by Riley Rivers
Ezra opened his mouth then shut it, pressing his lips together.
Cameron stared at his arm again. He hated the idea that Ezra was upset with him. It didn’t seem fair, considering Cameron was sort of having a bad day.
He plucked at his shirt, hoping the nurse would be by soon. Although— “What happened to my coat?” And he’d just registered that his shirt sleeve was cut off. Probably to get at his arm for the stitches. Fuck, that was a shame. He’d liked this shirt.
“Right there,” Ezra said, pointing to a clear plastic bag sitting on a chair in the corner. Inside was Cameron’s coat, in all it’s torn and bloody glory.
He couldn’t help the hitch in his breath looking at it. It was such a nice coat, too. He didn’t want to have to look for another one. Maybe he wouldn’t have to? If the sleeve wasn’t too ruined and it wasn’t too covered in blood…
He glared at his blankets. Stupid. He couldn’t walk around with a blood-covered coat. He lived his life trying to avoid attention.
At least he was much more able to afford a coat, this time around. The last few weeks working for Ezra had been amazing for his finances, even without working at the warehouse for two Fridays in a row. Cameron had a little bit extra for the first time in basically ever. He almost didn’t know what to do with it.
Well. Buy a new coat, for starters. And a new shirt. God, possibly new jeans, too. He hadn’t looked under the covers to see if his had blood all over them.
Though fuck, work, right—he wasn’t supposed to fucking use his arm for a week, or lift anything heavy for at least two. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Cameron?” Ezra said carefully. “Are you alright?”
“How am I going to work?” Cameron croaked, biting at his knuckles. “I can’t work at the warehouse with my arm. I can’t—”
“You’re still working for me,” Ezra said firmly. “We’ll figure it out.”
“I can’t organize your shelves or move things around or carry things for you,” Cameron said, starting to panic. “How will I—”
“We’ll figure it out,” Ezra said again, squeezing Cameron’s right hand. It suddenly sunk in that Ezra had been holding Cameron’s hand for the better part of ten minutes now. “There are plenty of things you can do for me that don’t involve heavy lifting. Paperwork for instance.”
“P-paperwork?”
Ezra nodded, giving him a smile. “Oh yeah. Plenty of paperwork for you to sort and organize. I’ve got tons of older files I’ve been meaning to digitize for years now.”
“Oh,” Cameron said, the acid receding from his throat a bit. Ezra still had jobs for him. He could still be useful. He could still work. That was something. “Okay.”
“But you’re definitely taking Monday off,” Ezra said. “I want you to get some rest.”
“Knock-knock,” someone called, before pushing aside the curtain. Cameron wasn’t too fond of this curtain business.
“Hey there,” said the man who’d come in. He was wearing green scrubs and carrying a bunch of papers. “I’m Derek. I’m going to be taking out your IV for you. I’ve also got your discharge paperwork, and the doctor put in a call for an escort. Once your escort gets here, you’re free to leave.”
“Okay,” Cameron said as Derek walked around the side of the bed. Ezra got up and moved aside so Derek could more easily reach. Cameron mourned the loss of proximity.
“How are you feeling?” Derek asked, as he pulled away the tape holding the needle in.
Cameron winced. “Um. I guess… pretty good for being mauled by a wolf?”
Derek grinned at him. “For being mauled by a wolf? You look fantastic. Now this is going to hurt for just a second, okay?”
He pulled out the needle, immediately pressing some gauze down on the wound, wrapping it quickly and efficiently with tape. “Just keep the wrapping on for a couple of hours, alright?”
Cameron looked at his fully bandaged left arm and his newly-bandaged right and sighed. “Okay.”
“Dr. Marley said that Cameron would need to come in for vaccinations,” Ezra said. “Can he make appointments for that now?”
“Oh? Yeah, sure, of course. Just a second.” Derek ducked out of the curtained area and popped back in a moment later, wheeling in a mini standing desk with a laptop on it. “Rabies vaccination… okay, great. When is a good time for you to come in?”
