"Baby of mine..."

[asskickingblahniks]

Who? Justin Campbell and Gen Hart
What? Being there when it hurts
When? After the arrival from the States
Where? Justin's hospital room

Justin had been sleeping fitfully off and on since Gen and Mark's arrival at the hospital. This wasn't exactly that they'd expected on their arrival in Sydney, but, as they'd learned early on with Justin, there were things you could never plan for and expect. You just had to get used to dealing with the fact that the child you loved was broken and hurting and needed support. And when those facts failed to be remembered, it was a massive failure on Mark and Gen's part. When Mark had found that he wasn't Justin's medical proxy anymore, it had been a huge shock to the system and he had disappeared to go back to his parents house after his foster brother. He was angry... furious beyond words, and Gen had known better than to try to stop him. There was no stopping him when he was like this.

Instead, she'd chosen to stay with Justin, needing to be near her son and try with all she was worth to sort things out one way or another. Justin was hurting. He needed a united family that at the very least proved to him that they wanted him to be a part of things. That was the starting point.

Comments

[likefatherlikeson]

Justin didn't want to talk to anyone. He didn't want to see anyone. He had been in such a bad way initially that he really couldn't remember any of it. It was only when they got more fluid up out of his lungs that he started to come around and regain an awareness of his surroundings. He woke up to a tube down his throat, hoards of medical people in scrubs buzzing around him, things attached to his chest, IVs in his arm. Someone was talking to him. He didn't know what they were saying. It was a mumbled blur. Beyond his own awareness, they had been trying to make sure he didn't die from secondary drowning, developing pulmonary edema with his lungs filling with fluid. It took awhile to stabilise him and it was only once all that was successful that he started to come around with any real lucidity.

And it was a terrible shock to reawaken after you try to take your life. You're never expect to get there, so it rocks you to the core. Which is exactly what it did. Once he was told where he was and why, he broke down. He couldn't stop it, and it was agonisingly painful because he had broken ribs. They dosed him up on morphine, which made him vomit. More pain. They resorted to another painkiller and something to stop him being sick. How could they not understand that he wanted to stop the pain, not give himself more? Still, he couldn't sleep. Whenever anyone tried to speak to him, he just started crying again because he was weak and exhausted. He kept asking for Alec over and over again. No one understood why when he barely knew him. Why? Because Alec was professionally equipped to understand that was the only reason.

[asskickingblahniks]

Seeing Justin like this, no matter how many times it had happened in the past, would never not be confronting for Gen. This was her son... The boy she had fallen head over heels for and loved just as if she'd given birth to him. She wasn't prepared to let him go, no matter what. It was hitting her even more heavily that this pain he was in this time was probably more her fault than anyone else's, and she had a lot of healing to be part of, for herself, her husband, and their son.

"Justin, honey?" she said softly, wanting to comfort him in some way, and not knowing for sure if she had a chance in hell of doing so. "Justin, I'm here," she reassured him, rising from her seat to sit on the edge of his hospital bed. "We have so much to talk about when you're feeling better," she told him. "But not until you're ready." He was far from ready for anything right now. Maybe right now was just about being his mom and being there when he needed her.

[likefatherlikeson]

"Talk? No talk. Not talking anymore." Fuck, did it hurt to talk. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to move, it hurt to think. Every single person told him that if he talked, it would fix things. And every single person had lied to him about it. It was like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, only in a more painful and fucked up way where people didn't even realise how much they were crying wolf to him anymore. He was just to messed up mental kid, he wouldn't notice. It'll be all fine. Life would go on. Then he would get angry, and they might have to do something, but just long enough so he stops being angry. Then go back to doing the same old thing.

What's more, they only had time to talk to him when they were ready. Now they could see how it felt to be on the receiving end of that. Forever. Because he didn't want to talk to anyone ever again. He wanted everyone to go away and leave him alone. Actually being alone was easier than feeling alone surrounded by people. He wasn't looking at her. "Go home. Go back to New York."

