Chapter 14 - The Emergency Room.

‘Of course, Princess Taylor got all the fucking help in the world as soon as he was wheeled into the ER,’ Hobbs thought. Once again, Taylor had upstaged him. It was always Taylor’s fault.

Hobbs had been sitting in the back corner of the waiting room for more than two hours now.  The only sign that he was ever going to get any help was when an intern came out to get his health history and insurance info. But even that had been more than a half hour ago now and he was starting to get really pissed off. His hand hurt like hell and the meds they gave him earlier were wearing off. How long was it going to take to set his goddamned broken arm?

The only thing that forced Hobbs to keep his temper in check was the fact that he didn’t want to draw any attention to himself. There were fucking police swarming all over the place, presumably checking on Taylor and taking statements and stuff. Hobbs thought that Taylor looked out of it when they brought him in, but he might have woken up by now. If so, did he tell the cops about Hobbs? Did Taylor know he’d broken Hobbs’ arm when he hit him with that fucking bat? If so, wouldn’t the cops have been looking for him here at the hospital? He’d been lucky so far that nobody had noticed him but how much longer would that luck hold out? The sooner he got his arm set and got out of here, the better. But, in order to get some attention, he’d have to get up and go confront someone at the ER desk and he didn’t want to risk being seen. He was fucked.

His buddy Will was shifting impatiently in the seat next to him. All Hobbs had told Will was that he got in a fight - he didn’t want to elaborate. They’d tried talking a little - catching up on gossip about old friends and what was going on in Will’s life - but Hobbs wasn’t really in a chatty mood and didn’t volunteer anything about his own shambles of a life. Considering how tight they’d been back in school, Will was a little taken aback at how little Hobbs was willing to share. The guy sitting next to him didn’t resemble the Hobbs he knew at all. What little conversation there had been, had died a painful death before they’d been here more than a half hour. Now, all Will wanted to do was find an acceptable excuse to get out of here.

Hobbs decided to take pity on his former friend. It wasn’t like he really wanted the guy around anyway. What did they have in common anymore, anyway? Hobbs just really wanted to be alone. Well, he wanted his arm fixed, he wanted to get out of the fucking ER waiting room, he wanted his old life back and he wanted Taylor to pay for doing all this to him - but most of all, right now, he just didn’t want to have to deal with Will.

“Will, you don’t have to hang out here with me, you know,” Hobbs offered. “If you could maybe, like, loan me a couple bucks, I can just get a cab home later.”

Will, predictably, jumped at the offer to let him escape. He pulled his wallet out, gladly forked over $20 to Hobbs and said a brusque ‘goodbye’ before hot footing it out of there. Hobbs was only mildly annoyed at how truly happy Will had looked at the thought of getting away from him. ‘So much for that friendship, too,’ Hobbs thought. Right now, though, Hobbs couldn’t find the energy to care that he’d probably just lost his last remaining friend from high school.

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The doctor had been talking to them about Justin’s condition for several minutes now. Brian hoped that Jennifer was getting more than he was. He was having trouble focusing on everything that was being said because the first few words that the doctor had uttered were still echoing through his consciousness, blocking out pretty much everything else. ‘Traumatic Brain Injury’. Brian thought just hearing those words, again, might kill him.

It was like every nightmare he’d had in the past five years since the Prom. Justin was hurt again and this time he might not be as lucky as he was the first time. And, the worst part was that Brian was helpless to fix it.

‘Repetitive Injury’. ‘Evidence of cerebral edema and herniation’. ‘Intracranial pressure still higher than normal’. ‘Too late to mitigate damage from the primary injury’. ‘Increased risk of long-term neurological deficits’.  

Each new phrase the doctor uttered combined with the first in Brian’s mind and now the words were all bouncing off each other and pounding against his own skull, seeking to be released somehow. Brian wasn’t going to be able to handle much more without completely losing it. He wanted to run away, but he just couldn’t do that this time - he physically just couldn’t leave Justin’s side. But, something had to give.

