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It's chilly and rainy today so you decide it's the perfect day to make your famous chicken noodle soup. A big batch of it so you don't need to cook again all weekend. You'd stopped at the store earlier and picked up a huge loaf of sourdough bread to accompany it, and jam to go along with toasted slices for breakfast. You also decided to indulge a bit and get some ice cream and candy and other junk food. Hey, it was a rough week at work and you just want to relax all weekend and snack. Nothing wrong with that.
You've got the soup on to simmer when you hear a noise outside your front door. Well, several noises including a bang. You frown. You live at the end of the hallway so the only person that would be back here making a ruckus is your across the hall neighbor. It's about the time he usually gets home from work and the walls are so thin you typically hear him wheel his bike past and open the door, but he's never this noisy about it. You decide to go investigate.
It is your neighbor, looking like he's having much more trouble than normal navigating his bike through the halls. He's leaned up against the hallway wall next to his door– he must have crashed into it, that's the bang you heard. You start to make a joke about his lack of “grace”. You've teased him about it before, you both clearly appreciate a good pun, but you stop when you take in that he hasn't even moved off the wall, his eyes are closed and he looks absolutely miserable.
“Hey, Ryland,” you say, and he starts at that, straightening up and looks over. “You look terrible,” you blurt out, and he flinches. Okay, why did you have to say it like that? “I'm sorry,” you say, trying to correct yourself. “I mean, are you sick?”
He obviously is, his face is flushed, his eyes are glassy, he looks like he's about to crumble to the ground at any second. “Oh, hey,” he says, greeting you by name. You like the way your name sounds when he says it, you think suddenly, so softly, and happier than you'd expect, considering he appears to be teetering on the edge of turning into a puddle on the floor. “J-just a cold. Something's been going around.”
“Yeah…,” you say. What's with most guys and their pride? It looks worse than “just a cold”. It also doesn't look like it just started, did he really drag himself through teaching all day like this? Did he–
“Wait, did you bike home from the school like this?!” You exclaim. “In the rain and cold? That was stupid!”
He flinches again, you realize you raised your voice, and also were pretty mean. He looks chastised, he probably already knows it was stupid, but you get the feeling somehow that he doesn't like that he disappointed you. “I just mean, you probably made yourself sicker.”
“I'm fine,” he says, low and embarrassed. His face is very red but you can't tell for sure if it's from a blush or the illness. “I'll just sleep it off this weekend. I'll take some med–, oh, crud.” He lays his cheek against the wall again. You wonder if it's cool to the touch because he seems to gain a tiny bit of relief from it. “I was supposed to pick up some cold medicine at the drugstore on the way home.”
He looks, glassy eyed at his bike and then the hallway behind him and you can tell he's trying to do the math on if he can go back out and down the stairs and around the corner and back again. He obviously can't. He's a moron, you thought he was supposed to be a smart scientist and a teacher!
“No, you aren't,” you say, a commanding tone surprising you. He looks like he's going to start arguing. “Would you let one of your kids do that if they feel this bad?”
That seems to shut him up. He loves his students, more than half the conversations you've ever had with him have been about “his kids”.
You reflexively reach out and place the back of your hand against his forehead. He looks shocked for just a second before his eyes flutter closed and he leans forward into the touch.
“You're burning up,” you say, and the way he's pressing his forehead against your hand, like he's soaking in the sensation, makes you instinctively want to touch him more. You smooth your hand over his overly warm forehead, push the rain wet hair back, and press your open palm to the side of his face, cradling his cheek. His eyes are still closed and he has this cute scrunch to his eyebrows. You rub your thumb against his cheek, gently. He's scruffy from skipping a couple of shaves but you don't mind. He finally opens his eyes and you're captivated by how blue they are. He pulls back away from your hand slowly but he's so hesitant about it you can tell he didn't really want to.
“Come inside my apartment and rest a little,” you say. “I'll order you some medicine, and I'm making soup.” You are overcome with the need to take care of him, if he'll let you. You are friendly with each other, but not quite friends. This might be overstepping. You try to read his expression. He seems to be fighting with himself. He's not doing a great job hiding the open longing in his face but he's also trying to figure out how to refuse.
“Come say hello to Macy,” you offer, hoping that might sweeten the deal. “She misses you.” Last month, you'd asked him to come over and feed your cat when you were out of town for a long weekend. You were friendly enough with each other it seemed the natural choice to ask. Plus he's a middle school teacher and presumably went through all sorts of background checks so you were reasonably certain he wasn't secretly an axe murderer or something.
