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She wakes to warmth, too much warmth. Something sticky and wet on the hand her face rests against. It takes her fever addled brain too long to connect the dots. She manages it just as her stomach rises into her throat a second time, and she has only enough awareness of what’s happening to push up onto her elbow and spray the sheets and comforter in last night’s meal. It’s not as if they’re not already covered in vomit, but it feels especially wretched to be barfing all over herself and the bedding when she’s awake enough to know what’s happening.
When she’s finished, she flops back onto the pillow, trying to figure out what she should do. She’s shaking, and her limbs feel made of barely set gelatin. Getting up isn’t an option right now, but lying in her own mess is making her stomach refuse to settle.
“Hey,” a voice says, closer than it should be.
“Go’way,” she whines, hoping that’s good enough. She doesn’t know where she is, but she doesn’t want help. Help comes with conditions.
“Tasha, tell me where you are,” the voice tries again.
She knows that voice. It’s safe. Home. She’s home. But she’s shaking and oh, there comes the nausea again.
There are hands steadying her this time, as she rolls onto hands and knees, trying to bring up what isn’t already all over everything. She’s disgusting, and she can’t fathom why anyone would want to take care of her like this.
Those hands lift her from the bed when it’s over.
Her head rests against a strong shoulder, and she’s cradled like a toddler as the world rocks and sways. Cool tile beneath her as James puts her down in the bathroom.
“May I help you get changed?” James asks.
She trusts him, knows he would never hurt her, but she shakes her head anyway. She can’t let him touch her, can’t stand to have her clothing stripped away by hands that aren’t hers. He puts the flannel pants and soft shirt on the edge of the tub.
“Let me know when I can come back,” he tells her, pulling the door mostly closed behind him.
It takes an eternity, to shuck off the soiled shirt and pants, to pull fresh clothing onto her trembling, sweat damp body. She gets it accomplished, though, and calls his name in what she hopes is a passably grown up voice. She feels so much like a little child when she’s sick like this, and childhood holds no pleasant comforts for her.
He comes back, sits beside her, and she curls up on the bathroom rug with her head on his lap, too miserable to even attempt returning to bed. Too afraid of what awaits her if she does.
“I stripped the sheets off,” he tells her. “Bed’s made back up with the spare set.”
There are words unsaid there. Things like I know you’re scared. You’re not in trouble. I’ll take care of it. And you.
He doesn’t have to say them. He did, long, long ago.
She drifts, the fever high enough to stop her keeping any sense of time or space. The world contracts down to the little tiled room, the porcelain of the toilet James helps her hold onto, the plush softness of the thick rug beneath them, the cool comfort of the cloth he holds to her face and neck to ease the fever when Tylenol won’t stay down.
“I’ve got you,” he tells her as he lifts her up over the toilet to bring up stringy ropes of saliva and bile.
“I’ve got you,” he repeats when she whispers apologies for being a mess.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs as she cries tearlessly into his lap.
“I’ve got you,” he reminds her after she finally lets him carry her back to bed. She curls up with her head on James’ chest and his arm around her. She sleeps and knows that she’s safe, home, even when she makes a mess.