by Smart, Kit
10
“You look like a drowned rat.” I blurted the next evening when the swing of the door revealed a soaked and grey-faced Hastings.
“Thanks a lot Sinclair.” Twisting his lips into a semblance of a smile he crutched himself forward across the threshold.
Moving round behind him to close and lock the door, I was surprised to find, when I turned round, that he hadn’t moved any further into the house.
“I don’t want to get your floors wet.” He told me nodding at the edge of the entryway rug.
“The floors can take it.” I told him absently as I studied his face. Flushed cheeks, overly bright eyes, dark circles beneath. “You’re sick.”
“Just a cold.”
I reached forward and laid a disbelieving hand on his forehead. Hot. “You’re hot.”
“My ass again?”
“Yeah.” I used my hand to smooth an errant strand of hair up off of his forehead. “Lets get that ass of yours inside, dried off and set up with some tea.”
“Ass tea?” He grimaced at me and waggled his eyebrows.
“Shut up and give me your crutches jackass.” Deliberately I kept my tone light and teasing; following his lead.
“I’m not certain I trust you with my crutches Sinclair.” He told me as he adjusted his stance in preparation for handing off the crutches.
“I promise not to use them to beat you over the head.” I told him solemnly as I accepted said crutches and leaned them against the wall. “No matter how much you tempt me to do so.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He was working on the frogs of his coat now. “I can scarcely be blamed for your—” Grasping the body of the jacket he pulled it up in preparation to shrug it off his shoulders. “Violent tend—” He took a step forward to counterbalance as the motion overset his equilibrium. “—dencies.”
Instinctively reaching out to catch him, I wound up with a hand on his chest only to discover it was wet. Running my hand round to his side which was covered by his suit jacket to confirm that it was sweat and not rain I was horrified to discover that he was soaked through under his jacket. “Have you been to a doctor?”
He flapped a hand. “It’s just the flu.”
“First you claim it’s a cold and now it’s the flu. You should be resting.”
“Are you planning to have me paint your house or something Sinclair?” He raised his eyebrows at me. “I am going to be snuggled up on your sofa reading. I can’t think of anything more restful than that.”
“You should be in bed.”
“Is that an invitation?” Eyebrow wiggling. Now I know it’s serious. You’re not the eyebrow waggling and wiggling type.
“In bed resting.” I clarified as severely as possible given the circumstances. It’s not nice to abuse the ill. I reminded myself. Even if they are acting idiotic and rather deserve it. “Give me your suit coat.”
“You want me to strip in the hall?”
“You’ll be more comfortable without it.”
“I’ll be cold without it.”
“You’ll have blankets—also I think I have a spare men’s shirt around here somewhere.”
“Trophy?” He eyed me with eyes that were too bright as he slid out of the coat.
“Huh?” I snagged the coat from him just before it hit the floor.
“The shirt,”He nodded over my shoulder at his crutches. “Is it a trophy from some memorable conquest or other?” Grabbing the crutches as I slid out of his way, he occupied himself with fitting them to his forearms. “Are you a trophy collector Sinclair.”
“Only in the serial killer sense—” I began only to find what I was going to say forgotten as he took a step forward and stumbled. His left crutch clattered to the floor. Instinctively stepping forward and catching him around the chest I managed to cut off his forward momentum. The fact that he stood there propped against me for several long moments without speaking or moving spoke volumes about how deeply his exhaustion ran.
“Thanks Sinclair.” He said eventually and started to pull himself up. He didn’t protest when I inserted myself under his left arm as a substitute crutch. “God—I’m sorry. I must smell awful.” He apologized as we made our way into the living room.
I shot him a look. “Actually you don’t. When did your fever start to break?” It can’t have been very long ago. He’s still hot and this is fresh sweat.
“In the taxi on the way over here.” He confirmed as he settled on the edge of the sofa. “I don’t want to mess up your sofa.” He said as I looked askance at him when he didn’t lean back.
“The sofa can handle it. Everything can be thrown in the wash if necessary.” I told him absently as I considered the way he had crossed his arms over his torso. Chills. “I’m going to run you a bath and order some dinner.” I put my hands on my waist. “And then I’m putting you to bed.” He opened his mouth to protest and I cut him off. “If, you still feel particularly insistent about looking over today’s pages, you can do it from bed. Though I think it can wait.”
“We have a deadline Sinclair.” He swatted at the air in front of his face with his hand as he said it. It was a motion I had seen him make several times before. An uncharacteristic flapping motion that was at odds with his usual collection of gestures.
“We’ll be fine.” Grabbing a throw I wrapped it round his shoulders. “We have plenty of time still so just lay back and—”
“Think of England?”
“—relax.”
Turning, I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and headed for the bathroom where I turned on the tap and then gleefully poured more lavender bath salts than were strictly necessary to the water. Think of England your lavender scented ass Hastings.
* * * * *
When I got back to the living room, Hastings was leaning back against the sofa but otherwise sitting exactly as I had left him. “Lay down or something—you have some time to wait before the tub is full. Put your feet up.”