[asskickingblahniks]

"Okay," Gen replied softly, understanding Justin's request in a way that she wished she never had to. There was so much fucking pain in this room... in her son's blue eyes. They were Mark's eyes. Gen had seen Justin's biological mother once, and he was lucky in that nothing of her showed in his face. He was Mark's son. His coloring was all Mark... his heart and soul were Mark. The Aussie sense of humor, the inability to back down, sometimes even when he truly should. She had fallen in love with that in his father, and yet again, in a different way, in Justin. This boy was her son in every sense of the word except biology. She would do whatever she could to rebuild that.

She shifted to sit beside him on the bed, dropping her black pumps at the bedside to pull her feet up with her onto the bed with Justin. "I'm not going back to New York," she told him softly. "Not without you and your dad. Not without my family." She leaned over him to kiss the top of his head, but otherwise gave him space. "Can I give you a hug, Justin? I know that hugs aren't always good for you, but if you're good with one right now, I've missed your hugs like crazy."

[likefatherlikeson]

Justin wasn't purposefully trying to be a brat. This wasn't a diva moment. This was literally running out of fuel and just not being able to go anymore. He had tried to talking... to everyone. Why couldn't they understand it didn't fix anything? It shouldn't have to take going over the same stuff all the time, when he couldn't get any more words out. It felt like he was shouting into a huge abyss, but no one could hear him. Or he was screaming at the behind soundproof glass, while life just kept going on normally on the other side. That was the exact reason he didn't want to keep going. He hit these walls where he was too tired to keep going. It wasn't a normal tired sensation. It was like the very life was sucked out of you, and there was no way to re-fuel. It made it even worse to be in physical pain too.

"No, don't touch me." That wasn't even a request that could have had a harsh undertone. He had broken ribs, bruises and burns over his chest. It felt like he had been beaten up. He didn't want to be touched in that sense, but he also didn't want anyone in his space yet. Doctors, sure. They did their thing. He wished they hadn't, and he wished they would just let him go and get him out of his misery, yet he kept waking up like this. It would have been so peaceful to just have it end on the beach. "You should be with Paris. He needs you."

[asskickingblahniks]

"So do you and your dad," she told him. He was struggling like hell, and there was no easy fix for any of this. But she was determined to work her way through it with them one way or another. They were her family... her husband and her son. They were a huge part of her life, and she wasn't ready to walk away and forget about all of the time they'd spent together... The pride she'd felt in Justin being her son... Not just being her son, but actively wanting to be. He had needed a real mother, and she had been incredibly happy to give him one. Until she'd fallen down on the job and failed him utterly in so many ways. "Paris is worried about you, too, Justin. He knows that I need to be here with you and your dad right now until we can work out a way to get things going back in the right direction."

He was so utterly broken right now. But the truth was, Justin was broken all the time. There were times it wasn't as readily visible... times when it was only his mind and not his body. But right now, it was both, and he needed support from people who weren't making it all about them. She rested her hand on the bed next to Justin's, where he could reach it, but it wasn't forced into his space, either.

[likefatherlikeson]

"He might die!" Justin snapped, because he was hurting about Paris. And he didn't feel like he had anyone to talk to about it. The person - his boyfriend - who should be, and had first hand knowledge of it was AWOL, again. Justin was losing any faith in anything he had with Will, and he found he didn't even want to bring it up. Will hadn't asked him anything about it, so he took that as a big sign and just gave up. "He's got a brain tumour. He's back there, you're here. If you think nothing is wrong with that, you're even more out of touch with all of this than I even thought. He's not got the flu, he's not recovering from appendicitis. They cut his brain open. Why do you keep looking for excuses not to do shit in your life? Do shit for other people, not just yourself? I don't understand it. And I don't understand why our family is falling apart because of it. I came here to get away from this, and y'all follow me and make it impossible for me to deal with."

All anyone ever wanted to do was talk to him. They never seemed to be able to step back and go, 'You know, yeah, I fucked up, I should probably fit that' and then do it. They wanted to 'talk' to him, and then when he didn't want to, let him stand there thinking it was his fault. He was done doing that. He would literally rather be dead than to keep feeling like this over and over.