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Title: Words Unspoken: Chapter Two: Going Out

Author: Allison Wonderland

Rating: PG-13

Series: Stand Still, Look Pretty

Pairing: Taylor/Raven

Summary: Raven and Taylor get ready to go out, Raven’s condition gets worse.

Warning(s): Homosexuality, language, brief nudity.

Feedback: Slut for it.

Disclaimer: See chapter one.

Note(s): I have no idea when the Happy Feet premiere actually was. I’m just using November 3 because it’s convenient for this story.

Friday, November 3, 2006

5:00pm

Taylor gently sat down on the sofa in the darkened living room. He had turned out all the lights some three hours ago when Raven had fallen asleep on the sofa just after coming out of the shower. “Raven,” he said softly. “You need to wake up now. We have two hours until the car comes for us.” Two hours was not nearly enough time for Raven to find the clothes he wanted to wear for the evening, put them on, do his hair and make up, and change his pick of roller skates – because when going out to an important event he always wore his trademark roller skates – several more times before they could leave. Taylor had tried an hour earlier at 4:00 to wake Raven but the older man had been impossible to awaken. He had stirred only enough to mumble something unintelligible and slap at Taylor before drifting off again.

“Five more minutes,” Raven whined, mostly asleep. He rolled over onto his right side beneath the blanket Taylor had covered him with earlier.

“Do you want to be one of the first to see Happy Feet?” Taylor asked. He knew Raven did. Since the day the invitations had come in the mail Raven had been estatic about seeing what he considered ‘the most amazing movie ever created in the whole world ever.’ Taylor had wisely refrained from telling his best friend that his idea of ‘the most amazing movie ever created in the whole world ever’ was greatly different from everyone else’s. Except perhaps for a few people who had not yet reached the ripe old age of five years.

Raven’s eyes popped open. Taylor had to wonder if he had really been asleep or if he only wanted the attention he would get from having to be woken up. “Yes,” Raven stated. “I want to.”

“It’s 6:00, Raven,” Taylor said in a soothing tone that he hoped would keep Raven calm and minimize the shrieking once the blond learned that he only had two hours to get ready to leave. “The car will be here at 7:00 and the movie starts at 8:00.” Taylor was already dressed for their night out. He had learned that, when sharing a bathroom with Raven, it was always best to be ready to go wherever it was they were going before Raven went into the bathroom. He could spend hours just doing his hair.

Taylor had changed into his favorite silver cowboy boots – the pair Raven had given him for his birthday several months ago – and a pair of black jeans with a wide leather belt that fastened with a large silver buckle, and a black button-down shirt with purple and black zebra striped sleeves. His hat, black like the rest of his clothing, waited by the door.

“Two hours,” Raven murmured sleepily. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and snuggled into the heavy, slightly dusty comforter from the linen closet.

“If you feel bad you don’t have to go,” Taylor offered. He was already dressed to go out but if Raven was ill and needed to sleep, Taylor could leave him in the apartment where it was dark and quiet and go out somewhere with his boyfriend instead of attending the premiere with Raven.

Raven shook his head. “No,” he said, “we have to go. I’m not really sick…just…” He seemed to pull himself together and the familiar ‘I’m-fierce-and-we-all-know-it’ shine returned to him. “I’m tired is all. And I’m surprised you aren’t too, considering the amount of extra work we’ve been doing for the holiday rush.” Then as suddenly as it came the fire seemed to leave Raven again and he became the same silent, pale shadow of himself he had been all day. He left the couch and the comfort of his blanket to wander seemingly half asleep into his bedroom and shut the door behind him.

