Chapter Text
***
The hospital doors slide open with a hiss as Race walks in, backpack slung over his shoulder, fresh flowers in his hands. He flashes an empty smile at the nurse as she hands him his visitor’s badge for what feels like the thousandth time. She keeps her expression neutral, but he can tell she pities him. He can tell they all do.
He quickly makes his way to the third floor, clipping his badge to his tie as he does. He navigates the hospital as easily as he navigates his own apartment, which makes sense considering he spends less time there than he does here now, in his boyfriend’s hospital room. 313. A number more important to him than any other now.
The door is open and he hears the beeping of machines well before he enters the room. As much as he hates it, the sight of the love of his life lying there unconscious doesn’t faze him anymore. The bruises and the bandages and the life support machines, the half a dozen doctors and the constant rotation of nurses… it gets easier. It’s almost routine. Counting down the days until the month runs out and he has to make the final call on life support, it’s routine.
“What would you do if I ever ended up in a coma?” he’d asked him, years ago. An idle thought. A “could you imagine”, a joke of a question.
“I’d be sad that my beautiful boyfriend couldn’t sing to me anymore.”
“I’m serious.”
He’d sighed, rolling his eyes. “I dunno, I wouldn’t wanna be a vegetable. Would you?”
“Nah, just pull the plug. I’d definitely hate that.”
“Got it. Me too. A month, tops.”
“Deal,” he’d laughed. “I’m glad we covered that. Now pick a movie, for the love of God.”
A month, tops. 30 days. What Spot and Race had both put in their living wills as part of their advance directives.
The accident had been three weeks and two days ago.
***
Spot hasn’t texted him back, which would be fine, except he’s starving and his extra help had run over because he had to stay to help make sure his kids understood at least the basics of derivatives for their test tomorrow, and it would be really really great if Spot could pick up dinner for them on his way home from the office.
(5:41) Race: spot
(5:42) Race: spotttttt pls get dinner :,))))
(5:42) Race: chinese? i’m craving it
(5:48) Race: is this because i told you your nature documentary was dumb because i’m sorry it’s not nature is great i am so hungry oh my god
(5:55) Race: i think i’m dying tbh
(6:00) Race: ugh i’m gonna be home soon i GUESS i’ll order delivery
(6:01) Race: answer ur phone u fucker i KNOW ur done at 5:30 today
(6:30) Race: spot wtf
(6:33) Race: are u cheating on me :,( or are u getting surprise chinese :,)
(6:56) Race: spot can u call me back or at least lmk ur alive pls i’m getting worried it’s not funny
At seven, he calls Jack. He’s trying desperately not to let his mind race ahead of him but his voice is shaking as he asks, “Hey, have you heard from Spot at all today?”
“No, I texted him last night but I haven’t talked to him today. Why, are you alright?”
“Yeah! Yeah, fine, just - haven’t heard from him in a bit. I’m sure it’s fine.” Totally fine. “I’m, um, I’ll call you back later, okay?”
“Yeah, let me know when you hear from him.”
“Mmhm.”
“I’m sure he’s fine, Racer. I mean, it’s Spot.” Jack doesn’t sound worried at all, and Race tries to let that calm him.
“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Bye, Jack.”
He hangs up before Jack says anything else, trying to ignore the pounding in his chest. It’s Spot. It’s Spot, he’ll be fine.
At seven-thirty he starts pacing, keeping in time with the ticking of the clock in their living room. At eight, he sits down on the couch, directly opposite from their front door, and calls Spot for the fourteenth time. It goes straight to voicemail this time, which could mean a lot of things.
“Maybe his phone died. Maybe he’ll be home any minute,” he whispers to himself. He doesn’t believe it, not even a little bit. Spot never lets his phone get below 70%, a trait that Race thinks is hilarious considering his phone is always running at somewhere around 15%.
(Not tonight. Sometime between the pacing and the sitting and the waiting, he’d plugged his phone in. It sits at 100%, waiting.)
It’s 10:03 PM when his phone rings. He lunges across the room from where he’d resumed pacing, nearly ripping the charger out of its port as he presses answer without even bothering to check the caller ID.
“Spot, thank god, what the-”
“Hi, is this Anthony Higgins?”
His heart stops as the unfamiliar voice on the other end of the phone continues. “My name is Dr. West, from NYU Medical Center. I’m calling about Sean Conlon.”
***
“Hey, Spotty,” he says quietly as he drops his bag next to the visitor’s chair already pulled up next to the bed. “I brought you new flowers, which I know you would hate if you were awake, but… gotta find some humor in this situation somewhere.”
