Chapter 117: You Know You Love Me
•⋅⊰∙∘☾✶☽∘∙⊱⋅•✾•⋅⊰∙∘☾✶☽∘∙⊱⋅•
The apartment was oddly quiet without the usual noise of me checking the thermometer every hour.
I hadn’t realized how much that background anxiety affected me until it was gone.
For the first time in what felt like ages, Damien was actually awake. He was at the kitchen counter, holding a mug of tea in both hands. His hair was still a little messy from spending days in bed, but he looked a lot more alive than he had in the last forty-eight hours.
The color had returned to his face, which made me breathe a sigh of relief when I first saw him. The dark circles under his blue eyes were still there, but they had shifted from a concerning shade to just tired-looking... which, given the week we’d had, felt like a goddamn victory.
When he caught sight of me coming into the kitchen, he smiled. Not just a hint of a smile, but a real one... not the glazed-over version he’d managed while being sick, but a genuine, relaxed one.
"Morning."
I squinted at him. "Why are you smiling like that?"
"I survived."
I snorted, "Barely."
"I had an excellent nurse."
I rolled my eyes dramatically. "You had a really annoying roommate who had other plans for his weekend."
"I think both could be true at the same time."
I started making coffee, turning my back to him so he wouldn’t read anything into my expression, which was doing things I didn’t authorize.
His voice turned soft behind me.
"...Seriously, Oliver."
Something in his tone made me look back over my shoulder.
I was still half-asleep, my mind pleasantly hazy, when I felt it...warm arms wrapping around my waist from behind and a solid chest pressing against my back.
My breath hitched at the contact as Damien’s chin rested on my shoulder, his voice low and sleepy against my ear.
I huffed, trying to ignore how nice his warmth felt.
"You know you love me."
My body went rigid. The spoon slipped from my fingers and clattered on the counter.
What?
The words hung between us, casual on the surface but hitting me hard in the chest. My mind immediately flashed back to that night when he had a fever , the dim light, him burning up, me sitting beside him thinking he was asleep.
The moment I leaned down, kissed his forehead, and whispered the words I’d been too scared to say when he was awake.
"I love you."
Had he heard me? Here i thought he was out cold!
I really hoped he hadn’t heard me... because then I’d have to walk into incoming traffic.
My face felt like it was on fire. My heart was pounding so hard against my ribs that I was sure he could feel it through my back. I tried to play it cool, but my voice came out higher than I wanted.
"What... what do you mean?"
Damien’s arms stayed around me, steady and warm. I could hear the smile in his voice without even seeing his face.
"You get all soft when you think I’m sleeping. It’s cute."
Oh God.
I turned in his arms, ready to deny everything, but the way he looked at me...soft, understanding, a bit fond, made my words stick in my throat. He didn’t push; he just held me there, chin resting on my shoulder again, like it was perfectly normal for him to be there.
I swallowed hard, still blushing. "I don’t... I mean, that was—"
"Shh." He pressed a gentle kiss to the side of my neck. "It’s okay. I liked being babied by you."
My brain short-circuited. I stood frozen in his embrace, heart racing, wondering how to respond when I couldn’t even admit it to myself most days.
Damien just held me tighter, like he had all the time in the world for me to figure it out.
"You took good care of me."
There was a small, genuine pause before he added,
"Thank you."
Heat rushed up my neck, and I looked away before it could turn my face red.
"Don’t make it weird," I mumbled while pouring coffee into my favorite chipped mug, focusing more than necessary on the task. "I...uh...just did what anyone would’ve done."
"I don’t think most people would stay awake all night taking someone’s temperature."
"I was making sure your fever didn’t ruin what stupid little brain function you had left."
His quiet laugh filled the kitchen, warm and easy, and I concentrated hard on my coffee.
"I remember waking up a few times," he said.
"...That’s nice."
"I also remember you holding my hand."
I froze. The mug stopped moving. "...You were delirious."
"Were you checking my pulse?"
"Exactly."
"For six hours?"
"...Yeah."
"...Oliver?"
"...Shut up."
A grin spread across his face... I could hear it even in silence. "So you admit it?"
"I admit nothing."
"You care for me, don’t you?"
The coffee nearly went down the wrong way. "What?!"
"It explains the exceptional care. The evidence is compelling."
"I was monitoring a medical situation!"
"For six hours."
"I—" I hesitated. "You’re the worst."
"So I’ve been told. Often...by you, specifically."
He looked annoyingly pleased with himself, which I guessed was a solid sign he was on the mend. I abandoned my coffee and started wiping down an already clean part of the counter just to keep my hands busy and avoid gesturing helplessly at him.
"I can’t believe you remember any of that."
"I remember a little."
"I should’ve let the fever take its course."
"You would’ve missed me."
"I would’ve gotten a lot more sleep."
"Those aren’t mutually exclusive, Oliver."
"Don’t use logic right now. You just got better. Give your brain a rest."
By the afternoon, Damien declared himself "perfectly healthy," which I instantly recognized as a recipe for trouble.
I found him halfway across the apartment, confidently carrying the laundry basket like he had simply decided it was time to do this.
"What exactly do you think you’re doing?"
He looked at me with that innocent expression that never meant anything good. "Laundry."
"You almost passed out two days ago."
"I feel a lot better."
"You also told me you felt fine right before you spiked a fever that had me running to the pharmacy at eleven at night."
He sighed dramatically, as if I was asking for the moon. "You worry too much."
I snatched the basket from his hands with no finesse. "Who says I’m worried? Go sit down."
"You’re bossing me around again."
"I’m protecting my investment."
"...Your investment?"
"I spent three days keeping you alive and functional. You don’t get to mess that up just because you remembered you’re stubborn."
He laughed, and the sound was entirely like himself again, not the faint echo he was when he was sick, and something in my chest relaxed at that sound. "I didn’t know my existence had become your personal project."
"It hasn’t. But you have the survival instincts of a sleepy squirrel, so someone has to handle this."
"I’ve never been compared to a squirrel before."
"There’s a first time for everything."
He watched me carry the laundry basket away with an unreadable expression. Then, quietly, he said, "...It’s nice."
I glanced back at him. "What is?"
"Being looked after." His smile was softer now, something deeper under it that wasn’t his usual ease. "No one’s really fussed over me like that before."