Early Mornings and Late Nights Under Overcast Sky (Jensen/Jared RPS) -- 16/? (WIP)
Title: Early Mornings and Late Nights Under Overcast Sky
Characters/Pairing: Jensen Ackles / Jared Padalecki; Jensen Ackles / OFC
POV: Jensen Ackles
Author's Notes: It’s fiction. That means it’s not real, folks. Jensen and Jared are real people. So is Eric Kripke. The show “Supernatural” is a real TV show on the WB11. If anything else in this is real, I wasn’t aware of it.
I'm not going to say when or if the next chapter will be posted... I am writing on this, but really, it took on a mind/life of it's own, and it's sorta festering at upset!Jared and a Jensen who's entirely unsure what to do... So... read at your own risk. I would enjoy feedback, but I'll understand if you don't want to start reading a WIP with no end in sight or in the works. I really have no idea what's coming next here.
Summary: Jared’s girl (Sandra) breaks up with him. Jensen tries to help.
Spoilers: Nothing to see here, folks...
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Chapter Sixteen: Can’t Go Home Again
Rating: PG-13 for subject matter/implied, the not-so-evil semi-cliffie
Pairing: Jensen/Jared, but not yet
Word Count: 2,673
I wake up early in the morning and go food shopping, buying what I didn’t last time, along with some soups and a box of green tea for Jared. It takes me until ten to get done with the supermarket trip and the unpacking when I get home, and I head out immediately after putting everything away, driving to the place Jared used to share with Sandy.
Sandy answers the door in a towel. “Jensen.” She looks me up and down before letting me in. “What do you want?”
“Just… want to pick up Jared’s things.”
He might be pissed at me for doing this without him, but I want to have some of his things at my apartment so it’ll ease the transition… (Not that he’s ever been uncomfortable at my place. Before all this… he used to run around like he owned the place-it’s only recent that he’s taken to being as… nervous… as he is.) At least some clothes, some toiletries… maybe some books and video games.
“There’s not much.” She says. “He took most of it with him when he left.”
She means when she kicked him out. I don’t bother correcting her, just follow her through the living room to the kitchen, where she hands me a large Hefty garbage bag. “Everything that’s left should fit in there.” She says, and leads me around, collecting the last of Jared’s presence in her life, and throwing it in… the garbage. The only thing she keeps is a picture I took of the two of them the day I met Jared on the set of Supernatural-she’d come to pick him up after the end of the day, and I remember still the glow in his eyes when he’d introduced her to me, like she was his world, his everything. It had made me somewhat jealous, knowing he had that type of love and comfort… that they’d found that connection with each other.
By the time I leave, I have a few pairs of jeans, worn gray undershirts and a package of unopened boxer briefs he bought just days before they broke up. I have books, including unread copies of “Violin”, by Anne Rice, and a host of Stephen King novels of varying thickness and condition-she says he used to buy his books at the used bookstore up the street. I have a photo album, dating back to when he was two years old, a black cigar box she swears he doesn’t keep cigars in, a bottle of Pantene shampoo. I also have his laptop bag that holds (surprise!) his laptop, and some scripts of Supernatural.
I take the bag home, where I do a quick unpacking job, settling the books on the near-empty bookshelf in the guest room, tucking the tee shirts and underwear in the dresser and hanging the jeans in the closet. I throw out the shampoo-the bottle’s almost empty and he bought a new bottle for my bathroom the first night he was here. His photo album I leave on the easy chair, along with his laptop bag.
At twelve-thirty, I head to the hospital, where I’m directed to Jared’s room, walk in on the doctor shining a light into hi’s eyes. As the doctor depresses his tongue and runs a battery of quick-tests, Jared’s eyes shift to me, then back to the doctor.
He still looks pale, skin glimmering with a light sheen of sweat, and he doesn’t look much more rested than he was when I left him last night. He swallows a cough as the doctor presses the stethoscope to his chest. “Breathe in… …and out… …and in again…”
The doctor finishes up, turns to me, speaks to both of us though he directs himself to Jared. “You’re still running a high fever. You can go, but if your fever gets worse I want you back here immediately, understand?”
Jared nods quietly as he swings his legs over the edge of the bed, planting bare feet flat on the white tile floor. The doctor and I watch as he pulls on the clothes he’d been wearing when I brought him in yesterday, swipes a hand through messy brown hair, and gets up, walking past us both without a glance.
He leaves the room, and the doctor turns to me. “His fever is still high.” He starts.
