dreamlikenewyork | "Bring me back to you."

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"Bring me back to you."

Who: Beau Watson-Shaw and Austin Watson-Shaw
What: Hope
Where: ICU, Mount Sinai
When: Late Tuesday night

It was really late on Tuesday night. The only traffic through the ICU were nightshift staff and the occasional visitor sitting vigil and trying to claw some energy back with bad coffee from the vending machine. There was no awareness to time or day, though. Not when Beau was opening his eyes again and this time, even though it took a few minutes, he managed to focus a little on his surroundings.

He was hazy, to say the very least. Hazy and in pain. A lot of pain, but he wasn't really foreign to that. He glanced around, and that was when he gave a small whimper, and a stiff move of his fingers told him someone's hands were around his. Someone who was suddenly leaping out of the chair like something bit him on the bum because he had been dozing and the movement in his hands unexpected to his tired brain. "Where--" was all Beau got out in a hoarse mumble because it was going to take just a little longer for him to be able to connect words in his brain and get them out of his mouth in something understandable.

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Austin had been dozing lightly, but he'd never let go of Beau's hand. He was still breathing on his own, which in itself was one of the most beautiful things that Austin could remember seeing. It wasn't somethng he'd ever been sure he'd see again, but he was treasuring every moment he could of watching it happen right in front of him.

But even still, he was completely exhausted, and he actually had dozed in and out. But as soon as he felt that slight motion in his husband's hand, Austin had jolted up out of his seat to find Beau awake and looking at him, but struggling with words. "Oh, my god," he gasped, squeezing Beau's hand as he leaned over him, fighting every urge in his body to hug him tight when he was pretty sure that would be majorly overwhelming right now. "It's okay, baby," he murmured softly, stroking Beau's hand gently. "You're in the hospital. Just... Take it easy. You've been out for a little while."

Beau's chest was really painful. It was like something heavy was sitting on it, and every intake of breath he was managing now was hurting him. The thing was, these days Beau had a very high pain threshold so when he was in pain enough for him to be distressed by it, it was usually serious business. He could barely even put his finger on the last thing he remembered. His throat hurt and he was coughing a little now he was conscious to it hurting and feeling raw. This was the moment a person regaining consciousness could usually panic when nothing made sense, they didn't understand where they were, or why, or how sick they had been to lead them here.

He was drawing off Austin, though. He focused on Austin holding his hand, and it allayed the initial urge to freak the fuck out at first when he saw Austin and could match the face to the familiar voice. There was a bit of a woozy, unfocused gaze but his vision cleared to make Austin out and he calmed a little. There were wires and tubes every-fucking-where. He wished he didn't have a familiarity with this, but he did. Still all too clearly familiar. Then, "Fuck... knew y'couldn't d'it," he mumbled, sounding like he had laryngitis. He closed his eyes and tried to wet his dry lips. Waking up like this was making him dizzy and woozy, a sick feeling churning in his stomach because everything was bright and buzzing to his sensory perception.

It was confronting realizing how much Beau's body had been through here. And then there was a part of Austin that just felt guilt over the fact that he'd put Beau through so much more. But immediately replacing that guilt was the realization that he'd taken a gamble, and his husband was still here with him... still alive, and even able to at least somewhat be aware of what was going on around him. He wasn't dead, and if Austin hadn't pushed for him to be kept alive, he would've died then and there on the spot. Maybe it was what Beau had requested, and maybe even now, it would've been more merciful to him than having to awaken to go through even more pain, but with Beau awake, Austin couldn't help feeling that he'd done the right thing.

Beau's words -- the first thing he really said to Austin after waking up -- were, in and of themselves, very Beau. And there was a part of Austin that wanted to defend himself, or insist that he was justified in what he'd done, but instead, he just held onto his husband's hand and nodded a little bit. "You were right, baby," he said simply, sitting down on the edge of the hospital bed to hold onto Beau's hand. "I made a promise to you, and when push came to shove, I couldn't keep it. And I'm sorry that I couldn't do what you asked me to, beautiful. But I just... I couldn't. And I'm sorry, and I truly hope that you can forgive me. Because I wasn't strong enough to let you go." He was gentle with his touches, his voice soft and calm, and he would go through anything and everything Beau asked him to explain as many times as necessary. What mattered was that Beau was still alive... Still here.

