Split Level

LaVieEnRose

It started, in a strange aberration of the usual, with Evan getting sick, not Justin. He had an access port on his arm for dialysis, basically a lump in one of the veins in his arm, and one day he was saying, My site feels kind of hot and the next he was vomiting and running a fever of a hundred and three.

He wasn’t contagious or anything, so that was something, and since he actually has an immune system unlike some people, he started on antibiotics and he was going to be fine, but he was seriously out of commission for a couple days until those kicked in. I tried to get him to move upstairs, not knowing the second sword of bullshit that would soon fall on our heads, Damocles-style, but he would barely move from his turtle-on-its back position sprawled out on his mattress. Justin and I brought him saltines and ginger ale and took turns rubbing his back while he curled around the toilet.

Is this how I die? he asked me.

Sure seems like it.

Damn. Tell Justin I love him.

He’s...literally right next to you, how fucking delirious are you?

So of course, of course, two days into that Justin started wheezing like a freight train while we were eating dinner, and by the time I corralled him into bed he was stuffed up and choking on his own throat and sporting a fever to rival Evan’s.

How the fuck are you always catching colds? I said, throwing a box of tissues at him. You don’t go anywhere! He just sneezed and pulled the comforter over his head.

Obviously a cold on most people is an inconvenience at most, but Justin...well, you’ve hung around for this entire goddamn saga, for some reason; you don’t need me to explain this shit to you. And the last thing Evan needed right now was to catch it, so I sequestered Justin in our room, washed my hands, and went down to regale Evan with the story of Justin’s latest trip down the well.

“Is he okay?” Evan said.

He is right now. I already know his asthma’s going to give him hell. He's wheezing a ton already and it just started.

Evan waved me back up the stairs.

I was going to stay with you tonight...

“Yeah, before Justin needed you. Go.”

So I went, only because I was already setting an alarm on my phone to wake up and go check on Evan in a few hours. I'd been working from home the last two days anyway with Evan this sick. What's a day more? Hell, maybe I'd really go rogue and take an entire day off. Depended how much Justin kept me up.

Which ended up being...a lot. That alarm turned out to be useless because I was never asleep for more than twenty minutes at a time anyway. Justin was really going through it. He sat on the side of the bed and panted in these wet breaths while I set the nebulizer up, and he kept gripping the front of his shirt and pulling it away from himself, which I knew meant he was getting kind of frantic, trying to get rid of anything that could be obstructing his breathing even the tiniest bit. I knelt in front of him and brushed his sweaty hair back and kissed his cheek while he sucked on the neb. It's okay, I told him, because it was; I know when it's not. It feels worse than it is, I know.

I dosed him up with every decongestant I could find, plus a nice sleeping pill to try to stop the decongestants from keeping him up, and eventually coaxed him back to sleep with oxygen and a cool cloth on his forehead and a few pillows to prop him up and maybe a couple of threats, and once he was settled I sanitized myself and went down to the basement.

Evan was asleep, sprawled out awkwardly on top of his bedspread, so I roused him and reorganized him and checked to see how his infection was looking—gross--and changed the dressing on that. Evan was groggy from the fever, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand and yawning and generally being pretty adorable.

“How's Justin?” he said.

I have a feeling I'm going to be answering that a lot.

“Could always let me upstairs with him.”

Yeah, and give you a virus on top of this. That'd be fun.

Evan scowled.

Justin is fine. Fever's not too high.

“Trouble breathing?”

Nothing I can't handle.

Evan flopped down on his pillows. “We've never both been sick before.”

You're both sick always.

“You know what I mean.”

I leaned down and kissed his forehead. Like I said. Nothing I can't handle.

I knew I should get some sleep while they were both settled, but I felt pretty awake now from all of that, so I decided I'd prepare for the fun day we had coming for us. I fixed some food for both of them so all I'd have to do later was microwave something, and I sent an email to Emily telling her Evan and I weren't coming in. Justin had left out a drop cloth and a bunch of painting supplies before he started feeling really shitty, so I put those away, and by then Justin was coughing pretty badly.

He'd slipped down off the pillows, so I adjusted him and replaced the washcloth on his forehead. He sneezed and rubbed the base of his throat and said, of course, “How's Evan?”

Fine. Sleeping.

“You should be down there with him.”