He lights up at that, and looks grateful for the excuse. “Okay, yeah, I'll come say hello to Macy,” he says with a smile. You'd set up a nanny cam in the living room before you left, not that you didn't trust him, but better safe than sorry and you wanted to make sure he actually showed up a couple times a day like said he would to check on the food and water. And that he wasn't some kind of creep or thief. Instead, what you found is that whenever he came over he spent a solid half hour playing with her so she wouldn't get bored, petting her, and just generally going above and beyond to take care of her. It was so sweet, and you've liked him a lot more ever since.
“Let me just put my bike and coat inside,” he said, and you acquiesced to that. He was still stumbly but managed to open the door, put away the bike, shake out his wet coat and hang it by the door, along with his backpack and helmet.
He followed you back into your apartment, and he still looked unsteady so you guided him over to the couch. He plopped down and the cat immediately came out to jump on him and yowl.
Ryland being settled, you headed over to the kitchen to check on the soup. It was coming along nicely. “If you wait about twenty minutes, there's chicken noodle soup for dinner.” You just decided he's going to be staying for dinner and you'll accept no excuses. You wonder when the last time he's had a home cooked meal was. He seems the fast food, cereal, and instant ramen type to you.
“Okay,” he says, quietly. You glance over. He's petting Macy but the motions are sluggish, she's curled up in his lap.
“Just relax, Ry,” you say. The nickname might be too casual for acquaintances but he doesn't seem to mind. You start tidying up a little, you're glad you did a thorough clean a couple days ago, even though you weren't expecting company.
After a few minutes you remember he doesn't have any medicine, so you get your phone out to order something. “Hey, what kind of cold medicine do you want?” you ask, eyes on the app.
He doesn't answer you, so you glance up and see he has…fallen asleep.
You smile. There's something so sweet about this image and your heart starts to beat a little faster. He's curled up, cat in his lap, head against the plush arm of the couch. You wonder if he laid down on purpose to rest or if his exhaustion just got the better of him. You walk over. His glasses are askew on his face so you gently remove them, slow enough not to wake him and fold them, setting them down on the side table next to him. He's snoring softly and his neck is bent at an awkward angle and his legs are still on the ground. It can't be that comfortable but you don't want to wake him just yet, he clearly needs the sleep. You resolve to let him sleep a while, dinner isn't ready yet anyway.
You order from the local drugstore, a couple varieties of the most popular cold medicine, tissues and cough drops just in case. You add a couple bottles of orange juice for the vitamin C and a box of sleepytime tea with echinacea that always helped you when you were sick. You add a couple more things you think might help get him close to recovering by Monday. You already know he's going to try to insist on paying you back but you aren't going to let him. He's on a teacher's salary and probably can't afford to splurge on a bunch of stuff with delivery fees on top.
The soup is just about finished and you are trying to decide how to gently wake him, when the knock at the door does it for you. He makes a slurry “Hmmmm?” sound and you see him dart up, disoriented while you go get the bags from the door.
“Hey sleepyhead,” you say cheerily. You give him a fond smile. He really does look so cute, clothes rumpled and a little out of it.
He looks so embarrassed, like he’s committed an awful faux pas, though you can’t imagine why. He’s sick and fell asleep, oh, what a terrible crime. “I’m so sorry!” he says.
You don’t even dignify the apology with a response, he has nothing to be sorry for. “Dinner’s ready,” you say with a smile. “And I ordered you all sorts of being sick supplies.”
He looks at the bags completely shocked. “You didn’t need to do that,” he says, and it makes your stomach hurt how absolutely flabbergasted he is that you did such a little thing for him.
“I wanted to,” you say, and move closer. Touching him seemed to reassure him before, so you give him an affectionate squeeze on the shoulder. He relaxes a little and before you can stop yourself you pass your hand through his hair, giving it a ruffle. He clearly loves this, and settles further. He finally smiles back at you, a little uncertain, but it is a smile. It’s nice to see.
“Your couch is more comfortable than my bed,” he says wearily.
“It’s an awesome couch,” you say with a laugh. It was, it was huge, easily able to fit a grown man lying down, soft and plush enough to be comfy, but firm enough you don’t wake up with an awful backache. You know, you’ve fallen asleep on it during a movie more than a few times.
An idea strikes you. It feels really forward but you want to go for it. “Sleep on it tonight,” you suggest.
He makes a funny expression at that. It’s not offense, it doesn’t look like he hates the idea at all, actually. Maybe he doesn’t know how to feel about it. Or how to respond. “Come on, you’re sick. You shouldn’t be all alone over there fighting through it. It’ll be fun, like a sleepover. Comfy couch to sleep the cold off, and I’m a pretty good cook, too,” you joke. You are, you’ve given him leftovers and “extra” cookies before and he always thanked you profusely.
“I–,” he hesitates. “I’m probably not going to be any fun to be around, though. I still feel horrible.”
“Then let me take care of you this weekend,” you say. “Seriously, Ryland, you should have a friend take care of you. We’ll watch movies and eat snacks and you can be as sleepy and irritable as you want.”
