Awaited

LaVieEnRose

The alarm went off at the ungodly hour of four-thirty AM, and let me tell you, it was the most beautiful fucking sound I’d ever heard.

I pawed at my eyes and fished the alarm from where it was vibrating under Evan’s pillow and started the process of rousing Justin. He needed to sleep propped up while he was still pneumatic as hell, so I’d gotten into the habit of sleeping sitting up with him between my legs and against my chest. He was awake for about two and a half seconds before he grabbed the trash can next to the bed and threw up.

“Uh, good morning,” I said out loud. He wasn’t looking at me anyway.

He panted and groaned while Evan stirred next to me.

I checked Justin’s forehead and reached to the nightstand for the water glass. Hi there, I said to him.

“Mmm,” Justin said.

Sleep well?

“I’m gonna have a seizure,” he said, all in a rush.

Martha’s not alerting. You just feel weird from puking your brains out.

Give her a minute, Justin said, and sure enough thirty seconds later she barked and nuzzled his hand and started spinning in circles.

All right, all right, I said, and I lay him down just as he started seizing. It wasn't a terrible one, but it wasn't great, either, and once it was over I palmed the back of his head and said, You okay? but he just curled up on himself and coughed in that awful sick way he'd been doing for the past few weeks. Cut it out, I said. There are too many things wrong with you.

Evan snorted from where he was getting dressed at the foot of the bed. I sighed and stretched over to the nightstand to start setting up the nebulizer, which was still drying in pieces from when we'd used it right before bed. Pneumonia things. "You know you can't leave him now," Evan said.

Oh, I'm leaving him.

"Don't, he's too sick."

That's why I paid the big bucks for Martha. Eight pounds of pitch-black, fluffy security blanket. I stuck the nebulizer mouthpiece somewhere near Justin's face and got up to start getting ready. How are you feeling? I asked Evan.

"Okay. Really, I'll be fine on my own."

Not on the table. Drop it. I stood up to start getting dressed and tucked the covers gently over a still-shaking Justin. I angled myself so he could see me. You can go back to sleep, I said to him. It's not like we're bringing you along.

"Fuck." Justin pulled the pillow off his head. "It's today." He'd still been kind of out of it in the ten days since we'd been home, running fevers intermittently and missing sleep in favor of coughing. This has been a dicey one, honestly. It wasn't as bad as last year when he'd been circling the drain with a vigor, but there'd been some risk this time as well, and we all, excuse the expression, breathed a big sigh of relief once the tube could come out and his numbers started moving in the right direction. Pneumonia's never going to be something he can shrug off, and his doctors made it all too clear that it's always going to be lurking in the shadows waiting for an opportunity to try to kill him again. Fun stuff! But hey, us: 2, pneumonia: 0.

Did you think we were awake at the crack of dawn for kicks? I said. Yeah, it's today.

"Shit." He sat up and ran his hands down his face. I'll get ready, he said, and got up and headed towards the bathroom.

You're not coming! I said, futily, to his back, and then turned to Evan. He's not coming.

I know he's not coming.

Okay. I went over to the bathroom door and watched Justin rinse the trash can and brush his teeth. You realize you just had a seizure, I said to him. Moments ago.

He spat. I remember.

I tried to make my eyes soft regardless of the fact that he was being annoying as fuck. Go lie down.

"I want to see you guys off, at least," he said, so, okay, I felt a lot more warm now that at least it was clear he knew he wasn't about to join us sitting around a hospital all day.

We'd already agreed that he could come to the hospital for the important part--he'd be there when Evan went into surgery, and when he woke up--but besides that, there was nothing he could do there that he couldn't do here. Waiting is waiting, and spending extended time at the hospital would have been a dubious proceeding even if he wasn't still getting over pneumonia, and as it was there was no way he was in any shape to wait around in uncomfortable chairs in that fucking germ factory. Someday they need to make a hospital that doesn't have any fucking sick people in it. I know what I said.

You've seen us. We're off. Go to bed.

Evan double-checked his hospital bag while I got Justin's meds, with an additional anti-nausea pill for good measure. "Klonopin," Justin said, which I didn't love because that meant he was still feeling seizurey, but I grabbed him one.

You know... I said.

He took the pills. "You are not staying here with me."

Obviously I'm not staying here with you. I was going to say I could drop you off at Emily's if you'd rather have some company.

He shook his head. "We planned this all out. I'll be fine on my own."

That plan was assuming you didn't have a seizure the second you woke up.

