Jeremy wasn’t sure when he’d last slept, but it didn’t matter. Very little seemed to matter from the chair he’d pulled into the bedroom, where he could sit and watch and fret over the unconscious form of his boyfriend. While he was awake, he could make sure that Baz was breathing. While he was awake, he could make sure nothing else went wrong. A lot had already gone wrong. Bodies weren’t supposed to look the way Baz’s had when he’d found him at St. Mungo’s. Bodies weren’t supposed to undergo that sort of trauma.
Jeremy wasn’t supposed to have to keep trying to save the people that he loved.
A part of him was worried that if he looked away, he’d find that he hadn’t managed to save Baz either. So he sat and he watched and he waited from his place perched on his chair, eyes studying every rise and fall of Baz’s chest for any sign of something not being quite right.
Eventually, Baz’s breathing picked up as he began to stir. When he opened his eyes, the room swam and wobbled in front of him. Everything ached and throbbed, and it only seemed to intensify with every breath. The lights in the room were low, set for sleeping in the semi-dark, and it took him a moment to notice there was another figure in the room.
“I’m not dead, right?” he mumbled through a woolen tongue. “Because I expected the afterlife to have like, sexy angels and stuff.”
Jeremy stared for a beat, letting out a breath that he didn’t realize he was holding before he got off the chair and went over to the bed. “I guess you’ll have to find out about that some other time,” he said quietly as he cast a few diagnostic spells against the relief that he was almost ready to let himself feel. “For now you’re still stuck with me. How’s the pain?”
“I feel like I was run over by several trucks,” Baz groaned, slowly moving a stiff and protesting arm to wipe the sleep from his eyes. A smile flickered in the corners of his mouth before he remembered Max’s threat. Fear and panic gripped him suddenly, twisting his features. “Is Nora okay?” He tried to sit up and failed miserably, shoulders shifting uselessly against the sheets. “He said he knew where she was, we have to warn them—”
“She’s fine. He lied. Don’t try to sit up yourself.” His tone was measured and clinical as he frowned, parts of the puzzle slowly starting to snap into place. But Jeremy didn’t ask what happened as he moved around the room, fetching potions and a glass of water before moving back to Baz’s side. There was an overwhelming feeling of something he couldn’t seem to quite name — some terrible mix of relief and panic and fear and anger and whatever else a person could feel trying to bubble its way to the surface.
Jeremy did his best to stamp it down.
“You’ll feel better after you drink this.”
“Okay.” It took a considerable amount of effort to reach for the potion, but that small amount of pain would be worth the relief he felt later on. Baz looked up at Jeremy as he sipped at the potion, relief and gratitude evident in his eyes. Then, once the vial was completely drained, he offered Jeremy a weak smile. “Have you been playing healer while I’ve been out? That’s not nearly as fun.”
“You nearly died. It hasn’t been fun for anyone.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, too many hours of worry and exhaustion fraying at his nerves. He let out a breath, running a hand through his hair. “Sorry. I’m — sorry. You’ve got plenty of me playing healer ahead of you and I don’t think any of it’s going to be the fun kind.”
“I’m sorry for worrying you. For worrying everyone, I mean.” Baz exchanged the potion vial for the glass of water, slowly sipping at it and letting the water run down his throat. A hand that felt like dead weight reached for Jeremy’s. “So what happened?”
“Max made me fetch you at Mungo’s. You’d have to fill me in on what happened before that,” Jeremy said, his voice cracking slightly though he tried to cover by clearing his throat. He took Baz’s hand, his thumb gently moving over the skin while being careful not to hold it too tightly. A part of him wanted to. A part of him wanted nothing more than to hold onto him tightly and fiercely, as solid proof that he wasn’t going anywhere.
Baz let out a slow exhale. “He told me he knew where Nora was. That if I didn’t meet him in Hogsmeade, he’d go after her. And he told me not to tell anyone.” He parted his lips to continue but couldn’t think of anything to say. I’m sorry or I was stupid didn’t seem to do the situation justice. No explanation or apology seemed adequate.
“I should’ve told you,” he admitted.
Jeremy didn’t think he had it in him to be angry. Not now, not yet, not when all he wanted was to be glad that Baz was okay. “Yeah, babe. You should’ve,” he said softly. “But we don’t have to do this now. We can talk about this later. We will talk about this later, I just—” He paused, taking a deep breath. “When you’re feeling up to it, you should call your sister. Your mum too. They’ll be relieved to hear from you.”
But, after a grudging moment of silence as the words processed just a bit more and the pieces of the puzzle snapped even further into clarity, “You really should’ve told me.”
“I wrote a letter explaining everything in case I didn’t, you know.” Baz let his eyes close for two beats. “Come back.”
There was a lengthy moment of silence as Jeremy stood there, trying to process. “You wrote a letter,” he repeated, his voice sounding strangled. “You decided to potentially walk to your death and you wrote me a fucking letter?”
The words tumbled out in a rush: “I thought my sister was in trouble. I thought telling someone could put her in danger.” Baz tried to meet Jeremy’s eye but couldn’t. Instead, he stared up at the ceiling. “And I’m sorry, Jeremy, but it seemed like the only thing I could do at the time.”
Jeremy took a deep breath, closing his eyes against the hot burning feeling that was building up behind them. He opened his mouth to reply but he closed it again, because he didn’t know what to say. There had been too many hours full of too many emotions, now probably wasn’t the time to say anything at all.
Letting go of Baz’s hand, Jeremy grabbed at the empty potions vial. “You should rest. I’ll check on you in a little bit. Give you another of these.”
“Jeremy, wait.” Baz hated how weak he sounded — how weak he felt — as he attempted to sit up again. “I’m really sorry. And… you know, thank you. For saving me.”
“You’re going to hurt yourself if you keep trying to sit up like that,” Jeremy said, his voice strained again as he avoided eye contact, furiously trying to blink away tears that he didn’t want and weren’t fair. “Just sleep, Baz. You’ll feel better. I don’t want to talk about this now.”
“Oh.” Baz let himself sink back onto the pillow with a soft groan. “All right.”
There was more he wanted to say, more apologies he wanted to make. He wanted to tell Jeremy that he didn’t think he could sleep without him at his side, that he would feel his absence like a cold ache. But when he closed his eyes, the pull of sleep was too hard to resist.