"I never felt nothing in the world like this before."

[truthrunswild]

Who: Finlay Bennett and Zeke Wyatt
What: Overdue meeting
Where: Spinal Unit, Mount Sinai
When: Tuesday morning

Finally, there had been some progress with Shannon's condition. He had been waking up, but because he was on such strong painkillers, he had been pretty out of it. When he had been waking with his family, he was asking for Fin. Only Fin, could only get there after school, so by the time he got there, Shannon had the afternoon dose of the medication and was crashed out again. Shannon's parents had been amazing keeping Fin completely in the loop with what was happening. Shannon was in a hell of a lot of pain. More than they anticipated, even if they had anticipated a lot in the wake of the operation. They thought the anesthetic and operation had flared up his CRPS. Fin felt helpless, and even if Shannon slept, he still went and sat with him every afternoon after school until visiting hours were over.

The one time Shannon did wake when he was there, he saw Fin was there, and just burst into tears. He was too upset to talk, so Fin just sat there and held him, promising he was there every day for him. This was the hardest thing Fin had to face in his life. He was exhausted because he wasn't sleeping well from worrying how much pain Shannon was in. He was mostly off the planet and moody at school, especially whenever people tried to ask him about Shannon. He was just going through the motions. He knew it would be hard. He just had to keep taking each day as it came.

It was Tuesday evening, and even if he had been trying to focus on doing his homework while he sat with Shannon that evening, his head was hurting too much and he couldn't concentrate. he had set his biological textbooks aside to hold Shannon's hand, stroking little circles in his hair with his other hand was he watched him sleep. He was leaning on the side of the bed by Shannon. No matter how much he sat and watched him, he couldn't get used to see him like this. He was still in a surgical neck brace and laid flat. There were drains from the op site, he was on oxygen, he had IVs, and monitors keeping a good check on him. It was all necessary evils. Maybe one of the hardest parts was not being able to talk to Shannon, when they had talked every single day since they met.

Comments

[playingtowin]

Zeke hadn't really been in a room with Fin without an epic pile of other people around, so other than sort of being nailed by a look from Fin for a passing moment before Fin's attention was drawn somewhere else, they hadn't really met. Zeke felt like he already knew the guy. Shannon was so head-over-wheels in love with Fin that of course Zeke felt a little envious he didn't have someone that awesome to just love and enjoy. It gave him hope, though. Hope that if Shannon, despite his own physical challenges, could fall in love so easily and with someone so amazing, maybe Zeke might have a shot some day.

Before dinner time each day, Zeke was taken home by his aunt and uncle to eat, and then get some sleep. Apparently there had been some sort of parental voodoo pact made that if he was allowed to come to New York to stay while Shannon was sick, he had to be reminded to take good care of himself. Taking good care of himself meant eating well, not sandwiches from a hospital vending machine, and getting plenty of rest. Or he would get sick. It was as easy of that. There was no real grey area for him yet. He still got ill if he overdid it, so his aunt and uncle were sticking to their word. But that meant he had been missing Fin, who came after school. When he got there to visit Shannon that morning, he was surprised to see Fin was sitting there with him. He sort of hesitated, not wanting to intrude. But he did want to meet Fin. He came in with a little wave. "Uh, hey. I'm Zeke. Shan's cousin from MA. You must be the infamous Fin," he said, holding out his hand in greeting. "You okay? You got a free period this morning?"

[truthrunswild]

"Zeke. Hey," Fin greeted with him a tired smile and shook Zeke's hand firmly. "I've heard so much about you, and Shannon's shown me some of those YouTube videos you made about getting back to living after cancer. They're pretty awesome. But I only just realised the other day you actually made one with Andi when I was looking through them. I sort of clocked that you were here in the first few days, but everything was all over the place with Shan's op not going as well as they hoped..." He didn't want Zeke to think he was rude or didn't want to meet him. It was far from that. All along, Fin had loved meeting the people in Shannon's life, but there hadn't been a chance to meet him with Zeke living in another state.

He looked forlornly at his school books and shook his head. "Nah... just, I've had a headache and felt a bit dizzy when I woke up, so my dad said it was okay if I came here today. Maybe do a bit of work if I could. But my brain ain't really working. I don't think it's kinda worked since Shan came to hospital," he admitted, trying to sweep his hair out of his eyes so he could see Zeke better. "You look like you're related, you know. Tall, dark, and handsome, like," he added with a bit of a laugh. He wished they were meeting in better circumstances, but it was cool they finally could.