"What a stupid assumption," Justin said and well, hard to argue with that one. "I'm staying here. Bed."

Hard to argue with that one either. Yeah, bed. Okay. I picked up his bad leg and put it back under the covers, so maybe he'd be forced to stay in place this time. He frowned and squirmed around some but didn't get up.

Evan kissed him and gave him a hug. We'll call a ton, he said. The actual procedure wasn't until the afternoon; we just had to get there early for a hundred tests and shit. And you'll see Brian, obviously. I was going to be running back and forth between here and the hospital all day. Kind of a given. The past few months taking care of both of them had been practice, and now we were on the Olympics.

Justin was clinging to Evan, and I figured I should give them some time on their own, so I went out to the kitchen and poured myself some guava juice. Evan couldn't eat this morning, but I figured I should, so I scarfed down half of a croissant that Justin had ordered from the bakery the day before.

Evan came out and raised an eyebrow.

Carbs don't count if nobody catches you, I said.

"I'm pretty sure I just caught you."

I tossed down the last bite. Prove it.

He rolled his eyes.

You ready? I said.

Ready as I'll ever be.

All right. Let's go get you a kidney.

**

It's funny how relaxed we were, really. I mean, I was nervous as hell about Evan going under the night, and I'd been staying up the past few nights reading anesthesia horror stories and other worst case scenarios and generally doing my best Justin impression, since he was busy sleeping off his infection, but besides that, the whole thing was pretty subdued. We checked Evan into the hospital which, when you're not there for an emergency, is essentially like checking into a very non-luxury hotel. "Is April here?" Evan asked the nurse. We had an interpreter here, this guy Dean who the boys really like, but Evan wasn't using him much. It's funny actually watching him try to be patient and use an interpreter, because he always ends up cutting them off because he already knows what's being said. Justin just stares when he does it; it's like a superpower to him.

The nurse nodded. "She's a few rooms down. You can go see her after we get your vitals."

"How's she doing?" Evan said. "She's not...having second thoughts, right?"

"She's great," the nurse said, and Evan smiled.

By the time they were done with his vitals he was falling asleep--he'd been having a bad week, and they couldn't get the nice new organ in him fast enough as far as I was concerned--so I ended up making the trip to April's room by myself. She was in a gown with an IV but besides that looked the same as ever, reading a magazine and listening to something on her phone.

She looked over at me and smiled, and I covered my eyes. She laughed. "What?"

"I'm afraid to interact with you in any way."

"Oh my God, I am not going to change my mind."

"I will say no words and make no gestures." But I lowered my hand and nodded to the vase of flowers on her nightstand. "Those from Justin?"

"Yeah, they're beautiful."

"Violets are his favorites. 'course he can't actually be anywhere near them."

"That's very him."

"Indeed." I crossed over to her bed and absentmindedly rearranged the magazines on her nightstand. I felt awkward, in a way. I like April, but I didn't know her that well, and now here she was saving Evan's life. What do you say in that situation? 'Thanks?' I settled for, "You nervous?" and then kicked myself because oh my God if I talked her out of this--

"Breathe," she said, and I coughed out a laugh. "A little," she said. "But it's supposed to be way less of a recovery for me than it is for Evan. How's he doing, he feeling okay?"

I shrugged. "Sick today. He's sleeping. We were up a lot last night with Weezer's greatest hits over there."

She laughed. "That's cute."

"Yeah, I don't get to use music metaphors much nowadays."

"And how's, uh..."

"Rivers Cuomo?"

"That's the one."

"He’s fine. Also sleeping, hopefully. He had a complex partial this morning that wore him out." April likes when you used seizure lingo with her. Makes her feel like she's part of the club, I think, and not the new girl who we have to talk to in layman's terms. "Once Evan's all settled in I'll go back and check on him. Unless you need anything."

She shook her head. "Some of my friends are going to come by once it's a reasonable hour."

"Yeah, some of ours too. They all want to see you."

She smiled.

"You're really, uh." I adjusted the covers over her feet. "You're really...I mean, you're doing something here, you know?"

"You're welcome, Brian," she said.

**

I lurked around Evan's room watching him sleep for a while and took it upon myself to bother some doctors to make sure they were on top of Evan's medical history--amazingly, no one seemed surprised that their kidney transplant patient was in kidney failure, but you can never be too careful with these playing-God-motherfuckers--and, when I was satisfied no one at the hospital would kill the kid if I left for a few hours, went home to check on the other charge. Justin should have been awake by now, though the seizure might have thrown off his schedule. But sure enough, up he was, in the kitchen going through the rather heartbreaking motions of trying to feed himself when he couldn't breathe. I leaned against the refrigerator and watched him try to time out his breaths between spoonfuls of oatmeal, and God, I'm only fucking human.