“Why are you being so nice to me?” he says, so quietly it's heartbreaking.
“You’re a good guy. I like being around you. You deserve to be taken care of,” you say. You crouch down beside the sofa, close to him, and take his hand. You give it a squeeze and he just stares at your joined hands for what feels like a very long time before squeezing back.
“Okay,” he says, finally.
“Great!” you say. You’re honestly pretty excited, you know taking care of a sick guy can be annoying, but there’s something sweet about doing it for him. Plus you were planning on a quiet weekend in, so watching movies and working on your own projects while sleeping beauty lounges on your couch sounds like a delightful way to spend it. “Go change into something comfy and bring over whatever you need. The soup can be ready whenever but it's perfectly fine to sit on the warmer, so take your time.”
He does not seem to want to let go of your hand, but eventually does. He retreats back to his apartment and you rifle through the closet, getting your comfiest blankets and a spare plush pillow you can make the couch up with when he’s ready to sleep. You unpack all the supplies and medications and lay them on the counter, so he can see what you got. A few minutes have gone by already, so you decide to tidy up the bathroom and move some of your things over on the counter so he has space to put his toothbrush or whatever he brings.
You’re playing a game on your phone when you hear a tentative knock at the door.
He looks a little cleaned up, he must have taken a quick shower, his hair looks a little disheveled from being towel dried and he didn’t have the energy to shave, but he looks a little bit better, and he's in sweatpants and an oversized shirt.
You read it out loud. “You matter. Until you multiply yourself by the speed of light squared. Then you energy.” You laugh. “I assume that's a math joke but it’s a little above my paygrade.”
He starts actually explaining it and then cuts himself off. “Oh– you probably don’t want to hear.”
“No I do!” you say, you take a large backpack out of his hands and set it propped over on the wall next to the couch. It's weirdly heavy, you wonder what he brought. “Talk nerdy to me,” you joke.
He huffs a little laugh at that, then breaks down the math equation and also what practical uses it has. He even gives you what feels like a quick idiot’s guide to physics, but he doesn’t make it sound condescending at all. You wish you had a teacher like that when you were growing up.
“You’re a good teacher,” you tell him, then put your hand on his back and lead him to the table.
“I try,” he says. He’s still clearly weak and he’s propping his head up with his hands. “I’m not super hungry,” he says regretfully. “But it smells amazing.”
“Yeah, you lose some appetite when you’re sick,” you say. “Just have a little, I have fresh bread too. You need the energy.”
You pour him a half bowl and give him a slice of bread, a tall glass of ice water with it. You’ll make sure he eats decently tomorrow but he just needs enough food in him so the medicine won’t upset his stomach and then a lot of sleep.
“This is delicious,” he says. He eats slowly, but clearly enjoys it, breaking the bread up to dip in the soup. It’s a quiet meal, but pleasant. A companionable silence and good food. You clean up the kitchen and put the leftovers away while he heads over to the bathroom and brushes his teeth.
When he comes out he just stands sort of nervously to the side while you set up the pillow and drape your plushest, softest blankets over the back of the couch. “Go take a dose of the NyQuill,” you tell him, nodding towards the counter.
He seems grateful for something to do. He’s clearly uneasy and you try to think of what to do to get him relaxed enough to be comfortable. He rubs absentmindedly at his temples and then stretches his neck with a slight wince.
“That always knocks me out pretty quick,” you say. “Alright, I’ve got the couch made up for you. You need a decent night’s sleep.” He comes over to the couch and just sits there a little awkwardly. Okay, he needs something to chill him out before he darts out of here like a rabbit. Something tells you it's been a long time since he’s slept over anywhere besides his own place.
You put your hand gently on his shoulder. “Does your neck hurt from when you dozed off earlier?”
“Uh, yeah,” he replies. “I’m just all over achy…and a headache.” He sounds miserable.
“Okay, sit back here.” The arm of the couch is big enough you can sit on it to the side, putting you a little taller than him. You maneuver him so his back is against the side of the couch, facing away from you. You put your hands on his shoulders at the base of his neck, then use your thumbs to rub small circles at the muscles.
“What are you- oh my god, that feels so good,” he says. He tenses up at that, probably not intending to be so responsive. You try to cut him off before he starts apologizing.
“Good! It’s supposed to,” you say, and just continue with the massage. You’re pretty good at this, you had a former massage therapist friend in the town you lived before and she taught you a decent amount. Mostly so you could practice on each other. He has a ton of tension in his shoulders, so you do your best to work out some of it, then firm strokes up the tight muscles in his neck until you feel him start to completely loosen up under your hands.