Raven rubbed at his eyes with one hand. Some small part of his mind wondered why it was so hard to slide his closet door open. It seemed heavier than usual. Door open, he stood staring into the multi-colored mess that was his closet, a little unsteady on his feet. On a normal day the contents of Raven’s closet could keep him entertained for hours. His clothes were beautiful, all shimmery and sparkly and glittery and…mostly pink. But now the task of selecting an outfit for an evening out with Taylor – another of his favorite things – seemed daunting. What he really wanted to do was get back into his unmade bed and find a comfortable spot to curl up. Eventually Taylor would come in and see what was taking so long. His best friend could always be persuaded to snuggle and watch a movie or something even though they had ended their romantic relationship and Taylor had been dating someone else for the past two months. Raven hated Michael in a way he had never hated anyone else, not because of anything Michael had ever done to him but because of the one thing Michael had that Raven did not.

Taylor.

That thought only served to make Raven more depressed than his cold – or whatever it was – already had. For a moment he considered forgetting the whole thing, climbing back into bed, and staying there. But tonight – for the first time in a long time – Raven would have Taylor all to himself and there was no way he was going to pass that up just because he had a little headache.

As that thought crossed his mind, Raven considered the clothing hanging before him in his closet. The sight should have made him happy. It always did. But instead he felt nothing. With the same sense of disconnectedness still in place, Raven took out yet another of his pink tee shirts – this one a brighter color than most of the others with two white unicorns, one on each side, and a rainbow between them, the word ‘Fantasticka’ written above it all in glittery silver letters – and a pair of stretchy black pants with a single line of silver sequins down each side. He forewent his usual pointy toed, stiletto heeled shoes in favor of more comfortable flat heeled and rounded toed silver shoes that very much resembled something a ballerina might wear. His only make up was the shiny pink lip gloss he never went anywhere without and a bare minimum of eye make up that seemed to heighten his paleness and did almost nothing to conceal the dark circles beneath his eyes. A glance in the full length mirror mounted on the back of his bedroom door confirmed Raven’s suspicion that he looked almost as unfabulous as he felt but he went out to join Taylor anyway, only an hour and a half after going into his bedroom to find something to wear.

Raven found Taylor sitting on the same sofa he had been sleeping on only a little while before. He had put his hat on and his coat was flung over the arm of the sofa beside him. “Half-an-hour, Raven,” Taylor said without looking up from the television where he was rapidly cycling through the 200 or so channels they regularly purchased from their cable provider.

“I’m ready,” Raven announced. He dropped onto the sofa beside Taylor, worn out just from the amount of energy it had taken to get ready to go out.

That was enough to get Taylor’s attention. He tore his gaze away from the television – not that there was anything on anyway – and looked at the man sitting beside him. He knew it was realistic to believe that Raven was only acting unwell just for the attention he knew he would receive but he looked terrible. Taylor also knew that his best friend, ever conscious of the face he presented to the world, would not allow himself to appear this tired and listless and…well…drained unless he felt so bad that he did not care. “Are you sure you want to go out tonight?” Taylor asked Raven for what would probably be the last time. “It’s damp and rainy and, honestly Raven, the only place you look like you need to go is back to bed.”

Raven sniffed and dabbed at his nose with a wadded up tissue. “Yes,” he said but his voice came out sounding less than sure and barely above a whisper. His headache was getting worse, the scratchiness of his throat had moved from scratchy to painful, and Raven, had he not already been dressed, would have taken Taylor’s advice and spent the rest of the night in bed. “I’m not sick,” Raven said, unsure if he were trying to convince Taylor or himself.

Taylor pulled his coat on and looked over at the door where Raven waited for him. He grew more and more worried about Raven as the minutes passed. On a normal night when they went out, even if they were only going to a club or out for dinner, Raven was always excited beyond what the situation called for and nearly bouncing up and down by the time they were ready to go. But now he stood patiently beside the door and a patient Raven was frightening. “Are you ready to go?” Taylor asked as he straightened the collar of his coat.

Raven nodded. Taylor’s reaction alone told him that he looked nearly as bad as he felt. Generally when Raven persuaded Taylor to come out with him there was a lot of ‘You look fine, Raven. Let’s go.’ It was never ‘Are you sure you’re ready?’ or the implied, ‘you look like shit.’ He wondered briefly if he should go back and at least apply the rest of his usual make up or wear one of Taylor’s hats to cover up the hair he did not quite remember combing. But ti would be dark in the theater and anyone who knew him who happened to be at the after party would only think he was trying to start a new trend if he had, in fact, not combed his hair.

