Come Out

LaVieEnRose

“So are they like broken up?” Nina said.

We were at lunch at this little cafe in the West Village. Nina's one of my only friends from when I first moved to New York who I still see regularly. The rest of us will get together what we say is once a month, but always ends up being more like every three. It's hard. We have really different lives now, and a lot of the people who used to link us all together are gone, and and Brian's never had any interest in meeting them and Justin will gamely show up and smile every once in a while but doesn't really get anything out of socializing with hearing people.

She'd finished filling me in on what was going on with her—new cool roommate, same shitty job—and then I'd given her the update on my very strange life since Brian left for London a week ago.

“No, God no,” I said. “They're not...they're Brian and Justin. They're like the perfect couple.”

She squinted at me. Nina's really good about making sure I can read her lips; she always faces me straight on and doesn't mumble. “They're living in separate continents from each other, they're sleeping with other people, and they're not speaking to each other.”

“Well...yeah.”

“Hmm,” she said. “That's some perfect couple.”

**

Things were...very weird.

I was still talking to Brian and, obviously, to Justin, and both of them were acting pretty normal. Justin was maybe kind of quiet, but he was working a lot and doing a lot of cooking and didn't seem particularly sad, and it's not like I can't see through the shit he puts up pretty well at this point. Brian was also working a lot and doing a lot of ordering take out and he didn't seem sad either, and yeah, he's a bit harder to read than Justin, but I'm not exactly a stranger to him either. I would have expected Brian would be all over me poking for details about how Justin was doing, but he didn't, and Justin never asked me about Brian either. They were just...being, but both of them seemed like they had a light missing. I didn't really love the paintings Justin was finishing. Brian seemed tired.

He called after lunch, while I was walking towards the subway. “Why are you in a suit?” I asked him. “It's Saturday.”

I'm in a suit tomorrow, too, he said. These people don't sleep. He was walking too, presumably headed back to his hotel after a day of meetings. On a Saturday.

“Are we rich yet?”

Always, darling. How's Tina?

“Nina.”

Whatever.

He'd been doing this the past few times, asking me questions about my life that I knew he didn't care about, because generally our conversations revolve around work or Justin, and I didn't want to tell him how much everyone at work was relaxing without him there busting our balls, and he didn't want to talk about Justin.

“She's fine,” I said.

Did you tell her you were giving up your fucking apartment?

I rolled my eyes. “Yes.”

Good. Did you ask her for a kidney?

“Must have slipped my mind.”

You know, at some point you're going to have to tell people.

“I told Emily.”

No, Emily found out because we needed her to watch Justin when you were in the hospital.

I hadn't seen him sign Justin's name in a few days at that point. I chewed on the inside of my cheek, and Brian didn't say anything.

I said, “She said Derek knows,” mostly just to rescue us from the awkward.

He looked simultaneously relieved and sheepish. Yeah. Sorry. I didn't realize it was a secret.

“It's not a secret exactly, it's just...” I sighed on my way up the stairs to the subway. “I don't want people thinking I expect them to run out and get tested.”

You're deranged.

“You didn't tell anyone when you had cancer.”

Sure I did. I was just a fucking dumbass about it for two months first.

“Okay, so I'm still in the fucking dumbass stage.” I watched him. “Are you sleeping?”

Yes, dear. Just jet lag. He shrugged. Have you moved into my room yet?

“No.”

You should.

“I sleep in there sometimes.”

He nodded a little. Okay.

“You know, I'm on my way home now if you want to talk to him.”

Oh, thank you. I actually lost his phone number, so the only way I can reach him is if you mediate our interactions.

“See, you joke, but you really could use someone to do that for you, just...in general.”

Ah, and you joke, but my interactions with people are what's going to keep you in pretty things. He gave my clothes a once-over. Or put you in pretty things in the first place.

“Dream big.”

One must. He checked his watch. Speaking of interactions, I have to get some drinks with some horribly boring fuckers, and then I have a club to check out.

Hopefully the guys there will be less boring.

Hopefully they won't talk enough for me to find out. He kissed his fingers and flicked the screen. Be good.

Yeah, you too. I hung up and bit my lip as the train rushed into the station.