"Gonna b'here forever..." Beau lamented, eyes still closed. It came out sounding almost like he was whining, but he was starting to feel invincible. Though, not invincible as in a superhero, just that no matter how much he got knocked down with, no one was going to let the job just get completed. He had known Austin wouldn't do it. He couldn't explain why beyond the fact he knew Austin. It had to be a request he made though, because the chance of Austin being with him near the end was high. He would never have asked Alex about euthanasia if he had known Austin would be able to face making the choice. But obviously Alex failed too.

The pain was really strong, and now he was aware, there were going to be tears. He wasn't going to sit there and sob because breathing was painful and crying would be even moreso. The tears came silently and he didn't bother to wipe them away. There was still a haze, he wanted to reassure Austin but there were a lot of what Austin was saying that wasn't really commuting. It was going to take time. There was probably a part of him triggering the tears that didn't really want to be waking up, because that meant the pain would be over. He had been in a lot of pain and so, so tired before all this that he had gotten to a point of confessing tearfully to Tara that he wanted it all to just stop, he had enough. He was ready to just check-out. He just hadn't had the guts to tell Austin or any of his family. He hadn't been aware - and still wasn't - that it was the infection in his heart exacerbating everything, not the cancer. He caught the last of what Austin said though, and the flood gates open. "But m'not strong enough t'live," he said through a small sob that did hurt his chest. He just hoped people understood why he had asked the things he had, and hoped they didn't think it was because he just wanted to give up.

"No," Austin reassured him, his tone gentle, but firm with resolve. He wouldn't put Beau through this again. It had been far too much to know how much pain his husband was in to start with, and the last thing Austin wanted was for him to hurt anymore. It wasn't fair to him. "No, baby. You've been through hell more than once, and I'm not... I won't keep putting you through it. I promise. I'm so sorry, baby. That I couldn't give you the one thing you asked me for." His free hand brushed gently up and down Beau's arm, and he held tight to his husband's hand. He didn't want Beau to think that he'd never be given the chance to be free of all this pain. It wasn't fair.

The tears started coming, and Austin had tears of his own going on, too, and he very carefully reached out to brush a few of them away from Beau's cheeks. This wasn't the easiest of conversations by a longshot, and Austin knew that they'd have to repeat it a time or two because Beau wasn't really totally "with it" yet. But he'd explain it a hundred times if he had to. Because Beau deserved that much... He deserved to know why he was still living a life of pain when he could have been allowed to slip away peacefully and be done with all the hurt. "You have an infection in your heart, baby," Austin explained, his tone soft and gentle. "It's being treated, and Tara says that if you recover from that, we should be able to proceed with the bone marrow transplant. It's not a hundred percent, Beau, but you still have a chance. I know what you asked me to do, and I know that it was wrong of me not to follow your wishes. I'm sorry that I let you down. I really am. I hope that you can understand why. I'm so sorry."

Apologies weren't something Beau had much capacity to deal with at the moment. There had been many a time since his leukemia relapsed that he got frustrated with people saying they were sorry for what he was dealing with. He knew they meant well, he did, but sorries didn't change anything, sorries didn't take the pain away or stop him needing to go through chemo. Sorries weren't going to turn back time and have Austin fulfil the wishes Beau had known all along he wouldn't be able to go through with. An infection in his heart. That was really serious shit, and it could impact on whatever of his life he had left. They were probably throwing a colourful cocktail of drugs at him to try to heal it, but drugs could only do what the body let it. Words like 'if' and 'should' were always attached to it, though. That meant no one knew. It meant no one could tell him if he was going to be awake and conscious in mind, but weak and incapacitated in body for the rest of his life.