“Um…” Cameron glanced at Ezra. “I guess anytime after 4:30? I’m off work at four, and that gives me time to get over here.”
“Sure, let’s see what we have.”
“Um, Ezra?” Cameron asked.
“Yes? What do you need?”
Cameron flushed. “Could you hand me my phone? It’s in my front coat pocket.” Shit, god, he couldn’t ask Ezra’s to touch a coat covered in Cameron’s blood. “Or hand me my coat and I’ll get it—”
“Of course,” Ezra said, immediately going to grab the bag that held Cameron’s coat and pulling it out without hesitation, extracting Cameron’s phone. He walked back to the bed to hand it over. “Here.”
“Th-thanks.” Cameron needed to focus. It was hard—his head ached, and his arm was really starting to hurt. He unlocked his phone and went to his calendar. “Okay. Let’s make those appointments, please.”
Luckily since literally all Cameron needed to do for the shots was come in, get poked, and leave, it wasn’t too hard to find four appointments for him. He was also a priority patient, which helped with the appointments and didn’t help at all with the ever-growing anxiety.
When they were done with the scheduling and Derek had handed over the discharge papers and gone over them, including the prescriptions that Cameron was taking with him, Derek smiled at him again. “At least now you get to go home, right?”
“Right.” Cameron just needed to get back to his car, and he could figure everything else out from there.
“You get better, okay?” Derek said.
“Thanks. I’ll do my best.”
“There you go! And now you have a great story to tell. Your escort should be by soon, alright?”
“Okay. Thank you.”
Derek left. Cameron, no longer hooked up to an IV, shifted awkwardly on the bed.
“I guess I’ll get ready,” he said eventually. “If the escort is going to be here soon.”
“Of course,” Ezra said quickly. “Do you need any help?”
Cameron flushed. “N-no, that’s okay. But thank you.”
A brief moment of silence, then Ezra said, “I’m just going to use the bathroom. Be right back, okay?”
“Yeah, sure.” Cameron was grateful that Ezra was going to leave for a few moments. He was pretty sure wrestling with his coat wasn’t going to be easy. He was glad not to have an audience.
Once Ezra had left him in relative privacy inside the curtains, Cameron gingerly reached for his coat and pulled it on. It was slow going. Whatever pain medication they’d given him seemed to be wearing off. Fucking ow.
But he eventually managed to get his right arm in the sleeve, leaving the left side just draped over his body. He sighed, looking at it. He was definitely going to need a new coat. He looked like he’d been mauled in this one.
His laugh was more of a sob. God, he actually had been.
That done, he carefully got out of bed to poke his head out through the curtains and found Ezra talking to another person in scrubs, these dark blue, next to a wheelchair.
“Oh, is… is that for me?”
“Yeah,” Ezra said, turning to him. “This is Matt. He’s going to walk us to the front, and then the valet will bring my car around.”
“Valet?”
Ezra gave him a wry look. “You were bleeding and unconscious. My biggest priority was getting you to Emergency, not parking the car.”
Cameron ducked his head. “Right.”
“Cameron,” Ezra said softly. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Now come on. Let’s get you home?”
“Yeah, okay.” Cameron took a seat in the chair and
stayed quiet as Matt rolled him through the hospital, Ezra by his side. He was trying to make a plan for what was going to happen in the immediate future. He’d been lucky up until this point in that he’d never suffered a severe injury while being homeless. Being in pain and feeling awful and changing bandages was a daunting thought.
He wondered, obviously too late now, if maybe he’d been too hasty in wanting to leave the hospital.
But also his arm had begun hurting more; a white-hot pain. Now that he thought of it, his arm had been feeling more numb over anything. Probably something they’d used to stitch him up. With the numbness going away, the pain was kind of making him feel a little sick.
Well. At least he had painkillers. He’d take them as soon as he got back to his car.
His car was at the park though. Thinking of returning to the park made him feel sicker.
He stewed over this while waiting for the valet, and then as he carefully got into Ezra’s car, after Ezra had opened the door for him.
