The One Where Everybody's Scared, Part 3

LaVieEnRose

Honestly, when Justin got pneumonia, it was sort of a relief.

Okay, hear me out. Yes, the first few days of it sucked. He was touch and go for a little while, and he had a massive seizure, and they had to put him in a fucking medically-induced coma so his fevered little brain wouldn't twitch his brand new skin grafts right off of him. I got there the morning after they knocked him out and he had hives all over his arms, which I couldn't even lose my shit about because Jennifer already was, so I had to be all calm or else I'd freak her out even more and there was no chance in hell the doctors were gonna listen if both of us were coming at them in fucking hysterics. I like Jennifer, I do, and it's not like I think she doesn't have a right to be messed up over her kid, but...Christ, I was already taking care of one drama queen Taylor, I was kind of at capacity here.

Michael handled her, thankfully, and I barked at the doctors and otherwise caused a small disturbance until they stuck some diphenhydramine on his IV. Michael, once again, thought I was ridiculous for giving a shit about some hives when Justin was lying there with a fever of eight million and a mask helping him breathe, but none of that was going to kill him in the next two minutes and a reaction fucking could. He'd already gone into fucking anaphylactic shock during his surgery, because apparently he's allergic to anesthesia now. I don't know what the fuck we're going to do if he ever needs surgery again. I told him he better get used to the idea of aging gracefully now, while I become some sort of ancient plastic surgery queen, probably.

The Taylors themselves get the seriousness of the allergies, which is why Jennifer was a mess at the hospital that morning, and why Justin, normally irritatingly cool at hospitals, lost his fucking shit the day before when they'd tried to hang a new bag on his IV without telling him what it was. I'd already cleared the medication with the nurses, but that didn't mean I'd given them fucking permission not to clear it with him too, Christ. People have always treated him like a child since he's small and blond and has that face of his, but it's a hundred times worse now that he's Deaf. They'll act like he's out of commission and his partner gets to make all his decisions just because they don't want to bother trying to communicate with him. It's such shit.

So that day was a mess, and the next day was a mess, with his shitty oxygen levels and a concerning blip in his kidney function, but then after that all his arrows started pointing in the right direction, and once his fever got out of the thousands they woke him back up again, and a few days after that he was just kind of bitchy and stuffed up and headachey and I thought...okay, finally we are back in my wheelhouse here. Because the kid's got the worst goddamn immune system, I know this game, I know Justin sick as well as I know him healthy. I've got this.

Because what I had not got, so to speak, was this whole excruciating pain thing.

I'm sure getting hit in the head with a bat was a thoroughly uncomfortable experience, but Justin had the benefit of being comatose for most of the worst part of that and I had the benefit of being a cowardly little shit who didn't go into his room while he was awake, so the worst pain I'd ever seen the kid in before this point were migraines, which yeah, are painful, but in a this happens to people sort of way, and he'd take his meds and go to sleep and be fine the next day. No writhing around, screaming like you were pulling his skin off—oh wait, they were literally fucking pulling his skin off—for that. And then enter a pot of boiling water, and everything kind of changes.

You could say that I didn't handle it all that well, and the orderly who kept having to change the bag in the trash can I vomited in the first few times would probably agree with you. It's just...I don't do well with Justin screaming, I think we can put that down as a little fact about me now. I started throwing shit when I broke my ankle and he was screaming at the nurse's station, and I threw up everything I'd ever eaten when Justin screamed through his debridement. There's something about his Deaf voice that has some kind of power over me. He says “Brian” with that wrong little R and I'll give him anything he asks for. He laughs with no filter and I have to fucking cover my face. He screams in pain without self-consciousness, and I, well, fucking want to peel off my own skin to feel everything he's feeling.

I never claimed to be a rational person, which has proved to be convenient as my life goes on with this boy.

Anyway, having him sick was a nice distraction, at least for me. And by the time they pulled him out of the sedation again, the burns had healed enough that dressing changes, while still fucking shit, were more of the “cry and wince” kind of shit and less of the “scream like your fucking skin is still on fire” kind of shit and okay, I could handle that.

When they first woke him up he was so confused, just like the last time. This isn't my room, was the first thing he said to me. Whose room is this?