“The same? How bad is he?” I ask, glancing through the inside window to see Jared standing at the nurses station, leaning on the counter heavily.
“Fever is about 102 still… We got some fluids in him, but he needs to keep hydrated. Have him drink pedialyte.” He hands me a page with a list of care instructions, makes sure I have the prescription for antibiotics, to be filled, and to “have him take one every four hours”. He pats my shoulder as I exit the room.
Jared turns towards the door when he sees me, leads the way to the elevators, walking ahead of me. We ride the elevator to the ground floor in silence, and Jared cuts in front of me getting out of the elevator, stumbles when I grab his arm, stopping him with touch and a word. “Jared.”
He stares at the floor, scuffs his boots against the tile, refuses to look at me, even with my gentle coaxing. “Jare… c’mon...” I finally whisper, releasing his elbow and falling into step next to him.
We walk out to my car, and Jared slides noiselessly into the passenger seat, buckles himself in. “…the doctor said… I should drink pedialyte…” he says flatly. “…rest… and…” He sounds as though he’s reading off the checklist, remembering and repeating so he won’t forget later.
“Jare… I got it… I’ll remember.” I assure him.
He nods. “We need to stop at the set… I have… stuff at the trailers…”
“We’ll do it tomorrow… I want to get you home.” I pull out onto the highway, heading home from Vancouver General. Jared sighs quietly, rests his head against the headrest of the leather seat, closes his eyes and takes deep breaths to relax.
I do stop at the local all-purpose store/pharmacy to pick up pedialyte for Jared, running in alone, leaving Jared in the car, and finding myself inordinately pleased when he’s still there when I come back with the pedialyte. I don’t fill the prescriptions there-there’s a local pharmacy closer to my house. I’ll call from home and then pick up the prescriptions later, while Jared’s sleeping.
Stopped at the traffic light several blocks from my house, I turn to him, tapping my fingers on the steering wheel. “You know… I’m cool with you… with… with this… Us.” That didn’t come out anything like what I’d wanted.
“Jens…”
“No. Please… let me… talk.” I interrupt him. “You’re… you’re my friend, Jare… you… have been, and you will be… I just… I was surprised. Shocked… I wasn’t… it’s not something you hear… every day. That your best friend… you know…”
“Fell in love with you?” Jared snorts ruefully, quietly.
“Your mother said that…” I murmur, pulling into the parking lot of my building.
“You talked to my mother?” He asks, groaning as he eases his way out of the car, coughing with the effort and spitting crimson-shaded phlegm onto the macadam of the parking lot, doubling over and leaning on my car after slamming the door.
I hurry to his side and slide under his arm. “Yeah… She called looking for you… she was going to fly up here, but… I assured her I could take care of you.”
Jared pulls away and I know I’ve said something wrong, somehow. A flicker of sadness crosses his ashen face, but more than that, of understanding, and he nods once, quickly with a hitch of breath that goes right to my heart.
He’s my friend-my best friend-and I can’t seem to say anything right to him anymore. Everything I say or do gets construed in some way that I can’t seem to make sense of, because I see no reason why it should offend or hurt him, but it apparently does. I’ve always known Jared’s been more emotional… different from me in a lot of ways… but never have those differences been more glaring than they are now, and never have those emotions threatened to drive us so far apart.
“Jare…” His name is a soft question as I reach out to gently take his elbow when he wavers unsteadily on his feet, still obviously weak.
“Please, Jensen… I’m sick, not stupid.” He tries to glare at me from glazed eyes but it looks silly, and I have to bite my tongue and lip to keep from laughing. I smirk and swallow a laugh-it sounds like I’m choking-anyway, and Jared rolls his eyes. “What?”
I give up trying not to laugh. “You… you tried to glare at me and…” I break off laughing. I’m sure this isn’t supposed to be so funny, and I’m sure I’m being incredibly insensitive for laughing, and that just makes it funnier. “I’m sorry… it’s just… you’re sick… and it…”
Jared shakes his head and smiles-a soft little smile that’s still one of the first genuine smiles I’ve seen from him in a long time, and a flush rises beneath the pallor of his skin, making him look like Cindy applied way too much blush to his cheekbones.
“I’m sorry, Jare…”
“…s’okay…” He murmurs, then sighs, and the anger seems to give way to the tiredness and the sickness. He just sounds sad and resigned. “…I was just… going to say that I don’t want you taking care of me… out of some sense of… responsibility.” He leans against my car. “I don’t want to be a burden, Jensen.”
He’s still using my full name, and it still bothers me to no end. “Stop calling me that.”