He changes the flowers out, refilling the vase Katherine brought with fresh water, and then sits down in the chair next to Spot, grabbing his hand in his own.
“So, you know that test my BC Calc kids had a few weeks ago? Well, I finally got around to grading ‘em, thought they would be absolutely terrible. Turns out I’m an even better teacher than I thought,” he laughs. “The average was, like, a 92. They better kick ass on their AP exam, I swear to God.”
He continues on like that, telling Spot about his day, as he has every day for the last 23 days. About his kids, his tutoring, about Jack and Katherine and the rest. He keeps his voice upbeat and cheerful, carefully neutral when he feels himself getting emotional.
The doctors have told him more than once that it’s questionable whether or not Spot can hear him. That with the CT and MRI results, the unknown extent of the brain damage, the less-than-satisfactory brain activity, it’s not very likely.
As far as he’s concerned, the doctors can go fuck themselves.
***
They tell him it was a drunk driver. Some idiot who got smashed before 6 PM and drove their Range Rover into his boyfriend.
Direct collision. Full impact. What would’ve been a hit and run, if the driver hadn’t crashed into a pole a minute later.
It could’ve happened to anyone. It could’ve happened to anyone.
He keeps it together well enough as they explain what’s happening now. He doesn’t register more than that Spot’s in surgery, that’s he’s been in surgery for hours and will probably be for several more, and that he’s in critical condition. Race is already out the door, car keys gripped tightly in his hand as he makes his way down to the garage. He doesn’t waste time on tears, mind overwhelmingly loud as he drives to the hospital.
He doesn’t remember the last thing he said to Spot. Had he kissed him goodbye?
Had he kissed him goodbye?
Goodbye.
Goodbye.
The word echoes in his brain and he turns the radio on, blasting it as high as he can to drown out his thoughts.
He parks as close to the hospital as he can in a no-parking zone, ignoring the dirty looks he gets as he gets out of the car and walks towards the emergency room entrance. Time slows down as the doors slide open and he walks into what has to be the busiest ER he’s ever seen. There are people screaming from behind curtains and family members crying in the waiting room and everything is so loud and -
“Sir? Can I help you?”
He turns around to find a nurse staring at him, a mildly bored look on his face.
“Uh…” He shakes his head to clear it. “I’m Ra- Anthony Higgins. I’m here for Sean Conlon? He’s my boyfriend, he was in an accident.”
The nurses raises an eyebrow. “Boyfriend? Were you called by our staff?”
“I- yes, yes, I’m his next of kin. He doesn’t…” Race’s voice cracks and he swallows hard. “I’m all he has.”
The nurse’s expression changes and he nods, leading him out of the way, towards a desk in the corner. He types rapidly on the keyboard in front of him, and somehow the sound of the keys is louder than every other noise in the ER put together.
The nurse nods, muttering under his breath, “Sean Conlon, OR 4… okay, yeah.” He looks up at Race and plasters on the same smile Race uses when he tells a student they’re failing his class. “Did they explain what happened to him to you?”
“I- y-yeah, he got hit. Drunk driver. They said… they said he was in critical condition.”
“Yes, it’s rather touch and go right now. If you want, one of the interns can take you up to the third floor, that’s the floor all of our operating rooms are on, you can wait in the waiting area there.”
“Touch and go, as in…”
The nurse sighs. “It was a bad accident. Sean suffered life-threatening injuries, but our surgeons are doing everything they can to save him. If you go to the waiting area, we can get one of the surgeons out to update you as soon as it’s possible, okay?”
“Okay,” he echoes. He’s lead to the third floor by an intern who’s far more interested in the case he’s currently missing out on to walk Race to the waiting area than in offering any words of comfort. Race is grateful for it. If someone tried to offer him condolences right now, he’s pretty sure he’d lose it.
Instead, he buys himself a cup of coffee to keep himself awake, and sits in a chair in the corner of the waiting area. And waits.
And waits.
And waits.
***
He stopped talking to Spot hours ago, instead grading tests at the table in the corner of the room. Running out of things to say comes easily with the territory of visiting several times a day, every day, but he knows Spot’s never minded the comfortable silence that stretches between them.
He just wishes it wasn’t because they had no other choice.
***
The clock on the wall only says 4 AM, but Race swears he’s been in the waiting room for days. Doctors have come out three times now to update him, but he’s barely processed any of it beyond the fact that Spot being in surgery for so long means that he sustained life-threatening injuries. And that putting him back together is pain-staking and difficult.