**

Justin wanted to try out this new recipe, so we went to the grocery store. It's just a few blocks away so I just walk when I'm on my own or with Brian, but Justin and I get Ubers, since he can't drive and so far my driving skills extended to being able to, sometimes, not stall out Brian's car when I crept around parking lots. Justin stood on the edge of the shopping cart and scanned the shelves while I pushed him, letting him glide a few feet ahead of me and then catching up. We couldn't talk much like this, but we didn't really need to.

Justin pointed to a high shelf, and I grabbed a bottle of sesame oil.

I wrapped my arms around his waist as I put my hands back on the cart, and I felt him smile, somehow. He tilted his head back and nuzzled at my jaw a little.

I can't say that was the first time this week that I'd thought about how this is what it would be like, if it were...you know, just me and Justin. We'd have this nice little life. He'd find kidney-friendly recipes and I'd help him reach things.

It would be a very nice life.

But it's like pastels when you're used to to technicolor.

I nudged the cart forward and let him go, and caught him again.

**

Pastel or no, Justin and I were good.

He cried a little the day Brian left, but he wanted company, maybe attention a little, so we cuddled up on the couch for a while and he talked about how frustrated and disappointed and goddamn confused he was and shredded a bunch of tissues with shaky hands, but after that he didn't want to talk about it. He picked himself up and continued like he does after every shitty thing that happens to him. And he was so fucking kind to me, not demanding, not hovering, effortlessly taking over the things Brian usually does for me without expecting me to do the same for him.

I did, though, of course, where I could. I counted out his pills in the mornings because I know it stresses him out and made sure he was eating because he forgets. I caught when he was having absence seizures and told him to go to bed, and I started sleeping with my hearing aids in so I would wake up when he was coughing badly, though he was beginning to get comfortable with waking me up when he was scared. There wasn't much I could do, but he needed someone to keep him calm when he felt like he was never going to breathe again, so I'd hold his hand and kiss his ears and promise him it would get better.

I know we don't have sex like he and Brian do—I'm not into everything, and Justin would of course never push me—but we did what we do and it's fucking amazing. We texted each other dirty shit during the work day and I worked knots out of his legs in the evenings while he read his mystery novels.

He was working a ton, creating a bunch of new pieces and tidying up some old ones, but he still came with me to every dialysis session, even though I told him he didn't have to. Half the time I just ended up sleeping through them, but Justin said he liked to be there.

We were at the center one Wednesday, and he had his phone out to show me pictures of the piece he'd finished that morning. He had paint in his hair and hadn't had time to go home to shower between the studio and here, so he was wearing one of my knit caps and he looked adorable and about twenty years old. He was sore from standing at his easel all day, and it's dumb because the dialysis room has these really comfy armchairs for the patients and then just these regular chairs for our families, but like...I feel fine most of the time, I can sit in the regular chair, but Justin won't ever let me. He had a pretty bad seizure here once and everybody in here, naturally, freaked the fuck out, and even then I had to give him a whole you are the patient now thing before he would agree to sit in the fucking armchair. He was so embarrassed. People in here always watch us kind of curiously anyway, but between the gay thing and the sign language thing and the forty-years-younger-than-everyone-else thing, I can't really blame them.

Today at least I'd convinced him to sling his legs over my lap, and I was squeezing the muscles around his knees with my free hand while the other one had to stay still with the leads in it. Brian, when he's here, sits on that side so he can keep an eye on it, but Justin's not great with blood.

Justin held his phone where I could see it and scrolled through pictures. So...I think it's done now. I sent pictures to my agent.

It's nice.

He laughed. You hate it.

I don't hate it!

It's not your favorite, he said diplomatically.

It's not my favorite. It was just...angry, in this way I don't usually expect from Justin's paintings. They're always bold and passionate, don't get me wrong, and they'll always make sure you feel something, but they're usually more complicated. Haunting. He does a lot with empty space and perspective and distance, stuff about isolation and unfamiliarity in the everyday. It's not usually this obvious.

I'm no genius, but you don't have to be one to add two things together here. He wasn't feeling very complicated right now. He was just mad.

And sad.

We'll see what my agent thinks, he said. There's a show with a last minute opening she's trying to get me into next week.

“That's awesome.”

Ella Alexander's in it, he said, with an eye roll. She's this trust fund artist from Brooklyn who Justin has decided is his nemesis. She was mean to him when they first showed together last year, made some comment about his color palette being derivative of some up-and-comer on the West coast who doesn't hold a candle to my boy here, and he's had a bone to pick with her ever since. They cross paths a lot at industry events and they'e shown together twice more, and they always sneer at each other over their wine glasses and count each other's sales on their fingers.

