Chatbox Shamus

Bastion is ill

"You are such a dumbass." Ruby meant it with love, or so I've been assured. "You wouldn't be stuck in bed with a damn fever if you'd just ask me to drive you places," she said over the running water. "You know waiting for a bus in this weather's a bad idea, and they never clean those grabby-handles either."

I didn't want to admit that Ruby had a point. Any given bus trip up the highway was a dance with death, between the erratic drivers and the odd germ or two. I tried to raise my voice in protest, but only managed to let out another coughing fit, once again having failed to block it with my arm.

Ruby was busying herself wringing out a wet washcloth at the sink. "Hey, cool it in there," I could hear her say from the bathroom. "You move around too much and you'll just aggravate it."

I allowed myself to flop back into the bed, simultaneously too warm and too cold. None of my body parts and organs seemed to agree on what the weather should have been like in my own office, and as much as I searched for something to say back, that part of my brain wasn't feeling up to it either. In only a few purposeful footsteps, Ruby was back to my bedside, the long sleeves of her usual button-shirt rolled up even further than normal. She slapped the cold, damp washcloth on my forehead as hard as she could. Her bedside manner was as rough as her language, but I didn't even feel like groaning in pain; mostly, I didn't feel like using my vocal chords for anything, but besides that, I hadn't been attended to like this since a bit before my little sister was born, and I really wanted to enjoy it. In the condition I was in, being able to enjoy anything at all was a good sign, even if it did feel like getting slapped with a dead fish.

A cold finger pressed itself into my neck, about where my pulse was. "Your heart's still going pretty fast. Washcloth ought to be good for the fever, but if you can manage it, try to get some sleep. Or at least pretend to sleep, I feel like that helps even if you don't nod off."

"Yeah," my voice rumbled like an action star's. I secretly wished that I could sound like that all the time, and not just when I was deathly ill.

"Anyway…" Ruby sat down on my bed, next to me, and held my hand in hers over the covers. Her face wasn't directly facing mine, but it wasn't a great angle to sit at. "I need you to get better, OK?"

"Yeah," I repeated. I liked the way it vibrated through my chest.

"I'm serious. I know you like living alone and all that, but I worry about you." Her voice had reached that lower register, the one she used when she was trying to be deep and important-sounding. I hadn't heard it in a while. It felt nice, resounding through me the way it did. "I want you back at your best, doing what you love to do. I want you back at work."

"You're just saying that."

"I guess I am." She looked down at her lap; I detected a slight frown as she shut her eyes. "Shit's lonely when I'm stuck in that office. I guess I just like it better when there's somebody there that shares my point of view."

"Must be a hundred people working in that office," I grumbled.

"And you're the only one that cares how the Crime desk feels."

"That can't be true," I coughed.

"Y'know what, god damn it, I told you to rest, and here I am keeping you awake with my troubles." She must have felt like slapping herself, but I knew what she was trying to do. She was trying to change the subject before she opened up too much.

"No, don't you beat yourself up about it. I'm the one that got sick." The sentence came out unimpeded, for once.

Ruby got off the bed and turned around to look me in the eye, never letting go of my hand. "Bass. Much as I want to stick around for you here, you need your rest, and I gotta haul ass." She was using it as an excuse not to continue the conversation. I knew she had trouble with the commitment, and honestly, so did I. Maybe someday one of us would figure out a way around it.

"You take care of yourself." I squeezed her hand a little tighter. "And make sure you wash your hands."

She squeezed right back. "Hey, that's my line, you ass. I'll be back with lunch in a few hours. You just sleep."

I watched her venture out the door. It felt so strange for her to be this caring and worrying over me, like she always wanted to be a mother or something. Maybe she thought it was weird, herself. But it was friendship. Something neither of us had a lot of.