Benevolence

Chapter 16

Mum had tried to talk to him when she'd gotten back with dad watching from the doorway. He could tell she was trying to console him about Olivia but he just wanted her to stop talking about it.

He just watched her dully as she wiped his forehead and pressed his head. He felt slightly ashamed of being so dismissive of her efforts because now he was looking at her, he could see the smears of mascara over her cheekbones.

She looked a right mess and the shaking of her hands told him she was barely holding it together. With a grunt he sat up and gritted his teeth at the wave of dizziness that hit him.

That was weird. He wasn't actually ill. From the corner of his eye he saw dad come closer towards him with a thin pencil like thing which he stuck in his mouth. Spluttering in surprise he spat it out, causing his mum to pause mid stroke in confusion.

Sheepishly, he put the thermometer back in his mouth and closed his eyes in momentary bliss at the cool cloth draped across his forehead. He felt the thermometer being taken out and cracked his eyes open at the small gasp he heard.

‘......42 degrees?’ His mum gasped, yanking the thermometer from dad to view it with her own eyes.

Dad frowned and looked thoughtful for a second before calling up the doctor probably. His mum continued to cool him down before calling Will in to stay with him.

He stifled a groan as his brother yet again graced him with his unwanted presence. Like a bad smell at a restaurant.

He strained his ears to hear what mum and dad had begun to whisper about beside his bed.

‘......loved her ever so much....close as anything those two......traumatized.’

‘...happens in upsetting events like this though rare....nothing too serious...needs comfort and company...medicine daily.....never alone....miss funeral.’

‘.....my place.....my poor baby....come daily and keep him well.’

He frowned. So he had a fever of some sort and it was pretty serious. It didn't make any sense though he wouldn't just get ill because of Olivia's death. He tried harder to think coherent thoughts but his brain felt clogged up as though with wool.

He could hardly hear himself think properly and everyone else was beginning to sound muffled. He tried lifting his head up but promptly lay it back because the pounding in his head had amplified making him dizzy.

Maybe it was all leading to this yet he doubted it. Why on earth would it just want to make him ill? That was just rubbish.

There was obviously something behind it but right now he couldn't think properly and he kind off heard Will say not to exert himself so much so he decided to think later.

And went to sleep.

Everything felt hot and sticky with a splash of painful drilling puncturing his head. He groaned in frustration and yet again felt a cool cloth against his burning forehead.

He could feel the sweat trickling down his face and stretched to relieve his aching muscles. God what kind of a fever was this? He'd never had anything like this before and had a clear inkling as to why he never had.

What he could recall from the blurry memories he saw was that his resistance was going to be broken down. It was funny that the thing in him thought a fever would make him ready to ruin his life further. It was honestly a no brainer situation in this.

Maybe he could talk to it like it did to him. Was it too much to hope that a negotiation or conversation could end well. Will might not have tried, seeing as he was carelessly wishing things the entire time; the retard.

With a gulp he called out in his mind to the being, ‘Hello I know you can hear me, and I know what you're trying to do to me but it isn't going to work. You won't be able to hurt me enough to make me give up. I'm a fighter and I won't let you control me however I will hear you out. I want to help you and understand you but only if you let me so please just talk to me.’

He waited with baited breath for a response and sagged in disappointment when he heard nothing. Pushing his eyes open he winced at the ferocity of the sun glaring through the window. With a pained grunt he weakly pushed himself up on the bed into a sitting position nearly staggering back into the pillows. He let out a gasp at the trilling pain at the front of his head and steeled himself as a wave of dizziness crashed into him.

Taking deep breaths he pushed aside his sweaty locks and squinted at a slumped figure on the side table. His brother looked so much younger in his sleep, with his face flushed and his mouth opened partly, drool glistening down his chin lazily. He had one fist in his inherited messy raven locks and the other fisted beside his mouth. All the grim maturity he normally possessed was erased as he slept on by, calm erasing all the stress lines and frown lines he had.

He felt slightly ashamed at how little he had looked out for Will. He remembered that he had tried but had backed off as Will refused to let him in.

He stroked Will's hair as he thought of his regrets. If he'd been a better brother maybe none of this would have happened. If he'd looked out for Will and took care of him then would Will have so badly needed to wish for things? He wasn't ignorant of what Will had been going through at school but thought his brother didn't need him because he'd seemed like he handled everything well.

Why did he so stupidly believe his brothers perfect poker face? He was taken out of his thoughts by a stirring he felt under his hand and looked to meet the unfocused sleepy eyes of Will.

He froze worriedly wondering if he should take his hand out or leave it. If he took it out it would bring attention to it and if he kept it in Will would notice eventually. Before he came to a decision Will fumbled around the table for the thermometer and stuck it in his mouth paying all his focus on the meniscus.

Slowly James untangled his hand from Will's hair and let out a relieved breath when it was clear Will hadn't noticed it.

Will frowned at his mouth and muttering something along the lines of ‘it should have gotten lower by now’ before thrusting a glass of water in his hand and tablets in another. James would take them out of hope if anything but he knew this was no ordinary fever. Thus wouldn't be cured so easily.

