Chapter ii
It is an old myth that ghosts continuously walk the same paths they walked in life. While that certainly was not true of Bob, he believed he understood where the living would get such an idea. The spirits of their dead were not trapped in a loop; they were pacing. There was nothing as worrying as being able to do nothing but watch someone.
He passed the bookshelf for the eighth time in as many minutes, staring for just a moment at his skull tucked between a tome and a globe, despising the gross grin on his decorated face with a hatred he'd not felt in centuries. In a twisted way, he almost felt that Hrothbert was enjoying how his sins still brought agony—even if it was to his own ghost.
He looked away, moving closer to the couch where Harry had not even shifted in three hours.
He paused here as well, listening for any sign that the younger man was improving, but only shallow, hoarse breaths continued to fill the air.
He went from wall to wall once more, but then decided he could no longer bear the silence.
A formless but freezing hand against his chest made Harry shiver and try to pull the twisted blanket more effectively around himself. The motion sent the man into another fit of coughing; his dry throat made each cough a painful bark, and when he pulled his arm away from his mouth, a small stain of red darkened his soft grey sleeve.
"Harry."
Bob's voice was laced with horror at the sight.
The feverish man rolled onto his side, but at least his eyes were half-open and focused on Bob's face now.
"Harry, you've got to get help. Do you not understand that your life might be in danger?"
"I know," came the hoarse, half-conscious whisper. "I know, I know, Bob."
Bob moved hastily away when Harry slid his legs off the couch, pulling the blanket away with arms so weak it was as though the knitted fabric were ten times heavier.
The dead-and-damned sorcerer watched as Harry swayed where he sat, wishing that he could steady him with a warm, comforting hand and assure him that he would absolutely be cared for. As it was, however, he could only wince at his own helplessness while Harry doubled over, one arm around his torso.
Near-delirious as he was, Harry somehow felt Bob's gaze upon him, and whispered, as though explaining,
"My chest hurts."
Bob knelt down beside him, looking up to get a clear image of the young man's thin face and not caring how it looked when half of his leg and arm went through the couch.
"How does it hurt?" he pressed earnestly, never moving his eyes away from the listless dark pair but paying close attention in his peripheral vision to the way Harry's arms tightened around himself.
Seeing that Harry's half-asleep mind was having trouble processing the vagueness of his question, Bob impatiently rephrased.
"Is it there all the time? Or just when you move, or cough? Is it like a cramp, or like a sharp stab?"
A few seconds of silence, but it was too long for him.
"Harry."
"It's all the time, I think, but it gets worse when I—breathe harder, and especially when I cough. It's bad when I cough."
Bad he said in a way that made Bob equate the pain to unbearable torture, and his heart broke again at how even Harry's vocabulary was so childlike at times.
"You must get help," Bob said firmly, not even attempting to retain the biting cynicism that colored their relationship, leaving behind only the close affection and concern that was always lingering under the surface. "Just get to the phone, Harry. It's a mere three steps. You can do that."
Harry was panting for broken breaths as it was, the coughing having stolen away any strength that remained from what little sustenance he'd received in the last four days. Bob was uncertain whether he actually could make it.
"I don't know," whispered Harry doubtfully, blinking up at the distance between him and the desk where the phone sat.
Bob was as proud as ever of him when he pushed himself up anyway—then, a cold feeling suffocated the relief when the man swayed on his feet. Harry gasped audibly as he nearly fell, but then he would have been fine; however, his deep gasp had restarted another bout of coughs. His body shuddered and he could remain upright for only a moment longer, before dizziness overcame him.
"Harry!"
Bob's cry went almost unheard, as Harry pitched forward onto his hands and knees on the dusty floor, shaking violently with every painful breath.
Bob bent down next to him, and though he had long-since trained himself not to try to reach out and touch the world anymore, one hand stretched out and hovered over Harry's back. He tried not to think about the fact that he could see the spine protruding even through the thin T-shirt, but he still found himself wondering if Harry had been eating enough before all of this had started. He had always been an complete moron when it came to caring for himself, and that was before Justin had showed his true colors and they had ended up half-scrounging for pennies from clients in this musty flat. He tried to recall how many decent meals Harry ate in a day, and found himself unable to find a good answer.
Distracted as he was with the miserable thought, Bob noticed after a moment that Harry's coughs were subsiding and with that, the muscles in his back and shoulders were relaxing and his arms were folding.
"No, Harry, don't," he snapped sharply, wishing with all his dark and damned soul that he could catch his friend before he collapsed altogether, and use his cursed magic to summon a cure while he held him.
Thanks to the gods, Harry stiffened at his voice, his eyes fluttering open where they'd begun to drift shut. He made one last, obvious effort to force his trembling muscles to work, but then he simply stopped as he was, palms and knees on the hard wooden floor.
"I can't," he whispered deliriously, the sweat from fever beading his forehead. "I can't."
He fell forward onto his elbows, and a harsh breath scraped his throat, like the coughs were trying to overtake him again, but his body was too weak even for that now. He settled on his side without another sound.
Bob realized only then that he was trembling as well, when he reached out and stroked a formless hand over Harry's lax face. Of course, his touch slipped through like mist, but Harry did not even flinch at the eerie chill it created as he usually did, even when sleeping.
"Harry."
He did not even raise his voice, knowing that the man would not stir. He continued to stroke his hand lightly over the fevered skin, however, in hopes that somehow the frigidness of his contact might cool it.
To be continued