Elliott was jerked out of near unconsciousness by the bus braking a little harder than normal. He lurched forward, which peeled his sticky face off the metal pole it’d been leaning on. He managed to stay upright, only to go right back to leaning on the pole, his eyes crusty, stinging, and half-open.

Hot. He was so hot. Was he wearing a coat? Yes. His thickest one, though March had come in like a lamb. A fuzzy, warm lamb, like the fuzz that was taking over Elliott’s brain. His coat. Should he take it off? Probably.

He let go of the pole, nearly fell over again, then started tugging on the arms of his coat to take it off, but it was difficult to do when he couldn’t keep his balance on the moving vehicle and— A new wave of nausea rolled over him. He hugged the pole, curling in on himself and breathing evenly to calm his churning stomach.

Nope. Not trying that again.

It was fine, because even though he’d been hot a few minutes before, he was cold now. His hands—or maybe his forehead?—had made the pole greasy with thick sweat. His face, which he’d plastered to the metal again, was still burning, but the rest of him shivered.

He blinked slowly and wondered how many germs were living on the pole two inches from his mouth. He was already sick, but the next person to use it would need hand sanitizer, or it would be his fault if they got infected.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, and the lady in the seat closest to him pursed her lips, but looked a little sympathetic.

He hurt. Everywhere. His ribs were aching from heaving the whole morning until there was nothing left of the meager dinner he’d shoved in his mouth the night before. His throat burned from the acid, and his head pounded from how hard he’d wretched. Everything that touched his skin was as rough as the hooky part of velcro. Even his feet were sore. He just wanted to sit down, but the bus was crowded, there were people everywhere, trying to get home after work to start their weekend. TGIF, he thought, and it was so goddamned funny, but he couldn’t breathe out of his nose properly to laugh.

He took his phone out of his pocket and blinked at the time, but his eyes were too foggy and gunk-crusted to see the tiny numbers.

Aiden would be home by now, though. He might be wondering why Elliott was late. He was late because . . . he didn’t remember. He didn’t really remember putting on his shoes to leave the dorm, or taking the elevator and making the walk to the bus stop.

Was he even wearing shoes? He looked down.

Bad idea. The world spun and he almost threw up again, but eventually the crazy turning stopped and he saw his feet. They had shoes. Good. They might be on the wrong feet, though, which he deduced was why his feet hurt.

“I’m fuckin’ Sherlock Holmes,” he said, and the lady next to him shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

He felt like shit. His body hated him. That lady hated him. The bus driver probably hated him too. His eyes filled with tears and he sniffed. Coughed. Winced at the pain in his ribs. God, his knees were too weak for this bumpy ride. Was he going to pass out? White sparkles had been interrupting his vision for the last half hour, so he wouldn’t be surprised.

He’d be pissed, though. He’d have come all this way, only for his body to quit on him before he’d passed go and collected two hundred dollars from Aiden, who was waiting for him. Elliott took a deep breath and locked his knees, willing them not to fail. He just needed to get a little farther—

The robotic voice announced the next stop, and Elliott’s feet were moving to the exit before his brain caught up with the fact that it was his stop. Well, Aiden’s. But he spent so much time there these days that it felt like his.

When the bus halted, he stumbled off into the bright light outside. The sun stabbed him in the face, which made his headache flare, which made his nausea bubble up, which made him gag, and then he was puking into a concrete planter next to the road.

“Fuck,” he moaned when he was finished. He spat to clear the grossness in his mouth, his arms shaking, and his hands propped on his knees to keep from face-planting into vomit and dried-out dirt.

He wiped his face with his hand, wishing he’d remembered to bring a box of tissues with him when he’d left the house. His hand was barely effective, smearing the mess more than cleaning it. His old track pants and his thin T-shirt with dark sweat stains at the armpits and neck felt grotesque against his skin. He wanted to curl up in a ball and die, so he did one of those things. Leaning against the planter, he sat on his ass on the hard, dirty sidewalk and pulled his legs as close to his chest as his gurgling stomach would allow him.

He might have fallen asleep, but couldn’t know, because all the sleeping he’d done that day had been taken over by dreams, the subjects of which had been bizarre, apocalyptic versions of things he did in real life.

