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Neil was almost falling into a fitful sleep when a knock rose him from the bed. He looked at Andrew, sleeping deeply, and smiled softly. He deserved that rest after being an unstoppable wall in front of their goal, keeping Kevin’s team from scoring and grabbing the victory from their friend’s claws.
Neil was still smiling a little, imagining the size of the spider that Luke was going to ask him to kill, when he opened the bedroom’s door and the dead weight of a young boy fell over him. Only his reflex and fit body kept them from falling to the floor.
Neil’s heart started hammering inside his chest when he felt Luke’s ragged breathing.
“It hurts, dad…” was the only thing he said, before the boy started whimpering in pain.
“Andrew!” Neil called, urgently, maneuvering Luke’s body to lay him softly on the floor.
Andrew jumped in the bed, his arms moving around him at Neil’s panicked voice and before Neil could say anything else, the blonde was already turning on the lamp on the bedside table. At seeing Luke’s fallen body and Neil checking his body in search of damages, Andrew almost flew to them and kneeled on Luke’s other side.
“What happened?” Andrew asked, noticing Luke’s scrunched face and his labored breath.
“There’s no injury, but he has a fever… Where does it hurt, son?” Neil asked and Luke moved his arm slowly to touch his right side, near his hip. “I’m going to press here, alright?” Neil said and Luke nodded softly.
When Neil’s fingers touched the place where he knew the appendix was, Luke howled in pain.
“Shit… It’s his appendix… we have to take him to the hospital now!” Neil said, and Andrew was already grabbing their wallets and Luke’s ID, making sure he had the car’s keys while Neil rose with Luke on his arms.
When Neil reached their front yard, Andrew already had the car working and as soon as Neil closed the back door, there were no traffic laws in Andrew’s mind. During the trip, Luke puked in the car, but nothing could deter Andrew from his mission of taking Luke as quickly as humanly possible to the hospital.
When they entered the emergency room, some nurses and doctors were moving around, tending to other patients, while others kept typing on computers, ignoring the couple’s frantic search of someone to help.
“Listen you fucking assholes! My son is in pain and I’m gonna start punching people if someone doesn’t help him!” Neil roared, while Andrew supported Luke.
Two nurses stopped typing on their computers and looked up. They run around their stations, grabbing a gurney on their way.
“Put him here. What’s his name? What happened?” the older nurse asked, checking Luke’s forehead.
“Luke… It’s his appendix…” Neil said. The nurse fussed around Luke, calling his name softly and making, mentally, her own observations.
“How long ago started the symptoms?”
“He just told us 30 minutes ago…” Neil replied and his heart stopped when the nurses traded a look.
“We are going to call the doctor. Please stay here! We will tell you more as soon as we can…” the older nurse took Luke away, while the younger grabbed a bunch of papers from their station.
“Are you his guardians?” the nurse asked and Neil nodded. Beside him, Andrew was frozen, his eyes stuck to the doors through which Luke was taken away.
“What’s his full name?”
“Luke Minyard-Josten…”
“Blood type?”
“B+…”
“Any history of diseases? Allergies?”
“I don’t remember…” Neil confessed and he felt himself drowning. He knew he read Luke’s medical file when they adopted him, but his mind came up empty.
“He broke his leg when he was four and had pneumonia when he was five. He is allergic to dust, but never had a strong reaction, only sneezing and a stuffy nose…” Andrew quickly took over the conversation and Neil sighed, letting Andrew’s hand squeeze his wrist in silent support.
The nurse wrote all the info in her papers and then asked Neil and Andrew to sign some of them.
“Can I ask something?” Neil said, when the nurse was already turning around to leave. She nodded. “When the other nurse asked how long ago the symptoms started, you looked at each other in a strange way… Why?”
The nurse looked between Neil’s nervous eyes and Andrew’s unsympathetic ones.
“Usually a fever so high and that amount of pain takes more time than just 30 minutes… Were you with him during the day?” the nurse asked and Neil wondered if she recognized them.
“We had a game. We were not with him between one o’clock and a bit after ten pm.” Andrew replied and the nurse nodded softly.
“But we can’t be sure without observing him… Don’t worry, the doctor will take care of him… Please sit there and wait…” the nurse moved away and Neil and Andrew sat in the two plastic chairs she had pointed at.
Neil rubbed his tights with his hands when he sat and sighed. He was silent for five minutes, before he turned to Andrew. He opened his mouth to say something, but the goalie stopped him.
“Don’t even go there. There’s no good thing in wondering about what happened or feeling guilty… We have to wait for the doctor to do his fucking job and get him well…” Andrew said.
