Game Changer - Chapter 29/35
Category: Slash - Dan (Ashcroft) & Jones
Rating: M
Summary: Dan does everything he can to comfort and support Jones through complications
Warnings: swearing, needle mentions and other medical procedure discussion, talk of death, self deprecation
Word Count: 3244
The bed is empty when Dan steps inside Jones’s room. Frowning, he crosses to the loo only to find it empty; the door open. Dan checks his watch. He’s sure Jones hasn’t got anything scheduled for today, well, he thinks he’s supposed to have a fluid drain for his ascites, but they do that in his room usually.
Dan hates them, but not quite as much as Jones. It made him want to be sick just looking at the size of the needle the first time they’d done it, but Jones’s voice wavered when he’d asked Dan to stay with him and his eyes shone with such fear that Dan couldn’t have left if he tried. He’d held Dan’s hand and squeezed it tight when they stuck the needle into his side, his slightly yellow eyes threatening tears.
Everything is slightly yellow now. The doctors call it jaundice, and they’d told him it was common amongst people with liver problems; hepatitis, cirrhosis, liver cancer. Jones hates it. Sometimes Dan will catch him staring at the window, but he knows he’s looking at his own reflection by his miserable expression.
“Jones, it’ll be alright,” Dan had tried to comfort him one day a couple weeks ago. “It’s going to go back to normal after the surgery.”
“I look like a lego man,” he’d mumbled, clearly disheartened.
“No you don’t. Jones, look at me Jones,” he’d taken his hand and pressed his lips to it softly. “Don’t worry about it, okay? You’re going to be okay, I still think you’re beautiful.”
“I’m not,” he had lamented. “I’m disgusting.”
“Jones, please don’t say that.”
“I’m ugly and yellow like the honey monster,” Jones sniffed.
“You are not,” Dan had protested. “You’re a bit… tinted. That’s all. Besides, the honey monster’s a yellow wanker.”
The corner of his mouth had twitched and Dan clung to the subtle response hopefully.
“Yeah, I guess so,” he’d admitted. “Then I’m the yellow one out of Teletubbies.”
Dan had actually laughed in spite of himself and he’d caught a spark of something in Jones’s eyes, “Then I’ll be your big gay Tinky Winky.”
A half-smile that time.
“And we can live under a grass dome like hobbits with a freakish hoover,” Dan continued.
“What did you say about my winky?” he’d asked, a bashful grin creeping into his cheeks. And things had been manageable again for a while.
Dan steps back into the corridor, looking around for Jones and making sure he’s not gone to the wrong room. He takes a step to his left, craning his neck to catch the movement of a shadow at the end of the hall by the lifts. Maybe Jones had been waiting for him, but they’d missed each other because Dan took the stairs. In spite of Jones’s worsening condition, Dan has never been in better health. Which he still feels incredibly guilty about quite regularly, despite reminding himself constantly that the better health he’s in, the better liver Jones will get.
“Jones?” he calls as he approaches the lifts, but there’s no response. “Jones?”
There’s no one there. Perplexed, he looks around and decides that whoever’s shadow he’d seen must be around the corner.
“Jones?” he demands a little more forcefully as he turns the corner.
The silhouette in front of the window could be that of a moderately pregnant woman, but when the shape doesn’t turn or answer him, Dan knows it’s him. He sighs heavily and steps up to Jones’s side, resting a hand gently on his back. He doesn’t start, exactly, but his head whips toward Dan as if he wasn’t expecting him to be there.
“What’re you doing?” Dan asks softly, running his fingertips through Jones’s long hair.
Jones shrugs and averts his gaze, staring back out the window, “Just… walking.”
“Yeah?” Dan asks quietly. “Where to?”
“I don’t know…” he replies blankly. “Dan look, an aeroplane.”
He points up to the sky out the window, pressing a thin finger against the glass as he watches the white tail of smoke stretch across the slate grey expanse. His mouth hangs open slightly as he gazes out the window, leaning his cheek against it to watch as the plane disappears. Dan brings his hand forward to cradle Jones’s other cheek, tilting his head to try and meet Jones’s eye. Jones’s eyes flicker to his and, for some reason he can’t quite place, it feels like a blow to the chest.
“Are you okay, Jones?” he asks, his voice strained.
