by Cole McCade
Joseph hooked his arm around Wally’s waist and jerked him closer, leaving his stomach and heart and a few other vital things behind and racing to catch up. Before he could even gasp, Joseph buried those strong, thick fingers in Wally’s hair and drew him down, capturing his mouth and stealing his breath and utterly scattering his thoughts until he melted into a complete wreck: groaning in the back of his throat, clutching at Joseph’s shoulders, leaning into him and desperately pleading that those hard, taut muscles would hold him up when his body no longer wanted to work. Not when Joseph kissed him with such savoring fire; not when he was left helpless to that firm pressure and stroking, silk-slick touch and the taunting flicks of a devilish tongue; not when a hard hand against his back kept their bodies pressed so tight together that Joseph’s belt buckle ground into him, digging in hard yet he didn’t give half a bloody damn for the pain. Wally shivered, every inch of him too warm, until his bones turned pliable as melted candy.
Joseph Armitage was going to make a complete mess of him.
And Wally was going to let him.
He didn’t want it to stop. Not when Joseph had kissed him first; not when Wally had never realized how much it hurt to always be the one reaching out for someone else until someone reached for him. This was everything he needed…and it was over too soon. He fought himself not to cling as Joseph parted their lips, both their breaths rasping loud between them as they leaned hard into each other. He was helpless to resist, when Joseph’s mouth was so wet and red, and he stole another kiss, reveling in Joseph’s deep, throaty moan as Wally stroked his fingers through the scruff of his beard and thrilled at the prickling roughness as that sharp-edged stubble scratched at his mouth and left it tender and aching.
“You,” Joseph rumbled against his mouth, “are going to kill me.”
Wally laughed breathlessly, leaning his forehead against Joseph’s. “I take it that means you’d like to see me again.”
“If I say no you’ll show up on my doorstep with muffins anyway.”
“Say yes, then.”
“Yes,” Joseph said, and leaned up to catch Wally’s lower lip to nibble and tease, dropping the earth out from beneath him and leaving him falling on the wild waterslide rush of his pulse as that hot mouth closed over his flesh and suckled and taunted, playing at every bit of sensitivity until Wally was gasping, clasping at Joseph hard—only for that bloody ass to draw back, a pleased smirk on his lips as he drifted a few steps away and left Wally clutching at the fence to stay upright. “Goodnight, Walford.”
Wally draped himself against the fence, watching Joseph as he nearly strutted up his front walk with his crutch tucked jauntily under his arm and a certain lightness in his step. And Wally felt quite the lovesick fool, for the smile that spread across his lips when Joseph paused at his door and turned back, lifting his hand in a wave.
Wally raised his hand in an answering wave, then made himself pull away, sighing as he turned toward home—even if it was the last place he wanted to be, tonight.
“Goodnight, darling dear,” he whispered, and slipped off into a night now filled with possibilities.
CHAPTER TEN
JOSEPH WOKE TO THE CLINGING sweat of an early summer morning, and the choking sensation of drowning in pain.
He couldn’t get enough air. Not when every time he tried to breathe in, his entire body contracted with painful spasms, his legs jerking against the bed until the frame rattled, his arms shaking when he tried to lift his hands to rub his chest, sucking in great, gasping breaths. He had to breathe—had to count his breaths, because he wouldn’t be able to get this under control otherwise. He just needed a minute. One minute of stability, enough to reach for the pills on the nightstand and get the bottles of oxycodone and methylprednisolone open. Fuck. Fuck, had he remembered to take his interferon at all this week? Had he even checked his schedule before bed last night? He’d been fucking drifting, so caught up in this reckless tumble of emotion he’d forgotten for five minutes that for him, falling in love came with terms and conditions and he didn’t have any choice about signing on the dotted line.
