“Easy.”
Everything is in a thick haze when Draven comes around, dressed once again in James’ clothes in James’ bed with James there next to him, James being James with his nose in a copy of The Hobbit for the millionth time. It’s dark outside. His head throbs painfully and he groans.
“Easy,” repeats James softly, not looking up from his book. “You were having a nightmare again.”
Draven released a breath of tired frustration.
“Don’t tell my mom, will you?”
“Nah, I won’t.” James flips the page. “The past few days have been pretty rough on you. I’m not surprised.”
Draven nods slightly; he’s exhausted, but can’t sleep anymore just like he can’t cry anymore than he already has.
“You should just. Try to relax, okay?”
“…What time is it?”
James glances up from his book at the clock on his nightstand.
“Around ten.”
“At night?”
James nods, eyes back in his book. He looks so tired.
“Mm,” Draven mumbles in confirmation, and pushes himself up. “Didn’t we get back from the funeral at like, one?”
“Yeah.” James flips another page. He’ll never know how he can manage to talk and read at the same time, but it was just one of many things that he’ll always love about James. “You came home, threw up, changed and fell asleep.”
“Jesus,” Draven sighs. He sits up and rubs his face, trying to alleviate some of the feverish discomfort crawling through his skin, but all it does is make him dizzy.
“I know. Scared the fuckin' crap out of me. I think the funeral might have been a bit much for you,” James says, and Draven hates it when he’s right about these things and chooses to swing his legs off the bed instead of responding. His boyfriend glances at him expectantly once his feet are on the floor.
“Babe. You should sleep,” says James, noting the purple circles under his eyes. He clearly hadn’t been sleeping well, and the dreaming probably didn’t help with that.
“No, you should sleep,” Draven asserts, grabbing his phone from the bedside table. “You’ve done…fucking everything for me today, James. I don’t think I could have made it through that shit if you weren't there.” The last few words catch in his throat a little, and he swallows, remembering the weight of his father’s ashes in a steel box in his arms. He wished Foundation regulation allowed for him to do something other with the ashes than bury them. Scatter them to the wind somewhere over the ocean, maybe, do something his dad would have liked, but he also knew that that graveyard was where his father belonged, with all the other Level 4s and Directors that killed themselves off, or fell to some horrible fate, or just keeled over at their desks from the strain. He should feel lucky he got to bury a box with something in it at all, Draven thinks. Getting buried on Foundation ground was a conventional honor, and some nondescript part of his fever-ridden brain pulls out an image of his father as a ghost in the Site-17 graveyard saying, Are you fucking kidding me? I’m still here? and he smiles to himself pessimistically. It didn’t feel like an honor.