He is very responsive, which gives you quite the ego boost, eventually he just stops attempting to hide his hums of pleasure and dreamy sighs, especially when you move up to his scalp, gentle pressure where the back of his head meets his neck, up close to his ears. He whines when you rub just behind his ears, along to his temples and it's such a satisfying feeling, there’s a warmth in your chest at how much he is clearly enjoying your attention.
Eventually, the responsive noises quiet down and he’s so relaxed you can tell he’s on the edge of sleep. So you push lightly, against his back, softly tell him to lie down, and help guide him into a comfortable position for sleeping. He mutters something, so slurred you have no idea what he was trying to say, but it sounded pleased at least. You cover him up with the blankets, a couple layers so he can pull one off if he's too warm.
You don’t want to leave until you're sure he's completely asleep, so you just stroke through his hair, dark blonde tresses so soft against your fingers, and just pet his hair until he’s clearly fully unconscious. You give his face a final, soft caress before getting up off the arm of the couch. You have an urge to kiss his forehead, but resist. It wouldn’t feel right doing that while he isn't awake but he looks so relaxed and sweet like this.
It’s probably a little weird to watch him sleep, but it's still so early in the evening you don’t want to just disappear into your bedroom and hide until you’re ready to sleep.
You decide to put your headphones on and listen to some music while you start a puzzle. That’s a quiet activity that won’t wake him but will give you an excuse to stay in the same room. And if you glance up to check on him every few minutes, well you're just being a good friend making sure he’s okay, right?
Eventually it approaches your bed time, so you reluctantly get up. You leave the corner lamp on so he doesn’t wake up in the dark, get a glass of water and set it on a coaster on the end table, next to his glasses. You get the tissues too, he was sniffly today but not sneezing, so it might show up as a symptom tomorrow and you don’t want him to have to search for them.
Macy curls up at his feet on the couch. Traitor.
“Good night, Ryland,” you say softly, and head back to your own room.
=======
You’re a pretty light sleeper, so as soon as you can hear moving around you’re awake. It takes you a second to remember why there’s someone moving around in your apartment, but once you do the memories of last night come rushing back. You worry he might feel awkward and try to insist on leaving, and you realize you don’t want him to go.
You exit your bedroom and catch him walking back from the bathroom.
“Good morning!” you say.
He turns, and glances up and down, blushes and looks away. You’re not indecent, you wear a tanktop and flannel pants to bed, but you grab and put on the robe that hangs on the back of your door just in case you’ve made him uncomfortable.
He looks back when you’ve got it on but he doesn’t quite meet your eyes. “Good morning,” he says, but it comes out so raspy and wrecked. You both wince at the sound.
“How are you feeling?” you ask.
“Better than I sound,” he says with a wheezy laugh. “But not by that much.”
“I got you some lozenges just in case,” you say, glad you thought ahead. “But you should eat something first before your next dose of medicine.”
He just nods, he slept a ton but still seems too tired to keep up much conversation.
“How’d you sleep?” you ask, as you go to the kitchen to put together some breakfast for you both.
“Really good,” he says. His throat is probably too sore to talk much so you won’t make him. “Thanks for…” he trails off. “The massage,” he finally says. He sounds almost ashamed at liking it. He’s rubbing at his wrist, it looks like it might be a nervous tic or some way to self soothe.
“Happy to do it anytime,” you say, trying to reassure him. You think back to the few months you’ve known him and you’ve never seen him bring anyone home. Or anyone visit. He mentioned not having any living family, and he doesn’t go out much or ever have friends over. You think he’s probably lonely. You wonder how touch starved he is. You make a mental note to be as affectionate as he seems comfortable with. You doubt he’s the type to ask for it.
You prepare some toast from the big loaf of bread for both of you, he probably doesn’t have too much of an appetite still but if he’s hungry you can make more. “Butter or jam?”
“Umm. What kind of jam?” he asks. He's half propped up on the couch. He looks completely pathetic but it’s too adorable to feel anything but fond.
“Raspberry,” you say. “I have an artisan bottle from the farmers market.”
“Oh, yeah. Love that,” He says. You should probably stop asking him questions, he sounds horrible.
You pick out a sunny yellow plate for him. He likes yellow, you think, he is always wearing that bright canary colored raincoat, you can spot him from a mile away. Spread the jam on the toast, and pick a bottle of the orange juice out of your fridge. You’d usually make a pot of coffee but you don’t want to give him caffeine and potentially mess with his ability to nap.
He smiles at the plate, tracing along the edge. “You like yellow, yeah?” you say, taking your place on the big chair angled towards the couch. You don’t want to crowd him. “Oh, and I got you some orange juice too. Vitamin C,” you smile.
“Thank you,” he says. It’s quiet for a bit. He picks at the toast, he assures you it tastes good, he's just not that hungry. He drinks about half the orange juice though, so you accept it as enough to take a new dose of the daytime cold medicine.