"I hope y'can understand why I asked it," he finally got out through the tears. Right now, it was feeling like no one understood why he asked what he did. It wasn't because he wanted to die, it was because he didn't want to live if living was merely existing in a shell that was damaged, broken, and agonised. "Y'don't even know what pain really is. I shouldn't have left the decision t'you." It was painfully harsh, but helplessly honest right now. What happened, it needed to be faced head-on and not swept under the carpet and picked up where they left off. For everyone else, this was probably just a blip in the system for them. He got really sick, put in hospital, they kept him alive for awhile, he woke up and then things go back. It wasn't like that for Beau. For him, it was like he had been running a marathon for months, and right before the finish line, he collapsed in blood, sweat and tears. Only to wake up and be told he had to start all over again straight away. He didn't blame Austin, he just didn't even know where to being trying to cope with all this yet.

There was no doubt that Beau was tired and weak, and that the fight was probably long since gone out of him. The body wasn't meant to go through things like this. It just wasn't, and the treatments were helping fight the cancer, but they certainly weren't keeping Beau strong or healthy. Cancer was just one of those things that made no sense. When you went to a doctor and got medication, it was supposed to make you feel better, not worse. That wasn't the case with cancer, and Austin had never realized just how awful those treatments really were until his husband -- his amazing husband who'd always been so full of love and humor and life -- was drained of all his energy, a weak and pale shell of the guy he'd been before this awful diagnosis had come back to haunt him again. There was so much anger and guilt in Austin right now, but more than that, he was trying to focus on the fact that, anger and guilt or no, he still had his husband with him to at least give this one more try, no matter what happened. And maybe that made him selfish, but he'd hold onto this, even if it was his last chance.

"I do, baby," Austin replied, holding Beau's hand close to his chest for lack of the ability to pull him close in a crushing hug. "I understand why you asked. And no, I don't understand the pain you're going through. I don't know what it feels like, and more than anything, while you were unconscious, I found myself wondering if you were hurting and feeling like I'd let you down not being able to do what you'd asked. When I told you that I'd do it, I really thought that I'd be able to let you go in peace. I don't want you to think I made that promise to you with no intention of keeping it." He couldn't fault Beau for the honesty that he was serving up here, probably induced even more by how much pain he was in. "I couldn't let go. That was my fault, and I won't try to make excuses for it. What I did wasn't the right thing, but it's what I did. I can't take it back. And even if I could, every time I go back to that moment in my head, it's... It's nearly impossible for me to imagine making a different choice."

"This is not about you!" Beau finally snapped, but the words were just hoarse and lacking any real punch. It just made him cry more because he didn't mean the words to come out so hurtful. In fact, he hadn't meant them to come out at all. He was just in so much pain, his chest was killing him, he was struggling to wrap his head around anything when all it was stuck on was that he was alive when he wasn't sure he even wanted to be anymore. "You might be my husband, but this is my life. I get to make the choices. I didn't make any of them to hurt you, or to hurt anyone. I made them because one person can only take so much. Sometimes that person doesn't want to keep feeling like the pain will never stop. I can't keep holding on for you. What point do I have to get to before you're ready?"

The words were broken, tears streaming down his face when it was feeling hard to breathe. "No point. You never get to that point when you love someone, but sometimes loving someone means doing whatever it takes to stop their pain. I can't show any of you how I feel, I can't hand over the pain so you understand better. When does it stop being all about what you want and start being a little about what I need?" he asked, and turned his head against the pillow, eyes closed to try to block out how much this all hurt. "How do I do this when I'm not just fighting this... this awful fucking thing, but fighting the people I love too? Who's going to have my back when I'm not even well enough to remember who I am? I-I'm not angry, I'm just feeling so fucking alone."

Austin didn't speak right away. It wasn't fair to talk without thinking... he at least owed Beau the benefit of not making this entire conversation a focus-on-Austin fest. Beau was the one who was brought back to a life of suffering that he'd very specifically asked to not have to face again if his body began to give up on him. It wasn't fair at all that Austin had forced Beau to keep living this hell that he'd been fighting for so long. A hell that he'd put in writing that he shouldn't be brought back to continue going through... and here he was, by no fault of his own. His wishes had been clear, and when it had come down to it, Austin had blatantly disregarded them because he couldn't do it. He couldn't let his husband go, and it was heartbreaking, because he knew that Beau had fought longer and harder than many ever would've.

