chapter thirty-eight

sebastian

"'Bed rest' is a little bit extreme, me thinks," Harris says, crossing his arms across his chest. He's currently in bed, resting, propped up by the pillows wedged between him and the wall. "I feel great. Fantastic. All good, all betterer. Let's play some fuckin' Parcheese, am I right?"

Granny Mac stands next to his bed, a bowl in hand. "This is boiling hot soup, duckie," she says. "And I will pour it over your dingle-dongle if you try to get out of bed."

"Well why don't I just eat the soup first, and then get up? Seems kind of obvious."

"Oh, Harris. I'll just make more boiling hot dingle-dongle soup."

"Oh, Grandma. I'll be long gone by then."

Her head swivels slowly toward me and Saanvi. Her eyes are slits. Her lip is curled in disgust. Her sweater reads, If I'm sittin', I'm knittin'. "I can't do this anymore. He's all yours."

As she walks toward the stairs, a bowl of boiling hot soup left on the bedside table, Harris calls out after her. His voice is still slightly raspy. "Noooo, come back. I neeeed you. Gwwwaaaandmaaaa."

"Okay, I don't care how bad your cabin fever is. 'Gwandma' makes me want to commit homicide," Saanvi says, walking over and sitting on the edge of Harris' bed. "So how was having a shitty-ass disease? Is hospital food as bad as they say it is? Or were you unable to eat solid food? Or was it, like, a weaning-you-into-it kind of situation? Were there hot nurses? Were they mean?"

Harris blinks at Saanvi. His track sweatshirt is wrinkled, his hair an uneven, poofy mess. There are bags under his eyes, slight enough that you might not notice them if you didn't consider staring at Harrison McCammon's face to be your calling in this life.

"Wasn't it just technically an infection?" Harris asks. "Seb?"

I snort and walk over to the opposite side of the bed, sitting down. The mattress shifts underneath me; I have to stick out my legs so that I don't slide off onto the cold concrete floor. "What are you asking me for?"

"You're literally a pre-med," Saanvi says, her previous interrogation already forgotten. "Don't you get off on knowing if it was an infection?"

Harris grins, tugging my sleeve. I am seriously regretting wearing the Blues Clues-esque striped shirt. I feel like the ultimate dipshit. "Yeah, Seb. C'mon, tell us. We know you're getting off on knowing. Now you just have to work on getting off on telling us!"

"The only thing I'm getting off of is this topic of conversation."

"You love it. You know you love it. Doesn't he love it, Saanvi?"

"Yeah, no, he's deffo getting off on this too."

I groan. Saanvi and Harris both mimic me, each just as exasperated as the other.

"Anyways, I can't stay long," Saanvi says. "I have to get going home. Flight to catch, all that jazz."

"Oh my god." Harris grabs her forearm, clutching her through her open button-up as if his life depends on it. "You have to take all the pics for me."

"I will, I will." She tries to brush his hand off. He grips harder.

"I mean it. I wanna feel like I'm in India. Not in Shittystankstankland, Minnesota, stuck in bed for the rest of frigging eternity."

"Yeah, okay Harris."

"Panoramas. Can you get drones or something to do three-sixty degree shit? Is that a thing? Nevermind. Just, if you have a really really really tall cousin, make them pretend to be a drone. For me. As I am stuck in bed, for who knows how long. Maybe forever."

"Okay, Harris."

"If you don't ... I will find you."

"I'm sure."

"And I will kill you."

"Yep, there it is. Kill me? From your bed? With those lungs? Fat fucking chance." And, as if on cue, Saanvi's phone starts blaring Cold Cold Man. I remember when she changed her ringtone to that, way back when we were eighth graders who were just given our first phones. We'd found Saint Motel the same way we'd found most of our music—John Green movies. They had a track on the Paper Towns soundtrack, and we haven't looked back since.

"Fuuuuck," Saanvi says, then picks up. "Amma? Yeah, I'm coming. Just on my way out." She gives each of us a quick side hug and waves bye as she walks out of the basement, telling her mom something in Telugu that at the very least makes her laugh. Her footsteps creak about upstairs. The closing of the front door is audible, even over Granny Mac blasting the Doctor Who end credits theme.

And then, it's just the two of us.

"Hey," Harris says, "come closer."

"Um, how about you come closer." But I'm already edging my way toward him, leaning in slightly.

"Can't."

