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"I didn't have a temperature when I woke up this morning," Race says softly, from where he's all splayed out on his bed. If he wasn't turned in Spot's direction, he probably wouldn't be able to hear him. "I wouldn't'a come to school if I had..."
"Well, now you have one," says Spot matter-of-factly. He sits down on the bed, and his hand goes to Race's knee before he thinks about it. "You should've gone to the nurse's... Racer."
"Mm."
"You should've gone home."
"Okay," Race replies. Barely. He's essentially passed out, his blond curls lank and sticking to his forehead. The pillow, too. The collar of his shirt is dark with sweat.
Spot pushes at him. "Hey." Spot pushes at him again. Trying to win his attention back, but he's burning up. "Hey. C'mon, don't go to sleep yet. Take some clothes off so you don't sweat through 'em."
Race groans, his eyebrows furrowing as he turns over and lifts his arms.
Spot sighs. Hours he's been like this, from their too-early lunch 'til the end of the day. He hadn't been so bad, then, just a bit green, but he'd gotten worse as the day went on. When Spot was driving him home, he'd spent the majority of it with his head between his knees. Spot was thinking about pulling over.
Seeing Race sick is something—different.
It's sort of new. Doesn't happen very often. Spot won't lie that seeing Race all flushed and laid out and open would usually get him going, or at least thinking about it, but it's a different kind this time, a kind that makes his chest tighten a little.
He's like—a baby bird, maybe. Something vulnerable. Little, like that. Little around the wrists and the waist and the back of the neck where his shirt's sticking to.
"Help me do it," Race says sleepily, his arms still in the air.
"What? Sorry."
"Help me get 'em off 'n then come lay down."
Spot laughs, caught. Not really a laugh. More of just a hard breath through his nose. "I can't lay down, stupid. I'll get sick too."
And then he laughs at the noise of protest Race makes, and helps him take his hoodie off, and then goes to get him water and Tylenol. And when he comes back, Race is asleep on top of the comforter with his shoes still on, and Spot does all his homework sitting right there next to him on the bed. Standing sentry. Doesn't want Race to be alone when he wakes up.
Eventually, Race rouses enough to take his clothes off and get under the covers. He plugs in his phone. Drinks the water, too, and takes the Tylenol, though he winces at the hours-old staleness. Begs Spot to give him one kiss, just to tide him over for the weekend, and Spot makes Race promise that he'll take care of him next weekend, when he inevitably catches it too. And Race smiles crookedly so his teeth show in the dark, and says, "Don't count on it."
Spot kisses him anyway.
He still won't get in the actual bed, no matter how hard Race begs him. But he does drag Race's old sleeping bag from Boy Scouts out of the closet just so he doesn't have to sleep on the floor. Just so he doesn't have to sleep downstairs on the couch.
(He stays. That's what Spot's good at, staying.)
When he wakes up the next morning, he finds he's been holding Race's hand all night long. He lies there until Race stirs and doesn't let go.