I run down the stairs, feeling myself a bit dizzy, but I ignore that feeling. I know far too well to ignore different kind of symptoms to different kind of illnesses. I won’t get any free time for myself anyways, so why bother myself and others with some weird dizziness. I watch Arnold as his eyes fly to me, my steps coming closer to him,

“What brings you down here? Shouldn’t you be in your room with Barakat?”

“Yeah, about that – can he…like stay after his time?”

“What do you mean? He’s going to pay even more than he already has?”

“No! It’s going to be like in my free time. His paid time ends, but you don’t come up to kick him out, because it’s my free time and you have said many times, that on our free time we can have in our room whoever we want. So I want him to be in my room after his paid time.”

“So you want him to stay the night?” he looks concerned.

“Yes.”

“Well, as you said, it is your time and I don’t see why you even needed to come down here.”

“So you wouldn’t come to my room and try to kick him out, that’s why!”

“Just make sure to not have another argument with him tonight, okay?” he smiles at me like father smiles at his son.

“He’s already half asleep, so I doubt idea about some arguments,” I smile back and turn around to leave to my room.

“Alex, you should have free day tomorrow.”

“Why? I asked just for one night, why would I need free day?”

“You look bad, you shouldn’t work in this kind of state,” he walks around his small table and comes to me.

“What kind of state? There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“Really? Do you really feel good?” he presses his palm to my forehead.

“Yeah, and by that you would really tell if my temperature is higher than it should be,” I chuckle, trying to focus my eyes to his hand.

“What?” he looks down at me. Yeah, he is a bit taller.

“I just fucked some guy; obviously my temperature would be higher than normal.”

“I thought you liked this guy,” he smirks at me, bringing his hand away from me.

“No one had said that, so if you will excuse me, I should return to my room,” I start to walk up the stairs.

“But you will have free day tomorrow, you want it or not, I don’t care. I want that!” he yells after me. I would be lying if I said I didn’t like the idea of free day. First of all, no need to wake up early and kick Jack out. Secondly, I could have lazy morning with Jack. I wonder how he looks in mornings. I guess I’ll find that out.

I get in my room as quiet as possible, thinking that Jack might be asleep, but a drowsy voice says me otherwise,

“Took you some time. He didn’t want me to stay, yeah?”

“No, as long as we don’t have another argument, you’re allowed to stay and guess what, I got free day,” I get out of my pants and shirt, find my comfy pajama pants and get in my bed next to Jack.

“What for?” he turns around, now facing me and running his fingers through my hair.

“He said I look bad and shouldn’t work tomorrow, but as long as I get free days I don’t care how bad I look.”

“Well, you are warmer than you should be, I could even say that you’re hot.”

“Why do you keep saying me that! We just had sex, of course I’m hot!”

“I’m not that hot and I did most of the job this time. I should be warmer than you are. You’re not sick, aren’t you?”

“As much as I know – no,” I cuddle closer to his chest and close my eyes, “worried you might get some weird illness from me?”

“No,” he chuckle, “worried that you might be sick.”

“Right! Just let me sleep.”

“Sure, hun,” he brings his lips to my forehead in light touch.

“Don’t call me that,” I mumble in his chest, feeling myself being brought to my precious dream land.

---

I tie the leash to the second horse and give it to my father. He’s about to sell two of our horses to neighbors. We’re in great need of money and horses are only thing we have left. Only valuable thing, which would give us enough money to survive this winter.

“You will come with me, I need you to make this one look presentable. Without you, they won’t buy this crazy animal!” He points to dark brown horse, which is my favorite, but as my father said, he is pretty wild. Only I, and sometimes my brother, can work with him. He never lets my father too close and my mother hasn’t even been in the stable since we got him.

I don’t say anything to my father, knowing he would just yell at me again if I would try and stand up for a horse. We already had this talk for more than three times, but if he had decided to sell this horse, he will do it.