So, when he heard Aiden’s voice calling his name, he couldn’t tell if it was actual Aiden or Dream Aiden.

Elliott opened his eyes.

“Elliott?”

He sure sounded real. And loud.

“Hunf?”

“Do you know where you are? How did you get here? What happened?”

“Oh,” Elliott said, his tongue flopping in his mouth, thick and sticky. He opened his eyes fully and peered at Aiden. He looked worried. He also looked good in the sunlight, which Elliott hadn’t known before because they usually went places after dark. The sun was setting later now that it was getting closer to springtime, but they still hadn’t—

“Wait,” Elliott said—or croaked, more accurately. “The sun.”

“Yeah,” Aiden said gently, like he was talking someone off a rooftop. “It’s shining.”

Too brightly. It made Aiden squint now as he crouched down next to Elliott.

What the hell time is it?

“It’s four thirty in the afternoon. What are you doing here, Elliott? You look terrible.”

Elliott blinked slowly, the cogs in the brain sticking and struggling to turn. He was too early. Why was he early? Had he checked the time before he’d left his dorm?

“I’m sick,” he mumbled, hoping that would answer all of Aiden’s questions, even the ones he couldn’t remember.

“You look it,” Aiden said. “Come on, let me help you up. You should get inside.”

Elliott whined and let his head fall onto his knees. “Don’ want to.”

“You have to. The sidewalk isn’t very comfortable, is it? There’s a couch upstairs. Or maybe the bed. You can use the shower.”

Elliott flinched from the thought of the tiny, razor-sharp droplets on his feverish skin. “No shower.”

“Okay, okay. No shower,” Aiden soothed. “But the bed will be comfy, right?”

“Yeah. ’S hard, though.”

“I know. It’ll be worth it, I promise. Up you get.”

Elliott let Aiden unfold him and lift him to his feet. Collapsing against Aiden’s shoulder, he breathed in through his nose to keep from throwing up again. Aiden guided him silently up the short distance to the apartment building’s entrance and into the elevator, which was seriously not fun. Not only did it move too fast, it also smelled like a lemony cleaning chemical and the perfume of the lady who got off a few floors before they did. Elliott buried his face into Aiden’s soft shirt to drown out anything else, huffing the familiar laundry detergent and praying that his stomach didn’t decide to ejaculate any more of its contents.

They made it to Aiden’s apartment before his resolve gave up the ghost. As soon as the door was unlocked, he bolted to the hall bathroom and heaved over the toilet fruitlessly. There was nothing to come up but saliva and bile, but still, his ribs and stomach contracted over and over.

When the urge to vomit subsided, Elliott laid his head on his arm, leaning into the toilet bowl. He breathed, his eyes watering, his nose running, his mouth still producing so much drool that he could barely keep swallowing it away.

He sobbed, then whimpered at the sore muscles that it tugged. He just wanted to not be sick anymore. He wanted to stop throwing up. He wanted to get up, but he didn’t trust his knees.

He wanted his mom.

His eyes watered harder, and tears dripped onto the gray tile beside the toilet. Elliott watched them fall—plink, plink—knowing she wouldn’t appear. She wasn’t alive to make him soup, or let him sleep in her and his dad’s bed with his favorite pillow and blanket. She couldn’t put her cool hand on his sweaty forehead, because she was gone. Even the place she used to care for him was different. The couch he used to sleep on whenever he was sick was gone, lost to basement mold, and the gigantic crack in the wall of his old bedroom would have made him too uneasy to sleep there.

He didn’t even have his dad to try his best to fill her gaping absence. He was back home, safe and happy, but far away. He didn’t even know Elliott was sick.

Elliott sniveled for a while longer, trying to wipe the tears away, hiding his face under his arm. When a sock-covered foot stepped into his vision, he didn’t look up.

“Arms,” Aiden said, his voice barely carrying over the echo of Elliott’s rasping breaths.

Elliott didn’t do anything until Aiden tugged at his shirt. He lifted his arms at another gentle prompt and his shirt came off, a soft blanket replacing it. A warm, wet washcloth was dragged across his face, under his swollen eyes, his sore nose, and his chapped lips.

“Blow.”

He honked into the cloth.

“Drink.”

He drank tepid water from a glass, grimacing at the taste in his mouth—sweet and metallic.