We still don’t know if he’ll pull through, but we’re doing everything we can.
Do whatever you can, he’d begged. I don’t care what you have to do, please just save him.
The doctors who come out to update him every once in a while are kind, giving him warm and encouraging smiles that somehow don’t seem practiced, even though he knows they are. Even though he knows that they’re just signs of good bedside manner.
Jack had texted him hours ago, asking if everything was good with Spot. Race hadn’t been able to answer him back, hadn’t been able to bring himself to type the words out.
Spot’s in the hospital.
Spot’s in surgery.
Spot might be dying.
Spot might be dying and I don’t know anything.
He could be dead right now for all I know.
It’s a relief when his phone dies and the pressure to figure out some sort of response dies along with it. He knows he’ll pay for it later, knows Jack is probably worried sick, but he has more pressing things to worry about right now.
It’s nearly 6 AM when one of Spot’s surgeons comes out again. Race snaps awake from his half-asleep state immediately, jumping up to meet her in the middle of the waiting room.
She smiles warmly at him, and he thinks his knees might buckle in relief. A smile means he’s good. A smile means he’s okay. A smile means he’s alive.
“Is he-”
“He’s stable. We finished up the surgery and they’re bringing him up to the ICU now, I can explain in greater detail the extent of his injuries and how we operated but you should just know he’s alive and, for now, he’s stable.”
His heart drops. “For now?”
“With accidents like this, it can be unpredictable for hours afterwards. It’ll really be a wait and see, but right now, we’re optimistic. There were, however, complications during his surgery that may result in more drastic actions needing to be taken, but that’s something to be determined later on.”
The only medical knowledge he has comes from shitty TV dramas, but he knows if there are complications during a surgery, it’s never good. “C-complications, what kind of complications?”
“His heart gave out about midway through. We were able to revive him, but the stress on his heart plus the other injuries to vital organs and to his brain mean that things will be, well, touch and go for a bit. But for now, he’s stable, which is a good sign.”
Tears prick at the backs of his eyes and he forces himself to keep them at bay as he asks the one question he cares about above all else now - “Can I see him?”
The doctor smiles again, and this time it grates on his last nerve. “It’s very late, and we’re not exactly sure when he’s going to wake up. It might be best if you go home and get some rest before you come back to see him.”
“No,” he says forcefully, shaking his head. “No, I- please, just let me see him, just- I need to see him. I’ll sleep after, I swear, just… I need to see, I need to see him."
She nods, placating, hand touching his shoulder soothingly. “Okay. Alright. I can take you to his room now and talk you through his surgery if you like?” He nods gratefully, and they start off down the hall.
“Is… I mean, he was in surgery for so long, what- what are his injuries, are they permanent?”
“His injuries are…” She searches for the right word. “Extensive. He suffered a direct collision with an SUV, those don’t come without considerable damage. He…”
The words blur together and Race is too tired to fully comprehend what he’s being told, but certain buzzwords make it through the haze. Blunt force trauma. Collapsed lung. Three broken ribs. Broken wrist. Damaged vocal cords.
“Sorry, did you- did you say brain damage?”
She nods at him, matter-of-fact. “The whiplash from the impact caused a lot of swelling, which is normal for traumatic brain injuries. In this case, though, the extent of the brain damage is unknown right now, and will be until he wakes up.”
“But… I mean, you’re positive he’ll wake up, right?”
He looks sideways at her as she purses her lips. “With a surgery like this, injuries like this, it’s impossible for us to give you a 100% guarantee. It really depends on the next 24 hours or so.”
“Okay.” His voice sounds shaky and fragile to even himself.
“This is his room here,” she says as they reach the end of the hall, tone softer now. “Don’t be alarmed by the facial injuries - they look at lot worse than they really are. But it’ll be an adjustment.”
Race nods, staring through the small window in the door. The bottom half of the bed is visible from this angle, revealing a cast on Spot’s left leg.
“I’ll give you some privacy, alright?” He barely hears her, opening the door slowly.
He’d thought the hours of worst case scenarios swirling through his head had prepared him for seeing Spot again. He’d been dead wrong.
He’d never seen Spot look so vulnerable.
