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Things don’t go well. Life doesn’t go well.
When does it, though?
Chris thinks that this is sort of par for the course. It’s routine. He’s used to it by now. The things that he wants always get dangled over his head and just when he finally gets enough confidence to grab it and take it for himself, they get pulled violently away.
He wants to moan and groan and lament that his life sucks, but how can he when he sees one of his closest friends—the guy he likes—shrivel away into nothing as his body rebels against him.
Darren’s body is killing itself.
Slowly, and then almost all at once.
That day when Chris finds out that Darren has cancer, Darren looks like shit. He’s quiet and lethargic and has less energy than usual. Darren’s rarely looked that bad, and in general he’s always bounced back.
But not this time. This time things get worse.
Darren’s PICC line gets infected and it leads to a blood infection, and a week later Darren is hospitalized and unconscious and not breathing on his own. He’s in the ICU and Chris isn’t allowed to see him and all he can think about is how they both admitted to liking each other but never had a chance to discuss what that means for them. What comes next.
Chris spends the next few weeks sitting in the waiting room with Darren’s family and friends while doctors throw around big and confusing words like septicemia and sepsis and acute respiratory distress syndrome and central venous catheters, interspersed with the shorter, scarier words that Chris does understand. Words like critical condition and low oxygen intake and medicated coma and low white blood cell count and antibiotics aren’t working.
Chris feels weird sitting in the hospital’s ICU waiting room. He feels like he doesn’t belong. All of these people have known about Darren’s cancer for longer than a week. They’ve held vigil at his bedside many times. They’ve entertained him through chemotherapy, gone to doctor’s appointments with him, were there after he had his first surgery all those months ago when Chris had first met him and knew nothing about this cancer.
Chris is new to this all. He hasn’t even ever met Darren’s parents. And when he finally does he doesn’t know how to introduce himself to them, so he stays quiet and lets Darren’s friend Joey do the introduction instead.
“This is Chris,” Joey says with little enthusiasm. “A good friend of Darren’s.”
Chris shakes Darren’s parents’ hands, wanting to offer up words of sympathy but unable to unclench his jaw enough to do so.
In the end, everything is okay, insofar that Darren survives. It’s the first of many battles that Darren has to face. The most recent of many battles that Darren has already overcome.
When Chris sees Darren for the first time since Darren was put in the ICU, it’s almost three weeks later and Chris has to wash his hands and arms with industrial strength soap and wear a face mask. Darren’s other friends have already had the chance to visit Darren, but Chris always begged off invitations, not wanting to impose. He doesn’t really know these people. He feels almost like he doesn’t even really know Darren, and he doesn’t want to stop other people from being able to visit. Darren can only have one or two visitors at a time, so he waits until Darren is stable and has been moved from the ICU. He waits until after all of the more important people in Darren’s life get to visit him and see that he’s alive with their own eyes.
The first thing Chris notices is that even though Darren isn’t in critical condition anymore, he looks like he is. He’s surrounded by machines beeping out his heart rate, administering medicine, loudly proclaiming his blood pressure. He notices all of the tubes and lines and wires that are connected to Darren’s body, that are running into his body and connecting to the machines and bags of medicine.
The second thing he notices is Darren’s arm.
He’s wearing a hospital gown and it’s not closed, so his chest is on display, but Chris still looks at Darren’s arm. It’s wrapped tightly in gauze.
Chris is used to not seeing that arm. Darren has always had it covered.
He stares at it warily, barely even registering that he hasn’t even said hello to Darren.
“It’s not there anymore,” Darren says. His voice rings out clear, like the clearest thing Chris has ever heard.
It’s been three weeks since Chris has heard that voice.
“The infection was really bad, and I needed something, so they moved it here.” Darren points to his chest where the familiar tubes are hanging out from above his nipple.
Chris must look horrified because Darren chuckles.
“It’s not as bad as it looks. It hurts sometimes when it’s being used, but a little numbing agent and I’m good to go.”
Chris nods dumbly. He feels like that’s all he’s been doing lately: nodding dumbly, sitting quietly, staring blankly.
“So…” Darren starts. “Are you gonna say hi? Or is this only a one sided conversation?” He smiles when he says it, but Chris still tears up.
“I’m..I-I’m so happy you’re alive,” he says quietly.
“Good,” Darren replies cheerfully. “Because so am I.”
