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"I mean, is he… alright?" Hotshot asks, voice quiet.
Spot looks back at the door that separates his tiny bedroom from the hallway. He itches to leave it open so he can see inside to the sole occupant, but Hotshot had wanted some privacy for this conversation, and he'll try to give that to her.
"I don't know," Spot answers her honestly. Race doesn't look well, two shades paler than he should be, pulse weak when Spot went to feel it. More than that, he's never seen Race collapse like he had earlier, knees giving out right outside the Brooklyn lodging house. Spot had just barely caught him in time, then carried him up here. He hasn't woken up yet, and no one really knows what to do.
"D'you think Jack will be mad?" Hotshot worries at her bottom lip, and Spot understands why she wanted to be out of earshot for this conversation. It seems heartless to be discussing politics while Race is lying unconscious in Spot's bed, but the question has to be asked—especially when Spot's not capable of asking it himself.
"It's not uncommon for Race to spend the night here," he says, looking back at the door again, "but if he's not up by tomorrow…"
He doesn't want to think about it.
Hotshot must see that in his eyes, or maybe she hears it in his tone. Either way, she clasps his shoulder, and her voice is softer than he deserves as she says, "I'll figure it out."
Spot nods. He's thankful for her, truly—thankful that she can see the things that he can't say, can read in-between the lines and realize how Spot's feeling about all this.
He looks at the door again.
"Go," she says, pushing him a little. "I'll take care of things."
"Thank you," he responds, knowing it doesn't fully encompass everything he means, and slips inside.
Him and Race are not anything. Not officially. They're just friends who sell together at the races sometimes. Race crosses half a city and an entire bridge to come here, Spot tries his best to clear his busy schedule to see him, and it doesn't really mean anything at all.
It feels like the lie that it is sitting here, next to Race's side, hoping he'll open his eyes.
Spot doesn't know what to do. Race is quick to crack a joke and quicker to place a bet, but he's tough despite the jokester mask he puts on. He wouldn't be like this unless something was really wrong, and this is uncharted territory for the two of them.
One of Race's curls has fallen onto his forehead. Spot reaches out a hand to smooth it away, and he has a harder time than he cares to admit pulling it back. He settles on intertwining his fingers with Race's instead.
The minutes pass like that, Spot staring at Race's pale face and squeezing his hand tighter than strictly necessary, and after a while, Spot thinks he sees some of the color coming back to him.
It's probably just wishful thinking.
He's proven wrong when Race's eyelashes start to flutter, then open, revealing that familiar sky blue.
"Hey," Race croaks, voice scraping from how dry his mouth undoubtedly is.
"Hey," Spot responds.
Spot isn't sure if he should go get anything, maybe a glass of water or something, and he starts to turn before Race's voice draws him back.
"My head," Race tells him, "is killing me."
The idiot is smiling up at him like it's funny.
Spot tells him, "Would've been worse if I hadn't caught you."
The memory of Race folding like that and becoming a dead weight in Spot's arms resurfaces suddenly, vicious. He squeezes Race's hand almost without realizing it, just to have the reminder that Race is okay and that he is here beneath Spot's hand, awake and talking.
Race is still smiling as his gaze travels to where their hands are joined, and then—his face snaps shut, and he jerks his hand away as if Spot's touch had burned him.
Spot's heart lurches in his chest.
"Race—" he tries, but he's cut off.
"Sorry," Race says, and the expression on his face would look almost sheepish to anyone who didn't know any better. Spot narrows his eyes. "It's just that I'm a bit warm. It's hot in here. Do you feel hot?"
He starts babbling about open windows and sunny skies and about how he's heard that heat rises, so it makes sense that Spot's attic room is warm, but Spot's not listening to any of it. He's only paying attention to the way that Race has slipped his hand underneath the thin blanket, a curious thing to do for someone who's feeling overheated.
"Racetrack," he interrupts, "is your hand okay?"
Race flushes a brilliant pink.
"No—I mean, yes, I'm fine. Really."
He's not nearly as convincing as he thinks. Spot begins to reach out, and Race protests, saying, "I'm fine, Spot, don't worry, it's not anything to do with my hand—" but there's only so far away he can move while in bed.
Spot captures his wrist and pulls it towards him. He ignores Race's feeble protests as he looks at the back of his hand, then turns it over to his palm. There's nothing there, so he begins to reach for Race's sleeve so he can push it up, but Race's protests grow.
"No, Spot, there's really nothing wrong," he says, and tries to pull his arm away, but his face turns white when Spot squeezes with only the slightest bit of pressure.
