Chapter Text
Three weeks into the summer term, Reece breaks his wrist.
It happens during class, of course it does. Their tutors love giving them improv exercises that are designed to either psychologically or physically humiliate them, and Reece is currently pretending to be a strong ocean wave when Ben Thompson, the other wave, trips over a girl pretending to be sand and steps on Reece’s left wrist.
Reece isn’t an expert, but he knows the audible crack and the sharp pain shooting up his arm can’t be good. Nevertheless, it takes everyone a minute or so to notice, because they just assume his scream of agony is him being a seagull.
“I did mean to tell you that seagulls don’t sound like that,” his tutor informs him helpfully as he walks out the room, trying not to jostle his wrist too much, and Ben pops up by his other side to say, “Great flailing about, though, mate. Very wave-like.”
“Thanks,” Reece says, before telling them that he can make his own way to the bus station.
Bretton Hall doesn’t have its own GP, so he has to go to the hospital in Wakefield, where he spends four hours in the waiting room, gets an X-ray, and has to wait another two hours to be told that his wrist is, indeed, broken.
“Come back in six weeks so we can take off your cast,” the doctor says and, obviously trying to cheer him up, adds, “At least it wasn’t your right hand, eh?”
“I’m left-handed, actually,” Reece jokes, but it falls flat, because the doctor then gives him a pamphlet about learning to take notes with his non-dominant hand.
Overall, it’s been a pretty shit day so far, and the worst thing about it is that by the time he’s allowed to leave, the busses aren’t running anymore, so he has to walk through half of Wakefield before starting the traditional 3-mile trek across the field to Bretton Hall.
He arrives on campus well after midnight, tired and sweaty and belatedly realising he forgot to go to the pharmacy at the hospital to get some paracetamol at least, and when he gets to his room, he’s so exhausted that he doesn’t even manage to change his clothes before he falls sleep.
He wakes the next morning to someone hammering on his door. It’s Saturday, but that’s apparently not stopping Steve from waking the whole corridor with his knocking.
“Reece, open up!” he shouts again, just as Reece rips open the door and stares at him, unimpressed.
“What d’you want?”
“Oh,” Steve says, eyes roaming over him and zeroing in on the cast. “I wasn’t sure you were home.”
“So you decided to wake everyone up just for a laugh?”
“I was worried,” Steve says, which is almost certainly a lie.
They’ve known each other for three months, and he’s never once expressed worry over Reece’s wellbeing. Normally, he’s the one actively causing Reece to be less well, like last week, when he tried to teach him how to smoke until they had to stop because Reece was coughing so badly.
Reece crosses his arms, or at least attempts to. Not easy with the cast. “Were you? Why?”
“Mark heard that you got injured in class and had to go to hospital, and when we came to see if you were alright last night, you weren’t there,” Steve says accusingly.
“Oh,” Reece says, oddly touched that they attempted to check up on him. “Yeah, I was probably not even halfway across the field at that point. Sorry.”
“Next time, come find me first. I’ll go with you, alright? Bit of company, just to make sure you don’t slip in the mud and die.”
“Fine,” Reece says. He doesn’t plan to break another bone while he’s at college, so it’s an easy promise to make. Besides, he’s fairly sure Steve is just being polite.
To him, it feels like the conversation has reached its natural conclusion, but Steve doesn’t leave. Instead, he says, “Do you want to put on a mask, sneak into Mark’s room and go stand over his bed until he wakes up?”
Reece laughs. “He’ll piss himself,” he says, which is as good of an agreement as any.
Steve waits for him in the corridor until he’s changed, and it occurs to Reece, struggling into a fresh pair of jeans with only one working hand, that when he first approached Steve after that play three months ago, even in his most daring dreams he would have never imagined this.
*
When Reece invites his friends to come to his graduation, Mark is the one he calls first.
He doesn’t really know why, but Mark’s always felt – easier, somehow. Easier to befriend, easier to talk to, easier to make laugh. He never worries if a joke will land when he’s around Mark, whereas during those first couple of months of knowing Steve, every joke had felt like an insurmountable risk.
He’d approached Steve first, after the performance had ended, and he still remembers how puzzled Steve had been. Polite, yes, nice, sure, but plainly surprised that this nameless 1st year was talking to him. Mark, on the other hand, had been delighted to encounter Reece in the canteen, where Reece had circled Mark’s table about four times, unable to make up his mind on how to strike up a conversation.