It was, of course, his room, but moving on.

First thing you do is complain, I said, my chest fucking bursting. That seems about right.

Not a complaint, he said, flinching a little when the sign touched his bandage. It's a nice room. It was just some piece of shit half-room in the Critical Care Unit, but, y'know, good for him.

Well, it's all yours, I said.

Thanks.

Anytime.

He reached out and touched my face. You've been crying, he said.

Yeah, my boyfriend's pretty messed up right now.

Justin sighed, wheezing pretty loudly. Same.

I kissed his forehead. Actually, you'd be amazed at how well I was handling this, if you were, you know, awake. Not you, though. You're not handling this well at all. Pneumonia? Come on.

Why are you always the most impressive when I'm unconscious?

Spite.

Justin raised his arms over his head, wincing when it pulled on the grafts, but he could do it. Lie down with me.

So I did, carefully arranging him so he was propped up but could still see me signing. You're still really hot, I said.

Thank you.

Yeah, yeah.

When can I go home?

I don't think anyone's talking about that at this point.

I just live here now?

Yeah.

We had such nice furniture, too.

Well, we used to. You broke our best lamp.

He yawned. If I can't see it, no one can.

That's my boy. Spite.

He curled up on my chest. Spite. He coughed for a long, long time, pulling his knees up to his chest—which again, painful, but he could fucking do it. I rubbed his back and held his shoulders still. Yuck, he said eventually.

I kissed the top of his head. Coughing means you can breathe.

He sighed and threw an arm over me. Happy to reassure, he said, and then he was out like a light and I cast my eyes towards the ceiling and smiled.

I think everyone was really waiting for me to freak out at some point between then and when Justin was well. Michael and Ben were still hanging around, and Michael was always looking at me like I was a second away from exploding when I was just calling the office or checking Justin's latest blood pressure numbers, and Ben kept looking like he was one breath from sitting me down to have some kind of heart-to-whatever-the-fuck-I-have and just ugh, spare me. And you have the benefit of perspective here thanks to the way we're telling this little tale, so you know that when I tell you that the panicking, the drunk confessions, the endearing, destructive little ways Brian Kinney shows how much he really does care after all, are behind us at this point, that that's actually how it went down. So I'm sorry to disappoint you, if that's what you're looking for. There will be no more impactful moments where it hits me that I might have lost him. There will be no drunken love rants. At no point in the story yet to come do I break down, clutching Justin's weak body to my chest.

But more on that later.

**

Anyway, you're probably disappointed in the lack of theatrics and wondering who the fuck is actually telling you this story, because this is not the flagrant mess you've grown accustomed to, so in the interest of both keeping your interest and proving to you how not-bottled-up I am, let's finally tell the fucking story of what happened, all right? It's the moment you've all been waiting for: Justin Versus the Stove.

He was making shells with clam sauce, which incidentally we've eaten hundreds of times since, so sorry if you were hoping for a bit more emotional scarring than you're getting. You'll have to settle for Justin's actual scars, which incidentally aren't nearly as impressive as he deserves after enduring an incident like this, if you ask me. The skin grafts are what they call a mesh graft, which is what they've christened the horrifying process of perforating the skin they took off his thighs to make it cover a wider area of his torso, so for a while he had this diamond pattern on him where the grafts were, but after a year or so you could see it if you were trying, but only just, and he stopped being self-conscious about taking his shirt off at the beach or the club. The burn on his arm scarred a little, and you can see something on the back of his thighs, where they took the skin from, but all in all, if you're not looking for the scars, you don't notice them. Justin says only one trick has ever mentioned it, and it turned out he'd survived a house fire, and he and Justin ended up talking—he was Deaf, Justin actually doesn't fuck hearing guys anymore as a rule, with one obvious exception—about that for a while afterwards and now they're pretty good friends. He had us over for dinner one time and he, coincidentally, makes fucking great pasta.

Anyway, Justin was making shells with clam sauce.

He had mentioned earlier that he had a headache. He's dealt with migraines ever since the bashing, and this didn't even seem like one of the bad ones, since he was up and talking and willing to eat. We had the lights dimmed in the kitchen, but when it's really bad he can't take any light at all, so I assumed he was fine. He'd gotten through work that day without issue, so I figured either it was a sinus thing, since his allergies had been bothering him, or it was the early stages of a migraine and we'd deal with it getting bad later.

