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Lucas notices it on a Sunday.
It’s afternoon but he is only just getting up. There’s a dull throb in his head (which, considering the amount of Arthur’s beer he and Yann had drank last night, isn’t too bad) and his whole body hurts. That’s also normal, and something of a triumph – proof he drank hard and danced hard and laughed hard with his friends.
Swallowing, Lucas registers that his throat feels rough. That isn’t normal.
But he showers anyway (“Finally!” Mika hollers from the kitchen, “He emerges!”) and dresses in his softest clothes. He always feels better after a shower but the scrape in his throat doesn’t go away, and the ache in his head only gets worse.
It’s fine. Just a rough morning after a good night.
So he lazes around all day, chipping away at some homework and mostly messaging friends. He’s so distracted by the gang’s group chat that he doesn’t realize until Mika goes to bed that it’s late, and he hasn’t been hungry all day, and his skull feels like one big bruise someone’s been trampolining on.
It’s fine. He crawls into bed and closes his eyes against how the whole world won’t stop spinning. It’ll be better in the morning.
***
It isn’t better in the morning.
But it’s fine. Blearily, Lucas wills his eyes to focus on his phone screen. He really can’t miss school: they’ll call his father, and then his father will be angry, and his father can’t be angry at him because then he might not give Lucas rent money and Lucas really, really needs rent money. So he’ll go to school.
So he goes to school.
He can’t focus the entire day, and when he tries to talk the words stick in his throat. He can’t get warm, either, and eventually Yann notices and wraps his own scarf around Lucas’s throat. (God, Yann. Lucas almost misses being in love with him. It’s little things like this, little kindnesses, that would have made his heart flutter hopefully, but after the mess of last year, he’s never been able to feel the same. And he could never ask for a better friend.)
When Lucas gets home, he collapses into bed and sleeps until his alarm goes off the next morning.
It’ll be fine tomorrow.
***
Eliott notices on a Tuesday afternoon.
He’s passing through the mathematics hall (the hall where Lucas’s locker is) and he can’t help it – he looks for him. It’s a habit now anyway. It puts a smile on his face, usually, because Lucas is almost always laughing with his friends, or elbowing the tall curly-haired one in the ribs, or gesturing wildly. (In fact, Eliott can hear them now.) Or sometimes, on Eliott’s very favorite days, Lucas’s friends haven’t arrived down the hall yet, and Lucas is deep in thought, pensive, a little withdrawn and a lot more approachable, because Eliott recognizes that aloneness. (Eliott used to worry he was projecting, but now, after watching him a bit, he knows that Lucas’s face isn’t just pretty; it’s remarkably open.)
Today, though. Today Lucas’s friends are all gathered around him, as boisterous as ever; the one with glasses and the handsome black one teasing the curly-haired one mercilessly. But Lucas looks like he’s going to fall over.
He’s bundled to the point where it’s almost funny. His jaw is buried in a light blue scarf but his face above that is flushed noticeably flushed. His hands, when he tries to open his locker, are shaking.
“Let me,” Eliott hears one of his friends offer as he passes.
“Thanks,” Lucas says, voice so raw and tired that Eliott winces. “Just leave the lock open, it’s fine.”
Poor boy. Poor poor boy. It’s so soft and kind of gross, but Eliott wants to bundle him up in fleece and take him home. Eliott wants to tiptoe through his own apartment because Lucas is sleeping in his bed, because Lucas needs the sleep, until his fever breaks.
He’s only ever taken care of Lucille like that.
In their second year, she had gotten pneumonia in both lungs and it had scared the shit out of him. He was over at her parents’ place constantly, getting her tea, stroking her hair. Listening to her wheezing breath, he realized he had never felt so tender towards another person. Sympathy for her flowed through him like blood.
Six months ago, Eliott hadn’t wanted sympathy. He didn’t want to take his meds, he just wanted it all to be over.
Unfortunately, a suicide attempt isn’t something a person can just cough out.
Watching Lucille’s tenderness turn into tired pity turn into the detached responsibility of a caretaker hadn’t really been heartbreaking. It was just hard, and cold, and exhausting, and he was already so goddamn tired.
If Lucille got sick again, if she needed him again (which she doesn’t right now, he knows), he would still pick her tissues up off the floor and change the sheets. And maybe that tenderness would still pool high in his throat. But it would mostly be guilt, and some sick satisfaction at keeping the blinds shut.