“Reeson, was it?” Mark had asked, gesturing at an empty chair, and Reece had wanted to die on the spot, mortified that he’d been caught out. “Would you like to join me? Fair warning, though, the meat pie is ghastly.”
Reece had put down his tray with the questionable meat pie and sat down across from Mark. “How do you know my name?”
“It came to me in a vision,” Mark had replied solemnly. “You’d better start eating, it’s even worse when it’s cold.”
“Lift off the top crust, Mrs Wrankley, and you’ll soon see something of Mr Wrankley,” Reece said, poking at the pie with his fork, and then looked up, surprised and pleased to see Mark laughing.
Over two years later, Reece presses the numbers on one of the three payphones on campus, occasionally glancing down at his notebook to check that he’s written it down correctly, and waits for the call to connect, feeling oddly nervous. It’s been a while since he’s talked to Mark, and he worries that he’s forgotten how.
To his surprise, Mark agrees to come immediately, and he also mentions Steve without Reece having to bring him up first.
“I fear Steve won’t join us,” he says. “Has he already told you what he’s doing this summer?”
“No, we haven’t really- no.” Reece is suddenly desperate not to let Mark know exactly how little contact him and Steve have had. Of course, Reece and Mark haven’t been in touch much, either. It’s hard, with them living in London and him still being in college. They all knew this would happen. Doesn’t mean it feels good, though.
“He’s going to Germany,” Mark says. “Educational theatre.”
Reece snorts. “You mean he couldn’t find work in London?”
“Precisely.”
Reece laughs again, carefully not allowing himself to think about the fact that if Steve, the best actor he knows, isn’t getting roles, Reece’s chances are near zero. “Fine. You’ll come, though?” It’s meant to sound casual. It comes out needy.
Mark, though, doesn’t comment on it. He just says, “Naturally. I wouldn’t dare miss it.”
After they’ve hung up, Reece agonises over whether to call Steve anyway, now that he knows he won’t come. It already feels too much like showing his hand, letting Steve know that he’d like him to be there, in a way it hadn’t with Mark. Reece has always been terrible at poker.
In the end, what wins out is the fact that he hasn’t spoken to Steve since Christmas, and this is as good an excuse as any to hear his voice.
“Little Reeson phoning from school,” Steve crows as soon as Reece says hello, his tone becoming lecherous and mocking. “Are the other boys being mean to you again?”
Reece’s hand tightens around the receiver. “No,” he says flatly, “’cause they graduated and moved to London.”
“That’s right! Do you miss us yet?”
“No,” Reece lies. “Anyway, Mark said you’re fucking off to Germany soon, so clearly you’ve lost your mind, anyway.”
“Why is Mark gossiping about me?” Steve asks. “And why are you talking to Mark and not me?”
“Talking to you now, aren’t I?”
“True! So, to what do I owe the honour of this call?”
Reece opens his mouth, only to hesitate. He shouldn’t have mentioned Mark, shouldn’t have said that he knows about the educational theatre project. But it’s too late, and he can’t think of a way to salvage this. “I wanted to ask if you- Mark didn’t know when you’d be leaving, so. In case you’re still here by then, I thought you might want to- but, obviously it’s a long train ride, so it’s fine if you’re busy-“
“Reece,” Steve interrupts impatiently, “spit it out.”
Reece takes a deep breath. “Do you want to come to my graduation next month? July 14th.”
The silence that follows can’t last longer than a second, but it’s enough for Reece to know what Steve is going to say – and, like he’s been doing since they met, he hastens to meet him in the middle.
“It’s fine,” he says quickly. “Mark’s coming, and my parents, and- yeah. It’s fine.”
“I would if I could.” Steve sounds genuinely regretful. “It’s just I’ll already be on tour, and-“
“Yeah, I know. I get it.”
There’s another silence, during which Reece has time to imagine seven different scenarios that all end up in Steve ending their friendship and hanging up on him, and then Steve says, “You could join us, you know. If you wanted.”
“What? Join you in Germany?”
“Why not? We’ll only have been there a week by the time you graduate. You could get on a plane and meet us there. Oliver would be thrilled to have you.” Steve says all of this in the sweet, cajoling tones of a practiced liar.
