It takes Josiah a few hours to calm down before he tries talking to Cass again. There was no point threatening pain because Cass didn’t fear it and there was no point pretending he was the sweet and caring nurse because Cass didn’t buy it.
Cass knows who he is. Hard, violent, steel. And that’s what he’ll get.
“Alright, Cass. Enough,” he says, armed with a bowl of soup “Either you eat, or I’ll drive you to the nearest hospital and dump you out front.”
“No you won’t.”
“Try me, Ace.”
Cass flinches imperceptibly at the nickname.
“You hate hospitals even more than I do. There’s no way you’re taking me to one.”
“Didn’t say I’d take you in, I said I’d dump you out front.”
Cass scoffs like he doesn’t believe a word but Josiah sees his shoulders tense, his breath catch. There’s a fear there. He leans on it.
“Two nights ago, you drop at my doorstep, half dead, force yourself back into my life after a year of radio silence. I take you in, I patch you up. I don’t ask who did this, I don’t ask if they’re following you or if I’m in danger of them coming to my goddamn house. Hell, when I try asking, you force your way into my fucking head just to stop me.”
“That wasn’t what h-”
“I’ve dropped my whole damn life just to keep you alive and now you’re planning on starving yourself to death on my couch?” Josiah stands up straight, takes up as much space as he can. “You think I’m not begging for an excuse to get rid of you? Palm you off onto someone else? You think I won’t take you to a fucking hospital? Like I said… Try me, Ace”
Cass is breathing hard. Fuming. When he looks up, he seems to be trying to calculate something from Josiah’s face. Josiah stares him down, crosses his arms, hopes his face is impassive enough to hold down the lie.
“I’ll name you again,” Cass says, voice low in a shaky attempt menace and venom. “I’ll get into your head, make you cut your own hand off.”
Josiah snorts.
“Go on, then. This time when you pass out I’ll let you choke on your tongue.”
Cass holds his gaze, trying to call the bluff. There isn’t one.
“I didn’t mean to come here, I didn’t mean to…force myself back into your life,” he blurts. Panicked distraction. “It just happened.”
“I don’t care. You’re here now,” Josiah says, resolute “My house. My rules-”
“And I eat when you say I eat, I heard you. You gonna dictate when I shit as well?”
Josiah just shrugs and passes Cassius the bowl. “If I have to.”
Cass is breathing like he’s just lost a boxing match. He stares down at the bowl like he could scry a way out of here through vegetable broth.
Hair loose and hanging over his face like this, he looks impossibly young. Naive and innocent and wounded.
Young and wounded Josiah could buy. He doubted Cass had ever been naive. Innocent he wouldn’t touch with a ten foot stick.
Cass is shaking. His knuckles are white pearl where he grips the spoon. You’d think Josiah had asked him to swallow glass.
“Come on Cass,” he prompts, after a few too many moments of still.
“I’m trying,” he grunts. Then a shuddering breath. He puts the bowl down on the coffee table, makes a sound of frustration. “I… I want to eat it.” A breaths. “I do.” A breath. “I’m just…” A breath. “I- I can't… can’t…”
He’s hyperventilating Josiah realises, bent at the middle, fingers gripping in long hair.
Josiah had been prepared for the worst. He’d been prepared for defiance and snark and for violence and for a fight. He’d been prepared to be named again for Christ’s sake. He hadn’t been prepared for panic. For terror.
He doesn’t know what to do with this. He really wasn’t the sweet and caring nurse. He wasn’t the person for that. He sits down next to Cass, touches a hesitant hand to his back.
“It’s okay, Ace-”
“If you… if you call me that… one more fucking time…I really will make you cut your hand off,” Cass says between ragged inhales.
Josiah retracts his hand. He moves back on the couch to give the other man space. He resists asking what do I do like some moron. He counts in his head ten seconds, twenty seconds, as Cass’ breath slows.
“I’m fine,” says Cass, gripping his hair and resolutely not fine “I’m fine. I’m sorry. This is stupid. I’m just. I’m sorry. I’m fine. Sorry. I’m just tired”
“Yeah and probably hungry,” Josiah says, maybe a little too roughly.