“Mhm,” Jones responds lightly, but his eyes find the floor again and he shuffles his feet. He places his hand over Dan’s and lifts it off his face, but doesn’t let go, “Walk with me?”
“Okay,” Dan says with a gentle smile. Jones takes a step in the opposite direction as Dan had come from, but Dan doesn’t move, “We should go this way. Then if you get tired we’ll be at your room.”
Jones bites his lip as Dan moves to his right, their clasped hands stretching their arms out the farther apart they get. Dan looks at Jones, his smile faltering as he stays rooted to the spot.
“I want to go this way,” he mumbles shyly.
Dan closes the gap between them again to stand directly in front of Jones.
“Why’s that?” he asks. “What’s over this way?”
Jones shrugs, still worrying his lip as he looks at the floor, “Dunno.”
Dan slips two fingers under his chin, tilting his face up towards him, “Do you want to go this way or do you just not want to go back to the room?”
“I-” he starts and then bites his lip again.
He slowly looks up to meet Dan’s gaze, and Dan knows the answer.
“Why?” he asks sympathetically. “Have you been having more nightmares?”
“No,” Jones mutters. “Well, yeah, I’ve been having them, but not more than usual or anything.”
Dan wraps his arms around Jones, holding him as tightly as he can manage with his swollen belly. Jones buries his face in Dan’s chest and twists his body so that he can slide his arms around Dan’s waist. He clings to him weakly and Dan strokes his hair, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.
“It’s okay Jones,” he coos. “They’re not real, you’re here with me and you’re safe.”
His shoulders start to shake and Dan can hear him snorting air out his nose and for a fleeting moment he thinks that Jones is actually laughing.
“I don’t want to do it,” Jones sobs. “Dan, please.”
“Hey, hey, it’s alright,” Dan says, pushing out Jones’s shoulders to look at his tear-streaked face. “What don’t you want to do?”
“The paracentesis,” he manages through hiccough-like breaths.
Dan pulls him back to his chest, hugging him tight, “I’m so sorry Jones.”
“I don’t want to have that giant needle in me again,” he wails into Dan’s shirt.
“I know,” Dan says through the lump in his throat. “I know Jones. You’ve got to have it done though, you can’t keep all that fluid in your body; they need to let it out.”
“I know,” he sniffles. “I’m disgusting enough without looking pregnant.”
“Jones, please,” Dan begs, his voice cracking. “You’re not disgusting Jones. I love you, I love you so fucking much and you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. All of this will be over in six weeks. You’ll have a piece of my liver and you’ll get better.”
Jones just sobs harder, squeezing Dan tight with all the strength he’s got left. Dan can feel the hot tears on his chest as his shirt absorbs them and he closes his eyes, stroking Jones’s hair.
“They’ll get the water out and your stomach will go back to normal size and you’ll feel a lot better Jones, okay?” Dan tries to comfort him. Jones nods against him but doesn’t stop crying, “Claire and Ennis’ll be around tonight and they’ll never even know that you’ve had ascites at all. We can keep it between me and you and your dad, alright? If that’s what you want.”
He nods again, his hiccoughing sobs stuttered as he tries to take deep breaths. Dan rubs his back soothingly and sways back and forth on the spot without realizing it.
“It’s just not good for you to have that extra fluid in there,” he explains solemnly. “I know it’s awful Jones. I know. But they need to.”
Jones doesn’t reply and so Dan just holds him until he’s able to get control of his breath. Tears still roll down his cheeks and onto Dan’s shirt, but he’s stopped shaking so hard.
“I’m scared Dan,” he whispers, his voice wavering. “I’m scared to die.”
“Jones,” Dan says throatily, pulling him in front of himself and holding his face in both large hands. “You’re not going to die.”
“But what if even the six weeks isn’t fast enough?” he asks tearfully.
“It’s going to be,” Dan says, tears spilling over his own cheeks. “Jones I will cut my liver out myself if I have to.”
“Don’t,” Jones whispers barely audibly. “Please. I’m scared of… you… I can’t lose you Dan.”
“I’m going to be fine,” Dan says gruffly with a weak smile. “Bad things happen to me, you know that. If I died it would be too easy.”
“That’s usually what the nightmares are about,” he murmurs.