Before he knew it, he was voicing this concern as Ezra started to drive them away from the hospital. “How am I going to get to my car?”
Ezra glanced at him before focusing back on the road. “I’ll personally drive you over to pick it up whenever you want. As soon as Tuesday, if you’re up for it. Today and Monday’s for resting though. Unless you have someone else who can pick it up for you?”
“No, I—” Cameron shook his head, gritting his teeth at the pain. “I need to get to my car.”
“Cameron, you can’t drive right now anyway. Not while you’re on your pain medication. Let me take you home.”
“I’m not on any pain medication,” Cameron said, feeling like a child. “Hurts.”
Ezra let out a slow breath. “Okay, of course. That’s fine. They’d used a numbing agent on your arm, but didn’t give you any IV or oral pain meds, so you’re good to take a pill now.”
“Can’t,” Cameron said. “If I can’t drive after I take them, I have to wait till after I park.”
“Please, Cameron, let me just take you home, okay? You need to rest.” Ezra glanced at the GPS on his dash and then shook his head. “God, I’ve just been driving to Wayne on automatic. But you said you didn’t dorm… what’s your address?”
“Wayne is fine,” Cameron said, thoughts racing. He could figure this out. If Ezra dropped him off at Wayne, Cameron could Uber to the park and get his car that way.
And then… maybe drive back to Wayne, to park in a nice, secure garage so he could take some pain medication and go to sleep.
“Wayne is not fine,” Ezra snapped. “I’m taking you home. What’s your address?”
Cameron stayed silent, pressing his lips together. They weren’t wobbling.
“Cameron?” Ezra asked, sounding concerned now. “What’s the matter?”
Cameron closed his eyes.
“Please, I… I just want to help. Or you can contact whoever you want. I’ll take you wherever you need to go. Please let me help you.”
“I don’t have anyone else to contact,” Cameron said, the words tasting like ash. “I just need to get back to my car.”
“Cameron, please—”
“Please,” Cameron whispered. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
Ezra inhaled sharply. One second, two seconds, three seconds passed.
“Okay,” Ezra said, sounding shaken. “I’m taking you home.”
Cameron didn't feel brave enough to ask him what he meant.
***
Cameron ended up closing his eyes, not wanting to take his pain medication yet in case he was going to be driving, but he must have dozed off even with how much he hurt, because before he knew it, Ezra was speaking to him, asking if he felt up to walking.
Cameron didn’t feel very up to walking at all, and he hurt, and even the thought of moving was awful. Ezra was probably a dream anyway. Cameron was in his car. It was weird being buckled in, because he almost never passed out while in a seat, but he must have been exhausted, so it made sense.
There was the sound of a door opening, followed by cold air and a clinking noise, but Cameron ignored it, turning over to shield against the cold.
Then the whole world tilted.
Cameron’s eyes flew open, and he only didn’t let out a yelp of surprise because even surprise took a backseat to the instincts that kept him quiet.
That didn’t stop him from gasping at the knowledge that Ezra had the raw strength to pick him up and fucking carry him out of a car and into a house.
“I can walk,” he rasped, the sudden rush of arousal and total embarrassment, coupled with pain, making him dizzy. “I can walk, I’m fine, I can walk—”
“Okay, okay,” Ezra said, voice hushed. “Don’t worry, I’ll let you go.”
Please don’t, Cameron resolutely did not say. Instead he managed a, “thanks,” when Ezra gently set him on his feet, with such total control it was astounding. He listed to the side, and Ezra caught him, probably on automatic. But he caught Cameron by the left bicep.
This time Cameron did scream, immediately moving to shield his arm, trying to curl in on himself and just wishing the hot brand of pain would stop.
“Oh my god.” Ezra sounded horrified. “Oh my god, Cameron, I’m so sorry.”
Cameron didn’t respond, too busy trying not to whimper.
“Inside,” Ezra said, stepping in to circle an arm around Cameron’s back, herding him toward the open door. “Inside, come on.”
Cameron obeyed, because it was hard to think of doing anything but. He held his arm in tight to his body and stumbled along with Ezra, barely focused enough to follow him down a hall he didn’t recognize.