“I’m trying you stupid fucking-” Cassius cuts himself off with a frustrated grunt. He looks like he could push Josiah’s stupid fucking head through the stupid fucking wall. He takes a deep breath and tries again “I’m trying, J. I’m just… in my head. In my head it's… not safe. The food, the… this place, the… God, anything. I’m so hungry and all I want to do is eat but every time I try my fucked up head tries to tell me that it's… that the food is…”
Cass trails off, gesturing mutely at the bowl. He can’t seem to say it. As though it’s too stupid, too paranoid. His shoulders are bunched up around his ears and he’s sitting on his hands. Everything about him screams shame and embarrassment.
“There’s nothing in the soup, Cass,” Josiah says after a minute. “There’s not even any stock powder, I ran out. It’s just vegetables and water. You watched me make it.”
“Yeah but I didn’t see wh-” Cass stops himself mid-thought again, clearly realising how stupid he’d sound to finish the argument “I know there’s nothing in it. I know that but I can’t tell my body that and I…”
Cassius takes a deep, deep breath and closes his eyes. When he speaks again, his voice is so small Josiah nearly misses it.
“I need help, J,” he says. “Just. I want to eat. Help me. Please.”
Josiah’s heart stops. Cass is asking for help. Cassius I can do my own damn stitches Drake didn’t ask for help. Ace never asked for help. Ever.
He’d mutter apologies or thanks. He’d take what was forced on him. He’d allow help if you insisted, sure, but he never asked. Even two nights ago, delirious and barely conscious he’d tried to insist on walking inside himself.
“J, please.”
Cass’ voice brings him back. It’s a whisper, almost a beg. And what else can he say?
“Yeah. Yeah, of course,” he clears his throat and reaches for the bowl “I can… look, same as the water, alright? I eat half, you eat half”
“Yeah but what if-” Cass cuts himself up, pulls his knees to his chest. When did he learn to make himself so small?
Josiah raises his brows, “What?”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s stupid”
“Cass. I’m not eating half a bowl of soup just for you to come up with another excuse in five minutes. It does matter. What?”
Cass hesitates, closes his eyes, and then let’s it rush out all at once. “What if you’ve put something in that settles at the bottom and then you just leave the… the bad bit for me”
Josiah stares at him like he’s been struck. He brings his hand up to rub over his face, hand settling on the back of his neck. Is that what Cass thought of him now? “Jesus Christ.”
“Told you. Stupid. Sorry. I know it’s stupid”
“Yeah, damn right it’s fucking stupid,” he says, shaking his head. Everything about this is stupid. But Cass needs to damn well eat. Josiah sighs. “Fine. Alright. Fine, whatever. Spoon by spoon then. I eat, you eat. Till the bowl’s done. How’s that?”
Cassius seems to be trying to think it over, pick it apart, find the trick. Then, slowly, he nods.
Finally.
Josiah takes a mouthful, taking care to very obviously swallow it. He feels like an idiot magician setting up a trick. Nothing up my sleeves! Nothing in the soup!
Then he holds out the spoon.
Cass is staring at the bowl like a viper might leap out to attack him, so Josiah scoops some broth onto the spoon and offers it out again, hoping some numb part of Cass’ brain registers the gesture. Instead of reaching for it, though, he opens his mouth like a baby bird. Josiah breathes in sharply.
This is fucked. Completely fucked.
He wants to walk away. He wants to punch a hole in the wall.
But Cass is terrified. And he needs food. Whatever stupid thing it takes. So he feeds him.
As soon as Cass closes his lips around the spoon he makes a sound like he’s been hit with pure bliss. It’s enough that he closes his eyes and Josiah feels such fucking relief that he almost forgets how awkward and horrible this is. He’s nearly holding back a smile.
It’s an easy process to repeat. Spoon for him, spoon for Cass.
“Fuck that’s good,” Cass mutters after the third or fourth mouthful.
“‘Course it’s good,” Josiah says. “I cooked it.”
Cassius takes another mouthful, holding the spoon himself this time. “Since when do you cook?”
“Since when do you care?”
They keep eating. One after the other. Spoon by spoon.
“I’m sorry,” Cass says softly, once half the soup is gone. He doesn’t sound sure on what he’s apologising for.
“It’s okay,” Josiah tells him.
Its a lie. They both know it. It isn’t okay. None of it is.
“For what it’s worth, I do care,” Cass continues, softer still. “About you. I care a lot.”
Josiah pauses. Despite the knife through his chest, he manages to keep breathing. How dare he? How absolute dare he?
He doesn’t want to eat anymore fucking soup. He doesn’t want to be here. He wants to run away. He takes another mouthful.
Everything feels horrible. Everything feels like a cruel injustice and a demand he can’t bare. But he does. And so does Cass.
