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Between the bus moving and people moving, getting in and out of their bunks, shuffling past each other in the narrow hallway, it’s never completely quiet at night — the white noise from the engine and the wheels can’t mask everything, and the heavy blackout curtain that separates each individual bunk from the common space only attenuates so much. Currently, someone just past said curtain seems to be wrestling with an inanimate object, a brief but violent crash filtering in through the thick fabric.
Rain rolls over in his bunk, turning away from the sound. He should be sympathetic, of course, as he has no doubt been the source of noise at night too, dropping things or tripping over an errant shoe on the floor, but the longer the tour goes on the more he yearns for his own very private bedroom at the ministry, with its cherished door and coveted lock. The occasional hotel room is a far cry from that luxury. Whoever makes noise is an enemy right now.
But then that same someone swears quietly, and it’s definitely Dewdrop.
Rain hasn’t seen him since he retreated into his bunk soon after the two of them got on the bus, nor has he gotten any messages from him, despite the offer to bring him anything he needed — an interaction that churns endlessly in Rain’s head, urging him to cringe at what now feels like an overbearing intrusion.
The best course of action is surely to curl up into the tightest ball he possibly can so that the memory can no longer worm its way inside. Dew is probably fine. That might not have been him, anyway. It might not have been anyone — a trick of his tired mind, just his imagination. It might have been a coincidence. Things fall over on the bus all the time.
Outside, the distinct clunk of the door between the bunk compartment and the front lounge closing brings his thoughts to a simmer again. Maybe Dew is not fine. Maybe he should be asking for help, and he’s not. It wouldn’t be a surprise, really.
Eventually, the worry sinks its claws deep enough to spur Rain to action. He pulls back his curtain and peeks out. Dew isn’t in the hallway, nor is he in his bunk — its curtain has been left halfway pulled back, the space beyond it in profound disarray.
Rain slips out of his bunk and makes his way to the front lounge door. He stands there in the rocking darkness, listening carefully. Nothing of note emerges from the tangle of overlaid background noises, the hum of the air conditioning unit on the ceiling draping him in waves of cool air, the drone of the engine churning somewhere behind him, the whine of the wheels beneath the floor gripping the pavement.
It could have been nothing, no one. The possibility that it wasn’t keeps him standing there. It pushes him to open the door to the front lounge.
Dew is there on one of the couches, wrapped in the standard-issue blanket from his bunk. His head snaps up to look toward the door as Rain steps through and wordlessly pulls it closed.
When Rain continues toward the couch, Dew pulls the edge of the blanket up over his nose and mouth. “What are you doing?” His voice is a forced whisper muffled by fabric. “Go back to sleep.”
Rain isn’t deterred. When he sits down next to him, the leather of the couch creaking, Dew sinks a little further into his blanket like a turtle. His eyebrows furrow slightly. Below them, his pupils are wide in the dim light.
“I think if you’re going to get me sick it’s probably already happened,” Rain says.
Dew hums, ambivalent, but he lets the blanket fall away from his face, revealing a dejected frown.
“Why are you out here?” Rain keeps his voice low, presses gently.
“Can’t sleep. And I’m cold.”
Rain frowns. He reaches a cautious hand towards Dew’s forehead, slowly enough that it’s a request.
Dew doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t move at all, apart from his eyes fluttering closed.
“You’re really warm,” Rain says, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he really has a chance to think about them. The skin under his fingers is as hot as the last time he felt it, a startling, uncomfortable heat, like the stones of the path in the cloister after baking for hours in the summer sun.
“Well, I feel really cold.”
As Rain lets his hand fall to his side, Dew’s eyes slide open like they were never shut.
“My throat hurts. And my —” He shakes his head. “Everything hurts.” He pulls the blanket a little tighter around himself.
“Can I make you some tea? Maybe it would help?”
“Maybe,” he muses, gaze fixed out the window, through the streetlights that endlessly slip past, spires against a sky beginning to brighten at the horizon. Then, more decisively, “I can do it.”