“Stop! Stop, stop, stop, stop!” Brian insisted a little too loudly for the hospital setting they were in. They were the first words he’d said in hours though and his outburst surprised both Jennifer and the doctor, who both turned to look at the shattered man.

“Brian, honey . . . “ Jennifer got up from the chair where she’d been perched and walked cautiously over towards Brian, using her motherly soothing voice to try to calm the man.

“I can’t . . .  I can’t do this again, Jennifer,” Brian whimpered quietly. “I can’t hear this. Just . . . fix it, alright. Just do whatever you have to do to fix it. . .  make him better.” Brian turned his pleading eyes on the doctor and willed him to simply put everything right again.

“We’re doing everything we can at this point,” the nameless doctor reassured the concerned man. “As I was saying, it looks like many of the effects of this injury have already resolved themselves. Although there is evidence of prior intracranial bleeding, it’s stopped for now. We’re treating the remaining edema and swelling with diuretics and administering IV fluids to prevent hypotention at the same time. We’ll also continue the Oxygen therapy until we’re sure all the edema is resolved. For the moment, I don’t think we need to take any surgical action. Our best bet is just to wait and see what happens with the drug therapy we’ve already initiated. Once Justin is awake, we can run some tests to find out more about what long-term effects he might be experiencing. But until then, I recommend that we just wait.”

Brian didn’t even pretend to understand all the medical jargon. He just wanted to know that Justin was going to be better - hopefully, soon. There had to be some way to shut up this quack and get only the information he desperately needed.

“When,” Brian croaked out, trying to suppress the vocal tremors he knew would come out with the words if he wasn’t careful. He cleared his voice and tried again. “When will he wake up?”

“It’s impossible to say,” the doctor reluctantly admitted. “He could wake up any minute or it could be days. Brain injuries are tricky and it’s really impossible to predict. We’ll continue to monitor his brain activity along with everything else - if we see an increase of activity it will probably be a good indicator that he’s regaining consciousness. In the meantime, there’s not much else we can do. Sorry.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Jennifer managed to respond in her always polite manner, dismissing the doctor for now as she turned her priorities to comforting Brian, instinctively knowing that the usually strong man was ready to collapse at the doctor’s less than reassuring words.

Without more words, Jennifer managed to get Brian seated in the chair, which she’d pushed closer to Justin’s bed, and then stood next to him, one arm around Brian’s bowed shoulders and the other hand affectionately combing through the soft auburn tresses. With very little fuss, she wiped away the few tears that managed to trickle down his devastated countenance. Jennifer knew her son’s partner was in shock. She knew that, for the moment at least, it was his turn to break down. She would have to be the strong one for the time being. Hopefully when it all set in and she finally allowed herself to break down too, Brian would be able to return the favor.

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The turmoil in the ER had eventually faded and Hobbs had finally been taken to a small curtained off area where his arm was x-rayed and then his cracked radius was set. The same intern who’d taken his health history earlier got the privilege of putting a bright yellow fiberglass cast on his arm. He’d wanted a plain white cast, like a normal person, but was told that these newer fiberglass casts all come in some color or other, so he tried to choose the least offensive shade. At least it was better than the pink or the lavander - his two other choices.

Since he still hadn’t been arrested by the time the cast was dry and he’d received his discharge info, Hobbs figured that Taylor hadn’t talked yet and the cops probably weren’t looking for him here at the hospital. The question was, what should he do now? Where could he go? And, why should he even bother?

Hobbs had lost Taylor. Granted, he hadn’t really known what he was going to do with him when he had him. He had always assumed that he would have finished the boy off in the end and managed somehow to get rid of the body. But, then, while Taylor had been there in the cage . . . Well, he hadn’t really thought about it much except to put the onerous task off. Hobbs didn’t even want to think about earlier this morning, after he came in from the little talk with Trey Anderson and what he’d done then. He wouldn’t let himself remember how good it felt to lie there with Taylor in his arms. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t think about that now. But even though he wasn’t thinking about it, he still felt bad about losing Taylor. It was depressing. He wouldn’t say he felt lonely - that wasn’t what he felt at all. But, it was something . . . He felt lost.