Dan looks at the dark circles under his eyes and puts an arm around his shoulder. He allows Dan to slowly guide him around the corner and past the lifts.
“I dream that I wake up during surgery and all I can hear is that one fucking note of a flatline,” Jones continues. “The first time I thought that I was dead. But then I saw you beside me on a second operating table and I could see the monitor and that stupid green line. And then they brought out a defibrillator and they started shocking you with it but you wouldn’t wake up-”
“Jones, it’s okay,” Dan croons as they slowly make their way back down the corridor. “I know how scary they can be, but I’m alright. Right now I’m here with you, and I’m safe, and I’m alive and well. Nothing like that’s going to happen, okay?”
When they reach Jones’s room, Dan holds the door open and helps Jones inside and then onto the bed. He does everything he can to make sure Jones is as comfortable as possible; arranging and rearranging pillows and adjusting the height and angles of the bed.
“Better?” Dan asks from his perch on the side of the bed.
Jones nods mechanically, “Yeah. A bit.”
“D’you want to have a bit of a kip before the nurses come to do the drain?” he asks, stroking the back of Jones’s hand with his thumb.
Jones nods with heavy-lidded eyes, “Can you stay though?”
“Of course,” Dan smiles, lying his other hand on Jones’s thigh.
“Okay,” he whispers, a bit of nervousness still present in his voice, but he closes his eyes anyway.
Watching Jones fall asleep is a bit like violin music, it’s incredibly beautiful but at the same time inspires a kind of melancholy in the pit of Dan’s stomach. Claire once told him that people don’t remember the last few minutes before they fall asleep because of REM cycles and neuro-somethings. She’d told him just to be a know-it-all so he’d scoffed and told her she was daft, but the more he thought about it the more he realized it was true. And so it’s fascinating watching Jones’s head slowly tilt to one side, his lips parted as he starts to breathe deeper. It’s a moment only he will ever remember. Except that at the end it goes a bit blurry and he jumps at a sudden voice, startling him awake.
“As absolutely adorable as you two boys look sleeping, I’m going to have to insist that you use the chair, Mr. Ashcroft,” Lynn scolds him.
“Sorry,” he mutters, wiping away the wetness at the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep.”
“Well, that’s all well and good, but I’m afraid that you shouldn’t have been in the bed in the first place.”
“I know,” Dan admits, sinking into the chair. “But he knows he’s going to have to get paracentesis done today and he was really upset about it. I was just trying to calm him down.”
They both look at Jones’s sleeping form for a minute and Lynn lowers her voice, “Dan, listen to me for a minute okay? I know. I know that you two are incredibly close and I honestly don’t care whether or not you’re on the bed. I think, liver aside, you might just be the best thing for Jones, but there are rules and it could end badly for both of you if the wrong people see you breaking them. Besides we’re going to have to all but prevent him having any visitors at all once they increase his dosage of immunosuppressants.”
“I understand,” Dan sighs. “I won’t do it again if I can help it.”
“Just be a bit more discreet about it is all I ask,” she smiles and puts a hand on his shoulder. He flinches and she immediately withdraws it again, “Should I wake him or do you want to do the honours?”
“I’d like to if that’s okay?” Dan replies. “Jones. It’s time to wake up, Jones.”
Dan slides his hand into Jones’s and gives it a light squeeze, “Jones.”
He opens his eyes slowly, squinting against the fluorescent lights, “Wazzit?”
“You’ve got to wake up now,” Dan repeats, placing his hand back down on the bed.
“What time’s it?” he asks groggily.
“About half eleven,” Lynn answers.
“At night?” he asks, his eyes opening fully as he stares at her in disbelief.
“No Jones, in the morning. You haven’t slept that long,” Dan smiles.
“Oh. Jesus I had a heart attack,” he moans.
“I’m going to call down and let them know you’re ready, okay?” asks Lynn.
“No, I’m not ready,” he protests, eyebrows furrowing as he reaches out for Dan with one hand. “I’m not ready, don’t call them.”
He grabs Dan’s forearm, squeezing tight.
“It’s okay Jones,” Dan tells him. “You are ready. You’re alright, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“Okay,” he croaks. “It’s going to hurt, Dan.”
“I know. But only for a little bit,” Dan consoles him, holding the hand that’s clamped to his arm. “Can he at least a cup of tea?”