Reece knows this, has witnessed first-hand how good Steve is at convincing people of something, and still he can’t help but wish, just for a moment, that he really could get on a plane and meet Steve in Germany.
Then reality sets in, and it’s twofold: for one, Reece is pretty sure this Oliver would not be as enthusiastic about some random no-name actor join them for an eight-week trip in a cramped van as Steve claims, and for another-
“I can’t. I’m doing an internship with Chris Tucker.”
He can practically hear Steve’s frown at the other end of the line. “That makeup guy you keep going on about?”
Reece smiles. This, at long last, is something he’s achieved. He tells Steve about the letter, about Tucker’s offer to come to his house and learn the craft of creating the iconic face masks Tucker revolutionised, and he leaves out how eagerly he accepted, how desperate he’d been to get an offer in anything, but Steve probably hears it, anyway.
“Well, if those masks give you nightmares, the offer stands,” Steve says. “Otherwise, I’ll bring home a bratwurst for you.”
Reece shudders, then makes a loud gagging noise for Steve’s benefit. “Thanks.”
A few weeks later, on a warm day in July, Reece’s mum makes him and Mark pose for a picture, Reece in his graduation robes, Mark in a smart suit, and Mark bends down to whisper in his ear, “Steve was rather forlorn that you declined his offer, by the way. Apparently, he’d already discussed it with the director. You may have to give in next year, if he goes again, just so he can save face.”
Reece smiles just in time for the flash.
*
Reece flees Tucker’s 18th-century manor in the middle of the night, after waking up and having the odd feeling of every single mask in the room, finished and unfinished, staring at him.
He packs his bags, scribbles down a quick note of apology with some made-up emergency and leaves. The manor is a long trek away from Newbury, the nearest town, and Reece, his bag slung over his shoulder, starts it without looking back.
It’s a warm night, but it’s also pitch black. No one thought to install streetlights along the long country road he’s walking on, and so he just stumbles about in the dark, hoping it’s true that wolves are extinct in the UK.
By the time he makes it to the railway station, the sky is already painted in the colours of dawn. The man at the ticket office asks him where he’s headed, and Reece, Hull already on the tip of his tongue, replies, “One ticket to London, please.”
The man behind the counter accepts his money and hands him a ticket in return, and then, taking in Reece’s appearance – sweaty, bags under his eyes, slightly manic – says kindly, “Are you sure, son? In my experience, running away never solves anything.”
“’m not running away,” Reece says, his face burning, both at the accusation and at his accent slipping out. He’s never felt more irredeemably Northern than in these last three months. “Anyway,” he adds, embarrassment giving way to irritation, “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
“It’s just a bit of friendly advice. Up to you to take it or leave it.”
“I think I’ll leave it, thanks,” Reece snaps, snatches the ticket off the counter and talks away in the direction of the tracks, quietly fuming.
He’s not running away, obviously, or at least he’s not running away from anything more consequential than an internship with a gloomy aging makeup artist, but he doesn’t exactly have a plan, either. He spends the two-hour journey looking out the window, his nerves too frayed to allow for a nap, even though exhaustion is starting to set in.
He doesn’t know where Mark and Steve live, and the only other person he knows in London is his cousin Lisa, who did something so scandalous his parents always refused to discuss her. He doesn’t know her address, either.
When he arrives at Paddington station, he agonises over who to call – Steve, who’s probably still in Germany, or Mark, who’s got better things to do than to babysit Reece? He’s already decided on Mark, flipping through his notebook to find the number, when he remembers something.
Next time, come find me first. I’ll go with you, alright? Bit of company, just to make sure you don’t slip in the mud and die.
Following a sudden impulse, he goes to the payphone and rings Steve instead.
“Hello?” Steve says, sounding like he was still asleep a minute ago. “Who’s this?”
Reece takes a deep breath. “Why aren’t you in Germany?”
“Reece!” Steve exclaims, delighted. “Why aren’t you helping that geezer make masks in Berkshire?”
“I was,” Reece says, “until eight hours ago.”
He imagines Steve glancing at a clock. It’s just gone past 11 in the morning. “Alright,” Steve says carefully. “So where are you now?”
“London.”
“London! Where?”
“Paddington station.”
