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Brian wakes up in the middle of the night to an empty bed.

In From the Rain

LaVieEnRose



After a long day of researching drug therapies and clinical trials and, I don't know, shamans, whatever the fuck would help this kid's lungs, and an all-too-brief evening of fucking his brains out, I woke up twice in one night to Martha barking one evening in November. Once isn't a rare occurrence; Justin has a lot of seizures at night, and her little brain isn't evolved enough to know that unless the little cub is dying, I probably don't really care. That was the case tonight. She barked and whined until I woke up, and I groaned and rolled over and triaged Justin with my eyes closed. He was seizing pretty hard, but when I signed Fine? on his chest he said, "Mmhmm," and his breathing didn't sound too wheezy with each stuttered gasp he was taking, so I just pulled him into my chest and let him shake against me as I fell back asleep.


The next time she woke me up, it felt like I'd barely fallen back asleep. But the bed was empty, and Martha was barking like crazy.


"He's in the fucking bathroom," I said, because she's a clingy fucker and sometimes gets panicky when she can't get to Justin, and I figured in his post-seizure haze he might have shut her out of the bathroom without thinking. She kept barking, though, and I realized she wasn't in the room either. I groaned and got up and headed to the bathroom to see if Justin had fallen down a well in there, but neither of them were in there. Well. Didn't love that.


"Martha?" I called, but she wasn't barking anymore. I padded out into the living room and turned the light on, but he wasn't in there or in the kitchen. I was about to check the basement--he missed Evan, maybe he'd gone down there to curl up with his stuff--when I heard scratching at the balcony door, and I looked and there was Martha. She saw me and barked shortly.


Oh, did I mention it was pouring rain? And thirty-five degrees?


"Jesus Christ," I growled, and I stamped over and opened the door. This is what I get for not setting the fucking alarm, but you try getting up and getting chores done after one of Justin's blowjobs. Shit will put you into a coma.


And sure enough, there he was, standing in the middle of the yard getting soaked to the bone. Just where you want your immunocompromised severe asthmatic! Fucker was going to wake up with another lungful of pneumonia at this rate. Martha spun around in circles on the deck when I opened the door, and I nudged her inside and went over to Justin.


Despite the fucking freezing rain, this had to be approached delicately; he was probably just postictal from the seizure, which is when he gets spacy and weird and makes very strange decisions--he once tried to cram the entire contents of our fridge into the blender, packaging and all, broke the fuck out of that thing--but he's also been known on rare occassions to sleepwalk during night terrors and, well...you don't want to startle him during one of those unless you're jonesing for an all-day panic attack.


I placed my hand lightly on his arm, and he startled a little and looked at me. He wasn't quite there in his eyes, but I could tell he was awake. Postictal. Small favors, I guessed. Thank God he hadn't wandered further than the backyard.


Still, his skin was icy under my hand. Not your best idea, I said to him, and I gave him a pull and led him inside. He followed, stumbling a little, Martha at his heels.


I led them both to the bathroom and immediately started running as hot a bath as I could. Christ, I was cold, and I'd only been out there for a minute. How long was he there before Martha woke me up?


Clothes off, I told him. I was trying so fucking hard not to be pissed at him, because I know, I know, it's not his fault that he can't be logical after seizures, but Christ, how many times had we talked about this, planned for it, made strategies to help him remember not to trust his brain to make decisions when things didn't feel right? And he'd just been so sick, practically fucking dying on me in that ER cubicle.


Anyway, we wouldn’t be us if I didn’t give him a hard time just because his poor brain was all addled. This was a strong plan for someone allergic to the cold, I said. What are we doing next, hiking Everest in springtime?


He sneezed suddenly and looked startled by it, which did a lot to warm me to him. Figuratively speaking, since I was still freezing my damn tits off.


Clothes, I said. Come on.


He struggled out of his wet clothes, wheezing steadily but not horribly. He wasn’t shivering, though, and I didn’t love that. I stripped out of my own clothes and went to help him, running my hands up and down him to try to get some warmth back into him. The tub was far from full by the time his clothes were off, so I tugged his hand and led him to the bedroom. Martha jumped up on the foot of the bed, so everything was going to smell like wet dog now. Whatever. I got Justin into bed--his bad leg wasn't behaving, so he needed a little help--and bundled him up in the comforter. We have a thermometer in the nightstand anyway, so I went ahead and stuck that in his ear.


Ninety-four and a half, I told him.


He just looked at me, his eyes wide and a little lost.


I cupped his chin in my hand. It's okay. I'm going to get you something warm to drink while the tub fills up. I don't want you to move, understand? I picked up Martha and set her on his lap for a little extra heat. She snuggled into him, blissful. That dog sure does love her human.


Justin just blinked at me.


Understand? I prompted.


"Understand," he said softly, which is how you'd respond with ASL grammar, not English. Poor brain. I lifted his chin and kissed his freezing forehead before heading to the kitchen, where I put the pot on to boil and wondered vaguely how the fuck this became my life, getting up at four in the morning to brew a cup of tea for my goddamn boyfriend whose brain wouldn't let him stay in from the cold.


Once again, I'm not complaining, but that doesn't make it not a little ridiculous.


I was just adding the disgusting amount of honey he likes in his tea when I heard footsteps and Martha's clicking heels behind me. A second later Justin pressed himself against my back, comforter still bundled around him.


I turned around. You said you understood.


He sneezed again. At least he was shivering now.


I took the mug and held it against his chest to try to get some warmth back to those lungs. I wondered if he'd remember any of this in the morning. Probably not. The half an hour or so after a seizure is always lost time for him, longer after bad ones, and I had a sinking feeling suspiciously close to guilt that this one had been worse than I'd realized.


