Chapter 114: Turns Out I Care Too Much
•⋅⊰∙∘☾✶☽∘∙⊱⋅•✾•⋅⊰∙∘☾✶☽∘∙⊱⋅•
When I finally rushed back into the apartment, balancing the paper bag in one arm and my keys in the other, I expected to find Damien right where I left him... horizontal, covered, hopefully asleep.
Instead, I heard movement from the kitchen.
I paused at the doorway.
Damien was at the counter, slightly tilted to one side, staring at the kettle with the unfocused intensity of someone trying to remember what they were doing but missing the mark.
I looked at him. He looked at me. His expression was exactly that of a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar — aware they’d been caught but not quite grasping the consequences.
"...Are you fucking kidding me?!"
"I got hungry!"
"You left the bed."
"I walked very carefully."
"You weren’t supposed to walk at all!"
"I just needed food."
"You needed rest."
"I was making tea."
I glanced at the kettle. Cold and completely untouched. Not even close to being turned on. "You forgot to boil the water."
He stared at the kettle, looking mildly baffled as if receiving new information. "...That explains a lot."
I gaped at him, I supposed he was one of those people that went kinda stupid when he was sick.
While I stared at him in annoyance, inside I couldn’t help, but think he was so cute!
I pressed my hands over my face for a moment. "I’m going to lose a decade off my life before this afternoon ends."
"I think that’s a bit much."
"You nearly collapsed over breakfast."
I set the pharmacy bag down on the counter with more force than I needed to and gently took his arm. "Come on."
This time, he let me guide him without a fight, which was its own kind of concern. After all that earlier, the lack of argument felt more alarming than the arguing had been.
"I’m making your life difficult, aren’t I?" he stated, not quite a question.
"A little."
"Sorry."
His apology came out soft and sincere, without the usual humor layered on top. The simplicity of it made it hard to stay annoyed. I sighed, the genuine kind rather than the theatrical kind.
"Just let me take care of you."
He was quiet for a beat, studying my face with eyes that were more exhausted than scrutinizing.
Then, without another argument: "Okay."
One word. Simple. It surprised me more than anything else that had happened all day.
Back in the bedroom, I rummaged through the pharmacy bag while Damien watched from beneath the blankets, his chin barely peeking out from the duvet.
"You bought half the pharmacy," he noted.
"I panicked a litty."
"I can tell."
"I didn’t know what you needed, so I covered all my bases."
"So you bought everything."
"It’s a comprehensive plan."
He smiled weakly. "That’s kind of adorable."
I ignored him with the ease of someone who had been ignoring him for long enough to get good at it, double-checked the dosage instructions three times because sick Damien’s sense of self-preservation was clearly not dependable, then handed him the medicine with a glass of water.
He took it without protest. "Was that your teacher voice?"
"I have a teacher voice?"
"Oh, you absolutely do. It arrived sometime in the last hour."
"I don’t like that."
"I think it’s very effective."
Once he settled back against the pillows, eyes closing slightly, I slipped away to the kitchen.
Cooking had never been my strong suit. That was a well-known fact, witnessed by several people and multiple kitchen tools. But even I could manage soup. Probably. It’s just soup. People have made soup for centuries without the benefits of modern ingredients and equipment.
Twenty minutes later, smoke was wafting toward the ceiling.
I stood at the stove, staring into the pot, trying to figure out where it all went wrong and finding several candidates. From the bedroom, Damien’s voice floated through, sleepy and patient.
"Oliver?"
"What?"
"...Should soup be doing that?"
"Doing what?"
"Smoking."
"No."
"Okay."
"I’m handling it."
A pause. "Are you?"
"...I’m handling the idea of handling it."
After a frantic rescue mission involving way more water than the recipe called for and a serious adjustment of both the heat and my expectations, I eventually carried a steaming bowl back into the bedroom and set it carefully on the bedside table.
Damien looked at it, then at me, then back at it with the careful attention of someone who’s received something and is deciding what to say about it.
"It certainly has...personality," he said.
"Just eat it." I said, holding out the spoon.
Damien let out a grin, "you’re feeding me?"
I nodded, not understanding why that seemed to bring him joy. He beamed as he took one cautious spoonful, clearly preparing himself. I held my breath.
He chewed. Thought for a moment. "...Well?"
"It tastes like you tried."
I groaned and covered my face. "That’s the nicest possible way to frame an insult."
"I meant it sincerely."
Still, he kept eating as I fed him. Each spoonful came slowly and steadily until the bowl was empty. Even though I was totally sure it wasn’t good, too much pepper, a little watery from the emergency rescue, and probably lacking at least two ingredients I hadn’t thought to check for.
He ate it anyway. Without complaint, no smart remark that would’ve been so easy and so well-deserved.
When he was done, he looked at me with tired eyes and smiled. "Thank you."
One word. Simple. Sincere in a way words can be when they’re unembellished, when the word just stands on its own without any frills.
I busied myself gathering the bowl so I had something to keep my hands and my face busy, which was doing things I hadn’t given it permission to do.
Maybe the soup wasn’t good. Maybe I burned it, over-peppered it, and added too much water. Maybe I had bought enough medicine to treat a whole small village and forgotten to boil the kettle before I left, which he probably would’ve found amusing if he’d had more energy.
But he ate every bit of it.
And somehow, sitting in his bedroom in the early afternoon with the pharmacy bag on his desk and his empty bowl in my hands...that felt like more than I knew how to handle.