He recalled a vague memory of the last injection sliding into his flesh, but he couldn’t think right now. His every struggling attempt to inhale burned, his chest tighter and tighter. He managed to roll onto his back, pushing himself with shaking hands that slid on the sheets until he dug a white-knuckled grip into the edge of the mattress and shoved. His body moved sluggishly, loosely, this dead and flopping thing that didn’t belong to him, but at least he was no longer constricting his lungs while curled up on his side with his own muscle mass pushing down on him and making it harder to breathe. He stared up at the rafters, sucking in shallow gasps, counting one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten until the numbers became everything. Counting didn’t help the pain, didn’t stop the shaking.
It just let him psych himself out long enough to do something about them.
On fifteen, he scrabbled for the nightstand and his pill bottles, and pawed the bottles onto the bed with a rattle of the contents inside. Willow had always poured the pills from the orange-brown pharmacy bottles with the child safety caps into easy little flip-top bottles originally designed for people with arthritis, and he was grateful for it now when he barely managed to thumb the bottle caps back and let the pills spill across the bed. The little white pills mingled on the sheets, distinguishable only by their shapes—one round little drop of bitterly necessary poison, one oval. Joseph used his fingertips to fold two oxycodone and one methyl into his palm; with the way his hands shook, his motor control was too fucked to even think about picking the pills up between his fingertips with any kind of precision. He fumbled them to his lips, tossed his head back to flip the bitterly chalky taste past his tongue to the back of his throat, then swallowed dry, laid back, closed his eyes, and waited for relief to come.
It took its sweet damned time, while he closed his eyes and tried to focus on nothing but the darkness and the quiet. Each time relief dragged its feet a little longer, though he knew why: a combination of accumulated tolerance to the oxycodone, and further degradation of the myelin sheaths coating his nerves. Multiple sclerosis had no cure. No way to undo the damage done. The only course of action was symptom management, and doing everything possible to slow the progression with any kind of medication he could—or any kind of medication he was allowed. He’d learned long ago to pace himself on the oxycodone; the cheap-ass doctor, who was all he could manage on the insurance provided by his early retirement pension, cared more about the potential to create this imaginary addict than the very real opportunity to ease equally real pain. So Joseph’s prescriptions were limited, and if he ran out of pills before his scheduled refill he’d have to listen to that bullshit doctor yapping about homeopathic treatments and cognitive behavioral therapy and alternative remedies when alternative remedies didn’t fucking work.
Like his problem was thinking too many bad thoughts. Even if stress aggravated his MS and led to episodes of inflammation, it wasn’t as though if he thought about happy fucking cuddly bunnies he would suddenly be all better.
But the oxycodone was working—creeping through his veins in a rolling fog and, if not eliminating the pain, then at least making his nerves blind to it. In some ways that was worse; it was easier to hurt himself when he couldn’t feel what he was doing to himself, but he couldn’t goddamned well get up and function if he was curled in a debilitating ball of agony.
And he wouldn’t spend another damned day in this bed.
Even if that was half his problem—and he laughed, though the sound that spilled past his lips cracked into a crazed and bitter thing, whooping at the edges. He dragged his hands down his face, his shaking fucking hands, because even if he couldn’t feel it they still rattled like goddamned jumping beans. Sometimes, he didn’t know when too much was too much. And last night, yesterday—everything had been too much. Walking around the city with Wally as if he had that kind of luxury: long, romantic walks, ignor
ing the crutch tucked under his arm as if it was an accessory and not the backup plan for when his legs failed.
He didn’t know what the fuck he was doing with Wally, anyway. Ever since that kiss he’d been watching everything he did from outside himself, marveling with a sort of dreamlike puzzlement, while his body did things on its own. Kissing Wally. Holding him. Lacing their fingers together and falling into this trip-stumble-flutter of a beating heart that used to burn with nothing but sheer betrayed rage. He didn’t understand how he’d flip-flopped so easily, unless all that vicious anger had been nothing but backlash against the pain of being let down by someone he’d cared for more than he’d ever wanted to admit.
Wasn’t that some emotionally repressed bullshit.
Better that than the alternative, though.
That he was lonely and Wally was as good as anyone, and reminded him enough of Miriam to easily take her place.
Stop that. You said yourself that they’re nothing alike.