“Sure, that I can do,” Lynn replies and leaves the room, closing the door behind her.
“Tea?” Jones asks weakly.
“It’ll help calm your nerves a bit,” Dan says. “But that’s beside the point.”
He leans in without any more explanation and presses his lips to Jones’s. The grip on his forearm loosens a bit as he kisses Jones slowly.
“I love you,” he says, just centimetres from Jones’s face. His eyes flit between Jones’s, “You’re doing great and you can do this, okay?”
Jones nods, a bit more confident this time, “Okay. But kiss me again.”
And Dan does.
When the nurse who did the last drain arrives, Dan’s sitting in the chair, facing Jones alongside the bed. They hold hands under the corner of the sheet as the man wipes Jones’s side with iodine and lays a sheet with a hole in it over Jones’s stomach. Dan and Jones are instructed not to move around anymore now that he’s got a sterile environment.
“Just look at me Jones,” Dan says slowly. “That’s good, okay. Just stay like that, don’t look at anything else, alright?”
Dan squeezes his hand gently and keeps his eyes glued to Jones’s. His bottom lip starts to tremble when the nurse injects some sort of numbing agent into his skin and he squeezes back hard.
“Hey, just try and relax. Think of one of your relaxing songs,” Dan coos. He imitates Jones’s delivery as best he can as he begins, “It’s time to go to sleep. It’s time to go to sleep.”
Dan’s rendition of the song coaxes out a half-smile and Dan beams in response. He winches as the nurse inserts the long device into his side, and his head snaps in its direction. Dan squeezes his hand again beneath the sheet and his eyes lock back onto Dan’s as a bunch of tubing is attached and taped down. The nurse lays out the collection bag on the floor by the side of the bed and tapes that down too.
“Okay, I’ll be back soon to check in,” he says. “Call if you need me.”
“Right,” Dan says as he leaves. “How’re you doing, Jones?”
“M’alright,” he says flatly.
“Anything I can do?” Dan asks. “More tea?”
“No,” Jones sighs. “I’m fine.”
“You aren’t in pain, are you?” he frets.
“Not really,” he responds. “I feel nothing.”
“Okay, that’s good,” Dan sighs. “Wait, physically or emotionally?”
“Both.”
“Oh, I’m sorry Jones,” he says sympathetically. “You’ve had a rough morning though, I’m sure you’re just a bit drained. Fuck, sorry I didn’t mean to make that pun-”
“It’s okay,” Jones says with a tiny smile. “You’re incredibly bad with words for a writer.”
Dan grins back and gives him a quick peck on the cheek with a breathy laugh.
“You’re not wrong,” he admits.
The nurse comes in and out of the room to check on Jones as his stomach slowly deflates, taking his vital signs every half hour. Finally he collects the bag and tubing, removes the device in Jones’s side and closes the hole with a quick suture. He inserts an IV into Jones’s hand as Dan hold the other to his lips, and tells Jones that he’s got to stay in bed for the next couple of hours, but then he should be fine.
Lynn brings him a late lunch, insisting that if he’s not hungry he has to eat his yogurt at the very least because of something to do with probiotics and his ammonia levels. He eats more than Dan expected him to, which is probably good, and then promptly falls asleep again.
Dan gets a taxi back to flat to eat something himself and returns about two hours later with Claire and Ennis. The IV has been removed so it’s not hard for Dan to help Jones out of bed and out into the lounge area. Technically they aren’t supposed to do it, but Jones also has free roaming privilege on his floor, so no one’s told them off for it yet. Jones seems in better spirits now that he looks a bit more like himself.
“Hey Claire,” he says with a smile. “Alright, Ennis?”
“Hi Jones,” Claire says with a slight air of someone talking to a child.
“Alright Jones,” Ennis says and shakes his hand. “How are you doing, mate?”
“Well,” Jones sighs. “I’m still a teletubby, but other than being bright yellow I’m fine I guess.”
“And when’s the surgery again?” Claire asks.
“March twenty first,” Dan replies, sliding his fingers through Jones’s and giving his hand a squeeze.
“Good, good. That’s what, five, six weeks?” Ennis responds.
“Yeah, about five and a half,” Dan says. “But, it’ll be here before we know it.”
He smiles at Jones warmly and Jones kisses him right on the lips in front of them both, smiling himself against Dan's mouth.