He'd asked me if I would make dinner that night, but I'd had a shitty day at the office and just wanted to decompress, and I don't like cooking the way he does, so I said no, and said we could order something in if he wanted. He said it was fine, he'd do it. So: he tried to get out of it, but I didn't have to twist his arm to get him to do it. Those are both facts you have to live with.

I was keeping him company in the kitchen while he cooked because he likes to chat while he does it. He set a pot of water on to boil and told me about a new artist they were courting for a show at the gallery. A new issue of GQ had come that day and we had an ad running in it, so I was flipping through it while I watched him. I got to the ad, and I wanted to see it spread out, so I told him to hang on and turned around to open up the magazine on the counter. I was studying it, with my back turned to him, about two-feet between us in our small kitchen, for maybe twenty seconds.

I heard two things happen in rapid succession—Justin hit the floor, and the pot hit Justin—but even though it doesn't make sense, what I remember is the splash of boiling water hitting me on the arm first. I guess it all happened so fast that my brain's bound to tangle it all together.

I turned around and Justin was on the floor with the pot on top of him.

Now, there was some good luck here. The angle of the pot could have been different, and it could have gotten his face or his throat. That would have been a much, much shittier recovery—imagine Deaf in the hospital with your eyes swollen shut and you'll start to get the picture—and assuming he still catches pneumonia, that would likely have been catastrophic, because if his airways had already been compromised by the burn, he probably wouldn't have made it. He probably wouldn't have gotten through that reaction on the operating table, actually.

It could have gotten his hands, and even with the physical therapy to keep the grafts from tightening, he probably still would have lost some dexterity, which would have been a damn nightmare for signing, not to mention the weeks of recovery when he wouldn't have been able to talk at all.

Or he could have been alone.

But, I mean, excuse me if my exuberance over what could have been and wasn't is a little dimmed by the fact that such a fucking ridiculous, hideous thing happened in the first place. Justin, who very rarely has tonic clonic seizures, who has, speaking currently, only had two or three ever that weren't preceded by a good deal of notice or triggered by something obvious like a high fever or forgetting his medication, had one with no warning other than a garden variety headache, and right next to the stove where a pot of water was boiling.

Because if we're talking about ways it could have been different...it also could have been five minutes earlier, when the water wasn't hot yet. Five minutes later, once he'd stepped away from the stove. Anywhere else in the apartment. It could have, you know, not happened at all.

I'm just saying, let's not go thanking God for shit that didn't happen without looking at the full picture.

Anyway, I turned around and there he was, and I know you want to hear what I was thinking at the time, what was running through my head when I yanked the pot off of him and ripped through his shirt and saw his skin already sizzling and blistering as he jerked and made those horrible choking noises, but...honestly, it was nothing. I wasn't crying or cursing or talking to him, I was just moving on autopilot. Before the seizure was over I was on the phone to 911, and truly I don't even remember dialing. The operator told me to pour cold water on him and then hold him on his side so that's what I did, and he stopped seizing and went very, very still, and we waited for the ambulance.

They didn't rush him into surgery right away. Their first major concern—and mine, honestly—was if he'd hit his head when he fell. There's a thing with head trauma where the effect is kind of cumulative, and each one you have puts you at greater and greater risk, and since Justin's already really reached his quota when it comes to that, it's something that we need to be aware of and careful with. No ramming him into the headboard or cracking his skull on the kitchen floor, for example. So they brought in for an MRI, still unconscious, still with those fucking burns open on his chest.

And then that was okay, so he went in to get his skin grafts, and I think Zen Ben gave it to you from there. I wouldn't stop badgering the nurses for information and they eventually told me to shut up and let them do their jobs, so I was just sitting there waiting quietly so they wouldn't boot me out of the damn building when Michael and Ben showed up. I'd already called Jennifer at her little hippie commune in Northern California, and I must have texted Daphne at some point but I honestly don't remember.