Oh, so you have to be in it.

Exactly. He scrolled through some more of his photos, looking at some of his in-progress works, head tilted slightly to the side.

Fuck it. I hope Brian has time to go to the Tate while he's there, I said.

Justin signed a non-committal Yeah, as he kept studying the photos.

How much free time does he even have?

I don't know, Justin said.

How do you think it's all going?

I don't know, he said. Why don't you ask him?

I sighed and flopped back in the chair, and Justin looked at me and smiled a little bit and opened up the browser on his phone.

Look, let's make this for dinner, he said, and he squished in close to show me the recipe and I gave in and pulled him onto my lap .

**

Justin was getting by, and he was seeing our friends and hanging out with the baby and taking care of me and getting his work done, but the paintings weren't the only clue that all of that was...hard.

He worked all day on Brian's birthday, on a Saturday, and was quiet during the day when I texted him to check in. I called Brian to make sure he was doing something to celebrate—turned out Emily was flying in the next day, so she was going to drag him out to a belated dinner—and went for a run. We'd had plans to meet Derek and Daph and Molly at our usual bar in Sunnyside, but Justin didn't show and texted me that he wouldn't be home until late. I figured he was pulling a late night at the studio, and I was still awake around one, watching Youtube videos in my bed, when I felt stuttery footsteps on my ceiling. Two sets of footsteps.

I came up the stairs and Justin was pressed against the wall next to the front door, getting handsy with some guy with slicked-back hair an a leather jacket. So...okay. Justin doesn't bring guys home very often, and when he does it's usually for some sort of group thing with him and Brian or occasionally him and me, but he always runs that by me first. He hooks up with guys when he goes out—I do too, though I usually stop short of anything I'd consider sex, though...you know, sometimes guys are gorgeous—but he only sleeps with Deaf guys (with one obvious exception) and he doesn't just find those out and about often.

And, you know. I thought he was at the studio.

I banged on the wall to get his attention, and he nudged the guys lips off his cheek and grinned at me. Hi. Did I wake you up? Sorry sorry.

You're not supposed to be drinking.

“Who's this?” the guy said.

Uh...I'm his boyfriend, I said, simcomming.

“Oh, sorry, man, I didn't—”

“Hang on.” I turned to Justin. Is he hearing?

Probably, Justin said. Would be a pretty big coincidence!

The guy said, “Uh, what's with the...” and did the kind of oh-so-charming hand flapping hearing people do when they're trying to imitate sign language.

He doesn't know you're Deaf? I said to Justin.

Justin laughed. “Whoops.”

I'm sure you two had a great conversation about how you want this evening to go, I said, because fuck this bullshit. Justin's had a million and one bad experiences with hearing guys who don't understand his boundaries and push him too far, which is why he doesn't do this shit, and he would fucking kill me if I brought a stranger home without at least some sort of agreement about boundaries. Justin can't read lips. This guy could have fucking looked right at him and told him he was going to go home with him and murder him in his living room and he'd have no idea.

You're being boring, Justin said.

Yeah, I should let you have a seizure while you're blowing a stranger instead, that would be more exciting. You remember what happened last time you drank?

He laughed. “That would be exciting.”

The guy said, “Um, what—”

I pointed at him. “You need to go.”

“I—”

Brian would give him cab money. “Do you need me to call you a car?”

“Uh...sure. Thanks.”

I got the guy an Uber and he was gone in three minutes, and I made Justin drink some water and coaxed him into the shower. He was whining about me being a killjoy but was already kind of petering out, and suddenly halfway through the shower he said, Are you mad at me?

Not as mad as your body's going to be a in a few hours, I said.

It didn't take a few hours. Forty-five minutes after we were out of the shower I was sitting on the bathroom floor rubbing his back while he threw up, his right arm shaking uncontrollably and not stopping. It went on for hours, long past the point where there was anything left in his stomach. This was probably more than just alcohol but I didn't really feel like pushing him about it right now. I wasn't mad anymore.

“Damn it,” he said out loud, crying, shivering. “Damn it damn it damn it damn it.”

Shh, have some water.

He tried sipping some but it came right back up, and he rested his forehead on the toilet seat and sobbed.

I know. I know it feels awful.

I just wanted to forget for a night, he said.

I know.

