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It took him two days to find out.
The first was a Sunday, and Jimmy didn’t text. Brian only half expected him to, but when he didn’t, and he wasn’t active on Facebook all day, Brian was surprised. Beverly texted, but she didn’t get back to him for hours after he asked her a question.
The second day was Monday, and he didn’t ask about Jimmy's absence until lunch break. He didn’t want to confront the fact that Beverly probably knew something he didn’t, and that Jimmy had made sure of it.
Every day the three of them would choose a restaurant nearby to order takeout from, and Jimmy was always the one to pick it up. On Monday Beverly sat at a table in the lounge and, after a beat of silence, began to unpack a sandwich and a tall plastic container of soup.
“Where’s Jimmy?” Brian asked, leaning on the doorframe.
“Sick. He didn’t tell you?”
Brian shook his head with a spike of frustration. It was humiliating to be left out of this kind of simple information.
He left the room without saying anything to Beverly and bought lunch in the cafeteria.
“What’s he got?” Brian asked in place of a greeting upon entering the lounge.
“Reckon it’s cholera,” Beverly answered in her 18th century child laborer voice, high-pitched and theatrical. She dropped it and looked back down at her lunch. “I was over there last night and I think I’ll bring him soup after this.”
Brian made a sudden decision. He would confront Jimmy Price. “I’ll take it to him.”
Beverly raised her eyebrows. “Okay.”
The tension eased after a few minutes of their simultaneous eating with the TV on low volume in the background.
“Will Graham is definitely an only child,” Brian said.
“I can’t imagine him with a sibling. Or any familial relationship. Just his dogs.”
Brain huffed out a laugh, but it wasn’t funny. It was actually kind of sad. Oh well. Will’s social isolation wasn’t his problem. His problem, he reminded himself, was Jimmy Price.
He’d had an extra key for months, and when the front door of the duplex swung open, grazing the wall behind it on its way, there was no reaction from the other room. Brian wondered if Jimmy was upstairs, asleep. He wondered if he’d leave the container of soup on his kitchen table or bring it up to him in bed. Before he made a decision he looked down at the cat food bowls.
Without thinking, he called out, “Have the cats been fed?”
The voice that came from the other room was hoarse and fragile at once. “I think last night.”
He didn’t sound sure, so Brian poured a good three inches of pellets into the bowl from the half-full bag. He reached down to scratch behind Jimmy’s cat Ruben’s ear.
Jimmy was wearing a faint smile when Brian came in the room.
“What?” Brain asked.
“Benny likes you.” Brian blushed in spite of himself.
Jimmy’s nose and cheeks were flushed an ugly red, and he was propped up against the arm of a sofa with a blanket covering him from the waist down. The other cat, Cassiopeia, was curled in a tight ball between his ankles. Jimmy’s eyes were on the TV, but they were unfocused.
After a moment of looking at Jimmy in his newfound vulnerability, Brian remembered why he came. Well, one of the reasons he came.
“Brought soup,” he said, holding it up for Jimmy to see. He softened at the curious, wide-eyed look Jimmy gave the container. “Beverly’s, not mine.”
He carried it into the kitchen and set it on the counter between the toaster and a bunch of bananas.
“Want me to heat it up?”
“No, thanks. I just ate.” Jimmy sneezed.
“This little package has spent the day with the esteemed employees of the FBI. Watch out, Will Graham was in the lab today. It might start spouting unfounded theories.”
If nothing else, Jimmy Price had an inexhaustible tolerance for Brian’s critique of Will Graham. He laughed weakly.
Brian returned to the living room, sitting on the side of the loveseat Ruben had not claimed, and searched for something to say. He found nothing and wanted to make himself useful somehow.
Luckily, Jimmy seemed to pick up on it and asked if he could grab the thermometer from upstairs. Where was it? Should be on his desk.
Brian climbed the stairs gingerly. He didn’t want to seem too at home. He had only been upstairs to use the bathroom. Jimmy’s bedroom was delightfully predictable. There were sweater vests visible past the open closet door and a monstrous jar of the Swedish candy he liked sitting on the shelf. The air was thick with miasma, but Brian didn’t mind. He tapped the laptop open on Jimmy’s desk once, and it showed him a half-watched episode of Sherlock. He was fond of Jimmy and the way he lived his life.
He turned the thermometer over in his hands after picking it up, admiring its design. He aimed it at his own forehead and clicked — it beeped twice and read his temperature aloud: 97.6 degrees.