“Let’s get you to bed,” Aiden said, and Elliott groaned. More moving. Joy.

Aiden had turned back the covers on Elliott’s side, and he slipped gratefully in between the cool, soft sheets. Aiden made him take off his pants before he could really snuggle in, but it did feel a lot better.

Aiden disappeared for a while as Elliott shivered in bed underneath two thick blankets, returning with another cup of water, a bottle of pills, and a big plastic bowl, which he set on the floor next to Elliott’s head.

“Just in case,” he said, and Elliott smiled a little bit for the first time in hours.

“Thanks,” he slurred.

“No worries.” Aiden sat down on the bed next to Elliott’s legs, slowly, so the bed didn’t wiggle too much. “Elliott, why did you come here? What would you have done if I hadn’t come home early from work?”

Elliott squinted at him. “We had a date.”

Aiden frowned. “Yes. On a normal Friday, we do. But you look like death.”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time. I’m going to blame the meds.” They hadn’t seemed to work earlier, but his fever had probably come down a bit, since he could tell now what poor choices he’d made. He wasn’t the type to call in sick for a little sniffle, but he was a walking petri dish, and Aiden wouldn’t want to catch what he had.

“Seriously, you look awful. You probably shouldn’t even be here, you should be at a hospital.”

“No hospitals,” Elliott said, turning his face into the pillowcase. “I don’t like them. I won’t go, even if you try to make me.”

“All right,” Aiden said, sounding frustrated, though Elliott couldn’t see him. “I won’t make you go unless it’s in an ambulance.”

“I won’t need it. It’s just a bug.”

A more rational part of him knew that he would probably be better off going to the ER for some fluids. The larger part was so exhausted that a fight-or-flight response kicked in at the very thought.

The last time he’d been to a hospital had been to see his mom while she’d been wasting away from the havoc the cancer had wreaked on her brain. He remembered the hard plastic chairs, the constant murmur of the PA system, the taste of Jell-O for every meal because his dad was too busy to notice. All in all, he had too many sense memories associated with the smell of disinfectant and grief to willingly step foot in a hospital if he wasn’t dying.

“I’m tired.” He wished he was more comfortable in the cozy bed with its soft blankets, but comfort was relative when he was this sick. It was better than a dirty sidewalk, and his brain felt a little less cooked from fever.

“I bet.” Aiden lifted his hand, like he was about to brush Elliott’s shoulder, but seemingly thought better of it. He made Elliott sit up again to take a couple of pills to get his fever down, then stood up, heading for the door and flicking off the ceiling light. “You should sleep. I’ll be outside if you need anything.”

Elliott nodded and winced at the rough drag of the pillow on his blazing cheek. Just before the door closed, he lifted his head up again and blurted, “I’m sorry.”

Aiden smiled sympathetically at him. “It’s fine. I can handle a bit of nursing.”

“No, I mean—” Elliott rolled over onto his back, rubbing a hand through his sweaty, gross hair. “I’m sorry we can’t— You know. Gimme a few hours and I probably can.”

Aiden’s lips pursed, and Elliott had never seen him look so disapproving. “Seriously? You think I’d try to have sex with you when you can barely keep your head up?”

“No, it’s not so bad, I’ll just sleep it off—”

“Elliott,” Aiden interrupted, his voice brooking no argument. “Drink some water. Go to sleep. We’ll talk about it later.”

Elliott nodded and flipped back over to face the side of the bed with the bowl near it, just in case. Aiden’s tone suggested that he wasn’t intending to talk about it later, but Elliott wasn’t about to let that happen. The only reason Elliott could afford to even consider going to the hospital for fluids and antibiotics was because Aiden was paying him for sex and for the benefits of a monogamous relationship without the drawbacks. Elliott was too tired to stress about it now, but after a few hours of shut-eye, his conscience would be screaming at him to even the scales.

His eyes drooped and the quiet darkness combined with the medication took effect, dragging him down into sleep. He’d pay Aiden back for the use of his bed and his plastic bowl. In a while.

“Well, you look better,” Aiden said as Elliott came into the living room.

“Yeah,” Elliott said on a yawn. He crossed his arms, a little chilly with only a towel around his waist and damp hair from his shower. “Still feel like crap, but not a metric ton. More like a modest few steaming pounds.”