Chapter 30
Rating: M
Summary: Dan does everything he can to comfort and support Jones through complications
Warnings: swearing, needle mentions and other medical procedure discussion, talk of death, self deprecation
Word Count: 3244
The bed is empty when Dan steps inside Jones’s room. Frowning, he crosses to the loo only to find it empty; the door open. Dan checks his watch. He’s sure Jones hasn’t got anything scheduled for today, well, he thinks he’s supposed to have a fluid drain for his ascites, but they do that in his room usually.
Dan hates them, but not quite as much as Jones. It made him want to be sick just looking at the size of the needle the first time they’d done it, but Jones’s voice wavered when he’d asked Dan to stay with him and his eyes shone with such fear that Dan couldn’t have left if he tried. He’d held Dan’s hand and squeezed it tight when they stuck the needle into his side, his slightly yellow eyes threatening tears.
Everything is slightly yellow now. The doctors call it jaundice, and they’d told him it was common amongst people with liver problems; hepatitis, cirrhosis, liver cancer. Jones hates it. Sometimes Dan will catch him staring at the window, but he knows he’s looking at his own reflection by his miserable expression.
“Jones, it’ll be alright,” Dan had tried to comfort him one day a couple weeks ago. “It’s going to go back to normal after the surgery.”
“I look like a lego man,” he’d mumbled, clearly disheartened.
“No you don’t. Jones, look at me Jones,” he’d taken his hand and pressed his lips to it softly. “Don’t worry about it, okay? You’re going to be okay, I still think you’re beautiful.”
“I’m not,” he had lamented. “I’m disgusting.”
“Jones, please don’t say that.”
“I’m ugly and yellow like the honey monster,” Jones sniffed.
“You are not,” Dan had protested. “You’re a bit… tinted. That’s all. Besides, the honey monster’s a yellow wanker.”
The corner of his mouth had twitched and Dan clung to the subtle response hopefully.
“Yeah, I guess so,” he’d admitted. “Then I’m the yellow one out of Teletubbies.”
Dan had actually laughed in spite of himself and he’d caught a spark of something in Jones’s eyes, “Then I’ll be your big gay Tinky Winky.”
A half-smile that time.
“And we can live under a grass dome like hobbits with a freakish hoover,” Dan continued.
“What did you say about my winky?” he’d asked, a bashful grin creeping into his cheeks. And things had been manageable again for a while.
Dan steps back into the corridor, looking around for Jones and making sure he’s not gone to the wrong room. He takes a step to his left, craning his neck to catch the movement of a shadow at the end of the hall by the lifts. Maybe Jones had been waiting for him, but they’d missed each other because Dan took the stairs. In spite of Jones’s worsening condition, Dan has never been in better health. Which he still feels incredibly guilty about quite regularly, despite reminding himself constantly that the better health he’s in, the better liver Jones will get.
“Jones?” he calls as he approaches the lifts, but there’s no response. “Jones?”
There’s no one there. Perplexed, he looks around and decides that whoever’s shadow he’d seen must be around the corner.
“Jones?” he demands a little more forcefully as he turns the corner.
The silhouette in front of the window could be that of a moderately pregnant woman, but when the shape doesn’t turn or answer him, Dan knows it’s him. He sighs heavily and steps up to Jones’s side, resting a hand gently on his back. He doesn’t start, exactly, but his head whips toward Dan as if he wasn’t expecting him to be there.
“What’re you doing?” Dan asks softly, running his fingertips through Jones’s long hair.
Jones shrugs and averts his gaze, staring back out the window, “Just… walking.”
“Yeah?” Dan asks quietly. “Where to?”
“I don’t know…” he replies blankly. “Dan look, an aeroplane.”
He points up to the sky out the window, pressing a thin finger against the glass as he watches the white tail of smoke stretch across the slate grey expanse. His mouth hangs open slightly as he gazes out the window, leaning his cheek against it to watch as the plane disappears. Dan brings his hand forward to cradle Jones’s other cheek, tilting his head to try and meet Jones’s eye. Jones’s eyes flicker to his and, for some reason he can’t quite place, it feels like a blow to the chest.
“Are you okay, Jones?” he asks, his voice strained.
