Utterly Forgettable | MM Romance | Complete

Three: Do You Keep A Score? (1/2)

Josh counted his blessings when they managed to get into his apartment without running into any of the neighbors; the last thing he needed was to have to explain Emery's presence right now, especially right in front of the man himself.

Under the bathroom's fluorescent lights Emery's sickly pallor was much more evident, the dark bags under his eyes impossibly deep; an ugly yellow bruise had formed on his cheekbone, below the clotted blood on his brow. Josh would much rather have gotten some food into Emery first, but he knew Emery was desperate to be rid of the lice, and that he'd welcome being clean long before considering food.

He wasted no time getting out the tools he thought they'd need: a plastic stool for Emery to sit on, a pair of scissors, a razor blade, shaving cream— Emery sighed audibly and scratched his beard again, his disappointment evident in way his shoulders slumped. "You don't have a shaver."

"I prefer to use a razor — is that a problem?"

Emery lifted his right arm. The shaking Josh had attributed to anger or nervousness was still there, not too pronounced but definitely present. There was no way he could use a razor without cutting himself multiple times, and getting some of the grime from his beard or hair into open wounds, no matter how small, was something to avoid at all costs. Josh exhaled, preparing for the next argument.

"It's too late to go out and buy one now or I would. I can shave you if you'll let me." Emery was already shaking his head so Josh continued, not giving him a chance to protest, "Listen, whatever you're going to say, it's not as if I've never shaved another person before. I've had clients who wouldn't let anyone else do it. Please trust me when I say I won't cut you."

"Trust you?" Emery turned incredulous eyes at him. "What part of 'I have lice' are you having trouble understanding?"

Josh opened a drawer, taking out an elastic band and a shower cap and putting both on in rapid succession. "There. Problem solved."

"You look ridiculous in that thing."

It was so Emery, the haughty comment, that Josh couldn't help but snort. Any reprieve from having to witness Emery's deep humiliation was more than welcome, even if it was somewhat at Josh's own expense. "Nonsense. I look dashing in my unassailable anti-lice fortress."

The laughter Emery graced him with amid coughs was a welcome sight after everything the last few years had thrown at him. A few moments later, Josh's tried again. "Please let me shave you?"

Emery nodded, eyes inscrutable. "Very well. Yes. Please. Start with the hair."

#

Josh was fairly certain that shaving was not, under any circumstances, supposed to be a heartbreaking experience. He'd started with the hair, as Emery had requested, and it seemed to be going fine. Emery's breath had hitched occasionally, but Josh had thought nothing of it.

Then he'd moved on to the beard.

He hadn't noticed it at first: How Emery's quiet gasps, the occasional shudder, were directly linked to the times Josh needed to touch skin with his fingertips; once he became aware of it, it was impossible to miss. His first instinct had been to think Emery was averse to being touched, at least by him; he was about to issue an apology and go put on a pair of surgical gloves when he realized Emery was unconsciously angling his head closer to the touch.

Although not the most tactile of men, Emery had always had a steady stream of physical contact during the time Josh knew him. With that bastard, Roger, there'd been handshakes and back claps and shoulder pats. With Josh himself, right until the night Emery had said the unforgivable, there'd been plenty of casual contact. And then there'd been Emma, with her tight hugs and combing her fingers through Emery's hair when he was tense — even, notably, when she'd been delivering a scathing review of the man's time management skills. He'd never seen Emery so unwound as he'd been during those moments, brown eyes lit by a smile as his shoulders relaxed.

Had no one touched him at all since the trial, except for whoever had likely punched him?

Josh laid his entire palm flat on the side of Emery's face he'd already shaved, ostensibly to better angle the razor in his other hand. It was the lightest of pressures, barely there, just enough to confirm his theory. He made sure to rinse the razor to give Emery ample space and time to move away. Emery almost burrowed his face in Josh's palm.

Touch-starved.

All Josh wanted to do at that point was hug him, but Emery would see it as pity, and he didn't need to feel pitied on top of everything else. Human beings weren't built to go without skin to skin contact; Josh would find a way to offer him the positive touches he needed without making it obvious.

Tomorrow. Tonight he could afford to be obvious — Emery was in no condition to notice how shaving the rest of his beard suddenly required more of Josh's hand on his face, or how Josh needed to brush a thumb below his eye, to ensure it was neatly done. He didn't dare repeat the process over the bruise — the last thing he wanted was to cause even the barest hint of pain.

Seeing Emery well-groomed again eased some of the pressure in Josh's chest, though the shaved head was still jarring; Emery was wobbly on the plastic stool, half-lidded eyes refusing to open further.

The act of being shaved, passive though it was, had left him clearly exhausted.

Josh made quick work of sweeping the floor and putting the hair in a plastic bag to dispose of, mind whirring. Emery showering by himself, with the level of dirt still on him and his state of weakness, would take far too long, not to mention it wouldn't be without danger. Josh didn't think what he was about to propose would be without danger either — namely, the danger of Emery spontaneously combusting at the sheer indignity of the suggestion — but there was no doubt it would be quicker.

"I could approach this with kid gloves, but it's late, you need to eat and sleep, I could do with both as well, and I'm going to take a page out of your book and be blunt: this would be quicker if you'd let me wash you."

Emery's head might have shot up, had he had the energy for it; as things stood it moved sluggishly upwards, and how half-lidded eyes could be brimming with outrage was something to ponder on another day. "I'm not an invalid."

Josh was too damn emotionally tired to pull his punches. "Emma would have ripped you a new one for that particular turn of phrase." Okay. Seeing outrage morph into utter defeat was not the outcome he'd had in mind with his outburst. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

"You're right, she would have. This all, it's..." Emery let out a slow breath. "I'm sitting in your bathroom spreading filth and lice everywhere and there you are, offering your charity, and I keep trying to turn it away. I shouldn't have agreed to come in the first place."

"Damn it, Emery, it's not charity!"

A minuscule rise and fall of Emery's shoulders; a voice so resigned it made Josh's heart ache. "Charity, pity, call it what you'd like. A rose by any other name."

'A rose by any other name.' Of course. Even homeless and wasting away, his mind went to plays, to poetry, to everything that had endeared him to Josh in the first place. Something Josh wouldn't let himself dwell on for another second. "Damn it, Emery, it's none of those things!"

"A hobby, then?" At least he was a little more combative now. Josh would never have imagined he'd prefer an Emery who'd fight him every step of the way. "Do you make it a point to go hunting for homeless people in the park so you can bring them home, bathe and feed them every Thursday? Delightful. Do you keep a score?"

Josh hadn't decided to let anything as honest as his next words cross his lips, but he didn't always have a choice in what he said. His eyes zeroed in on Emery's, the pain in his voice difficult to pass off as anything else, when he replied, "Is that all we are then? A homeless person and the random guy who brought him home from the park?"

Emery went from sluggish and exhausted to frozen, his slightly parted lips and quiet intake of breath the only evidence of life. There was something charged between them as the moment stretched on, as if they were on the verge of something. Josh didn't dare speak.

"Josh," Emery said, barely a whisper.

The rest of that sentence was stillborn, lost to a fit of coughing that brought Josh out of his daze. He'd have to give Emery a piece of himself he hadn't planned on giving — not when Emery had forfeited the right to any piece of Josh long ago — to get him to understand.