Harvard went and returned, but sadly he did not come bearing updated information.
“I found Eugene,” he reported. “But he turned a funny color and said, ‘Please don’t make me say it to you, Captain.’ He seems more shaken by this than I would’ve thought.”
Aiden moaned with outrage, then started coughing and couldn’t stop. He was enraged by his own body, which didn’t happen a lot. Usually, Aiden felt he and his body were in this together, making each other look good.
In less than a week, Harvard was going to call on his darling Neil and explain how sorry he was for all his imaginary offenses, and Neil would say that he’d only been put off by Harvard’s awful best friend. Then Harvard would realize everything had been Aiden’s fault all along, and also Neil would tell Harvard that he missed him, and they would get back together. Aiden would have to pretend he was happy for them.
This was one of a very few, very precious days, like fairy gold turning to dust and leaves as they slipped through his fingers. And Aiden was wasting it by being sick and disgusting.
“Sorry for being gross,” Aiden murmured into his pillow.
“Hey, no,” said Harvard. “You’re still really cute.”
Aiden scoffed into the pillow, which turned into more coughing. Harvard patted him on the back.
Harvard was so good at this boyfriend thing it was ridiculous. He was screwing up the boyfriend curve for all other boyfriends. That was why Aiden didn’t want any of the others.
He felt horrible and unpleasantly hot, and he could only bear this when Harvard was with him. Most of life was generally unfair and unpleasant, but it was all right if Harvard was there.
“Stay with me until I go to sleep,” Aiden murmured, willfully forgetting that lunch was over and Harvard should go to class.
For Aiden, Harvard would usually break the rules.
“If you want me to,” Harvard murmured back.
Aiden was ill and miserable and unguarded enough to whisper, “I never want anything but you.”
“Okay.” Harvard laughed quietly, kindly. “I think the cough syrup has made you a little loopy.”
Aiden wanted to be angry with Harvard for never understanding, but thank God Harvard didn’t. Besides, Aiden never could entirely manage to be angry with him. The emotion wouldn’t coalesce in Aiden’s chest, always collapsing in on itself and changing into different feelings.
As Aiden slid into sleep, like tumbling beneath a blanket of darkness, he felt an awareness even with his eyes closed that someone was stooping over him, like an intuition of a shadow, and then the soft press of Harvard’s lips against Aiden’s forehead. More a blessing than a kiss.
He woke up when two teachers knocked on his door and asked if they could search the room. Aiden was interested enough to let them.
“Have you found any information about the gold bars yet?” he asked when they were done searching.
“Oh dear,” murmured Mr. Gaudet, their history teacher. “The boy’s delirious.”
Aiden feared Harvard was bringing him inaccurate gossip since he wasn’t actually very good at gossiping. All that believing the best of people got in Harvard’s way when it came to getting the real dirt.
Once Aiden had risen from his bed of sickness, he would ascertain the awful, criminal truth.
The vile medicine seemed to be doing its job. His head felt marginally clearer. Aiden now believed he would live.
Before he was restored to his full power, though, he needed more beauty sleep. Aiden had a lot of beauty to maintain.
When he woke up next, it was dark outside. He’d slept and coughed and dreamed the whole day away.
Harvard was sleeping in the bed next to his. Whenever Aiden was forced to go home, he’d wake up feeling sick with panic in the night. He’d realized years ago that what woke him up was not any noise, but silence. He missed the steady sound of Harvard’s breathing. You could ask a friend to sleep over, but you couldn’t ask him to sleep over every night. In order to get away from the echoing quiet of his own house, Aiden was willing to go on vacation with practically any guy who offered.
If they were hot and going somewhere cool.
Harvard was having the untroubled sleep of someone who never woke in the night with wild panic caught at the back of his throat, who was never cruel or careless. Someone who never did terrible things to satisfy longings he didn’t dare to speak.
The word tantalizing, being endlessly tormented by the presence of something so near but always out of reach, came from the name of the king Tantalus. After the king died and went to hell, he was tortured by being forced to stand in water he could never drink, with fruit hanging above his head that he could never eat.
Enough of being tortured.
Aiden wasn’t going to make it to the weekend. This had to end. Everything ended; everyone went away, if you tried for love. Friendship was safe. Aiden had thought this would make him feel better, to practice and pretend, but it only made him feel worse. Like having the taste of fruit lingering ghostly and sweet in your mouth, all the while knowing you could never eat.
Aiden’s throat ached, as it had earlier, but he didn’t want water.
He turned sharply away from Harvard, tossing under the bedsheets and trying to find a cool, soft place in bed. Somewhere he could rest.
Turning his back on Harvard didn’t work. Harvard stirred because of Aiden’s incautious movement and reached out. When Aiden felt Harvard’s hand gentle on his arm, he went still.
“Aiden?” Harvard whispered drowsily.
Aiden turned back to face him and said, “Yes.”
Harvard’s eyes were still closed, but his grip on Aiden, while gentle, was firm. Aiden didn’t want to get away, and never had. Moonlight made the contrast between Harvard’s skin and the sheets deeper, and caught at the gleam of white teeth as he spoke.
“’S all right,” Harvard murmured.
His mouth barely moved as he said the words, shaped for gentleness, for soothing and sweet long kisses that made the world seem different. Not like Aiden’s own mouth, made for curling and cruelty, for wicked kisses and worse lies.
“It’s not all right,” Aiden told him, his voice clear as a confession in the dark. “I’m not all right.”
He had to stop this. And, he vowed, he would. He would give himself just one more day. Just one more day, to live on for the rest of Aiden’s life. Then he’d tell Harvard they should stop.
23: NICHOLAS
That morning Nicholas woke up to an undeniably startling sight. Seiji’s face was hovering over him, pale and intent, like a vampire who came in the too-early morning rather than the night and made you do fencing drills rather than drink your blood. Nicholas flailed and made an incoherent sound of protest at the fencing vampire.
“Wake up, Nicholas,” said Seiji, poking him.
“It’s not even dawn!” Nicholas objected.
“It is ten minutes before the time you usually rise,” Seiji corrected. “And you could use those ten minutes to present a more appropriate and put-together appearance to the world.”
“’S inhumane,” Nicholas told him, hiding under his blanket.
Seiji stripped it efficiently off him. “Come now, Nicholas, I require your presence. I will be waiting on the other side of the curtain.”