He'd thought so.
Spot slips his fingers underneath Race's sleeve. Race, for his part, uses his other arm to cover his eyes, almost like he's hiding, as Spot pushes the sleeve up.
He almost doesn't notice it at first. He was expecting some sort of cut or gouge, not the thin, red line that circles Race's wrist.
Spot stops breathing. He stops doing anything but staring at Race's wrist, where a very obvious soulmate mark sits.
Race peeks out from under his elbow.
"Please say something," he squeaks out, only slightly muffled by his arm. He sounds scared, although Spot can't really figure out why.
"You have a soulmate," Spot says. It's too flat and sharp, all horribly wrong, but he can't help it—Race has a soulmate. Someone his soul matches perfectly with.
Race's condition makes a lot of sense, suddenly. It's clear that for whatever reason, he hasn't had the chance to talk to whoever has the matching red mark around their wrist, and everyone knows that a lack of communication and actual physical contact between two new soulmates is punished by the universe. A fail safe, in a way, one that resulted in Race's knees buckling and him losing consciousness. And naturally, Spot was the one to catch him.
Spot wants to scream.
Race makes an impatient sort of noise.
"D'you have to drag everything out?" he whines, which would annoy him more if he didn't know that Race uses that tone when nervous. "What do you think?"
Spot can't figure out why Race is so anxious about it.
He drops Race's wrist.
"I don't know what you want me to say. You have a soulmate. Congratulations." He sounds anything but congratulatory, and he knows it, but it's more than a lot of people would manage, given the circumstances.
"Do you know who…?" Spot begins to ask, but can't finish the sentence. He doesn't really want to know.
Race squints at him.
"You can't be serious," he says, face doing something complicated. He actually laughs a little, a light, breathy thing, and Spot wants to—he doesn't know. He just doesn't see what's so funny, is all.
"Spot," Race says. "Look at your wrist."
"What?"
"Just trust me," Race tells him. The nervous edge in his voice makes a reappearance, and Spot feels something a lot like it fluttering in his stomach as he looks down.
He almost doesn't see anything. His skin is a lot darker than Race's, so the red line that surrounds his wrist is much easier to miss.
Well, he's not missing it now.
His mouth goes dry as he stares, trying to comprehend the situation. He only looks back up when Race slides his own hand down to intertwine their fingers, making the red string line up like an infinity symbol. It's maybe the most beautiful thing Spot's seen in his entire life.
"What do you think?" Race asks quietly.
Race is in Spot's bed, looking rumpled and soft. His curls are flat on one side from where he was laying on Spot's pillow, his shirt is all creased from being unconscious, and color's only just starting to return to his cheeks.
Spot thinks he was wrong before. Race is the most beautiful thing he's seen in his entire life.
His stomach flips inside him, trying to catch up from the complicated reverse in emotions.
"I think," Spot says, bringing their hands to his mouth and pressing a gentle kiss to Race's knuckles, "that I'm the luckiest person in the world right now. And," he continues with a small grin, "that you're stupid for not telling me. You would really prefer collapsing on the street rather than letting me know?"
His teasing tone makes Race flush. Spot's glad to see that he's slowly getting better and better, no doubt helped along by the way their hands are still clasped together. If only Race would've told him in the first place, they could've avoided this altogether, but he supposes that Race has always had a flair for the dramatics.
Race groans. "Well, when you put it like that, it sounds bad. I just—I wasn't sure how you would react, and then there's the fact that I'm from Manhattan, and Jack would kill me, and I —"
He abruptly cuts off when Spot interrupts his rambling with a kiss. Race makes a surprised noise in the back of his throat but then relaxes into it, grabbing the back of Spot's neck with his free hand and pulling him closer, both of them having trouble kissing each other around the shape of their smiles.
"Shuddup, would you?" Spot murmurs against his lips. Race laughs and Spot gives the corner of his mouth a small peck before pulling back, if only to give him enough space to climb into bed right next to him. Spot makes sure their legs are pressed together under the covers and they have as much contact as possible, knowing that Race'll need it after having gone so long after getting his soulmark without actually telling his soulmate.
Soulmate.
Spot likes the sound of that.
Race's eyes twinkle when he looks at Spot, mischievous.
"Hey, d'you think you could kiss me again?" he asks. "Doctor's orders, I think."
Spot laughs, but he obliges, because of course he does. He thinks he probably has a lifetime of obliging Race ahead of him, and he's looking forward to it.