“Vivid. Thanks for that,” Aiden said, putting down his book. “Your clothes are in the dryer. They should be done by now if you want to grab them.”

“Sweet.”

Elliott wandered over to the laundry closet and snagged them, rubbing the warm, dryer-scented clothes all over himself before putting them on. When he came back to the living room, Aiden handed him a huge blanket in bright turquoise. Elliott let out an orgasmic groan when the fuzzy fabric slipped over his shoulders and hugged him in a polyester cocoon.

He sat down at the other end of the couch in his blue-green shroud, but Aiden patted the seat next to him.

“I’m warmer if you want to cuddle up.”

Elliott did. Good god, did he. He was a pretty tactile person on the best of days, but when he was sick or sad—Kevin could attest—he turned into a magnet for body heat and hugs. But was it fair to Aiden, if he wasn’t guaranteed a happy ending out of it?

Aiden sighed and flapped his hand at him. “Come on. I got the flu shot this year; you’re fine.”

Elliott was skeptical, but not enough to overpower his mighty need for cuddles. He shuffled down the length of the couch, dragging his blanket, and burrowed under Aiden’s outstretched arm. He fit just as well as he usually did, but there was a different vibe to their close contact this time. Elliott rarely forgot that their encounters, more likely than not, ended in sex. Not because he didn’t enjoy bugging Aiden about his work day while he ate dinner, or complaining about how unrealistic movies portraying ancient Romans were.

It was only that Elliott found Aiden so mind-meltingly attractive that he was always one pants-adjustment away from hitting Pause on the TV and dragging Aiden to the bedroom.

Right then, though, Elliott couldn’t have been less interested in getting it on. Aiden could’ve been back in his tux, with those skinny suspenders doing terrible/wonderful things, or mouthwateringly postworkout like last week, and Elliott still couldn’t have summoned genuine excitement.

A job is a job, he thought . . . and his stomach dropped. His chest got tight and he snuck an arm out of his warm blanket nest to snake around Aiden’s waist. Aiden, reading again, automatically rested his hand on top of it, brushing his thumb over the skin above Elliott’s elbow.

A job was a job. Except this wasn’t just a job anymore. Elliott had taken it home with him, so to speak. He’d allowed Aiden to become someone he let see him at his lowest: sweaty, pukey, and crying on the floor of a bathroom that wasn’t even his.

Elliott wanted to slap himself for not realizing earlier how far from a job his time with Aiden felt now. It was inconceivable, really, considering how many times he reminded himself every day that he was selling his body and his time as a commodity, but not his soul or his pride. He thought of Aiden as his employer every time he whipped out his debit card to pay for a carton of chocolate milk to take to class. He tried not to forget that they weren’t actually boyfriends, but while he’d been busy telling his brain that, he’d forgotten to tell his emotional muscle memory not to slip into tenderness territory.

He inspected Aiden’s face from under the hood of his blanket. Aiden was reading the last book in a trilogy he loved and didn’t even glance over, so Elliott could look his fill. Without the haze of want gorgeous gimme, Elliott’s eyes raked over the parts of Aiden’s face he’d seen a hundred times before.

He hadn’t hit thirty yet, and the lines beside his eyes and between his heavy eyebrows were already deepening from him frowning in concentration all the time. His scruff, grown out slightly for casual Friday at the office and a lazy evening at home, had a little bit of red in it. His upper lip had a deep dip in the center, made even more obvious by the five-o’clock shadow.

Elliott wanted to run his fingers across it. Not, for once, to guide Aiden’s lips closer to his, but because it looked soft, and his thumb wanted to know the curve of it. Because it made his chest shudder to imagine that he could know Aiden’s face by touch only.

Shit, he was in trouble.

He shut his eyes against his growing anxiety. More hydration was needed, apparently, because the room was getting a little wobbly. Breathing in and out, he ignored the way his heart rate calmed a few notches with the regular turn of a page of Aiden’s book. He was too out of it to get weepy about attachment issues that were probably only Florence Nightingale Syndrome.

He drifted, consciously not thinking about any one thing too hard. When he opened his eyes next, it was because his still-damp hair was being stroked away from his face, softly and rhythmically, both waking him and putting him in a trance. He hummed, leaning into Aiden’s fingers.