After having the tablets he felt his stomach cramp up a bit and it started to rumble pretty loudly. He felt his ears burn up as he looked at Will and mumbled, ‘Can you get me something to eat?’

Will's eyebrows furrowed as he looked at him, confused. James realised his voice sounded crackily and unused so he tried again clearing his throat out noisily accentuating each syllable, ‘Can you get me something to eat?’

Will's eyebrows eased- which was a funny thing to say- and he nodded with an easy look on his face glad to do something useful. He got up and picked the last tray of beans on toast before heading out.

‘Oh and one more thing.’

He paused and looked back clearly tensing himself for an insult.

‘Yeah?’

‘Make it something other than beans on toast if it isn't too challenging for you.’

He grinned at that and turned to him with an arrogant smirk.

‘Oh it is on!’

This time when he came up the steaming plate looked way more appetizing. If there's one thing everyone knew about James was that he was a foodie. Even on his worst days he could smile if he had amazing food.

The best way to get to his heart was through his stomach and right now that steaming plate of noodles with apple juice was already dulling down his obnoxious fever.

His face lit up as Will put the tray down and he closed his eyes to inhale the succulent and tantalizing aroma of chicken curry noodles. He could almost taste the spices and soft strings in the air yet he didn’t need to. Opening his eyes he began chowing down the noodles as though he had just ran in the Olympics whilst wisely ignoring the advice of his brother to take it slow as it was hot.

He had eaten hotter and it wasn't anything apple juice couldn't wash down. Sighing in content he reached forward to take that last forkful when he felt an unpleasant churning in his stomach. Trying to calm his stomach he took deep breaths but the nauseating sensation just got worse. Stumbling from the bed into a startled Will, who had been reading a comic he was helped up with an arm round the waist and back to the toilet, where he gripped the seat as his body wretched up chunks and goo of the noodles and juice meal he'd had.

After what felt like forever, but had actually just been 7 minutes he lay back against the wall and cleaned his mouth up. Taking lungfuls of air, he looked up to Will who was paling quite visibly considering his already pale complexion.

Clutching the towel rack he got himself to his feet and grasped Will's offered arm, which easily hauled him up making the walk back to the room much like a three legged race one.

Once inside he sank back into the bed and clutched his groaning stomach where unsurprisingly the cramps had yet again begun.

He looked at the apple juice beside him half empty and chugged it down relishing the coolness it brought to his dry crusty throat. He felt like s**t and was about to ask for more food when Will's frown shut him up.

The fever didn't subside for weeks and the same routinely reactions continued to occur. He would want food and he would eat it believing that this time it would stay down but would become hopeless once again as he ran to the bathroom to throw it all back up.

Whenever he got up, the fever symptoms attacked him getting harsher and more sensitive by day. Will was there most of the time and when he wasn't it was Lou. He knew he could wish himself free but never even dared. This was a trial he had to get through and beat because no matter how hard it became, this thing didn't want him dead.

Doctors came and went frequently assessing it to be a fever as nothing else made sense. After these visits he would laugh to himself at their incompetence.

It saddened him to see the state of his family. He knew he was becoming worse day by day and the last time his mother had visited she had starting sobbing and cradling him like a toddler. Though to be fair he probably weighed as much as one right now.

Will tried to get him to talk and eat having now realised what was causing the fever. Nowadays he looked wary and afraid to be in the same room as James, which James also found laughable because if it came down to anything Will could easily over power him. It became harder to think so much and the only moments of joy he found were when Becca came to visit him but it hurt him as well because he could hear her cry as she left the room.

It was so much easier to forget the pain he caused others and to just lie there even when his stomach hurt so much he cried. His brain always felt like it was on fire and now he couldn't even get up himself to do anything. Either Lou or Will helped him out.

Apparently there had been a funeral a while ago with lots of crying and he wondered exactly why there had been a funeral because it seemed important as everyone had gone but then again, he was so lost nowadays that he couldn't care less.

Food was a daily torture where he loved what he saw and then hated it with undisguised animosity after he had puked it all out again.

Will would regularly talk to him about the being and would inform him of his behaviour. Apparently he was scaring everyone with his crazy laughing which he found weird because he was only laughing when he found things funny.

When he'd said that to Will he looked like he was going to be sick and just forced tablets down his throat.

Right now the only thing he was sure of was the fight he was having with the being. He couldn't wish to get better or for anything because he would win. And James hated losing.

Dad came a few times too but not so much and when he did he would get even more emotional than mum. It was nice being so cared for and he felt safe in dad's loving arms. He was sure it would all be over soon and that he would be liberated so all he had to do was patiently bear through this.

He didn't know what life had been like before the fever but he remembered it had been nice and he missed it. Nothing was nice anymore nowadays so he kind of envied Will for living it. Petty right, but there you have it he was allowed to be envious given the state he was in.

Apparently Will told him it had been 5 weeks and that James had been put on a drip to keep him alive when it all went away.

Everything just went away. All the drilling, the dizziness, the pounding. The fever vanished overnight like it had never happened and James finally got to sleep properly for the first time in 5 weeks for the rest of the night.