But still those troubled thoughts rode him, as dark and heavy as the poisoned thing his body had become, a weight he couldn’t shake no matter how he tried.
On the nightstand, his phone buzzed. He dragged one hand away from his face and turned his head enough to see the screen. Wally. As if the man had known he’d been thinking about him. He knew that number on the caller ID; even when Wally had been forbidden from stepping foot in his home, he’d been one of Joseph’s ICE contacts, and Joseph had been one of Wally’s—for Willow’s sake, if nothing else.
Joseph stretched one shaking arm out, reaching for the phone.
Then let his hand fall short, pulling back and curling it against his chest, while the phone continued to buzz and buzz and buzz.
Part of him wanted to answer that call. Wanted the comfort of those soft hands cradling his head in Wally’s lap, the soothing stroke of that low voice telling him it would be all right. He hadn’t had the luxury to reach out to someone else when he was in pain for a long time; he hadn’t trusted anyone except Willow not to treat him like the Parisians had treated fucking Quasimodo, instead of like a man who needed the support of someone he loved. And he didn’t think Wally would do that, treat him as a burden, an obligation, a thing…
But a part of him didn’t want to ruin this, the first fresh blush of something new, by letting Wally see him this way again. He couldn’t handle it if the look in Walford’s eyes, when he kissed Joseph, turned from quiet yearning for the man Joseph was into quiet pity for the disease he wasn’t.
Eventually, the phone quieted. There came the muted melody of his voicemail notification, and Joseph imagined Wally’s cheerful chirping, bright to mask the worry Joseph knew would be there.
Hullo, chap or good morning, dearest boy, he’d say, and then rattle on about if Joseph would like breakfast or if he was fine on his own…and knowing Wally, he’d want to be here right now but was already fretting and worrying about being too clingy or presumptuous because that was how Wally was. Joseph should at least pick up the phone and listen—but if he did, the moment that recording ended his phone would roll over into Hi, Dad.
And when his every muscle fiber already ached down to the bone, he couldn’t stand to live the pain of that heartbreak yet again.
He stared at the phone miserably, until the voicemail ringtone ended.
Then he rolled over, gave his back to the phone, and willed himself to sink away from the drug-dulled echoes of pain and into sleep.
* * *
THE NEXT TIME HE WOKE, it was to the sensation of something cool against his brow, and chill water trickling down the sides of his temples—too cold against skin pulled taut and thin as the skin of a baked potato left in the oven too long, cracking and ready to split.
With a groan, he opened one eye. A pale face hovered into view, blurred but familiar, and though his eyes refused to focus he couldn’t miss the stark lines of concern carving canyons and crevices into Wally’s face.
Joseph closed his eye again, and lifted a hand to his face. A wet towel had been laid against his forehead, ice-cold but rapidly warming. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Following my instincts and checking on you. You’ve a fever.” The scrape of chair legs, and then the sounds of rustling clothing. “You really should try to remember who has a copy of your house key, you know.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Your daughter thought it might be wise.”
Joseph cracked one eye again just to glower at Wally. “You’re both brats.”
“I have never once attempted to deny that.” Wally had settled in the bedside chair, and now he leaned forward, watching Joseph with glistening eyes, before one long hand curled against his forearm. “You missed your interferon, didn’t you.”
“Yeah,” Joseph admitted reluctantly. “I don’t quite remember, but I think I did.”
“There are one too many syringes in the case.”
“You counted?”
“Last week.” Wally smiled, lowering his eyes sheepishly. “I thought it best to keep in the know.”
Of course he had. Of course Wally would think of such things, when all Joseph had been thinking was how fast he could get the intruder out of his house.
An intruder he’d ended up kissing a few days later.
Joseph laughed helplessly, pressing both hands over his face and scrubbing his fingers into his hair, the towel scrunching against his palms. He still had no damned clue what he was doing. Last week he would have been furious that Wally had barged into his house.
Now, he was simply…relieved.
Wally made a distressed sound. “I…are you delirious?”
Joseph let his hands fall away from his face. “No. More like incredulous.”