"Why not?" I stop short just a few inches away from him, so that we're face to face, not to mention tantalizingly close. His breath is minty-fresh. There's a stray eyelash on his cheek; I have to force myself not to reach out and brush it away with gentle fingers.

He seems pale. Maybe that's just the result of not going outside much the past few days, or it's my imagination. But his lips are still a pinkish red, completely kissable, albeit a little chapped. Not that I care. Not that I would ever not want to kiss him. Especially over something so petty as chapped lips.

"Because," Harris whispers, the tender quietness of his voice drawing me in, "bed rest."

"I'm going to kiss you now," I tell him in my own hushed whisper.

"You'd bett—"

He doesn't get to finish. I'm too busy shutting him up—pressing our lips together, feeling the immediate warmth our contact sends rushing through my body, pressing in harder. His hands find my jaw, the sides of my face, tugging me in closer to him. I fumble, nearly falling off the bed again, but making up for it by getting completely on. I cup the side of his face gently, letting my other hand dig into his side through his duvet cover.

It's not a very long kiss. I'm terrified he'll run out of air and faint and die and then I'll have killed my boyfriend, which would definitely suck. When I pull away, he's not gasping for breath at least, so there's that.

"Woah," he says, and fuck, his voice is doing that stupid deep thing again. "That was pretty gay."

"Yeah, well, there's plenty more gay stuff where that came from."

"Oh yeah? Such as?"

"What are the odds of your grandma coming downstairs?"

Harris grins. "Didn't she tell you? She's taking Peaches to the dog park." As if she somehow heard us, the front door shuts once more. "See? And, Granny Mac and Peaches quality time usually lasts well over an hour, so...."

"There's a lot I can do to you in an hour."

"Oh, really?"

"Mm." I trace my lips against the side of his jawline. He tries to hide it, but I still hear him suck in a breath. "You've had a rough week."

"So have you," he argues. "Seb, you don't have to—"

"Harris, I want to do this for you." And I do. Harris let me cry into his arms about everything with my dad—who still hasn't come home—when he was still in the hospital, for crying out loud. And after I'd (kind of accidentally) ghosted him, too. "You deserve it."

"Well ... I guess if I've been a good boy...."

"Do you want me to call you that?" I ask him, reaching under the covers for the waistband of his shorts.

"No, I'm all good on—oh my God, Seb, your fingers are freezing. Are you even alive? Are we sure?"

"Shhhhh." They're not that bad.

"No, really, are you undead? That might be kind of hot. And explain a lot."

"I'm just deoxygenated, Harris. Jesus Fucking Christ."

"I'm not buying it. Are you.... Oh, fuck, Seb." I don't have to look under the covers to see what I'm doing to him. It's more fun to see it register there, on his face. "Fuck, fuuuck, Seb."

I give him a kiss on his neck, firm enough to where I feel him shiver and twitch, but soft enough so as to not leave any sort of visible mark. "Is this good?" I ask.

"Yes."

Told you so, I want to say, but refrain.

Of course, Harris doesn't refrain from adding, "I'm getting you hand warmers for Christmas." It comes out a breathy sigh, not quite a moan but definitely not a whisper. "You little carcass boy."

Oh, come on. "Harris." It's sharp, an obvious warning. My hand stops.

"Sorry."

"Like, what the fuck."

"Yeah, I hear it."

I shake my head, removing my hand. "I don't know if I can go on anymore...."

"No, please, good sir," Harris says, and it only sounds half-mocking. "I need your touch. I crave your body, your soul, your leathery man palms. I feel as if I do not feel your grippers on my banana—" He stops to snort, and I roll my eyes. "Good Sebastian, why, I feel as if I should perish."

"Harris...."

"Yes, Good Sebastian?"

"You're not helping your case here."

"I'll start crying. I will. I'll do it."

"Oh my god, you are so fucking melodramatic." But I press a kiss against his neck and resume my movement. I feel his throat vibrate against my lips when he groans.

He sucks in a breath. "Sebastian...." His voice trails off, and he shuts his eyes.

I kiss his jaw again, feeling the slightest bit of stubble. It's scratchy against my lips. Somehow, the thought of Harris with a beard is ... well. It's sending me. "Harris," I whisper back, watching his eyes flutter shut.

"Don't stop," he begs, chin tipping back. "Please."

"I won't," I promise. And I don't.

The 'boiling hot' soup goes cold.