Caprice "Reecy" Chester (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
headingforsomething) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
dreamlikenewyork2017-08-07 12:51 am
headingforsomething) wrote in dreamlikenewyork2017-08-07 12:51 am
"Here speaks the voice of reason."
Who: Reecy Chester and Justin Campbell
What: Big Sister Duties
Where: Mount Sinai, NYC
When: After this
Reecy was close to leaving after she sat with Justin a little while while he slept when soon began to rouse. It was clear he was disoriented and maybe in a little pain or feeling sick, showing a little distress. She didn’t fully take his hand or touch him because you had to be careful with that when he wasn’t well. She just put her fingers softly over his to show him she was there and she pressed the nurse call button so they could come see if he was okay.
They didn’t ask her to leave, but they tended to him a little. Checked him all over, documented everything he was reporting. He did have pain and was feeling sick, even breathing seemed too taxing, but they gave him some medication and she could see it start to kick in. Now she finally sat forward, rubbing his leg softly through the hospital blanket. “Good to see those eyes open, Smooshie. How are you holding up, cutie? You and your man look like you’ve been through the wars.”
Whenever he was awake right now, Justin was exhausted. Body and brain. It took effort to be awake and functioning, but they told him it was because his body was recovering from the equivalent of running a week-long marathon and was still working extra hard to rid the toxin from his system. When the meds wore off, he felt rough, and his anxiety levels kept spiking. They didn’t think that was directly related to the other stuff. The psychiatrist, the psychologist and Nate, his physician, all thought the anxiety and the depression crashes he kept experiencing too were stress from the ordeal of the illness. It was to the point that they were looking at another medication not available in the US but could be sourced from Australia if there was clinical evidence that it was worth trialling him with now some of the options were effectively off the table with this reaction. Justin could barely remember what his name was, let alone processing any of this. He just said how he was feeling, and they did all the rest around him.
“Been awhile since I upped my hospital frequent flyer points, you know. Can’t let anyone think I’m slipping,” Justin said, voice scratchy and hoarse while he focused on taking slower breaths, because even breathing took energy he didn’t have. He was scraping from the bottom of an already empty barrel. “I hurt him. Threw a chair at him while I was psychotic and cracked his skull. But he’s still here. What have I missed?”
These days where Justin looked as sick as he possible could were the worst. Everyone struggled dealing with it because it wasn’t fair. He suffered enough in his short life. But as a result, he dealt with things that meant continuous ongoing risk of complications or exacerbations. He was such a bright spark, full of energy and talent. The rock bottom was painful. She kept softly rubbing his leg while he spoke and glanced over at Sasha. She didn’t need to be close to him to see his face was badly bruised, but the story that filtered back to everyone was that he was dizzy with a migraine and fell and hit his head in the bathroom. He must have been crippled with fear and grief witnessing Justin in a mentally taxed state like that. “He loves you. He loves you so very much, Smooshie. But not just that, he wants to fight with you. And I think that’s one of the most important things of all,” Reecy murmured. She wanted to fuss. She wanted to tuck him in, smooth down his gown, fluff his pillows. She wouldn’t. She knew that sort of thing could sometimes agitate him when he was this sick. No one wanted him to be agitated. “Oh, you’ve missed lots. But don’t worry. Nothing that can’t wait for you to catch up on. I made the announcement last night, though. One book closes and another opens.”
Justin’s eyes came to rest on Sasha and lingered there. He was glad he was sleeping. He wasn’t before and had a constant headache. No wonder. Justin was in the awful low headspace where he wanted to take the higher ground and be okay, put it down to it being the psychosis, he not only wasn’t in control of himself and was hallucinating, but he also didn’t remember it. Clinically, that was all well and good. But love wasn’t clinical. Not a single fucking par of it, and if you were basing your love on anything clinical, then you were in for a rude shock of reality. He didn’t want his relationship to only boil down to a fucking diagnosis. Nor did he want it to suffer under any diagnosis. A diagnosis was just a label, it didn’t define you. Unless you let it. Many people in the world did because it was like a glory to lord over other ‘healthy’ people. The ones who loved the victim routine and remind everyone of it every chance they got. Justin fought every fucking day of his life to try to shed that and do whatever it took to escape being defined by a clinical label. It felt like he kept failing.
