Kori
I've been lying to myself for two days straight, and it finally catches up to me somewhere around midnight.
It starts small. I chalk the thirst up to the dry cabin air, the way the wood stove sucks every bit of moisture out of a room.
I drink water, so much water, and it doesn't touch it.
Doesn't even make a dent, and I tell myself that's just what high altitude does to a person.
Then the headache shows up, dull and persistent behind my eyes, and I blame the screenplay, blame staring at my laptop screen too long trying to force out pages that won't come.
I don't want to admit what it actually is. It means admitting I stretched my last dose further than I should have this morning, told myself I could get by on less for one more day.
I was wrong. I knew I was wrong somewhere around my third trip to the bathroom in an hour, and I still don't say anything, because saying it out loud makes it real.
But I can’t lie to myself.
I’m not fine.
By the time I give up on sleep entirely and pad out to the kitchen for more water, my stomach's rolling in a way that has nothing to do with hunger, and the room tilts slightly when I stand too fast. I brace a hand against the counter, breathing through it, and that's how Randall finds me a minute later, shirtless and half asleep, hair sticking up in every direction with sweatpants that ride low on his hips.
The prosthetic is visible but my eyes keep snagging higher.
On the hard lines of his stomach, the sparse trail of hair disappearing under the waistband, and the unmistakable bulk of him even half asleep.
"You're up," he says, voice rough with sleep.
"Just getting water."
"You've gotten water four times tonight. I've heard the pipes."
"I'm thirsty. Sue me."
He crosses the kitchen, and even half asleep there's something alert in the way he's watching me now, something that makes my skin prickle with the urge to bolt back to my room before he asks the question I can see forming behind his eyes.
"Kori."
"I'm fine."
"You don't look fine."
"Wow, thank you, very flattering thing to say to a woman at midnight."
"When's the last time you checked your blood sugar?"
I don't answer fast enough, and that's answer enough on its own.
He crosses the last few feet between us, and before I can wave him off, he's got two fingers under my chin, tilting my face toward the light over the stove and the heat of his bare chest is right there.
The scent of his soap, woodsmoke, and something distinctly male surrounds me.
My pulse jumps for reasons that have nothing to do with my blood sugar.
"Breathe out," he says.
"Excuse me?"
"Just do it."
I do, mostly out of shock at being asked, and something shifts in his expression the second I do, jaw going tight.
"That's not normal thirst," he says. "Your breath smells sweet. Fruity, almost. You feel sick to your stomach?"
"A little."
"Headache?"
"Maybe."
"Kori."
"Fine, yes, headache, nausea, I've peed more in the last hour than I have all week, are you happy now?"
"Not remotely." He's already moving, pulling my meter kit off the counter where I left it, hands quick and sure in a way that reminds me, for one unwelcome second, that this is a man who used to do this professionally, under worse conditions than a warm kitchen.
"How much have you been rationing your insulin? "
"I haven't been rationing."
"Dammit, Kori."
"Fine. Maybe a little. I was trying to make it last until the roads clear, but I clearly didn’t do the math correctly, and I would very much like to not be having this conversation right now."
"Too bad." He hands me the meter, waiting while I do the check with hands that are shaking more than I'd like to admit. The number that comes up makes my chest go cold. Higher than it's been the entire trip. It’s higher than it should ever be. "That's what I thought."
"It's not that bad,” I try to argue.
"It's not good."
"I have some left. I can take a small dose now, that'll bring it down, it's fine."
"How much do you have left, exactly?"
I don't answer right away, and his face wavers between frustration and fear.
"Kori. How much."
"Ten units,” I admit, knowing that even if I took it all right now it wouldn’t be enough to bring my blood sugar down into the normal range.
"That’s not enough,” he murmurs. “Not even close. Long-acting?”
The question catches me off guard, before I remind myself that Randall’s a doctor.
Of course, the man would know the difference between the short-acting insulin I take for quick blood sugar corrections and meals and the long-acting insulin that’s used to control my blood sugar throughout the entire day.
“It was all in my luggage,” I confess.
Randall rubs one of his hands down his face with a look of exasperation that immediately irritates me.
"Well, excuse me for not having a backup plan for my backup plan running out because an airline lost my luggage in a state I've literally never even set foot in before this week."
My voice cracks a little at the end, and that's the moment the whole careful, prickly wall I've been holding up since the second I met him just gives out completely.
I press the heel of my hand against my eyes, furious at myself for the tears that show up uninvited, furious at the whole situation, furious at my own body for betraying me at the exact moment I most needed it to cooperate.
"Hey." Randall's voice goes soft. "Hey. Look at me."
"I'm sorry. I don't cry. I'm not a crybaby."
"Didn't say you were."
"I just—” My breath hitches, and I hate it, hate how much I hate needing anyone, hate how badly I wanted to prove I could handle this on my own.
"I hate this. I hate needing help. I hate that my own body's the thing trying to ruin my trip, my deadline, everything, and I hate that you're standing there looking at me like I'm something fragile, because I'm not fragile, I'm just—"
"Human," he says quietly. "You're just human, Kori.”
He pulls out a chair at the kitchen table, guiding me into it with a hand at my shoulder that's careful in a way that undoes me more than any amount of gruffness ever did, and crouches down in front of me so we're at eye level.
"I wish you’d told me sooner, but we’ll make it work," he says. “I would’ve cooked low-carb meals so we could limit your blood sugar spikes. But as of now, you’re officially fasting and I have some medicine that’ll help your nausea.”
My shoulders slump with relief. It feels good to have someone telling me the plan instead of having to conjure it myself.
“We’ll watch your numbers through the night. If they don't come down by morning, we’ll figure it out. But you're not doing this alone anymore. Not on my watch."
"You don't have to babysit me."
"Not babysitting." His hand finds mine, steady where I'm still shaking. "This is just what I do. Used to be my whole job, taking care of people when things went sideways. Kind of nice, honestly, having a reason to be good at it again."
He says it so quietly like he’s surprised.
"You miss practicing medicine," I say.
"Didn't think I did. Been actively avoiding it for two years, actually."
"Why?"
He doesn't answer right away, just focuses on drawing up my dose with careful, practiced hands, measuring it out exactly right without needing to think about it.
"Because every time I do something like this, I hear my father telling me it was never real medicine to begin with," he says finally. "Playing soldier, he called it. If I wasn’t practicing medicine at one of his approved hospitals it didn’t count."
"It counts," I say, quieter now.
He looks up at me then, his expression raw and unguarded crossing his face before he catches it.
"Drink your water," he says instead of answering. "I’m not sleeping until your numbers come down, so you might as well get comfortable."
"You don't have to stay up."
"You can’t stop me."
He settles into the chair across from me, close enough that our knees almost touch under the table.
For the rest of the night, every time I wake from the doze I keep sliding in and out of, he's right there, checking my blood sugar, refilling my water, present in a way nobody's been for me since I was first diagnosed.
I fall asleep near dawn with my hand still resting in his, and if he notices, he doesn't pull away.