergency hospital visit."

      I couldn't help but grin at that. "It means I'm well enough to leave the house to go visit a friend, right?"

      "Wrong," she said, crushing every last building in the City of Hope to See Gabriel I'd been metaphorically constructing this entire week. "You're going to stay in this bed and sleep this fever off, and when I get back from the store we're going to practice some breathing exercises."

      I groaned, coughed hard, then yanked the covers over my head. "Fine," I grumbled through my blanket. I felt her course her well-manicured nails through the tufts of my hair sticking out from my barricade. She mentioned something about soup on the stove and to heat it up if I got hungry, but I pretended not to notice and once again began holding my coughs in and making my eyes water like crazy, waiting for her to leave.

      It wasn't until I heard her close my bedroom door, heard her footsteps on the staircase downstairs, heard the jingling of car keys and heard the front door close that I threw off my comforter and shot up in my bed, gasping.

      "Fuck," I mouthed, too busy panting for breath to voice the curse. My heart was racing like crazy, my lungs an inferno for air. To make matters worse, my stomach was grumbling loudly and painfully, as I had not eaten since Tuesday afternoon (and it was now Friday morning). I needed to eat something, to keep my energy up somehow, no matter how scary not being able to breathe for the 0.2 seconds it took for me to swallow was.

      Scooting my legs to the side of my bed and pushing myself up and off, I wobbled a bit at first before regaining my balance. My head was pounding, my vision blurry for a moment. I waited until my senses were somewhat back to normal before I decided that I would be able to make it to the kitchen without cracking my head open on the way down the stairs.

      In the kitchen, I kept my grip on the countertop next to the stove as I heated up the broth my mom had left me. While waiting there, staring inattentively at a spot on the floor across from me, I became a bit lost in my thoughts. I was brought back to the day that seemed like so many decades ago, but was really only about four months, the day Gabriel showed up on my doorstep and told me the very basics about him. The day we sat on the floor together, and he let me touch his hair, finally allowed me to touch him without freaking out too much. My fingers twitched at the memory.