And now his tired patience was being rewarded, as dark eyes hazy with drugs and exhaustion finally cracked open.
“Hey,” he murmured, leaning his elbow on the edge of the mattress and stroking his other hand lightly against Ezra’s cheek. “You with me, sweetheart?”
Ezra closed his eyes again with a heavy sigh but turned his face into Jesse’s fingers regardless. “J’ss…” he breathed.
Jesse kissed his forehead and smiled widely. His mouth felt uncontrollable in how wide it stretched, but fuck decorum. Fuck it if he looked like an idiot.
“How are you feeling?” he whispered.
But Ezra was only drifting. He squeezed Jesse’s hand weakly and was gone again, the painkillers pulling him back under from one heartbeat to the next. Jesse pressed the button for the nurse and sat stroking his hand until the curtain was pulled back and the cup-of-tea sister from the first day clicked her way into the cubicle.
“He woke up a minute ago,” Jesse said, keeping his voice low as if he’d disturb Ezra again.
“Did he say anything?” she asked, plucking the chart off the end of the bed and scribbling a note.
“He said my name, but he went under again pretty fast.”
“Perfectly normal,” she said briskly. “He’ll sleep like the dead. Best thing for him. Did he seem to be in pain?”
“I don’t think so,” Jesse said, rubbing a thumb rhythmically across the back of Ezra’s hand. “He really should be out of it that fast?”
“You’ve obviously never broken your thigh, dear,” she said, patting his arm as she bustled around him to check the drip. “This can come down for the night and we’ll see if he can’t be woken enough to take fluids by mouth in the morning,” she murmured half to herself. “Yes,” she said to Jesse again, “it’s extraordinarily painful to break the thigh. He’ll be feeling it when they take down the morphine, that’s for sure.”
Jesse nodded, already beginning to tune her out. Ezra’s face was relaxed, and his fingers limp in Jesse’s—but it was just sleep now, not unconsciousness. Nothing worse than sleep. When the nurse slipped out again, Jesse bent over the bed to kiss Ezra’s temple, feeling the slow, calm whisper of a pulse in the thin skin there, and breathed lightly into his hair for a moment.
“I’m here,” he whispered, and Ezra’s fingers twitched.
Chapter Twelve
For the next four days, Jesse fell into a routine.
He returned to early-morning shifts, rising at five and working through until two or three in the afternoon, at which point he showered and changed at Ezra’s, fed the cats and headed to the hospital. Sometimes Mrs Pryce was there and they made awkward small talk or sat in silence. Sometimes she wasn’t, and Jesse could sit and hold Ezra’s hand and talk to him instead, even if Ezra couldn’t hear him and certainly couldn’t talk back.
Visiting was for family only until Ezra woke up properly, but Jesse had apparently passed muster as the partner. The side table was crowded with cards and plastic flowers sent from the school, the biggest from his tutor group, who dedicated it to ‘Mister Ez!’ in a slightly inappropriately cheerful fashion. But Jesse liked it all the same.
“That’s how important you are, babe,” he murmured after going through them on the second day, and Ezra’s fingers fluttered lightly in his.
Ezra was in and out of it, much as the snotty doctor had predicted. His right leg swelled up like a constricted balloon on the second day, and had to be drained, but he slept through it, wholly unaware of the entire palaver. When the evening nurses finally unstrapped his shoulder on the fourth day at the consultant’s approval, Ezra didn’t so much as frown. If he woke up at all, he mostly blinked and went straight back to sleep. His fingers would twitch a lot, and his face sometimes screwed up like he was in pain or having nightmares, but he never really woke. Jesse was left to talk to himself, doze in the visitor’s chair and practice his apologies for when Ezra did come round.
It was a lonely sort of existence, but it was his, for the moment.
On the fifth day, Jesse arrived very late. The shift had badly overrun thanks to a blaze that had gutted an abandoned farm building just north of the town, and he arrived flustered and still smelling slightly of woodsmoke, only to be pulled aside by Nurse Cup-of-Tea.
“He’s a bit agitated,” she explained when Jesse glanced questioningly towards the bay entrance. “He’s starting to come out of it more, but he seems to be quite wound up and we’re not sure why.”
“Is he in pain, or—?”
