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Ronan, for once in his life, was ready to leave the house before Adam. He’d even packed his bag the day before—not the night before, but the day —because Adam had been clear about them needing to be on the road by eight. It was ten hours to Boston, where they’d spend the night with Blue and Gansey at their hotel, then five hours the next day to Bar Harbor. All this so Gansey could stand on Cadillac Mountain, the first place that the sun hits the United States: a lifelong goal that he wanted to make with all four of them.
He had gotten up at seven to make coffee—he needed to be awake for his first stretch of the drive, but he also didn’t want to have to pull over an hour into it to piss. He’d eaten breakfast, too, and made some for Adam, but his eggs were long since congealed into a disconcertingly solid pile. Finally, when Ronan’s last-minute ‘if you are asleep now Adam will murder you’ alarm went off at quarter of, he decided to go poke the bear.
The bear, however, met him at the top of the stairs, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. “Hey,” Adam said, voice gravelly, “I don’t know if I can go.”
“What’s wrong?” Once he reached the landing, Ronan put an arm around Adam and shepherded him back to their room; Adam went obediently, sitting next to Ronan on the edge of the bed.
It took a second too long for Adam to reply. “Feeling really sick all of a sudden.”
“Sick how?” Instinctively, Ronan leaned in and kissed Adam’s forehead. “Got a fever.”
Adam nodded, resting his head on Ronan’s shoulder. “Figured. My throat’s killing me.”
“Feel like when you had strep?”
Shaking his head, Adam sniffled, then coughed toward his chest. “'m all congested this time.”
“Sorry, Parrish,” Ronan said, starting to rub Adam’s back. “Sounds like a staycation’s a good idea.”
“Gansey’s gonna be disappointed.”
“Yeah, but he’s a big boy, he can deal.” Gently, Ronan nudged Adam back onto the bed, adjusting the blanket so that it was actually covering him. “Besides, it’s not like the sun’s gonna stop rising there.”
Adam cleared his throat, wincing. “But from March to October it rises first somewhere else in Maine.”
“Then we’ll wait until next year.” Once Adam was appropriately tucked in, Ronan leaned over and kissed his forehead. “I’m gonna call Gansey and let him know.”
Sniffling, Adam scrubbed at his nose with the cuff of his sweatshirt. “Tell him I’m sorry.”
“Absolutely not.” It was a discussion they’d had before, and clearly needed to have again, but that was an argument for another time. “I’m gonna grab you some ibuprofen. You want coffee?”
Adam nodded. “Don’t want a withdrawal headache on top of this.”
“Sure don’t.”
Once Adam’s fever broke, he slept until noon, then woke up long enough to have some alphabet pasta for lunch and watch half an episode of the X-Files before he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. Ronan held him during his afternoon nap, then showered with him before dinner; Adam was able to watch two whole episodes before Ronan turned off the TV and tucked him back in.
The sun was well and truly down when Adam woke to voices outside his open window; there was a laugh, then someone shushing someone else, and some very loud rustling. Dragging himself out of bed, he drew the blanket around his shoulders just as he’d done that morning when he woke up feeling so, so sick. He pushed the window all the way open, then leaned in close against the screen.
“Gansey?” He’d tried to call his friend’s name, but it came out hoarse and not nearly loud enough to reach him. Quickly, he turned the bedside light on, then banged his hand against the window a few times until Gansey, Blue, and Ronan all looked up at him.
“I told you you were going to wake him,” Gansey hissed, then hollered up toward Adam, “Hello! How are you feeling?”
“Bad,” Adam replied with a shrug. “What are you doing here?”
“Camping!” Looking this way and that, Gansey’s headlamp illuminated the half-pitched tent on the lawn behind him. “Figured we’d bring the trip to you.”
This shouldn’t have been entirely surprising, not really—Gansey and Blue had always been devoted friends, more than Adam and Ronan deserved—but it was.
Ten hours.
“Go back to sleep,” Ronan called. “No, wait. Take your temperature and deal with that, then go back to sleep.”
Adam let out a long sigh that ended in a cough before turning away from the window. Sure enough, his temperature was back up, north of 101 like it had been in the morning when he finally let Ronan check, and Adam took the requisite medications in the hopes it would allow him to sleep. As much as he wanted to watch the makeshift campsite come together, he was exhausted and sore and the more of this bug he could sleep through, the better. Kicking the covers around so his torso was covered but his legs were exposed, he settled into bed (with earplugs in this time) and, after sweating through a broken fever, fell back to sleep.
Ronan woke up to Adam shivering in his arms, face pressed to Ronan’s chest. “Hey, Parrish,” he murmured, rubbing Adam’s back in an attempt to gently rouse him. “Fever’s back.” Adam nodded and somehow managed to wriggle closer to Ronan. “I can hold you for a few more minutes, but you need to take something.”
After way more than a few minutes, Adam allowed Ronan to get up and get him medicated, refusing to check his temperature because ‘it won’t make a difference.’ Sitting up resulted in a quick fit of soft sneezes against his sleeve, but once Adam was upright, he seemed…well, at least he didn’t seem any worse than the day before.
“Did I…” Trailing off, Adam rubbed at his face, then shook his head. “Nevermind.”
“Did you what?”
“It’s just—” Adam coughed toward his shoulder with a wince. “I had a dream that Blue and Gansey were camping, but like, here.”
With a bemused smile, Ronan brushed his fingers through Adam’s sweaty bangs. “Wasn’t a dream.”
Adam’s brow furrowed. “It wasn’t?”