Tears were coming, but not in the agonising sobs they had been on and off since he woke up. He was yo-yoing between depression and anxiety, but thankfully they were keeping him medicated enough that it was tolerable. Tolerable was a luxury, really. “He’s everything to me. I hate that I hurt him, but he won’t give up on me. That… I don’t know how to process that because it’s new. He said it doesn’t change anything. I just want to get better. I want to be happy. I want that more than any fucking thing in the world. And he makes me happy. Nothing about him, not even a tiny sliver, contributes to my bad feelings. He builds me up when I fall, but what am I fucking giving him? A cracked skull.” He looked up at the ceiling, trying to blink away the tears and cockblock himself before it turned into another one of those awful panic attacks. He started to lose his shit and then everything got so hazy, he didn’t know what was going on until he started to come out of them again. “So, you’ve officially subjected yourself to a lifetime of nobody puts Reecy in the corner jokes? Was Ky happy? I’m fucking proud of you, you know. My big sis, the iconic Baby. You should’ve auditioned for it from the start.”
Reecy’s hand went from Justin’s leg up to his head and she brushed away his tears before taking up gentle stroking of his hair. “He’s the wind beneath your wings, Smooshie. And you know what? That’s okay. I know you don’t feel like it’s okay, but you know why it is? Because he wants to be. That doesn’t mean there’s an imbalance in the relationship. It means that every gorgeous building in this world has a sturdy foundation holding up the impressive structure above it. Without that foundation, the building would be rubble. I see how much you love him. I see how you look at him, how you look at each other. It’s like no one else is in the room when you do. You didn’t just walk up to him and give him a cracked skull. If you were in a car and he was driving, but a drunk drivers slammed into you and you got hurt, would that be his fault?” She took his hand then and gently guided it to his own heart here his fingers could nestle between all the wires to feel the beats. “You feel that? That’s why he loves you. Because you’re human, with a huge heart. That is why he’s still here. That, and because you love him just as much. That’s worth fighting, Smooshie, because it’s rare. You fight, and you fight together, and kiss each others battle wounds together.”
Reecy had always been someone Justin looked up to and trusted unconditionally. Not just that, but she had been a in-every-way-but-blood (he hated the phrase ‘sister from another mister’ and refused to use it) big sister to him since the very early days of Footloose. This was why. She could sit with him and help him see the parts of things that mattered through the raging storm of everything else around him. He felt safe with her and always had. There were very few people who fell into that category in his life. He could feel the soft thuds of his heart through the gown and it reminded him of how Sasha liked to lie there and listen to it. He told him that once. He liked the feel of Justin’s heart against his cheek. They both loved snuggling and being close to each other, both touchy-feely and affectionate when Justin was well. “I do. He makes he want to keep going,” he whispered.
“Then keep going, Smoosh. In the words of a very wise young lady… just keep swimming. Because look what’s swimming with you.” Reecy nodded over in Sasha’s direction. “Talk about a cutie, you have good taste. He’s the Dory to your Nemo. And trust me, most of us adults haven’t even figured out how to pull of a pairing that awesome. You’ll be okay. It doesn’t feel like it now, but you will because you’re holding each other’s pieces together with big tight hugs. You’ll recover and feel well again soon, his head will heal and bruises will fade. Then in years down the track, we’ll all be in the audience watching you two tie the knot. I feel that in my heart, cutie. I really do. You nailed it with this one.”
Finally, Justin managed a small smile. Sometimes, he needed the reminders like these. Especially at times like now when he feared all this stuff he couldn’t easily control risked him losing the person he loved. “He’ll probably love that you said that. Dory’s his favourite, just like Sunshine’s. Marriage… wow. That’s…” He fell quiet and a frown came to his face, eyes averting away from Sasha.
“What is it, Smooshie?” Reecy asked softly. His face and eyes always gave him away. For a moment, she made some leeway, but it evaporated quickly. She wasn’t sure why, but something was stumbled upon that was troubling him.
“I won’t live that long,” Justin mumbled with a slight shake of his head, fingers closing around a bunch of blanket by his hip.