Surrounded by nearly a dozen life support machines, he looks smaller than Race has ever seen him. His face is nearly unrecognizable, blue and purple and swollen so bad on one side it hurts to look at. He feels like he’s in a dream as his feet pull him closer, like any second he’ll wake up to Spot shaking him awake, asking if he’s okay, if he had another nightmare. Instead, when he reaches out an unsteady hand to gently touch Spot’s arm, Spot doesn’t move.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, words barely understandable as he chokes back the sobs he knows are coming. “I’m so sorry, Spot.”
He presses his hands to his forehand and takes a deep breath. “Fuck,” he breathes, and when he looks down at his hands, they’re shaking. “Fuck fuck fuck.”
It’s all he can do to grip the railing of the bed to keep himself upright before he breaks down, tears he’s been keeping at bay for too long coming hot and fast. They’re silent, the kind of agonized sob that wracks your body so hard you can’t get enough air to make a sound. The kind of crying that leaves you out of breath, tired and devastated and in physical pain.
Eventually, he winds up in a chair, head in his hands, tears long since dried, staring at Spot’s chest rise and fall, painfully aware that it’s only doing so because of the life support and not of its own accord. It’s only when a nurse comes in for mid-morning rounds that he realizes that it’s no longer Friday night but Saturday morning, and that he should really go home and get some sleep. He rises from the chair, presses a kiss to Spot’s forehead, whispers a promise of be back soon, and walks out the door. He’s halfway down the hall to the elevator when he stops dead in his tracks.
Going home means going home to an empty apartment.
Going home means going home alone.
***
It’s nearly nine in the morning when Race finds himself in front of Jack and Katherine’s apartment building. He’d abandoned his car, taking one look at the ticket he’d gotten from parking in a no-parking zone and opting to walk instead. The thought I need a fucking drink had crossed his mind as he walked, followed immediately by nausea as he thought of Spot in the ER, put there by a drunk driver, and then the realization that the sun was out and day drinking after being up for over 24 hours was probably the worst thing he could do for himself. So he’d walked, aimlessly, as far as his legs would take him in the state of exhaustion he was in. He only realizes he’d walked to Jack’s when he looks up and sees him standing right in front of him.
“Race? Jesus fucking Christ, I’ve been texting you all morning, are you okay? Is Spot okay? Oh my God, is Spot-”
Race holds up a hand to silence him, too exhausted to ask him to shut up. Jack’s face grows deadly serious, and he cautiously puts a hand on Race’s shoulder.
“Race?”
“I… I don’t- I mean, I can’t-” His eyes fill with tears, and he takes a breath to steady himself. Jack nods, understanding instantly like he always does, and puts an arm around Race.
“Not here. Come on, upstairs, come on.” He guides Race into the building and to the elevator, glaring at the oblivious woman who tries to board with them. Race doesn’t have the energy to be embarrassed as she steps out again, leaning against the back wall of the elevator tiredly.
“You look like hell Racer, what happened?” The question would be harsh if it were coming from anyone but Jack. Race looks up at the mirrored ceiling, and even the dirty, distorted image can’t hide the fact that he looks absolutely wrecked. Race looks over at Jack, who’s looking at him with nothing but concern, and back at the ceiling.
Jack gets the message. When we’re inside. Not here.
The second Jack closes the door to his apartment he turns on Race, who’s already collapsed on the couch, head in his hands.
“What happened, Race? You gotta clue me in here, you’re scarin’ me to death.”
Race laughs, a hollow, choked noise that fills the room. “It’s Spot,” he says, and it’s a shock he can get the words out with how difficult it is for him to even physically form them.
“He… he got hit,” he breathes, voice trembling. “By a car. He was in surgery all night, and I only just got to see him, and then they sent me home. They don’t know when he’s gonna wake up. Or if…” His voice hitches, and he wipes angrily at the tears that spill as Jack sits down next to him on the couch, face ashen.
Race waits for Jack to say something, to offer words of comfort like he always does. Jack always knows exactly what to say when it comes to his friends’ problems, always. Except now he’s staring at Race, tears in his eyes as he shakes his head slowly, and Race’s heart drops as he realizes there’s no words of wisdom coming. There’s no reassurance here.
“Hey Jack, I was just about to leave, I didn’t think you’d-” Katherine stops short where she stands at the top of the hallway, one earring in, the other still in her hand. “Oh, no.”
Race turns to look at her.
“I was gonna stop by your apartment before I went to work,” she says. “It’s Spot, isn’t it?”
Race cracks a smile - brittle, and barely there - and pats the couch seat next to him. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, it’s Spot.”
Katherine looks at the both of them - at Race, who’s so exhausted he’s beyond the point of tears, and Jack, who’s fighting sobs even as his breathing grows harsher - and sits down between them on the couch.