“It’s your name.” Jared points out the obvious. “Look… I’ll get a hot…”
“No you won’t.” I cut him off. “Jared, you’re staying here.” My voice is harsher and firmer than I intend it to be, and Jared’s eyes widen, and he shrinks away from me just slightly. I lick my lips, bite down on my lower one, take a deep breath. “Jare… I got your things from… from your old apartment… and… I have green tea and soup.”
“And you don’t want me here.”
“How can you say that?” Even though I know. The answer is staring me in the face-I haven’t been the most gracious host, and I haven’t been particularly kind to him the last couple days. But I do want him here now, I want to take care of him, and want to talk to him, hopefully work this out. I want him to know I still care about him, and want him to know I still want to be friends with him. All the things I can’t say-because well, I can’t. I’m a man, and we don’t say those things. I don’t say those things. It’s bad enough I’m thinking them, or at least I think so.
But there’s no one here to see or hear except Jared.
“Jensen, I don’t want to be a burden, I don’t want you taking care of me because you think you have to.” His voice is low, he’s not arguing, but it’s because he’s too tired, too sick. He doesn’t have the energy to argue or yell.
I don’t know how to tell him he’s not a burden… that I want him to be here, want to be able to watch him and take care of him… want things to be what they were before Sandy told me that he screamed my name during sex with her-wrestling on the carpet at either of our apartments, and on the set (which pissed Kripke off to no end)… making lewd comments about women at the bars… cracking jokes and playing video games…
I’m an actor. You’d think it’d come easy. Easier, at least. But it doesn’t. Dean’s struggles with talking to Sam? Not such a stretch. Dean’s difficulties with emotion? Not too much acting going on there.
I’m beginning to see what people mean, though, namely the on-set acting coaches and a few directors in my past, and Kripke now, about how getting in touch with my emotions-acknowledging and accepting rather than pushing away, ignoring and repressing-might help in my acting because I’d have more personal experience to draw on in order to portray certain scenes. I know it’d help here-in dealing with Jared, and my relationship to and with him-it’s just that it goes against everything I know, and everything I’ve been taught.
Jared coughs up more phlegm, green and yellow and it’s disgusting when he spits it on the ground at his feet. He’s shaking-shivering, and wrapping his arms around himself to keep warm, still leaning against my car so he doesn’t fall over. I take a step towards him, cup his elbow in my hand, not letting go when he tries to shake me off.
I ignore his halfhearted attempt to shrug me off when I slide my arm around his shoulders, instead pulling him closer, mindless of the fact that he might be contagious. “Jare… we’ll talk inside. C’mon.” I gently tug him with me as I walk towards my apartment, alert to him when he stumbles over the first few steps, reaching to steady him.
He walks slowly beside me, says nothing about the hand I leave on his elbow, and when I move closer to him at the stairs, silently lifts his arm to drape it around my shoulders, leaning into me slightly, letting me take his weight.
We make it up the stairs to my front door with minimal mishap, and I fumble with my keys with one hand so I don’t have to let go of Jared, who seems to be more unsteady than he was before.
Once inside, Jared stops me when I try to help him to the guest room. “Couch… it’s early… and you said we needed to talk.” He pushes my own words back at me.
“We can talk in the guest room.” I gently tug at him.
“Jensen…” He whispers, the please understood, and he turns those puppy-dog-eyes on me that still have the same effect despite the semi-glazed and sickly appearance.
I give in to him, help him to the couch, where he won’t lie down, instead choosing to sit at the edge of the cushions, hunched over with his elbows resting on his knees.
I head off to the kitchen. “I’ll make you tea.”
He doesn’t answer, but I hear him coughing. I’m glad I left tissues on the coffee table.
While the water is brewing for tea, I pull out the prescriptions-the antibiotic and another for cough suppressant-and call the local pharmacy, where they assure me they have both items in stock, and I can pick them up in two hours upon providing them the original prescriptions. Two hours is five o’clock.
I make a mental note of the time as I carry a diet coke for myself out with the green tea with honey and lemon for Jared, who spends a good five minutes just inhaling the hot vapors from the tea. “…helps to breathe…” He explains quietly.
I watch him through the corner of my eye for a long while, until he sips at the cooling tea, and know it’s now or never for that talk. In two hours I need to drive to the pharmacy, and while I’m not fond of the idea of moving him and less inclined to take him outside, I will drag him with me to the pharmacy if I’m not reasonably assured he’s going to stay here for the time I’m gone. He’s left twice already. Now, knowing he’s got pneumonia, I can’t take the chance of him doing it again.