[playingtowin]

Zeke smiled when they shook hands and then sat down by Fin. He didn't get a feeling at all that Fin was rude or avoiding him. Far from it. The impression he got was he was here for Shannon unconditionally, and he had been upset dealing with this. That told Zeke Fin was a sweetheart, and Shannon deserved a sweetheart to date. "You watched my vids? Seriously? Just when I thought you couldn't get more cool being, like, a cowboy drummer or anything. Shan's showed me clips of you doing both, and seriously, I feel like a talentless meatball. I did make one with Andi, though. Couldn't get Sash to come in front of the camera for the life of me, so Justin is seriously a miracle worker. I'm glad we can meet, though."

"Do you need some water or anything? I can nip out to the vending machine for you. Shan's told me about what you have, but I'm sorry, I don't recall the name of it. But if you feel like you're going to keel over, just let me know and I'll get help. If you can feel it. I know he told me he gets real worried when it happens to you because you fall and get sick." He looked at Shannon and couldn't stop a sigh tumbling out of him. He had been here day in, day out, after Shannon's accident, so this was like deja-vu. Not good deja-vu either. But this was the best chance for Shannon now he had grown so much. It was hard seeing him like this. "Everyone says that. Our moms look really alike. That's where those dark genes come from."

[truthrunswild]

Fin nodded. "Oh, yeah. I mean, Shannon and I share most things that are important to us. I know you're important to him. He's talked to me about how sick you were when you had cancer, and how worried they were that you would die. But that he didn't even realise you were in remission until months after his surgery when he started to recover. Plus, you were born only a week apart. So cool that your moms were expecting you at the same time." He had to laugh at Zeke's insult to himself. "Talentless meatball? C'mon, dude, everyone has talents. Not everyone can just be bothered to use them, or nurture them. You got the gift of the gab. You can use that to your advantage. I think the videos were awesome. Gotta be a real help to other kids our age with cancer, given them hope even if it ain't all a smooth road. I ain't too naive to know that y'all probably deal with ongoing stuff for a long time after they say you're cancer-free. That's gotta be just the beginning, right?"

He shook his head and gestured to a bottle sitting by Shannon. "Got some. Thanks, though. I'm hoping it just behaves itself. I sometimes get a lil' warning, but not every time. I think it's just because I ain't been sleeping too hot lately. Stress and all. They keep saying he's doing well all things considered, but I worry about him. Wish I could do something to take the pain away, but we ain't miracle workers. If only. I just hate seeing him like this, you know?" he murmured, nosing scrunching up just a little when he looked at Shannon, eyes lingering on him. "How are you doing, though? Are you well?"

[playingtowin]

It was nice to hear that Shannon talked about him to Fin. It had been a huge bolt out of the blue when Shannon called him up one day and told him he met this guy that day, and he already had a massive crush on him. The guy was a countryboy from Arkansas and had his horse housed at the stables. He had been watching him ride, and when they met, Shannon said he was pretty sure he nearly came in his pants, because Fin was all blue eyes, amazing smile, skinny jeans, cowboy boots, and sexy accent. Of course, Zeke teased him, because that was his job. Then Shannon was dating, and Fin sounded absolutely incredible because he was amazing with Shannon's disability. Now he was meeting Fin, he could see why Shannon fell hard for him. He was so dang sweet and kind. "Yeah, I literally got the remission news about a week after Shannon's accident. It was impossible to really be happy. It was a pretty wrecked time for my whole family, that. But yeah, a whole pile of ongoing issues, but it's okay, like. It could be so much worse, I know that. Some days, it's pretty hard. Shan said you've been through a pretty rough time yourself, though."

He scrunched his face up with sympathy. "That'll do it every damn time. You can't sleep, and then everything feels so much worse because you're tired. I know it's impossible not to worry about him. I mean, look at him, he looks real bad. Usually he's all bright and smiley, colour in his cheeks. He looked way worse than this after the accident. They though he had bleeds on the brain, and he had a few seizures while he was at his worst. The nerves damage was all raw and honestly, we all thought he was gonna die. Or if he didn't die, he'd be pretty incapacitated for the rest of his life. Proved everyone wrong. He's so damn tough. He's one of my favourite humans in the whole world." He nodded and shrugged. "I'm pretty good at the moment. It's nice being down here with my family, even if this circumstances aren't good."