Their shared suffering - ELU

Drained

"Just go in and inhale, yes.
And she wants to earn money from me.
My head tells me to never fall in love again.
I'll do it for you but you don't see it."

Eliott slowly opened his eyes the next morning.
He felt as if he had to throw up any second and he mentally prepared himself for a quick sprint to the bathroom.
Carefully, he turned his head to see if Lucas was next to him.
But Lucas had already left the bed.

Seconds later, Lucas came back with a glass of water and a plate with a few apple slices on it.
"Good morning, Eli", he said, sitting back down on the bed, "I made you something to eat, but you have to be careful as the nurse said."
Eliott sat up and mumbled a quick "Merci beaucoup" before eating a small apple slice and taking a few sips of water.
The dizziness in his head didn't disappear, but it didn't hurt that bad anymore.

"And, Eli?", Lucas asked, "How are you feeling?"
Eliott shrugged. He didn't know how he was feeling.
He felt sluggish, his head hurt and all he wanted to do was cry.
Releasing all the pent-up emotions through tears.
"I've definitely felt better, but it was worse yesterday", Eliott answered as he ate another apple slice.
Lucas hummed as he took a closer look at his boyfriend.
His eyes were a bit red and he was pale, but overall he looked better than yesterday.

"It's almost 8, I have to go to school", Lucas said, looking at the watch on his phone, "But I already told your professors that you won't go to Uni today. You can call at work and notify them as well, I didn't want to do everything without you being comfortable with it, that's why I left that up to you."
Eliott smiled thankfully. Usually, he didn't like it when Lucas did things for him that he could do himself, but in this case, he was thankful that Lucas had already taken care of everything.
"Merci Lucas", Eliott said, his voice sounded hoarse, "Seriously, thank you. I don't even know if I would've managed to change my clothes last night if you weren't there."

Lucas came closer to his boyfriend, cupped his face, and leaned his forehead against Eliott's.
"Of course, baby. I'm always there for you", he said and pressed a kiss to Eliott's forehead before he got up.
"I made scrambled eggs, maybe you can eat them if you're careful. I'll see you later, mon coeur", Lucas said before he walked back to Eliott, kissed him, and made his way to the front door.
Eliott let his head sink back into the pillows, groaning at the pain that shot through his back.
After letting a few minutes pass by, he scrolled through his phone.

Around noon, the growling of his stomach got unbearable and Eliott decided to try some of Lucas' scrambled eggs.
He put them in the microwave for a few minutes and then seasoned them with a bit of salt and pepper.
While watching Friends on his phone, he attempted to eat them. Luckily he didn't feel sick immediately after eating them, so he finished his breakfast and put the dishes in the dishwasher.

Afterward, he decided to do some yoga. Nothing complicated, a few stretching exercises to make the pain in his back go away.
Then he had to do some work for Uni.

Lucas couldn't focus on what his French teacher was saying. No matter how hard he tried, somebody seemed to have muted his French teacher because Lucas couldn't hear a thing.
Suddenly, he felt Basile's elbow hit right into his ribs. "Ouch! Are you nuts?!", Lucas whisper-screamed, grimacing at the pain that didn't want to fade away since Basile's elbow had hit him.
"No, but dude your stomach's rumbling", Basile said and Lucas sharply inhaled.

Had he heard his stomach rumbling during the entire lesson? What if he heard it the entire day?
Lucas saw no other solution to the problem than to lie, which was a thing he found himself doing more and more.
"Yeah man, I'm eating lighter. You know what I told you about what happened yesterday? I'm doing it to support Eliott. Wouldn't it be mean if I'd be able to eat anything I wanted and you'd have to watch it because of your stomach? That's why I'm eating less", he hastily answered, quickly lowering his voice at the end, hoping that Basile hadn't caught what he'd said.