“Pippa,” He ignored me. “Have you researched seizures?”
“Uh… yeah.” I frowned. “Not in intense detail or anything but generally.”
“You’ve seen videos?” Clearly tired out his words were beginning to drag.
I nodded not certain where he was going with.
“You know generally what to do for someone having a seizure?”
“I uh…” I mentally went over what I had read and offered him a shrug. “I suppose so yeah—generally.” Is this your way of suggesting a new scene in the book?
“Would it scare you?”
“Someone having a seizure?”
“Yes.”
“Not particularly. I mean I’ve never seen one in person, but I don’t think so.”
“Good.” He tilted his head back against the wall above the sofa and blinked rather owlishly at me.
“Why good?”
“Because.” He shifted restlessly against the sofa and I noticed that he had begun to sweat. “I’m about to have one.”
That hit me like a bucket of ice water to the face. “Oh!” I grabbed my phone out of my pocket. “Shall I call emergency services?”
“Not necessary—” He took a deep breath. “Unless I scare you… or something goes wrong.”
“You don’t want someone more experienced?” My nerves began to hum as I took in his increasing restlessness.
“It’s not necessary.” His breathing was changing—becoming increasingly audible and labored. His eyelids kept dropping and he kept forcing them open. Struggling to focus. There’s literally no time for this waffling thing you’re starting to do Pippa. Pirate up.
“Okay then.” I dropped my phone back into my pocket and skirted the coffee table, which, I then shoved back with my shin, so that there was plenty of room in front of him. “Do you want to lay down?” I knelt so that we were both on eye-level.
“Yeah.” He nodded, and then opened his mouth several times as though to say something else. When nothing came out he frowned
in frustration and closed his eyes for a moment.
Wanting to reassure him, I put my palm on the spot where his shoulder met his neck. “It’s ok.” I told him when he opened his eyes. “If you can’t talk right now it’s ok.” Relieved to see that he was still able to track me with his eyes, I used my thumb to stroke his jaw. “Do you want to lay down?”
A nod.
Although I had to help him lift his legs up onto the sofa, he managed to get onto his back under his own steam. Recalling what I had read, I divested the sofa of all throw cushions and blankets even going so far as to remove the back support cushions so as to give him space. Through it all he watched me, eyes unerringly returning to mine even after the restless movements of his body and the demands of his lungs for increased oxygen pulled his eyes closed or his head away.
Pulling a couple of the cushions that I had tossed on the floor under me, I knelt beside him as I mentally reviewed what I had read about seizures. Hastings turned his head to watch me, and I was surprised by the focus in his eyes. Though I had read about twilight period between the loss of the ability to talk and the blankness of the seizure itself, I hadn’t expected him to be quite so cognizant of what was going on around him. Catching my eye, he lifted the hand closest to me, propped it up on his elbow while the other continued its restless movements along his abdomen and chest. Without thought I took his hand in my right and laid my left hand on his shoulder. Almost instantaneously his eyes closed and his head twisted up and away from me where it remained pressed against the sofa cushions as he sucked in air.
Eventually he turned back toward me and dragged his eyes open. He was struggling to focus now, I could see it in the slightly cloudy aspect of his gaze. He’s fighting it. I realized, recalling that I had read of several instances in which people had delayed or fought off a seizure. Though I was no expert on the subject on the whole, I had the sense from the sheer magnitude of what I felt building in his body that that was not going to be an effective option here. Surely you can feel it to so why would you fight this? I searched his gaze for clues but found nothing there. Ultimately, I found the answer in the way he began to squeeze my hand as the seizure deepened its grip on his body. He held my hand like it was the only thing tethering him to the earth.
Squeezing his hand back I leaned forward a bit and shifted my left hand to his cheek. “It’s okay.” I told him when I was certain I had his attention. “Just let it happen. You don’t have to fight it.”
* * * * *
As soon as Hastings began to twist and spasm I grabbed my phone from my pocket with my free hand and fumbled to set the timer. Setting it on the floor beside me where I could keep an eye on it, I returned my attention to Hastings my body aching in sympathy as I tried to make sure he didn’t fall off the sofa or suffocate against the cushions or otherwise injure himself. On the off chance he could feel it, I kept my hand on his chest through it all.
By the clock on my phone, the tonic clonic stage of the seizure lasted three minutes more or less. A perfectly non-worrisome amount of time for a seizure according to the internet. I told myself in an attempt to calm my racing heart. The last thing this situation needs is you panicking for no good reason. Forcing myself to breathe deeply and regularly, I watched Hastings return slowly beginning with a return of the restless shifting of his body, and then a groggy, far away eye contact. It occurred to me as I watched his hands smooth and prod and pull at his clothing that he was reestablishing the parameters of his body.
As the minutes ticked on, the grogginess in his eyes dissipated, and he became increasingly less distant until he was once again with me. He opened his mouth to say something only to close it in frustration when nothing came out.
“Give it a few minutes.” I told him remembering from my research that speech often took awhile to come back online after a seizure. Reaching out, I grabbed his hands and stopped their restless exploration before they could move past his belt.