Oh, that. Reecy knew this part, and it was an error on her part. Some of this stuff had been addressed by a psychologist who worked with all the staff on the early Footloose cast after Justin’s first suicide attempt they all had to face. Caden sourced a guy who was an expert in the field of youth with serious trauma-related mental illness so everyone could be debriefed in the trauma that he nearly killed himself. One of the biggest points those sessions drove home was that Justin’s brain worked in two ways. Retrospectively, where he got tethered back to the traumatic events and stuck there, or in current here and now, where he could only process a short space of time that he could cope with. He was pretty much incapable of envisaging a future because it was too unknown for him to understand. But she also knew from her own personal experiences with him that he believed he was going to die young, because of the inability to see too far ahead. “We only need you to keep living to tomorrow, Smooshie. That’s all anyone can really do, if we’re honest with ourselves. Tomorrow can be beautiful. Without it, you would never have met him.”
Justin closed his eyes with a tiny nod. If he concentrated, he could remember back to that day he met Sasha so clearly. He hadn’t known what to expect. He hadn’t built up a single preconceived notion about him. He just assumed he would be a sweet person doing this for his dying best friend. That already proved he was a beautiful person, and Justin was drawn to it from the first moment the make-a-wish organisation contacted him. Then in a heartbeat, seeing Sasha for the first time, his life changed. “Did you purposefully avoid the subject of Kyan?” he eventually asked, opening his eyes that were still heavy because of the fatigue and emotional weariness.
Reecy inhaled and then let the breath out in a rush. Her little brother, the mini observant bitch, no matter how sick he was. She bopped his nose softly with her fingertip, a gentle gesture of fondness, even through all the pain. “No, I just… put it on hold…” Even saying that out loud, she wasn’t convinced. She bit her lip and thought things over briefly, ruffling his hair. “He was great with it. Happy we’re working together again. Only, at first I wasn’t sure he was. He walked out right after the announcement and…” She was nervous. Because Justin was one of the most observant people she had ever met. He might not always say it, but he took everything in and he was watching her closely.
“And…” Justin murmured. He broke the eye contact momentarily to try to see what was sitting beside his bed beyond where Paddington had his prized place where Justin could always see him. “Don’t think I don’t want you to continue, but is there any water there? My throat’s hurting from the… I don’t know, I pulled the tube out. They keep squirting this spray stuff down there, but it’s wearing off. And what, though? You don’t want to work with him?”
As soon as Justin was requesting something, she was moving forward to find it for him. There were three small bottles of water there, and one was opened with a straw in it. She held it for him to have a drink. “We don’t have to talk if it’s hurting you, Smooshie. You’re supposed to be resting. I just wanted to come check in on you. You’ve not been well enough for visitors up to now. I know all you probably want is to be home in bed with Sash.”
Drinking hurt too, but after the initial shot of sting, it soothed it. He was thirsty all the time, despite being on IV fluids. The dry mouth was the pits, and it could be a challenge for him when he was rehearsing or singing. He could down a gallon in one session. That claustrophobic feeling was starting to creep back. A mix between feeling a little too hot, feeling like his clothes were tight, feeling like the wires were shackles. “Yes, we do. Stop talking me in circles and just tell me. Something happened in Denver. I need you to keep talking to me. I’m feeling weird again. Just… talk so I don’t have to think about anything.”
When Justin had woke, Reecy had slipped her cell phone back into her handbag, in the wake of her text conversation with Kyan. There was a lot going on in her mind - and her heart - right now, but she had been too scared to let herself overanalyse what it meant. They spent the night together again, and this time it wasn’t for comfort, there was no grieving or pain to drown out with sex. They both did it willingly, and it was no quickie. Far from it. Kyan had been the first to fall asleep and Reecy had laid there watching him, letting herself at least try to identify what she was feeling. No bad feelings came to her. In fact, it was a peace that settled in and it wasn’t long before she fell asleep herself. She took Justin’s hand, seeing that his breathing at quickened. There was a little distress, but he was trying not to focus on it. She took to stroking his hair again with her other hand. “Kyan and I are… I guess the best way to put it is exploring the idea of us. Us as more than friends. Us as something more than it has been until now. Denver was exorcising demons of grief and pain.”
“Wow. Sounds so romantic.” Even if he was feeling unsettled and was in pain, Justin still managed to give her a hint of a smirk. “Does he know I’m rich enough to pay someone to do him in if he hurts you? That’s a big call to make after everything. You want that, or are you just feeling like you need to help him through things? Pity fuck, maybe? See, I can ask that, I’m sick in the ICU and you have to humour me.”