“Let me do it,” Rain offers, one hand firm against Dew’s blanket, stilling the sluggish motion that stirs underneath it, pushing back against his attempt at stubborn self-sufficiency before it can gain any traction.
Dew sinks back against the couch.
A few steps away, Rain pours water into an electric kettle, a cheap plastic thing picked up at some labyrinthian superstore on the first day of the tour. It’s one of several similar appliances in this space that qualifies as their kitchen, barely four feet of counter space and a diminutive stainless steel sink. He settles it onto its base between a weathered coffee maker and a toaster with a penchant for thermal destruction, and sets it to boil.
He turns to Dew, whose eyes are now downcast and unfocused. “I’ll be right back,” Rain assures him. He holds a cautious stay right there on his tongue, a don’t get up, like Dew will jump out the window, will be running down the highway if he turns his back.
All he can do is tell himself that won’t happen, that he hasn’t pushed so hard as to make asphalt and gravel preferable over his ministrations. The door laments a low creak as he pulls it open, then closed behind him.
The front lounge is dimly lit, but the bunk compartment is truly dark, windowless, like a narrow rock passage in the depths of a cave. Rain reaches into the familiar space of his bunk before his eyes have a chance to adjust.
He braces one hand against the bunk above it when the bus hits a bump, the whole hallway tipping gently to one side and back, counterbalancing before returning to upright. He peels a blanket from where it’s still tucked under the far side of the mattress, trying his best to make as little noise as possible.
The fleece fabric is soft under his fingers, the same as when he reached out and touched it absentmindedly when he walked past it at the store — plush but lightweight, not too thick. It was the second day of the tour and they were picking up all the items they had forgotten to buy on the first day, odds and ends, things they only realized they needed after spending time without them. It was the same store too, albeit in a different city; the layout was similar enough that it felt like they had been there before.
Rain gathers the blanket in his arms. The smiling green frogs printed on it appear in the darkness to be indistinct gray blobs. A gentle snore filters through the curtain of one of the bunks behind him.
When he returns to the front lounge, the kettle has begun its characteristic quiet roar, another layer of white noise shrouding the already heavy space. It expands and fills every corner, enveloping them, and, maybe, just barely, pushing them closer together.
The central item of bedding provided for each person on the bus is a fluffy comforter. In the small space of the bunk its volume is satisfying, an ample sort of nest-making material, but it’s not quite as thick as it looks, or as warm. Dew has it wrapped around himself like he’s preparing to endure a harsh winter, pulled tight, his body huddled in the center. Rain drapes his blanket on top.
Dew looks on, his brows furrowed again. “This is your blanket.”
“It is.”
“You’ll be cold.”
“No, it’s okay, I have another one.” This is true, technically, if you include the comforter still in his bunk.
Behind him, the kettle clicks as it reaches a boil, and the accompanying sound of bubbles leaping forth from the heat quickly drops off. The void left in the atmosphere is a nudge toward the task he’s deviated from; he took advantage of the idle time it offered and now it’s outpaced him, left him behind.
He returns to the kitchen with intent, an objective in mind. He picks through one disorganized cabinet until he finds what he’s looking for. As he extricates the cardboard box from the surrounding mess, he doesn’t expect to hear Dew’s hushed voice again, commenting on it.
“Are you stealing stuff from Cumulus?”
Rain glances down at the box in his hand, and at the big fluffy cloud doodled on it in black marker. He is, indeed, stealing from Cumulus, and is perfectly aware he is doing so.
“She won’t mind.” It’s half an assertion and half a prayer. Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission, at least in this situation.
Dew’s face remains painted in worry at the prospect. He’s digging his heels in against this situation, this offer of support, and providing endless excuses and detours, whether he realizes it or not.
“Really, let me take care of you. Don’t worry about it. I’ll deal with it.”
Somehow, that’s enough for Dew, who doesn’t push any further. He tucks his chin into the mass of blankets around him.
Rain plucks a teabag from the box and unwraps it from its paper packet. He places it in a cup from the stack of them in the cabinet, then pours hot water into the cup. The teabag blooms gold against the white of the waxy laminated paper inside.