I'm so fucking sad.

“Baby, I know. Come here,” I said, and I pulled him into my arms and held him for a long time.

Brian called the next morning, while Justin was still asleep, to ask me some question about the art for a campaign we'd done a few months ago that he wanted to brag to the London people about. I'd moved on from being pissed off at Justin to being pissed off at Brian and I wasn't exactly subtle about it.

What the fuck is with you? he said eventually.

“I just think you've been there a while to still have to be charming them, that's all. Aren't they supposed to be begging to have your name on the door by now?”

He blinked at me. Do you have a problem, dear?

“Yeah, I have a problem. You're halfway across the world and it sounds like it might be for nothing. Here's hoping the New York branch doesn't go to shit without you and we're destitute and I don't even have my apartment anymore.”

Christ, I go to London for three weeks and it's like being in a Dickens novel. Are you going to tell me what's really wrong?

The temptation to tell him about last night was...large, but it was not my place to spill Justin's shit to him. If Justin wanted Brian to know he was having a hard time, he could tell him, and if Brian wanted to know how Justin was doing, he could ask, and if knowing Justin needed him was enough to keep him here, he never would have left.

But Christ, I had to do something.

“He has a show next week,” I said.

Brian sighed and looked away.

“So I should assume you're not coming?”

I would if I could. You know that.

“Do I?”

You know, I do this to take care of the two of you, he said. This is what I do for this family. I might not be sweet and nurturing like the two of you but I fucking provide. This is my job.

“Yeah, so you keep reminding us. Do we get a discount for all the guilt trips, or is that something we suck up and accept since we're just the little wives while you're out doing things we could neeeever understand?”

He smiled humorlessly. You really have left your little starter home in the past, huh?

“Fuck you, Brian. Make money or don't make money, but don't hold it over our heads like we're demanding it. I could get a job you don't pay for. Justin's paintings sell for thousands. We'd be fine.” We'd be fine without you, and I knew he heard it and he didn't like it.

You know what, I have a meeting to get to, he said. Maybe afterwards I'll see if I can find a partner who will appreciate the hours of work I put in for him.

“Make sure you find a healthy one this time,” I said. “I wouldn't want you to have to face any more stress.”

He hung up.

I'm pretty sure that was my first fight with Brian.

Justin was standing behind me when I turned around, so I gave him a look. Don't go celebrating that I'm on your side, I said. I'm plenty pissed at you too. I wasn't, really, but fuck if I was going to become some bargaining chip in this little whatever the hell. It's not like we all didn't know where I'd end up if this whole thing exploded, but...let them have a little bit of doubt about it. Whatever incentive to keep things from exploding that I could find, y'know?

Anyway, he smiled a little. Noted. You okay?

Yeah. Your husband's an asshole. Couldn't help it.

I've noticed!

How are you feeling?

Um...extremely embarrassed. He wrinkled his nose. I'm really sorry.

I sighed and held my hand out, and he came over and fit himself into me. He still felt pretty shaky, but a lot better than last night. I kissed his forehead. Don't do that again.

Yeah, you're telling me. Thanks for saving me.

I folded both hands on top of his head and kept them there for a minute. He smiled up at me.

For the record, he said. I really am okay. I mean, I'm sad, but I'm not...I'm okay. Please believe me.

I do. And I did. Justin falters, but he doesn't break. He can survive anything. I mean, look at the shit he's been through. You're telling me I was supposed to be worried he'd fall apart because his husband was in London for a few months? He was just sad. He could do it.

And he did.

**

I didn't talk to Brian for a week, outside of a Kinnetik-related very terse text or two. Emily came back from London and told me Brian seemed okay but sad, and that once he started drinking every night he asked her a lot about me and Justin.

I told him you were fine, she said.

And we were. We had a busy week preparing for Justin's show, but it went beautifully. He wore purple and looked devastatingly gorgeous, and the critics were dazzled. He was so busy that his interpreter had to take two breaks before the night was over. I stepped in during them and did my best interpreter impression, which was pretty fun, and Justin was really impressed by how well I did.

We celebrated afterwards and Justin fell asleep, but I was too amped up from the night. I mean...he was amazing. He'd been showing his old stuff, so I actually liked it, and he was just so fucking charming, managing these hearing people and answering their stupid questions like they were interesting and just enchanting absolutely everyone, and I got to be there. I got to help!