"Beau," he finally murmured, swallowing against the lump in his throat and trying like hell not to just start bawling his eyes out right then and there. "You're right, babe. You never get to that point, but you do get to a point where you have to let go, even if you don't want to. When you went down so fast... I didn't have time to think or collect myself... I was just in shock, and I reacted." He squeezed his eyes shut, giving his husband a tired nod. "I... I won't fight you anymore. I didn't ever go into it intending to fight you anyway, baby. It just... It happened in the moment." He took a deep breath, steadying himself as he continued. And by the time he'd calmed his nerves, he really didn't even know what else to say.

Beau might be breathing on his own now, but he was taking each one with precarious uncertainty because his chest was so sore. As soon as he asked for pain relief, though, they would dose him up with more medications and god only knew how much more of an onslaught for his system that would be. Right now, he was hating his choice to become an Oncologist. He had the empathy for it and had loved it, but now he was fighting cancer again himself, he wished he didn't know all the clinical and technical sides of it. He wished he didn't know how awful it could be if the life-saving medication had complications that could kill him. It was the worst Catch-22 anyone could face. Don't do chemo, die. Keep going with the chemo, maybe die anyway.

"I'm sorry," he told Austin, his voice mostly failing him because of the ventilator he would have had down his throat. It was raw and hoarse, but he wouldn't even be able to have a drink of water until they checked he could tolerate anything by mouth. He just covered his Austin's hand with his when he didn't even have the strength to squeeze it. "It's not dying I'm scared of, it's pain. I'm not angry, I-I don't blame you. I'm just tired. I don't know if I can do this anymore. I never wanted to give up, but I... I... it hurts. It hurts so much," he confessed in a whisper. "Maybe I just really need a hug."

Years ago, Austin had thought the terror that struck him after a night of partying too hard and being unsure if he'd been safe would be the hardest thing he'd ever face. That or Angel's diagnosis of CFS, which Austin experienced on some level, too, because of the twin connection. He experienced Beau's pain in a different way than Angel's. It wasn't so much that he felt it as that he desperately wished he could prevent Beau from feeling it -- but then when given the chance to make it all stop for his husband, Austin had failed him, and miserably. There was no doubt that this may have been a hard time for Austin, but it was immeasurably harder for Beau, who was going through this hell.

"Don't be sorry," Austin murmured, his eyes still misted over with tears. "You have absolutely nothing to be sorry about." The contact from his husband's hand, resting so gently on top of his brought the weakest of sad smiles to Austin's face, and he was quiet, letting Beau's quiet words sink in as he sat at his husband's side. The pain Beau was in was so obvious that it hurt Austin to even think about it, and he felt sick to his stomach knowing that he could've let Beau's pain cease if he'd just fucking giving his husband what he'd asked for. "I think I can manage the hug. I can't... I can't make it stop hurting, but the hug? I can give you those as much as you want me to." And with that, he stood, and very slowly, with painstaking gentleness, shifted close to Beau to embrace him quietly.

There was little else left Beau could do but cry. Sometimes, even when he didn't want to cry, he did anyway because he couldn't prevent it. The bad days, he could just lie on bed crying until his body was even too exhausted to allow that. That was how he had been feeling constantly lately. At least, lately before this happened anyway. He had no recollection of much immediately before it. He vaguely remembered Tara visiting, but he had already been waning by that point. His only awareness had been the fatigue and pain. It had been fatigue and pain for days, weeks even. It had just gotten worse to the point he had struggled to fight. Things had been playing on his mind, but it was a confusing mix. There was an awareness to him like he was fading. It was impossible to explain to anyone when it was only patchy in his own mind. He knew he had been fading, something inside him was gone. Maybe it was the infection, but he had known, even just very briefly, that he was losing some sort of fight. He wanted to just close his eyes and let it fade to black, and he had been at peace with that because now he realised at that point, there hadn't been any pain.