“Mhm,” Jones responds lightly, but his eyes find the floor again and he shuffles his feet. He places his hand over Dan’s and lifts it off his face, but doesn’t let go, “Walk with me?”
“Okay,” Dan says with a gentle smile. Jones takes a step in the opposite direction as Dan had come from, but Dan doesn’t move, “We should go this way. Then if you get tired we’ll be at your room.”
Jones bites his lip as Dan moves to his right, their clasped hands stretching their arms out the farther apart they get. Dan looks at Jones, his smile faltering as he stays rooted to the spot.
“I want to go this way,” he mumbles shyly.
Dan closes the gap between them again to stand directly in front of Jones.
“Why’s that?” he asks. “What’s over this way?”
Jones shrugs, still worrying his lip as he looks at the floor, “Dunno.”
Dan slips two fingers under his chin, tilting his face up towards him, “Do you want to go this way or do you just not want to go back to the room?”
“I-” he starts and then bites his lip again.
He slowly looks up to meet Dan’s gaze, and Dan knows the answer.
“Why?” he asks sympathetically. “Have you been having more nightmares?”
“No,” Jones mutters. “Well, yeah, I’ve been having them, but not more than usual or anything.”
Dan wraps his arms around Jones, holding him as tightly as he can manage with his swollen belly. Jones buries his face in Dan’s chest and twists his body so that he can slide his arms around Dan’s waist. He clings to him weakly and Dan strokes his hair, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.
“It’s okay Jones,” he coos. “They’re not real, you’re here with me and you’re safe.”
His shoulders start to shake and Dan can hear him snorting air out his nose and for a fleeting moment he thinks that Jones is actually laughing.
“I don’t want to do it,” Jones sobs. “Dan, please.”
“Hey, hey, it’s alright,” Dan says, pushing out Jones’s shoulders to look at his tear-streaked face. “What don’t you want to do?”
“The paracentesis,” he manages through hiccough-like breaths.
Dan pulls him back to his chest, hugging him tight, “I’m so sorry Jones.”
“I don’t want to have that giant needle in me again,” he wails into Dan’s shirt.
“I know,” Dan says through the lump in his throat. “I know Jones. You’ve got to have it done though, you can’t keep all that fluid in your body; they need to let it out.”
“I know,” he sniffles. “I’m disgusting enough without looking pregnant.”
“Jones, please,” Dan begs, his voice cracking. “You’re not disgusting Jones. I love you, I love you so fucking much and you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. All of this will be over in six weeks. You’ll have a piece of my liver and you’ll get better.”
Jones just sobs harder, squeezing Dan tight with all the strength he’s got left. Dan can feel the hot tears on his chest as his shirt absorbs them and he closes his eyes, stroking Jones’s hair.
“They’ll get the water out and your stomach will go back to normal size and you’ll feel a lot better Jones, okay?” Dan tries to comfort him. Jones nods against him but doesn’t stop crying, “Claire and Ennis’ll be around tonight and they’ll never even know that you’ve had ascites at all. We can keep it between me and you and your dad, alright? If that’s what you want.”
He nods again, his hiccoughing sobs stuttered as he tries to take deep breaths. Dan rubs his back soothingly and sways back and forth on the spot without realizing it.
“It’s just not good for you to have that extra fluid in there,” he explains solemnly. “I know it’s awful Jones. I know. But they need to.”
Jones doesn’t reply and so Dan just holds him until he’s able to get control of his breath. Tears still roll down his cheeks and onto Dan’s shirt, but he’s stopped shaking so hard.
“I’m scared Dan,” he whispers, his voice wavering. “I’m scared to die.”
“Jones,” Dan says throatily, pulling him in front of himself and holding his face in both large hands. “You’re not going to die.”
“But what if even the six weeks isn’t fast enough?” he asks tearfully.
“It’s going to be,” Dan says, tears spilling over his own cheeks. “Jones I will cut my liver out myself if I have to.”
“Don’t,” Jones whispers barely audibly. “Please. I’m scared of… you… I can’t lose you Dan.”
“I’m going to be fine,” Dan says gruffly with a weak smile. “Bad things happen to me, you know that. If I died it would be too easy.”
“That’s usually what the nightmares are about,” he murmurs.
Dan looks at the dark circles under his eyes and puts an arm around his shoulder. He allows Dan to slowly guide him around the corner and past the lifts.
