And I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
“I know you are sensitive to their light right now,” he went on. “So, until I can reassert control over them, I will keep them closed. I will use my tail ahead of me as a sort of guide.” There was a slithering sound, like a serpent moving over wood, then the clumsier thump of what was presumably Rivven’s hand connecting with a nearby wall.
Hold on…
That light was from his eyes?
“I have found the door!” He sounded so pleased by this fact that I couldn’t help but smile a little. “Oh! I nearly forgot. Do you need your bucket emptied?”
“My bucket?”
Oh, right. I’d asked for one. I hadn’t even realized someone had brought it.
“No,” I said. “I didn’t throw up.”
“You did not throw up what?” He paused. “If you use the bucket, please do not feel as if you have to throw it anywhere, like out the window. I will dispose of the contents myself.”
“What? No, sorry.” I supposed that was a bit of a translation error. “I meant, I didn’t vomit.”
“Vomit?!”
“Er…Yes? Did that translate alright?” Why was he so surprised? “What…What did you think I needed the bucket for?”
“Well,” he said, “I thought you’d piss in it.”
Oh, Christ. The man really thought I was going to pee in the bucket.
Or worse.
And he’d just offered to empty it.
“No, no!” I said. The creeping heat of embarrassment was making my head throb. “When I need to, uh, engage in that sort of thing, I’ll find my way to the appropriate room.”
“Are you sure?” he asked. It remained pitch-black in here. He must have still had his eyes closed. I tried to imagine him, standing at the door with his eyes screwed shut, but couldn’t really do it. I hadn’t even gotten a glimpse of him yesterday, and I had no idea what he looked like.
But he sounds handsome.
“Emptying the bucket would be no trouble,” he added, distracting me from the absurdity of that sudden thought.
“Well, it would troubleme,” I said on a shaky half-laugh, half-moan. “But thank you for the offer.”
He didn’t say anything else. It was only the fact I hadn’t heard the door open and shut again that told me he was still there.
“I’m going to sleep a little more. If that’s alright.” I was rapidly losing steam.
“Yes,” he said abruptly, as if his mind had been miles away and I’d just called it back. “Sleep as long as you need.”
It was only when he’d been gone for a while, when I was drifting back to sleep, that I remembered this was Rivven’s bed.
And I wondered where he’d lay his head down tonight.
When I woke next,there was a small amount of light present in the room. I let out a shaky sigh of relief when I realized that it wasn’t causing me pain. I felt like a wrung-out dishrag, but it seemed like the migraine was receding somewhat. Hopefully, if I took it easy for the next day or two, it wouldn’t turn into a monster 72-hour attack.
I stayed still for a while, just breathing and enjoying the fact it didn’t currently feel like somebody was pulverizing my brain with a meat tenderizer. When I felt up to it, I shifted to the edge of the bed and snaked my arm out. My bag was on the floor beside the bed, as was the bucket Rivven had mentioned last night.
I ignored the bucket for now and opened my bag, pulling out my bottle of painkillers. If I took another one now, when I was already feeling much better, hopefully the medication would stave off the return of the worst of it. If I could manage to keepahead of the pain with medication, things tended to go a lot better.
I was about to dry-swallow a pill when I remembered what Rivven had said about there being some water. Moving at the pace of cold, crawling molasses, I eased myself up into a seated position. My head gave a dull throb at the exertion, but thankfully it was only an echo of the intensity from yesterday. I took the pill with a sip. The water was quite cold. So was the air in the room, now that I was awake enough to notice and not as cocooned in the blankets as before.