“What good is it if you can’t use it to your advantage?” Reecy joked back, glad to see at least had a tiny glimmer of his old spark there somewhere. “Even if I was the pity fuck sort - which I’m not and never have been - I’d never do it to Kyan. He has been nothing but an amazing friend to me and we’ve been close for a long time. Since the first day he came to the theatre when he started working with us. Our lives have ebbed and flowed together, but now so much has changed that this is a thing and I’m not quite sure exactly what it’s supposed to be or how it’s supposed to feel. But after so much crap, it just… it feels nice, you know? This little warm pocket of nice in my heart and that’s something I’ve been looking for for a very long time. Because people like you, Smooshie, make it look really good. Even through all the fucking awful shit you face. Even through that, look, he’s still over there with you.” She nodded in Sasha’s direction. The blanket was slipping off his lap and it soon dropped to the floor when he shifted in his sleep a little, but didn’t wake. “Should I fix that for him?”
Justin watched Sasha, even if he couldn’t see him as well as he wanted to from where the chair was placed in the room. He wished it was right up beside him, but the recliner chairs couldn’t be anywhere near an ICU bed in case there was an emergency or a crash. There was nothing that could be obstacles. “No, he gets hot when he has migraines. He’s kind of had one ongoing one since I hurt him. He’ll wake up soon. He keeps jolting awake thinking I’m in danger to check on me.” He looked back to Reecy. “Just don’t overthink it. That’s the worst thing you can do. If it feels good, then enjoy it. There’s too much shit in this world. Too much of fucking people harming others to boost themselves. Too much fake shit to garner attention. If you’ve got something genuine and special, that isn’t being forced, then go for it. Cherish is. Enjoy it. With the right person, it’s amazing. It can still hurt, but if you feel good way more than you feel bad, then hold onto it. Sash showed me that it’s worth it. And, you know, maybe sometimes there’s a reason our friends are our friends, because we’re meant to be a force in each other’s lives. You deserve it, sis. All you’ve done is take care of everyone else. Maybe it’s finally time for someone to take care of you. Or just someone you can have fun with, without doubts and uncertainty.”
Reecy was nodding as he spoke and then she smiled through some tears. He always had a way of saying sweet things. He had always been a beautiful kid. He was right. Sometimes, the best things in life came from just rolling with what was thrown at you - the good and the bad - and cherishing all the stuff worth fighting for, and letting what wasn’t drift away. She sat forward to give him a careful hug and kissed his temple. “Watch this space…”
LOG, COMPLETE
What: Big Sister Duties
Where: Mount Sinai, NYC
When: After this
Reecy was close to leaving after she sat with Justin a little while while he slept when soon began to rouse. It was clear he was disoriented and maybe in a little pain or feeling sick, showing a little distress. She didn’t fully take his hand or touch him because you had to be careful with that when he wasn’t well. She just put her fingers softly over his to show him she was there and she pressed the nurse call button so they could come see if he was okay.
They didn’t ask her to leave, but they tended to him a little. Checked him all over, documented everything he was reporting. He did have pain and was feeling sick, even breathing seemed too taxing, but they gave him some medication and she could see it start to kick in. Now she finally sat forward, rubbing his leg softly through the hospital blanket. “Good to see those eyes open, Smooshie. How are you holding up, cutie? You and your man look like you’ve been through the wars.”
Whenever he was awake right now, Justin was exhausted. Body and brain. It took effort to be awake and functioning, but they told him it was because his body was recovering from the equivalent of running a week-long marathon and was still working extra hard to rid the toxin from his system. When the meds wore off, he felt rough, and his anxiety levels kept spiking. They didn’t think that was directly related to the other stuff. The psychiatrist, the psychologist and Nate, his physician, all thought the anxiety and the depression crashes he kept experiencing too were stress from the ordeal of the illness. It was to the point that they were looking at another medication not available in the US but could be sourced from Australia if there was clinical evidence that it was worth trialling him with now some of the options were effectively off the table with this reaction. Justin could barely remember what his name was, let alone processing any of this. He just said how he was feeling, and they did all the rest around him.
“Been awhile since I upped my hospital frequent flyer points, you know. Can’t let anyone think I’m slipping,” Justin said, voice scratchy and hoarse while he focused on taking slower breaths, because even breathing took energy he didn’t have. He was scraping from the bottom of an already empty barrel. “I hurt him. Threw a chair at him while I was psychotic and cracked his skull. But he’s still here. What have I missed?”