“I dream that I wake up during surgery and all I can hear is that one fucking note of a flatline,” Jones continues. “The first time I thought that I was dead. But then I saw you beside me on a second operating table and I could see the monitor and that stupid green line. And then they brought out a defibrillator and they started shocking you with it but you wouldn’t wake up-”
“Jones, it’s okay,” Dan croons as they slowly make their way back down the corridor. “I know how scary they can be, but I’m alright. Right now I’m here with you, and I’m safe, and I’m alive and well. Nothing like that’s going to happen, okay?”
When they reach Jones’s room, Dan holds the door open and helps Jones inside and then onto the bed. He does everything he can to make sure Jones is as comfortable as possible; arranging and rearranging pillows and adjusting the height and angles of the bed.
“Better?” Dan asks from his perch on the side of the bed.
Jones nods mechanically, “Yeah. A bit.”
“D’you want to have a bit of a kip before the nurses come to do the drain?” he asks, stroking the back of Jones’s hand with his thumb.
Jones nods with heavy-lidded eyes, “Can you stay though?”
“Of course,” Dan smiles, lying his other hand on Jones’s thigh.
“Okay,” he whispers, a bit of nervousness still present in his voice, but he closes his eyes anyway.
Watching Jones fall asleep is a bit like violin music, it’s incredibly beautiful but at the same time inspires a kind of melancholy in the pit of Dan’s stomach. Claire once told him that people don’t remember the last few minutes before they fall asleep because of REM cycles and neuro-somethings. She’d told him just to be a know-it-all so he’d scoffed and told her she was daft, but the more he thought about it the more he realized it was true. And so it’s fascinating watching Jones’s head slowly tilt to one side, his lips parted as he starts to breathe deeper. It’s a moment only he will ever remember. Except that at the end it goes a bit blurry and he jumps at a sudden voice, startling him awake.
“As absolutely adorable as you two boys look sleeping, I’m going to have to insist that you use the chair, Mr. Ashcroft,” Lynn scolds him.
“Sorry,” he mutters, wiping away the wetness at the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep.”
“Well, that’s all well and good, but I’m afraid that you shouldn’t have been in the bed in the first place.”
“I know,” Dan admits, sinking into the chair. “But he knows he’s going to have to get paracentesis done today and he was really upset about it. I was just trying to calm him down.”
They both look at Jones’s sleeping form for a minute and Lynn lowers her voice, “Dan, listen to me for a minute okay? I know. I know that you two are incredibly close and I honestly don’t care whether or not you’re on the bed. I think, liver aside, you might just be the best thing for Jones, but there are rules and it could end badly for both of you if the wrong people see you breaking them. Besides we’re going to have to all but prevent him having any visitors at all once they increase his dosage of immunosuppressants.”
“I understand,” Dan sighs. “I won’t do it again if I can help it.”
“Just be a bit more discreet about it is all I ask,” she smiles and puts a hand on his shoulder. He flinches and she immediately withdraws it again, “Should I wake him or do you want to do the honours?”
“I’d like to if that’s okay?” Dan replies. “Jones. It’s time to wake up, Jones.”
Dan slides his hand into Jones’s and gives it a light squeeze, “Jones.”
He opens his eyes slowly, squinting against the fluorescent lights, “Wazzit?”
“You’ve got to wake up now,” Dan repeats, placing his hand back down on the bed.
“What time’s it?” he asks groggily.
“About half eleven,” Lynn answers.
“At night?” he asks, his eyes opening fully as he stares at her in disbelief.
“No Jones, in the morning. You haven’t slept that long,” Dan smiles.
“Oh. Jesus I had a heart attack,” he moans.
“I’m going to call down and let them know you’re ready, okay?” asks Lynn.
“No, I’m not ready,” he protests, eyebrows furrowing as he reaches out for Dan with one hand. “I’m not ready, don’t call them.”
He grabs Dan’s forearm, squeezing tight.
“It’s okay Jones,” Dan tells him. “You are ready. You’re alright, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“Okay,” he croaks. “It’s going to hurt, Dan.”
“I know. But only for a little bit,” Dan consoles him, holding the hand that’s clamped to his arm. “Can he at least a cup of tea?”
“Sure, that I can do,” Lynn replies and leaves the room, closing the door behind her.
