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“Hi there, Jesus. It’s me. Sam Fabelman.”
Peter rubbed his eyes and stifled a yawn. Next to him in the hospice bed, Tony appeared to be watching the movie intently, gaze focused and determined past his glasses.
The glow of the TV was the only thing to illuminate them— that and the humming machines Tony was hooked up to, atoms of artificial light split the room into hazy grey shadows.
Peter nestled closer to Tony and let his eyes fall shut.
Tony rumbled against him. Peter could hear each heartbeat like this — he wondered if it was like a tree in a forest. As long as he was around to hear it, would Tony never fall?
“You’re missing the movie, Pete.”
Peter peeled his eyes open to focus on the teenagers again. Normally he’d be all over anything with Steven Spielberg’s name on it, but he found he wasn’t interested in the angst of teenagers and art and coming-of-age stories.
What about the end of an age? How come no one ever wrote about what happened afterward?
Peter reached for the TV remote and switched the screen off. Tony didn’t protest, but a smile quirked along his lips. He adjusted his glasses on his nose and turned his chin down to look at Peter.
They were both quiet in the darkness.
“We knew this day would come, Pete.”
They had always known it.
Peter blinked back the tears that sprang to his eyes. He took in a shuddering breath and didn’t answer.
The hospice centre was located at 1049 Strawberry Lake Way, in a cul-de-sac shielded by oak trees. They’d liked the quiet of it. The seclusion. The greenery. The bench by the pond in the back where Tony could sit, if he was up for it.
They’d prepared for Tony to live here. They hadn’t prepared for the inevitability of what it meant.
Peter wrapped an arm around Tony’s middle and hugged his husband fiercely, not caring if it hurt him, not caring that he could feel Tony’s bones beneath his touch. There were 8 pairs of glasses on the lampshade to Tony’s right, each a different colour.
Peter longed to turn and kiss his husband, to shimmy up on his elbows and lock their lips together and whisper how urgently he loved him, how he already missed him, how…
But Peter didn’t move, and the space between thought and action widened.
“Pete… will you say something?”
Peter turned his face into Tony’s chest and gasped, muffled, “I love you.”
Tony shook with a laugh that transformed into a cough, and Peter hated every wracking minute of it.
A few moments passed after Tony collected himself. Moments where Peter thought of Tony Stark leading him into galas and restaurants, dancing to rock music in the lab, laughing in board rooms, revving cars down the highway, kissing Peter so tenderly and passionately and…
The memories played hopscotch in Peter’s chest until he thought he might burst, and then he hugged Tony all the tighter and choked out, “I’m not ready for this.”
Tony hummed and squeezed Peter back.
“Not ready?”
“‘M not ready for you to go.” Peter couldn’t stop his tears this time, and he muffled himself in Tony’s shirt as he twisted up the grief inside of his heart.
Tony laughed again.
“But I’m ready to go, Pete.”
That was the crux of it all. The cruel reality. Peter, ostensibly, had so much time left. Had decades to live before he would need a place like the little hospice centre on Strawberry Lake Way. How was this fair? How was this…
Peter wiped his eyes and sighed, not wanting to waste Tony’s time on his own greed.
Tony sighed and settled into the bed again, giving Peter another squeeze and murmuring, “You want to put the movie back on?”
Peter really didn’t, but he croaked out, “Okay.”
And he reached for the remote.
The TV blared back to life, splitting light all around them.