On his way to the stairs, Brian caught sight of the medicine cabinet above the bathroom sink and got an idea. He knew Jimmy had flu medicine; he had taken it. It had made him pleasant and drowsy. He tucked the bottle under his arm and went back downstairs.
Getting another idea, Brian walked right past Jimmy’s station on the couch, wincing as he interrupted his view of the TV. He flicked the kettle’s tab down and waited for the water to boil, busying himself with wiping down the thermometer with a soapy paper towel. He filled a mug with hot water and a bag of chamomile tea on the bottom. He presented the gifts all at once.
Jimmy welcomed the tea with an appreciative hum and eyed it as Brian set it down on the coffee table. The thermometer Brian pressed to Jimmy’s forehead, and he held eye contact still when he poured the medicine into the spoon he had used to stir honey into the tea. Jimmy sucked the red liquid off, and it left his mouth with a satisfying pop.
“You’ve got a fever.” The thermometer read 102.5 degrees.
“I know.” He pouted.
Unwilling to skirt around what he wanted to say any longer, Brian said, “Why do you do this?”
He wasn’t sure if Jimmy’s confusion was feigned or genuine when he cocked his head to the side and repeated the question.
“You’ve been sick for two days and you didn’t think to tell me. I had to ask Beverly where you were.” He tried not to let the depth of his injury show.
“I didn’t want you to worry,” Jimmy offered weakly. He tried again, knowing Brian didn’t buy it. “I didn’t want you to feel obligated to check on me.”
And again: “It’s easier to ask Beverly for help.”
Brian took that as a hit, but he didn’t know why. “I know I’m not the warmest person, but --” He closed his eyes. “-- you’d do it for me, right?”
Jimmy nodded. Of course he would. And then he rolled over onto his side and avoided Brian’s eyes, and Brian knew that whatever he was about to say would be difficult for him to get out.
Brian’s frustration bubbled over, and he couldn’t stop himself from interrupting Jimmy’s train of thought. “It’s embarrassing because I know we’re good friends, and I know you don’t like Beverly much more than you like me, but I have to explain to her that I’m oblivious because you didn’t care to tell me you were sick.”
A second after he said it he realized he had changed the word think to care. He ignored the realization.
For a moment he felt guilty, but the feeling faded when Jimmy didn’t look hurt and opened his mouth decisively to speak.
“Sometimes you give up on something before you even try because you don’t know if the effort of trying will be worth it.”
“What are you trying to do?” Jimmy rarely spoke with such ambiguity, so Brian treaded lightly. He was still frustrated, but Jimmy’s vulnerability bolstered his patience.
Jimmy took a deep breath, and his eyes darted from Brian’s back to the TV, where the credits of some comedy sketch show were rolling without sound.
“Everyone has a fear of rejection. And some people think they can break through other people’s barriers and save them somehow. But there’s still a risk of rejection like with anyone else. If I tell you when I’m sick, how will I know that you’ll tell me when you’re sick? How will I know that you care?”
“Jimmy, I care.”
There was a flicker of pleasure in Jimmy’s eyes at hearing Brian’s words, but he swallowed with difficulty and wet his lips to keep talking.
“I don’t know why it’s not like that with Beverly. You seem to think it’s because I prefer her, but I’m telling you it’s closer to the opposite.”
Brian took that in with furrowed brows. Jimmy continued.
“I love her, but I feel a…” He struggled with it for a moment. “A potential for something that you’re not completely open to or expecting. It scares me that I might have to do most of the work while running the risk of rejection.”
Brian wasn’t sure if this fell on the side of platonic or romantic, nor where his next gesture would fall. But he took Jimmy’s hand, warm and soft, and looked at him with determination.
“I’ll try to stay on the same page. I’m a fast reader, you know.”
Jimmy met his eyes.
“I will say I feel a bit how I feel when Hannibal’s in the lab.”
A light squeeze to his hand, still in Jimmy’s. “Is that so?”
“You don’t usually speak in metaphors,” Brian pointed out lightheartedly.
“Those were hardly metaphors.”
Brian shrugged and wore a conciliatory smile as he tugged his hand away from Jimmy’s to bring the mug of tea to his friend’s hands. It was still warm, and he felt a burst of pleasure as Jimmy laid his hand over the handle, making contact at several points with Brian’s hand.
Jimmy thanked him again for the tea and sipped it slowly, looking peaceful.