I don't think so, Darth Vader.

Justin groaned and covered his face with his hands. There is nothing, nothing, that Justin hates more in the world than being too sick to help the people he loves. He usually finds a way to do it anyway, which is brave but also fucking annoying because he needs to rest, but sometimes he just can't do shit, or I don't let him, and it really fucks with his head and makes him feel useless and infantilized and burdensome and all the other things I can't get him to stop calling himself when the lights are out and his head's in the wrong place.

And that might be what I hate most in the world.

Move over, I said, but I climbed into bed next to him before he could, wrapping my arms loosely around him so he wouldn't feel even more suffocated. I signed I'm sorry you don't feel good, on his chest, the stupid shit I say when I'm tired, and he covered my hand with his and I fell asleep there.

It was pretty light out by the time I woke up, and I wasn't sure why until I heard a weak “Brian? Brian?” coming up the stairs. Thank God I hadn't closed the bedroom door, I guess. I got up, trying not to disturb Justin, who stirred a little but didn't wake up, and made my way downstairs, rubbing the stubble on my cheeks.

Evan was lying on the floor of his bathroom. “Hi.”

I tilted my head and looked at him.

“I can't move.”

Muscles cramped up?

“Yes indeed.”

You're dehydrated. I bent down and helped him up, and he winced as I pulled him to his feet. I don't even know how much I can give you to drink. He has to be really careful with his fluid intake. Kidney failure thing. I have to call your doctor once it's a reasonable hour.

“Okay.” Evan crawled to the center of his bed and wrapped his favorite thin little blanket around his shoulders. “Justin?”

Sleeping. Take your temperature.

I got a bottle of Gatorade for Evan because fuck it, if he needed some extra dialysis from it then he needed some extra dialysis, and then made some tea and went to wake up Justin. He coughed for a while, and I put the mug against his chest so he'd have something warm there.

Morning, Sunshine. Meds and you can go back to sleep.

He shook his head. I want to check on Evan.

He's fine, I was just down there. His fever's down a little. I palmed his forehead. Unlike yours. If this is the damn flu...

Justin shook his head, swiping his hand under his nose. “It's just a cold.” God, he was so stuffed up. I have never known someone to get sick as fast as Justin does, even back when he had white blood cells and shit. It's like his body's trying to burn through it all at once, get it over with, except it...you know. Can't. It's kind of sad.

Drink that tea, then I want you on a neb. Feeling seizurey?

No.

Small blessings.

He stretched, and he looked so warm and stretchy and soft that it was very hard not to crawl back into bed beside him. But he said, I want a shower.

Sounds doable. Tea first.

Justin likes sex when he's sick. I mean, he likes it all the time, but something about feeling like crap makes him want me to fuck his brains out, and I can't say I'm complaining. Hell, it's the best medicine I know. And it's sometimes the only way to convince Justin to use the fucking shower stool without complaining, since he likes it in here with the steam when he doesn't feel well.

So I fucked him the way he likes it, and he rested his hot little forehead against my collarbone, his arms around my neck, and once he was a bit weak from that and the hot air and his cold I picked him up and dried him off and dropped him unceremoniously on the bed. I threw warm clothes at him and watched with a little sadness as he covered himself up.

Neb now, I said, and he nodded and set it up, and I figured now was as good a time as any to make sure Evan was sleeping, so I got dressed and headed downstairs and nope, there he was on the bathroom floor again, so I collected and replaced him and tried to suggest he eat something, but he held his stomach and groaned and threw his pillow at me.

I think I like Sick Justin better, I said.

We all like Sick Justin better.

I needed to eat something, anyway, so I sliced up an avocado and took out some guava juice and was just pouring a glass when I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around with an eyebrow up.

“Hi,” Justin said.

“Hi.” Why are you out of bed?

“I'm hungry.”

I held up the avocado. Do you want this?

He shook his head.

Toast?

Scrambled eggs.

Okay. Go sit, please. Your breathing's freaking me out.

He lumbered over to the kitchen table and slumped down in a chair, and I smiled at him a little while I fixed some eggs for him. He smiled back.

“Do you need to sleep?” he asked me. His voice was so wrecked from coughing.

Yeah. I will in a little.

I can take a shift with Evan.

I don't want you getting him sick.