And now, everything had gone completely to shit. Again. He hadn’t managed to do anything right - the bomb was more of a whimper than a real explosion, neither of the two fairies he’d tried to off had died, he’d lost Taylor and the cops were obviously onto him. He couldn’t go back to his pit of an apartment - the cops would undoubtedly be there already - and he’d left his car back at the school. The only cash he had on him was the $20 that Will had given him earlier and he figured that the cops would find him if he accessed his bank account or used his one remaining, already near-the-limit credit card. He had nowhere to go and nothing left to lose.

Completely at a loss as to what to do next, Hobbs picked up his prescription at the hospital pharmacy and then just shuffled back over to the ER waiting area. He plopped down in the exact same chair he’d been sitting in all night. Everything was lost. He had nowhere else to go, so he might as well stay where he was at. What did it really matter now, anyway?

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The annoying ringing sound in Justin’s ears was still there but it had resolved itself now into a combination humming and beeping. He actually thought the ringing had been better than this. He almost missed the ringing now because the beeping was giving him a headache. Well, he’d already had a headache, but this was making it worse, he thought.

When he managed to pry open his sleep encrusted eyelids a tiny bit, Justin noted that it was once again dark. The large segments of time he kept losing were slightly alarming. He transiently tried to guess what day and time it was, but lost interest in the question when it became only too clear that he had no way to determine the answer. In defeat, he let his eyes droop closed again.

He didn't just drop back into the peaceful blackness, even though he wouldn't have minded another break from the pain. Flickers of memory kept flashing into his consciousness. Hobbs. The equipment room at St. James. Pain. Hitting someone with an aluminum bat. More stabbing pain.

'Fuck, Hobbs!' Justin thought in renewed panic. 'Hobbs might still be here somewhere. I have to wake up. I have to stay ready.'

He blinked to try and clear his vision, trying to once again focus on his surroundings. Something was different. Even though it was night, the room was clearly brighter than he remembered it being before. The walls were white, not grey unfinished concrete. It was definitely warmer than it had been, too.  It even smelled better - more 'Pine Sol' and less dirty sweatsocks.

Justin fought through another wave of dizziness and then finally managed to focus his vision a bit more. Turning his head to the right, where the beeping and humming noises seemed to emanate from, he saw a blur of red and amber lights and eventually resolved the scene in his mind enough to recognize several unfortunately familiar hospital-type machines.

‘Okay,’ Justin admitted with relief tinged with just a hint of uneasiness due to his general dislike of hospitals in general. ‘This is not St. James. I’m in a hospital. Which means that someone found me and that I’m probably safe from Hobbs. I hope.’

His mind was still fuzzy enough, though, that this logical thread of rationality went no further. Justin simply lay there for several more minutes without further thought, happy to just be warm and relatively pain free for the moment. He might have even drifted off back to sleep but then he felt movement and he turned his head to the left, looking down at the side of the hospital bed.

Lying on the edge of the bed next to his left hip, there was a tousled chestnut mop of hair nestled in the crook of a long, lean arm which was resting along the length of Justin’s thigh. The well-known bed head of his lover brought an immediate smile to his lips along with a sigh at the reassurance that he wasn’t here alone. Justin inched his left hand from where it was lying on top of the blanket covering his waist, downward until his fingers could brush against the glossy auburn tresses. He delicately feathered his fingers through the soft locks, needing the comfort of the touch but not wanting to wake Brian just yet.

Even that small movement, however, was sufficient to jar the sleeping man out of his light cat nap. Brian bolted upright, confusedly looking around at first, trying to determine what had roused him and ready to meet whatever new emergency had arisen head on. The quiet of his surroundings calmed the worried man rapidly, though. His first glance was towards the assortment of quietly pinging machines on the other side of Justin’s bed. Nothing seemed out of place amid the blinking lights and small noises there; not that he understood what all the gadgets were monitoring or what the buzzing and beeping meant, but at least nothing there seemed out of the ordinary from how it had been so far tonight.