“He’s managing the pain very well.” The nurse shook her head. “I can’t explain it, dear, he’s just very antsy. See if you can calm him down a little, perhaps? If he does get more upset, we’ll have to have him sedated and you won’t be able to stay, I’m afraid.”
Her warning was chilling, but when Jesse slipped through the curtains into the cubicle, Ezra was asleep again. The heart monitor had been removed, but the oxygen tube was still there. The swelling in his face was reduced, even if his eyes were still ringed in dark, furious purple.
“Hey, baby,” Jesse whispered, pulling up the chair and tucking his fingers gently under Ezra’s. “Nurse says you’ve been edgy?”
He got a very gentle flex of the fingers and squeezed them lightly. They flexed again, stronger.
“Ezra?”
He was offered a breathy sigh, then Ezra’s fingers spasmed in Jesse’s hand and those foggy eyes were sliding open, pupils huge from the drugs, focus drifting absently over the ceiling.
Then he seized up, and Jesse moved.
“Hey, hey, relax,” he urged, half-rising to lean over the bed and force his way into Ezra’s line of sight. “You’re in the hospital, baby,” he said, and Ezra stared wide-eyed up at him. “Ez? Can you hear me, sweetheart? You know where you are?”
Ezra caught his sleeve with clumsy fingers. “J’ss,” he breathed, then his eyes were flicking around the cubicle, his hand beginning to tremble on Jesse’s arm. “Jess, can’t move. Can’t move m’legs, Jess, please—”
For a brief moment, Jess could smell petrol.
“No, sweetheart, ssh,” he coaxed, stroking a hand through his fine hair. “Listen to me. You’re in hospital, babe. You’ve broken your legs, that’s why you can’t move. You’re safe, sweetheart, I promise.”
Ezra clutched, still shaking, still wide-eyed with drug-induced panic. He couldn’t focus, Jesse realised. He couldn’t focus enough to realise that he wasn’t trapped. All he understood was the fear.
“Here, come here,” Jesse urged softly, sitting slowly back down and pushing himself as close to the bed as possible, laying an arm heavily over Ezra’s chest. That sometimes worked for nightmares or panic attacks—maybe it would work even here, despite the drugs. He pressed his head onto the thin pillow beside Ezra’s, until Ezra finally turned his face and tucked his nose into Jesse’s cheek, screwing his eyes shut and letting out a choked, breathy sort of sob. Jesse squeezed his shoulder, and felt the tremors beginning to die out again.
“Jess—”
“That’s it, sweetheart,” he murmured soothingly. Ezra’s fingers were tangled in his shirt at the elbow, and he felt them curl into the fabric at the endearment. “I’ve got you. You’re okay.”
It took another forty minutes for Ezra to doze off again, coming to in little fits and starts of momentary panic, but eventually he slept again, safe under Jesse’s arm, face tucked towards him.
Jesse held on, kissed his hair occasionally and ignored the nurse when she looked in and smiled.
* * * *
The next day, the curtains were open and the bed was gone. Jesse hovered in the doorway uncertainly, glancing about as if Ezra had been moved one cubicle down, and Nurse Cup-of-Tea appeared at his elbow.
“He’s down in X-ray,” she said cheerfully. “They’ll be putting a full cast on his left leg today. The skin’s healed quite nicely.”
Jesse fidgeted. “What about the other leg?” he blurted out.
“They’re s
till not sure.” She shrugged. “Cup of tea?”
When the orderlies came back, Jesse was perched on the visitor’s chair with a cup of unbelievably strong tea, and Ezra was actually awake, half-reclined instead of flat on his back, and he smiled drowsily in Jesse’s direction, a hand coming out vaguely towards him.
“Hey,” he mumbled, catching Jesse’s fingers as the orderlies parked the bed back in place and Nurse Cup-of-Tea fluttered about, checking his drip.
“Do you think you can manage a drink, dear?” she chirped.
Ezra curled his fingers around Jesse’s and hummed. “Maybe,” he said.
She waited, but nothing further was coming. Jesse suggested orange juice, and she disappeared. “You feeling better?”
“Mm,” Ezra sighed. “M’ribs hurt. And m’leg.”
He was more alert, though, and Jesse bit his lip. “You remember what happened?” he murmured.
“’Member you,” Ezra mumbled. “Where’d you go?”
“Hm?”
