:(
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The door slammed behind Oliver, and Baby sank to the ground. He was already crying, but as soon as he was alone the sobs wracked his body with new vigor.
Oh god, alone. He was alone.
Baby curled up on the kitchen floor, too overwhelmed to move to the couch. He gave a hiccuping sob, and squeezed his eyes shut.
This is what he wanted, he tried to remind himself. He couldn't stay with Oliver. He had to push him away. Baby had become a ticking time bomb that may or may not detonate. And he had to start preparing for the worst possible scenario.
And in the worst possible scenario, Baby had decided that it was absolutely necessary that Oliver be spared from the line of fire. It would hurt him, to break up. Baby wasn't an idiot, he knew that. But it would hurt him more to watch Baby die. He could move on from an ex. It was another thing altogether to move on from a dead husband.
Baby had reached this conclusion when he woke up in the early hours of the morning, throat constricting and chest tight. He'd spend hours alone on the bathroom floor with lots of time to think. And he realized that he didn't want to die. But even more than that, he didn't want to hurt Oliver.
"I'm not ready," Baby cried to himself on the kitchen floor. "I'm not ready."
And he didn't know what he was talking about really, if he wasn't ready for death or to be alone or both. But all he knew was he felt very young in that moment, and very very unprepared.
Baby eventually realized he'd probably been laying on the floor long enough. He tried pushing himself to his feet, but even that small action completely winded him. He tried taking a deep breath, but it only resulted in the world spinning and stars twinkling at the the edges of his vision. God damn it. He crawled forward, taking short little breaths, until he got to the trash can which he used to push himself up. It took about ten full minutes, but eventually he was standing, chest heaving.
He'd made a mistake.
Baby had made a huge mistake. He couldn't do this alone. He didn't want to do this alone. His heart ached with the words he'd said to Oliver, and just the thought of the boy made him want to cry again. He swiped a hand under his sore eyes, cheeks still wet.
Don't fucking call me crying in five minutes, Oliver had said. Baby bit his lip. It had been at least an hour.
And then his heart dropped with a terrible thought. Maybe Oliver didn't want to come back. What if Oliver had been so hurt that he didn't want to see Baby every again?
He shook himself out of it and reached for his phone on the counter. He had to try. He had to talk to him, had to apologize, had to do something. Being without him was agony. And even though there was a very real possibility Baby could die, he didn't want to die alone. It was a selfish thought, one that stung at Baby's cheeks. But he couldn't help it. He needed Oliver, and he had been stupid to try and deny that. Even if it had been for Oliver's sake.
Baby's thumb hovered over the call button. Would this be hurting Oliver even more?
He grabbed his phone and made his way to the door. He didn't know where he was planning on going, but he pressed the call button as he went. He'd meet Oliver wherever he was, yeah. He didn't want to wait for him to come all the way back to the house. He wanted to see Oliver now.
He held the phone to his ear. It rang once, twice, three times. Baby yanked open the front door, only to stop short.
Oliver stood there with his own phone to his ear, eyes red rimmed and still glistening. Baby gave a choked up sob at the sight of him. He let his phone drop to the floor as he launched himself forward into Oliver's arms.
"Shit Baby," Oliver said.
"I'm sorry," Baby wept. "I'm so so so sorry Oliver, please don't leave me."
"I'm not going anywhere," Oliver whispered gutturally into Baby's neck. "You're stuck with me for a long, long time."
Baby buried his face in Oliver's chest, smelling that familiar smell that was only Oliver. He held on tight, unwilling to let go.
"I love you," he said, tears running rampant and probably soaking Oliver's shirt.
"I love you too," Oliver told him.
They stood in the doorway like that for a whole three minutes. Oliver must have eventually decided that it was too much to keep standing in their pajamas in full view of their neighbors, because he helped Baby inside. Baby refused to let go of him, just loosening his grip a little so they could move. They made their way to the couch. Baby knew Oliver was going to try and talk to him about what had just happened, but he didn't want to talk about what had just happened. Baby just wanted to go to sleep, cuddled in Oliver's arms and focusing on anything other than dying.
But the first thing that came out of Oliver's mouth wasn't accusatory, or even referencing their fight.