In less than thirty minutes we reach our neighbors house. It’s a bit bigger than ours, there’s bigger yard and two dogs running our way and then there’s this boy. I know it’s wrong and I shouldn’t think of him that way, but there’s just something about him that I really like. I don’t even want to think what my father would do to me, if he would know what I’m thinking.

“Call your father, tell that we got his horses,” even if we’re here to get money from them, even if we’re about to sell them crazy horse, he still talks to him as it would be his fault, that we don’t have money and this horse is a little bit crazy.

“Yes, sir,” he whispers, looks over to me and runs back to house. I know I shouldn’t be looking there, and I know I shouldn’t be liking what I see, but I just….

“Would you stop daydreaming and calm down that goddamn horse!?” he whisper – yells at me.
I turn my gaze to horse and pet his head,

“Shhh, calm down, no need to worry. You’ll be fine here and we’ll be fine too. Later, but it’s going to be okay,” I tell him, his big brown eyes locked with mine.

“It’s just stupid animal, he doesn’t understand what you’re telling him!” my father sneers.

He wasn’t like this all the time. I guess, it’s just hard for him to live without money, without enough food, in cold house and with two sons who do nothing but live in the stables with horses and the rest of the animals. He wanted Tom to get married, but no girl wanted to marry him if he has no money and house. He also wanted me to get married, he didn’t care that I was just fifteen back then, but after what happened with Tom, he understood that no girl would want to marry me either. I was relieved, to say least.

“So, those are the precious animals!” I turn around to see that boy walking back with a man, I guess, his father, “so, Peter, are they really as gorgeous as you said.”

“Definitely, you can ask more to my son, he spends more time with those horses than with his family,” he laughs and other man laughs too, but I can tell that my father’s laughs are faked. Oh, how fake they are! Last time he laughed when horse threw Tom down. It looked funny, I can admit that, but it sure wasn’t thing to laugh about.

“Well, we can go inside and talk about money and boys can get those horses to stables,” he motions for his son to take one horse, while I’m still holding the crazy one. They both turn around and walk to house, while I’m left alone with this gorgeous boy and my sick thoughts about him.

“Okay then. This way,” he says and turns left, pulling the horse with him. I follow him with other horse, admiring the view in front of me and believe me, it’s not that gorgeous animal, it’s this gorgeous boy. Boy? Is it even okay to call him boy? I know that he’s around my age and I don’t like myself being called a boy.

We reach a building, which I guess is a stable. He turns around and looks me in the eye. Why, Alex, why! Why do you think of him that way! Why do you want to be closer to him, why do you want to feel him, why do you even think of tasting his lips!

“Can you hold him,” he gives me other leash, before opening the big doors to stable. Now that’s the stable! They already have three horses, why would they need more! There’s so much space that we could fit our house in there! Well, almost.

He leads us to two empty boxes and opens them so we could bring both horses inside.

“So, why are you selling them?”

“Oh…we…we just…”

“You don’t need to answer if you don’t want to or it’s too personal. I was just wondering. I was wondering about my father too. He never mentioned that we need more horses and then two day ago he tells us, that he’s buying horses. Not just one! Two!”

“Well, I don’t know about your father,” I say quietly, releasing horse from all unneeded leashes in here.

“I’m Arthur, by the way,” he appears behind me, with huge smile on his face. Oh, god, what I would do to just pull him closer!

“Ahh, yeah…Alex…”

“Really? Just Alex?”

“Well, it’s short from Alexander, but Alex is better.”

“If you say so,” he smiles again. Why does he need to smile so much!

“We should get inside; I’ll tell my sister to get them some fresh water.”

“Sure,” I turn around to face this crazy animal one last time, “you might be little crazy, but you’re the best horse I have ever met,” I pet his huge head, before turning around and leaving him there.

“You really like this one, huh?” Arthur asks me as I get to his side.

“Yeah, he’s definitely not normal, but he’s…special, I guess.”

“Just like you,” he says quietly, not looking at me.

“What?”

“Nothing, don’t mind me. Just wondering.”

“’bout what?”