In an attempt to stymie some of the upset I could see starting to cloud his gaze I lowered my head and pressed my lips against his.
He was out of it enough that I managed to get him off the sofa, into the bathroom and halfway stripped before he understood that the front of his trousers was wet. The shame on his face was hard to look at but I knew instinctively that to look away would be the worst thing I could do so despite the squeamishness that had me wanting to ignore the situation, I tilted my head until I caught his gaze. “It’s okay.” I told him firmly. “You had a seizure. It happens.” I could tell by the way he was breathing that he was upset but knew enough about the after affects of seizures to not chalk it entirely up this specific situation so much as to the fact that his emotional equilibrium had been kicked out from under him by the electrical storm in his brain. “Get in the bath Hadrian.” I said more gently as I finished loosening his belt and pushed his trousers and underwear over his hips and let them drop to the floor. “It’ll make you feel better.”
11
“You called me in sick.”
“I did.” I studied Hastings from the doorway of the kitchen where I had come to a halt at hearing his voice. Wasn’t expecting you to be up and about. I thought. He was still in the pajamas I’d given him the night before and despite our increasing intimacy, it was odd to see him without the armor of his suit. I examined his face. Irritated. Definitely irritated and tired. I briefly considered apologizing and then remembered that I was acting under doctor’s orders. “Your doctor—”
“You called my doctor?” He dropped his gaze to the table.
“Yes.” Moving into the kitchen, I dropped my bags on the counter near the sink and turned to face him. “I found his card in your wallet.”
He lifted his gaze to mine. “I see.” He said expressionlessly. “And what did my doctor say?”
“He said that you don’t need to come in to see him unless you wish to, you need recovery time—supervised recovery time.
That earned me a sigh. “So, naturally you volunteered to supervise my recovery.”
How the hell does that earn me that pissed off tone? “Of course.”
“Of course.” He ground out. “I don’t suppose that it occurred to you to ask? That I might want to go to work?” He skewered me with his angry gaze. “Or that I might not want to be supervised by you?”
I felt my jaw drop. “You were actually planning on going to work?” I waved a hand to indicated his rumpled, grey-faced, hunched over self. “Like that?”
“Like what?” He asked, gaze intent.
“Looking like you were beaten half to death by a band of pirates!”
He blinked. “Band of pirates?”
I sighed impatiently. “Don’t nitpick Hastings. You know what I mean.” Leaning back against the counter I started to cross my arms over my chest only to brace my hands on the counter when I realized mid-motion how defensive the gesture would look. Leaning back as nonchalantly as possible I crossed my right leg over my left in what I hoped resembled a convincingly piratical sprawl.
Resolutely refusing to respond as Hastings raised an eyebrow in my direction in response to the procedure, I pressed on: “Were you planning to go to work?”
His lips thinned. “I was.” He dared me with his gaze to press him further.
“Seriously?” I ignored his expression. “You were seriously just going to go in to work after a grand-mal seizure as though nothing had happened? Despite your doctor’s order for supervised recovery?”
“What do you think I usually do for god’s sake?” He gritted past a clenched jaw. “And it is supervised.”
That got me. “This has happened before?”
“All my life.” He answered impatiently. “What did you think?”
What did I think?
“Do you think work—life just stops because you’re ill?”
I considered that. Flashed suddenly on memories of Hastings at work. This isn’t the first time you’ve seen him grey-faced and hunched over. Apparently, it wasn’t down to a nigh
t out. “No, I didn’t think that. I didn’t think… I didn’t think.”
“You didn’t—” He closed his eyes and pressed his lips together.
I studied him trying to get a bead on whether he was upset or angry or… something. “What do you mean it’s supervised?” I asked finally. “Are there people at work who know…?”
He was silent a long moment. “That I have seizures?” He asked eventually, eyes still shut. “No—HR has a note in my file.”
“So, it isn’t supervised.”
His eyes snapped open. “There are people there.”
I frowned. “That’s not the same thing.”
“It’s adequate. All that’s needed is someone to call the hospital if I keep having seizures.”
“That’s the bare minimum huh?”
“Yes.”
“And beyond that?” It’s easier if you ask.
“Beyond that?
“What do you need beyond that?” Obtuse today aren’t we?
“From my colleagues?” Incredulous and irritated. “Nothing.”
“Really?” I asked irritated in turn. “There is absolutely nothing anyone at work can do to make your life easier while you’re recovering from a seizure? I find that very difficult to believe Hastings.”
“That’s not what work is for!” He snapped at me.
“How do you know if You’ve never tried?!” I snapped back. Losing my pirate cool somewhat, I crossed my arms over my chest.
“How the hell do you know I’ve never tried Sinclair?! Do you think I just reached this conclusion randomly?” He was half shouting now.
“You never tried with me!” I got in on the shouting while the getting was good.
“I never tried with—” He sputtered. “What in the hell do you think I’ve been doing this past week?!”
That did it. “Well then,” I threw my hands in the air. “Tell me what the bloody hell you need from me!”
His face flushed a brilliant angry red. “I need you to tell me how this affects things between us!”