"Are you alright?" Oliver asked him. "How is your chest feeling?"
Baby sniffed, but didn't look up from his huddled position. He decided to tell the truth. There was no point in holding anything back anymore.
"Bad," Baby said. "My lungs suck."
"Dumb lungs, leave my boyfriend alone."
"I'm your husband, idiot."
"Dumb lungs, leave my husband alone."
"Thank you."
"Are they really bad? Do we need to go to the hospital?" Oliver asked.
Baby took stock. Every inhale had become a sharp stab in his chest, and the stars at the edges of his vision had grown considerably. He knew he wasn't sucking enough oxygen in. A cough suddenly wracked his body, and it felt different than the rest. Fuck.
"I'm probably going to pass out in like fifteen minutes," Baby admitted.
"Holy shit what?"
Oliver sat up from the couch, taking Baby with him. He took Baby's face gently into his hands, searching his face. Baby's eyes fluttered shut. How had he ever expected to be able to live without this touch?
"Baby fuck, are you alright now?"
"Yeah, I'm really really good right now," Baby murmured, smiling at Oliver.
"Your lungs, you sap," Oliver teased.
"I... could use a cannula."
"That's all I need to hear," Oliver said.
"What-- hey!"
Oliver swept Baby up in his arms, proceeding to carry him out of the apartment. Baby couldn't complain too much. If he'd tried to walk the distance he would've passed out by the time they reached the car.
"For future reference, I don't think we should fight anymore. My lungs don't like crying that much," Baby said.
"I'm not the one who started it," Oliver pointed out as he dropped Baby in the passenger seat. "But I agree."
Baby winced. "I'm sorry Oliver."
"I know sweetheart," Oliver said. "Do you... did you mean what you said?"
Baby searched Oliver's big brown eyes, and realized the fear that still swam there. His heart clenched. He'd really fucked up, hadn't he?
"Oliver, I don't want you to leave," he whispered. "I don't. I was trying to keep you from being hurt, but you were right. I can't control who you love. I'm just really fucking terrified."
"You're not going to die Baby," Oliver told him fiercely. "You're not."
Baby swallowed. The fire in his chest was growing, and the fear that had gripped him ever since his diagnosis made itself known in the back of his closed throat.
"Let's get to the hospital," he said, turning away from Oliver's worried face. "I really would like to breathe again."
"One cannula coming right up."
So Oliver got in the car, and they started down the, by now familiar, road to the hospital.
*
"So you can carry this around with you," the nurse was saying. "I've given all the instructions to Oliver, since he'll probably be helping you work it and change it at first. I'll send you home with a couple weeks supply of cylinders. You'll have to come in after they run out to get more."
"How often do we change it out?" Oliver asked.
"See the pressure gauge on the side here?" the nurse pointed to the oxygen tank. "When the needle gets in the red, it's time to change. This is an M cylinder, and Baby will be getting a half flow rate, so it'll probably last about four to five days."
Oliver asked another question, then, and Baby started to tune them out. Oliver always had questions. Sometimes Baby kind of dozed in this state of not caring, just breathing. Because with the cannula in he could breathe. Not perfectly, not like he used to be able to. But it was better than without it. He leaned back in the wheelchair, thinking about their fight.
He didn't like just sweeping it under the rug, but it was easier than trying to go into it all. Baby was just so tired. He didn't know how many hours he'd been awake now, and all the crying and the moving was really starting to take its toll. He just hated it. He hated how hopeless immobility made him.
He picked at the arm of the wheelchair absentmindedly while the nurse and Oliver talked. Looking down, he'd realized he'd chipped off some of the black plaster with his fingernail. Damn, he hoped the hospital wouldn't charge him for that. They were already in enough of a financial hole as is. Then, Baby noticed, his negligent scratching hadn't been the only thing carved into the arm of the chair. He leaned forward, trying to discern the words someone had carved there.
Am I unhappy because I'm not free, or not free because I'm unhappy?
The words stared back at Baby from their chicken scratched place in the plaster. Baby looked at them for a long time, a strange stirring in his gut.
"Baby? Are you okay?" Oliver asked him.
Baby blinked out of his stupor.
"Yeah," he said. "I just think I figured out what I'm going to do tomorrow."