“So, what’s your comfort sick movie?” you ask. You want to do something low pressure where he doesn’t need to move or talk much but you still have an excuse to hang out close to him.
“Huh?”
“Like, the go to movie you watch when you’re sick or sad or whatever.”
“Um. I don’t know.”
“Everyone’s got one. Or several. I think I keep three or four on rotation.”
He gives you a questioning look, and gestures as if to say “so what are they?”
“Well. The Princess Bride. A classic. Can’t go wrong with that. And…The Holiday. That’s technically a Christmas movie, but it can serve a dual purpose. Seriously, you must have one. We’ll watch it. I have, like, every streaming service.”
He thinks for several seconds. Starts to talk, then several seconds longer.
“The Muppet Movie,” he finally mutters.
“Oh that’s cute!” you say, and he seems to not love that, quirking his lips into a slight frown. You laugh, “Oh, no for real. I haven’t seen that in forever. The original one? Come on, take your medicine, I’ll wash these dishes and we’re watching it now.”
When you come back, you make the executive decision to join him on the couch. “Scooch,” you say. He’s lying down, partly on his side and so you lift his legs and sit on the other end of the couch, his calves on your lap. He looks surprised but before he has a chance to protest, you reposition the blanket, spreading it out over him and tucking it under his feet. You give his calf a squeeze through the fabric. You bring up the TV and navigate to the movie. You can feel him staring at you. You get the sense it's probably a good stare and you can’t help a soft smile at the thought.
You watch the whole movie, and despite the raspiness you can hear him quietly singing along to some of the songs. You recognize them, you think, and the subtitles are on so you try to sing along too. He’s still tired and sick but he’s in a much better mood than you’d expect. It probably doesn’t hurt that you’ve been massaging his legs and then his sock clad feet for most of the movie too. He can’t hide his responsiveness to how nice it must feel and after a while he stops attempting to. Every little murmur and sigh makes your heart flutter faster.
When the movie ends he looks at you so sweetly. “Feeling any better?” you ask.
“A little,” he says. He sounds somewhat better after the juice and some water throughout the movie. “I should work.”
“Work?” you ask. “What are you talking about?”
He gingerly lifts his legs and moves to sit up. He nods towards his backpack. “I am so behind on grading.” he says with an exasperated moan. “I kept thinking I was going to feel better and do it the next day, and then…” he gestures to himself.
You’re closer, so you reach over and pull the backpack over, lug it up and hand it to him. Is it seriously full of papers to grade?
Apparently, yes. He pulls out a few thin binders full of paper, sectioned off in manilla folders.
He spreads them out on the coffee table and they take up basically the entire space.
“Ryland, there's like…hundreds of sheets of paper here.”
“I gave a few extra quizzes so I didn’t have to talk as much,” he says bashfully. “And, uh. An essay on the Schoolhouse Rock songs I played for them.”
“So that’s why teachers showed movies in class,” you laugh. “Poor teachers. Poor Ryland,” you tease.
“Okay, well.” you say. “How do I help?”
“Oh, no, please.” he says. “I got myself into this mess. You shouldn’t have to bail me out. It’s not that bad, it's just one essay from each student and…six multiple choice or fill in the blank tests.” He winces. “Each.”
“Ryland…come on, you’re too sick to focus on this.”
“No, really, I’m feeling better.” You give him a look. “Well, slightly better. I seriously need to get these done by Monday or my whole month is shot. And I’ve got a rubric for almost all of them. It’s just…monotonous.”
You sigh. If it really is going to mess up his week, you suppose you shouldn’t argue. He seems opposed to letting you help but you’re getting the sense it’s more based on his pride and feeling bad to “waste your time” then the fact that a second person can't make slash marks and write numbers at the top of the page.
Oh, and stickers. There’s sheets of stickers accompanying, because of course he’s the kind of teacher to put “nice work!” and “good effort!” stickers on everything. You reluctantly get up from the couch and make a show of going back to your puzzle to give him space to work. He tells you his method to the stickers though, and his approaches to grading, which makes you smile. He clearly loves being a teacher so much.
But he’s fading fast, it’s definitely too tiring. It’s only midmorning, and he’s been at it for all of twenty minutes, when he sits back against the couch, drawing his legs up to the side. “I think I’m just gonna…rest my eyes for a bit.”
“Take a nap,” you tell him. He makes no attempt to argue, just settles down, head against the pillow, and draws the blanket around himself. He’s so adorable. He’s fast asleep, so you move over to survey the absolute mountain of papers. He’s at least got it organized by class period, with plastic dividers between the different tests. He's done a few already, so you can see how a finished, graded paper looks (sticker and all!).
You decide to just start helping. Maybe it’s overstepping, hopefully he won’t be too mad, but come on, you aren’t just going to sit over there and watch him spend hours and hours on this when he’s supposed to be resting and recovering. Pushing himself too much isn’t going to make him feel any better on Monday.