So I couldn't sleep, which is why I answered my phone when Brian called at five AM his time. I took the phone into the kitchen. He was drunk and unshaven and very tired, leaning over his desk with his chin in his hand.

“Go to sleep,” I told him.

He rubbed at one eye. How'd it go?

“He was amazing. You didn't send flowers.”

He snorted. Seemed ill-advised.

“Maybe.”

How many did he sell?

“Four.”

He finished his drink Christ. He's scary.

“I know.”

That must be more than that witch Ella.

“Yeah, she just sold one.” I paused. “Wait. I didn't tell you Ella was there.”

He shrugged. Justin must have mentioned it.

I blinked. “You talked to Justin?”

What the fuck are you talking about? I talk to Justin all the time.

“You what?”

Jesus Christ, what did you think, I just hadn't spoken to him in three weeks?

“Uh, yes.”

He looked at me like he fucking pitied me. Evan.

God, I felt like such a fucking idiot! “You never mention it!”

You never asked!

“He doesn't mention it!”

I'm going to guess you never asked...

“When I ask him a question about you he just says to ask you!”

Brian stared at me. Yes, he's making sure he knows you have his support to continue having a relationship with me even though me and him are fighting? Obviously?

“God!”

Brian shook his head, looking kind of stunned. Man. People really do not get us.

“But you are fighting,” I said. “You just said it.”

He shrugged a little. What do you want me to say, that we're great right now? No, we're not great.

“But you're talking.”

He sighed. It's me and Justin, he said. I learned a new language for him. We're always talking.

The next day at breakfast I said, So you and Brian are talking, right? casually to Justin.

He was reading the review of his show and loving every word. Yeah, of course, he said, barely looking up.

God!

**

A few days later, Justin stopped me in the morning—we slept together most nights, but honestly I sleep better by myself, so sometimes we split—when I went to kiss him. Don't. I'm getting sick.

What's wrong?

He pointed to his throat and slumped down at the kitchen table.

Between the white stuff taking up residence in throat and the fact that Janie had strep the week before, the diagnosis wasn't exactly a mystery. He called his doctor and got an appointment for that day, and sure enough, by the time the rapid test came back positive and the antibiotics had been called in, he could barely swallow and he had a fever of a hundred and two. Justin's body does not play around.

There's only one antibiotic Justin can take, but luckily it's the one typically prescribed for strep, so we felt like we were in the clear here. I stayed home from work and made him tea and honey and watched movies with him and monitored his fever and we didn't worry. Even when a day passed and he wasn't any better. And then two. And then three.

And then we started to worry.

The coughing hurt so much it made his eyes tear up. His throat was too swollen for solid food. By the fourth day, it took him three tries to get his meds down in the morning, he'd stopped eating completely, and his temperature hadn't been below a hundred and four in twenty-four hours.

We're going to the hospital, I told him.

He was shivering under three blankets on the couch, the nebulizer mask over his face. He shook his head. The meds will work.

The meds are not working. You're getting worse. He had a rash on his chest now and his glands were getting too swollen for him to breathe. We have to go now.

Tomorrow. I'll go tomorrow if it's not better. Please? I can't sleep there. I want to sleep.

Two hours after that the fever spiked another degree and he started talking about the walls moving, so yeah, no. I got an Uber and took him to the emergency room, where they promptly took my Justin away from me and told me I wasn't family.

“His family isn't here,” I said. Christ, even Molly was away, on some post-graduation trip in India. “He's delirious, he can't make decisions right now. I'm his person.”

They said something to me I didn't get, power of...something? They were working on getting an interpreter but I said the first priority was getting one in there with Justin, not one out here with me. She pointed to a name on the paperwork. Power of attorney. Brian Kinney.

“Brian isn't here,” I said. “He's in London. It's three in the morning there.”

They were telling me stuff I understood but only on a word-by-word level, stuff about taking his blood and his medical history and re-checking his...something, and they had all of these forms that they were going to ask him to sign because there was no one here to sign them but he was too sick to read, he'd been to sick to read for days, God, I should have brought him here so much sooner, I never should have brought him here at all—

I called Brian.

He picked up after three rings, disheveled and reaching for the light. “Fuck,” he said.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Tell me.

They won't let me do anything, I said. They won't let me sign off on anything or fucking...be with him.

What?

“They said I'm not family, so I can't—”

Shit. Shit, I should have taken care of this before I left. They won't even let you fucking sit with him?