This thing he feels for Lucas – that spark, that recognition – is exciting. The jolt in his chest that Eliott gets when he sees him or his friends or just blue eyes is something to look forward to. He doesn’t really know Lucas, as badly as he wants to, as hard as he’s tried to from such a distance. There’s safety in that. And Eliott had missed the butterflies that come with a crush, with peeking around corners for somebody, with thinking up meet-cutes where their eyes would meet and Lucas would feel it, too. That instant knowing-ness. All that potential is really a daydream, and Eliott knows it.
So this urge he feels to kiss the top of Lucas’s forehead and rub the goosebumps off his arms is surprising. Tenderness hasn’t factored into this until now. When Eliott realizes that’s what he’s feeling, he almost trips up the stairs.
But he can’t stop thinking about it.
He’s been listening to what Lucille tries not to say for so long that he’s started to doubt his own feelings. The pull he feels towards Lucas – just a simple crush. What he feels when he’s manic is stupid, impulsive, ridiculous. The depression is weak, embarrassing, dramatic.
But maybe there’s more to this than he thinks there is.
***
Lucas had thought the day could only go up from how he had woken up on Wednesday morning – late, not shivery now but gross and clammy on top of sore inside and out. He had ran to the bus stop and spent the whole ride wheezing softly, pathetically. When he had finally gotten to school, the halls were entirely empty, and now, now, as he rests his forehead against his locker door, he realizes that someone has been rooting around in his locker. All of his textbooks have been neatly stacked (a huge improvement from the haphazard system of shoving them around that he has perfected), and the half-eaten protein bar that had been floating around has been removed.
And whoever it was has left him something. The only thing that’s sketchy is that they had opened his locker in the first place, and Lucas is so out of it that he probably wouldn’t have realized if the to-go cup and Influenzium packets weren’t right on top of his (now perfectly arranged) textbooks.
When he does see it, though, it makes him smile. The only person he knows that is that kind is Yann, and he’s so lucky to have him.
He reaches for the cup and curls his cold hands around it – it’s still hot, and steaming, and what’s inside smells like lavender and chamomile… Which makes Lucas pause with the cup halfway to his mouth.
Yann and his mother both hate lavender anything to the point that they don’t allow it in the house.
Arthur had texted the group chat last night that he was sick, too, and taking the day off. And there’s just no way Basile would have been so thoughtful.
Loud as he and his friends are, as dramatic as last year had been – no one really notices Lucas. (Which isn’t a bad thing.) There are very few people that would notice how he’s feeling, sick as he is, and do something so simple and kind about it.
Maybe – Lucas’s chest twinges guiltily – Emma?
Lucas shuts his locker door, hinging it shut so it doesn’t actually lock, and sets off for class before he gets later than he already is.
That has to be it. No one else knows what number his locker is, or interacts with him enough to notice he’s sick in the first place.
Fuck. Well – they’re still kind of friends. Enough so that it doesn’t make this weird. And it wouldn’t be weird if he just accepted it and didn’t say anything about it, right?
It’s a little weird.
But Lucas has already started sipping at the tea, which is still just a little hot and feels perfect on his throat. So perfect, it makes him sigh in relief. And somewhere so deep inside of him he can ignore it, he’s been lit up with the knowledge that someone noticed; that someone cared.
And as he slips into class, he doesn’t notice a boy leaning across the corridor in the corner, smiling softly to himself before he turns to his own business.
***
It becomes, for the rest of the week, a little routine. Each morning, no matter how early Lucas gets to school, there’s tea waiting for him in his locker. He gets steadily better, until by Friday his throat is barely sore at all, and he locks his locker.
By the next week, Lucas has almost forgotten that anything out of the ordinary had happened at all, even if the smell of lavender makes him smile without realizing it. And that's all there is to it for a long time.
***
Two months later, Lucas is shivering in his sleepshirt as he minces through Eliott’s apartment, quiet as possible because Eliott is asleep, because Eliott needs the sleep.
It’s fairly early in the morning – the world is still gray and soft outside the windows, and Lucas feels the same. He’s glad to be here with Eliott, no matter how many times Eliott tells him he should go. (No matter how many times Eliott melts into his touch, or takes deep shuddering breaths with him, or sighs softly in his sleep.)
Lucas won’t go.
But besides that, he’s not sure what he should do. He knows what Lucille told him – be there, be calm – but it sounds easier over the phone than in practice. He doesn’t want to make Eliott feel like a baby. He just wants to make it easier, if he can. At least remind him that it’s all right if he feels alone, but he isn’t. Because Lucas is going to stay.