“Tea?” Jones asks weakly.
“It’ll help calm your nerves a bit,” Dan says. “But that’s beside the point.”
He leans in without any more explanation and presses his lips to Jones’s. The grip on his forearm loosens a bit as he kisses Jones slowly.
“I love you,” he says, just centimetres from Jones’s face. His eyes flit between Jones’s, “You’re doing great and you can do this, okay?”
Jones nods, a bit more confident this time, “Okay. But kiss me again.”
And Dan does.
When the nurse who did the last drain arrives, Dan’s sitting in the chair, facing Jones alongside the bed. They hold hands under the corner of the sheet as the man wipes Jones’s side with iodine and lays a sheet with a hole in it over Jones’s stomach. Dan and Jones are instructed not to move around anymore now that he’s got a sterile environment.
“Just look at me Jones,” Dan says slowly. “That’s good, okay. Just stay like that, don’t look at anything else, alright?”
Dan squeezes his hand gently and keeps his eyes glued to Jones’s. His bottom lip starts to tremble when the nurse injects some sort of numbing agent into his skin and he squeezes back hard.
“Hey, just try and relax. Think of one of your relaxing songs,” Dan coos. He imitates Jones’s delivery as best he can as he begins, “It’s time to go to sleep. It’s time to go to sleep.”
Dan’s rendition of the song coaxes out a half-smile and Dan beams in response. He winches as the nurse inserts the long device into his side, and his head snaps in its direction. Dan squeezes his hand again beneath the sheet and his eyes lock back onto Dan’s as a bunch of tubing is attached and taped down. The nurse lays out the collection bag on the floor by the side of the bed and tapes that down too.
“Okay, I’ll be back soon to check in,” he says. “Call if you need me.”
“Right,” Dan says as he leaves. “How’re you doing, Jones?”
“M’alright,” he says flatly.
“Anything I can do?” Dan asks. “More tea?”
“No,” Jones sighs. “I’m fine.”
“You aren’t in pain, are you?” he frets.
“Not really,” he responds. “I feel nothing.”
“Okay, that’s good,” Dan sighs. “Wait, physically or emotionally?”
“Both.”
“Oh, I’m sorry Jones,” he says sympathetically. “You’ve had a rough morning though, I’m sure you’re just a bit drained. Fuck, sorry I didn’t mean to make that pun-”
“It’s okay,” Jones says with a tiny smile. “You’re incredibly bad with words for a writer.”
Dan grins back and gives him a quick peck on the cheek with a breathy laugh.
“You’re not wrong,” he admits.
The nurse comes in and out of the room to check on Jones as his stomach slowly deflates, taking his vital signs every half hour. Finally he collects the bag and tubing, removes the device in Jones’s side and closes the hole with a quick suture. He inserts an IV into Jones’s hand as Dan hold the other to his lips, and tells Jones that he’s got to stay in bed for the next couple of hours, but then he should be fine.
Lynn brings him a late lunch, insisting that if he’s not hungry he has to eat his yogurt at the very least because of something to do with probiotics and his ammonia levels. He eats more than Dan expected him to, which is probably good, and then promptly falls asleep again.
Dan gets a taxi back to flat to eat something himself and returns about two hours later with Claire and Ennis. The IV has been removed so it’s not hard for Dan to help Jones out of bed and out into the lounge area. Technically they aren’t supposed to do it, but Jones also has free roaming privilege on his floor, so no one’s told them off for it yet. Jones seems in better spirits now that he looks a bit more like himself.
“Hey Claire,” he says with a smile. “Alright, Ennis?”
“Hi Jones,” Claire says with a slight air of someone talking to a child.
“Alright Jones,” Ennis says and shakes his hand. “How are you doing, mate?”
“Well,” Jones sighs. “I’m still a teletubby, but other than being bright yellow I’m fine I guess.”
“And when’s the surgery again?” Claire asks.
“March twenty first,” Dan replies, sliding his fingers through Jones’s and giving his hand a squeeze.
“Good, good. That’s what, five, six weeks?” Ennis responds.
“Yeah, about five and a half,” Dan says. “But, it’ll be here before we know it.”
He smiles at Jones warmly and Jones kisses him right on the lips in front of them both, smiling himself against Dan's mouth.
Chapter 30