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A queer smile stole over Enzo’s lips as he murmured his thanks.
“What time is it?” Fiore asked. His words felt reluctant to leave his tongue. A fog had settled over his mind.
“Almost midday.”
As that was technically still morning, Fiore counted it as a win.
Enzo turned away from him to reach for something on the opposing nightstand. Fiore hadn’t noticed that particular piece of furniture before. He supposed he ought to have suspected a matched set.
The sound of liquid pouring between vessels interrupted his meandering thoughts. It ceased. Enzo returned to him with a glass goblet of water. He gave it to Fiore, keeping his own hand on it as well to help support its weight; insubstantial under any other circumstance, but very heavy indeed in Fiore’s weakened state.
“Drink this,” Enzo urged when Fiore made no move to bring it to his own lips.
“What’s in it?” Fiore asked.
“Only water.”
Fiore wanted to believe him. He forced down the unreasonable unbidden fear in the back of his mind and raised the rim of the glass to his mouth. It tasted only of water; no trace of laudanum’s bitterness, nor of anything like whatever his kidnappers had dosed him with. It slipped over his tongue and down his throat, cool and refreshing, and awakened a thirst he hadn’t realized he possessed. Soon it was drained. Enzo poured him another.
“There’s limonata as well, if you’d like,” Enzo said as Fiore polished off the second glass.
Fiore had to admit that sounded tempting. But habit bid him enquire, “Coffee?”
“Not for a few more days,” Enzo said. At least he sounded apologetic. “But you may have bone broth, if you’re feeling up to breakfast.”
“How long until I can have something…” The word Fiore wanted evaded his grasp. “More?”
“Solid food will have to wait another fortnight,” Enzo replied, looking almost as sorry for it as Fiore felt.
“Didn’t have to wait last time,” Fiore muttered before he could think better of it.
Enzo hesitated. “Last time it was only appendicitis.”
Fiore snorted. “Only.”
A wan smile graced Enzo’s lips. “And while that was a very serious infection, your entrails were not punctured. Now, however, we must wait until the wounds are fully closed before we risk reopening them with too much substance.”
Fiore considered him. “You’re saying if I ate baccalà now, it would rend me asunder from within?”
“Very possibly, yes,” Enzo said, much to Fiore’s alarm. “At the least it would make you extremely uncomfortable.”
“Oh,” said Fiore.
“It wouldn’t be the baccalà itself, necessarily. Rather, the undulations the intestines must perform to digest solid food could result in your entrails tearing their own stitches out.”
Fiore didn’t really see the difference, but he appreciated Enzo’s efforts to explain it all the same. “I don’t think I’m hungry just now.”
The concerned crease reappeared between Enzo’s brows. Still, he smiled down at Fiore and stroked his hair. “Do you feel up to walking?”
Fiore didn’t believe it truly mattered whether he felt up to it or not. But he liked to be asked all the same. He nodded.
“May I take your pulse first?” Enzo asked.
While the thought of either chirurgeon doing so remained abhorrent, the thought of Enzo listening to his heartbeat sent an unexpected calm through Fiore’s veins. He nodded again.
Enzo retrieved his pocket-watch and the stetoscopio from the nightstand, and the termometro besides. The latter he raised with an enquiring tilt of his head. Fiore nodded a third time and opened his mouth so Enzo might gently slip the instrument beneath his tongue.
A brief smile flickered across Enzo’s lips as if in thanks. He vigorously rubbed the brass bell of the stetoscopio against his palm before turning down the bedclothes just enough to expose the left side of Fiore’s chest. Imbued with Enzo’s warmth, the stetoscopio felt far gentler against his ribs. Fiore found himself drawing slow and steady breaths rather than the panicked gasps he’d known of late. Enzo kept his gaze on his pocket-watch for what felt like a minute or two. Then he snapped it shut, withdrew the prongs from his ears, and looked upon Fiore once again with a smile whose soft sweetness threatened to bring Fiore to ruin.
