Before You Leave

28. Happy Birthday, Kiss Ass

Gideon was sick. I knew this because he was sneezing all over the apartment, coughing, and dry heaving.

And it was on his birthday of all days.

I rubbed his back when he puked, I gave him cough drops and tea, and I gave him medicine. But he was still coughing and stuffed up.

I pitied him. His eighteenth birthday was supposed to be special.

Instead he was dry heaving on the bathroom floor right now.

"Gideon, are you okay?" I ask him gently, sadness and sorrow entering my face as I bent down on the white tile floor and felt his forehead. He pressed his cheek on the cool tile, put the cold didn't help. He was still burning up.

"I'm..." he wheezed, making a barfing motion with his mouth. Another dry heave. "Fine. You should..," a cough, "leave. I don't want you to get sick."

I laughed a little, brushing his now sweaty hair out of his dripping forehead. "You're ridiculous. I'm not leaving you. You just have a cold, Gid. And it's your birthday. I'm so not leaving you."

He was honestly starting to stink.

"Gideon, let's get you in the bath, baby," I whisper, struggling to lift up his torso on my knees as I cradled his head in my hands.

He smirked in a trance. "Baby?"

"Oh, hush."

"I'm not having you see me naked," he coughed out.

I sighed as I started the bath. "I don't care about what I'm going to see, Gideon." I glanced over at a blue towel on the floor. "Just place this around your..." I coughed, "area... and then step into the bath. Deal?"

"Fine."

I grabbed the towel and set it beside him. Then, I tugged the hem of his red sweater, swiftly pulling it up and over his head.

He groaned softly as his head hit the tile floor. I wasn't careful enough with taking it off of him, so it jerked him off my lap.

I tried not to laugh and I covered my mouth with a palm and muttered, "Sorry."

"It's fine."

I then made my way to his black jeans and I went pink as I looked him in the eyes. "Er... do you want to do this?"

He coughed a few times, and I took that as a no. I unbuttoned his jeans, and put down the zipper. I was very careful not to touch anything I didn't want to touch.

"You're going to have to Hel me out a little for this part. Okay, Gid?" I ask, running my hands through his soggy hair.

He nodded and I started to tug them down, pulling them from his ankles. He tried as best as he could, with what little strength he now had, to pull them from his thighs. Eventually, we got them off of him. All he was left in now was his grey boxers.

I sighed and took him by the hands as I stood and tried to pull him up with me.

"Come on," I mutter, whining with tiredness. "Please stand up Gideon. You can lay back down once you get in the bath. Just please help me here, baby?"

He put a hand on the toilet cover and took my other advice he pulled himself up, his body shaking with every movement. He got on his feet and nearly fell on me. His long arms wrapped around my neck loosely to steady himself.

"I'm going to put this towel around your waist and you're going to step out of your boxers. Alright?"

He looked like he was about to fall asleep.

"Alright?" I repeated.

He nodded hastily and I put the blue towel around him. He wiggled out of his underwear and I slowly guided him to the bathtub.

He lowered himself in there and removed the towel from his bottom, so it just covered his front now as he finally sat down in the luke warm water. I bent down on my knees and put my arms on the side of the bath as I wiped his hair out of his eye.

"Happy birthday, kiss ass," I whispered as he closed his eyes. I turned off the bath and sighed as I watched him doze off.

I took the small box from my jacket pocket that I was planning on giving him. I huffed and turned it around in my fingers. "I was supposed to give this to you, but I guess I'll just give it to you for Christmas."

I looked down at my watch and cursed. I quickly kissed his forehead.

"I have to go. I'll be back before you wake up."