He finds himself opening the cabinet again without a clear reason, occupying himself while the tea steeps. Does it need something else? There’s a bottle of honey next to the cups — it feels like an appropriate addition. It all but vanishes as it streams into the deepening tea, the two substances the same color.
He holds one hand loosely around the cup as he works, wary of the precariousness of an open container on a moving vehicle. The liquid inside billows with steam. It smells medicinal, maybe a bit spicy, like gingerbread and something else he can’t place. The teabag jostles around awkwardly as he stirs it, caught in the vortex created by a plastic spoon from a box in a nearby drawer.
When he turns around, cup in hand, Dew has his eyes closed again. Rain pauses — it would be counterproductive to wake him, after all — but his eyes snap open in the pressing stillness, like he can somehow feel Rain’s gaze linger on him, brush over his face like a gentle hand.
Rain offers him the cup. He has to unravel his blanket cocoon just a bit to free a single hand with which to accept it. Rain stands there in front of him, arms hanging awkwardly at his sides. The bus rattles; his knees absorb the movement.
Dew raises the cup to his mouth and takes a tiny sip. Rain doesn’t miss the brief grimace, quickly masked away, as he swallows.
“How is it?”
“It’s really sweet.”
“I put honey in it.” Suddenly that feels like it might actually have been the wrong decision — like maybe all of this was a mistake.
Dew doesn’t say anything. He takes another tiny sip.
“Is it okay?”
“It’s good,” Dew says. And, not as an afterthought, but as a cautious confession, “thanks.”
There’s only a moment of relative silence between them, of stillness, before Rain succumbs to the anxious call of the kitchen again, a ward against helplessness. He pulls open the drawer where they keep their hodgepodge of medicines and first aid supplies. He selects a bottle of garishly red liquid and holds it up for Dew’s regard.
“Do you want this?”
Dew stares at him vacantly.
“To help you sleep,” Rain clarifies. He turns the bottle around and looks at the label on the front, where the ingredients are listed. Then, carefully feigning ignorance, like he hadn’t recently spent his evening scrolling through search engine results on this very topic, “I think it might help with your throat too.”
Dew wrinkles his nose. “I don’t know, isn’t it late? When is soundcheck tomorrow?” His phone lays discarded on the couch next to him; its screen glows when he turns it on, a pale torch illuminating his hovering fingers.
“Don’t worry about it,” Rain soothes, another half-prayer, something else to figure out later. “It’s going to get taken care of.”
Dew’s phone screen dims. He tucks his free hand back under his blanket.
Rain turns the bottle around and lifts it closer to his face. He blinks at the small text on the back of it. The measuring cup mentioned in the dosing instructions must have been misplaced at some point, or maybe just discarded — an image of Cirrus taking a gulp straight from the bottle drifts through his mind.
He turns back towards the kitchen and begins to browse through drawers and shelves, pulling less familiar cabinet doors open slowly in case their contents are poised spill out, having shifted in transit. There’s a shot glass above the sink, sturdy and emblazoned with the cheerful logo of the gas station chain it was purchased at — places that all seem to blur together at this point, but this one was memorable enough to warrant a souvenir. It’s close enough to the right size, considering the other options available.
He pours an honest approximation of the listed dosage into the shot glass, maybe a two-thirds of its volume or so — it’s hard to tell given the tapered shape. The liquid inside sloshes gently with the movement of the bus, leaving a stained-glass ring around the inner perimeter, tinting wherever it touches with its cloying hue. He holds it out to Dew, who untangles his other hand.
Solemnly and without ceremony, Dew leans his head back and tips the contents of the glass into his mouth. When he returns upright, a particular kind of panic washes over his face that has Rain scrambling to find something for him to throw up into, but it quickly passes. He sips from the cup in his other hand, grimaces, and takes a deliberate breath. He passes the empty shot glass back to Rain.
Rain places it in the sink — washing dishes feels like the least important thing in the world right now. Instead, he returns to the couch. He sits down again, but doesn’t say anything.
“You can go back to sleep,” Dew says. “If you want.”