“Y’sterday. Or…earlier. Can’t ’member—”
“I went to your house,” Jesse said, propping one elbow on the mattress to stroke his fingers soothingly over Ezra’s forehead. His eyes were still drifting lightly. “Fed your cats, watered your spider plants. Ate your leftovers.”
Ezra half-smiled, turning his face into Jesse’s touch. “Good,” he murmured.
“How much do you remember?” Jesse prompted again, half-hoping he remembered nothing, and half-hoping he remembered everything. Hoping he at least remembered that Jesse had been there.
Ezra frowned. “You.”
Jesse’s heart swelled. “Me?”
“I—” He blinked slowly. “My leg hurt. Felt trapped, an’…you. I j’s—you were there.”
Jesse swallowed against the sudden lump in his throat.
“Made it okay,” Ezra mumbled, and his thumb twitched jerkily over Jesse’s knuckles, like he was trying to rub them but lacked the fine motor skills. “I wasn’t—I could do it, ’f you were there.”
Jesse took a shaky breath and the feeling clawed its way out. “Can I…just speak for a bit?” he whispered.
A spark of something—worry, curiosity, wariness—lit behind the fog, and Ezra curled his fingers into weak hooks digging into the joints of Jesse’s hand.
“You’re everything to me,” Jesse blurted out. “You mean the entire world. You’re funny and you’re kind and even when you think I’m being stupid or a freak, you still roll your eyes and smile at me, and you just—you love me, I know you love me, but I never knew why. And I’ve been waiting, you know, for the other shoe to drop. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up and realise I’m just this big, lumbering, stupid bloody idiot who breaks things all the time and says the wrong thing to your mum and picks a fight with your ex. I’m just this bum, muddling his way through, and you love me, and I’ve been waiting for you to stop loving me.”
Ezra was frowning, and shifting like he was trying to sit up properly and argue. Jesse dropped a hand to his shoulder, pushing lightly to keep him still.
“I always felt like I wasn’t enough. Your family don’t think I’m enough, and your ex-boyfriend is, like, infinitely superior to me, I mean, he’s well-off and well-educated and everything, and I felt so out of my depth. Like you were going to wake up at any minute. Then you were in your car and you were panicking and you were hurt and you nearly broke my knuckles, you held on so hard, and—and that was it. You just needed me, you needed me, and I realised I’ve been stupid and acting like an idiot over Liam and I’m sorry.”
“J’ss—”
“No, wait.” Jesse squeezed his hand as tightly as he dared until Ezra stilled. “I’ve never been enough, Ez. I wasn’t enough for my dad to stay, and I wasn’t enough for my mum to be happy once he’d left, and I wasn’t enough for anyone to ever actually date until you came along—and you were so perfect, how could I possibly have been enough for you?”
Ezra shook his head, a shine over the fog. Jesse winced. He hadn’t meant to cause tears.
“Always,” Ezra mumbled, and scowled, fighting to speak past the drugs. “Always enough for me. More’n enough,” he managed finally, and Jesse leaned close to kiss one gritty cheek and smile tremulously at him.
“I think I finally get that,” he murmured, and Ezra held up one weak, wavering hand to touch his ear. “You love me,” he said simply, “and you’re not the kind of guy to love someone who isn’t worth it.”
Ezra smiled sleepily. “Nope,” he agreed, and Jesse grinned, bumping their noses together. “J’ss?”
“Mm?”
“Love you.”
Jesse smiled, because it was true. It had always been true, he’d just been too thick to really hear it.
“Love you too,” he murmured, and Ezra’s smile was brilliant despite the haze. “You know I do. And I’m so sorry.”
“F’r what?”
“For the things I said,” Jesse murmured. “For the whole bloody argument.”
Ezra sighed, tugging weakly on Jesse’s shirt collar. Jesse cupped the curved fingers and squeezed them.
“N’t now,” Ezra mumbled. “Can’t focus properly. We n’d—need to talk ‘bout’t.”
“I know, but I am sorry,” Jesse insisted gently, and bit his lip again. He didn’t want to ask, but—but— “Ez? Do you remember telling the paramedic I was your boyfriend?”
“Vaguely. S’a bit fuzzy.”
“Is that still true?” Jesse mumbled, and went red when Ezra frowned at him. “I just—the argument was so—I was sure you were going to dump me, when you told me to come over. I thought—I thought we were over.”
