Josh had lost count of how many coffees he'd gotten from the vending machine over the previous fifteen hours; probably enough to earn him his own trip to the hospital if he kept at it much longer. Emery had flat out refused his offer to accompany him, and trying to talk Mark into giving him any news of Emery's state was akin to hitting a brick wall head-first — if brick walls were prone to giving lectures on doctor-patient confidentiality.
He swirled his cold coffee in its tiny plastic cup. Nothing but coffee on an empty stomach was beginning to make him feel queasy. Despite knowing it wouldn't help, he texted Mark for news; his texting app told him it was the 29th time, a string unbroken by any hint of a reply. The man's shift had ended hours ago — was it too much to ask for, that he at least acknowledge Josh's texts?
The outside doors opened with an abrupt sound, letting through a bloodied figure in a gurney being driven at breakneck speed by a harried-looking paramedic.
"Great," someone else muttered, "another accident. That'll be at least another two hours that they'll make us wait."
Eyes on his phone, so he wouldn't be tempted to look for the owner of the voice, Josh bit his tongue to keep from mentioning that yes, surely people had accidents on purpose to inconvenience those already in the ER for less severe situations. Some people's lack of empathy set his nerves on edge, and said nerves really didn't need any encouragement at the moment.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when a hand landed on his shoulder. Mark, still wearing his hospital coat. "Mark? What are you doing here? I thought you'd be home by now."
"Without telling you I was leaving?" The valiant effort Mark made not to roll his eyes at Josh in his workplace nearly had Josh laughing. "I'll insult you later. I traded shifts with a colleague of mine, to be able to follow through on the— patient."
Barely a hitch before steamrolling over 'deadweight' right into 'patient'. He really was a stickler for the right thing in the right context. But that was beside the point — Josh was far too relieved to know Mark was keeping an eye on Emery's case to tease him right now. "Thanks, Mark. Really." He turned hopeful eyes onto his best friend's. "How's he doing?"
"I can tell you how he's not doing — he's not become mentally incompetent since being admitted, and a court hasn't appointed you as his legal guardian as far as I've been told."
"Ass. So you came out here just to tell me you're not telling me anything?"
"I came out here because I figured you'd be too caffeinated to stop texting. How many of those have you had?"
"Um..."
Mark threw his hands in the air before confiscating Josh's plastic cup. "You don't even know? No more coffee for you. Go eat an apple or something." His phone beeped and he glanced at it. "And stop texting me. I have to go now, but I'll try to come out here to check in on you when I can."
#
Another four hours came and went before Mark came to fetch him from the waiting room with a brisk, professional countenance that gave nothing away. Emery wanted to talk to him, which Josh could only see as an improvement.
For a moment Josh felt relieved.
Then Mark instructed him to put on a mask covering his nose and mouth, as well as surgical gloves, a plastic apron, goggles, and a cap, and took him to what he called a negative pressure room. Whatever was wrong with Emery it wasn't the simple pneumonia Josh had imagined.
Somehow, even though Josh had seen what the streets had done to Emery — had seen the unnatural thinness, the bruises, the halting steps —, he hadn't been prepared for the impact of seeing Emery in that hospital bed, his shaved head turned towards the glass window that overlooked the nurses' station. Sitting amidst a cacophony of beeping sounds, with a myriad of wires and IV lines attached to him in various manners, Emery was a speck of humanity in a vast sea of artificial entrapments. It underscored his frailty in a way that had Josh's guts twisting in fear. What was the diagnosis that had him asking to talk to Josh?
He didn't seem to have noticed Josh's arrival, even though the room was tiny past the double doors; Josh forced himself to keep a neutral tone. "Hey," he offered, his breath warm and moist inside the mask. "Mark said you wanted to see me?"
Emery turned, surprise evident in his expressive brown eyes. He was wearing a mask of his own, a nasal cannula supplying him with oxygen without hindering his speech. "That was fifteen minutes ago. I rather thought it'd take you longer than that to get here."
Josh held his gaze. "I was in the waiting room."
"Still? I thought I told you to go home." His haughtiness was doing a poor job of concealing the tumultuous look in his eyes, even before he had a coughing fit.
"You did. It's been a couple of years since you were the boss of me, though, so don't take it personally that I didn't obey."
Josh had hoped to coax a bit of laughter, a hint of a smile, out of him, but whatever information Emery was holding on to didn't seem to allow room for humor. A spike of icy dread went through him. What could Emery's diagnosis be that had him so devastated?
"They're still waiting on the lab results, but... They believe I have tuberculosis. They believe it strongly enough that they're already treating me for it." Emery lowered his gaze then willed it back up, to meet Josh's eyes. "And that means I may have passed it onto you." His fingers clenched around the edge of the bedsheet, knuckles going white. "I cannot... Words can't express the depth of my regret. I shouldn't have set foot in your house, Josh."
