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Another shiver racks through Ezekiels body as they trudge on.
He’s got an absolutely raging headache that pounds at his skull. His breathing comes in shallow and painful. Up ahead, the image of Côté is blurry and wavers dangerously as his legs show the first signs of exhaustion.
The officer walks on ahead, unaware of Ezekiels condition. Which is good, he’d rather Henri not worry about him.
His nose is running, his stomach is absolutely killing him, his feet ache, his hands are cold and the list of problems could go on and on forever.
He figures his friend will look back eventually, maybe they can stop and rest. His canteen is painfully empty, and he’d love nothing more than to soothe his throat with some water.
But officer Côté has far too much faith in Ezekiel, and he never looks back. Probably will not, not as long as he still hears brush being crushed under-foot.
The lancer only makes it another few pathetic steps before the toe of his boot catches on a root hidden in the mess of fallen leaves and brush. He plummets to the ground face first with a sharp yelp.
Mud splashes on impsct to the dirty forest floor, and coats the right half of his face. The bramble catches on his uniform, snagging and tearing at it. The uniform too is now soaked in mud.
He sort of just, lays there.
“Ez- Ezekiel…?” Côté calls out cautiously. He stands in place, staring at his fallen friend.
Ezekiel lifts his eyes only slightly. Seeing the blurry figure of Côté making his way over.
The officer approaches with all the concern of an uncle that just watched you take a tumble down a steep hillside. Like he isn’t sure whats happening and he’s much too inebriated to care.
Ezekiel watches with half lidded eyes as the man crouches down to poke at him with his finger, asking something in his French way that he often does.
God, he really feels like he could cry.
With a curse, Ezekiel tries to haul himself up. Tries. His arms shake like leaves where he plants them in the wet soil and he plops back down into the mud. Côté cries out in worry and a strong hand grabs him by the arm, but Ezekiel has wholly and fully given up.
“Hé, tu dois te lever. Je te porterai ou quelque chose comme ça, mais allez.” Henri grabs at Ezekiels arm again, tugging.
“You… cannot make me.” Ezekiel huffs out. He musters up the strength to wipe his nose with the cuff of his sleeve and then drops his head back into the wet dirt.
“Debout et à em, soldat” Côté does not give up, he tugs at Ezekiels arm until he manages to get him halfway sat. From there, in a blur Ezekiel ends up with his back against the nearest tree.
Côté uses the sleeve of his own uniform to wipe most of the mud off of Ezekiels face, but the pole can already feel the rest drying on his neck and hands.
Côté then rests the back of his palm against Ezekiels forehead and makes a face. His lips purse and his eyebrows knit together in concern. Ezekiel must be running a fever.
A wheezing cough manages to snake its way through his lungs, and Ezekiels body jerks forward and away to tuck his face into his elbow. He would not want to get poor Henri sick alongside him.
Côté’s hands are on him, one on the shoulder and the other supporting his chest while Ezekiel coughs and coughs. It feels like it wont ever end, painful gasps for air in-between harsh moments of absolutely hacking out his lungs.
To his surprise, neither of the lungs dislodged themselves to crawl up his throat and make a new home on the forest floor. Exhausted now, he leans back against the tree and exhales shakily.
Now he really, really really wants to cry. Hot tears bubble up and spill over and his jaw clenches. He’s always abhorred crying, especially in front of a friend or a superior.
Ezekiel pushes weakly at Henri’s chest. “Go away, leave me here to die in peace, please.” He begs, gasping for air.
“Putain de débile, Tu aurais dû me dire que tu étais malade!” The words come out harsh, and Ezekiel looks weakly up at the officer.
Côté yanks him by his arm again, and this time Ezekiel stumbles to his feet. The forest picture in front of him sways and blurs, but the lancer stands his ground and tries to get his bearings again.
The other mans warm hands and solid body for support are both grounding and encouraging.
“Trouvons un abri. Je suis désolé de t'avoir poussé si loin, mon ami.”
Whatever Henri says, Ezekiel just nods along.
Side by side, they trudge through the forest.
-
Miraculously- they find something. An old hunters cabin, tucked away in a tight grouping of trees.
Either they aren’t the first travelers, or the original owners forgot some stuff, because theres about a weeks worth of firewood in storage and an axe set aside next to the front door inside.
Ezekiel’s condition had done nothing but worsened over the hours. Henri sets him up in the single bed jammed in the corner of the bedroom with all the blankets he could find and his own coat.
The blankets, three in number, are ratty and thin. They do most nothing against the phantom cold that racks Ezekiels body nor the anxiety that plagues his mind. Though, not much can be done about that he supposes.
Henri mutters something and leaves the room. Ezekiel watches the glow of a fire ignite in the main room after a few moments, and then the officer is back.
He tries his very best to usher Ezekiel up and back to the living room, but he never shouldve gotten him so set up in the bed as the lancer is practically immovable even with the promise of a warm fire no more than twenty feet away.
Côté gives in within no more than a minute of trying. With a sigh, he crawls onto the small matress alongside Ezekiel. The springs creak under the two mens shared weight, but it holds.
Its a moment of shifting around but in the end, Ezekiel ends up half curled in on himself, mostly to clutch at his stomach, and his head rested in the lap of his friend.
Henri twirls a lock of Ezekiels long black hair in his fingers and hums gently.
Ezekiels eyes flutter shut but he doesn’t fall asleep. Gracefully he does feels the tension in his body lessen as Henri continues to hum. It’s akin to the cadence of a hymn Ezekiel might’ve heard some time ago.
