Anterograde

by Kallysten

  (next chronological chapter)

  October 4th

  Under Eli’s fingers, Calden’s back was warm, still slick from sweat. He ran lazy loops over the smooth skin, feeling content beyond words, snug under his living blanket.

  “You need a shower.”

  Eli’s fingers stilled at that unexpected remark.

  “Your definition of pillow talk leaves something to be desired,” Eli muttered, caught somewhere between amused and annoyed.

  “How is it pillow talk?” Calden countered. “We’re not in bed.”

  They weren’t, indeed. They lay on the sofa instead, chest to chest, with Calden on top of Eli. Calden’s cheek was pressed close to the healing tattoo on Eli’s chest, whose letters he had traced earlier with his fingers then his lips. Their feet stuck out of the blanket that was their rather flimsy attempt at staying warm.

  “I’m pretty sure in this scenario I’m the pillow,” Eli said, scratching the nape of Calden’s neck with a fingernail. “And if I need a shower, so do you, Mr. Tact.”

  Calden raised his head and cocked an eyebrow at Eli. “That was rather the point.”

  Eli blinked, then grinned, happily surprised.

  “Oh. Okay, then. Lead the way.”

  He didn’t know why he was still surprised, actually. Two things had been very consistent since their relationship had taken this new turn: whenever he woke up and received the facts, Calden was at first a little incredulous and a little shy, like he couldn’t quite believe his good luck and was wary of doing something wrong that would mess it all up. Eli knew the feeling quite well. Then, when he realized he only had two days ahead of him, he became rather determined on making the most of his time.

  Unless he was needed at the hospital, of course, but Eli wouldn’t have expected anything different.

  Eli had asked Calden, that first day when they’d barely left the bed, how experienced he was. Calden’s shrug and easy dismissal of past ‘flings’ hadn’t been encouraging for the prospects of their intimate life. Eli had realized since then the flaw in his thinking. He wasn’t a fling, so whatever Calden had done—or not done—with others was irrelevant.

  As far as Eli could figure out from tidbits gathered over the course of a month, the important thing, where Calden was concerned, was that he’d never been interested in anyone as much as he was in Eli, and that he’d been all but convinced Eli would never return his interest. Finding out that last part wasn’t true meant the world to Calden. And seeing that realization strike him, time after time, had made it quite clear to Eli that those words Calden had so much trouble saying outright were nonetheless true and heartfelt.

  “It’s not leading the way if you don’t follow,” Calden called out, startling Eli out of his mental meanderings. Eli had been so caught up in his thoughts, he’d barely noticed Calden getting up and walking through the room, gloriously nude and not caring in the least. An unforgivable lapse. Eli hurried after him and joined him in the bathroom upstairs.

  Sharing a shower wasn’t new to Eli, but it was new to Calden, so Eli took on a passive role, letting Calden set the pace. Today, it meant letting Calden soap him up with his bare hands and touch virtually every inch of him. Eli tried to return the caresses, but Calden batted his hands away.

  “You can have your turn later,” he said in a low-pitched voice that stroked along Eli’s spine like gentle fingers. “Mine now.”

  Whether ‘mine’ referred to his turn or to Eli himself, Eli wasn’t quite sure, nor did he care, not when Calden’s hands were being replaced by his mouth and Calden was sliding down to his knees. His tongue, dancing on Eli’s cock, was beyond talented.

  In just moments, Eli’s knees started to buckle while gasps and moans escaped him every few seconds. He steadied himself with a hand on the wall and the other at the back of Calden’s head. Calden looked up from his task, blinking repeatedly to chase away the water clinging to his eyelashes. The corners of his eyes crinkled with a look Eli knew quite well, a look that usually accompanied a wicked, dirty smile he’d never imagined could grace Calden’s lips.

  Eli didn’t last long after that.

  Back on his feet, Calden wrapped his arms around Eli, keeping him upright as he slowly, gently kissed him down from his pleasure high.

  Twenty minutes later, they were mostly dry and still kissing, although now in bed.

