Until the Scenery Changes

LaVieEnRose

Brian studying me, pacing around me in circles. I don't know... he said.

I bounced on my feet. “I'm ready I'm ready I'm ready,” I said, through the mask.

He shook his head mock-seriously. It's a big step. And you know, I'm kind of tired. Maybe we just wait until tomorrow.

“Brian.”

The weather's not good. We should hold out for a better day.

“Oh my God I will mow you down.”

All right, all right. Jeez. He opened the front door. World, meet Justin Taylor. Justin Taylor, world.

It was all still there.

**

I had to wear the mask, and I couldn't go to big public venues or ride the subway, and I couldn't touch my face or share anyone's food and I had to wash my hands every eleven minutes and I still couldn't stay awake for more than a few hours at a time so big outings were out of the question.

But I was free.

Our friends probably shattered the ear drums of every hearing person in the place when Brian and I got to the bar last night. They jumped up and down and threw themselves on me and then mothered the fuck out of me and made me sit down and fell over themselves to get me water when I started coughing. Brian batted them all off with an eye roll and doused me in hand sanitizer, and we all sat around our usual table and they drank their beers and broke into a million conversations and I just...couldn't believe it. Everything was so normal.

Brian leaned in close to me. Doing okay? he signed, with a quick kiss above the strap on my mask.

Yeah, I'm good.

We talked a little about Derek and Daphne's wedding and about how Jane was doing and Derek's fantasy football league and the leak in Evan's apartment, and it was just so fucking nice, letting it all wash over me. I didn't talk much, and to be honest I was even more tired than I'd anticipated and I could tell there was a very good chance I was going to fall asleep inside this fucking bar at some point in the very near future, but God, I would have stayed there forever. Brian kept his hand on the back of my neck and massaged under my skull.

At one point Daphne cringed when the door opened. We have got to find a bar that's not so close to the hospital, she said. Every time a patient's family sees me here they give me shit the next day.

We chose this place because it was close to the hospital, Brian said. You're the one always complaining you don't have time to go anywhere far.

I'm thinking of transferring, Daphne said. The ER is so fucking cliquey at my hospital.

We're going to have to find a new hospital probably, Brian said.

I looked at him. We are?

Yeah, I mean, not for regular appointments or anything, but for emergency stuff.

Why?

He looked at me like I was an idiot. When we move?

You're moving? Emily said.

No, I said.

Brian took a swig of his beer. We're moving.

Did I miss a conversation? I said.

You do fall asleep when I'm talking a lot.

When did we agree that we were moving? I said.

He waved me away. We're moving. I'm sick of that apartment. Ready for a change.

Molly cut in with some thing about school before I could answer, and the conversation flowed to that and then a Kinnetik thing and then my blood tests, and coughed and glared at Brian for a while but ultimately was too fucking tired to keep it up. Eventually the girls got up to dance and Derek asked if we wanted to play some pool, but Brian said, He's crashing, I got to take him home, and as much as I wanted to argue I knew he was right. By the time I'd hugged everyone goodbye I was practically falling asleep on my feet, and Brian pulled me into him and laughed in a way I could feel in his chest and let me lean on him on our way out of the bar. He gave me a hug out on the sidewalk. So tired, he teased.

“Shh, I'm sleeping.”

I napped on his shoulder in the cab and fell asleep again later in the shower, and I sat on the bathroom counter like a useless lump while Brian dressed me and fed me my meds. I can't believe I'm this tired, I signed, sloppy as shit.

Well, you were on your death bed.

Weeks ago. My arm started shaking. Hey.

Aw, you really are tired. The seizures are always worse when I don't get enough sleep. He took my arm between his hands and held it carefully until the seizure stopped. You good?

I leaned my head against the wall. “Yeah, I'm good.”

He kissed my cheek. Carry you?

“Yeah.”

He slipped his arm underneath my knees and lifted me up and brought me to bed. I hugged my pillow to my chest while he crawled up next to me. You're hot all sleepy, he said.

I'm hot always.

He rested his hand on my small of the back. Can't wait to fuck you.

I stretched. “Sure you can.”

He laughed. Apparently.

I rolled onto my back and pulled him and kissed him for a long time. “Soon,” I said, and he nodded. Even if I'd had the doctor's okay for sex at that point, I couldn't imagine scrounging up the energy to do anything but lie there I'd had my muscles removed while he fucked me. Though at this point, fuck, we probably wouldn't have complained about that. This was the longest we'd gone without having sex since I was in LA, and the longest I'd gone without having sex with someone since...God, I guess since I was seventeen. I missed it, and sometimes I really missed it, but a lot of the time it was just sort of a vague thing at the back of my mind. That's how fucking tired I was.