“Are you hungry?”

Elliott looked up. His face was only a couple of inches from Aiden’s, and there was nowhere he’d rather stare than into Aiden’s dark eyes. He hadn’t known they were kind eyes before he’d stared into them like this a few dozen times, but now, he wouldn’t describe them as anything else.

Aiden was smiling faintly, deepening those premature crow’s feet. Elliott wanted to kiss them, and make Aiden smile more so his happiness could take the blame for his wrinkles, not his stressful job.

“Not really,” Elliott admitted. He still felt vaguely nauseated and his nose was stuffed up, which would make it hard to eat with dignity. “I should probably eat, though. The last thing I had was half a pack of saltines before I went to bed last night.”

“Were you sick yesterday too, then? It’s good that you were able to force something down.”

“No, it hit really suddenly this morning. I just like saltines.”

Aiden laughed, and Elliott’s body jolted. The roiling of his stomach at the sudden movement was totally worth it for that laugh.

Fuck. Since when was Aiden’s laugh so important to me?

Aiden looked over his shoulder, grimacing in the direction of the kitchen. “I don’t have much to offer you in the way of food, but I could get delivery?”

Elliott blamed his rush of gratitude on his empty stomach and whacked-out body. “You don’t have to—”

“I want to,” Aiden insisted. “It’s not an imposition, I need to eat dinner anyway.”

Elliott frowned and squinted at the TV across from them. He’d barely been aware of the passage of time before he took a nap in the middle of the day. Now, he wasn’t sure if he could correctly guess the date, let alone the hour. After some blinking, the green glowing lights came into focus.

9:37 p.m., they read.

He looked back at Aiden, raising an eyebrow. “Dinner?”

Aiden shrugged. “Late-night snack.”

“Yeah, okay,” Elliott relented. He had to do the responsible thing and get some calories in him, even though his insides still felt like the fiery pits of Mordor. “Whatever's fine, I'm not picky.”

Aiden disappeared into the kitchen for a takeout menu, and Elliott listened to his voice modulate into talking to a stranger mode. Elliott rubbed the fuzzy blanket over his knees so long that it started to crackle with static. He kind of wanted to turn out all the lights and see if he could make it sparkle with lightning bolts like he used to do when he was a kid.

Aiden came back before he could give in to the temptation. “It’ll be twenty minutes,” he said, sitting down.

“Speedy.”

“Yeah, not too many people ordering chicken noodle soup this late at night, they said. Not sure why. After nine o’clock is when I always start to crave comfort food.”

Elliott nodded. “Midnight mac and cheese. I’ve been there.”

Aiden grinned at him, then stroked his thigh under the blanket. “So, now we wait. I bet you’ll be tired again after eating, so if there’s anything you need to do, I’d recommend doing it.”

“Well, now that you mention it,” Elliott said, his voice dropping a couple of pitches almost without his say so. “I wouldn’t mind doing you.”

Aiden stopped rubbing Elliott’s thigh and looked at him straight on, his eyebrows crimping in . . . disapproval? Disappointment, maybe.

“Elliott, I thought I told you I’m—”

“I feel a lot better, really,” Elliott insisted, throwing the blanket off his shoulders even though his sensitized skin was screaming for him not to. “I’m totally fine, and we’ve got twenty minutes to fill. You can just sit there. I’ll do all the work.”

Aiden grabbed the blanket and wrapped it around Elliott’s shoulders again, keeping it in place when Elliott tried to shrug it off.

“Why would I want to do that?” Aiden said, like a dad keeping his cool while convincing an obstinate child.

Elliott thrust a hand through an opening in his blanket prison so he could tug at his hair. “Because that’s—”

He faltered. His daily mental reminder of his standing no longer seemed acceptable to his sense of self-worth. He said it anyway, because it was more truthful than hurtful.

“That’s why I’m here. It’s why you pay me.”

Aiden froze, then his grip loosened on the blanket. Elliott stared down at Aiden’s hands to avoid his gaze. Stupid, his inner overbearing cheerleader chided him. You’d be better, stronger, if you looked him in the eye and owned it, like you usually do. He pays you for sex. It’s fact, not an opinion.