“Nope.”
“But it’s—they must have—”
“—hit the road as soon as I texted to let them know we weren’t gonna make it?”
“Yeah.” Adam sank into the pillows that Ronan had piled behind him. “That.” Rubbing a hand over his face, he looked at Ronan, brow slightly furrowed. “Why?”
Ronan brushed his fingers through Adam’s sweaty hair with a little smile. “Because they wanted to spend their vacation with us.”
“But I’m not—“
With a finger to his lips, Ronan shushed him. “Stop. Anyway—you wanna go down for breakfast? Smells like he’s making pancakes.”
Adam couldn’t smell anything, nor was he particularly hungry, but he didn’t want to keep Ronan away from the others. “We can go down.”
“Alright,” Ronan said as he squirmed out of bed, “but don’t think that your sneaky wording is gonna get you out of eating.”
Sighing, Adam got up.
“He lives!” Sure enough, Gansey was at the counter, a stack of pancakes on a plate beside him and six more on the griddle. “Sorry for waking you last night.”
Adam couldn’t help but smile at Gansey’s brightness. “‘s okay,” he said, allowing Ronan to settle him at the table, the blanket over his shoulders once again. “Fell right back asleep.”
“Glad at least someone slept well last night.” Blue appeared at Adam’s side and set a mug of coffee in front of him; her own was almost empty. “Gansey spent the whole night writhing and constantly making sleeping bag swishing sounds.”
Gansey set a plate in front of Adam with a soft sound of disagreement. “I’ll have you know that I slept wonderfully.” Adam let out a half-laugh, half-cough, sniffling after and grimacing apologetically at the sound, but Gansey just kept going, “Although I would consider sleeping inside, were the offer to be extended.”
Dramatically slurping her coffee, Blue looked pleadingly in Ronan’s direction. “Lynch. I am begging you.”
Ronan sighed, equally as dramatic as Blue. “I suppose you two don’t need to spend the whole week sleeping in the yard.”
Adam didn’t catch Blue’s reply, too preoccupied by the task of eating solid food; he busied himself with cutting his pancakes into bite-sized pieces, hoping that he could get them soggy enough with syrup that they wouldn’t hurt to swallow. As the edge of his fork hit something firm, he looked at Gansey, brow furrowed. When Gansey made a small ‘hm?’ sound, Adam gestured to his plate. “What’s in here?”
“Oh!” Gansey grinned. “Trail mix! Really just M&Ms and peanuts because Blue insisted that raisins would be gross and that Cheerios would get soggy, but I can add some of either if you’d like.”
Adam shook his head, smile already matching Gansey’s. “‘m with Blue on that.” Taking the smallest bite, he managed to get both a single peanut and melty orange M&M and even though it hurt a little, the sweetness was enough for him to ignore the pain. “So, is this whole week going to be camping themed?” he asked after taking a sip of coffee.
“No.” Blue put her mug down. “It will not.”
Again, Gansey sighed. “Not the whole week. But—while I would like to go for a hike at some point, I was thinking that today we could put on this documentary about the great outdoors so that Adam can take part.”
Around the quarter of a pancake that he’d shoved in his mouth, Ronan said, “We gotta make s’mores at some point.”
“And hammock time,” Blue added. “Gansey just bought a two-person one.”
Adam swallowed his second mouthful of pancake. “If you want, we could wake up to watch the sunrise one day.”
Rubbing a hand over Adam’s back, Ronan shook his head. “Only if you’re already awake. There’s a zero percent chance that I’m letting you intentionally deprive yourself of sleep when you’re like this.”
“Maybe if you’re feeling better later on,” Blue put her hand on Adam’s forearm and gave a gentle squeeze, “but I’m with Ronan on that.”
“Speaking of feeling better” —Ronan leaned closer to kiss Adam’s cheek— “how’s your throat? If swallowing sucks too much, I can throw these in the blender for you.” Adam stuck his tongue out with a quiet ‘bleh.’ “What, you don’t want a nice coffee and pancake smoothie?”
Shoving another bite into his mouth, Adam glared at his boyfriend. “Are you trying to make me feel worse? Because that’s guaranteed to make me hurl.”
Ronan grinned. “Just a little motivation for you.”
“I’m eating fine without your gross ‘motivation,’ Lynch.”
“We’re not starting this camping trip with a fight.” Blue got up from the table and stretched one arm up toward the ceiling, the other hand still holding her mug. “I’m gonna go get Gansey’s documentary set up so we can put that on after breakfast and I can take a nap.”
“Hey!” Scowling, Gansey pointed his spatula at Blue. “I’ll have you know that this one is riveting .”
Blue smiled. “He’s actually right—it’s just that I’ve already seen it. Twice.”
“Might need to watch it once more after this” —Adam cleared his throat—okay, that hurt— “‘cause I might fall asleep, too.”
“You’re allowed to sleep all you need.” Ronan’s voice was soft, gentle near Adam’s good ear. “Just want you feeling better.”
With a tired nod, Adam rubbed at his nose before taking another bite of food. “Shouldn’t take too long, what with everyone here to look after me.”
“Don’t say that too loud,” Ronan murmured. “Pretty sure Gansey’ll drive down here every time you’re not feeling good.”
Glancing up at Gansey, who seemed oblivious to their quiet conversation, then toward the living room where Blue was verbally arguing with the VCR, Adam smiled—a real, bright smile, in spite of feeling sluggish and fuzzy with illness. “Honestly,” he said, resting his head against Ronan’s, “that wouldn’t be the worst thing.”