So how was the real world? he asked me. Everything you remembered?

Amazing. Thank you.

He smiled and lay down next to me, helping me arrange myself on his chest. I ran my fingers up and down his stomach and felt him sigh softly.

“We're not really going to move, are we?” I said. “I'm too sick.”

He kissed my forehead. Not talking about dragging you out of here next week.

“Why drag me out of here at all?”

Go to sleep, Sunshine. We can talk about it tomorrow.

My eyes were already closing against my will. “Okay,” I said.

**

So...this is pretty embarrassing, but at that point I kind of thought Brian must have thought, despite all possible evidence to the contrary, that I actually wanted to move, because I couldn't imagine he'd be bringing it up otherwise.

And I know, I know, that's proof of, to quote the man himself, what a spoiled fucking brat I am, that my first instinct when Brian suggests something like it's his idea is that it's actually something in my best interests. Orrrr maybe it's proof that I know what an incredible partner I have and that I know how much Brian loves me and it's actually me being grateful and not a spoiled brat? Eh? Maybe? Worth a shot?

All jokes aside, nothing else really made sense. Brian loved this apartment. Brian had always loved this apartment. It was sort of far from work, yeah, and but it was close to Nova and the gym and the bar. He loved the appliances and the balcony and the location overlooking the water and our cherry cabinets and oak floor and marble bathroom. He loved the yellow wall in the living room and the red front door.

He'd always loved this place.

So why would he want to move now?

**

I felt kind of crappy the next morning, but I still dragged myself out of bed and into the kitchen to make Brian coffee, because I was on a mission. Not a subtle mission, obviously, judging by the way Brian eyed me over his coffee mug. What's with this new vertical thing? he said.

Just trying something.

Sure.

I smiled at him sweetly.

Oh, God, what.

Can I come to the office with you?

He gave me that Sunshine, come on face but didn't immediately shoot me down, so that was better than I was expecting.

You'll be able to keep an eye on me all day, Emily will be there, Evan...

Yeah, and two hundred other people, and you're supposed to avoid public spaces.

As if any of those people come into your office.

He gave me a look and set down his coffee cup, but I could tell he was thinking about it.

I'm not going to be wandering around, I said. On the couch, all day. Sleeping. Lots of sleep.

He sighed.

I won't bother you. I just... I bit my lip. I've been dying to do this for weeks now. You know I hate being alone all day. Yeah, yeah, I'm a manipulative shit, but it's not like it wasn't true.

You wear the mask.

I nodded quickly. The whole time.

All right. Go pack the nebulizer. And hurry the fuck up, please, this little display is making me late.

I continued the display by getting up on my toes and squeezing him around the neck, but hey, I didn't hear him complaining. Ha, ha.

We took a cab to Kinnetik and God, going over the bridge was about the most exciting thing I'd ever done in my whole life. Brian rolled his eyes at me practically hanging my head out the window like a dog. The driver's going to think I'd had you kidnapped and locked in a tower.

I mean...

Watch it.

We sanitized ourselves as soon as we got out of the cab, and Brian batted my hand away when I reached for the handle on the Kinnetik front door. I got some weird looks for the mask from people I kind of vaguely recognized. I wondered how much they knew about what had been going on the past month. Brian had taken time off work when I was really sick, obviously, so they must have known something was up at some point. I don't know how much he told them. It was so fucking weird how much had gone on while I was sick that I didn't know about, and how much of it I could only muster up the vaguest of interest about. There were so many details about what had happened to me, the order of events and how exactly Brian had gotten me through certain things and how the fuck my doctors knew what was going on that I just never got the answer to because I never really bothered to ask. It's hard to explain how stuff like that, stuff that you'd normally care about or at least be curious about, just stops mattering when you're a certain level of sick. There comes a point where your feelings about anything outside of your own body become dulled, and it...i don't like that. Being sick has given me community and understanding and family and the kind of love from the people around me that most people can only dream about, and I adore that, but it's also made me meaner and more selfish and that's just...I have to live with that. We all do.

I waved to Sam, the receptionist, and stood by clinging to his elbow a little bit while Brian talked to him for a minute. Sam nodded, and Brian tucked me under his arm and guided me to his office.

Everyone's staring at me, I said. I think it's the mask. They think I'm contagious.