These days where Justin looked as sick as he possible could were the worst. Everyone struggled dealing with it because it wasn’t fair. He suffered enough in his short life. But as a result, he dealt with things that meant continuous ongoing risk of complications or exacerbations. He was such a bright spark, full of energy and talent. The rock bottom was painful. She kept softly rubbing his leg while he spoke and glanced over at Sasha. She didn’t need to be close to him to see his face was badly bruised, but the story that filtered back to everyone was that he was dizzy with a migraine and fell and hit his head in the bathroom. He must have been crippled with fear and grief witnessing Justin in a mentally taxed state like that. “He loves you. He loves you so very much, Smooshie. But not just that, he wants to fight with you. And I think that’s one of the most important things of all,” Reecy murmured. She wanted to fuss. She wanted to tuck him in, smooth down his gown, fluff his pillows. She wouldn’t. She knew that sort of thing could sometimes agitate him when he was this sick. No one wanted him to be agitated. “Oh, you’ve missed lots. But don’t worry. Nothing that can’t wait for you to catch up on. I made the announcement last night, though. One book closes and another opens.”
Justin’s eyes came to rest on Sasha and lingered there. He was glad he was sleeping. He wasn’t before and had a constant headache. No wonder. Justin was in the awful low headspace where he wanted to take the higher ground and be okay, put it down to it being the psychosis, he not only wasn’t in control of himself and was hallucinating, but he also didn’t remember it. Clinically, that was all well and good. But love wasn’t clinical. Not a single fucking par of it, and if you were basing your love on anything clinical, then you were in for a rude shock of reality. He didn’t want his relationship to only boil down to a fucking diagnosis. Nor did he want it to suffer under any diagnosis. A diagnosis was just a label, it didn’t define you. Unless you let it. Many people in the world did because it was like a glory to lord over other ‘healthy’ people. The ones who loved the victim routine and remind everyone of it every chance they got. Justin fought every fucking day of his life to try to shed that and do whatever it took to escape being defined by a clinical label. It felt like he kept failing.
Tears were coming, but not in the agonising sobs they had been on and off since he woke up. He was yo-yoing between depression and anxiety, but thankfully they were keeping him medicated enough that it was tolerable. Tolerable was a luxury, really. “He’s everything to me. I hate that I hurt him, but he won’t give up on me. That… I don’t know how to process that because it’s new. He said it doesn’t change anything. I just want to get better. I want to be happy. I want that more than any fucking thing in the world. And he makes me happy. Nothing about him, not even a tiny sliver, contributes to my bad feelings. He builds me up when I fall, but what am I fucking giving him? A cracked skull.” He looked up at the ceiling, trying to blink away the tears and cockblock himself before it turned into another one of those awful panic attacks. He started to lose his shit and then everything got so hazy, he didn’t know what was going on until he started to come out of them again. “So, you’ve officially subjected yourself to a lifetime of nobody puts Reecy in the corner jokes? Was Ky happy? I’m fucking proud of you, you know. My big sis, the iconic Baby. You should’ve auditioned for it from the start.”
Reecy’s hand went from Justin’s leg up to his head and she brushed away his tears before taking up gentle stroking of his hair. “He’s the wind beneath your wings, Smooshie. And you know what? That’s okay. I know you don’t feel like it’s okay, but you know why it is? Because he wants to be. That doesn’t mean there’s an imbalance in the relationship. It means that every gorgeous building in this world has a sturdy foundation holding up the impressive structure above it. Without that foundation, the building would be rubble. I see how much you love him. I see how you look at him, how you look at each other. It’s like no one else is in the room when you do. You didn’t just walk up to him and give him a cracked skull. If you were in a car and he was driving, but a drunk drivers slammed into you and you got hurt, would that be his fault?” She took his hand then and gently guided it to his own heart here his fingers could nestle between all the wires to feel the beats. “You feel that? That’s why he loves you. Because you’re human, with a huge heart. That is why he’s still here. That, and because you love him just as much. That’s worth fighting, Smooshie, because it’s rare. You fight, and you fight together, and kiss each others battle wounds together.”
Reecy had always been someone Justin looked up to and trusted unconditionally. Not just that, but she had been a in-every-way-but-blood (he hated the phrase ‘sister from another mister’ and refused to use it) big sister to him since the very early days of Footloose. This was why. She could sit with him and help him see the parts of things that mattered through the raging storm of everything else around him. He felt safe with her and always had. There were very few people who fell into that category in his life. He could feel the soft thuds of his heart through the gown and it reminded him of how Sasha liked to lie there and listen to it. He told him that once. He liked the feel of Justin’s heart against his cheek. They both loved snuggling and being close to each other, both touchy-feely and affectionate when Justin was well. “I do. He makes he want to keep going,” he whispered.
