They were five games into the new season, and Jamie was feeling every day of his seventeen years. Every muscle ached, and he felt like he was dragging around a body made of lead.
"You look sick, dude," one of his teammates offered helpfully, but he refused to sit this one out, regretting it only after they had won with a close result. He remembered sitting down on the bench, he remember being handed the bottle of water, he even remembered trying to drink it, his head pounding, his hands shaking and his chest tight.
There was a lot of talking around him, lots of buzzing irritating noise, and then a familiar voice.
"Jamie… Jamie, we need to get you home. You look like shit."
"Dan," he said, but his voice was croaky and dry. He focused on Daniel as he was helped to his feet and taken out through the back entrance to the cars, his mom fussing, his dad organizing, and Daniel just holding him upright.
He slunk into the backseat of the car, feeling his mom touching his head.
"He’s burning hot," she said softly
"I knew something wasn’t right during the game." His dad’s voice.
"We should have pulled him out."
"He’s a responsible boy, Sue; he can make his own decisions."
Finally he heard Daniel’s voice, soft and persuasive. "Let’s just get him home to bed.” He climbed in next to Jamie and pulled him close to him in a brotherly hug, leaning back and tucking him under his neck and letting him lay on his chest. He felt so cold, but he was sweating, his skin burning against Daniel’s face. Daniel used his free hand to rub soothing circles into Jamie’s back, holding him as Jamie coughed sharply and winced at the pain in his chest.
"I suppose…," their mom started conversationally. "It was kind of inevitable he caught Megan’s bug."
"Well, at least he’ll be happy they won the game," their dad said.
Jamie just let their voices roll over him, instead snuggling closer to Daniel. He shifted against him, a free hand coming up to curl in Daniel’s shirt.
He’s my brother, he’s my best friend, and I feel so ill.
They made the drive home in record time, and Jamie swallowed painkillers then allowed Daniel to help him into bed. Jamie vaguely realized Daniel had pulled in the airbed and his quilt. Ever since the being-sick-in-quiet incident, whenever one of the two of them was ill the other would sleep on the floor in the sick room. Their mom had tried to discourage it, but at the end of the day, it was a losing battle against the combined front of the sons she called her terrible twins.
Jamie immediately turned over in bed, groaning and clutching at his pillow, coughing pathetically. Daniel and his mom exchanged wry smiles; Jamie just closed his eyes. He knew he wasn’t a good patient at the best of times, kind of wimpy and moaning and miserable, but Daniel was used to him. They looked after each other when one of them was ill. It all stemmed back to the summer after he had arrived at the Walkers and his first real ever fever.
* * * * *
Before
Daniel had been feeling sick all day. At first he put it down to the fact that Jamie had opened his lips while eating his burger and showed his grossed-out siblings the contents of his mouth. Because that right there? That was when he started to feel really sick. That had been the night before.
It got worse the next day. In school, by first break, he had pains in his side and could feel sweat on his back. The teacher commented that he looked very pale, but Daniel dismissed the concern as just feeling hot. Given it was a very warm Cali summer’s day, no one could dispute that fact.
By lunchtime, he was almost doubled over in pain, standing over the toilet and losing his breakfast in spectacular fashion, feeling very dizzy and falling head first into the side of the cubicle.
"Daniel, Dan."
Go away, m’tired, sore
"Daniel, darling, can you wake up for me?"
Sue’s voice, then another, younger, in tears. Jamie.
"He didn’t say anything mom; he just hid in the toilets, I don’t get it why he didn’t…"
"Daniel, open your eyes."
"Daniel."
When his eyes opened for the first time, it was to the view of a ceiling and an awful lot of white. He felt a cool hand on his forehead.
"Dan, honey, we were worried." Sue’s voice.
Daniel knew what he needed to say. He needed to say anything that meant he wasn’t going to be fostered elsewhere.
"M’sorry," he mumbled, as close to what he felt in his heart as he could find. He didn’t want to be an inconvenience, always tried his hardest to not cause a ripple in the house.
"Don’t be sorry, sweetie. It was your appendix, nothing you did, nothing could have stopped it."
"Still sorry… for worry," he whispered, his mouth dry.
"I’m going to take Jamie home now, sweetie. I’ll be back in an hour."
"Don’t," Daniel whispered the word forced from him in a rush of air.
"Don’t what, honey?"
"Don’t leave me here."
"Only for a few hours, just to get Megan—"
"Not on my own."
"I’ll stay." This came from Jamie, who really sounded like he was crying.
"Jamie honey."
"I want to stay. I don’t want Daniel to be frightened," he said with all the ten-year-old solemnity he could manage.
"I’ll be gone an hour. Is that okay with you, Daniel, if Jamie stays?"
"Please."
"Okay, I’ll tell them at the desk. Stay in the room and no wandering about."
"I won’t," Jamie agreed immediately, and then sat himself on the side of the bed, his arms and legs crossed Indian style, looking for all the world like a responsible little adult.
When Sue left and during the in-between time before sleep claimed him, Jamie asked Daniel one question. "Why didn’t you want to be alone, Dan?"
"Didn’t want you to leave me and never come back for me, ’cause you don’t want me anymore."
To this day, Daniel wasn’t sure if he ever actually said that out loud or said it just in his dreams. Jamie never said anything, and Daniel never thought it again, especially when Sue bustled back in the room and fell asleep in the chair next to his bed, an exhausted long-limbed Jamie in her arms, proving she still wanted to be with him, that he was worth the worry.
* * * * *
Now
"Dan."
Daniel woke immediately, rolling awkwardly on the airbed and thumping his head on the nightstand with a muffled ouch.
"You okay?" he asked worriedly, feeling his head. "Do you want me to get Mom?"
"Nah, I’m good, just need some more painkillers for my freakin' head and some water."
"Is your head bad?"
"Like hammers, dude."
Daniel passed him the tablets and the water, helping him to coordinate taking them, until Jamie lay back shaky and exhausted to the pillows.
"You on the floor?" Jamie croaked, his voice low.
"Yeah."
Jamie rolled to his side and scooted across his double bed, leaving space for Dan. "You’re going to get the virus anyway, Dan, get in."
So Daniel, against his better judgment, crawled on top of the covers, Jamie radiating warmth, and lay back waiting until Jamie’s breathing slowed to soft and settled.
He moved to his side, looking at Jamie, at his lashes fanning his high cheekbones, his short hair sweat slicked to his head, his tanned skin, so the opposite of Daniel’s fair skin. He just looked.
Then, sure that Jamie was asleep, he dropped a small kiss to Jamie’s hot forehead, whispering his love for his brother onto damp skin and then fell back to the pillow, sleep claiming him quickly.
Jamie had been right.
Three days later, it became obvious he had caught the virus.
And Jamie crawled into his bed with him, fed him painkillers, and helped him drink water.
That was what they did.