Justin nodded a little and coughed. Maybe we should call for backup.

Are you kidding? I was born for this.

And the thing is, I don't know if that's true, if I was born for this or if I've been molded into it, but at this point, what does it matter? This is what I do. This is where I'm comfortable.

Do you have any idea what it feels like to look at the person who turns your stomach inside out and sets your ribcage on fire and burrows his way into the front of your brain and know that you're making his life a little bit better because you're cracking some eggs in a pan?

Don't even try to imagine it, honestly, not if you don't have a sick partner. Because this is the thing people don't understand. They talk endlessly about how hard it must be, and I'm not saying it isn't, I'm not saying I cherish the nights I spend awake counting his breaths or screaming at a nurse in the hallway of a hospital but it is also easy. It is so, so easy to help someone who's sick, when their needs are right there in front of you, laid out like clothes that need folding. Justin is complicated as shit, don't get me wrong—what genius isn't—but taking care of him is easy. It's feeding and watering. It's holding and comforting. It's making scrambled eggs.

Multiply that by two, and really, what the fuck do I have to complain about?

No outsider was going to come in and break our little world open, not now.

I brought him the plate and tilted his face up to kiss his forehead. I want you to sleep after this. Your fever's up again.

“Okay. Love you.”

I squeezed his shoulders. I'm going to bring a plate down to Evan, see if I can get him to eat some. Bed after you're done eating, I mean it.

Yeah, yeah, I heard you.

That's a first.

Evan was watching something on his laptop, lying in a very pathetic heap, at least on the bed this time. I held up the scrambled eggs.

“Two bites,” he said.

“Three.”

“Fine.” He stretched out his arms, and I rolled my eyes and came over to the bed and let him pull me down. “You look tired.”

Yeah, Justin's loud.

“Maybe call—”

I don't need to call anyone. He's got a cold and an asthma attack, you have an infection that's getting better. I'm in my element, here.

“You still only have two hands.”

That's never stopped me before.

Evan finished his three bites and even took a fourth, the good sport, and then shook his head and handed the plate back to me.

Okay, I said. Thank you. I heard a loud, ominous thump upstairs, and I stood up.

“What?”

Justin. I'll be back soon. I went up the stairs and found Justin in an awkward sprawl on the kitchen floor. Definitely expected you to be seizing right now, I said.

“I figured.”

Leg just gave out? I said. He's been having all this trouble with his right leg recently, and it wasn't surprising that the fever and the exhaustion would take it out of commission. I gotcha, c'mon... I got him back in bed and on oxygen and cupped his face in my hand. Stay in bed.

How's Evan?

He's staying in bed.

“Oh my God, Brian.”

Yeah, you can't hear your breathing. Rest, please.

He flopped down on the pillows and fell asleep so quickly I was wondering if he'd actually had a seizure after all, when Evan called “Brian?” and I washed my hands and went back downstairs.

Hey, I said.

“Hi. Is Justin okay?”

Justin is fine. How are you?

“Sick.”

It's true.

“I threw up again.”

Yeah, you need some more medicine. Hang on. So I went back upstairs to grab that, but Justin was coughing really badly, so first I stopped him there to once again prop him up and rub his chest for a little, then I grabbed stomach medicine for Evan and brought it back to him.

Evan swallowed it and said, Now go be with Justin.

I shook my head. We're on your turn now.

“I'm not going to get worse all of a sudden. He might. Go up there and listen to him breathe.”

God, I was so fucking tired I didn't even feel like I could make it back up the stairs, but Evan looked at me imploringly until I did. I went back to our room where Justin was awake again, struggling to breathe, and I lay down beside him and just watched, because sometimes that's all he needs, just to know that someone sees it. And sometimes there's not much more I can do other than that.

“Hi,” he wheezed.

Hi. You look beautiful.

He smiled weakly. You need to sleep.

I nodded and nuzzled the pillow for a little.

“Is Evan—”

Evan is fine. Everything's fine. I tapped his chest. Besides that.

“Yeah.”

Come here, I said, and I helped him lean against my chest and slung my leg on top of him to keep him there. Sleep now.

“Mmmhmm.”

I closed my eyes and listened to Evan's TV show downstairs, the soft rumble of Justin's breathing, and the blissful, beautiful calm of two sick boys in bed, as I drifted off to sleep.