Take a break, I said.

He shook his head. I just need to get this down. Eating is such a fucking struggle for him. The meds he's on leave him with no appetite whatsoever, but an empty stomach is a seizure trigger for him. It's just...yet another fucking thing that makes me want to punch walls. Push it down, Kinney.

There's time, I said. Let's get your breathing under control.

"It's not..." he paused and inhaled. "That bad."

You can't get three words out.

He dropped his spoon into his bowl, so goddamn frustrated, and rubbed his fist over his sternum.

So I came over to him all sexy and slow and pulled him up with my hands under his elbows and said, Let me help, two signs I know he can't resist, not when I say them like that. He looked up at me, clearly onto me, but the asthma attack beat out his stubbornness--and as relieved as that makes me, I hate it so goddamn much--and he nodded. I nudged him towards the living room. Go get comfortable.

I cleaned up breakfast, checked the timers on his pill bottles to make sure he'd taken his meds, fed Martha, and generally otherwise stalled to give Justin a chance to get in the right headspace to be helped. But he was getting a little panicky by the time I got to the couch with the nebulizer. Sorry, I said as I handed him the mouthpiece. Sometimes I don't time it quite right, and this was a bad day.

And it fucking sucked that it was, God. We were supposed to be celebrating today, and he couldn't get past his own body. I hate when he's locked in like that, and God knows he hates it more.

"How's Evan?" he said, like he was reciting something from a script. Justin.

He's fine. Concentrate on what you're doing.

He closed his eyes and breathed from the nebulizer for a while, and I tried not to be too goddamn alarmed by how deep the wheeze was in his chest and how his shoulder blades came together when he breathed. Sometimes at night I'll lie there and try to breathe the way he does, but I can never make it more than a minute.

The neb did help, though. Justin’s hands had been rigid and shaking—both of them, not just his right, and that’s a sneaky way I can tell when his breathing is freaking him out that he doesn’t know about, he tenses his hands—but they gradually started to still and uncurl, and I heard a bit more air moving through those lungs of his. I rubbed some of the tension out of his shoulders. “There you go,” I said softly, to no one. Let’s get you back in bed.

“I still need to eat.”

I’ll bring you something. I helped him up and gave him a light swat on the ass.

So I did, and then we had sex, and I couldn't fuck him roughly the way I knew he wanted me to--and let's not look too deeply into why Justin wants you to hurt him when his body's at his most fucked up, because God knows I spend all my time trying not to--so I made sure to mark up his pretty skin a little so he'd get something out of it at least.

"When do they go to pre-op?" Justin said after I'd cleaned him up. He was resting on a pile of pillows, his arms around his chest.

Not for a few more hours. I can hang out here for a while. He's just sleeping.

He shook his head. "You should go."

Yeah?

"Yeah. I'm not good company."

I rested my head on my pillow and looked at him. You're fine. He did seem off, though, had been distant even during sex, and I didn't really know what that was. I chalked it up to him just not feeling well, but....he rarely feels well, and we still manage to connect just fine.

Before he could say anything, though, the lights flashed and the doorbell rang. Who's that? Justin said.

No idea.

He sat up. Do you think something's wrong with Evan?

And, what, they sent a representative from the hospital over to inform us? Pretty sure they'd call.

"Oh." He relaxed a little. "Yeah."

Clearly he wasn't going anywhere, so I hauled myself up and went to answer the door. Emily and Derek, immediately bouncy and happy and all over me, and I thought finally. Finally someone is celebrating this. Who would have thought I'd ever thought Justin and Evan were being too fucking blase, of all things. Usually I'm trying to wind my little energizer bunnies down.

I closed my eyes and hugged Derek tight while Emily waved her hands in applause. I thought I was meeting you at the hospital, I said to them.

We wanted to celebrate with Justin a little first, Emily said.

We figured he might feel kind of left out if we're all gathered at the hospital, Derek said. This is a big deal. He should be part of it.

Plus we brought snacks, Emily said, holding up her tote bag.

I kissed her cheek. I'll go get him.

Justin was out of bed when I got back to our room, leaning against the dresser and chewing on his thumbnail. Emily and Derek, I said. Here to celebrate the great organ transfer with you.