“Jare…” We need to talk.
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Characters/Pairing: Jensen Ackles / Jared Padalecki; Jensen Ackles / OFC
POV: Jensen Ackles
Author's Notes: It’s fiction. That means it’s not real, folks. Jensen and Jared are real people. So is Eric Kripke. The show “Supernatural” is a real TV show on the WB11. If anything else in this is real, I wasn’t aware of it.
I'm not going to say when or if the next chapter will be posted... I am writing on this, but really, it took on a mind/life of it's own, and it's sorta festering at upset!Jared and a Jensen who's entirely unsure what to do... So... read at your own risk. I would enjoy feedback, but I'll understand if you don't want to start reading a WIP with no end in sight or in the works. I really have no idea what's coming next here.
Summary: Jared’s girl (Sandra) breaks up with him. Jensen tries to help.
Spoilers: Nothing to see here, folks...
-------------------------
Chapter Sixteen: Can’t Go Home Again
Rating: PG-13 for subject matter/implied, the not-so-evil semi-cliffie
Pairing: Jensen/Jared, but not yet
Word Count: 2,673
I wake up early in the morning and go food shopping, buying what I didn’t last time, along with some soups and a box of green tea for Jared. It takes me until ten to get done with the supermarket trip and the unpacking when I get home, and I head out immediately after putting everything away, driving to the place Jared used to share with Sandy.
Sandy answers the door in a towel. “Jensen.” She looks me up and down before letting me in. “What do you want?”
“Just… want to pick up Jared’s things.”
He might be pissed at me for doing this without him, but I want to have some of his things at my apartment so it’ll ease the transition… (Not that he’s ever been uncomfortable at my place. Before all this… he used to run around like he owned the place-it’s only recent that he’s taken to being as… nervous… as he is.) At least some clothes, some toiletries… maybe some books and video games.
“There’s not much.” She says. “He took most of it with him when he left.”
She means when she kicked him out. I don’t bother correcting her, just follow her through the living room to the kitchen, where she hands me a large Hefty garbage bag. “Everything that’s left should fit in there.” She says, and leads me around, collecting the last of Jared’s presence in her life, and throwing it in… the garbage. The only thing she keeps is a picture I took of the two of them the day I met Jared on the set of Supernatural-she’d come to pick him up after the end of the day, and I remember still the glow in his eyes when he’d introduced her to me, like she was his world, his everything. It had made me somewhat jealous, knowing he had that type of love and comfort… that they’d found that connection with each other.
By the time I leave, I have a few pairs of jeans, worn gray undershirts and a package of unopened boxer briefs he bought just days before they broke up. I have books, including unread copies of “Violin”, by Anne Rice, and a host of Stephen King novels of varying thickness and condition-she says he used to buy his books at the used bookstore up the street. I have a photo album, dating back to when he was two years old, a black cigar box she swears he doesn’t keep cigars in, a bottle of Pantene shampoo. I also have his laptop bag that holds (surprise!) his laptop, and some scripts of Supernatural.
I take the bag home, where I do a quick unpacking job, settling the books on the near-empty bookshelf in the guest room, tucking the tee shirts and underwear in the dresser and hanging the jeans in the closet. I throw out the shampoo-the bottle’s almost empty and he bought a new bottle for my bathroom the first night he was here. His photo album I leave on the easy chair, along with his laptop bag.
At twelve-thirty, I head to the hospital, where I’m directed to Jared’s room, walk in on the doctor shining a light into hi’s eyes. As the doctor depresses his tongue and runs a battery of quick-tests, Jared’s eyes shift to me, then back to the doctor.
He still looks pale, skin glimmering with a light sheen of sweat, and he doesn’t look much more rested than he was when I left him last night. He swallows a cough as the doctor presses the stethoscope to his chest. “Breathe in… …and out… …and in again…”
The doctor finishes up, turns to me, speaks to both of us though he directs himself to Jared. “You’re still running a high fever. You can go, but if your fever gets worse I want you back here immediately, understand?”
Jared nods quietly as he swings his legs over the edge of the bed, planting bare feet flat on the white tile floor. The doctor and I watch as he pulls on the clothes he’d been wearing when I brought him in yesterday, swipes a hand through messy brown hair, and gets up, walking past us both without a glance.
He leaves the room, and the doctor turns to me. “His fever is still high.” He starts.
“The same? How bad is he?” I ask, glancing through the inside window to see Jared standing at the nurses station, leaning on the counter heavily.
