Brian wants to argue, wants to fight, still feels the fire coursing through his veins, making his heart race. But as quickly as the anger had flared, it recedes. He can’t argue when Justin is doing just what he told him to do, standing up, pushing, and besides, the flush of adrenalin is short-lived. He feels the energy seeping out of him, can practically sense it sliding from his pores. Rage, zapped by the power-sapping ray gun of… fuck, he can barely stand, let alone think. He locks his knees and maintains his dignity by making it to the bed without falling over.

He props himself up on the bed. Closes his eyes. Tries to run through the changes Leo Brown wanted on the winter campaign, tries to concentrate, tries to be brilliant, but the thoughts skitter across his brain just out of reach and he’s just so fucking tired.

The bed sinks with Justin’s weight and Brian considers feigning sleep, but Justin clinks the spoon on the side of the bowl and Brian knows it’s useless. He opens his eyes.

“Eat,” Justin says.

Brian can hear the anger simmering behind the tersely-spoken word, Justin still boiling below the surface. Anger, and fear, and pain.

“I’m not hungry.” He assumes a bored expression, makes sure to keep his voice bland. You are not affecting me in any way, I simply have no interest in you or your soup.

“I don’t give a shit,” Justin says just as equably. “You’re going to eat.”

Justin stirs the soup again, the scent steaming to the surface with each swirl of the spoon, and Brian’s stomach grumbles in response. He glares at Justin in principle before reaching for the bowl, but his hand shakes and the soup splashes alarmingly to the rim of the bowl and he winces, inwardly curses weakness, curses failure, curses cancer. Then Justin’s hand is steadying his. He doesn’t meet Justin’s eyes as he sips broth carefully from the spoon.

He blinks in semi-darkness, confused. He has no memory of falling asleep. The sheets are blissfully cool on his heated skin, and he knows that at some point he’s been divested of shirt, pants, socks, shoes. He has no memory of doing that, either, but then a huff-snort of breath from beside him startles him, and he remembers. Justin is here. Justin is home. Justin must have done it.

He’s still wearing his briefs, shapeless, baggy gray cotton, but he wonders if Justin looked, if Justin saw, if Justin’s face had screwed up in revulsion, in horror, and the thought makes him squirm on the bed, makes him raise a shaking hand to his face, and the movement brings the nausea to the surface, like a diver breaking through the waves.

Brian scuttles to the edge of the bed. Except… he’s fallen asleep on the wrong side of the bed, the wrong fucking side, and he stumbles over Justin’s body, vaguely hearing Justin’s anxious yelps, feeling Justin’s arm flailing for him, gets his legs tangled in the sheets and is just able to hang his head over the edge of the bed before the soup makes it reappearance. He shudders through the aftershocks, closing his eyes against the dancing specks of colour hanging in the air.

Distantly he knows there is movement, sound. But he can’t seem to move, can’t speak, and when the next round of nausea overcomes him, there’s a bucket by his head and a cold cloth on his neck.

He slides cautiously into bed fifteen minutes later, into the proper side of the bed. His stomach still heaves, though there’s nothing left to vomit. His pulse still races. He lays on his back, throws his arm over his eyes. When Justin’s hand skims lightly over his chest, he’s not surprised.

“Drink this,” Justin says softly.

Brian cracks open an eye. “Fuck,” he rasps out, voice dry and cracked and hoarse. His throat throbs from exertion. “Are you trying to kill me?”

Justin’s mouth upturns briefly. “Yes. Then I can inherit your fortune and live the life of a man of leisure.”

“I always suspected,” Brian mumbles, and when Justin keeps urging the glass into his hand, he reluctantly takes it. He wraps his lips around the straw and takes a tentative sip. The liquid soothes his damaged throat and settles comfortably in his stomach, but he doesn’t want to risk much more. He hands it off after little more than a mouthful. Closes his eyes again. Feels sleep tugging at him.

When the bed dips and he knows Justin’s body is stretched out on the bed, Brian opens his eyes.

“I don’t need you here, you know,” he says.

“I know.”