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Two years. Nearly two years of this little ritual.
Of course, Izzy had started a little over a year before that, gritting his teeth and getting through it every couple weeks. But it seemed like something special these days. Something to be looked forward to rather than mildly dreaded, anyway. But looking now at the clock, Izzy sighed, wondering if this might be the first time Ed missed their appointment. He’d been a bit forgetful as of late. Always off gallivanting with his other friends, or – god forbid – Jack .
Izzy remembered the first time like it was yesterday.
They’d met in some sociology class, a prerequisite for their gen ed credits. Izzy sat in the back because in those days, he still felt like he might crawl out of his skin, jump through the roof with little provocation other than being perceived at all. He always arrived early to class, early enough to get his pick of the seats. In the middle so he could still read the board, but tucked against the back wall where he could blend into the background. Usually he could count on some of the surrounding seats to remain empty; even back then, he gave off a good enough fuck-off vibe to keep a nice ring of personal space empty around him.
But Edward had stumbled in, that first day, ten minutes late and grinning, and sat down right next to Izzy.
“What’d I miss?” He whispered, loudly unzipping his bag and pulling a notebook from its cluttered depths. His disorganization set Izzy’s nerves on edge.
“Still the syllabus,” Izzy said through gritted teeth, his fingers clenching around the pencil in his hand.
“Thanks, man.”
Luckily, he hadn’t been a horrible seat neighbor; after a few weeks, he’d even begun showing up on time, but often had to ask Izzy to borrow simple things like paper or pens or even, memorably, Izzy’s cell phone; he’d left his in his dorm room and needed to call work to let them know he’d be late for his shift.
That had been the start of it all, really. Knowing Ed did work-study too, had to scrimp and save for his pennies, unlike a lot of the privileged teens strutting across the university campus. Izzy could remember when they’d introduced themselves. Ed hadn’t even blinked when Izzy had introduced himself as Israel; he could remember the first time they grabbed coffee, the first time Ed had told him he wanted to go to nursing school.
He also remembered when their sophomore year ended. They knew they’d be pursuing different school paths, but they also knew they hated their respective roommates. Everyone tended to move off-campus by junior year; Ed and Israel, whom Ed had very quickly nicknamed Izzy, knew the value of the dollar and the discounts they could get by living on campus. It was a natural next step to roommates.
Ed was messy. Terribly so, really. His half of the dorm was always a cluttered nightmare to Izzy, who tried his best to ignore it, but went on monthly cleaning rages when he couldn’t take it anymore. But he said nothing, because Edward kept himself from staring every other week when Izzy huddled on his bed, hunched over with his little needle and vial.
Ed got accepted to the university’s nursing school. Izzy would never forget the way Ed had waited for him to open the letter. They’d both read the big, bold CONGRATULATIONS and started yelling, jumping around the room. Ed’s smile was the biggest Izzy had ever seen it. It made his heart feel like it was going to explode up out of his throat.
And, of course, there was the whole matter of the crush. Izzy had tried to deny its existence since the first time Edward sat down next to him in that fucking sociology class. He was all lean, lanky limbs, square jaw, curls the color of ink, the shadow of hair starting to grow on his face, that black band tattooed around his arm. His golden skin looked so soft Izzy longed to touch it, and he never wanted to touch anyone, ever. And the way his face moved when he spoke – Izzy hadn’t taken long to figure out each expression, each little nuance in the curve of Ed’s lips or the clench of his jaw. He learned to read Ed’s moods like one might read a map, and eventually began to navigate that map with a skilled hand, steering Ed toward clear waters as best as he was able.
He learned other things about Edward, too. How he’d been on track for Olympic swimming, but he’d hurt his knee, and no coach would touch him. How one week he’d been all the headlines in the local newspapers, and then one day he was lucky to eke out a minor scholarship to get him into college.
And, despite all attempts to the contrary, Edward learned about Izzy too. About his desire for a life of stability. His choice to major in business so he could make a solid living. About his parents, his church, his coming-out story.
He remembered easily when Ed started nursing school. All the excited, animated chatter about what they were learning, what he was doing. That had been the beginning of the ritual, after all. Ed started working in his skills lab, developing his nursing abilities to demonstrate in front of his instructors.
He remembered the day Ed had sat across the room from him, staring, for the first time, as Izzy jabbed his needle into his skin.
“Lose something?” Izzy asked, testily, as he held a small piece of gauze over the place where he’d injected himself.
“Just thinking,” Ed said, head cocked to one side. His hair had grown out a little over the summer; his curls rested softly against the back of his neck, disheveled but somehow still perfect. Izzy sighed.
“Dangerous, for you,” Izzy quipped, packing away his things to get them out of Ed’s piercing line of sight.
“Fuck you,” Ed responded easily, moving to sprawl out across his twin bed. It was like Izzy could hear the gears turning in Edward’s brain. He thought about making some kind of joke, telling Ed that if he thought too hard, his brain might leak out onto the floor. But he stayed quiet. Listened for – there. Ed rolling onto his side, fixing Izzy in his heavy gaze.