It's such a cliché, saying shit was a blur, because God, it didn't feel anything like a blur at the time. It was the most sharply focused thing, every single moment in technicolor, every word someone said to me so, so important while they were saying it, and then just...gone, recorded over by this internal monologue of what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck.

Because he had just been there. I turned around for twenty seconds.

And the stupid, stupid thought that kept running through my head, the three words that wouldn't goddamn leave me alone while he was in the MRI, while he was in surgery, where I knew goddamn exactly where he was but it wasn't sitting in the goddamn chair next to me, wasn't sitting on the floor with his head against my knee, wasn't back at our fucking apartment eating pasta and goddamn clam sauce with me, was where is Justin?

We have a deal, him and me.

**

Once Justin was back amongst the living: Pneumonia Edition, it was time to get him up and out of bed. He was still in a lot of pain, and still weak as hell, but the doctors were anxious to get him on his feet for at least a few steps. Michael and Ben—now that Justin had been officially declared no longer contagious—were there with the occupational therapist, ready to help stand him up and grab him in case he tried to take another swan dive, but Justin shook his head when I took his hand. “Over there,” he said, pointing to the door. “Do the thing.” It was his first foray off oxygen, and he was already breathing really hard just from sitting up.

You are such a freak, I told him, but I took a few steps backwards from the bed anyway, putting all the space between me and him that the tiny room would allow.

“What are you doing?” Michael asked me.

Don't worry about it, I said, and I quirked an eyebrow at Justin and held my arms out, and he gave me the damn sunniest smile.

It took Ben practically lifting him onto his feet, but Justin unsteadily walked the three steps to me and into my arms. I chuckled and pulled him into me, very, very carefully, feeling his bandages through my shirt, and his chest heaving with the effort to stay standing. I gently moved his arms up around my neck so I could hold up a little more of them.

I'd had to go into the office that day for a meeting I couldn't get out of, so I was still wearing my dress shoes, and Justin was barefoot. That's an uncommon set-up for us—I usually have my shoes off the second I'm home, while Justin's the one wearing his ratty sneakers everywhere and tracking dirt onto our thirteen thousand dollar rug—and it meant his head fell a cumulative two inches shorter on me than usual.

He felt so, so small.

**

Justin's first couple of days after that were rough but manageable. His fever was down but not gone, his kidneys were doing good work, but he was still having a not-insignificant amount of trouble breathing and just generally felt awful. He had to start lung therapy to keep from getting sick all over again, and on top of that physical therapy for the grafts to keep them stretching as they were healing so the skin wouldn't get too tight, which was just as comfortable as it sounds. Michael and Ben were still around, I was still using the hospital waiting room as an office, and Jennifer hadn't really internalized the news that everything was going to be okay, so she was anxious and freaking out Justin every time she started crying. The best development in the whole situation, besides, you know, that thing about how he was going to be okay, was that they moved him out of the CCU and into a regular room where visiting hours are more of a suggestion and I could start staying the night, which meant I could actually get some fucking sleep without worrying that nurses with no interpreters were going to fucking kill the boy at three AM.

We were both up at that time one night, actually, Justin wheezing too much to sleep, me in the chair looking over a press release Kinnetik was helping a company organize because they—get this—were managing a health crisis with their CEO and the stockholders were getting antsy.

It feels offensive to you to lie about someone being sick, I said. This is a very inconsiderate task they've asked of me, considering my delicate waif of a partner.

You're still going to do it, Justin said, panting.

Of course I'm going to do it. You think I can turn down work, with what this vacation is costing us? I put the file down and pulled his chart off the foot of the bed instead. Shouldn't you be doing better at this breathing thing by now?

I can breathe.

You sound like a lawnmower.

Do I? That's interesting.

I climbed up on the bed next to him, and he gave his best congested version of a sigh and leaned his head against my shoulder. I showed him the press release, and he wrinkled his nose and shrugged a little.

It feels like I'm not going to feel better for ages, he said.

I flipped through the file, looking for more information on the shareholders. You're already way better than you were yesterday.

I know.

There's really no rush, I said, and he leaned his hot forehead against my cheek and kissed my chin, then yanked himself away to start coughing some more. I got up and got him some water.

“Brian?” he said out loud, and God, his little voice.

