Before he could examine it too closely, he closed the bottle and put it back. “Why didn’t you take a second one earlier?”
“They’re really strong. Hangover’s a bitch.”
Well, that Marsh could relate to. Last time he’d twisted a knee sliding into home, they’d given him codeine, and he’d been high as a kite, then sick as a dog as soon as it wore off. He shoved the drawer closed, maybe a little too hard. As it slammed, the computer monitor on the desk went bright.
Without really meaning to, Marsh swept his gaze over the screen. It was a calendar of some sort, and Marsh blinked.
Every single hour for the next three days was blocked off. Every one.
Marsh whistled, then felt like a dick, because wow, this was an invasion of privacy. He reached over to turn off the screen, but even after it went dark, he couldn’t get what little he had seen out of his mind.
He turned back to Greg. Strong, smart Greg who worked and worked and worked, and who was going to have an ulcer before he was thirty— Greg, who literally made himself sick with stress.
Greg, whom Marsh…cared about. So much. Vulnerable and hurting in his bed. Not even naked or anything, he looked fragile.
And Marsh didn’t want to simply take the pain from him. He wanted to
take care
of him. Keep him safe and protected, even from himself. He might not be able to understand the work he did, or even the fundamentals of it— He sure as hell couldn’t do it for him. But there had to be something. Deep behind his vision, that schedule still glowed.
He kept it there as he retreated to the bed and got in. Greg held out his hand, and Marsh pressed the medication into his palm, then reached over to grab the glass of water sitting on the nightstand. Greg took that, too, sitting up with a little moan. Marsh leaned in and held the compress in place as Greg swallowed and passed the glass over, lying down again with a grunt.
Marsh hovered there for a moment. Greg had said he didn’t have to do this, and ever since then, he’d only given silent, tacit approvals. Smoothing the damp fabric down over Greg’s brow, Marsh asked quietly, “Can I?” He brushed his fingertips over Greg’s scalp, and the answer seemed unequivocal. But he wanted Greg to say the words. To ask. “Last time it seemed to help.”
“Yeah,” Greg said, voice rough. “Yeah. That’d be…nice.” His throat bobbed, like there was an emotion there underneath his acceptance of this barest comfort. This touch that was only human decency. Only affection.
Maybe there wasn’t any
only
about it.
Holding tightly to that thought, Marsh settled in, his back against the headboard just the way it had been the last time. He worked his way around the obstacle of the compress and traced out familiar paths, along the edges of Greg’s face and through his hair and down, sweeping over his neck to the place where his shoulders met the collar of his shirt before sweeping up and completing the circuit all over again.
Greg turned into the touch, breath deepening, and Marsh’s thoughts drifted. They were little thoughts, pointless thoughts, ideas about the shape of Greg’s cheekbone and the point of his jaw. About how good it felt to have Greg here and resting and trusting. Protectiveness welled up in him all over again.
He wasn’t good at putting words to feelings. He’d never known how to ask for what he wanted—what he needed, even. But this, this he could do. In little ways like this, and maybe in bigger ones, he could show Greg how he felt. He could give Greg what he needed.
To all appearances, Greg looked asleep, but Marsh knew better. His breathing was a little too fast, the corners of his mouth just a shade too sharp. He seemed peaceful, though. It seemed wrong to break the quiet or to pull Greg out of whatever haze he’d fallen into, but Marsh let the bubble in his throat press its way up and out. He stilled the motion of his hand. “When’s your alarm set for?”
“Six,” Greg mumbled, then sighed. “Should probably make it earlier. Didn’t get anything done tonight.”
“Yeah, no.” Marsh resumed his stroking, daring to brush a thumb against Greg’s bottom lip. “You need the sleep.”
“No time to sleep.”
Marsh pushed a note of laughter through his nose. “You know, I was wondering how you kept ending up laid up like this, but I think you just answered my question for me.”
“I can handle it.” A note of defiance colored his tone for the first time since Marsh had wrangled him into bed.
Marsh dug his fingers in a little deeper at the spot behind Greg’s ear that always made him seem to melt. “Never said you couldn’t.”