I thought they were going to see Evan.

They wanted to see you first. Apparently they like you or something.

Justin didn't say anything.

They're out in our living room. So they probably expect us to emerge from this room at some point, I said.

He just kept chewing on his nail. I stared him down, and finally he wheezed out a sigh and said, Do you think you can get them to leave?

Justin.

I feel like shit.

I know, but--

I'll just bring everybody down, he said. I'm not...in the space they want me to be in.

You need to call your psychiatrist, you know. He hadn't been seen since this pneumonia shit.

What I need is to catch my fucking breath.

I know, I said gently.

He took a minute, eyes flashing with something I couldn't quite access. I can't be what they want right now, he said eventually. And I don't want to make this about me.

What's going on? I said. Are you just worried about him? Obviously he wanted the transplant, we'd all been dying waiting for the transplant, but that doesn't mean it's not a lot for Justin and his medical trauma. He's terrified of blood, and someone's cutting into two of his favorite people and digging around in there.

But he paused for too long before he said, Yeah.

But what could I do? Like I said, I couldn't access it. The thing about Justin is, when he wants to be locked up, it's not often, but he's locked up. Justin's vulnerability is so conditional, and maybe because he doesn't get to control when it comes out physically, when it comes to his feelings, Justin's selective as fuck. And he looked me right in the eye while he kept it from me here. Whatever was eating at him wasn't for me, not right now.

So I just held out my arms and waited for him to come to me. He did, folding his arms up to his chest as he leaned into me, and I kissed the crown of his head and scratched lightly up and down his back.

I could feel how frustrated he was. He didn't want today to be a bad day for him. He didn't want to be in his head. He wanted to be focused on Evan, and he wasn't, and the fact that he wasn't was killing him.

I let him go and kissed his forehead. Get some sleep, he said. Paint me something. Get the thoughts out one way or another.

Okay. He breathed out, and it snagged and made him cough a little. I frowned and rubbed a circle on his back. I love you, he said.

Of course, you okay?

He nodded and pushed himself up to kiss me, and I tilted his chin up with my fingers.

Evan's going to be fine, I said.

Something--something--passed over Justin's face. "Yeah. I know."

**

So I told Derek and Emily that Justin was sleeping off a seizure--not quite a lie? Maybe?--and they left food for him and wrote him a cute note and that was that, off we went to the hospital, where Evan was a much better host and let them pour over him with hugs and kisses. We wheeled him over to April's room and all hung out there for a while, with the interpreter there to help April out, and we shot the shit about what kind of favor we were going to ask her for next. Eventually they told us it was almost time to go down to pre-op and Evan needed to go back to his room and have some final blood tests.

Emily and Derek said goodbye to everyone, and I squeezed April's hands before we left her room. Her friends had come by earlier and her mom was on her way, but right now we were leaving her alone.

"See you after," she said to me.

"Yeah." I swallowed. "Have a good sleep."

Evan was having some anxiety, and they said his heart rate was a little high, so they gave him a low dose of a sedative which rather hilariously drugged him right up. I needed to go get Justin so they could see each other before Evan went under, but it was hard to leave when Evan was all sleepy and clingy and, well, about to be sliced open.

"What if I wake up during surgery?" Evan said.

Then we sue them for ten million dollars and I buy you kids a ski house.

"We can't use a ski house," he said, blinking slowly. "Asthma."

Okay, what do you want then.

He thought it over. "Restaurant."

I laughed. Okay. I'll buy you a restaurant.

"Only if I wake up during surgery."

Of course.

"Otherwise I don't want one.

Okay.

**

The doctors started making noises about bringing Evan to pre-op pretty soon after that, so I figured it was time for me to go collect Justin, who was still sick enough that I was feeling indulgent about chauffeuring him. Leaving Evan made me unexpectedly nervous, like they were going to whisk him away to surgery the second I left him alone. I pinched the sleeve of his hospital gown between two fingers and tried not to think too much about...anything.

I was still in my head until I got home and Justin was crying, which tends to quiet everything else down.

He wasn't sobbing or anything, but he was sitting cross-legged on the bed with the nebulizer and his eyes and nose were pink and runny. I rested my head against the doorway and looked at him. Hi, I said.

He sighed. "Hey. Time to go?"

I nodded to the nebulizer. You can finish that first.

"Okay." He wiped his eye on the back of his hand. "Did he have fun with Emily and Derek?"