With a puzzled look, Wally retrieved the crumpled towel, then laid his hand against Joseph’s brow. His touch was too cool, bordering on icy, which told Joseph that he himself was far too hot. Wally clucked his tongue.
“A cold compress won’t be enough for this fever, darling boy,” he said. “Do we need to call a cab and take you to the hospital?”
“No. No hospitals,” Joseph hissed, tensing, then forced himself to relax. “I fucking hate hospitals. Just…” He turned his face away, staring at the wall without really seeing it. “Just let me rest.”
“Do you want your shot?”
“I don’t know if I should. If I should skip it until I’m supposed to take it again.”
“What does that mean, if you do?”
“Possibly nothing.” Joseph frowned. “Possibly staying in bed for a few days. Possibly staying in bed for a week. I never know. Most of the time it feels like my body makes these decisions for me, without consulting me.”
“And if you take it now?” Wally asked gently.
“A day of shitty side effects. Readjusting my dosage schedule.” And when he put it that way, he was tempted to skip it. When he thought of the chills, the nausea, the pain, but… “Being able to walk,” he amended reluctantly. “Being able to function.” When Wally looked at him, he sighed. “I know. I know. But I don’t think my hands are steady enough to manage the needle right now.”
Wally leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and tangling his fingers together, looking down at them quietly before he offered, “Mine are.”
Joseph arched a brow. “You know how?”
“You’d be surprised the hats I’ve worn over the years, love.” Wally’s smile was tired, but warm. “I shan’t hurt your pride further by making you ask. Simply tell me yes or no.”
Joseph bit down on the inside of his cheek to hold back the immediate, instinctive response to snap back no. He hated letting someone else inject him; he’d never known what was worse, having a doctor handle him like an unfeeling object, or having Willow look after him as though he was already old and senile and decrepit, with him sitting in front of his daughter in his damned underwear while she swabbed alcohol on his thigh and prepped the injection site.
But if it had to be any
one, he thought…maybe it wouldn’t be too terrible with Wally. He sighed, staring up at the ceiling, and forced one word out through his teeth.
“Yes.”
Wally smiled brightly and nearly bounced to his feet. “Then give me a moment, darling dear.”
Joseph watched skeptically as Wally skipped from the room.
No one should be that fucking cheerful about jabbing a syringe of interferon beta-1b into their fucking boyfriend.
…since when are you his fucking boyfriend?
Joseph would rather chew on a used needle than sort that out, and he shoved the thought forcibly from his mind as Wally came bustling back in with the basket Willow had used to organize and categorize Joseph’s medications. Wally set the basket down on the nightstand, tugged a pair of disposable latex gloves from their cardboard box, and snapped them on with theatrical aplomb. Joseph closed his eyes. He couldn’t watch. He couldn’t watch Wally fucking around in there like a cartoon mad scientist about to fuck someone up in his lab, even if he sure as hell felt like Frankenstein’s monster lying on the slab. But he had to ask:
“You know how…?”
“The diluent and then the interferon?” Wally filled in. “Yes, dearest. Willow had even written a little tacky note with the proper amounts for herself; it’s stuck right to the side here.”
“Okay.” Joseph closed his eyes and breathed out deep, and tried not to let his nerves get the best of him when they were already being complete fucking assholes to start. “Okay.”
He listened to the faint sounds of vials clinking, caught the smell of rubbing alcohol, and told himself it would be all right. It was hard to fuck up a subcutaneous injection, and he didn’t exactly have to worry about an air embolism unless Wally somehow managed to hit a vein. He trusted Wally to do this.
Didn’t he?
The clinking stopped; there came a wet swishing sound, and then Wally was back, his hands soft as they drew the covers down over Joseph’s bare chest. He’d fallen asleep in his boxer-briefs, and he felt small and naked now, wet and pink and newborn and mortifyingly vulnerable as Wally exposed him. Embarrassment burned in his cheeks, and even though he opened his eyes he couldn’t bring himself to look at Walford. Instead he turned his head, looking at the corners of the ceiling until Wally was a haze of color in his peripheral vision.
