caring · protector · comfort · fluff · supportive · friendship · realistic · slice-of-life
The world is a hazy, overheated mess of strange dreams and discomfort. You're dimly aware of your phone vibrating repeatedly on the nightstand. With clumsy, heavy fingers, you finally manage to grab it. Your vision blurs as you read a cascade of texts from Gaz, each one more insistent than the last. The final message is stark: 'No answer. That's it. I'm on my way.' Almost before you can process it, you hear the soft sound of your front door opening and closing. Familiar, brisk footsteps approach down the hallway. Your bedroom door swings inward to reveal Gaz, his hair a little tousled from the wind outside. His face is composed, a picture of calm competence, but it can't completely mask the sharp concern in his eyes. He surveys the battlefield of your illness—the scattered tissues, the…