I put my arm around his shoulders and guided him back to bed, and he sat cross-legged and sipped from the cup with shaking hands. I checked the temperature of his cheek with the back of my hand. Still icy.


All right, don't get any ideas, I grouched at him. I unwound the comforter from around him, trying not to feel anything about the small whimper he gave when the air touched his skin, and wrapped myself around him instead, skin to skin, covering as much of him as I could. I arranged the comforter around whatever part of him I couldn't shield, and Martha came and helped by trying to worm her way in-between us until I shoved her off to Justin's feet.


"Cold," Justin whispered, and it hit me then that he'd probably been miserable, wanted to come outside when he'd been out there, that he hadn't been able to figure out how or he hadn't felt like he was allowed or whatever the fuck it is that his brain does to him, and Christ, it's so hard not to feel your fucking heart breaking sometimes.


You're safe now, I signed on him, small.


"I was looking for Evan."


Still in the hospital, remember? He'll be home tomorrow.


He took a deep breath, and I thought he was going to say anything, but he just sneezed again. I adjusted my grip around him, letting my chin rest on top of his head. It just fits there really well. I felt him relax against me a little, despite the shivering, and I whispered, "Good," to myself and gave him a tight squeeze.


After a few minutes of that I figured the bath had to be ready, so I let him go, ignoring his protests, and nudged him into the bathroom. Not for the first time, I thanked past-Justin for having the foresight to get rid of those damn stairs leading to the tub, since this way he could just sit down on the side and slide right in. He hissed as the hot water hit his skin, and I followed after him and arranged him between my legs.


You'd think that when he's like this it'd be hard to reconcile the fact that a few hours ago he'd been doing shit to me so dirty that I legitimately wonder where he learned it, but it's not, really. It's hard to explain how Justin is so unmistakably Justin in every situation, which is why on the very rare occasions he isn't, when he's so sick that he doesn't have his personality or his smile or his spark, it's so fucking upsetting. Because most of the time, whether he's fucking me senseless or shivering in my arms...it's all part of the same thing. It's the same vulnerability, the same willingness to give himself to me, in both situations. It's...well, it's trust, I guess, and fuck, I guessed a lot of things about how my life would go but I never saw that one coming. Have you met me? You really think I'm trustworthy?


Turns out I fucking am, I'm holding my sick husband like he's precious, so eat your heart out.


We stayed in the water for a long time, adjusting every so often as he stretched his muscles out as each one unfroze. He was sniffling a lot, so I stretched to the tissue box on top of the toilet and grabbed a handful, and he blew his nose and made a face. Good, I said.


"I'm sorry," he said.


Tell it to your dog. She was freezing her tail off out there.


"Sorry Martha," he said with a yawn. He rolled over so his head was against my chest.


Sleepy, I signed on him.


"Yeah." He kept trying to get handsy with me, though, so at least I knew he was feeling better. I decided to be charitable and let him jerk me off, and then I figured hell, might as well make sure all his extremities were still in working order as well, so we fooled around until the water cooled and he started shivering again. I got him bundled up in a towel and put him in sweatpants and a cashmere sweater before I let him crawl back into bed.


You're not going to remember any of this, I said to him.


"Yes I will," he said, like always.


Sure, I said, and he hugged his pillow to his chest and fell the fuck asleep. God. I forget sometimes because he has so many, and because I guess I need to forget, but seizures are fucking brutal. They really are just a fucking monster of a thing. He was going to have an awful headache in the morning. Not that he'd mention it.


I climbed into bed behind him and draped my arm over him, feeling the last of the shivers leave his body. Martha flopped down in Evan's spot with a sigh. "This is your last night of that," I warned her, but she just rolled onto her back and looked at me until I reached out to scratch her belly.


I put my lips against the cold rim of Justin's ear, wound my leg around his waist, and stayed right there until I fell asleep.


**


He was gone in the morning. How the fuck does he slip out of bed like that? Fucker needs to learn to stay put. I sat up and stretched and thought about how absurdly large this bed was to be in alone.


Luckily Justin came padding in a minute later, as pink-cheeked and healthy-looking as he gets, his hair mussed and fluffy. I held my arms out instinctively. Pathetic, what this kid does to you.


"I made breakfast," he said with a yawn, coming over and hugging me. He pulled at the sweater he was still wearing. "Did you dress me last night?"


I snorted. I told you you wouldn't remember.


"I said I would? Hmm. Brain-damaged."


I kissed the bridge of his nose. How are you feeling?


"Okay." He made a face. "Was I awful?"


You were sweet, I said. Don't worry about it. You did probably tank your immune system though. No fucking way you're coming to the hospital for discharge.


I thought he'd argue, or at least ask questions, but he just shrugged and said, "Okay," so I knew he wasn't feeling well. I sighed and ran my hands up and down his back.


"Brian?"


Yeah.


He looked at me with those fucking eyes and said, Would you take Martha out? It's really cold.


I looked up at him and tried my hardest not to laugh. Sometimes you think like your heart's going to break, sure, but other times it's his and God, who would have fucking thought this feeling was even possible. Like you swallowed the damn sun.


Yeah, I said. Come here. And I kissed him for a long time.

 

Chapter End Notes:

 

Thank you to Meg, Anita, Sam, Parker, Cotton, Cesy, Britt, M, Mary, Nair, Tami, Cher, Julie, Hannah, Deborah, Abby, Ricki, and Dabrina for supporting this series! Twitter.com/LaVieEnRosefic.

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