Work Text:
When Race was a kid, being sick had rocked. He stayed home all day, watched The Price is Right or Zoey 101 on the couch. If his mom had stayed home with him, she’d be in her office working or reading, occasionally coming out to check on him.
“Do you need anything, Antonio?” he’d hear her ask, and he wouldn’t even look up. Usually, his stomach hurt too much to turn around. He’d request soup or a sandwich or a piece of toast with peanut butter, and she’d bring it to him with a kiss on his forehead. He could never tell if it was to measure his temperature or to make him feel better. Both, if his suspicions were right.
Sure, there were days in elementary school when he’d faked being sick. Most of the time, his mom had known if he was faking. Sometimes, she was nice enough to let him stay home anyway. But when he’d gotten into middle school, and then high school, he’d only tried that a few times before he’d fallen so far behind on his work that the couldn’t take any more time off. In senior year, he’d gone to school so sick that he’d fallen asleep in the middle of class and not woken up, even when the bell rang. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it hadn’t been during the final exam, and if he hadn’t ended up failing that class because of it.
-
God, he hated being sick. He missed the days when he could sit on the couch and binge watch trash tv, or eat soup and be kissed on the forehead. Now, it was all work, all the time; being sick was no excuse. He didn’t actually have to go to classes if he didn’t want to, but he knew he had to. With how much he was paying for each of these classes, he definitely had to go to as many as possible. And he couldn’t afford to miss assignments.
But it fucking hurt. His entire gut felt like it was being stabbed with a flaming knife, one that twisted every time it entered, knotting up his insides as it went. And oh, god, his back. And his fever was well above 100 degrees, so he couldn’t think well enough to even get out of bed. He only barely made it to the toilet to vomit, before returning to his bed. He didn’t want to eat, and he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to keep any food down.
So he spent his time laying in bed, thanking every deity he could think of that his boyfriends weren’t home. They would be so upset, and they’d make a big deal out of it. In his feverish stupor, he wouldn’t have been able to handle that.
He really did wish he could have gone to class, but he texted Jack to grab an extra copy of whatever it was they worked on that day for him, and hoped it’d be good enough. If, for once in his life, he was grateful he had no classes with most of his friends, it was this day. With no one worrying about him, he didn’t have to stress about anything.
Anything except for sleeping. Which he couldn’t do, because he was in mind-numbing, vomit-inducing, skeleton-crunching pain.
He hobbled out of bed, clutching his stomach the whole time, in the hopes he might relieve some pain. After tossing back two painkillers, he walked himself back to bed, using the wall to keep himself from falling over.
-
He must have fallen asleep somehow, because the next thing he understood was Elmer shaking him awake.
“Race?” he said, his voice almost a shout. “Race, oh my god.”
Race’s eyes opened, just faint enough for Elmer to notice when they closed again.
-
Race had no way to realize he was being moved until he was in the back of the ambulance. He could dully tell that Elmer was there too, but Elmer’s back was turned to him.
“The paramedics think appendicitis. Yeah,” Elmer was whispering into his cell phone receiver. “Yeah. It’ll be an immediate surgery, to remove his appendix. They have to do it as soon as they c-”
-
The next time Race woke up, it was to see two heads of dark hair and one head of red hair gathered around his bed. White fluorescent lights from the ceiling made them look almost angelic, ethereal.
“Spo’?” Race managed to say, although he reached his hand out for Albert.
“Hi Tony,” Spot smiled. “How do you feel?”
Race drew his hand back to gently touch his own arm. “I feel weird,” he grumbled, and his boyfriends laughed at him.
“You had your appendix out, Race,” Al smiled. “They gave you some pretty heavy anesthesia, so you might be a little whacky for a while.”
“My appen-dicks?” Race asked, drawing out the word as long as he could, and still not understanding why everyone was laughing at him.
Elmer raised his hand to his mouth, covering his smile. “Yeah,” he nodded, “and it was a good thing too. It almost ruptured. You could have died, Race.”
But Race didn’t seem to care that he almost died. Or maybe he did, and his reaction was falling asleep to avoid the possibility of death. Either way, he was asleep.
His boyfriends were laughing at him again, but maybe that was their reaction to the possibility of death. The laughter somehow made the heavy hospital room safer, like it couldn’t have hurt any of them if it tried.