Eliza was in and out of consciousness all that night. Her dreams were hectic pools of thought with no rhythm. Her head pounded and clothes clung to her like sticky web. She woke up fully only once with the sky dark as velvet outside and nothing but creeping stillness in the streets.

She turned over with pins and needles clawing at her throat and found a jug of water placed by the couch. She chugged almost all of it with the water dribbling down her chin and a fog still layering her thoughts. There was a bottle of aspirin and note beside it, but Eliza ignored them and rolled back over in place instead.

She pulled a comforter tighter around her and only belatedly realized that Mickey must have draped it over her earlier. Eliza sniffed it weakly as if to catch a hint of her heady scent, but ended up drifting off into some endless sleep.

She dreamt of nothingness so fine you could thread your fingers through it and was gone.

“Hey,” she heard someone snap from somewhere far off. “Hey there.”

Eliza slowly pried her eyes open with the effort of an Olympic weightlifter. The room swam for a moment before coming into focus with a jarring brightness. She squinted and a face loomed overhead. Mickey’s hair was tied back in a spiky ponytail and her eyebrows were knitted together in concern.

She pushed something toward Eliza. “Sorry to wake you. I need to do this group project thing today, but I thought you should eat something before I go.”

Eliza registered that these were words, but they didn’t penetrate very deeply into her consciousness. “Ugh.” She groaned and felt at her throat which was still raw and angry.

“Soup.” Mickey pushed a bowl toward her. “It’ll help.”

Eliza tried to sit up and she at least didn’t feel like a small inferno anymore, but her limbs were weak and helpless as a newborn. She rubbed at her face and felt sticky and gross from the night sweats.

“How…” She groped for words, but all that came out was a weak grunt.

“Here.” Mickey lifted a spoon up. “Open up.” Eliza’s eyes went huge and her face flushed as Mickey offered her a thick broth with carrots in it. She wrinkled her nose and Mickey laughed. “Come on,” She winked, “I won’t tell.”

Eliza opened her mouth wide reflexively and Mickey gently pushed the spoon between her lips. The soup was deliciously warm and slid down her throat like a dream that softly soothed the sting there. She moaned softly and let herself be fed another few bites.

Eliza blushed deeply after a moment though and reached weakly for the spoon herself. “I can…” She tried again after swallowing a couple times. “I can feed myself.”

Mickey carefully handed her the warm bowl. “Sorry. Force of habit, I used to help with my younger brother and sister all the time.” She stood up and Eliza felt a rush of embarrassment. Had she really let herself be spoon fed?

“Thank you.” Her face was still far too red even with her fever broken. She quickly shoved more food into her mouth.

Mickey shrugged. “No problem. I wasn’t exactly going to let you waste away on the couch or anything.”

Eliza looked away. “Yeah, um, sorry for the inconvenience.”

Mickey hovered nearby and visibly rolled her eyes. “Inconvenience? Oh don’t worry I’ll charge you for nurses fees later. Just don’t expect me to give you any sponge baths.” Eliza’s face simmered as she thought of Mickey slowly soaking her down with a sponge. Mickey must have noticed her discomfort, “I’m kidding, I’m kidding, I was just being a decent roommate.”

Eliza gave a weak grin. “I will have to pay you back somehow.”

Mickey pushed on her shoulder. “Just don’t keel over. I don’t want to have to find a new roommate just yet.”

Eliza nodded and quickly started to finish off the rest of soup as Mickey filled her backpack up across the room with books and things. She kept glancing up as went.

“So,” she finally said after Eliza put the bowl down with a thunk and went to drink the rest of the water. “Can I help you to bed before I leave? I think that’ll probably be more comfortable.”

Eliza took a deep breath, feeling more herself. “No. It’s alright. I have work at the museum later...I should get up anyway.” Eliza looked around for a clock, but the kitchen one was too far away to make out the time. She hoped it was still before noon.

“What?!” Mickey straightened up and dropped her backpack. “Dude, you just spent with a high as fuck fever. You passed out!”

Eliza was still in her jeans from last night and winced as she stuck her stiff legs out of the covers. “Thank you again for taking care of me, but I’m good…”

“Oh no no.” Mickey stood in her way like a prize-winning wrestler about to make a take-down. “You gotta call in sick and then I’ll take you to bed.” She wagged a finger in the air, “New house rules: no one goes to work looking like death.”

Eliza frowned and touched her tangled hair. “Do I really look that bad?”

“Like a lich queen that just climbed out the grave,” Mickey clarified.

Eliza went pale. “What?”

“I mean, still very hot, babe, very hot, but definitely undead.” Mickey said as if to reassure her of something. Eliza turned away.

“Uh.” She didn’t process all those words at once.

“Look, bed, good. Work, bad.” Mickey walked over to her.

Eliza weighed her options. She had never called in sick for work before, but she knew everyone there thought she only got the job because of her dad’s influence and her being Latina. If she slacked off they’d see her as just another lazy kid that wormed her way in.

She shook her head. “It’s fine.” She took a deep breath, “My fever broke and I--”

“You want to get other people sick too?” Mickey cocked an eyebrow up. “Look me in the eye and tell me you’re all the way better.”

Eliza frowned and struggled for another moment within herself. Her throat was still throbbing with every swallow and had a dull ache even when she did nothing. She looked at her lap and Mickey went over. “I may be small,” she warned. “But I will lift you, I work out bro.”

Eliza gave a faint smile. She stood up shakily. “Okay.” She said in a small voice, “Okay…”

Mickey nodded and put a hand around her waist. “Up you go.” She helped pull her the rest of the way to her feet.

They teetered their way to the bedroom. Eliza suspected she could walk on her own, but there was something reassuring about the warm hand around her back. The grip was firm and fit almost perfectly in the curve of her waist. She closed her eyes again as she entered her own cool dark bedroom.

“Take your pants off.” Mickey said with a wave, “and I’ll go get your comforter.”

Eliza complied and kicked off her pants and threw her bra across the room. Normally, she would have felt more self-conscious in just her t-shirt and bright white underwear, but she was too weak to complain. She climbed into bed and rolled onto her back to stare up at the ceiling. Mickey came back in and placed the comforter over her.

She smiled, “Was that so hard?”

“Excruciating.” Eliza hummed and found her phone plugged into the wall next to her bed. “Did you do that too?”

Mickey gave a brief nod. “Oh,” she said, “and whenever you’re better I still want to have that talk.”

Something wiggled in Eliza’s gut as she thought of what she saw the other night. Mickey, raw and moaning and with her fingers inside of herself. “Right.” Eliza closed her eyes and pretended she was ready to pass out again. “Yeah. Whenever you want.”

Mickey lingered besides her for another minute as if thinking and then turned. “See you!” She called. “And I’ll know if you get out of that bed. Stay there until I come back!”

“I will…” She promised with a weighted sigh from somewhere deep inside of her. She heard the front door close and Eliza felt her emotions tugged in five different directions. She managed to text her boss that she was sick and couldn’t come in. She offered to take someone else’s shift later that week as well after a couple frenzied apologies. She melted into bed when she was done.

As Eliza closed her eyes she saw Mickey’s concerned face there: attentive, bright, and as lovely as the moon. Heat flooded through her all over again. You’re sick, she tried to remind herself, you’re not supposed to be horny. But if her body was weak so was her mind.

She touched the place where Mickey had held her waist and shuddered.