I shook my head. They took him away, they said they had to do tests.

Where's your interpreter?

“They only have one, he's with Justin. They're trying to find another one. But his fever's really high, I don't think he—”

No, no, he won't be talking. Brian ran his hand through his hair. Tell them I said to let you do everything.

I bit my lip. Can you tell them?

Yeah. Hand over the phone.

So I did, to whatever nurse I could grab first. She talked to Brian for a long time, and I couldn't really figure out much of what was going on—I caught a lot of Mister Kinney, but it's hard to lip read half of a conversation because you're missing so much context—but eventually she handed back the phone to me, looking pissed.

Brian was all fired up, too, but he was calming himself down now. Okay. They're going to take you to him now.

Thank God. Thank God. “Um...Brian, I don't know what to do.”

Make him feel like he's at home the best you can. Watch him for seizures, keep an eye on his breathing—

“No, I...I know how to take care of Justin. I don't know how to handle the doctors.”

Right. Of course. Okay. He took a deep breath. They need to figure out why the antibiotics aren't working.

They're not working?

They're not working. They need to run tests, and you have to nag them to rush the results. You need to be on them constantly asking them what their plan is. Treat the nurses well, make them love you. Bond with that one I just yelled at about what a fucking asshole I am or something, make yourself the good guy. Ask about every single drug they give you and cross-reference it with the list. Just...just advocate for him. You're his voice, okay?

“I'm his voice. Yes.”

Evan? You can do this.

I nodded. “I can do this.”

And I thought I could, for a few hours. Justin was fucking miserably sick, curled up in the hospital bed with his arms around his head, shivering, and I got a nurse to get me a sponge and some warm water and I wiped his skin down over and over. They'd taken blood already, so while we were waiting for results there wasn't much for me to do. They'd given him an IV of his antibiotics and they said that might be all it took, just a stronger dose, so mostly I just sat by his bed and watched his oxygen levels and promised him it was going to get better soon.

He was really out of it from the fever, quiet the way he only gets when he's really sick. I kept my hand against his cheek and focused on not letting him forget that he wasn't alone anymore. But mostly I just tried to get him to sleep, even though people were coming in constantly and poking at him and moving him around. I started asking people if they could wait, when they came in ten minutes after another one wrote to adjust his fluids or check his blood pressure—yes, I understand this needs to happen, I said over and over, but it does it have to happen right now? I was surprised by how often they'd agree to wait a little while.

All of a sudden, though, his test results were back and that stopped.

Justin was sleeping, and I didn't want anyone to wake him up, so I stepped out into the hallway to talk to the doctor. He had the interpreter with him, but I still couldn't even begin to follow what was going on. Every other word was fingerspelled, and I couldn't figure it out fast enough and even if I could have I wouldn't have known what the fuck the words he was fingerspelling meant. But the doctor looked urgent and concerned and I'd left my boyfriend in there by himself and the doctor said, “So we need you to make a decision,” and holy shit, what??

Daphne was in Pittsburgh, or I would have called here ages ago, and there were no hearing people around who I trusted, who knew Justin and what he needs and what I need for him. So I called Brian. At least it was daylight there now.

He picked up fast. Where is he? he said.

He's sleeping, he's okay. I don't know what the fuck they're saying to me. Emily's there, right? I was pretty sure she had flown out for a few meetings.

Yeah, she's in her room. He got up.

I need her to Deaf interpret. I looked at the interpreter. That's okay?

Of course, he said, and Brian speedwalked to Emily's room and explained it all to her quickly, texting her as he went, and explained it all to her for about ten seconds before she nodded and took the phone away.

Hi, sweetheart, she said to me. Let me see the interpreter.

He signed it all out again, and I held Brian and Emily where they could see him and watched them. Emily wasn't saying anything yet, but I had to watch Brian's face slowly change and I realized this was really fucking bad.

Okay, Emily said, and I turned the phone back to myself. His immune system isn't where it should be. It's lower than it was before.

No...

It's nowhere near as bad as it was a few months ago, Emily said. But it's dropped some. That's why he's so sick.

But they're giving him more antibiotics, I said. He's on an IV. So that's stronger than just taking the pills.

We didn't get that far, Emily said.

The interpreter waved for my attention and I looked up. Hang on, I said to Emily, and watched him sign. Okay. They want to switch the antibiotic.