“If you’re sure,” Taylor said. He knew that, if Raven suddenly started to feel better, they would be coming back to their apartment between the movie showing and the after party for what Raven would call a ‘quick trip home to freshen up.’ Except nothing with Raven ever turned out to be quick, particularly nothing that involved his hair or make up. Taylor stepped over Audrey, Raven’s Jack Russell terrier on the way to the door. “You need to find a coat,” he told his best friend when he reached Raven’s side.

Raven’s hand was on the doorknob but he pulled it back when Taylor spoke. “What?” he asked, blinking long lashed eyes up at the slightly taller man. “What?” he asked again, a little dazed.

“Coat, Raven,” Taylor said. He thought that perhaps if he used enough small words and put the idea of Raven wearing a coat into simple terms, said terms would be more likely to penetrate the fog Raven seemed to be in.

Coat, Raven thought fuzzily. Right. It was November. He needed a coat. His hand moved almost on its own to the handle on the closet beside the front door. He pulled the door open, finding it just as hard to open as the one in his bedroom had been earlier. Raven got out his coat, a pink sweatshirt that zipped up the front, and pulled it on over his tee shirt. “Is that better?” he asked a little mare snappishly than he knew the situation called for. He knew he should perhaps tell Taylor that he did not really mean what he had said in the exact tone in which it had come out. But he knew Taylor probably already knew that without having to be told. Raven’s best friend knew him better than anyone else and could interpret his emotions almost before Raven himself knew what he was feeling.

The sound of the front door opening brought Raven out of his thoughts. “Let’s go. We’re going to be late,” Taylor’s soft, steady voice was always a calming influnce for Raven when he became excited and jittery. The hand Taylor placed on Raven’s back to propel him gently out the door served to further ground him in reality and chase away the disconnected floaty feeling that had been hanging around since he had taken the cold medicine he had found in one of the kitchen cabinets earlier.

With his mind a little clearer but the headache and the feeling in his stomach that bordered on nausea still very much there, Raven willingly let Taylor guide him out their front door and down to the street where the car waited.

Taylor could feel the heat from Raven’s head resting on his shoulder even through the layers of his coat and the long sleeved shirt under it. He knew Raven was feverish and should have been back at their apartment in bed instead of on his way to the premiere. “Are you really sure you want to be here?” Taylor asked for what was at least the tenth time in the past hour. He wanted to give Raven every opportunity to go home and sleep, or better yet to go to a doctor. Once they got to the theater it would be too late for that.

His answer came in the form of the head on his shoulder tipping back to put him within line of sight and a pair of mesmerizing blue eyes fluttering open. “I’m okay, Taylor. Really.”

Raven’s response only served to make Taylor more concerned. In the past hour Raven’s responses to the same question had gone from ‘I’m fine, Taylor. I never get sick.’ To ‘I’m okay’ and all the usual fire had gone out of his voice. As if that were not bad enough, Raven’s normally pale face was almost pallid except for the two bright spots of color in his cheeks, proof of the fever that burned inside Raven and that his claim to be ‘okay’ was far from true.

“If you get sick,” Taylor began. Then he stopped. Right. Like Raven was not already sick enough to need medical attention. “If you start to feel worse,” Taylor corrected himself, “and want to go home, I want you to come and find me first.” In his current condition the last thing Raven needed was to be alone.

A trace of the fierceness Raven usually had in enormous quantities came back briefly. He grinned at Taylor. “Yes, Daddy,” he said, fluttering his eyelashes flirtatiously. Sometimes Taylor worried about him far too much. Then the life seemed to go out of Raven again and his head returned to Taylor’s shoulder, eyes closing again.

That tiny display of Raven’s usual fierceness assuaged a small part of Taylor’s worry over his health. Perhaps Raven would be okay until they got through the movie, if not the after party.