Just that maybe you shouldn’t. That maybe you don’t have to.
Greg made an unhappy, snuffling noise, but he didn’t try to move or pull away.
Shh
-ing him, Marsh kept touching and petting. Once Greg had settled down again, Marsh whispered, “Sleep. It’s okay.”
Let me worry about the rest.
Slowly, Greg’s breath evened out, and the trust was staggering. Of course, Marsh was just about to violate it grossly, but even that couldn’t stem the tide of wanting. Of…loving. Marsh’s eyes felt warm, the corners prickling. He blinked it back, though, focusing on the contours of Greg’s face beneath his fingertips, committing it to memory. Just in case.
He kept going long past when he felt confident Greg was asleep, psyching himself up. Finally, he whispered, “Greg?” At the lack of response, he nodded to himself. Moving gingerly so as not to wake Greg, Marsh pulled his hand away, then edged toward the side of the bed. Greg didn’t so much as stir, and Marsh breathed a little easier.
Okay. First things first.
He found Greg’s phone in the pocket of his pants on the floor. He pressed the button to wake it. No passcode. Phew. A couple of flicks through the screens to find Greg’s alarm, and yup, it was set for six o’clock, all right. Marsh glanced at the time. It was almost midnight. He turned the alarm off and set the phone down on the nightstand beside Greg’s head, then double-checked there wasn’t another alarm set on the clock next to the lamp. Satisfied, he turned around. Greg was still lying there, chest rising and falling, the cloth draped over his eyes.
Marsh picked his way over to Greg’s desk and turned the monitor on, squinting against the sudden glow. Another peek over his shoulder to check that Greg hadn’t moved. Marsh exhaled long and slow, then sank into Greg’s chair.
The calendar program was still front and center on the screen, and the array of appointments was just as dizzying as it had been the first time. Pushing past the guilt at looking at Greg’s things like this, Marsh read through it all. Shifts at the help desk, classes to teach, meetings with advisors. Even nominally free blocks of time were dog-eared to get things done. Christ. Marsh rubbed a hand across his brow. Greg hadn’t been kidding about not having time to sleep.
But there had to be some give. Greg wasn’t going to make it if he didn’t get a break.
Marsh scanned all the way through the end of the week, ticking off one obligation after another: man registration desk, pick parents up, eat with parents, escort visiting professor, give talk. It kept going on and on, until finally, come Saturday morning, Greg’s parents would be back on an airplane, and a few slivers of white, un-booked time shone through between the crush of appointments and responsibilities. Greg just needed to make it until then without another migraine. Or a panic attack. Or a stroke, the way he was going.
Marsh’s finger hovered over the mouse. Boundary-pushing or no, he reached over to the keyboard and took a screenshot, then emailed it to himself. It was something to work with. Marsh was going to have his hands full between now and when Greg woke up, and Greg was going to be mad. Probably
really
mad.
Turning off the monitor, Marsh swiveled around in the chair. He caught sight of Greg’s face, untroubled in sleep, and his heart welled up. Even if Greg was mad…it’d be worth it.
He stood and walked over to the bed. The compress had long since cooled and was leaving Greg’s skin clammy. Marsh pulled it away and tucked it into his hand. He leaned over and pressed a kiss to the center of Greg’s forehead, lingering for a long moment with his eyes clenched shut, soaking this in. He couldn’t resist a quick brush of his lips over Greg’s mouth, and then he pulled away.
Greg shifted, turning over onto his side and reaching out. “Leaving?” he mumbled.
“Have to,” Marsh whispered, smoothing his hair from his face. “But I’ll check in.”
“’Kay.” A pause, and Marsh thought he’d fallen asleep again, but then Greg’s eyes fluttered. “Thank you.”
Marsh could hardly breathe through the way those words pressed in on his chest. “Anytime.”
Forcing himself away, he crossed toward Greg’s desk. He turned off the lamp there, casting the room in darkness, then retreated to the door. And it would have been so much simpler to stay. He’d all but been invited, but “all but” wasn’t enough. He wanted Greg to ask him one night, when they were sweaty and tangled together.
