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It started with small things that by themselves would’ve gone by Piers completely unnoticed. One day Leon got up from the couch a little too fast and had to grab a hold of the backrest so he wouldn’t fall down. Then a few days later he stopped mid-movement in the kitchen, squeezing his eyes shut as if he was feeling faint for a second. A week or so later he almost tripped over his feet getting out of bed in the morning.
By themselves, they would’ve been just that. Small little things, nothing to worry about. The problem was that they were happening with alarming frequency.
Leon himself didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. Whenever Piers tried to address the situation, he’d wave it off, direct the conversation elsewhere or kiss Piers so that he would’ve forgotten his own name, too. And truth to be told, life got in the way, and Piers did forget about it for a while.
Until he got off a twelve-hour flight, antsy and eager to get back home after the several days he’d been away. When he checked his phone he had seven missed calls and a message, and what was the most worrisome was that they were all from Hunnigan. He checked the message first, frowning at the words glaring at him from the screen.
Leon doesn’t know I’m contacting you, but a fair warning, because I’m worried. He was found unconscious on the bathroom floor at 10AM. They took him to the hospital, but he checked himself out. Look after him, okay? Contact me if you need backup.
Piers frowned even harder. He shot back a quick message to let her know he’d gotten it, but that was all he managed. Worry was gnawing at his insides, and the way home had never in his life felt so long.
By the time Piers finally fumbled the front door open he’d managed to go through all the possible and impossible scenarios in his mind. He half-expected to find Leon lying on the floor unconscious now, and when he finally made it into the living room he froze mid-step at the sight of Leon sitting on the couch.
“Hey,” Leon smiled, and he looked just a little sleepy. “I was waiting for you.” He shifted to get up, and that’s when it became obvious something was terribly wrong. He barely got half-upright, before a grimace twisted his features and he had to grab a hold of the armrest, his entire body shaking with a clear shudder. Slowly he sank back down, but even now tried to paste on an unaffected front. “There’s cold takeout in the kitchen.”
Something twisted in Piers’ chest at seeing Leon clearly in pain like this. Slowly he approached, and as much as he would’ve wanted to just let Leon have this and ignore the clear signs, he couldn’t. “Why did you check yourself out of the hospital?” he asked instead of a greeting. Carefully he took a seat next to Leon on the couch, searching his expression for answers.
For a second it still seemed like Leon would deny everything, but then he sighed, slumped a little further into the couch cushions, and gave Piers a wry smile. “Who tattled on me? Hunnigan?” He looked up, but when it became obvious that Piers was going to wait this out instead of answering, Leon heaved another sigh. “They won’t find anything anyway. I know what this is.”
“Care to enlighten me?” Piers asked. He almost startled at how bitter his voice sounded, but it was too late to take it back. He was still knotted up with worry, his hands shaking with how much this was affecting him, and he was too tired to try to explain himself.
“It’s the plaga,” Leon answered, at length. “After Spain, everyone thought it was gone. That we’d gotten it out early enough. But… a few years later it was kind of obvious that we’d been wrong.” He closed his eyes, leaned back, and seemed to collect his thoughts for a moment before going on. “First it seemed to be just handy. I healed faster than normal, you know? It was like my skeleton was made of titanium,” he chuckled a little, but it triggered a cough, and forced him to double over.
For a long moment Leon tried to get the coughing down, wheezing for air, and Piers felt wholly unequipped to deal with the whole ordeal. He shifted closer and placed a warm palm on Leon’s back, rubbing in slow circles in hopes that it’d make Leon feel a little bit better. Grateful, Leon slumped against him, leaning his head on Piers’ shoulder and closing his eyes.
“Apparently, the plaga didn’t only give things,” Leon muttered after a while. “As compensation, well. Apparently it’s doing a number on my immune system.”
There was a pause as Piers tried to make sense of this. He kept holding Leon against his side, but inwardly he was screaming, the frustration and hurt and fear all twining up into one tightly wound ball. “Why did you never tell me?” he asked after a while, voice choked with emotion. “I tried asking you but you said it was fine, you—”
The realization hurt. And Piers barely got the rest of the sentence out. “Why didn’t you trust me?”
“It’s not about trust—” Leon started, pulling back a little. Probably just to look properly at Piers, but it felt like he was slipping away in both the metaphorical and in the concrete sense and Piers sort of panicked a little.
As a knee-jerk reaction, Piers practically jumped onto his feet, coiled back as if he’d been burned. “It’s not about trust!?” he echoed, the sheer hurt beginning to tip over to anger. “Then what is it!? When were you going to clue me in on the fact that you might be dying!?” They’d been together for well over six years, living together for four of those, and Piers couldn’t believe that Leon hadn’t trusted him with something of this magnitude. Especially as he told Leon everything.
There was something endlessly tired in Leon’s eyes. He grimaced a little. “I was hoping they’d figure out a cure first.”
“So if they never will?” Piers asked, although the mere thought of there possibly never being a cure for whatever was eating Leon up inside was killing him. He felt like he was the one with the plaga eating his intestines, with the way everything hurt. “Were you just going to wait until I woke up to you cold and dead right next to me!?”