  “My turn,” Eli breathed against his lips. “And after that, sleep.”

  Calden pouted at him. “Not tired,” he said predictably.

  Eli hid his smile in the crook of Calden’s neck, biting lightly. “You’re never tired. That doesn’t mean you don’t need sleep.”

  That argument—and Eli’s turn—came to a screeching halt when Calden’s phone, somewhere in his pants pocket on the floor, started ringing.

  They looked at each other, a question passing between them. Answer or not?

  On the night table, Eli’s phone rang as well, making the decision for them.

  They pulled apart and each picked up their respective phones. At the other end of Eli’s call, Langton informed him the city was under attack and the hospital needed them if Calden was up to it. Eli looked around at Calden, who was already hanging up after a quick, “We’ll be there in twenty.”

  Eli grimaced as he watched Calden gather his clothes. “He is up to it,” he told Langton, aware that Calden was listening. “But he’s going on over thirty hours by now so you’re not getting more than half a day.”

  “We’ll take what we can have,” Langton sighed, and said his goodbyes before hanging up.

  Calden had already slipped on underwear and pants, and now sat on the edge of the bed to put on his socks. His back was to Eli, but Eli could hear a hint of exasperation in his voice when he asked, “What happens when I reach the forty-eight-hour mark?”

  “You know what happens,” Eli said, getting dressed as well and ignoring his still semi-hard cock. “It’s in the diary. After two days, you can stay at the hospital but only to assist or supervise, not as primary.”

  Calden’s huff conveyed exactly what he thought of that rule—not that Eli needed to be told again that it was stupid and unnecessary. What Calden ended up saying, however, was unexpected.

  “Rain check?” he asked, now fully dressed and standing again. He looked oddly unsure of himself as he rubbed two fingers to his chest.

  Walking around the bed, Eli pressed a kiss to his mouth. “Of course. And you might want to comb your hair a bit. You look like you’ve been doing exactly what we were doing.”

  Calden smirked at that before sauntering into the bathroom, throwing over his shoulder, “You should see what you look like.”

  When they finally left for the hospital, they both looked presentable. Calden had told Samford they’d be there in twenty minutes; they walked out of the changing rooms twenty-three minutes after receiving their calls. Seven minutes after that, they were already in the operating room.

  Halfway through the first surgery—the repair of a through-and-through wound that looked like a demon sword had pierced the soldier’s abdomen—a nurse appeared at the door to tell Eli that Doctor Langton requested his assistance. Sometimes when the hospital was very busy, Langton pulled him from his observation role to ask him to take more direct supervising action in the ER, but Eli was always uncomfortable when it happened, loath as he was to leave Calden.

  His hesitation had to be obvious, because Calden, without looking up from what he was doing, muttered a quiet, “I’m fine. Go.”

  Eli went, though he wished he could have offered Calden a parting kiss or touch. The nurse led him to Langton, who lost no time in putting Eli to work. As far as attacks went, this one looked like it was more severe than the norm. Worse, demons usually retreated when night ended, but maybe because of the cloud cover they kept fighting come morning.

  Wounded soldiers had streamed in all night long and continued to come in during the day. Eli barely had a moment to rest as he organized a schedule of breaks for fo
od and sleep for doctors, nurses and volunteers; if the attack went on all the way through a second night, they all needed to breathe for a while.

  Sometime during all that, Calden’s third day awake started. Eli gave a call upstairs to check and was told that, yes, Calden had stopped performing surgery and was now supervising and assisting less-experienced doctors.

  It was another few hectic hours before Eli could grab two sandwiches, a couple of cups of coffee—he was on his fifth one—and go find Calden. Eli let Calden finish the surgery he was assisting then dragged him to a staff room to share the food and drinks and make sure he was okay. They talked in quiet whispers, mindful of the two people napping on the sofa and in a chair at the table. Calden seemed clear-headed and keen on returning to the OR.

  “Have you caught any sleep?” he asked after Eli’s fifth yawn in a row.