“But…”
“Neil!” Andrew’s voice was sterner. “There’s nothing we can do now. If he was feeling sick and didn’t say anything, then we figure out why he didn’t tell us and make sure it never happens again, but if he told us as soon as he felt sick, we make sure he knows he did the right thing, so he keeps doing it. Now, shut up and stop feeling fucking guilty!” Andrew fell silent after that, and anyone else would think he was emotionless, but Neil knew better. He saw it in the way his fists opened and closed in regular intervals, the way his back was tense like he was readying himself for a fight, the way his eyes jumped to the clock on the wall every five minutes…
“Yes or no?” Neil asked suddenly and Andrew finally looked away from the wall in front of him. Neil pointed with his chin at Andrew’s hand and the blonde sighed, but nonetheless moved his hand, palm up, and opened his fingers, so Neil’s fingers could interlock with his. Neil squeezed Andrew’s hand and Andrew squeezed back.
The clock was their enemy, moving and moving and moving… and no doctor or nurse came to tell them anything…
Andrew was trying to stay calm for Neil’s sake, his legendary temper a ticking bomb that he couldn’t let explode in the middle of an emergency room, but even Andrew was starting to lose control over his emotions, control that he spent years working on and building. And a wisp of a boy, barely twelve years old was destroying walls left and right, and opening a can of worms that Andrew kept sealed for the last few years. The last time, Andrew let that can open, he was twenty years old and another wisp of a boy had been taken away from him to be killed by the man that was supposed to care for him above all else. That boy came back to Andrew: hurt, traumatized, sad, but he came back. Luke was coming back, too…
Right?
Andrew shook his head to dispel those dangerous thoughts. He was not going to let his mind win that battle, not when Neil and Luke needed him level-headed…
When, finally, a doctor called for Luke’s family, the sun was already rising and Neil and Andrew felt stiff and ready to burst.
“We had to operate Luke, it really was appendicitis and it evolved really quickly. You brought him right on time… He is now sleeping, but will wake up in a few hours. If you want to come with me…” the doctor gestured for them to follow, while he explained how the symptoms developed while Luke was sleeping and he only felt the pain when it reached high levels. “When we gave him some painkillers, he told us everything… You have a very strong boy there… And he was worried you might be panicking in here and destroying stuff with your racquets…”
Neil smiled a little, still too much on edge to fully appreciate the humor in the doctor’s tone and by Andrew’s dark expression, he was not finding the doctor’s words all that funny either.
Neil and Andrew stood beside Luke’s bed, statues-like, until the boy opened his blue eyes.
Luke’s eyes moved around the room, noticing the white walls and white sheets, until he found them, stone faced, holding hands and barely breathing.
“You look like gargoyles…” Luke commented in a hoarse voice.
When Neil tried to talk, he found a lump on his throat and couldn’t say a word. Andrew rolled his eyes at Neil and approached Luke’s bed.
“Hey, pest…”
“Hey, old man…”
Neil moved next to Andrew and touched Luke’s hair.
“Hey, Squirt…”
“Hey, dad…” Luke replied and then sighed. “Look, the nurse asked me if I kept the symptoms to myself… I don’t know what she told you, but I want you to know that as soon as I woke up I went to you…” Luke’s eyes shone with the need to explain. “I don’t want you to think I don’t trust you…”
“We know you trust us…” Andrew said. “But we also know you are too much like this junkie and sometimes think being a fucking martyr is the greatest idea on the planet. But be assured, it’s not! And if you don’t want to clean all the neighbors’ yards you better not forget it!”
Luke smiled at Andrew’s words.
“Damn, old man, people will think you are an emotional wreck!” Luke joked and Neil finally chuckled softly. “Ah! There it is! I was starting to get worried…” he looked at Neil and smiled.
“Sleep now, Luke. We will be here when you wake up again…” Neil kissed Luke’s forehead softly and felt the boy’s eyes close when he moved away.
“Fucking pest…” Andrew commented, while grabbing a chair and sitting on it, with his feet on Luke’s bed.
“Careful, Andrew, people will know you care… Let’s not give them a heart attack…” Neil said, while closing his eyes.
Andrew wondered between pushing Neil out of the chair or punch his face.
“Yes or no?” Andrew asked, making his choice.
Neil opened his eyes again. “Yes.”
Andrew moved closer to Neil, his lips a few centimeters away from the striker’s, and Neil smiled, feeling Andrew’s breath on his face.
“Over-worried junkie…” Andrew commented before letting his lips say what he couldn’t and Neil answer the only way he knew.
“C’mon, old man! Too much PDA!” Luke’s screech made Neil jump and fall from the chair.
Andrew looked at him on the floor and smirked.
“I didn’t even had to do anything…”