“Can you tell me what happened, or do you wanna wait?” she asks softly.
Jack looks to Race, who shakes his head and leans back against the couch cushions, eyes closed in defeat. Jack steadies himself, reaching over to grab Katherine’s hand.
“He was in an accident, Kath,” he says quietly. His grip on her hand is crushing, but she doesn’t flinch. “He was in surgery, and they dunno when he’s gonna wake up.”
“Oh God,” she whispers, shaking hand coming to cover her mouth in horror. “Oh God, Spot.”
She turns to look at Race, trying wildly to think of something to say, anything, when she realizes he’s passed out, fast asleep on their couch.
“Was he up all night?” she asks, already up and moving, grabbing the blanket from the other end of the couch and draping it over Race, who doesn’t even shift. Sheer exhaustion has knocked him right out.
“I don’t know, I don’t- I dunno, Kath, I know as much as you,” Jack stammers, running a hand through his hair. “I mean, probably, look at him, he’s a fucking mess.”
“Jack!”
“Sorry, ‘m sorry, I just- it’s Spot. Y’know, I mean…” He looks at Race, then back at Katherine. “It’s Spot.”
Katherine nods, smiles, and sits next to him, pulling him close so that his head rests on her shoulder. “It’s awful. I’m so sorry.”
“He’s my best friend Kath,” he says, sucking in a sharp breath. “We grew up in the system together. Crutchie is my brother, but I’ve always protected him, he doesn’t- he doesn’t know everything, doesn’t understand. Spot’s the one person who’s always…” He can’t bring himself to finish the sentence.
“I know,” she says, and her voice trembles. “I know.”
He takes one shuddering breath, and then another, and then finally lets himself cry, clutching Katherine’s arms as he sobs into her shoulder. He can hear her hushed cries and quiet sniffling from above.
“He’ll be okay,” she whispers eventually, still stroking his hair. “Both of them. They’ll be okay.”
“You don’t know that,” Jack says, and his voice cracks. He clears his throat. “None of us know that.”
“I know.” She leans her head on top of his. “It’s just what you say.”
He shakes his head, pulling back to look at her. “Race is a mess. I walked outside and he was just standin’ there, starin’ right through me. Like he didn’t even know me.”
“He’s scared, Jack. Spot’s unconscious in a bed right now.”
Jack sighs. “Yeah.”
“He’ll be okay,” she says again, and Jack nods, even though he doesn’t believe it. Even though he knows she doesn’t believe it either. “It’ll be okay.”
“Yeah.”
***
It’s eight at night when Race finally leaves Spot’s hospital room to go home. He’s finished grading his tests, he’s spent longer than necessary going over his lesson plans, and now he’s run out of excuses. He can only keep a one-ended conversation running for so long before it grows wearing.
Coming home to his apartment has become a necessary evil. At first he’d avoided it at all costs, crashing on friends’ couches instead. He’d barely set foot in the place except once, the night after the accident, to pack a suitcase of clothes for work, two sets of pajamas, and basic toiletries before he’d been out the door again, showing up on Jack’s doorstep, and then Albert’s, and then Davey’s, and then Jack’s again, until finally Jack had looked him in the eye and told him, in only the way a best friend could, to get his shit together and go home. He’d been furious, and he’d done it.
Finally going home had been a relief for his friends. A visible stepping stone, something to point at and say Look! I’m doing okay now! You don’t have to tiptoe around me anymore, I’m handling things, I’m back home, back in a routine. I’m doing okay, I swear.
He doesn’t tell them he still sleeps on the couch. Sleeping in his bed, in their bed, alone… he wouldn’t do that. Couldn’t do that.
After setting his alarms, he plugs in his phone (now perpetually at 90% or above; he can’t take the chance that the hospital will call and he’ll miss it), makes sure the ringer is on it’s highest setting, and sets it down on the coffee table. Mentally he checks off another day.
Three weeks and two days since the accident, done. One week left until the deadline.
He’d never realized how serious the word ‘deadline’ truly was until it was attached to an actual death. A hypothetical one, but still, a death nevertheless. One that was seeming less and less unavoidable with each passing day.
One week. Seven days. 168 hours. 10,080 minutes. 604,800 seconds.
The math calms him, gives his brain something to do. If he thinks about it long enough, divides the numbers long enough, they become meaningless, unattached to the countdown.
One week, seven days, 168 hours, 10,080 minutes, 604,800 seconds...