He shook his head. You're loud.

I am?

Your breathing.

“Oh.”

I'd sort of forgotten, he said.

Once we got to his office I went to his closet and got out the blankets and pillows he keeps in there, I guess just for me, while he went to his desk and booted up his laptop. You need anything? he asked me.

Maybe some tea? Thanks.

He nodded and pressed the button on his desk. Why the fuck do these people send me these bullshit emails...

I sat down and started setting up the nebulizer but stopped halfway through. Will this be loud? I don't remember.

No, it's not loud.

I dropped a piece of it and picked it up.

That was kind of loud, Brian said.

It's so weird that I can't remember, I said.

Well, you're brain-damaged.

Emily came in, responding to the button Brian pressed that turns on a light on her desk, and she smiled when she saw me, looking real cute in her little work outfit. Brian asked for some tea and for some sort of report thing, I don't know. It all made me very tired.

She left, and he looked at me with laughter in his eyes. You okay? You look half-dead.

“Yeah. I can't...I do one fucking thing and I feel like I ran a fucking marathon.”

He sipped his coffee and looked at something on his computer. You're working on half the oxygen you're supposed to have. It's exhausting. Lie down.

“I should see Evan first.”

No, we said no wandering.

I don't think I was physically capable of fighting him any more on that, honestly. I was out like a light before Emily even got back with my tea.

Which didn't end up working out so well, because I had this really hideous nightmare. I'd been having them a lot since I got sick, I think from both the fucking terror of the past few weeks and kind of a subconscious panic about feeling like I couldn't breathe, and I kept waking up with my heart pounding sure I would have died if I hadn't woken up right then. This one was really bad, though, and I dreamed that someone had their hand over my nose and mouth and wouldn't let go and I kept trying to scream for Brian but I wasn't making any sound, and I guess I must have thrashed myself off the couch because I woke up on the floor with my blanket twisted around me like a straitjacket.

Brian looked up from his desk. You okay?

My stupid half-asleep brain was convinced the blanket was why I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't get it off me fast enough. Brian crossed the room and knelt down in front of me and helped me unwind it. Easy, you're all right, he signed.

I shook my head and tried to catch my breath.

He kept his hands to himself, watching me. You know where you are?

I wasn't sure.

Yeah, you're not used to being places, huh? He wiped my cheeks off. Look at you. You are such a mess. It's okay. He gave me a hug, and I held onto him and tried to stop shaking. Good. There you go. He kissed my cheek and let me go.

I'm sorry...

Shh.

I wasn't done being a fucking disaster, though. I balled up against the couch and cried for a while, and Brian waited and palmed the back of my head and laughed a little when my runny nose made me start sneezing.

Christ, look at you.

I hid my face in my arms for a little and tried for some deep breaths. He tapped me on the shoulder a minute later and handed me the nebulizer mouthpiece, and I said Thank you, and breathed from that for a while as he rubbed my back.

He watched me. Prom stuff?

I shook my head. Sick stuff.

He took my hand and kissed between my eyes. Okay.

**

We had lunch in Brian's office with Emily and Evan, and that was nice. The two of them have such a weird dynamic. Emily gets kind of annoyed and eye-rolly with him, but that's just how Emily is, but Evan's shitty self-esteem and his baggage about being a burden mean he's convinced it means Emily hates him, so then he tries to please her and that just makes her more annoyed and eye-rolly and the whole thing continues. And meanwhile Emily fucking likes him! She just thinks he's overeager. Which he is, but I love it about him.

I fell asleep again after lunch and woke up feeling kind of dizzy and nauseous. Brian beckoned me over when I sat up, and I dragged myself up and to his desk. “Lap, I can't stand up,” I told him, and he groaned and made room for me, twisting to the side so I could still see him sign.

He pointed to his screen and a real estate listing for a condo on the Upper East side.

It's nice, I said.

Three bedrooms. Two bathrooms. Look at the tub in this one. I could fucking lose you in that thing.

The dream.

Seriously. And it's right by the train. He kissed the side of my head. No balcony, though, and I don't really want to go back to that. So I think it's not the one.

Are you actually being serious right now?

What?

We never even had a conversation about this. You just...what, decided that I want to move?

He leaned back against the chair, watching me.

Moving is...stressful, and hard. And where we live right now works. It's not too far from anything. And we've been there for years. It's our home. Remember when you found that apartment?

He didn't say anything.

