Who: Ezra and Archer When: late morning, Monday, Jan 22nd Where: home Status: Complete
Archer felt good. Really good, which was kind of odd for him. There were times when he had plenty of energy, sure, but his mood wasn’t always the greatest. For the past couple of days though ... he’d been on an uptick. Which made it even more annoying that Ezra was so tired lately. Archer could only assume he was coming down with some sort of illness, but he hadn’t been sneezing or coughing or anything, and they’d checked his temperature a few times and it was normal. He was just tired, he kept saying. Like that mattered. There was so much to do! And so much of it was boring to do alone.
He’d gotten up early and done some chores around the house, just to have something to do. Archer’s work was mostly remote, consulting for firms that existed in bigger and better places than Point Pleasant. He’d told everyone he was taking a break to care for his partner, but in all honesty he was just finding work to be more and more boring. There was a restlessness inside of him, pushing against his insides, and he hadn’t quite found what would sate it yet. He just knew it wasn’t lazing around in bed all day like Ezra was currently doing.
Archer made it to almost eleven in the morning before his frustration boiled over. He abandoned the dusting in the living room he’d been doing and stalked to the bedroom. Archer opened the door and stepped halfway in, his brow furrowed. “Are you still sleeping?” he asked, loud enough that if Ezra had been sleeping, he wasn’t anymore.
Ezra didn’t know what was wrong with him. He’d been sleeping more and more lately, his ability to do anything else dwindling day by day. He didn’t feel sick exactly, just exhausted, and no amount of sleep seemed enough to get him moving again. At first he’d fought against it, drank all the coffee he could, pushed through going to work, and tried to pretend everything was normal, but now he couldn’t even fathom getting out of bed. As much as he wanted to say it was nothing, it was starting to scare him how weak he was and there didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it.
When Archer spoke, Ezra opened his eyes, the only sign that he was awake. “I’m tired,” he sighed softly and clutched the covers tighter, curling in on himself. “I think something’s wrong with me.” He wanted to say more, but it took so much energy to even say that. His brain was foggy and trying to come up with the words to describe what he was feeling was just too hard. Archer had to know this wasn’t normal. He had to get some help.
Oftentimes Archer felt like his boyfriend was too clingy. He dealt with it, because he wanted to keep the relationship, but it was sometimes aggravating when Ezra seemed incapable of entertaining himself. Now things felt all backwards -- Archer was the one who wanted to be around him all the time. It was annoying that he slept so much now, and wouldn’t get up to keep Archer company when Archer actually wanted him there. He saw the way Ezra curled and crossed the room to the bed, crawling onto it without worrying about how much he was jostling his boyfriend. Archer pressed the inside of his wrist against Ezra’s forehead to check for a fever. There wasn’t one. “You’re fine,” he told him. “And you haven’t been puking or anything. Just get up, I’ll make you some coffee.” Archer put a hand on Ezra’s hip and shook him a little. There was a small, faraway part of him that knew this wasn’t normal, but it was easy to ignore. Ezra was just being lazy.
“I’m not fine,” Ezra whined pitifully, his hand falling limp back to the bed as soon as Archer released it. “I don’t want coffee. Just leave me alone.” It was something he’d have never said to Archer outside of a fight and there was certainly no fight in him now. He cringed when Archer shook him and held the covers tighter, worried his boyfriend might try to force him out of bed. Ezra would have loved to entertain him, but now just thinking about it was tiring. He could barely even keep his eyes open to do something as simple as watching TV. “You should call a doctor or… something.” He realized there wasn’t much Archer could say except that he was tired, but it felt like more than that. He was too tired to function, like getting out of bed might actually kill him.
Even though he wasn’t getting up, just being around an awake Ezra was making Archer feel better. He was being a whiny little bitch, of course, but Archer’s mood was steadily lightening so it didn’t seem to matter as much. “Aw c’mon,” he murmured with a little tsk. He pulled the covers back momentarily and slipped in under them, cuddling up to Ezra’s back to spoon him. Archer kissed the back of his neck a bit and slipped his arm around him. “You’ve been sleeping since like, yesterday, I miss you.” He stroked his hand down Ezra’s hip and thigh, then gave the top of his shoulder a little nuzzle. “Bet I can really wake you up,” he added suggestively, pressing his crotch against Ezra’s ass. Fucking almost always put Ezra in a better mood, maybe it would inspire him to get up.
On a normal day, Ezra would’ve pressed back against Archer, his arousal stirring even if he was still half asleep. He’d never minded being woken up to a handsy boyfriend, but today Ezra just whined and flicked his hand, the most he could find the energy to do. “Get off me,” he muttered, attempting to pull away, while still barely moving. He missed Archer too and he loved the cuddles, but couldn’t even fathom having sex right now. He wasn’t in the mood and doubted he would be until whatever was wrong with him passed. “Please, Arch. I need help,” he said, eyes falling closed again. Begging usually worked on his boyfriend, though he’d never tried it outside of sex. It tended to hurt his own pride, but he could put that aside if it somehow got through to Archer. “Please.”