You start with one folder, then another, keeping them tidily organized, and going by the answer key and grading rubric. You don’t make any attempt at the essays, that’s way too subjective, but hey you can tell if question 8 was answered with “A” or not and write “90” at the top of the page if it wasn’t. And of course, the appropriately corresponding sticker.
It is monotonous, but you enjoy the methodical nature of the work, it’s like a puzzle and you sort of lose yourself in it. It goes quickly too, much quicker than Mr. High on Cold Medicine was doing it. Every time you complete a test’s folder you stack it back where it goes in the class binder. You leave the essay folder sticking out a little to make it clear they are the ungraded ones. You are almost completely finished when you hear him start to stir.
“How long was I out?” he rasps. His voice is a little worse with sleep and he sounds groggy.
You hadn’t even been looking at the clock. “A little over two hours,” you say.
He’s looking over the neatly stacked binders in the corner of the table and has this confused expression on his face. You’re halfway through the last folder of tests so that’s up on the dining table with you. He’s slow as molasses figuring it out and you’re nervous he’s going to be mad. “I wanted to help,” you say tentatively. Oh no, what if you messed something up? Made more work for him?
“Did you…grade all of these?” he says, with a tone of wonder. He takes the nearest binder, rifles through it, double checking.
“Yeah…” you say. “I’m almost done, everything but the essays, since I figured you needed to do that yourself, you know what you’re looking for.”
He is staring at you, his expression unreadable. Then it almost crumples, and…oh no, he looks like he’s about to cry.
“I’m sorry!” you say. “If I messed something up, I’ll fix it, I didn’t mean to make it harder for you, I’ll-”
“Why would you do that for me?” he says, devastatingly small, and oh. He’s not mad. He’s…happy?
“I’m taking care of you, remember?” you say quietly, and offer a small smile. You want to hug him.
“Thank…thank you,” he says. And you're not sure if the tears ever actually fell, because he busies himself with stacking up the binders and putting them back in the backpack. “I’ll uh, do the rest tomorrow.” He approaches the table to take the last one from you, and oh, why wait. You get up and hug him tight. He melts into it, squeezing you back. “Thank you,” he murmurs again against your hair. “You’re amazing,” he adds and there’s butterflies in your stomach at his earnest sincerity.
You eventually separate, but you can’t quite stop touching him, leaving your hand softly stroking his upper arm. “Lunch?” you ask and he nods.
You heat up some of the leftover soup, he eats a full bowl this time and takes a second slice of buttered bread. It’s good to see his appetite returning and you tell him so. He tells you again it’s delicious, and you chat a little bit about cooking, and what foods you both like, and tells you he’s absolutely going to buy you dinner at the new Chinese place that opened around the corner you’ve been wanting to try. You accept, giddy smile probably obvious.
He’s a little perkier now, he sounds better and you think the fever is gone. You make him take his next dose of medication and he tells you he’s going to go back to his apartment and shower and change. You tell him you plan to do the same, it's early afternoon and you’re still in your pajamas.
“And do you want me to…we can watch those movies you like? If you want?” He says, hesitating at the door. What’s wrong with him, does he seriously think you don’t want him to come back?
“Oh, absolutely,” you say with a grin. “You’re not getting out of a rom com marathon, no way.”
About an hour later, you’re both together again on the couch, you’re on the end his pillow is, leaning against it and he’s in the middle, as you bring up the next movie. He seems nervous, and too stiff, so you absentmindedly start scratching his back through his shirt, pretending like you barely notice you’re doing it.
“I’m still pretty tired,” he says, laughing weakly, “and, uh. Headachy. So. Don’t get mad at me if I fall asleep?”
One day you’ll probably have a conversation with him about just asking clearly for what he wants, but you’ll give him a pass today because he’s sick.
You remove your hand and you feel him flinch towards you, as if he’s trying to follow the touch. You reposition, putting his pillow on your lap and just pull him down to lay his head on it. He offers zero resistance, this is clearly what he was hoping for.
All through the next movie, you rub his scalp, pet his hair, massage his shoulders and neck. The cat sees this and comes up on the side demanding pets as well and you laugh. Ryland dozes off and wakes up off and on throughout the movie. When he’s awake he’s nuzzling into the pillow and when he’s asleep he's snoring so softly it’s almost a purr. You have two cats, you think to yourself with a smile, and lose yourself in the comfort of the familiar movie and his warm skin under your fingertips.
Your stomach growls and you realize it's probably time for dinner, but you don’t want to get up. You start scrolling your phone for delivery options. You don’t want to have the exact same thing as lunch but soup still sounds pretty good. Luckily you manage to catch him in a half awake state so you ask him if he wants some ramen delivered and he agrees.
