Page 53 of Salt in the Wound

He lasts twenty minutes before something changes.

It starts as warmth. Not the warmth of the cabin or the lingering warmth of the stew he didn't eat, but a different warmth, internal, originating somewhere in his core and spreading outward. At first he attributes it to the exertion of the past few days, the storm, the ocean rescue, the sleepless nights. His body is recovering. Heat is a byproduct of recovery. He ignores it.

The warmth intensifies.

It moves from his core to his limbs, flushing along his forearms, his chest, the back of his neck. His skin prickles. The shirt that was comfortable five minutes ago is suddenly abrasive,the fabric rough against sensitized skin, and he tugs at the collar without thinking. Sweat beads at his temples.

He puts down the charcoal. Blinks at the chart. The lines are blurring. Not from the sweat in his eyes but from something else, a softening of focus, his vision pulling inward. His pulse has quickened. He can feel it in his throat, his wrists, the heavy thud of it behind his ribs.

The heat surges. It rolls through him, cresting in his chest and breaking downward, flooding his belly, his hips, his groin, and the sudden rush of arousal is so intense and so completely unexpected that Eskil's hands slam flat on the desk and he hunches forward and sucks in a breath through his teeth.

Something is very wrong.

He's sweating through his shirt now, the fabric darkening across his chest and under his arms, and his skin is clammy and feverish simultaneously, hot from the inside, damp from the outside, every nerve ending singing with a sensitivity that turns the air itself into a touch. The charcoal smudges under his palms. The charts mean nothing. His body is doing something his mind hasn't authorized and the disconnect between will and flesh is alarming in a way that combat and injury have never been.

He manages to push back from the desk. The chair scrapes against the floor, the sound too loud, grating against ears that have become impossibly acute. He can hear the creak of every plank, the slap of every wave, the distant murmur of voices on deck, and all of it is too much, too close, toopresent.He stands and the room tilts and his vision greys at the edges and he makes it to the bed in three unsteady steps before his legs give out.

He collapses onto the mattress face-first. The impact drives the air from his lungs and the feeling of the sheets against his skin is agonizing in the strangest way, not painful, not exactly, buttoo much.Too textured. Too present. Every thread of thelinen is a distinct sensation, a line of contact that his nerves register individually, and the sum of those sensations is an overwhelming, full-body awareness that borders on unbearable.

He strips off his shirt. Wrenches it over his head and throws it aside and the air against his bare chest is better and worse, better because the abrasive fabric is gone, worse because the air itself has become a touch, cool and constant andeverywhere.He rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling and his body is burning.

The arousal hasn't faded. It's intensified, settled low and heavy in his groin with a persistence that has nothing to do with desire and everything to do with whatever the fuck he just ate. He's hard, has been since the first surge, growing harder as the heat builds, and the pressure is becoming actively uncomfortable. His hips shift against the mattress without his permission, seeking friction, and he grits his teeth and forces himself still.

Think. What is different?

The fruit. The red-fleshed fruit from Armond's stores. Kalkoan, unknown, unidentified, eaten whole without hesitation by a king who should know better than to consume unidentified provisions from a hostile kingdom. If any of his men had done something so reckless, Eskil would have them cleaning the bilge for a week.

The fever crests. His vision swims. He's been lying there for what feels an eternity, minutes probably, though the warping of time makes it impossible to gauge, when the door opens and Bohdi enters.

Eskil registers his presence through the haze: the familiar silhouette, the creak of the floorboards under his weight, the sharp intake of breath when Bohdi sees his king laid out on the bed, shirtless and sweating and very obviously not well.

"Eskil —"

"Don't." The word comes out through clenched teeth, barely coherent. Bohdi ignores him, because Bohdi has never in his life done what Eskil tells him to do. He crosses to the bed. Eskil hears him rummaging, water being poured, cloth being dampened, and then Bohdi's hand is on his forehead, the back of his knuckles pressing against Eskil's clammy skin, checking his temperature the way he's done a dozen times over the years they've spent campaigning in climates that breed fever.

The feeling of Bohdi's hand on his skin is electric.

It shouldn't be. Bohdi has touched him a thousand times, clapped his shoulder, grabbed his arm, pressed his forehead against Eskil's in greeting and farewell. The contact has never been anything other than familial, platonic, the easy physicality of two men who have known each other since boyhood.

Now the contact sends a surge of arousal through him that is immediate and visceral and absolutely fucking horrifying. Heat pools in his groin, his cock twitches, and his body arches toward the touch with an involuntary hunger that has nothing to do with Bohdi and everything to do with whatever poison is burning through his bloodstream.

Eskil bats his hand away. Hard. The motion is graceless, panicked, flailing, his body betraying him in the most fundamental way and his only answer to shove the contact away before it can register further.

"Don'ttouchme."

Bohdi pulls back. His expression shifts from concern to alarm. "Eskil, you're burning up. What happened?"

"I don't —" The sentence dies. Another wave of heat rolls through him, cresting and breaking, and he clenches his fists in the sheets and rides it out with his jaw locked and his eyes shut. When it passes, when the worst of it passes, the baseline doesn't diminish, he manages, "The fruit. On the plate. Something —"

"What fruit?"

"Red. Small and spicy. From the Kalkoan stores."

Bohdi's eyes go to the desk, to the plate, to the pit sitting in its center. His brow furrows. "How much did you eat?"

"All of it."

"When?"