Evasive
By Inviolable.Voice
Warning – contains slash.
Disclaimer – the characters do not belong to me and I make no profit from writing this.
He visits Durham in bed after two days. Durham looks thinner than usual and the eyes are big and dark and bright – with fever? he decides to ask the nurse after he leaves the room, no use worrying Durham, poor chap, he's nervy enough already – nestled back into the white sheets, the white nightshirt, the white pillow. Maurice thinks – I'm a hardy type, I won't catch anything, and kisses Durham, then sits on the edge of the bed and strokes his hair. Everything is quite normal really, though Durham's hair is a little greasy, his mouth a little bitter – for someone so fastidious, this is not normal.
They talk about acquaintances and friends from the Cambridge days, and when Maurice mentions Risley, Durham's face shuts down, he is even whiter and smaller than before so that he looks like an orphaned child. Of course, flamboyant people like Risley are no good when you're ill. Durham's eyes dropping from Maurice's face, Durham's hand slipping from Maurice's at that moment is a coincidence – Maurice's hands are always too warm.
When the Nurse bustles in again with a brown glass medicine bottle, crouched in her hand, Maurice gets up, quickly, patting Durham's white-clad arm as he rises, the single glance at Durham's face shows… tiredness? It is cruel – cruel to himself – to use such tormenting words as relief. He feels, somehow, that they have said nothing.