The rest of the night is so cozy, movies and chatting and eating. He’s acting like he’s feeling a lot better, but still drowsy and sweetly clingy. He is definitely touch starved, you realize, and it just makes you want to hug him tighter, play with his hair more, see how his face looks when he’s so relaxed, soft smile staying on even after he dozes off.
You bring out some ice cream for dessert, and his appetite is definitely back for that, even going for sprinkles and chocolate syrup and you bond over ranking every fast food place’s ice cream and/or custard. He’s so funny and fun to talk to, and…yeah, you really like him.
This was one of the best days you’ve had in recent memory, and as it gets later in the evening, you can tell neither of you want it to end.
“Stay over again,” you say. “You’re not quite recovered yet,” although that’s really not the reason why.
“Yeah, okay,” he says. “I think…another night on this couch and I’ll be right as rain tomorrow.” He flashes you a very happy smile and you melt.
You get him his next nighttime dose of cold medicine, he’s right, he’s probably one medicated sleep away from being mostly recovered. You stay with him again, rubbing his scalp, of course you need to make sure that pesky headache doesn’t come back. After he drifts off to sleep you quietly untangle yourself, smooth out the blankets and tuck him in, and make your way back to your own bed.
==========
When you wake up, you can smell coffee.
You head out to the kitchen, and see Ryland up and about, messy bed head but otherwise clear eyed and making a little bit of a mess, considering the splash of powder on his face.
“Yesterday morning you couldn’t pull yourself off the couch, and now you can leap tall buildings in a single bound,” you tease, and he looks up, surprised, and then smiles so wide when he sees you.
“I feel about five hundred times better than I did on Friday night,” he said. “So…I wanted to make you breakfast.”
You go to pour yourself a cup of the coffee. He's got a mixing bowl with batter, and a package of chocolate chips he’d been in the midst of pouring into a measuring cup. “Chocolate chip pancakes,” he announces. “You had just add water mix, which is about the most I can trust myself to make,” he says with a shy smile.
“Delicious,” you say. You gesture towards the measuring cup. “Except you don't measure chocolate chips with that.” He raises an eyebrow. “You measure it with your heart,” you say seriously, and you both laugh.
You can’t just go sit down, though, even though he’s clearly attempting to take care of you now to return the favor. “Bacon?” you ask, pulling the strips out of your fridge, and he readily agrees.
You cook together in the kitchen, both pausing to drink coffee, he’s chosen your most brightly colored mug even though it’s chipped, you’re surrounded by the sizzling sound of bacon and the sweet smell of pancake batter. It’s a domestic bliss you can’t remember feeling before and you think you wouldn’t mind if every Sunday morning was exactly like this.
You both eat slowly, savoring the meal and each other’s company, chatting about your upcoming plans for the workweeks, he goes over his lesson plans (School House Rock might still be on the table, but he cautions he can’t overuse it). You talk about annoying coworkers and spreadsheets and audits due at the end of the week.
“I’m really glad you’re feeling so much better,” you say. He joins you in the kitchen to help out with the dishes.
“Thanks to you,” he says seriously. “Honestly if you hadn’t…taken such good care of me I’d still be an aching zombie today, I’m sure of it. And the…” he turns away, talking to the wall. “Cuddling on the couch really helped,” he says, volume barely audible over the unnecessary clanging on pans.
You put your hand on his back, and he stills, but won’t quite meet your eye. “I really liked that too,” you say.
Kitchen cleaned up, you try to decide where to go from here. The guise of needing to watch him while he was sick is pretty much over, but it's midday Sunday and you hate to just…send him back to his apartment. “What do you want to do? Anything else you need to do to make it a good week?”
He sighs. “I was planning to clean my apartment this weekend,” he says with a frown. “It..could really use it.”
“Okay,” you say. “Let’s do it.”
He just stares. “We? No, no way, you’ve done…more than anyone, ever, for me this weekend. I’m not making you clean my apartment too!”
You just shrug. “These apartments are not big enough for it to be that much of an undertaking,” you say. “Seriosuly. I don’t mind, I want…I want to keep hanging out. Two birds, one stone,” you say, trying to keep it casual.
He still hesitates. “It’s a mess.”
“Yeah, that’s usually how things are before they’re clean.”
You can tell he’s warring with himself still.
“You’ll feel so much better with a clean apartment,” you say. “Change your bedsheets, do the laundry…you can use my machine too so we can do twice as much.” These apartments come with a stacked washer and dryer but they’re pretty small so it can take forever. “Especially since you’ve been sick. Freshen it all up.”
“Okay,” he finally says. “Just. Give me a few minutes.”
You shrug. “Sure.”