“Alright, I’ll be there in an hour.” Steve, presumably to not give Reece a chance to protest, hangs up. The truth is that Reece likely wouldn’t have protested, anyway – he’s got nowhere to go, he’s almost out of money, and also, he really wants to see Steve.
True to his word, Steve arrives an hour later, two takeaway cups in his hand. He looks Reece up and down and puts on an exaggerated frown. “I don’t see it.”
“See what?” Reece asks, trying to make a grab for one of the cups, only for Steve to move it out of his reach.
“The luggage tag! ‘Please look after this bear.’”
“Very funny,” Reece says, now managing to capture Steve’s wrist, his fingers curling around it and forcing it towards him until he can take the cup. Steve howls and shakes out his hand, which is ridiculous, because Reece really didn’t grip him that hard.
“A ‘thank you’ would be nice,” Steve muses as he lifts Reece’s bag from the floor and slings it over his own shoulder before leading the way to the underground.
“For the drink? I don’t even like coffee,” Reece says, unimpressed.
“And yet you felt you had to bruise me to get it.”
“I thought it was tea!”
“Stop drinking it, then,” Steve says, and Reece downs half the cup out of spite and promptly burns his mouth. Steve is still laughing at him when they get on the train.
At Steve’s flat, Steve proceeds to set about the next steps with military-like efficiency: he bullies his one flatmate into lending Reece his sleeping mat and his other flatmate into lending him a spare blanket and a towel, and then he orders Reece to take a shower while he makes them both lunch. By the time Reece emerges from the bathroom, Steve’s flatmate’s towel wrapped around his waist, less than thirty minutes have passed since they got here.
“You can borrow some clothes, if you like,” Steve says, eyes roaming over Reece’s exposed torso for only a split second before he refocuses on the sandwiches he’s preparing. His lack of interest is as obvious as it is expected, but Reece still feels it like a physical blow.
That’s the other reason why he was, on the one hand, reluctant to ring Steve, and on the other hand desperate to see him.
The realisation came to him during those long hours of being alone in a cramped room with only masks for company. It’d drive anyone mad, that. Perhaps that’s why, after a few weeks, he’d sometimes feel like he saw Steve’s head on those shelves, looking at him, judging him.
Reece shakes his head, pushing those thoughts away as he heads to Steve’s room to find some clothes that actually fit him, with limited success. He ends up in joggers and a t-shirt, both too big. He looks like a boy playing dress-up, and when he wanders back into the kitchen, Steve laughs at him again.
“So,” he says, once Reece has given him an abridged version of his aborted internship, “that means you’re moving here, then, are you?”
Said like that, with Steve’s unshakable confidence, what felt like a confusing well of possibilities a second ago, all of them hopeless, suddenly reshapes itself into a clear road right in front of Reece’s eyes. Is he moving here? Steve certainly seems to think so.
Where to, son?
“Yeah,” he says, the words coming as naturally to him as one ticket to London, please had a few hours ago when he’d meant to say Hull. “I am.”
“Good! It’s about time. We’ve missed you, me and Mark.”
“Really?” Reece blurts out before he can stop himself.
Steve laughs. “’Course we have! You didn’t think we’d just forget about you the minute we graduated, did you?”
“No, of course not,” Reece says, unable to keep the uncertainty from bleeding into his voice. Steve hears it immediately, still able to read him even after a year of not seeing each other.
“Aw, little Reeson,” he says, reaching over the table to ruffle Reece’s hair, “what little faith you have in us.”
“Get off!”
Steve’s fingers tighten their grip, just for a second, causing sharp pain to shoot through his scalp. Then he retreats, smiling like nothing has happened, while Reece tries futilely to smooth his curls back into place. “You’ve grown out your hair,” Steve comments. “It suits you.”
“Stop it,” Reece says, annoyed. “It’s bad enough that my eyebrows are trying to merge if I don’t shave them every day. Makes me look like a tramp. I forgot to go to the hairdresser’s, is all.”
“Well, I think you should keep the curls. You look cute.”
“I look like a girl,” Reece corrects. “Except it’s a girl with stubble and a monobrow.”
“Suit yourself,” Steve says, his gaze lingering on Reece’s throat for a moment, where he’d nicked himself shaving yesterday. Reece’s hand shoots up to cover the mark and Steve blinks, shaking his head and clapping his hands decisively. “Anyway! Eat up. We can worry about finding you a flat tomorrow. Tonight, let’s go out to celebrate.”
