At least the bacon scent was fading. The onion smell had mostly dissipated too.
He must have stared too long at the divided plate Dez sat down at the table with once he’d placed a sandwich in front of Zakk and another in Riley’s hand, because the man glared at him like he wanted to rip Tripp in half.
“Get a good enough look?” Dez growled, curling his arm around the plate like he was trying to hide it from view. It dawned on Tripp then that he’d never seen Dez eat anything when their bands were out together. In fact, he tended to skip out, along with Winter and Bash, getting food somewhere else, which Tripp had always took as code for smoking something. Now though…Every component he’d put in the sandwiches was on his own plate, just not touching, not even combined into a salad which would have been the logical solution for someone who was trying to avoid bread.
“What he’s trying to say is please stop staring at him,” Zakk slurred around the bite of sandwich in his mouth. “You’re making him self-conscious when he shouldn’t have to feel that way, especially not here.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it,” Tripp muttered, finally looking away.
“Seems like that’s your catchphrase of the day,” Riley quipped, waving his sandwich in Tripp’s direction, resulting in a piece of lettuce smacking him in the face.
And there was the urge to gag again, barely suppressed as he brushed the offending shred of vegetable off his cheek. Riley was right though. Seemed like everything he did was pissing someone off today.
“Oh man this is good!” Zakk declared about halfway through his meal, eyes no longer looking quite as glassy as they had when Tripp arrived, thanks to the addition of the chips and pickles that Dez had added to his plate. “You sure you don’t want some?”
Tripp caught a whiff of onion then, pungent, like the lingering essence of pepper and mustard wafting off the bread, and bolted from the table, hoping he remembered where the bathroom was….
He barely felt the pain of pinching his finger in the toilet lid, but at least he got it open before stomach acid and bile burned his throat as it surged up out of his gullet.
It felt like his chest was on fire when he gagged a second time. Cold and shaking he clung to the porcelain, trying to breathe past the pain. It barely registered that someone was rubbing his back. He wasn’t sure what to feel about that either, disgusted with himself, embarrassed, again, or grateful that one of them had come down the hall to check on him.
His hair was hanging in the toilet, gross and sticky, and he really wanted to cry and hope it wasn’t Zakk who was handing him a wet washcloth, only the universe hated him, because there were those beautiful blue eyes he loved gazing into when they were fucking, only tonight they were red rimmed from the booze and alight with worry.
Because of him.
“Tripp, whaz goin’ on?”
Shouldn’t it be obvious? Tripp wondered as he wiped his mouth, only to spot a bright red stain darkening the cloth when he pulled it away from his face.
Well shit. That was unexpected.
“Oh my god!” Zakk screeched. “You’re pukin’ blood.”
He couldn’t formulate words, he couldn’t think, all he could do was stare at the bloody washcloth and wonder what the fuck was wrong with him.
Chapter 6
Those we’ve left behind
Everything was too bright on the other side of his eyelids. Blips mingled with voices, and it took several minutes of lying there, trying to sort out words, until it dawned on him that he was in the hospital. Bleeding ulcers, the doctor had said. The direct result of all the aspirin, Tylenol and ibuprofen he’d been popping like Skittles for the last several months. He would need an endoscopy to see how bad the ulcers were, and a cauterizing procedure to stop the bleeding, so they needed his consent to treat.
He'd tried debating it, holding off until he could talk to Winter, who Dez hadn’t been able to get on the phone. Then he’d vomited again. More blood. And there was no longer the option to wait. He signed the papers, hugged Zakk, who’d sobered up somewhere between the house and the hospital, in between bouts of being worried about him and frustrated with him for not seeking treatment when some of the other symptoms he’d reluctantly admitted to, had first shown up.
“Hey, are you actually awake, fucker?”
He knew that voice as well as he knew his own. Blinking against the lights, he struggled to focus, turning his head to see his twin parked in the chair beside his bed.
He wasn’t alone either. Zakk was there, looking wretched and exhausted, in the same t-shirt and sleep pants he’d been wearing when Tripp had shown up at his house.
“You didn’t have to go to such drastic lengths to get me to forgive you,” Zakk said the moment Tripp’s eyes landed on him. “I did the moment you showed up at my door, was just too drunk to properly express it.”
“He was trying to kill two birds with one emergency,” Winter quipped, giving Tripp’s shoulder a light shove. “Seriously didn’t need to go so far with the theatrics though, damn. You had me worried bro.”
“I had myself worried,” Tripp rasped. His throat felt like someone had taken a nail file to it, prompting Zakk to pour him a cup of water and Winter to hold it so he could sip it. The cool water on his parched throat was soothing, but swallowing was a bitch, so he nudged it away from him, grateful when his brother got the hint.
“Good news is you can go home in the morning,” Zakk said. “Bad news is you’re gonna be on soft food for a while.”
“You’re gonna have to make some changes too,” Winter said. “Some of them you might not like.”