He leaves to probably frantically attempt to tidy the very worst of it before you come over, but you’re sure it can’t be that awful. Unless he’s trying to hide a bunch of corpses it can’t be anything worse than any single guy’s apartment you’ve seen before.
You change into comfy cleaning clothes and gather up some supplies, then when you feel like you’ve given him enough time you head over and knock on the door.
He answers and lets you in. It’s really not that bad. Lots of papers around, clothes on the floor, some dishes stacked up but it’s nothing the two of you can’t get reset in an hour or two.
He looks like he’s waiting for you to criticize him, but you just smile and reveal a bluetooth speaker. “So I have a fun cleaning trick.”
“Oh?” he asks.
“It can be so hard to focus for me sometimes, and I’ll get locked in to one task and take forever and then I’m exhausted before I do anything else. Or I’ll take a break and then realize I’ve been scrolling on my phone for an hour. So if I try to do something big like ‘clean the whole apartment’ I put on a musical.”
“How does that help?” He looks confused but intrigued.
“So, I give myself the whole length of the musical to work. Every time a song changes, I switch to a brand new task. Or take a break, but just for the duration of a song. Things don't take as long as you think, and it’s kind of a competition to complete something in the length of a song. And if you can’t just come back to it after you switch once.”
“Huh. Okay, hey I’ll try anything. So what’s the musical going to be?”
“Have you heard of Hadestown?”
The cleaning is actually pretty fun. You start in the kitchen, he starts in his bedroom, and you’re singing along. It’s new to him, so you call out some explanations of what’s going on and who’s singing as you switch tasks. He runs laundry between your apartments, you wipe down all the surfaces with a nice smelling cleaning solution. He scrubs out his shower and you sweep the floor. You’re working towards each other until the musical ends and the place looks completely spotless.
“It’s…literally never looked this good in here,” he says, that look of wonder back on his face. “Once the dryers finish I just need to make the bed and fold laundry.”
“You still feel okay?” you ask. You hope he didn’t overexert himself and tire out.
“Yeah,” he smiles. “Tons better. Like…88% back to normal.”
“So a B plus,” you laugh. “Okay, I’ll take it.”
“Ready to take on a new week.”
You’re sweaty and want to shower and change clothes, but you’re trying to figure out how to ask to come back after. The day is still young and you don’t want to say goodbye yet.
The dryer buzzes and interrupts your thoughts.
“Hey, let me finish up here and then clean myself up,” he says. “And, um. How do you feel about pizza?”
“I love pizza,” you say. You’re pretty sure everyone loves pizza.
“Great,” he smiles. “Let me buy us some pizza for dinner. That is…if you want?”
“Sounds perfect,” you say. “Be back in an hour?”
You shower, wash your hair, and change clothes into something a little bit nicer than you’ve been wearing around the apartment this weekend, even put on just a little bit of makeup. You worry as you head over to his place that he’ll notice you dressed up a little but think it’s weird, but when he answers the door you see he’s shaved his face, styled his hair and put on a nicer shirt than the usual punny tees.
You playfully argue a bit about pizza toppings and breadsticks versus cheesy bread, but finally place the order. You’re both starving, the pancakes and bacon seem a hundred years away. While you wait you sit close with him on his clean-but-bachelor-pad-approved IKEA futon.
“Sorry, not as comfortable as your couch,” he says sheepishly.
“I don’t mind,” you say and move a little closer to him. You are playing a two player party game on his console while you wait for the pizza to arrive, and you’re having so much fun together. Once the delivery guy gets there, he puts on Star Trek, The Next Generation. You’ve seen a lot of episodes before, so you discuss the pros and cons of Kirk and Picard, and it’s such a fun and easy conversation, even when he talks your ear off about the characters and the lore. He keeps interrupting himself and looks embarrassed to be talking so much, but you just ask follow up questions and get involved in the discussion and he’s happier by the minute.
Eventually it’s late enough that you really both have to get to bed to be rested enough for work in the morning. You linger by the doorway.
“I noticed you’re in need of a grocery run soon,” nodding to the mostly empty fridge you organized earlier.
“Oh, yeah,” he says, ruffling his hand through his hair. “It’s hard without a car. I usually just pick up a few things on the way home from work.”
“I have a car,” you say. “I usually stop for groceries on Wednesday nights.”
He looks interested, and a little unsure.
“We could go together?” you venture, tentatively. “If you want? Grab something quick for dinner and grocery shop.” You shrug, that's a normal, neighborly thing to do, right? Even if he just wants to be friends, that’s fine, it’ll be a nice excuse to hang out with him regularly. Even if you hope he might be interested in more.
“Yeah!” he says, excited, then tries to tamp it down and sound slightly less enthused. He’s a very bad liar. “Yeah, sure. It’s a date! I mean, um. Not. If you don’t want– I mean–”
“It’s a date,” you say, and he grins.