Archer never liked his advances being rebuffed, and today it felt extra egregious. Here he was, doing everything while Ezra was just sleeping the days away, and he couldn’t even get laid for it? He huffed and pulled back a bit, though he kept his hand on Ezra’s hip. Archer glared at him for a moment, but he kept his eyes closed. “What help?” he asked incredulously. “You’re gonna go to the doctor and whine about being tired to them? Nothing else is wrong with you, you’re fine.” He gave a little scoff and rolled his eyes. Ezra didn’t have a fever, he hadn’t vomited, Archer was pretty sure there was nothing bad coming out the other end either ... why waste a doctor’s time with that? Besides, then Archer would have to drive him, and sit around and wait and it would just take all day. “Look, okay ... one more hour, you can sleep. Then I’ll bring coffee to you and you can wake up, sound good?” He firmly patted Ezra’s ass. “You gotta move around, you'll feel better.”
Ezra told himself that Archer was being so flippant because he didn’t understand how bad it was, how he wasn’t just tired. He wasn’t even sure he could get up if he had to. The last time he’d gone to the bathroom it had taken every ounce of his energy and if he had to go again he might have to crawl there. That wasn’t just being tired. There was something seriously wrong, and yet the work it would take to explain was exhausting in itself. “One more hour,” he said, closing his eyes. “If I don’t get up, just… call for help, okay?” Coffee had helped a few days ago, but at this point he doubted it would make a difference. And he couldn’t get up and move. Once Archer saw that, he’d understand. He had to.
He really wanted to just roll Ezra out of bed at that second and see how much he woke up when he hit the ground, but Archer had granted him another hour, so ... another hour it would be. He left the bedroom and went back to cleaning to keep himself occupied, but kept an eye on the clock. By the time the next hour rolled around, Archer had almost convinced himself that Ezra would be fine now, and he would get up and be fine. And if he didn’t? Archer didn’t know what he would do. Be pissed. He made a mug of Ezra’s favorite coffee in the Keurig and carried it with him back to the bedroom. “Wakey wakey,” he murmured as he walked in. Ezra was still just a lump under the covers. Archer set the coffee on the nightstand and perched on the edge of the bed next to his boyfriend. He brushed some hair off of Ezra’s forehead. “It’s been an hour.”
The second Archer left Ezra, he’d fallen back into a deep dreamless sleep and coming out of that wasn’t near as easy as going in. Each time his boyfriend tried to rouse him it got harder to wake and this time Ezra didn’t even open his eyes. At first he didn’t even move, the only sign of life being his heavy breathing, but then he leaned just slightly into Archer’s touch. He could hear him, but it was as if there was a blanket of heavy fog over both his body and brain. It was just so hard to move, to even stir, and all he wanted to do was go back to sleep. Just five more minutes and he might feel better. But if he didn’t… Ezra couldn’t remember why that would be such a problem anymore.
He wasn’t even waking up at all now, and irrational irritation flashed through Archer. He knew somewhere, back in the far recesses of his mind, that something wasn’t right with Ezra, but it was impossible to pay attention to through the noise of everything else. He wanted what he wanted, and it was too difficult to think around that. “Ezra,” Archer said, his voice firmer and louder. He patted Ezra’s cheek, though it was closer to a smack than not. “Ezra, wake the fuck up.” A petulant anger was stirring in him -- Ezra was doing this on purpose, he felt sure of it. Even if that didn’t make any sense, it had to be true. “Are you avoiding me? Wake up.” Archer shook him a little, his jaw clenched. “People are trying to kill me and you’re just fucking sleeping? Come on!”
All Ezra could do was clutch the blankets to himself just a bit tighter and hope that a little bit more sleep might help because it didn’t sound like Archer was going to do shit about it. It would be far more upsetting if he had the strength to be properly upset. Even the little smack barely earned a flinch. Through his daze, he wondered who was trying to kill Archer and why, but the energy to be properly worried about his boyfriend had passed. All he could seem to do was lay there and hope that Archer found something else to entertain himself for a while. Then maybe he could get a good night’s sleep and things might improve. If they didn’t, then he hoped Archer had the common sense to call a doctor. At this point, he could only hope.
Archer’s hands flexed and he had the sudden urge to throw Ezra completely out of bed and kick him a few times, see if that brought him around. He’d never actually gotten violent with him beyond pushing some boundaries during sex, but that itch to hurt him was strong. To really get his attention. He knew how much Ezra would whine about that though. He made a disgusted noise and abruptly got up, not caring how much he jostled his incapacitated boyfriend. “Fine, fuck you then,” he muttered sourly as he stalked toward the bedroom door. If Ezra wasn’t even going to try, then he was done with him. He would just go out and do something on his own, maybe even all day long, and if Ezra cried about it later, he would really get pissed. Archer didn’t care. Archer didn’t care about much of anything anymore.