“Fever is about 102 still… We got some fluids in him, but he needs to keep hydrated. Have him drink pedialyte.” He hands me a page with a list of care instructions, makes sure I have the prescription for antibiotics, to be filled, and to “have him take one every four hours”. He pats my shoulder as I exit the room.
Jared turns towards the door when he sees me, leads the way to the elevators, walking ahead of me. We ride the elevator to the ground floor in silence, and Jared cuts in front of me getting out of the elevator, stumbles when I grab his arm, stopping him with touch and a word. “Jared.”
He stares at the floor, scuffs his boots against the tile, refuses to look at me, even with my gentle coaxing. “Jare… c’mon...” I finally whisper, releasing his elbow and falling into step next to him.
We walk out to my car, and Jared slides noiselessly into the passenger seat, buckles himself in. “…the doctor said… I should drink pedialyte…” he says flatly. “…rest… and…” He sounds as though he’s reading off the checklist, remembering and repeating so he won’t forget later.
“Jare… I got it… I’ll remember.” I assure him.
He nods. “We need to stop at the set… I have… stuff at the trailers…”
“We’ll do it tomorrow… I want to get you home.” I pull out onto the highway, heading home from Vancouver General. Jared sighs quietly, rests his head against the headrest of the leather seat, closes his eyes and takes deep breaths to relax.
I do stop at the local all-purpose store/pharmacy to pick up pedialyte for Jared, running in alone, leaving Jared in the car, and finding myself inordinately pleased when he’s still there when I come back with the pedialyte. I don’t fill the prescriptions there-there’s a local pharmacy closer to my house. I’ll call from home and then pick up the prescriptions later, while Jared’s sleeping.
Stopped at the traffic light several blocks from my house, I turn to him, tapping my fingers on the steering wheel. “You know… I’m cool with you… with… with this… Us.” That didn’t come out anything like what I’d wanted.
“Jens…”
“No. Please… let me… talk.” I interrupt him. “You’re… you’re my friend, Jare… you… have been, and you will be… I just… I was surprised. Shocked… I wasn’t… it’s not something you hear… every day. That your best friend… you know…”
“Fell in love with you?” Jared snorts ruefully, quietly.
“Your mother said that…” I murmur, pulling into the parking lot of my building.
“You talked to my mother?” He asks, groaning as he eases his way out of the car, coughing with the effort and spitting crimson-shaded phlegm onto the macadam of the parking lot, doubling over and leaning on my car after slamming the door.
I hurry to his side and slide under his arm. “Yeah… She called looking for you… she was going to fly up here, but… I assured her I could take care of you.”
Jared pulls away and I know I’ve said something wrong, somehow. A flicker of sadness crosses his ashen face, but more than that, of understanding, and he nods once, quickly with a hitch of breath that goes right to my heart.
He’s my friend-my best friend-and I can’t seem to say anything right to him anymore. Everything I say or do gets construed in some way that I can’t seem to make sense of, because I see no reason why it should offend or hurt him, but it apparently does. I’ve always known Jared’s been more emotional… different from me in a lot of ways… but never have those differences been more glaring than they are now, and never have those emotions threatened to drive us so far apart.
“Jare…” His name is a soft question as I reach out to gently take his elbow when he wavers unsteadily on his feet, still obviously weak.
“Please, Jensen… I’m sick, not stupid.” He tries to glare at me from glazed eyes but it looks silly, and I have to bite my tongue and lip to keep from laughing. I smirk and swallow a laugh-it sounds like I’m choking-anyway, and Jared rolls his eyes. “What?”
I give up trying not to laugh. “You… you tried to glare at me and…” I break off laughing. I’m sure this isn’t supposed to be so funny, and I’m sure I’m being incredibly insensitive for laughing, and that just makes it funnier. “I’m sorry… it’s just… you’re sick… and it…”
Jared shakes his head and smiles-a soft little smile that’s still one of the first genuine smiles I’ve seen from him in a long time, and a flush rises beneath the pallor of his skin, making him look like Cindy applied way too much blush to his cheekbones.
“I’m sorry, Jare…”
“…s’okay…” He murmurs, then sighs, and the anger seems to give way to the tiredness and the sickness. He just sounds sad and resigned. “…I was just… going to say that I don’t want you taking care of me… out of some sense of… responsibility.” He leans against my car. “I don’t want to be a burden, Jensen.”
He’s still using my full name, and it still bothers me to no end. “Stop calling me that.”