So he starts rooting around in the cupboards, not looking for anything in particular. Maybe a little something for Eliott to eat, if he feels up to it. Or –
Lucas bumps something off the shelf, and a box tumbles out of the pantry at his feet. With a soft curse, he stoops to pick it up. It isn’t anything breakable, thank God; just a mostly-empty box of lavender chamomile tea.
Lavender chamomile tea?
Lucas pauses and opens the box, holds it up to his nose, and breathes deep. Memories of a distant headache, and soft comfort, and the yellow of his locker surface gently. Memories of Eliott, smiling up at him that first morning, whispering, "I saw you on the first day of school...You were all I saw, actually."
Lucas’s throat tightens even as warmth spreads through his whole body. Quietly, he makes Eliott tea, pours it into a mug perfect for cradling, and tiptoes back into the bedroom.
Eliott is just barely starting to wake up, with his breathing changing and brow starting to furrow. Lucas sets the tea down on the nightstand and climbs back into bed, pulling Eliott’s naked back close to his chest.
“Good morning,” Lucas murmurs into the crook of Eliott’s neck.
“Good morning,” Eliott whispers, and his voice is rough and quiet.
Lucas wants to ask, How are you feeling?, but bites his tongue. Instead, he kisses Eliott’s shoulder soft enough to not be a kiss at all, and Eliott turns in bed to face him.
“Hey,” Lucas says quietly. Eliott’s face is completely blank, eyes puffy, hair greasy and more of a mess than usual. He isn’t beautiful like this, but he doesn’t have to be. And Lucas loves him. These are undeniable facts. “I made you tea. Want any?”
Eliott twists his mouth to the side. “Not really. I’m sorry.”
Lucas smoothes the crease between Eliott’s eyebrows. “You don’t have to be sorry, baby.”
“You’re taking care of me and I’m gross and cranky and fucking depressed, Lucas,” Eliott rasps with some venom. “I kind of have to be sorry.”
For a minute, they’re both quiet. Then Lucas scoots closer and presses their foreheads together. “Okay, so you’re cranky and depressed and a little gross.” Eliott huffs the ghost of a laugh, and Lucas continues, “But of course I’m going to take care of you. I take care of you, you take care of me. That’s what we do.”
Eliott closes his eyes. “When have I ever taken care of you?”
Lucas smiles. “Well, there was this one time a few months ago when I was really sick, and I thought no one noticed. And then one morning, someone did.”
“Oh, really?” Lucas notices that Eliott has stilled. He runs a hand down Eliott’s back.
“Eliott,” he starts, and has to stop. Quieter, more serious – “You’re so kind, and so giving. Always. And to me. You took care of me before I even knew your name. That’s how good you are. So, so good.”
Carefully, Lucas draws away to better look Eliott in the eyes. Seeing how Eliott’s have started to spill over silently, Lucas cups his face in his hands.
Eliott whispers, “What if I hadn’t noticed you were sick?”
“In some alternate universe, maybe you didn’t,” Lucas says. “But if I didn’t die of a fever and sore throat” – here Eliott smirks a little, against his will – “I still love you in that one. Just like I love you in this one. And that’s why I’m here. Because I want to and I love you. And I can tell you that by taking care of you, and staying with you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know. Just like you didn’t have to take care of me all the times that you have.”
They look at each other, remembering: Eliott leading Lucas onto the bus, pulling Lucas into a side-alley, walking him home, tugging him forward. Giving him strength when he can. Giving him love when he can, without need for recognition or recompense, because he can.
Because that’s what they do.
“But what if – ” Eliott starts, and Lucas interrupts, gently wiping under his eyes.
“I have an idea.”
“Dangerous,” Eliott whispers, and Lucas beams at him.
“You’d know, huh? But listen. Here’s my idea: only look as far into the future as you need to. I want to be with you, and you want to be with me. And that’s what matters right now – that we’re together, right now.”
“What if I can only look into the next minute?” Eliott asks, bare. Lucas’s heart breaks with tenderness for another countless time.
“Then we’ll take it minute by minute.”
“Minute by minute,” Eliott echoes, and closes his eyes. Takes a breath. Gives the ghost of a smile. "Okay. For the next minute - I request a kiss good morning. And then another minute to breathe. And then," he continues, opening his eyes, catching the first real light of morning over Lucas's face, "maybe some tea. We'll see. You were so nice to make it for me, after all."
He brings his hands to finally pull Lucas into him, touch him back for the first time this morning, and Lucas feels something settle. Eliott tilts his head up, and Lucas smiles, quick and bright, and goes, more than willing.