Henri’s hands continue to muss and play with the lancers hair. The only time the officer lets up his to remove his own hat at some point and then when another coughing fit racks Ezekiels body.
The humming comes to a stop, and there is a brief window of just silence before Côté starts talking.
(Putting it in english for the sake of readers…)
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“When I was a boy,” he starts. “I got sick this one winter. It was bad- real bad. Thought I was to meet my maker. Guess it was pneumonia. Nearly died and all that junk. My- heh.” He chuckles to himself. “My dad had shovels set out for when the ground thawed before I was even gone! Rat bastard he was. But, I lived. Anyway though- my mom, yeah? She’d sit with me that whole week, just like this. Hum her music and tell me all sorts of tales. She’d come from a much richer family before she married my father. Not sure why she left anything for that man, but she had all these stories from travels and such. Beautiful woman, she was.” He trails off, and Ezekiel meets his eyes.
His mind is clearly elsewhere as he stares at the wall. Theres a mighty fury somewhere in there, and he speaks again. His tone is uneven, anger in the words he spits out next.
“Il l'a battue à mort. Deux ans après ça.” Côté meets Ezekiels gaze, and immediately the hate in his eyes dissipates.
His hand, Ezekiel had not even noticed it stopped, strokes gently again.
“Une fois que tu iras mieux, nous te donnerons un bain.”
Ezekiel shuts his eyes again. “Mmmh.” He grunts. Another cough itches at the base of his throat, but he chokes it down.
Henri’s hand, which rests on Ezekiel’s chest twitches, and Ezekiel grasps it in his own.
“Thank you for being here, Miłość.”
-
Few times in Ezekiels long life has he been sick like this.
And this, this by far, is the worst he has ever felt.
His chest rattles when he breathes, the headache is all encompassing now and touches every corner he never even knew he had. The stomach ache has eveolved into a nauseating and sharp feeling that has him curled up. The urge to vomit is constant in the burn of his throat but it never quite comes.
Henri has come in and tried to feed him a couple of times over the past day and a half but he’s never managed to get more than half a bowl of soup down.
He’s feeling nothing short of miserable and sort of suicidal. The only good news is that he has yet to shed another tear so far, but even that may fall through soon here.
“Ça va, mon ami?”
Ezekiel fights to pry his eyes open.
Côté had dragged in an old chair sometime in the morning, and he sits there now. Concern paints his features and he seems to be perpetually hunched forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped in front of his face.
Ezekiel doesn’t answer. Can’t, really, so he just shrugs.
Henri frowns. It’s been a common face for him to make lately actually.
The officer gets up and leaves the room just to come back a minute later with a steamy soup bowl. He hauls the chair closer to the bedside.
“Jusqu'à, up, ahhh… W górze!”
With much reluctance, Ezekiel sits up.
Henri blows on a spoon of hot liquid then holds it out to Ezekiel. The pole eyes the bronze coloured potage and his stomach rumbles. He parts his lips and leans forward to help Côté feed him.
It’s certainly not bad at all. Salty, vegetable-ly. He cannot take the bowl into his own hands, this they both learned the hard way, and so he sits there and lets his friend feed him soup.
-
On day five, Ezekiel drags himself out of bed when he realizes that Côté is not in the cabin with him. He drags his aching body outside and watches the man chop wood.
Log after log, Henri halves with an axe. There is a chill in the air, but the Frenchman has abandoned his shirts for his labor. Ezekiel can’t lie, the sight cheers him up just a touch.
Henri shouts at Ezekiel when he does finally noice him and tries to wave him back inside but the soldier stays planted.
Côté hauls his log halves by the pairs over to the house and then inside from there. Only when his task his done is he able to force Ezekiel inside, where he promptly falls asleep almost immediately upon hitting the dirty old mattress he’s come to call home.
-
By the eight day marker, the lancer is feeling significantly better. Not at full health or strength again, but better.
A trip down to the river is what he gets for his sick troubles. Côté magically seems to know the way and so they go.
Washing up feels nothing less than heavenly. More than a weeks worth of sickness and more than who knows how long of just general grime really helps to boost his moof for sure.
He’d nearly forgotten the unpleasant mud bath he’d had the other day. Sure, Henri had washed away what he could with damp rags and such but there’d been places he did not get to.
The headache had been receding for some time but now it is gone almost in entirety.
“Magnifique dehors! Au fait, tu as l'air beaucoup mieux.” Côté sits on the grassy overhang, naked as the day he was born with his feet dipped in the water.
Now, Ezekiel has had a long military career. He’s seen men of all sorts in every state of undress.
But something about the french officer is just so captivating. He has to actually tear his eyes away from Henri to stutter out a comment of his own.
Thats all they do, talk at each other.
-
By day ten, they’re back on the move.
Moving towards what, neither knows.
Ezekiel is just content with wandering the lands with Henri. Eating what they can when they can, avoiding hostilities and blighted creatures is certainly nice.
The sun is high overhead, clear blue skies all around, and a comrade at his side.
‘Life can be cruel, much too cruel for you and I to understand. But it gives as well. The Lord gives and the Lord taketh away, my boy.’ It was something his grandmother had said offhandedly when Ezekiel was a boy. He had gone into his fathers study the same night to search through the good book for that quote.
The book of Job had always stuck out to him after that. Especially in trying times as these.
As Ezekiel turns his gaze skyward, he offers a simple thanks to the Lord.
A thank you mostly for his being alive, byt also a great deal for the man who kept him going.