*
Eight months after Reece moves to London for no other reason than that Steve assumed that he would, him and Steve go to a pub and Steve asks him, again, to come to Germany with him.
“What’re you asking me for, anyway?” Reece demands. “Why aren’t you asking Mark?”
“’Cause I’m asking you,” Steve says. “You haven’t named one single good reason why not.”
Reece takes another sip of beer and shudders, mournfully noting how much of it there’s still left. “’Cause I don’t fancy driving around in a van for months on end-“
“-you can’t drive, anyway! You’d be driven. We’d drive you.”
“-acting out ridiculous plays for a bunch of kids who probably won’t understand a word we’re saying-“
“-their English is better than your German-“
“-and even if I had a passport, which I don’t-“
“-alright, so we’ll get you a passport-“
“-I still don’t understand why you can’t just let me stay home! You know I don’t like talking to people. What makes you think I would want to join a theatre group?” Reece asks exasperatedly.
Steve smiles the smile of a man who knows he’s won. He’d worn the same smile last night, when Reece had used two of his scrabble tiles to turn slow into slower without realising that this left an opportunity for Steve to make use of the triple word score.
“You like talking to me, though, don’t you, Reece?”
“I don’t,” Reece says crossly.
Steve laughs and finishes his pint in one go, setting it down on the table with a heavy clunk. “You do! So listen to me when I tell you that it’s an opportunity to see a bit of Europe, and it pays alright, and also, I know for a fact that you don’t have other plans, so you’re not getting out of it this year.”
Reece frowns at his own pint, still half-full, then holds on to it when Steve tries to take it from him. “That’s mine!”
“You’re not drinking it!”
Reece childishly attempts to down it like Steve did, only to choke, his throat closing compulsively against the stale liquid. “A passport’s twenty quid,” he mutters, not even caring anymore that by doing so, he’s letting on that he already went and looked it up. “’s too much.”
“I’ll ask Oliver,” Steve says without missing a beat. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to cover the cost if it means having you onboard.”
Reece snorts. “I very much doubt that.”
“I’m serious,” Steve says. “So, if the company pays for your passport, you’ll do it?”
“I didn’t say that,” Reece says, although at this point, he’s not totally sure that it’s true. Steve has turned wearing him down into an artform.
“You-“ Steve frowns suddenly, and it takes Reece a second to realise that a guy has wandered up to their table. “Can we help you?”
The guy isn’t looking at Steve, his eyes focused on Reece. He points at the abandoned pint and smiles. “Not a big fan of beer, I take it?”
“No,” Reece says, wondering why on earth a stranger would think it’s in any way okay to come talk to him.
“How about I get you a drink you actually like? Anything you want.”
Reece tilts his head and frowns. “I’m okay, thanks. I’ve still got some of this left.” Across from him, Steve chokes on air, which is the least helpful thing he’s ever done.
“Are you sure?” The guy briefly glances at Steve, who’s now shaking in a clear effort not to laugh, before leaning in to Reece and saying quietly, “I saw you two arguing. If he’s bothering you-“
“He’s not,” Reece says, bewildered. “Sorry, what do you want?”
“Never mind,” the guy says, in the kind of tone that implies Reece has been rude somehow, which is crazy, because he’s literally just been sitting here. “I’ll see you around, yeah?”
As soon as he’s gone, Steve explodes into laughter. “Honestly, Reece! You could’ve been a little nicer.”
“But I don’t know him,” Reece says, wondering why that only makes Steve laugh harder, annoyed that Steve seems to be laughing at him. “Cut it out! You’d better not be like this when we’re stuck in a van all day.”
Steve sobers up at once. His blue eyes are dancing with delight at the implication. “You really do have to do it now,” he warns Reece. “No going back on your word.”
“I won’t,” Reece snaps, but really, secretly, he’s pleased – pleased that Steve wants him to come along so badly, pleased that he didn’t ask Mark, pleased that he just seems to want Reece.
*
It takes them two days to get to the German border – most of them had wanted to do it in one, but Steve insisted on stopping in France overnight. Reece has never left the UK, so he doesn’t mind taking a day longer to wander around Reims and let Steve bully him into buying French macarons and the cheapest champagne they can find.