“Then keep going, Smoosh. In the words of a very wise young lady… just keep swimming. Because look what’s swimming with you.” Reecy nodded over in Sasha’s direction. “Talk about a cutie, you have good taste. He’s the Dory to your Nemo. And trust me, most of us adults haven’t even figured out how to pull of a pairing that awesome. You’ll be okay. It doesn’t feel like it now, but you will because you’re holding each other’s pieces together with big tight hugs. You’ll recover and feel well again soon, his head will heal and bruises will fade. Then in years down the track, we’ll all be in the audience watching you two tie the knot. I feel that in my heart, cutie. I really do. You nailed it with this one.”
Finally, Justin managed a small smile. Sometimes, he needed the reminders like these. Especially at times like now when he feared all this stuff he couldn’t easily control risked him losing the person he loved. “He’ll probably love that you said that. Dory’s his favourite, just like Sunshine’s. Marriage… wow. That’s…” He fell quiet and a frown came to his face, eyes averting away from Sasha.
“What is it, Smooshie?” Reecy asked softly. His face and eyes always gave him away. For a moment, she made some leeway, but it evaporated quickly. She wasn’t sure why, but something was stumbled upon that was troubling him.
“I won’t live that long,” Justin mumbled with a slight shake of his head, fingers closing around a bunch of blanket by his hip.
Oh, that. Reecy knew this part, and it was an error on her part. Some of this stuff had been addressed by a psychologist who worked with all the staff on the early Footloose cast after Justin’s first suicide attempt they all had to face. Caden sourced a guy who was an expert in the field of youth with serious trauma-related mental illness so everyone could be debriefed in the trauma that he nearly killed himself. One of the biggest points those sessions drove home was that Justin’s brain worked in two ways. Retrospectively, where he got tethered back to the traumatic events and stuck there, or in current here and now, where he could only process a short space of time that he could cope with. He was pretty much incapable of envisaging a future because it was too unknown for him to understand. But she also knew from her own personal experiences with him that he believed he was going to die young, because of the inability to see too far ahead. “We only need you to keep living to tomorrow, Smooshie. That’s all anyone can really do, if we’re honest with ourselves. Tomorrow can be beautiful. Without it, you would never have met him.”
Justin closed his eyes with a tiny nod. If he concentrated, he could remember back to that day he met Sasha so clearly. He hadn’t known what to expect. He hadn’t built up a single preconceived notion about him. He just assumed he would be a sweet person doing this for his dying best friend. That already proved he was a beautiful person, and Justin was drawn to it from the first moment the make-a-wish organisation contacted him. Then in a heartbeat, seeing Sasha for the first time, his life changed. “Did you purposefully avoid the subject of Kyan?” he eventually asked, opening his eyes that were still heavy because of the fatigue and emotional weariness.
Reecy inhaled and then let the breath out in a rush. Her little brother, the mini observant bitch, no matter how sick he was. She bopped his nose softly with her fingertip, a gentle gesture of fondness, even through all the pain. “No, I just… put it on hold…” Even saying that out loud, she wasn’t convinced. She bit her lip and thought things over briefly, ruffling his hair. “He was great with it. Happy we’re working together again. Only, at first I wasn’t sure he was. He walked out right after the announcement and…” She was nervous. Because Justin was one of the most observant people she had ever met. He might not always say it, but he took everything in and he was watching her closely.
“And…” Justin murmured. He broke the eye contact momentarily to try to see what was sitting beside his bed beyond where Paddington had his prized place where Justin could always see him. “Don’t think I don’t want you to continue, but is there any water there? My throat’s hurting from the… I don’t know, I pulled the tube out. They keep squirting this spray stuff down there, but it’s wearing off. And what, though? You don’t want to work with him?”
As soon as Justin was requesting something, she was moving forward to find it for him. There were three small bottles of water there, and one was opened with a straw in it. She held it for him to have a drink. “We don’t have to talk if it’s hurting you, Smooshie. You’re supposed to be resting. I just wanted to come check in on you. You’ve not been well enough for visitors up to now. I know all you probably want is to be home in bed with Sash.”