He just didn't know if he should share that awareness with Austin right now. They had gone through a lot, but there was a fearful uncertainty now about whether he was putting too much on Austin. Had he been asking too much of him from the get-go? Had it been completely selfish to even ask him to let him go if he got too sick? All this just came out in a soft sob against Austin's shoulder in the hug. It was choked and it was breathless. He couldn't even put his arm up to return the embrace because all his extremities felt like they were made of lead, or even strapped against the bed. "I don't know what's supposed to happen now. Are we even going to be okay...?"

Beau felt so tiny wrapped in Austin's arms. He'd always been shorter... A good five inches shorter than Austin. But before he'd gotten sick, Beau tended to stay in good shape, healthy. There was hardly any shape left to him at all now. He was so fucking small, and Austin swore he could feel his bones when he hugged him. Maybe he was imagining things but there was no doubt that his husband had lost a ton of weight... and was incredibly weak. A new wash of pain rolled over Austin as he held onto his husband with the realization that this was something that Beau could've been done with, and he wasn't. Under the sleeve of his hoodie... one of Beau's he'd been wearing a lot... he could feel the slight itch of the tattoo healing on the inside of his forearm. It had been a tribute to his husband, but while he'd been able to sit through that, he hadn't done his only job as a husband, which was to protect the man he loved from as much pain as he could. It was something that he was going to have to deal with now, but it was a hard pill to swallow.

The question from Beau caught Austin off guard, but it was a fair question to ask after everything. Austin pulled back just a little out of the hug to meet his husband's gaze, and fell silent in thought for a moment or two. "Baby, as far as I'm concerned, we're going to be okay. What happened... I know that I let you down by not being able to do what you asked. But it doesn't mean I don't still love you and want to stand beside you while you're fighting this. We'll get through like we always do. It may not be ideal... Hell, we know it isn't that. But it's what we have now, and I really hope that we're going to be okay through it."

Edited 2014-07-12 12:01 (UTC)

It was about then that Beau became aware of a chilled coldness throughout him. It was like when you went out on a winter's day and forgot your coat, with one of those cold breezes blowing that felt like it was seeping right into your bones. The hospital was clinical and sterile, so the feeling of an ICU wouldn't help that but he had lost a lot of weight and if he had been as sick as it sounded like he was, it made sense his body was struggling to regulate a core temperature. If your system had been artificially functioning with machines, everything was haywire. When Austin pulled back, Beau felt the loss of his warmth, and it was a long few moments he just lay there looking back at his husband. There were still tears on his cheeks, eyes heavy. "Will you be able to handle the things I say?"

Austin could love him to the moon and back, he could love him more than he had words to say, but that didn't mean their foundations hadn't been shaken. Beau was holding back, he knew it. Before, in his weakest and toughest moments, he would just talk to Austin, tell him whatever was going through his mind without any censoring. "Who do I talk to on the days it gets too much?"

"You talk to me," Austin said softly, holding Beau's gaze with seriousness and dedication written all over his face. "Beau, when we got married, we vowed to be the ones that each other would lean on in the hardest of times. I'm not going back on that now. Yes, this... this was a definite breakdown of things for us. But it doesn't have to destroy everything we had going before. At least... I really hope it doesn't." He looked at Beau, uncertainty very plain in his eyes. It was a heavy thing, and it very clearly did have the possibility of changing their whole dynamic. But Austin knew without a doubt that this was a turning point for them, and if they didn't work together to find their way through this, it had the potential to break them. None of this was going to be easy, and it was going to take time, but Austin was dedicated to doing whatever it took to get through this whole thing.

"I know that you think that what I did is a sign that I can't handle this... Or... at least that's what I think you're saying. But Beau... I've been with you through all of this, and I'll stay with you every single step of the way. You need to know that you can always... until the very last breath... tell me anything you need or want to tell me... It's as simple as that." He fell quiet then, knowing that this conversation was heavy and loaded and probably one that was going to take a lot of work to get through, but Austin refused to bow out of all the things it meant to be the husband of someone who was fighting for his life. He just fucking wouldn't do it.