I didn't even want to see it because I thought the neighborhood was too stuffy, but you said, come on, let's go look? And we walked into that corporate as fuck building and I was so skeptical, and then we got up there and the whole place was filled with sunlight, and you told me I could paint a wall yellow, and you stood there in the empty living room and looked around said Sunshine, imagine an easel right here...

He took my fingers and played with them.

“You love that apartment,” I said. “I love that apartment. I don't want to move.”

Get up, he said.

“What?'

Get. Up.

I stood up shakily, holding onto the arm of the desk chair. “Brian...”

He started at his watch. It's six. Let's go home.

“I...okay.”

He didn't talk to me on the way out of the office, but he carried my backpack and let me hold onto his arm. I was feeling pretty fucking awful and was really wishing there was some way just to teleport back home. I took deep breaths in the cab and tried not to throw up while Brian played with his phone and ignored me and otherwise made me sort of pissed off and confused. Once we were home I sat on the couch and worked on catching my breath while Brian went straight to the kitchen and poured himself a drink. Great sign.

“I don't get what the hell you expected from me,” I said to him, a glass and a half later. “I know you think you know everything I'm thinking all the fucking time and I'll admit you're usually pretty good at it, but...you missed the mark on this one. I'm happy here, and I'm not just going to all of a sudden agree that we're moving without even the decency of a conversation. I'm not a teenager following you around anymore. I don't want to move, you can't just...decide that I want to move.”

I did not decide that you want to move.

“Okay...well then...”

I understand that you don't want to move, okay? Trust me, it's very fucking clear.

“Why are you yelling at me?”

He brought his glass into the living room with me and stalked around for a while like a caged lion. I twisted my hands in my lap.

“It's, um...sweet of you to try to make me happy?” I tried. “But I don't need a bathtub or a bigger place. I'm okay here.”

Jesus Christ, Justin, enough. I realize you don't want to move, okay? That's very fucking clear.

“Um...”

He stopped walking and faced me. I want to move, he said. Okay? I want this. I don't want to fucking live in this apartment. It's not... He stopped and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Brian?”

It's not home anymore! he burst. It doesn't...this doesn't fucking feel like home anymore. It's...

“Brian,” I said again. But not a question this time.

This is the place where you cried on the fucking floor because you felt so trapped that you said you felt like you were dead, he said. It's...I had to turn our bedroom into a fucking hospital room to keep you alive, I just see the fucking machines, I...you stopped breathing right there, a foot from where you're sitting right now, I thought...

I swallowed and watched him.

I can't stay in this place where you had the worst month of your life, he said. I know that you can and you're strong and you're okay but I...I have to get you out of this place. I can't relax here, it's not... He shook his head. It's not home anymore.

How do you breathe when someone says these things to you, even if your fucking lungs work?

But still. Moving won't make all this shit go away, I said. And new and bad shit is going to happen wherever we go. We can't run away from that. You're the one always reminding me this is going to be a slow recovery. I don't want you thinking you put me in some new apartment—

With a bathtub.

—with a bathtub, and now everything's going to be okay. I've done that false hope thing. It doesn't help.

He sat down next to me on the couch and said, I know. I hear you, okay?

I nodded.

I know it's not rational.

Wow, Brian Kinney admitting he's not rational.

Alert the media. Only took thirty-whatever years.

“Um—”

Don't.

I mimed handcuffing my wrists.

He rubbed his forehead. I know it doesn't make any sense. I just feel like I”ll never be able to look at this place and not see where I locked you up. It's like that fucking hospital in Pittsburgh, it's just...I see you everywhere.

I'm probably going to be at the new place too.

And you're still going to be sick. I know. I told you it's not rational. I know.

I nodded a little.

He traced a finger around the rim of his glass and set it down on the coffee table. Look, I know...let’s not shit ourselves, I know that I’m not usually the one who makes these kinds of decisions.

I smiled a little.

And I’m not trying to fucking change that, and I know...I know I’m asking you for something you don’t want to do, but I...I moved to New York for you and I would have moved to LA and I need you to do this one. I need you to let me put you somewhere safe and this isn't...please can you do this one.

As if he needed to list the things he'd done for me. Like I didn't know them. Like it mattered anyway. Do you honestly think there’s any fucking question?

It’s Brian. Versus four walls and a floor. Are you kidding?

“Baby, of course,” I said. “Of course. We'll move.”

He closed his eyes and ducked his forehead against mine.

“I love you,” I said softly. “You know that?”

I know that.

“Good.” I kissed the side of his nose. “Good. We'll move.”

And so we moved. But that's a whole different story.