Drinking hurt too, but after the initial shot of sting, it soothed it. He was thirsty all the time, despite being on IV fluids. The dry mouth was the pits, and it could be a challenge for him when he was rehearsing or singing. He could down a gallon in one session. That claustrophobic feeling was starting to creep back. A mix between feeling a little too hot, feeling like his clothes were tight, feeling like the wires were shackles. “Yes, we do. Stop talking me in circles and just tell me. Something happened in Denver. I need you to keep talking to me. I’m feeling weird again. Just… talk so I don’t have to think about anything.”
When Justin had woke, Reecy had slipped her cell phone back into her handbag, in the wake of her text conversation with Kyan. There was a lot going on in her mind - and her heart - right now, but she had been too scared to let herself overanalyse what it meant. They spent the night together again, and this time it wasn’t for comfort, there was no grieving or pain to drown out with sex. They both did it willingly, and it was no quickie. Far from it. Kyan had been the first to fall asleep and Reecy had laid there watching him, letting herself at least try to identify what she was feeling. No bad feelings came to her. In fact, it was a peace that settled in and it wasn’t long before she fell asleep herself. She took Justin’s hand, seeing that his breathing at quickened. There was a little distress, but he was trying not to focus on it. She took to stroking his hair again with her other hand. “Kyan and I are… I guess the best way to put it is exploring the idea of us. Us as more than friends. Us as something more than it has been until now. Denver was exorcising demons of grief and pain.”
“Wow. Sounds so romantic.” Even if he was feeling unsettled and was in pain, Justin still managed to give her a hint of a smirk. “Does he know I’m rich enough to pay someone to do him in if he hurts you? That’s a big call to make after everything. You want that, or are you just feeling like you need to help him through things? Pity fuck, maybe? See, I can ask that, I’m sick in the ICU and you have to humour me.”
“What good is it if you can’t use it to your advantage?” Reecy joked back, glad to see at least had a tiny glimmer of his old spark there somewhere. “Even if I was the pity fuck sort - which I’m not and never have been - I’d never do it to Kyan. He has been nothing but an amazing friend to me and we’ve been close for a long time. Since the first day he came to the theatre when he started working with us. Our lives have ebbed and flowed together, but now so much has changed that this is a thing and I’m not quite sure exactly what it’s supposed to be or how it’s supposed to feel. But after so much crap, it just… it feels nice, you know? This little warm pocket of nice in my heart and that’s something I’ve been looking for for a very long time. Because people like you, Smooshie, make it look really good. Even through all the fucking awful shit you face. Even through that, look, he’s still over there with you.” She nodded in Sasha’s direction. The blanket was slipping off his lap and it soon dropped to the floor when he shifted in his sleep a little, but didn’t wake. “Should I fix that for him?”
Justin watched Sasha, even if he couldn’t see him as well as he wanted to from where the chair was placed in the room. He wished it was right up beside him, but the recliner chairs couldn’t be anywhere near an ICU bed in case there was an emergency or a crash. There was nothing that could be obstacles. “No, he gets hot when he has migraines. He’s kind of had one ongoing one since I hurt him. He’ll wake up soon. He keeps jolting awake thinking I’m in danger to check on me.” He looked back to Reecy. “Just don’t overthink it. That’s the worst thing you can do. If it feels good, then enjoy it. There’s too much shit in this world. Too much of fucking people harming others to boost themselves. Too much fake shit to garner attention. If you’ve got something genuine and special, that isn’t being forced, then go for it. Cherish is. Enjoy it. With the right person, it’s amazing. It can still hurt, but if you feel good way more than you feel bad, then hold onto it. Sash showed me that it’s worth it. And, you know, maybe sometimes there’s a reason our friends are our friends, because we’re meant to be a force in each other’s lives. You deserve it, sis. All you’ve done is take care of everyone else. Maybe it’s finally time for someone to take care of you. Or just someone you can have fun with, without doubts and uncertainty.”
Reecy was nodding as he spoke and then she smiled through some tears. He always had a way of saying sweet things. He had always been a beautiful kid. He was right. Sometimes, the best things in life came from just rolling with what was thrown at you - the good and the bad - and cherishing all the stuff worth fighting for, and letting what wasn’t drift away. She sat forward to give him a careful hug and kissed his temple. “Watch this space…”
LOG, COMPLETE