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A simple enough task, Fiore thought as he examined the small round tablet. He tossed it into his mouth, ignored the chalky texture rolling across his tongue, and swallowed it down in a single gulp.
Enzo, who’d gone to pour a glass of water, turned back just in time to witness this feat. He stared in stunned silence.
Fiore held out his hand for the glass with a grin.
After a moment, Enzo gave it over. “Generally, the water is washed downwiththe tablet. Not after.”
Fiore supposed that would make things go more smoothly. “Good to know.”
The tablet’s effect proved not so instantaneous as the needle. Nevertheless the pain did ebb. It helped a great deal to have Enzo beside him. Still more to have his warm, strong hands enveloping Fiore’s own. And still more to hear that low murmur that seemed to reverberate within his own ribs. His frantic pulse steadied as Enzo stroked his hand and continued murmuring words of comfort. The words themselves didn’t matter so much as the sounds, for it was these that soothed Fiore down into something like sleep.
Only to bolt awake again when a knock resounded against his door.
“Enter,” said Enzo with the air of one accustomed to giving orders.
The door opened. Even though Fiore knew it could be no other than the chirurgeon, still the sight of the hideous waxed-leather helm with its grotesque beak and enormous inhuman glass eyes sent his heart flinging itself against his ribcage as if it wished to escape. He clenched Enzo’s hand in a fist. His breath came quick and shallow. This didn’t improve as the chirurgeon approached his bedside.
“If I may, signore,” echoed a voice from within the cavernous leather beak.
Against his better judgment, Fiore nodded. Even then, he couldn’t quite suppress a flinch as the chirurgeon pulled down the bedclothes to expose his chest. The shock of the stetoscopio’s cold brass bell against his flesh forced a gasp that hissed out between his clenched teeth.
“Careful,” said Enzo.
The word came out not in the soothing tone Fiore had grown accustomed to hearing from Enzo’s lips, but rather with the hard edge of a warning. It took Fiore a moment to realize Enzo had spoken not to him but to the chirurgeon.
It was impossible to tell how the chirurgeon took to the correction beneath their mask. They said nothing. The brass watch in their other hand ticked loud as thunderbolts. Fiore’s heart threw itself against his ribcage in its futile efforts to escape the chirurgeon’s clutches. Only Enzo’s hand in his own kept him from bolting.
“The pulse is a touch more rapid than I’d prefer,” declared the chirurgeon.
Even behind the bauta mask, Enzo’s resulting glare communicated caustic disdain for the intelligence of that particular remark.
“Though,” the chirurgeon added, sounding somewhat chastened, “there may be other factors complicating the pulse at the present moment.”
“Indeed,” said Enzo.
The chirurgeon set aside the stetoscopio and took up the termometro in its place. At the chirurgeon’s bidding, Fiore opened his mouth and held it beneath his tongue. Silence reigned for several moments whilst the chirurgeon examined their silver watch. Fiore’s pulse pounded in his ears. Then the chirurgeon snapped the watch shut and withdrew the termometro.
“Fever greatly reduced,” the chirurgeon announced. “Though still a touch elevated. Would you keep an eye on it, my lord? You know well enough how to read the signs.”
The queer mixture of reverence and familiarity baffled Fiore.
Enzo merely nodded.
The chirurgeon stood. “Do inform me if he should take a turn for the worse. I’ll not be far off.”
And with that, they departed, leaving stetoscopio and termometro both on Fiore’s nightstand.
Fiore rolled his head across his pillow to fix Enzo with a considering look. “You know something of medicine. Yet you’re not a chirurgeon yourself.”
“I do,” Enzo admitted. “And I am not.”
Fiore waited for him to explain.
Enzo remained silent.
While Fiore had nothing but gratitude for all Enzo had done for him in the past two days, he realized more than ever before as he stared at the blank visage of the black bauta mask how little he knew of Enzo and how much Enzo knew of him. Scores of men had seen Fiore in the throes of ecstasy. Few had beheld him in the throes of agony. And none moreso than Enzo. The balance, or lack thereof, hadn’t particularly bothered him until now. Now, with his entrails laid bare beneath the gaze of a man who refused to let Fiore know anything of him beyond his prick, his ass, and his eyes...
“Has the pain ebbed at all?” Enzo asked.