The next day, they start early, Reece slightly hungover, banned to the back of the van because he’s not trusted to read a map. There’s four of them: Steve, Reece, Oliver and some bloke named Nate, who is ten years older than the rest of them and thinks it’s hilarious that Steve and Reece went to drama school because “you can either act or you can’t,” which is rich coming from a thirty-something who’s still doing this. Nate’s in the back, too, reading detective novels and ignoring Reece.
Their first official stop is a little town near Munich, close to the border, with a name Reece can’t pronounce no matter how often Steve demonstrates it. Some teachers volunteered to take them in for the few nights they’re staying there, and the other three get assigned reasonably nice families while Reece gets a weird old woman who owns five cats and doesn’t speak a word of English.
“You took German in school!” Steve keeps saying, like this is somehow revealing a fatal character flaw. “Just talk to her!”
“I can’t! I don’t remember anything,” Reece keeps telling him, which is true.
Character flaw or not, this whole debate is certainly revealing one thing Reece would’ve rather kept to himself: that Steve, who’s a better actor, funnier, and better at talking to people, is, on top of all that, smarter than him, too. Steve took German in school, too, and it’s enough for him to have long chats with their hosts about all kinds of topics. Reece can barely introduce himself without tripping over his words.
It doesn’t bother him – he’s known from the moment he first saw Steve that they’re not on the same level, that Steve’s better than him. What bothers him is the thought of Steve realising it.
They’ve performed at four schools in Bavaria and one school in the county next to it, another name Reece forgot as soon as he heard it, and are on the way to the next town when Reece first feels it.
He’s just got enough time to yell, “Pull over!”. Steve, who’s driving them across a dusty country road, stops immediately, and Reece flings open the door and throws up right there onto the pavement.
“You didn’t say he gets carsick,” Oliver says sceptically from the passenger’s seat, like Reece is a badly-behaved dog.
His eyes watering, Reece barfs up the remnants of his lunch and then stays crouched down for a minute while his head spins.
“Reece?” That’s Steve. He must have gotten out of the car, because his hand is suddenly on Reece’s back, rubbing soothing circles. “Hey. How’re you feeling?”
“Like shit,” Reece rasps. “What d’you think?”
“We’re not far away now,” Steve says. “A few more minutes, then we’ll get you into bed, how does that sound?”
“Don’t exactly have a choice, do I?”
“Great, you sound better already,” Steve says, pleased, as he helps Reece back into the seat.
“Tell him not to throw up on any of our props,” Oliver says, to which Steve says, “Tell him yourself, he’s not deaf,” before starting the car again.
The rest of the drive is a miserable blur. Reece keeps his eyes firmly shut, trying to concentrate on his own breathing rather than the shaky van, the smell of Nate’s crisps, the sound of Steve and Oliver quietly discussing him in the front. He feels like he’s dying.
Time slips. The van stops, then starts again. There’s people talking, silence, then people talking some more. Reece’s name is repeatedly mentioned in between gibberish, which it takes Reece too long to realise is actually German. Then someone unbuckles his seatbelt, and there’s a voice in his ear, whispering, “You have to get up, now. We’re here.”
‘Here’ usually means the school, where they’re meeting their hosts. Now, though, they’re in front of a regular house, and Nate and Oliver are gone. The only people here are Reece, Steve, and a friendly-looking German couple who wave at him. Reece frowns.
“That’s Herr und Frau Schneider,” Steve says, as always delighting in his German being better than Reece’s. “You’ll be staying with them for the next two nights.”
Reece nods at them, and even that small movement proves too much. His vision is spotty, every step a challenge as he follows the woman into the house and up the stairs into a small guest bedroom. She says something to him; Steve, who is still here for some reason, translates, but Reece doesn’t understand that, either. He falls asleep as soon as he lies down on the bed, still in his street clothes.
He wakes up a few times throughout the night, sometimes to throw up again, sometimes because he’s shivering, sometimes because he’s too hot. He feels guilty about sweating all over this nice German couple’s duvet, and he feels worse when he looks at the clock at some point and realises it’s well past noon. He’s supposed to be at the school right now, performing. Instead, he’s lying in bed, useless.
At least the sleep helped a little – for a couple of hours, he feels marginally better, able to take a shower and eat a banana, at least. He’s just thinking that maybe this is one of those 24-hour-viruses, misery for one day and then gone again in a blink, when he’s overcome by nausea and has to rush to the bathroom again, probably because the universe hates him personally.