“Piers, it’s not…” Leon trailed off, obviously knowing himself too that this wasn’t something you could brush off.
“Do you even get how lucky you are that you passed out at home and not on a mission? What if you’d been out there, on the field, alone?” The mere thought of that made Piers want to break something, but he was stopped by the way Leon drew in a sharp breath. Leon avoided looking at him, practically holding his breath, and that told Piers more than he’d even wanted to know. “Fucking hell, Leon,” he choked out, disbelieving, “seriously!?”
“It’s fine, it wasn’t—”
“It’s not fine!” Piers burst out “Do you have a fucking death wish!?”
“No!” Leon coughed again, but this time it didn’t turn into such a fit. He was shivering though, as if he was freezing, and when he looked up at Piers there were unshed tears glimmering in his eyes. “I didn’t want to tell you,” he confessed almost inaudibly, “because I was afraid. Why would you want to stay with an old cripple who might drop dead any second?”
Piers stared at him, stunned. It took him a moment to even process the words, and when he did, the magnitude of them left him reeling. “Fuck you,” he breathed out. How the hell could Leon even say something like this? Piers had thought that their relationship was solid, that they trusted each other, that they were open and honest about every shitty little detail about their lives.
And here Leon was, confessing that all that time, he’d been secretly waiting for Piers to fucking dump him? Walk away like a dick?
Suddenly the worry and the anger shifted and it was sheer hurt that flared up inside Piers. He felt like crying, as how the hell was he supposed to handle all of this? Not only was Leon apparently so sick he was in serious danger, but he also had so little faith in Piers that he had thought he’d be left to deal with it alone if he had confessed to it.
It was too much. Piers couldn’t. He just couldn’t. “I need a minute,” he choked out, before spinning on his heels and practically fleeing out onto their small balcony.
Out in the crisp night air Piers gripped the railing so hard his knuckles turned white, leaning heavily against it as he desperately tried to gulp air into his burning lungs. Ground had shifted beneath his feet, and he had no idea what to think about anything anymore. He kept staring into the distance but saw nothing from how blurry his eyes were.
He barely registered the sound of the door opening but when he did, he quickly spun around again. Leon was swaying on his feet in a way that looked sort of dangerous, and immediately Piers stepped close so he could slip an arm around him and support him. “Hey,” he said, voice still choked but every single trace of the anger gone. “You should’ve waited, I was going to be—”
That was as far as he got before there were fingers on his cheek, tilting his head to look at Leon. “I love you,” Leon said, and as tired as he sounded his voice was firm, like there was absolutely no doubt in his mind of this. “I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love you. And I am so fucking scared of losing you, of… dying, or you dying, or…” He shook his head a little, closed his eyes to fight back tears. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about this. You deserved to know.”
Piers had held his breath throughout the shakily spoken words, and now he finally let all air out, the knot in his stomach easing up ever so slightly. “I can’t believe you thought I’d leave you just because you’re sick,” he whispered. It felt that if he listened closely enough, he could’ve heard his own heart breaking. “Shit, Leon, you’re stuck with me okay? You’re not getting rid of me. It takes much more than some parasite to do that.” He reached out, brushing his fingers through Leon’s hair, and the gesture earned him a soft smile.
As if on cue Leon shuddered, though, a gust of wind out there even making it worse. His knees buckled a little, and if it hadn’t been for Piers holding him up he probably would’ve lost his balance. “Let’s get you inside,” Piers said, already guiding them towards the door.
They didn’t exchange a single word during the time it took for Piers to maneuver them both into the bedroom. He tucked Leon in bed before changing into a t-shirt and loose sweats, slipping under the covers right next to him. Immediately Leon pressed close, still shivering, and wormed his fingers under Piers’ shirt. Normally he was an icicle, leeching off all the warmth, but now he felt hot to the touch and Piers couldn’t help but worry.
“You’ve got to see a doctor about this,” Piers tried, but nevertheless pulled Leon close, holding him the best he could.
“There’s this one DSO doctor, I’ll call her in the morning,” Leon said, voice small, teeth clattering, “She’s in charge of the plaga research, she’s been… helping.”
Piers nodded, and as an answer pressed his lips against Leon’s temple. Slowly Leon was shivering less, but he didn’t make a single move to pull back, instead burrowing even closer until he could bury his face into Piers’ neck. “I’m sorry, okay,” he whispered into the soft skin under Piers’ ear, “it was a shit decision to keep this from you.” He paused for a second, but before Piers managed to react, he went on. “No more secrets. From now on, if I’ll stub my toe you’ll hear about it.”
Piers huffed out a small laugh. “Promise?”
“Promise,” Leon nodded, his fingers curling into the fabric of Piers’ shirt. He was holding on, as if he was afraid that Piers might slip away through his fingers somehow.
Yet Piers had no intention in going anywhere. He would support Leon through this regardless of the outcome. He’d be there every single step of the way, no matter which route they would be forced to take. He just hoped it would be the one leading to recovery.
“Get some rest,” Piers said, brushing his fingers into Leon’s hair. “I’ll heat us some leftover takeout later. And then we’ll talk, okay?”
Slowly Leon nodded. “Okay.”