There’s so much Chris wants to say to that. So much he wants to open up about. He wants to explain that this isn’t his first time at the rodeo. He wants to tell Darren that even though this is the first time he’s sat in waiting over Darren’s health, that this isn’t the first time in general that he’s done it. He wants to tell Darren about all those times he’s spent the night in hospitals back home thinking that he’d walk out the next day an only child. He wants to tell Darren that maybe a small part of him understands what Darren—or at least his family—is going through. He wants to give Darren the whole It Gets Better, Just Keep Fighting speech. But hee wants to tell Darren that it doesn’t ever get easier seeing someone you know and love and care for suffer and be put under such duress.
He sort of wants to walk out of the room and pretend none of this has ever happened, and just cry in his room in relief and happiness and sadness and anguish and despair.
He wishes that one bad thing could fix another bad thing. He wishes that this huge ordeal with the blood infection and Darren almost dying could magically cure his cancer. He hates that this infection didn’t get rid of Darren’s PICC line, but instead moved it to a new and scarier place—right near Darren’s heart. It makes things more real. Scarier. More delicate.
He wonders if someone tugs at it if it will actually pull at Darren’s heartstrings.
He wonders if heartstrings are actually a thing.
“Instead of standing there awkwardly and silently, do you maybe wanna catch me up on the Tony Awards? Cause I keep asking who won Best Musical, but the nurses won’t answer because they think I’m floating on a high and hallucinating.”
Chris takes a tentative step forward and Darren’s smile grows.
“To be honest, I didn’t watch it. But I had scheduled it to record anyway, so maybe we can watch it together?” Chris asks, doubt clouding into his mind.
Will Darren even be able to leave the hospital soon? Or should I bring the recording here?
“It’s a date,” Darren says as he looks up at Chris, hopeful and happy. At ease and unguarded.
Chris steps carefully over to the chair next to Darren’s bed, for fear that the vibrations of his footsteps might cause irreparable damage to one of the machines that may or may not be keeping Darren alive.
“This is weird,” Darren says. “I just asked you out on a date but I can’t tell if you’re happy about it or not because your face is being swallowed by a white whale. Take it off,” Darren demands from his reclined position.
“I-I don’t want to—” Chris protests.
“Chris,” Darren says seriously, “If I’m not dead after that whole ordeal, then your breath—no matter how bad it smells—isn’t going to kill me.”
Chris lowers the mask with shaky hands and lets it rest on his neck.
“Happy?” he asks.
“Very,” Darren replies. “Now, I’m going to ask you out again, but this time I need you to act appropriately excited when I do.”
Chris blushes and ducks his hide, hiding his grin.
“Only you would almost die and come back just as charming and blunt as before.”
“I hate to ruin this romantic moment we’ve got going, but being so close to death has definitely taken away what little filter I ever had before. For instance, I definitely don’t plan on adhering to the Three Dates Before Sex rule. Just an FYI.”
Chris rolls his eyes and decides to play the game—decides to follow up on Darren’s silliness and boldness.
“Can you even get it up anymore? It’s been a while since you’ve last used it,” Chris challenges, leaning forward and staring pointedly at the bag of urine hanging from Darren’s bed that’s connected to the catheter that Darren still has.
“Why, Christopher Colfer! Did you just ask me if I still have a sex drive?”
“It’s important to know! If we-we’re going to have sex then I need to know what I’m dealing with,” Chris stammers and blushes.
“It’s gonna be hot,” Darren promises. “Just imagine it: me laying on my back in bed, exhausted and unable to move, having just puked my lungs up from chemo, and you giving me a blow job while I struggle to keep my dick hard.”
“So sexy,” Chris moans. “You sure know how to turn me on.”
“Sexy talk is a forte of mine,” Darren winks. He’s grinning and his cheeks are red. He’s thin, he’s frail, his eyes look like they’ve sunken in and they’re permanently black and blue, but he looks more Darren than he has in a while.
Chris wants to run away and guard himself from any hurt he may feel because of this boy. He wants to save himself from the grief of maybe losing Darren in the near future. He wants to stop himself from falling even harder for Darren, because maybe a relationship isn’t the best thing right now for either of them.
But more than all of that, he wants to see Darren smile again, just like this.
He wants to hold his hand and watch the Tony’s with him.
“So t-tell me,” Chris says, “Do you have any hot nurses?”
“Oh you wouldn’t believe the sexiness of my night nurse!” Darren smiles before breaking out into an animated story of Nurse McHot’N’Cutie.
No matter what happens next, Chris decides, he’s going to stick around to find out.