Rain pauses with words on his tongue again, words that might come from somewhere too deep, too close to his heart, and reveal a little too much, too directly. “It’s okay,” he assures, sufficiently vague.
Dew shifts under his blankets. He’s staring into the cup of tea, which he’s holding up to his face, near his mouth — for warmth, maybe, but it almost looks like he’s trying to hide behind it. “This is all so fucking stupid. And embarrassing.”
“I’m sorry.” Rain looks away, down at his own hands folded in his lap. “I’m not judging you.”
“I know.”
His heart lifts at the tiny spark of validation that response ignites, once he processes it.
Dew sets the half-full cup on the table next to him. Carefully, he lifts one edge of the blanket and places it over Rain’s lap, or at least as far as it will reach — it’s not quite big enough for both of them. Then, he leans back and closes his eyes.
Rain’s mind spins in place, rotating around a single thought. It’s a question answered, at least — neither of them found the words to admit it, but Dew’s actions said all they needed to say.
It’s a decision made, as well. He can’t get up now, so he closes his eyes too and lets the bus carry them forward.
—
Rain jolts awake to something flopping onto his lap and a startled rush of adrenaline.
The something is Dew’s limp, sleep-heavy arm. The events that brought the two of them here, into this situation, rush back into his mind, a turbulent wash of fragmented memories that settle into a still pool of reality. He blinks hard. Mid-morning sun filters through the bus windows.
Dew’s head lolls to one side, lips parted and brows pinched together. Sweat beads on his brow, darkens his hairline. His cheeks are red, the flush oozing down toward his neck. He groans quietly.
Rain’s heart thumps — this situation is in stark contrast with the calm he fell asleep to. He grabs Dew’s haphazard tangle of blankets and lifts them away, gathering them into a big ball in his arms. He tosses them aside on the couch.
Dew huffs. He retracts his arm from Rain’s lap and tucks it tight against his own body. He rolls his shoulders forward, tips his chin down, like he’s trying to curl in on himself.
Rain separates his extra blanket from Dew’s comforter with a few gentle shakes. As the ball of bedding unravels, the comforter flops onto the floor. He drapes the thinner blanket over Dew’s body, pulling it up over his shoulders and down across his legs.
After a few anxious moments, Dew seems to relax a bit. His head sinks back, wrapped arms loosen from his torso. Still, tension remains in his forehead and jaw. The length of his nose glistens with sweat.
The best Rain can provide is a paper towel wet with the lukewarm water at the kitchen sink. Next to him on the couch, the sides of their thighs pressed together through fuzzy frog-print fabric, he sponges Dew’s forehead with delicate touches. It feels inadequate, rough, but it’s what he has available here in this wasteland of single-use disposable products.
Dew sighs, and Rain can feel his hot breath against his wrist.
When the paper towel starts to become too warm he tosses it onto the nearby table, where it lands with a sad, soggy sound. He can throw it away later.
Dew shifts again. His arm rolls — gently, this time — out from under the blanket and comes to a stop resting against Rain’s thigh.
Absentmindedly, Rain traces one finger over a raised vein on the back of Dew’s hand. When he moves, a little twitch of his index finger, Rain freezes in place. An anticipatory wave of shame rolls over him, of panic, his mind completely blank as he searches for an excuse for this behavior, but Dew doesn’t stir any further. His eyes dart back and forth behind his eyelids, some dream holding him in the realm of sleep.
Rain continues following the lines and contours of his hand, a prominent bone at his wrist, a tendon cresting the knuckle of his index finger. He lets his shame abate, but not completely, keeping himself on alert. Based on the light outside, the others will be awake soon — maybe already are. The calm here feels crystalline, liable to shatter at any moment.
As if in response to his wariness, the door to the bunk compartment opens. Rain pulls his hand away, composes himself, prepares to justify why he’s here and what he’s doing. He sweeps away thoughts he doesn’t want to explain, as if someone might peer into his head and see them. Nevertheless, in a corner of his mind, the same thought keeps spinning over and over, impossible to ignore.