  “No time,” Eli said, breaking into yet another yawn. “Langton needed me to have everyone ready for nightfall. They expect a new wave of wounded to start arriving soon.”

  “You can’t keep going like that,” Calden said. “You were ready for bed before we even came here.”

  “So were you,” Eli pointed out.

  Calden shrugged. “I’m still fine. You’re not. You should go home. Get a few hours of rest.”

  “Go home?” Eli chuckled humorlessly. “I can’t do that! Everyone’s been sleeping where they can. We’ve got no time—”

  “You’re support staff,” Calden interrupted. “Langton can last a few hours without you. You’re exhausted, you keep yawning, and your arm hurts. If you sleep in a chair, you’ll just hurt more and won’t do as good a job when it all gets worse again. And, yes, I will call to tell you if I start seeing things that aren’t there.”

  Observing Calden’s face carefully, Eli tried to find a good argument for why this was a terrible idea, but he was exhausted and in pain, even if he tried to ignore the prickling going through his arm as best he could.

  “It’ll be fine,” Calden insisted. “You take care of me day in and day out. Let me do the same for you for once.”

  The brief squeeze of his fingers over Eli’s tipped the balance. As Calden returned to work, Eli went to find Langton, who berated him for not taking a break sooner and agreed that he should go home for a few hours.

  He almost fell asleep at the wheel, then again while eating his dinner of leftovers. When he finally climbed into bed, he barely had time to tell himself it would have been a lot more comfortable with Calden there to keep him warm before he drifted toward sleep.

  It felt as though he’d just closed his eyes when the ringing of his phone woke him, but a quick glance at the alarm clock told him it was now close to one in the morning and he’d caught four hours of sleep. He fumbled to pick up the phone from the night table, his stomach plummeting when he saw it was the hospital calling.

  “Is he hallucinating?” he asked as soon as he picked up.

  Already, he was getting out of bed and gathering his clothes.

  “No, that’s not it,” Samford said with some reluctance. “I left him alone for a moment and—”

  Eli froze, his heart in his throat as a dozen unlikely scenarios presented themselves. Although, with Calden, even ‘unlikely’ didn’t mean impossible.

  “—I’m sorry, Eli. He fell asleep. I think he did it on purpose.”

  Relief came first. Falling asleep was a lot better than other things that had crossed Eli’s mind, some of them involving needles.

  Worry was quick to follow. Calden, asleep at the hospital. When he’d wake up, he’d have no idea how he had ended up there. Everyone knew about his condition, but they had no clue how to guide him through those first few moments. A disorientated, frustrated Calden was never a good thing.

  Confusion was last.

  “What do you mean, he did it on purpose?”

  Samford sighed softly. “We have a young woman here. Extensive internal damage. They stabilized her on the way, but we need to operate soon. Calden wanted to do it but—”

  “He was past two days awake,” Eli finished for her. “Fuck. Sorry. Damn it. How long can she wait?”

  “Not long.”

  “All right.” Eli passed a hand over his face. “All right. Don’t wake him. He’d just be confused and upset. Just… leave him alone and let him sleep. I’ll be there as fast as I can. And prep the girl for surgery.”

  He hung up the call without waiting for Samford’s answer, got dressed in record time, and less than five minutes after waking up he was stepping into a thin, cold rain and hurrying to his car.

  It being the middle of the night, and during a demon attack to boot, the roads were deserted—or almost. Three blocks from the hospital, he came across a military patrol that demanded he stop and explain what he was doing out on the road at this hour. Usually, all it took was for him to flash his hospital badge and the patrol would let him be on his way. His badge, however, was still on the night table, where he’d left it before collapsing in bed.

  Eli, his nerves frayed from the situation with Calden, might have been a little short with the soldiers. They might in return have made difficulties, so that in the end he had to resort to his trump card and call Lana on her direct line. Bothering the general in charge of all city forces during an attack was not, as a rule, a good idea, although Eli was lucky enough that she expressed her displeasure toward the patrol rather than him.