Doooon't, I said, in my best ASL whine, and I crawled back up on the bed and kissed him. We couldn't do it very long; he'd moved from an oxygen mask to a cannula in his nose, but he still just didn't have the air for anything more than a few seconds.

He rested his forehead against mine, smiling a little, catching his breath.

You look really nice, I told him, and he laced his fingers around the back of my neck.

**

Daphne came to visit the next day, so I hung out in the waiting room to give them some privacy. I was texting Marie, Justin's boss, who was being patient and understanding as hell and said his canvas missed him—artists, man—when Jennifer came and sat down next to me.

“Hey, I thought you were at the hotel,” I said.

She shrugged and handed me a cup of coffee. “Didn't feel right.”

I nodded. Hell, Ben and Michael were still camped out here, sleeping on top of each other in two chairs over in the corner by the big window looking over the city.

Jennifer followed my gaze to them, then to Daphne inside Justin's room. “It's inspiring, isn't it?” she said. “How many people love him.”

I felt about as breathless as Justin.

“You're a good boy, you know that?” she said to me, and when she patted my cheek I leaned into her hand without really meaning to.

**

Don't, I said to Justin, when he shifted on the bed next to me when I was just trying to read my fucking book.

He stopped moving. What?

Don't rub your cock against me.

He snorted and coughed. I wasn't.

You moved, I felt your cock. It counts.

He laughed. How long has it been?

Eight days. I'm like a live wire over here.

So jerk off in my bathroom.

All I fucking do is jerk off in your bathroom.

Well, come on then, I haven't even done that! How do you think I feel?

Uh, like absolute sucking shit, if your whining is any indication.

He sighed, wheezed. True. Just go fuck my nurse, he's hot.

Don't talk to me about your nurse. He made eye contact with me at one point and I almost just went whole hog and left you. And this is when you were in a coma, too.

Justin gestured towards the door. Have at you, he's around.

I can't! Fucking Ben and Michael are like fucking armed guards out there. How are they still here? I know, I know, I'm an ungrateful asshole, but Jesus Christ, even Jennifer had gone back to Pittsburgh at this point! Justin's fever was down to a hundred and one, his cough was letting him sleep for hours at a time, and the skin grafts were healing “beautifully,” according to his surgeon.

They're convinced as soon as they leave you alone you'll do something ridiculous and self-destructive.

Like fuck your nurse?

To them, sure.

I closed my eyes and kissed the top of his head. I'm telling you, I need to go back to work just to get out of their sight for a few hours. First thing when I go back, I'm fucking an intern.

Last time you fucked an intern you got fired, remember.

I don't care. I'll fuck an intern. I'll fuck a girl. I'll fuck a plant. I'm putting my cock in something tomorrow, so help me God.

Justin got out of bed, still shaky. I hit the mattress to try to get him to look at me so I could make some joke about him being too sick to run away just because I talked about fucking a woman, but he went over to the window and closed the blinds. He came back to the bed and I helped him back on. What are you doing? I said.

He undid my jeans.

Don't, I said. You're too sick.

Shut up, he said, and his fist closed around my cock.

I arched my back on the bed and threw my head back against his pillows. Oh God.

Justin laughed.

Oh fuck. Justin. Jesus Christ. He coughed into his elbow, and I said, Don't stop. Fuck, I'm going to hell.

He didn't stop, and God, a hand job in a hospital bed has no right ranking among the best orgasms of my life, but here we are. And if after I'd started seeing straight again I propped him up carefully on some pillows, tucked a blanket around his shoulders, and then blew the goddamn shit out of him...well. Can you blame me?

**

I went back to work two days after that, which felt weird, and I stopped being grumpy about Michael and Ben sticking around because it meant Justin wasn't alone all day while I was the office. I'd forget for whole stretches, thirty minutes, an hour at a time, that everything wasn't normal, that Justin wasn't at the gallery or the studio or waiting for me at home, and then I'd remember in the middle of a meeting or writing up an invoice or sucking up to a client on the phone.

I wasn't worried, really, and I didn't exactly feel guilty for leaving him. It's hard to explain what it was. I think mostly it was that I felt bad for him, because I knew he was bored and that he wanted to be at work and that he felt like shit, and that was a weird experience for me because I don't feel bad for the kid very often. He's pretty self-sufficient.