“Could be good for me to practice, you know.” Ed’s voice was conversational. Nonchalant. “We’re working on intramuscular injections now. I’d fucking kill this term if I could practice.”
Izzy shrugged in response, trying to pretend his heart wasn’t racing at the thought.
“Plus it looks like you don’t really love doing it,” Ed pointed out. “Always takes you forever.”
“Fuck off,” Izzy said, blushing.
“Just saying, man.”
And so it had begun. Two weeks later, Izzy had wordlessly handed over his bag, and Ed had cheekily produced a box of gloves he’d stolen from the school. Izzy watched closely that first time. How Ed carefully cleaned his hands, donned his gloves, cleaned the top of the testosterone vial. How he bit his lip as he poked the needle in, turned the vial upside down, drew the viscous fluid into the syringe. How he nodded at the twenty-two gauge needle like he approved of its existence. How he looked up at Izzy for permission before touching his thigh to rub the little alcohol swab over the area.
“Vastus lateralis,” Ed had remarked that first time. “That’s the muscle we aim for.”
“Okay,” Izzy said, mostly focused on the warmth of Ed’s hand, resting on his thigh. But he committed the words to memory. Unfamiliar, Latin. Natural on Ed’s tongue.
And after that, Izzy hadn’t done the shot himself again. They lived on campus even during the summer, racking up as many hours as possible in their work-study programs, trying to offset some of the inevitable debt of school. And every other week they settled in their room, Izzy hiking up his boxers so Ed could give him his shot.
Ed started regaling him with more and more stories. About how he got to give a blood transfusion during his clinicals, about his first successful IV insertion, about how doing CPR was a lot more intense than it seemed on TV. Izzy always listened with a fascinated horror to all the blood and gore, wondering if maybe he’d gone into the wrong major.
“Beard’s nice,” Ed had remarked one day, touching the lengthening stubble Izzy had managed to start growing.
But then had come Jack. Jack, some frat guy Ed had met at a party, one of the many he’d attended with his cohort of nursing students. Jack, the blond guy with the idiotic mustache and the Southern accent and the muscles. He started spending more and more time in their dorm, rough housing with Edward and teasing Izzy endlessly. Eventually Izzy had learned to put his earbuds in and listen to music when Jack came over, because the sounds of Jack and Ed sucking face eventually got to be a bit too much to handle.
Ed had begun coming home later and later. Sneaking in like he might wake Izzy, grinning sheepishly when Izzy turned over to look at him. He started growing out his hair. Oil spill curls spreading down his shoulders. More tattoos began to litter his arms; Izzy cringed at the thought of Jack poking him with a needle, tongue caught between his teeth.
Almost two years of Ed giving Izzy his shots, and Izzy had to wonder if tonight would be the night Ed started forgetting about him. He steeled himself for it. It was already eleven. He could just do it himself. He pulled his bag from its customary position under his bed, unzipped it to rifle through and find some alcohol swabs.
The door opened.
Ed almost tripped over himself in his haste; the door slammed behind him and he stood, wide-eyed and apologetic, his shirt disheveled and a bruise beginning to darken on his neck. Izzy tried not to stare at it.
“Iz – I lost track of the time. I’m sorry, man.” Ed hurried over, grabbing the bag out of Izzy’s hands and rooting around for the hand sanitizer.
“”S fine,” Izzy said with a shrug.
“Whatever you say,” Ed tried, tactfully, letting it drop. He snapped on his gloves and drew a syringe out of the bag. Izzy remained amazed at the way Ed had grown from an eager, nervous thing to this confident, bright almost-nurse. He felt his stomach flip at the idea that soon, they might be on such different paths that they might diverge altogether.
Izzy turned his head when he felt the alcohol against his skin. Ed was a practiced hand, now, knowing the best speed to insert the needle so Izzy barely felt it at all. If he didn’t know better, Izzy might think Ed was being tender with him.
Something warm and unbidden and infuriating bloomed in his chest.
“Oh, hey,” Edward said after a moment, pulling the gauze square away from Izzy’s leg and standing to toss it out. “Happy birthday.”
“My birthday is in October,” Izzy said dryly, raising a brow in Ed’s direction.
“Sure, yeah, I know.” Ed smiled at him as he hopped up onto his bed, hooking a leg up and grabbing one of his textbooks from the bedside table. “You turned twenty-one last year. I meant – it’s Israel’s birthday, right?”
Izzy looked at the calendar on his desk.
Ed was right.
“Oh. Yeah, I guess it is.” Izzy’s face burned and he laid back, turning to look intently at the ceiling so that Ed might not see his embarrassing blush.
“So. Happy third birthday, Iz,” Ed said. Izzy didn’t have to look to see the shit-eating grin on his face.
“Fuck off, Edward.”
He tossed up a middle finger and Edward guffawed loudly.
Izzy fell asleep with the lingering sear of Ed’s warm touch on his thigh, his laugh echoing in his ears, and, maybe, the smallest of smiles on his lips.