“Nothing important… you know, you could come over some other day… see your horse, you know. I saw that you’re close with him. You might miss him, so I thought…you might want to see him some day.”

Not just him, “Yeah, that would be great,” I smile at him and he returns it.

---

“Alex, wake up! Alex!” Jack’s voice echoes through my mind.

What the hell is Jack doing here? He doesn’t need to see me like this.

“Alex!”

I try and open my eyes, looking in darkness. I spot some silhouette above me, which I assume is Jack.

“Dammit, Alex. You got a fever or something. Arnold won’t be downstairs at this hour, right?”

I try to focus my eyes on him, but everything is too dizzy around. I feel so bad, worse than when I was drunk.

“Alex! About Arnold?”

“Last doors at the end of the corridor,” I feel my throat is sore too.

I feel Jack leaving bed and hear him mumbling something while he’s trying to find his clothes. All sounds for me are like coming from some other universe. It feels like I’m locked in some basement and every sound are so far away.

“Just please don’t pass out, okay?” I feel his warm lips against my hot skin and then he’s gone, leaving me alone with this weird and not so good feeling.

All I want to do is just sleep, but Jack asked me to stay here, so I need to do what he’s asking. I sit up in bed, but it was the worst thing I could’ve done. My head is spinning even more and I feel sick. I shiver as cold air hits my hot skin. I hold my head in my hands, thinking that this might stop it from spinning.

It feels like forever when Jack comes back with Arnold. I feel bed sinking and warm hands on my bare back.

“He needs more blankets, some water and maybe…Alex, you feel sick?” Arnold asks me.

I try and nod my head, but that was second worst decision this night. I feel my stomach tightening, before it pushes everything out. I could’ve never imagined that I could react so fast, leaning over Jack so that bed stays clean.

“Yeah, we would need some bucket too,” Arnold says and I hear his steps leaving room.

My body starts to shake even more after I’m done and I don’t think it is as much from the cold air as it is because I feel too weak. Jack’s hand moves from my back, around my waist pulling me closer to him. Some hot tears run down my cheeks, I don’t even know why.

“Shhh, it’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. These things happen, you can’t control that.”

“I feel so bad, everything hurts and I feel so dizzy,” I whisper in his chest.

Arnold comes back with bucket and a mop. He puts the bucket down next to the bed and starts cleaning up my mess.

“Jack, get some water, but not cold. Wake up the bartender, next doors to mine, and say that Alex needs warm water. If he asks something, say that I sent you,” he instructs without looking up.

Jack unwraps his arms and gets up from bed to leave me alone again. Well, not totally alone, this time Arnold stays here.

“Alex, lay down. You need to sleep, I’ll get you some more blankets and I guess Jack can stay too, he really cares about you. He sounded really worried when he came to me.”

I lay down, pulling warm blanket tighter around me, but still feeling shivers running through my body. I close my eyes and feel like I would be on ship and that ship would be in the middle of ocean and there would be a storm. Yeah, that’s the best way to describe how I feel right now.
I feel myself falling back to sleep, when quiet steps and muffled voices comes to room.

“He’s alright?” that’s not Jack, I guess, that might be the bartender. Whether he didn’t trust Jack enough to let him bring the water or he wanted to see himself what’s happening.

“And how does it look?”

“Yeah, not good, I guess.”

“You’re right, not good,” I feel some weight being put above me. Blankets. Arnold said something about them, “Jack, you can stay. Obviously he’s not working tomorrow and you can stay as long as you want or can stay with him.”

“Thanks,” now that’s Jack. Stop talking there and come here!

“Okay, if you need something, you know where to find me,” and with that I hear him leaving, probably, together with bartender.

Quiet sigh from Jack and after a while I feel him getting back in bed, his arms around me and lips pressed to my forehead.

Notes

wow, it turned out longer than I thought, but some mystical chakra opened and I just couldn't stop ;D
but I like it and hope you like it too ^^
Hot cup of tea to everyone who bothers to read this, love ya!!!