But I'd come to the hospital after work and his eyes would light up and his burns would look better and he'd kiss me a little longer every day. His room was full of cards from Emmett, Gregory, Ted, Cynthia. I came in one day and he was standing by the window drinking coffee, in pajamas for the first time instead of a gown, and for a minute it was almost like we were at home.

I dreamed about your canvas last night, I told him that night, sitting behind him, signing on his body while I rubbed his shoulders.

“Can you get me a sketchpad?”

Yeah.

“I dreamed about you,” he said.

**

The doctors finally started talking about sending him home a little less vaguely, and Ben and Michael decided it was time to head home.

Ben hugged me, which didn't seem weird until it was actually happening, and kissed Justin's cheek and ruffled his hair and they had some sort of secret sick person conversation with their eyes. Michael hugged Justin for a long time, and when he pulled away his eyes were wet, and I tucked him into my neck.

“Thank you,” I whispered to him.

“Anytime.” He cleared his throat. “Hopefully no time too soon, okay?”

“I don't know, the kid's a mess. I can't promise anything.”

It was a funny feeling, being on our own in the hospital, because we were surrounded of course by a million patients and doctors and nurses and orderlies and visitors, and Daphne would be coming by to visit in a few hours, and Emily was going to drop by on her lunch break tomorrow, but for the time being there was no one in the room, no one in the whole hospital who really knew us, except for me and Justin.

He smiled, sitting with his legs crossed on the bed. Come sit with me, he said, and I sat on the foot of the bed and looked at him and this just...incredible wave of peace came over me, I can't even describe it. You'd think the whole thing was totally behind us and we were relaxing on some island with how calm I felt at that moment. He noticed and said, What's up with you?

Everyone trusts me to handle it from here, I said. There's nobody watching you but me.

Just like old times.

I got up and washed my hands. Let's do your bandages, okay? The nurses had officially passed that job on to me, in preparation for him going home.

He lay back on the pillows and took a deep breath, and there was barely a wheeze in it now. Okay.

**

Justin was sitting in the chair by the bed when I got in from work the next day. I pointed at him, eyebrows raised.

Not yet, he said, and I groaned. His doctor wouldn't let him go home until his fever was under a hundred degrees, and Justin sure was taking his fucking sweet time getting there.

Well, why the fuck not? I said.

I don't know, I'm just lazy I guess.

I came over and felt his forehead. You know, I am doing so much goddamn work trying to get you home, and all you have to do is cool down a degree...

I know. He held his arms up for a hug. I'm a menace. But they said I can take a shower today. I waited for you.

I touched his chest hesitantly. His bandages were gone now, which freaked me out enough without adding the spray from the shower. Are you sure that's what they said? You don't speak English very well.

He stood on his toes and kissed my nose. Come on.

Justin's shitty little shower stall was hardly the glass-walled, spacious experience we were used to, but it did the trick. I insisted on keeping his back to the spray, and he rolled his eyes but let me, and I noticed how he winced when the water hit the burn on his shoulder and didn't feel all that bad about it. He kissed me, and God, I felt fucking weightless, like I was just going to disappear up with the steam.

I tilted his head back and rinsed his hair, and he purred and made a grab for my cock that I didn't feel any need to discourage this time.

The steam loosened up the remaining crap left in his chest and he coughed some while I dressed him and dried his hair. I palmed his forehead, said, “Hmm,” and took the thermometer off the wall and held it up to him. He opened his mouth.

What are you going to do when I'm healthy again? he asked me. You'll be so bored.

Fuck your brains out, I answered easily.

Ah, yeah, that works.

The thermometer beeped and I pulled it out. Sunshine?

Yeah?

I held it up, grinning. 99.8.

**

Three hours later, Justin was leaning heavily against me in the hallway while I unlocked the door of the apartment. Jesus, why am I so tired? All I did was sit in a cab.

Well, you did almost die a week ago.

Yeah, a week.

I unlocked the door. Bed or couch?

Couch. Closer.

I settled him on the couch and he sighed and held a pillow to his chest. Are you hungry? I asked him.