“It’s your name.” Jared points out the obvious. “Look… I’ll get a hot…”
“No you won’t.” I cut him off. “Jared, you’re staying here.” My voice is harsher and firmer than I intend it to be, and Jared’s eyes widen, and he shrinks away from me just slightly. I lick my lips, bite down on my lower one, take a deep breath. “Jare… I got your things from… from your old apartment… and… I have green tea and soup.”
“And you don’t want me here.”
“How can you say that?” Even though I know. The answer is staring me in the face-I haven’t been the most gracious host, and I haven’t been particularly kind to him the last couple days. But I do want him here now, I want to take care of him, and want to talk to him, hopefully work this out. I want him to know I still care about him, and want him to know I still want to be friends with him. All the things I can’t say-because well, I can’t. I’m a man, and we don’t say those things. I don’t say those things. It’s bad enough I’m thinking them, or at least I think so.
But there’s no one here to see or hear except Jared.
“Jensen, I don’t want to be a burden, I don’t want you taking care of me because you think you have to.” His voice is low, he’s not arguing, but it’s because he’s too tired, too sick. He doesn’t have the energy to argue or yell.
I don’t know how to tell him he’s not a burden… that I want him to be here, want to be able to watch him and take care of him… want things to be what they were before Sandy told me that he screamed my name during sex with her-wrestling on the carpet at either of our apartments, and on the set (which pissed Kripke off to no end)… making lewd comments about women at the bars… cracking jokes and playing video games…
I’m an actor. You’d think it’d come easy. Easier, at least. But it doesn’t. Dean’s struggles with talking to Sam? Not such a stretch. Dean’s difficulties with emotion? Not too much acting going on there.
I’m beginning to see what people mean, though, namely the on-set acting coaches and a few directors in my past, and Kripke now, about how getting in touch with my emotions-acknowledging and accepting rather than pushing away, ignoring and repressing-might help in my acting because I’d have more personal experience to draw on in order to portray certain scenes. I know it’d help here-in dealing with Jared, and my relationship to and with him-it’s just that it goes against everything I know, and everything I’ve been taught.
Jared coughs up more phlegm, green and yellow and it’s disgusting when he spits it on the ground at his feet. He’s shaking-shivering, and wrapping his arms around himself to keep warm, still leaning against my car so he doesn’t fall over. I take a step towards him, cup his elbow in my hand, not letting go when he tries to shake me off.
I ignore his halfhearted attempt to shrug me off when I slide my arm around his shoulders, instead pulling him closer, mindless of the fact that he might be contagious. “Jare… we’ll talk inside. C’mon.” I gently tug him with me as I walk towards my apartment, alert to him when he stumbles over the first few steps, reaching to steady him.
He walks slowly beside me, says nothing about the hand I leave on his elbow, and when I move closer to him at the stairs, silently lifts his arm to drape it around my shoulders, leaning into me slightly, letting me take his weight.
We make it up the stairs to my front door with minimal mishap, and I fumble with my keys with one hand so I don’t have to let go of Jared, who seems to be more unsteady than he was before.
Once inside, Jared stops me when I try to help him to the guest room. “Couch… it’s early… and you said we needed to talk.” He pushes my own words back at me.
“We can talk in the guest room.” I gently tug at him.
“Jensen…” He whispers, the please understood, and he turns those puppy-dog-eyes on me that still have the same effect despite the semi-glazed and sickly appearance.
I give in to him, help him to the couch, where he won’t lie down, instead choosing to sit at the edge of the cushions, hunched over with his elbows resting on his knees.
I head off to the kitchen. “I’ll make you tea.”
He doesn’t answer, but I hear him coughing. I’m glad I left tissues on the coffee table.
While the water is brewing for tea, I pull out the prescriptions-the antibiotic and another for cough suppressant-and call the local pharmacy, where they assure me they have both items in stock, and I can pick them up in two hours upon providing them the original prescriptions. Two hours is five o’clock.
I make a mental note of the time as I carry a diet coke for myself out with the green tea with honey and lemon for Jared, who spends a good five minutes just inhaling the hot vapors from the tea. “…helps to breathe…” He explains quietly.
I watch him through the corner of my eye for a long while, until he sips at the cooling tea, and know it’s now or never for that talk. In two hours I need to drive to the pharmacy, and while I’m not fond of the idea of moving him and less inclined to take him outside, I will drag him with me to the pharmacy if I’m not reasonably assured he’s going to stay here for the time I’m gone. He’s left twice already. Now, knowing he’s got pneumonia, I can’t take the chance of him doing it again.
“Jare…” We need to talk.
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