Ezra huffed, grimaced, pressed a hand to his ribs and exhaled slowly into Jesse’s shoulder when he pressed closer to try to soothe him.
“N’idiot,” he mumbled.
“What?”
“You. Y’r a nidiot,” he mumbled, and clutched at Jesse’s collar again. “Not dumping you. N’d to talk, but not dumping you. Not f’that.”
Something loosened in Jesse’s chest, and he smiled into Ezra’s hair and kissed his scalp again, feeling suddenly freed. Feeling like the colour had come back into his world. Ezra wasn’t going to fight him on this. He was going to be there, all the way through this recovery, and Ezra was going to let him.
Nurse Cup-of-Tea returned with a tall glass of orange juice, and Jesse was shunted to the side while she sat Ezra up and persuaded him into drinking half of it, chattering on all the while about when he could start on foods and that if he woke up a bit more the doctor would come to talk to him tomorrow, and on and on and on—
Jesse held Ezra’s hand, stroking his cool knuckles, and let his shattered nerves heal.
* * * *
The next day was Jesse’s rest day, and he came in the moment visiting hours began, with a box of Ezra’s books and his fully-charged iPod. He also brought his toiletries, because the more Ezra woke up, the more ratty he was going to get about being bed-bound and smelling of hospital.
Ezra waking up properly had meant his visitors’ restrictions had been lifted, and it showed. A steady stream of visitors came and went for most of the afternoon. Several colleagues with yet more cards and presents from the kids, and a letter from Ezra’s substitute, threatening him with emasculation if he didn’t get in a damn wheelchair and return to work by the end of the week, preferably sooner. Jesse had never met Ezra’s kids or Darren Collingwood, but by the tone of the note, he didn’t need to. A woman from the floor below who’d been in one of the other cars came up to see him, and a policeman came to get Ezra’s statement. The policeman had been a surprisingly entertaining visitor, because he insisted he’d met Jesse at last year’s local gay pride and nearly had to arrest him for being too drunk, and Jesse went purple and tried in vain to remember him—or any of that day, really. Ezra simply lay and laughed quietly at the pair of them.
“I knew you used to get up to no good before I came along,” he murmured hoarsely once the policeman
had taken his full statement and gone. “God,” he groaned, and Jesse edged his chair closer to hear him properly. “My insurance is going to suck.”
“For the car? I doubt it,” Jesse said. “They’ll pay out. It went down on our records as a drunk driver.”
“Mm.”
Ezra was pale. Jesse stroked his fingers over the sheets.
“Pain?” he murmured.
“Mm,” Ezra repeated, and grimaced. “My leg. Bloody aches.”
“Well, you did mangle it,” Jesse offered. “The nurse said the doctor’s going to come up today and talk to you about it.”
Ezra went white.
“Hey, hey, come on,” Jesse coaxed as the clatter of the nurses bringing lunch began to sound in the main corridor. “It’ll be fine. Whatever happens, it’ll be fine.”
“What if they cut it off?” Ezra croaked.
“What?”
“I heard them,” Ezra said hoarsely. “I heard them, when they drained the fluid off my knee the other day. The doctor was saying the surgeon should have cut to the chase and sawn it off, and—”
“Hey, no.” Jesse slid an arm gingerly around Ezra’s shoulders, careful to avoid his battered ribs. “I talked to the surgeon, the day the—the day you came in. She was all optimism. She said, you know, it’ll take ages and everything and maybe it won’t be the same, but she said you won’t lose it.”
Ezra’s lip wobbled dangerously, then he twisted into Jesse’s arm with a grimace of pain, but clutching hard, determined to have the damn hug. Jesse clutched back, smoothing his hair in lieu of properly squeezing him like he wanted to, and grimaced when Ezra’s shoulders hitched alarmingly.
“It’ll be okay,” he promised. “Whatever happens, I promise it’ll be okay.”
“If they cut it off—”
“Ez, I would have cut it off if it would have saved your life,” Jesse said urgently, and Ezra’s fingers dug into his back. “You’re alive, sweetheart. And you’re going to stay that way, and you know, that’s all I’m asking for. Two people died in that crash. You could have died. If you’d—if you’d gone into deeper shock, or you’d panicked too much, you would have had heart failure, or bled to death, or just plain died of shock. You would have died. And now you’re not going to, and they can cut off both legs, but to me, you’re alive and that’s enough.”
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