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“Ok,” James forces out in a robotically cheerful voice. “Alright. We can work with this.” He nods at the disaster of an apartment around them, packed near to bursting with half-filled boxes and loose odds and ends.
“Don’t be stupid,” Tasha sighs. “I’ve had better nightmares than this.”
“Hey, it’s boxes,” Steve says, climbing over one. “We can deal with that.”
And they do, for a few hours at least. Transferring the pyramid of boxes from the hallway by the door to the grumbling truck waiting downstairs seems like good progress and good fun, but it only takes five trips up the rickety metal steps before that, too, gets old.
James is in good snape; probably not the best of his life, but good nonetheless. Steve’s all muscle and doesn’t seem to need any reminders to be careful with the kitchen table he resolutely backs down the stairs. Tasha, on the other hand, is like a reed about to snap in a strong wind. Her arms look spindly in the frames of the cut off sleeves of her sweatshirt, her hands big in comparison to her knobby wrists.
James grabs two boxes from a pile. He tucks one under his good arm easily, then manhandles the second between his body and his stump with the prosthesis supporting beneath. Tasha makes to copy him with grace, but she stumbles slightly under the weight.
“Put one back,” James grunts, hefting a box and squinting down at the squiggle of sharpie decrying its contents. Stuff, the box says. Though James is positive he can see a 10 lb weight and a power strip in the gap between the tape and the cardboard.
“No.” Of course she refuses. James couldn’t have expected anything different. He’s mostly glad Steve isn’t there to manhandle her any more than strictly necessary. He should know better than to tell her what to do, but that doesn’t keep him from trying.
“Tash…” James shakes his head, then leads the way out of the apartment, toward the stairs. “Whatever. It’s your grave.”
“Yup.” The word probably isn’t meant to sound so weak and choked.
James does his best to ignore her on the way down to the ground floor. “Here, hold up a sec.” James capitalizes on his own shortness of breath, hoping Tasha feels some semblance of the same thing.
“You’re fucking weak.” The jab comes out in a choked whisper, and it’s accompanied by the sound of the contents of a box shifting severely against cardboard walls. James doesn’t like the pallor of Tasha’s face, the tremor in her hands, the looseness of her shoelace…
“Sit,” he commands, putting down his boxes and peeling Tasha’s out from the crooks of her elbows. He builds a lopsided tower and pushes Tasha’s slight body onto a bench shiny with nighttime dew.
“No.”
“Tash…” James says her name again and places his hands gently on her shoulders.
“What? Are you calling me weak now?”
“No,” James replies quickly. “Not at all. Just…you’re tired. This is hard.” He knows they’re lame excuses, but it’s all he’s willing to say at the moment.
“It’s temporary fucking student housing.” Tasha shrugs. “Shouldn’t be hard.”
“Well.” James casts around for something less open to interpretation. “You should tie your shoes,” he finally says, indicating the loose laces of Tasha’s Converse.
Tasha scoffs, her brows going gown dark and angry over bright, angry eyes. “Jesus.” She laughs. “Fuck that.”
“Just indulge me…” James kneels in front of Tasha’s foot and begins working on the laces. He wants to laugh, and a soft sound escapes his throat. Then he hears a different one escape from hers.
“Um. You ok?” James looks up in time to see Tasha’s pallor pass from white to ghostly grey. “Don’t barf on me,” he says.
Petulance glows in Tasha’s eyes for a second, then it changes instantly to panic, and James knows it’s too late. He scrambles out of the line of fire just as her shoulders hunch and bile runs down her chin. She covers her mouth even though it’s too late to do much good. If James had room left for any emotion besides concern, he’d roll his eyes in annoyance.
“Geez, ok,” he mutters, patting her quivering shoulder. “It’s alright. Just get it up, I guess.”
Tasha glares at him, then dips her head toward her knees and does as she’s told. When she’s done, she coughs and wipes her mouth on her sleeve. “Don’t,” she croaks.
There’s so much James could say, though he isn’t planning on vocalizing any of it. He’s lost track of Steve somewhere between the apartment and the truck, but he supposes his boyfriend will find the abandoned boxes eventually and take care of them, just as he’s taking care of his sister. “Alright,” James finally sighs. “Just stay put, and I guess I’ll stay quiet.”