"That's not what I'm worried about. I'm worried that, on my worst days where I can barely get my head off the pillow, you're going to think at any moment, this is all going to happen again. And if it does, you'll panic about getting me any medical intervention I might need," Beau mumbled. The thing was, a DNR meant not to resuscitate. No artificial sustainment of life meant you didn't want life support. But there was a whole gamut of medical intervention that came before that. If Beau was sick, fevered, riddled with infection, he needed urgent medical attention or it would kill him. "Just because I want to die naturally doesn't mean I don't want help if I'm sick. Are you even ready to be able to make a call like that? What if I'm too sick to tell you what I need? Are you going to get cold feet on me now?"

He knew from the start, all along, this was going to be a lot to put on Austin's shoulders. In fact, he had talked it into Austin's psyche over and over again, trying to forewarn him how heavy it would all be. It wasn't just as easy as nursing Beau when he was sick, it was marrying him for better or worse, and sometimes, the worst was making choices for Beau. That was what Austin had done, but it had just been one of those few things Beau had requested because the suffering was bleeding him dry. "I don't want you to look back on any of this and just think... think you failed me with everything. You haven't. I still need you."

There was a part of Austin that genuinely felt like curling up into a ball and sobbing. This was so fucking hard and there was so much more to it than just loving his husband. Anyone who'd ever seen Austin and Beau together knew there was no question about that whatsoever. But sometimes love just wasn't enough to give you all the answers you thought you needed. Not even when you really wanted it to be. "On your worst days," Austin said softly, meeting Beau's gaze and holding it with a firmness that surprised even him. "I will be there beside you, and I will get you the treatment you need. But if your body... If you get as bad as you were before again... Darling, I will do my damnedest to let you go, just like you wanted me to before. We've made it this far, and yes, there were mistakes made along the way, but I've learned from it. I can't promise you I'll be perfect at this, but I'll do the best I can, babe."

Beau's words were heavy, but Austin needed to know the things he was saying, no matter what. "I just... I never wanted to let you down... make you feel like you can't trust me to do what you need me to do if that means letting go. I need you, and I know you're in so much pain, and it's like... This huge battle in my mind of what is the best choice... When it came down to it, there was just no letting you go. I couldn't, even though in my heart and my mind I knew that was what you'd asked me to do... I couldn't. And I'll understand if that means you want someone else to make your medical decisions. But I'm also going to do the best I can not to disregard your wishes again. It's just..." He paused, meeting his husband's gaze with a raw honesty that he couldn't hold back. "This... This almost losing your husband thing? It's really, really hard, babe. And I wish I could, for your sake, promise you that I will let you go if it happens again... I just don't want to promise you something that I can't keep."

Beau watched Austin's face tiredly. "Come here. Look at this... pull the gown down," he murmured, trying to weakly gesture Austin a little closer. It was a bit of a process, but finally he got to the point he was trying to be. With the front of his gown pulled down, it exposed all the wires and connections that came with being on any artificial respiratory or cardiac aids. Through all that, though, he could finally show Austin the burns from the defibrillator. He could feel them, he knew they were there without even needing to see it. "This is what happens when people are kept going with cardiac shocks. It's volts of electricity, and when someone is sick, there's no real hesitation to be careful. It's painful. Really, really painful. These are things I wish you never had to know, or to see. Some days, I think how much better you would be if you never met me in that bar that night."

It was a lot to confess, but it was human nature for him to have had things like that on his mind. Even more this. This was all hard to wake up to and realise. Fuck, had he known something wasn't right. It was patchy, but that final day when he had been so sick and the nosebleeds were torrential, he really thought he was dying. It had been a knowledge in his mind and in his heart, but when push came to shove, he hadn't been able to tell anyone to warn them. He didn't think that would have made anything easier on them. If anything, it would have made it so much harder. A few more tears dripped down his cheeks. "Then maybe someone else does need to be my proxy," he whispered hoarsely. It broke his heart to say, but he didn't want them to be right back here all over again if it happened again, if his body really was destroyed and only machines keeping him going.

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"Bring me back to you."

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