He wanted Greg to forgive him for this.
Without another look back, he opened the door and let himself out.
Chapter Fourteen
Bright.
The first shred of awareness coming over Greg as he surfaced through too-thick layers of sleep was the sheer amount of light in his room, and that…wasn’t right. Too groggy yet to figure out why, he curled in on himself, fumbling for the covers to drag them up and over his head, and that was better. Warmer. Darker, at least, and that was good.
He swallowed, only to choke on the desert that was his mouth. His eyes felt full of sand, and maybe he really had come to in the Sahara. It would be the best explanation. Unless…
Right. Migraine. God, how had he even gotten home last night? All he could remember was a blinding pain and auras surrounding everything, and Chu reaming him out, then—it had been Ronnie, hadn’t it? Ronnie who’d taken care of him and gotten him into a car. Just the memory of the way the streetlights had pulsed brought up echoes of bile. He held it back, though, going perfectly rigid against the surge of nausea.
Another agonizing minute or two, and then it passed. He brought his hand up and poked gingerly at his temples. It didn’t hurt, but numbness lingered, and there was a shakiness in his bones. He’d taken a second pill, then, only he couldn’t remember digging around for the bottle, he just remembered hands. Warm. Gentle.
The wave of wooziness hit him harder this time, but it wasn’t only physiological.
Marsh. Marsh had found him, and they had fought. God, they’d been yelling at each other, and he could hear the words. Marsh had said his symposium was boring and he didn’t want anything to do with it or— No. That wasn’t it. Not quite.
He’d thought
Greg
didn’t want
him
to have anything to do with it, and that was absurd. Ridiculous. He’d told Marsh as much, hadn’t he?
What had he told Marsh? That he wanted nothing more than for Marsh to be interested? To be able to look up while he was speaking and find Marsh in the audience and not be afraid that Marsh would be judging him, bored and unaffected and trying to figure out how to let Greg down easy?
That he wanted Marsh to stay?
He must have said something, because Marsh
had
stayed. There was a dim recollection, there in the back of his mind, of the room lit by the glow of his monitor. Of coming awake in the dimness with Marsh’s lips against his brow. Of Marsh saying he had to go, and Greg being sad, disappointed beneath the exhaustion and the pain, but grateful, too. Grateful Marsh had stayed as long as he had. That he’d taken care of Greg.
Greg had to find him. He had to ask Marsh what he’d said in his delirium. He had to see Marsh’s face.
Throwing off the covers, he jerked upward, but the vertigo nearly floored him. He caught his head in his hands and closed his eyes, swaying, and he was shivering so hard he could barely manage to even sit right. Christ, it was bright.
It was bright.
Shit. Shit shit shit. He braced himself and peered between his fingers at the clock. It was past ten. Four hours later than he’d planned to be up. This was bad, this was unrecoverable. He was screwed, and his stomach spasmed. Once, and then again, and he had to close his throat, but not against nausea. Against breath and sound, and he was
laughing
. High and uncontrolled, and his stomach hurt, everything hurt. He could barely sit up straight, and it was ten AM, and he was screwed. He was completely and utterly screwed. His abdomen cramped, and he eased a hand down to cradle it, sobbing and in hysterics all at once. He’d worked so hard.
The laughter was just starting to give way to cold, hard fear about having to call work and try to explain why he was two hours late, when a series of quiet knocks rang out against his door. It struck him—if it was Marsh, he didn’t know what he would do. He must have turned off Greg’s alarm. He’d taken care of Greg, but this was too much. Blame settled, cold and angry and coloring everything red. He loved Marsh, more than he should, but he’d have to…
What? Break up with him? Marsh wasn’t going to want to sit there and let Greg rant at him. Even if Greg tried to be calm and rational, he wasn’t going to be able to keep it together. It would devolve into yelling, and Marsh would walk away. Greg’s hand trembled harder where he had it pressed against his cheek.
He had to do something, say something. Whoever it was knocked again, and Greg worked to find his voice. Before he could, though, the knob twisted, the door canting inward, and—