Yeah, I think so. And I thought, he's probably just feeling a little left out, meaning left out of the celebration, the excitement, because he was busy being sick and isolated, and then it hit me. That's when I realized, oh.

He's feeling a little left out.

The point of Evan, before we knew him and the point of him became Evan,, was that he understood what Justin was going through. They were both sick and would never get well. And of course this wasn't a magic cure--Evan would still be positive, and anti-rejection meds are no joke--but he'd gotten a lot sicker since this kidney shit started, and, well...that's about when Justin got really sick too. Not getting better meant something different, something a lot less bearable, than it did back when they met.

So of course Justin wanted it for Evan. Of course he did.

But God, you try listening to those lungs and telling me Justin can't be jealous.

I sat down on the foot of the bed and put my hands on Justin's feet. He watched me.

I swear to you that I will help you, I said to him.

He tilted his head to the side. You do help me.

You know what I mean.

He shrugged. It's just reality.

Fuck reality.

"I just get sad sometimes," he said softly.

It will get better than it is right now, I said. You know that, right? You're still getting over pneumonia.

I know.

And we will...I will improve the baseline. I am going to figure it out. There are more drugs we can try, and therapies...

"Okay," Justin said softly. "Okay, we'll try that." He took as deep a breath as he could. "Is he mad at me?"

He doesn't even know you're having a rough time. Not that he'd be mad if he did.

"Today should be about him, not me."

It is.

"For you, too."

Well, I fingerspelled, because what could I say?. It's not supposed to be about him for me?

Like I said, I'm only human.

I am happy, Justin said.

I know you are. I stroked his hair. You just can't breathe.

"Yeah. That."

I took his hands and squeezed them to stop myself from saying more, stop myself from spilling the sappy shit I'll say to him in the dark sometimes. He knew and gave me a rueful smile. Little shit.

I can ask April for her lungs if you want, I said, and Justin's startled laugh filled the room.

I hugged him close and willed air into him and thought nothing more complicated than oh, Justin, for a little while.

Because what do you do when you would do anything, but nothing would really work? Sure, there were drugs and therapies, there were ways we could make a dent, and there was sheer force of fucking will, both mine and his, which God knows you don't want to be on the wrong side of. But there wasn't a transplant waiting for Justin, because the bottom line was he wasn't dying. He was uncomfortable and he was sick and he was limited, but they don't give out donor lungs for that. Without a kidney, Evan would maybe have lasted a few more weeks, months if we were lucky. Justin was, by that metric, doing just fine.

And he is doing just fine. I don't want you getting all sad for him. He's all right.

It's just hard sometimes. And it's harder alone.

So I said, Evan's not going to forget what this was like, you know? He's not going to turn into some healthy asshole overnight.

I know. He wiped his eyes. I just feel far away from him lately.

Yeah, he's been quiet.

And it's hard to believe that this won't just...make that bigger.

He's not going anywhere, I said.

"I haven't really been sick like this on my own yet," he said softly. "I don't want to get locked in it by myself."

I nodded.

"Do you think he'll come back to me?" Justin said.

I think that's why he's doing this, I said.

The nebulizer shut off and Justin placed it on the nightstand. "We've got to go."

If you want to stay here...

"No, no, of course not."

Okay.

He got up, coughing lightly into his elbow.

I'd miss them, I said suddenly. If you got new lungs.

"Yeah?"

Yeah, they talk to me when you're asleep.

He came over and fit himself into my arms. "I'm trying not to be such a miserable bastard," he said softly.

I freed myself to sign, That's very relatable, and he laughed, then got up on his toes and kissed me gently. I tried not to cling.

"I love you," he said.

Two in one day.

"I know. I'm getting soft."

I put my arms around his waist and just looked at him for a while.

I swear to you I will help you, I said again, eventually, when I couldn't anymore. When the thought of saying anything else, save the obvious alternative, was too much to bear.

He rested his forehead against mine.

God, you're strong, I said.

"What's next, I inspire you?"

Yeah.

He pulled back with a wheezy sigh. All I really need is for people to...see it.

I do.

I know you do. But I'm...scared he won't anymore.

It's Evan, I said. He's obsessed with you.

"He's far away, lately."

Yeah, he's got his feet in two worlds right now.

Dead and alive.

Yeah. He's going to choose yours. And he will once the choice is healthy and sick, too. He'll choose yours.

He watched me. "How do you know?"

I ran a few fingers down his bicep.

Who wouldn't? I said.