The next night is worse than the last one. His whole body is one big ache, his head is killing him, and even lifting his arm to reach the glass of water on the nightstand requires so much effort that he spends a minute just lying there afterwards, completely drained, unable to lift the glass to his lips.
He drifts in and out of consciousness for hours, waking briefly because he thinks someone is talking, though it’s possible he’s imagined it.
“-are we supposed to do with him? We can’t take him with us. We’ll have to leave him here.”
“I’m not abandoning Reece in Germany!”
“What’s your suggestion, then? Look at him – he looks like he’s dying of consumption or something.”
Reece tries to protest this, but can’t quite manage getting the words out.
“See?” the first voice says.
The second voice, which is more familiar, sounds exasperated. “He’s not dying. He’s got the flu.”
“Well, flu or not, he can’t go on stage right now, can he? We have to be in Echterdingen by tonight.”
The name sounds made-up to Reece, which might be a sign that he’s hallucinating this whole conversation. Not a great sign, that, but he doesn’t manage to articulate this, either. Perhaps he is dying.
“Fine,” the second voice says. “You and Nate go without us, then. I’ve got the travel agenda, so we’ll meet up with you when Reece is better.”
“But the play,” the first voice protests.
“Just improvise! You’ll think of something.”
There’s a pause, so long that Reece worries he fell back asleep without noticing. Then: “I knew taking your boyfriend with us was a bad idea. I told you.”
“He’s not- doesn’t matter. I’ll call you when I know more.”
“Don’t bother,” the first voice snaps. “Just meet us as soon as possible.” Another pause. “Are you regretting those twenty quid for his passport yet?”
This time, Reece really is asleep before he can hear the answer.
*
The next time he wakes, he’s no longer in the guestroom of Mr and Mrs Schn-something. Instead, he’s in a hotel – not a particularly nice one, but then, the few times Reece’s family had been able to go on vacation when he was a child, none of those hotels had been nice, either.
He’s still got one of those headaches that threaten to split his skull in two, but it seems that at least the fever is gone. There’s a glass of water next to his side of the bed, and Reece manages to lift that up with his hand only shaking a little. It’s progress.
Just as he’s wondering how on earth he got here, the door opens, and in walks Steve, carrying a bag of groceries that he drops as soon as he sees Reece.
“You’re awake,” he says unnecessarily, because obviously Reece is awake. “Dornröschen rises from her sleep.”
“Stop showing off your German,” Reece orders, or tries to. His voice comes out hoarse. He can only imagine how their old professors that had coached them on public speaking would shudder, hearing him now.
Steve refills his glass and helps him drink it, which is so infantilising that it would make Reece apoplectic, if the mere thought of lifting the glass on his own again didn’t feel so momentous a task.
“Better?” Steve asks when he’s finished. “Let me just-“ His hand shoots out to rest against Reece’s forehead, just for a moment. “Still warm.”
“’Course it’s warm, I’m not a dead body,” Reece snaps. “Why are we in a hotel?”
“Because your hosts speak enough English to overhear Oliver telling me you’ve got tuberculosis, and they were worried about getting infected.”
“Great,” Reece says, sinking back into the pillows. “How upset is he that I’m ruining the tour?”
“Oh, not very.” Even Steve’s not adept enough at lying to make that sound believable. “Anyway, I told him we- Reece?”
Reece has to close his eyes against the sudden nausea. Not that much progress, after all, looks like. “I’m fine,” he rasps out. “Don’t mind me. I’m gonna- I won’t- I’m fine.”
“Stop worrying,” Steve says, even though Reece is not. “Just go back to sleep.”
“Don’t want to,” Reece mutters petulantly. “Slept enough, haven’t I?”
“Clearly not, since you’re still sick! Tell you what – I’ll sing you a lullaby, eh? How does that sound?”
“I’m not sure I understand why you insist on torturing me,” Reece answers, but it’s no use. Steve has already made himself comfortable, stretching out on the other side of the bed, and before Reece can voice further protests, he starts singing one of those creepy German children’s songs, which, in Reece’s experience, is every German children’s song.
It’s incredibly annoying, and Reece wants to tell Steve so. Once again, he falls asleep before he can finish the thought.