It was only once Ezra was going, “Here, go on,” and motioning at a bed that Cameron fully registered that he was in Ezra’s actual house.
And honestly? He hurt too much to freak out more than he already was.
He took a seat on the bed. The mattress was soft but firm and even just sitting down on it, Cameron could tell that it would be the most comfortable thing he’d ever slept on, if he slept.
“Be right back,” Ezra said, stepping away from him.
“Okay,” Cameron managed.
The world swam, but thankfully Ezra returned a moment later, holding a glass of water. He held this, and a pill, out to Cameron. “Your pain meds.”
Cameron bit his lip, but didn’t bother to protest. He knew he wasn’t going to be driving anymore today, that was for sure.
He plucked up the pill and threw it into his mouth, then took the glass to help swallow it down. “Thanks,” he said, handing the glass back.
Ezra set it down on a little side-table next to the bed. “Do you need help getting your shoes off?”
No, no way. Cameron definitely did not need Ezra kneeling at his feet. He shook his head. It wasn’t too hard to unlace his boots one-handed.
“Coat?” Ezra asked.
Oh yeah, right. Cameron shrugged out of it, and didn’t protest when Ezra picked it up to hang it in the little adjoining closet in the room.
“Do you need anything else?” Ezra asked. “Are you hungry?”
Before, Cameron would have said that he was always hungry. Now though, the thought of food turned his stomach. He shook his head again
“Okay,” Ezra said. “Maybe in a little while. For now, let the pain meds work and try to get some rest, okay? I’ll just be over in the studio. Call or text if you need anything.”
“Okay,” Cameron mumbled.
Ezra looked like he wanted to do anything but leave, but at last he nodded. “Alright. Get some rest.”
Cameron watched him go.
The hell, he thought.
He pulled back the covers and climbed into the bed, jeans and all. He was practically unconscious before his head hit the pillow.
Chapter Ten
Cameron jolted awake thanks to a heart-stopping nightmare in which he was attacked by a wolf, but there had been no help for him after the first bite. The wolf
didn’t stop and didn’t stop, and Cameron woke up in a cold sweat, choking on a scream.
He frantically looked around the room, trying to ground himself, but that was hard to do since his surroundings were so unfamiliar. It didn’t help that the room was dark, blinds drawn.
He shuffled to one side of the bed and was able to reach the side table with a lamp and a glass of water. He guzzled the water as he switched on the lamp, which emitted a warm, if dim glow. Good for bedside reading maybe.
The mattress was huge and comfortable, with nice white sheets and a soft white comforter, and Cameron felt like he was dirtying it all up by deigning to use the bed. The walls were a very pale blue from what he could tell from the light of the lamp, and there was art hanging. Not photos, like Cameron might have expected, but prints that looked hand-drawn and painted. There was a nice wooden desk in a corner of the room, and a chair that matched it, as well as a dresser next to a door that Cameron vaguely remembered being the closet where Ezra had hung up his coat.
Ezra.
Right.
And this was his house. Not the becoming-familiar studio area where Cameron worked and interacted with Ezra professionally, but Ezra’s living space, where Cameron had never before ventured. Never had even dreamed of venturing. And now Cameron was sitting in what he could only imagine was a guest bedroom. Please god don’t let it be Ezra’s actual bedroom. Cameron didn’t think he could handle that.
Cameron was in Ezra’s guest bedroom after Ezra had found him bleeding from a wolf attack, driven him to the hospital, stayed with him in the hospital, and then discovered in not so many words that Cameron was homeless.
Cameron fumbled with the pocket of his jeans to pull out his phone and check the time.
It was after five.
Fuck. He’d literally been inconveniencing Ezra all freaking day.
He’d just wanted to show Ezra some photography stuff Cameron had been proud of. That was all. Maybe take an hour of his time and… possibly get to be slightly impressive. He’d been so stupidly excited, too.
There was a knock on the door. Cameron startled, not used to being in places where people knocked. Even in the hospital there had only been curtains.