  Thirty-two minutes after Samford’s call, he was standing on the threshold of a staff room, watching Calden sleep, his arms folded on the table and his head pillowed on them.

  “I’m sorry,” Samford said quietly. “I wasn’t even gone for five minutes. I went to get coffee. He was pacing when I left, so I didn’t think…”

  Her voice trailed off when Eli shook his head. “No reason for you to be sorry. Either he crashed because he pushed himself too hard, or like you said he was trying to skirt the rules. Whichever it was, he’s responsible, not us.”

  Even as he said it, he couldn’t help but blame himself. If he’d only stayed …

  But there was no point in wishing things could be different. This was the situation they were in, and they’d have to deal with it. There was simply no way around that.

  “And you absolutely need him for that surgery?” he asked quietly.

  “Once we open her up, it’ll be a race. We do need four hands, but they don’t have to be his. Especially if he’s running on less than an hour of sleep.”

  Eli observed her critically. “How much have you slept in the past two days?”

  She shrugged.

  “Would you trust him by your side if his illness had never happened and he was running on an hour of sleep for four days awake?” he asked.

  She did not hesitate for a second. “Over any other doctor in this hospital.”

  Eli glanced at his watch. Assuming Samford had called him right away, Calden had been asleep for about forty minutes.

  “Can the girl wait twenty more minutes?” he asked. “That’ll give him a full hour. It’s not enough, but it’s at least something.”

  Samford looked torn, but in the end she agreed. Eli had a feeling that, without Calden there, the girl didn’t have a chance, even if Samford wasn’t saying so. Everything was a matter of time now.

  Twenty minutes felt like an eternity as Eli kept watch over Calden. Far too soon he laid a hand on Calden’s shoulder and gently shook him awake.

  Blinking owlishly, Calden raised his head and looked up at Eli, his brow already tightening in confusion.

  “Eli? What…”

  He blinked a few times as he looked around, and Eli could see the realization come over him that he was at the hospital but had no idea how or when he’d gotten there.

  “Calden, do you trust me?” Eli asked quietly.

  Those confused, sleepy eyes turned back to him. “Trust… Yes, I… What—”

  “Then come with me, please.”

  Eli offered Calden his hand. Despite everything, he couldn’t q
uite stifle a smile when Calden took it after only the briefest of hesitations and let himself be pulled to his feet. Without thinking, Eli linked their fingers together and led Calden to the nearest bathroom. Under the glow of harsh fluorescent lights Calden seemed paler, the circles under his eyes, darker.

  “I need you to take off your coat and your top,” Eli said, pulling his own over his head and holding it to his chest. “I know you’re confused, but you’ll start to understand as soon as you look at your arm, I promise.”

  With a look of complete bewilderment, Calden shrugged out of his white coat. His frown deepened when he took in the words on his arm, tracing them with a finger. He looked up at Eli, his tongue briefly wetting his lips before he asked very low, “How long ago?”

  “Four months,” Eli said calmly. “It’s October now. You’ve been doing really well. Saving lives, composing, arguing with your mother. Just like nothing happened. I live with you now. Help you remember what you need to know. And also…” He gestured at Calden’s chest. “There’s something else, but you need to see it for yourself.”

  Calden’s fingers were shaking when he pulled his scrubs over his head. He looked down, and quickly noticed the tattoo. He faced the wide mirror on the wall, and Eli watched his lips move as he read the words silently. When he turned a questioning look to Eli, Eli was ready for him, exposing his own tattoos, proving without a word that, yes, it was real. Yes, something terrible had happened to Calden, but that didn’t mean good things couldn’t still happen.

  Again, he mouthed the words, and a slight smile curled his lips.

  “How long for that?” he asked, even more quietly than before.

  Eli smiled back. “It’ll be one month tomorrow.”

  Calden’s smile widened. Eli always tried to let him make the first step and move at his own pace, but right now he’d have given just about anything to kiss him. He might even have done it if Samford hadn’t knocked twice on the door before pushing it open, though without peeking in.