Despite being quite involved with Fisher family for a while now, Lisa never truly saw Sal's face. She saw glimpses of it - Flashes of disfigured flesh during meals. At dinner time her soon-to-be-step-son always sat with his 'better profile' facing her. He never truly took the mask off, he just shyly unclasped the lower part, lifting his prosthetic slightly so he could carefully eat his food. He was sometimes a flash of a half-naked body running from bathroom to his room after a bath. One of his hands grasping the towel draped around his hips, the other was holding his mask, shielding his face as his hair was too damp to hurriedly put it on.
Larry and Henry assured her, that Sal loved her dearly, more than he let on, but his issues, his 'personal demons', just... run deeper than that. It was almost impossible to uproot.
She knew it was silly, but sometimes she dreamt about Sal being so comfortable with her that he would take off his prosthetic in front of her. That he would allow her to lovingly stroke the scarred cheek. In her dreams he would smile shyly as he nuzzled his misshapen face into her palm, then throw his whole body into a hug. She would, of course, allow it and hold him so tight, he would complain about suffocating with a chuckle muffled by her shirt.
Lisa slept in the Fishers' apartment number of times. Mostly when Sal wasn't around. First time she emerged from Henry's bedroom just in her underwear to a confused blue-haired teen munching on the bowl of cereal was surreal. He most likely knew something was up, as he had his prosthetic on his face. The awkward 'hello' they exchanged and the knowing smirk that was almost visible in the shadow cast by his slightly raised mask was still worse to endure than not-so-subtle jabs from her son in form of 'raunchy' plumber jokes. With time, however, all four of them eased in to the new arrangement - their belongings were scattered evenly around two apartments.
The brown haired woman woke up to a muffled, painful coughing fit coming from the bowels of the apartment. She immediately recognized Sal's voice. He most likely caught something at school and it was now getting worse.
The woman carefully and silently got up and slipped her feet into her fluffy slippers. She listened intently to the dead silence of the night. Maybe Sal would wake up by himself and take care of that cough on his own. Henry told her multiple times, that every since the injury his son had 'toughened up' and 'had a higher threshold of pain and discomfort'. 'Sal is unproblematic when sick' as Henry put it. The part about his only son having to take care of himself due to her lover's past episode of alcohol abuse was left unspoken. Also just because someone is tough didn't mean they should be left alone to suffer. Lisa though of herself as a tough woman of action but would be lying if she didn't feel the pang of appreciation every time either Larry or Sal brought her a cup of tea when she went through her seasonal colds.
Effortlessly, Lisa navigated through the Fishers home – she knew the layouts of every apartment in Addison apartments. She went to the kitchen and grabbed a clean glass from the shelf, filled it with water. The handy-woman grabbed a box of tissues from the living room and briskly went straight to Sal's room. Right when she balanced the tissue box and glass in one hand to open the doors to the sick teen's room she hesitated.
Sal didn't like when people entered his bedroom, especially at night. It wasn't a rule, just an unspoken agreement to knock before entering and, instead of just going in, simply wait for the teen to open the doors himself - it was a rare time when his prosthetic was off his face and out of a quick grab. But she would be damned, if she didn't aid the teen in pain, especially since Henry had a rough patch at work while Larry had an important test tomorrow and she won't force him to came here from the basement, even though she knew he wouldn't mind at all.
The handy-woman took a deep breath and pressed the handle. The doors opened silently.
The woman decided not to turn on any lights in Sal's bedroom, she had a decent view in the lights seeping through doors from the living room. Last thing she wanted was to blare artificial light into someone's unajusted eyes.
Lisa approached the teen's bed carefully, like it was a nest of a wounded animal. The mask was hanging at the foot of a bed frame. Heavy breathing, occasional sniffle and chocked cough revealed that Sal's nose was so clogged he had to breath through his mouth which made his sore throat worse.
„Sal." woman whispered, just in case her son's best friend was lucid enough to register her coming in „I brought you some water and a tissue box"
Lisa put the items on the nightstand carefully. However she still managed to make a ruckus by knocking over few of the teen's pill bottles. They fell to the floor a rattling thump, muffled by the carpet. Just now, once she squatted down to pick them up, Lisa realized a sheer amount of medication Sal's has been taking on a daily basis. How much his room was littered with already empty small, orange containers.
The teenager didn't even stir. He was dead to the world.
„Sal...? Sweetheart?"
The sick teen was burrowed under blankets and pillows. A tuft of his blue hair peeked out from under the duvet. Lisa peered, in semi-darkness she was able to see how his long hair clung to the side of his reddened cheeks. Lisa reached her hand toward the teen's face. She wanted to move aside the sweat-soaked blue locks clinging to his skin to have a better view. The woman felt the fever radiating from his skin before she even touched his face.
It was bad.
She had to cool him down.
Another hurtful cough tore the silence of the bedroom followed by a pained moan and pitiful attempt to sniffle.
The handy-woman retraced her steps to the kitchen. She pulled out a bowl from under the sink and filled it with cold water. After w slight hesitation she opened the freezer and dumped the whole tray of ice cubes into it. She threw in a hand towel she grabbed from the bathroom and came back to the sick teen.
„Sal, honey, I have to prop you up" Lisa warned.
The mother, just as she said, bunched all of the teens pillows and arranged him into half-lying position. His body was lax, shirt soaked-through with sweat. The new arrangement seemed to help with Sal's breathing, even if just a little bit.
The woman wrung out the hand towel from excessive water. She brushed the sweat away from Sal's face and throat. The blue-haired teen sighed relieved in his feverish state.
His head lulled to the side.
Lisa gasped.
In a low light from the corridor, she finally saw what, just moments before, was a vague descriptions made by her son and lover – torn upper lip, which resulted with Sal having a slight lisp, exposed a row of uneven yellowish teeth. Sunken eye-socket of his missing eye. Nose just... ending abruptly halfway with jutting nasal septum. Some of his cheekbone and jaw was just... missing. Even his forehead looked indented somehow. The disfigured half of his face looked uncomfortably grotesque as it was stretched over with tight, bumpy, uneven scar tissue.
„Mom?" Sal croaked pitifully.
Lisa's eyes widened at the sheer desperation in his voice. He was either in some sort of half-dream, or delirious from the fever... maybe even both.
„Honey, sweetheart... I-" She didn't want to slip into that role in such a way.
It felt wrong.
„It's me... Lisa" the woman admitted, unsure if he even heard her.
It was hard to tell whenever Sal understood her. If he was even conscious.
The scarred teen weakly reached out his hand as if trying to grab something out of reach. Seeing Sal in such a vulnerable position unlocked a wave of memories of Larry when he was little. Lisa's motherly instincts kicked in.
„Oh, Sal, sweety" Lisa cooed, she scooped Sal from the bed and pressed his feverish body to her chest, her cheek pressed flat to the top of his head. „you'll feel better tomorrow"
That's how she spend majority of that night - sitting on the teen's bed, stroking his face lightly with her thumb as she rocked him back and forth, humming softly Sanity's Fall's latest song.