Yeah. He frowned and sniffed the pillow. So, didn't we decide we weren't going to smoke in the apartment?

Ah, shit.

He cocked an eyebrow.

Give me a break, I signed over the bar as I hunted through the refrigerator. Goddamn, Ben and Michael made enough food to feed us for a year. I was very sad. Ben and Michael made me write a letter about you and flush it down the toilet.

Justin stared at me.

It made sense at the time. I held up a Tupperware thing. Pad Thai?

Ooh, yes. I stuck two plates in the microwave, and he said “Briiiiian?”

Oh my God, what.

He hugged the pillow and looked at me with those big blue eyes. Can we have people over tonight?

Justin...

Please?

You just got home. You can barely keep your head up.

I'll just sit right here. I won't move. I'll make you do absolutely everything.

God, that is tempting.

I want to see my friends, he said. Please?

I don't know why we were even bothering to go through this shit. We both knew how it was going to end up.

In an hour, Derek, Daphne, and Emily were here, showering Justin with stupid little presents and playing their music too loud and laughing over Daphne's signing mistakes. And God, I had so much work I needed to be doing, so many missed workouts at the gym, so many men out there I could be fucking now that Justin was safe and sound, but somehow all of that seemed infinitely less important right in that moment than standing in the kitchen and watching Justin smiling on the couch.

He looked up, and we made eye contact, and I saw him breathe in sharply, like the sight of me surprised him, amazed him.

I covered my mouth with my hand.

**

So, earlier, I told you I wasn't going to freak out again, and now that we're just about at the end here and you can see I meant it, might as well talk about why.

The thing is, people get sick everyday. And people who love them sit around waiting rooms and get bad news and then get good news and then sit on their beds and hold them while they cough. And then they get up together and they go and they live their lives, maybe a little bit bruised, but the truth is, most people...

It sounds ridiculous when you think about a goddamn drama queen I am about everything, but the truth is, most people get through this shit okay. It's allowed.

Ben said, the day after Justin was hurt, that Justin might feel relieved to hear that he got to just lie there and feel awful and he wasn't doing anything wrong.

All day while Justin was hurt, I watched people get up and out of bed through the windows of their rooms. I watched people laugh in the waiting rooms. I watched the nurses chat and eat chips and dance a little with the radio.

Do you think that all this time I'd been waiting for someone to show me that I just got to fucking be okay if I wanted and that wasn't doing anything wrong? That it didn't mean I didn't...that I could stop having to fucking prove it now?

Because I sort of do.

It had been three years, at that point, since Justin started losing his hearing. Two since the seizures got bad, since we really started having to rethink our lives. Fifteen days in that hospital.

Six years since I asked him to move in with me.

And every step of the way, everyone has been watching me, ready for me to fuck it up. People, God, wanting me to be torn up about him because it's the only way they'd trust that I give a shit. Well. Everyone but one person.

What if I just got to be okay with all of this? Justin is.

What if we stop making jokes about what I have in place of a heart and I get to just fucking take care of him?

It's something to consider, don't you think?

**

Did you really know I was going to be okay? Justin asked me, when I lay him carefully in the bed that night.

I didn't know. I thought.

Why?

I have no idea, I admitted, and Justin smiled a little as I lay down next to him.

He rested his head on my shoulder, and I played with his hair and looked at the ceiling.

After a while, I said, I think it might be because I'm happy nowadays.

Justin looked at me. Wow, he said.

Yeah, seriously.

He pulled himself up and kissed me.

**

So this is where I tap out. I'll let Justin finish our little saga. But I'll say one last thing, because he'll be too modest to admit it when he's wrapping shit up, and God knows that's never been one of my tragic flaws.

When this is all over, when Justin and I are old queens in some nursing home, when we're worm food six feet under, when everyone who's ever known us is long gone, three hundred years from now...they're still going to tell stories about us. They're going to put up statues. They're going to name a city.

This is the stuff of goddamn legends. They're gonna learn about us like we learned about King Arthur. They're going to perform us for their school plays. They'll celebrate his birthday like Abraham Goddamn Lincoln's. Fuck your Barnum and Bailey bullshit; we're the greatest show on earth.

You're fucking welcome for the front row seat.