No, Brian said immediately.

I watched the interpreter. Brian, they're saying this one isn't going to work.

Brian stood up and walked a few steps away, then, back, his hand over his mouth.

What do they want to switch him to? I asked the interpreter.

Penicillin. I was ready for that, so I got the fingerspelling.

He's allergic, I said immediately.

How allergic?

I went back to the phone. “What happens if Justin has penicillin?” I asked Brian.

He will die, Brian said flatly.

“Um...okay. Okay.” I turned back to the interpreter. I am his voice. “We can't do penicillin. They cannot come near him with that.”

He conferred with the doctor briefly, then fingerspelled something else to me, something a lot longer, and all the letters jumbled together in my head. I held up the phone so Emily and Brian could see, and as soon as he was done spelling it again Brian was shaking his head.

Cephalosporin, Emily fingerspelled to me, slower.

No, Brian said.

Is he allergic to that? That's not on the list.

He's never had it, Brian said. They're allergenic as shit, of course he's allergic, no one's just ever been stupid enough to try to give it to him with his history.

But what if he's not? I said.

Brian pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Brian, they have to give him something,” I said.

Can they fucking test it first? he said. Rub some on his fucking arm, something.

“Yes,” I said, without bothering to check first, because fuck that. “Yes, I'll make them.”

Brian swallowed and nodded.

I told the doctor they weren't putting shit into his bloodstream until they allergy tested him, signed whatever papers they needed, and turned back to the phone as soon as he'd left to get supplies. I need you to come home, I told Brian.

He looked pained. You can do this. You're doing really well.

“I'm being his voice,” I said. “And I need you to come home.”

He blinked, swallowed, and nodded. Yeah. I'm coming.

**

Justin got a small rash when they tested the antibiotic on his arm.

This is your call, I told him.

He shook his head. I don't fucking know what's going on, I can't make calls.

I don't want to hurt you.

You won't, he said. Whatever you pick is right.

He was shivering and struggling to breathe and he looked so fucking sick but he didn't look scared.

He trusted me.

Okay, I said. We're going to do it.

Justin nodded. Okay.

Brian's coming, I said, and Justin closed his eyes and breathed out slowly.

**

Well, add cephalosporins to the list, because Justin was incredibly fucking allergic. Not two minutes after they'd put the IV in he was absolutely wrecked with hives, and twenty minutes after that his asthma flared up. They gave him IVs of Benadryl and steroids and I sponged his skin off and made sure he didn't panic. He didn't.

And he didn't die.

**

I must have drifted off, because at some point a hand came down on my shoulder, and there he was.

“Hi,” I breathed, but he was already on his way over to the bed. He took Justin's chart off the bottom and skimmed it while he circled the bed, touching the rash on Justin's arm.

Jesus Christ, love, he signed to himself.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

He shook his head a little without looking at me. You did good. You did real good.

Justin stirred the next time Brian touched his arm. He dragged his wrist over his swollen eyes and said, “Hey,” all calm, like he'd seen Brian five minutes ago.

“Hey,” Brian said back, the same way. Is your throat closing up? He opened his mouth, and Justin mirrored him. Okay. You're okay.

Justin nodded.

I figured they could use a minute, and also that Brian could probably use some coffee, and God knows I could, so I stepped outside and went down to the cafeteria and took my time coming back. I thought Justin would probably be back asleep when I got back—he hadn't been staying awake for more than twenty minutes in a stretch since the reaction started and totally wore him out—but he was still awake, now with Brian curled up around him on the bed.

How long can you stay? Justin was asking.

Hopefully long enough to get you out of here. We'll see. How's your head?

Hurts. Justin shifted on the bed. Mostly I'm itchy.

I bet. Come here. He pulled his sleeves down over his hands and rubbed them back and forth over Justin's skin, and Justin relaxed and closed his eyes like he was taking in sun on a beach. Brian laughed a little and dropped kisses on Justin's cheeks.

I set his coffee down on the counter by the door and backed out of the room. I figured I should call Emily and let her know that Brian had made it here and it sounded like he was going to be staying for a few days. Or maybe I should go home and get us all a change of clothes.

Both, I decided, so I filled in Emily and started heading towards the doors, but on my way out I heard jogging footsteps behind me and felt a hand on my arm, and when I turned around, Brian grabbed me into the tightest hug of my fucking life.

I felt myself smile.