Aiden’s hands dipped under the edge of the blanket. Elliott’s heart slammed in his chest, because he was sure for a second that he’d somehow done a good enough job of convincing Aiden that yes, he was in an okay headspace to blow him today, and his brain wasn’t screaming at him to abandon the mission so he could go hug a hot water bottle instead.

But rather than removing a layer of protection from him, Aiden slid his hands up Elliott’s chest, over his neck, coming to rest on either side of his jaw. When his face dipped closer, Elliott tensed despite himself, but Aiden’s lips landed on his clammy forehead and stayed there, a firm press of dry lips on his skin in an unofficial but well-known symbol for caretaking and affection without heat.

When Aiden’s lips started to pull away, Elliott grabbed Aiden’s wrists to keep them in place, and to still the faint trembling in his own fingers.

Aiden brushed his mouth on Elliott’s cheeks next, closer to the corner of his eye than his mouth. His stubbled face rasped Elliott’s skin as he sat back, and Elliott could feel its burn long after it was gone. Aiden’s thumbs stroked Elliott’s jawbone as he looked into his eyes.

“I think you know that’s not true,” Aiden said. His throat bobbed once his words were out in the air.

Elliott swallowed himself, trying to find something to say that would hide all his hopefulness and not disagree with Aiden outright.

“You’re— It’s—”

“You’re here for more than just sex,” Aiden said, fiercely, taking his wrists back and grasping Elliott’s shoulders like he was about to shake some sense into him. “I don’t think it’s ever just been about sex between us, not from the beginning. It definitely isn’t now.”

Oh, no. Aiden had fallen into the boyfriend trap too. Somehow, despite their best efforts, they’d managed to trick themselves into forgetting what their relationship really was. It wasn’t love. Elliott didn’t have to have ample experience with the emotion to know that he didn’t love Aiden.

But given time and a forceful shove, he could. If he didn’t walk away, it would get there, and he’d be in trouble.

But right now, he was too weak from hunger and fever to resist even a hint of affection, and changing his and Aiden’s trajectory was impossible. When he was well again, he’d beat back the soft and squishy feelings with a shovel, but until then, he’d let himself have this one selfish day.

Aiden apparently took his silence as a sign that he’d won. He gave one of his barely there smiles and rearranged the blanket, then settled back into his normal spot at the end of the couch, leaving his arm open for Elliott to cuddle up.

“It’s fine,” Aiden said, doing his best puppy-dog eyes. “Sit on the couch with me and let me feed you soup and fluids and Advil until you feel better.”

Elliott slumped over, resting his head on Aiden’s thigh. “I’ve never taken a sick day in my life,” he grumbled. “I’m kinda pissed about breaking my record.”

“Don’t consider it a sick day, then. Think of it as a day when I would rather cuddle on the couch.”

Elliott curled up into a smaller ball. “We do that all the time anyway.”

“Exactly. And I always enjoy it. Why can’t I just want that today, and nothing else?”

Because that wasn’t how it worked.

There wasn’t a good reason Aiden couldn’t want that. The problem was that there were some excellent reasons why Elliott wasn’t allowed to want it. The foremost being that he should’ve been swimming back to his safe, apathetic, pragmatic shore. Not deeper into the murky waters of whatever his feelings were for this surprising man.

Above him, Aiden picked up his book and rested his hand on Elliott’s elbow. Reflexively, Elliott caught it and tugged it around his chest so he could hug Aiden’s whole arm to him, their fingers curled loosely together.

Tomorrow, he’d deal with everything. He’d take stock, take a big step back and see if he could still do this with a professional distance between them, or if it was too late and he’d have to quit.

The thought made his teeth clench. Not only because of the money, but because of the inevitably messy end they would face if Elliott decided to make his living with another man.

If their connection was truly as strong as it felt, Aiden might give an open relationship a go. He’d say he was fine with it, and at the time, he’d most likely mean it. That open-mindedness would probably last just long enough for Elliott to get his heart broken when Aiden changed his mind. But that was for future-Elliott to worry about.

Tomorrow, he promised. Or maybe the next day.

He listened to Aiden’s book scrape to the next page. He stroked his thumb down Aiden’s palm.

Soon. But not yet.