So, Brian started to relax, the adrenaline surge dissipating through his blood quickly, as he allowed his body to slump back into the hard plastic back of the chair he’d been sitting in for the last few hours. He exhaustedly rubbed at his uninjured eye and then pinched the bridge of his nose with his still injured right hand. The past few days had been draining and the lack of sleep was catching up with him, but Brian didn’t want to be zonked out and snoozing away when Justin might need him. He shook his head to dispel the fatigue and then opened his eyes to continue his vigil.

Which is when Brian was met with the most beautiful sight he could ever remember seeing: Two azure blue eyes met Brian’s gaze, sparkling even in the low light with fiery glints of warmth and love.

“Brian,” Justin whispered hoarsely through chapped, dry lips, managing a small smile at the same time, disregarding the pain even that small motion caused him.

“Sunshine!” Brian exhaled, the nickname coming out as a moan, as the frenzied older man scrambled to clasp Justin’s smaller hand in his own.

The warmth of Justin’s hand grasped in his, stilled Brian’s momentary panic and instantly grounded him. His racing heartbeat started to slow and he felt like he was finally able to breathe again. Brian leaned over from his perch on the edge of the chair and pulled Justin’s hand to his lips, kissing the now toasty warm skin and inhaling the feeling of well-being that the touch and smell of his partner’s skin gave him.

Brian wanted to jump up and throw himself at Justin, grab his graceful, sweet body and wrap his lover in his arms, but he was also afraid to touch him, fearful of hurting the fragile boy even more. The combination made Brian almost paralyzed with equal amounts of overwhelming fear and longing. So much emotion was flooding through him right now, emotion that Brian usually kept reined in and well under control, that he was actually, physically, shaking from the strength of the feelings rolling through his body. Brian might have just sat there frozen forever if Justin hadn’t fractured the tense moment by squeezing the larger, enveloping hand that was holding his and huffing out a humored snort of amusement.

“Fuck, Justin,” Brian finally rasped with more relief than anger in his voice. “Don’t you ever fucking do this to me again. You are never - NEVER - to fucking try to die on me again, do you hear me? I can’t fucking stand this shit. You’re going to give me a goddamned heart attack before I’m even forty at this rate. . . “ Brian continued to mumble in mock indignation as he got up from the chair, hit the call button to summon the nurse and then seated himself on the edge of the hospital bed, never once relinquishing his hold on Justin’s hand and the joyful ear-to-ear grin never leaving the older man’s face.

The door to the room was pushed open just then. A nurse wearing purple scrubs bustled in to see what was what. Brian’s hulking form draped over Justin, pretty much blocked the nurse’s view of the patient and she was just about to order the man out of the way, when Brian spoke up.

“He’s awake. Get the doctor in here,” Brian ordered dismissively without even looking at the nurse, unwilling to take his eyes off the heartening sight of his lover’s now alert visage. “And, call Jennifer Taylor!”

“Right away,” the nurse replied, instinctively obedient to the tone of authority in Brian’s voice, as she disappeared back through the door into the hallway without any other comment.

Feeling once again that he had regained some control, however minimal, was enough to mollify Brian’s incipient anger. He smiled down at Justin - one of the rare, true, uninhibited smiles that Justin valued so much precisely because they were seen so seldom - and beamed his relief and love at the blond lying in the bed in front of him.

Justin still felt weak and dizzy and the throbbing in his skull hadn’t abated at all, but he hardly noticed any of that right then. His entire world had become focused on the man sitting next to him - the man he’d been trying to get back to ever since this nightmare had started. Fuck the rest of the world, as long as he had Brian, things would somehow work out. Brian’s touch alone conveyed such an immense feeling of safety and protection, that Justin knew he would be alright, now. Everything would be alright, because Brian would take care of him.

“Sunshine,” Brian said again, quietly, as if he couldn’t get enough of just hearing the name.

Then, as if the sight of Brian next to him wasn’t enough, Brian leaned over and lightly brushed his soft, warm, crushed-raspberry lips against Justin’s sore, cracked lips. The injured blond was inundated with waves of security and tenderness and love. His eyelids fluttered closed, unable to stay awake any longer and now convinced by his lover’s presence that he was once again safe.

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