dreamlikenewyork | "Whatever it takes."

Who: Jace and Jesse Hartley
What: TLC
Where: Home
When: Thursday evening

It was Thursday evening, and it was on the back of a mostly quiet day. Jesse still wasn't doing the best, and they had been at the hospital during the day for him to get some blood tests and a CT and MRI scan of his brain just to see if there was anything more worrying going on than a straightforward exacerbation of his epilepsy. It had taken a lot out of him and he had been lying on the sofa since they got back from hospital, dozing on and off. Dinner had been a little while ago, but Jesse hadn't been hungry and only picked at the meal Christian male, having only a few bites. He went back to lie on the sofa and Jace did some of their laundry that had been piling up, including washing their sheets and shoving them in the dryer so they would have some clean and fresh bedding going to bed that night.

When the last load was put into the washing machine, walking past the living room quietly, he found Jesse was awake again and came in to see how he was. He laid down on the sofa beside him, arms wrapping around him in a cuddle and a tender kiss brushing his lips. "You're all cosy," he murmured appreciatively and started to rub Jesse's stomach through his t-shirt. "If you want to go to bed, I can put the spare set of sheets on. I just know they're getting a little old now. We need to buy some new stuff for our new place."

Their offer on the new apartment had been accepted and the sale was going through fast-tracked because the sellers were keen. Soon, they would be packing to move, but at this rate, they might need to hire someone because Jesse just didn't have the strength for it. "Do you want to talk about the tests you had today, or you're not ready yet?"

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There was nothing in the world that Jesse loved and appreciated more than cuddles and kisses from his husband. They just had that added sweetness when he wasn't feeling well. His body was taking its damn time in letting him recover from this relapse, but luckily when he was feeling in the okay-ish scale, he was still studying so he wasn't a complete waste of space. Now he had an armful of his favourite person in the whole world. Jace was so cuddly and it was nice to feel his warm closeness. "I can wait for the dryer to be done. This is nice. I don't want to move now."

He sighed, because it was all a pain in the ass. "I wasn't deliberately avoiding the subject. It was just going through the motions, you know? If it's the testosterone thing, it can be treated. I just want to make sure it's not something else. I know the last thing you want is for me to be feeling any sort of lacking because it's happening, but I still miss sex with you. I wish it wasn't happening." He kissed Jace again softly and then gave a small hum of contentment. "I love you."

"I love you right back," Jace promised with a gentle nuzzle to Jesse's cheek. This was nice. He was pretty sure he could fall asleep here and would be quite happy all night. Save for the fact he always got up to pee in the middle of the night around 1am without fail, and had been doing that since he was toilet trained. He remembered his family used to tag team him when he was really young so someone was always there with him to help him before he got more independent. "Seconded on the not moving thing. At least, until either of us need to. How are you feeling?"

He nodded. "No, I know. I just know it's not a very pleasant thing to talk about and you probably don't even want to think about it. You're not lacking. Everything is still attached, it's just not working right now. What else could it be if it's not the testosterone thing? If they treat it, will it be like Viagra and make you ready to go, like, every two minutes? Because I might need to find a better alternative to caffeine."

"You know that sort of dizzy feeling you get in your head when you feel motion sick, but not quite to the point you're nauseous? That's how I feel. The MRI always does that to me. Too much noise and feeling claustrophobic," Jesse murmured. He didn't like to be one to complain, but he was always honest with Jace about how he was feeling. Your husband was the one person you didn't have to put on a brave face for. "I can feel your heart beating. I think that's one of my favourite feelings in the world. I remember the morning after our wedding, you were in such a deep sleep lying across me, and I could feel your heart beating away. I don't think I'll ever forget waking up that morning."

He had spent a lot of time in an appointment with Evan regarding the head scans, and then with Jason, the new path collector who was chatting away with him and turned out to be Liz's younger brother. But after that, he had an appointment with Joey, who had been amazing and spoke with him at length. Jace had sat outside in the waiting room for that appointment, just in case Jesse wanted to talk about anything private. Jace was amazing, but even as the appointment went on, Jesse knew he would relay it all to his husband. "They usually break it down into physical or psychological causes. Things like stress, anxiety. There's been that, but I've had a lot of that, and this has never happened before. The physical are along the lines of the lowered testosterone levels, prostate cancer, hemochromatosis, epilepsy, MS, hyper or hypo-thyroidism. Don't panic on me, though. Joey's pretty sure it's only going to be the testosterone thing because of all the seizures I've had. He still wanted to test for a range of things to be on the safe side, though."

That was a feeling Jace was definitely familiar with, and it earned Jesse another comforting kiss and a little bit tighter cuddle. He put his hand up and soothingly stroked his fingers through Jesse's hair while he listened to him talk. "I hope you start to feel better soon, baby. I know it's not nice and you haven't been feeling great for awhile. You start to worry that maybe you won't get better, but you will. Until you do, it's okay that you need to keep resting. I'll be still here with you. Our wedding night and honeymoon were some of the best moments of my life. I felt loved in ways I didn't even know existed."

Then he stopped and he was propping himself up on his hand so he could see Jesse's face. The look on his own face was alarmed. "None of those things sound very reassuring, you know. What if it's prostate cancer? And I... don't even know what a hemochromo whatsit is. That sounds bad. What if it's something really bad?" he fretted, not meaning to get anxious about it all, but it was never easy to have tests happening and to be poised for possibly some bad news.

Jace hit the nail on the head, and this was part of the reason Jesse knew he was so fucking lucky to have him. Times like this, a snuggle and a chat were the best medicine. "You'll be loved like that for the rest of our ever too. Are you excited about moving? I feel so useless. I tried to even make a start on the packing and I had to sit down because I had one of those dizzy spells again."

He knew exactly where this was going to lead, and he couldn't help a faint smirk of amusement. "It's not prostate cancer. My prostate is perfectly normal, so you can cross that off the list. Hemochromatosis is an hereditary condition where the body creates too much iron and one of the symptoms is impotence. The treatment is simply removing excess blood products, no more big a deal than donating blood. Because of all this shake up with my paternity, Joey said it's best to be conscious that my medical history has now changed significantly so the tests are a good idea. It's nothing to worry about yet, sweetie. I promise."

"I am, but I'm not too keen on the thought of it when you're sick. For that very reason. I know what it's like to have the whole seizure recovery thing be like a stuck record where it keeps skipping over and over. You keep having fits, and it sets you right back to square one. In the meantime, you just feel so shitty, that you can't do anything and you feel like a waste of space. But you're not a waste of space. This is my turn to take care of you, because even though I know you're my legal carer, I'm still your husband and that's how it works. You don't have to pack. We have friends and family who can help," Jace insisted, because the last thing he wanted was Jesse stressing more when stress was already causing this stuff for him.

But then he was pausing, because it his brain needed time to process this one. He sat up a little, blue eyes on Jesse's face. "How do you know... was there a test you had done...?" The question was hesitant, before suddenly, the penny dropped. If it was already done, then they weren't waiting on the results. He was whipping his phone out because he needed to know now how a doctor had tested his husband's prostate. Google on a phone was an awesome thing. Wikipedia gave him the answer and then there was a sudden, "Oh my god! That's not free range territory! Oh my god!"

"Whatever it takes."

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