Josh's chest expanded, making him realize how hard it had been to breathe before. TB wasn't a trifle, but Emery's posture had had him picturing one terrifying scenario after another. After being best friends with Mark for so many years, he knew better than to think of TB as this terrifying entity — or even as a very contagious one. TB was manageable; TB was curable. Emery would be okay. "How are you feeling? How long before the test results come in?"
"Another day, I think. But you won't be tested for another four weeks. Your friend will explain better, I'm sure, but I... Josh, I'm so very sorry." He hung his head, focusing on an invisible point on the floor.
"Sorry for what?" Josh asked, voice gentle yet thick with the weight of Emery's reaction. "Being sick? That's not exactly your fault, is it?"
Once more Emery's eyes snapped up to meet his. "Didn't you hear me? You might be... You shaved me. You bathed me."
Josh hoped there was a chair he could pull up, to be able to sit at eye-level height with Emery, but there was none in the room, nor would there have been room for one to begin with. He smiled softly, forgetting for a moment that not only was his mouth hidden behind the mask, but also that Emery wouldn't be able to see the expression in his eyes without his glasses. "I did. And I'm not sorry I did it. For what it's worth, I don't think you infected me. But if I test positive I'll be treated, just like you. We'll both be fine, Emery."
"You're not— " Emery shook his head, incredulous. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I went to your home. I'm sorry you've been dragged into my problems."
Josh wanted to place a hand on Emery's shoulder, but the best he could do without Emery protesting was to not break eye contact. "Dragged? Hardly. I like to think I skipped and hopped merrily to them of my own free will."
"Josh, I..." One more shaky exhale, but if the anguish in Emery's eyes had abated the slightest bit or if Josh was seeing what he wanted to see was anyone's guess. "I know it's hypocritical of me to even ask this of you. I know I have no right, not after I refused to let you come in with me, but... It'll be almost a month before you get tested. If I call, will you tell me? Please. I need to know if I infected you."
"If you call?" Josh zeroed in on that troublesome detail. "Do they expect you'll need to stay here that long?"
Emery shook his head. "Not that long, no. If all goes according to what they expect, I'll be discharged in a few days."
"Then where," Josh asked, preparing for battle, "would you call from?"
"A shelter, I believe. I'll find a way. The treatment for this will take several months. It was explained to me that homeless people need to prove they can adhere to—"
"You're not homeless," Josh cut across him. "When we came here I said you were technically homeless, but that's just so you won't twist your brain in knots with the idea that your sister's money might pay for your treatment, instead of the other way around. That doesn't mean you don't have a home to go to."
"You can't be serious," Emery replied, eyebrows slanting in bewilderment. "I'm telling you I have an infectious disease and you're offering to play house."
"I'd already offered. Why you think I'd go back on it is beyond me."
"That was when we thought it'd take a week or two before I could find a job and stop imposing on your kindness."
"Only in your mind, Emery. I don't care how long it takes. You're welcome to be my roommate for the next ten years for all I care."
Emery's eyes were never completely pain-free when they gazed at him these days; Josh wished he could help soothe that somehow. "I have an infectious disease," Emery underlined, as if Josh hadn't heard him the first time. "You're correct that there's a good chance you're not infected. I won't risk your health like that."
"Do you really think you can stick to a TB regimen without slipping while you're living out on the streets? Are you okay with infecting other people," he challenged, "just because you're too proud to accept help from me?"
"Proud?" Great. Now Emery sounded affronted. "You think this is a matter of pride? I'm under no illusions that I could— you've already seen me stripped of every ounce of pride entirely."
"Then why didn't you come to me in the first place?" Josh hadn't planned on asking that, but now it was as if his ability to breathe depended on having the answer. "If it wasn't a matter of pride?"
"To you?" Emery looked confused enough for Josh to take it personally.
"After the trial, when you had nowhere else to go, why didn't you come find me?" Josh's voice betrayed him, cracking on the last word; he ploughed ahead. "Did you really think I wouldn't lend you a hand? That I'd be that petty?"
"It would never have crossed my mind to impose that burden on you—"
"Did you think I'd be happier with you living on the streets and out of the way than if you gave me the chance to help out?" Did Emery really think nothing but the worst of him?
"Josh, I—"
"Would you have shut the door in my face if it'd been the other way around?"
Emery's eyes widened. When had they come so close? Josh had no recollection of having gotten in Emery's face but there they were, inches apart, their masks keeping the distance that Josh, on his own, had failed to maintain.
"I would never have refused you assistance," Emery replied, a fraction of Josh's heart unclenching at the fire in his words, "but you weren't the one in the wrong. I wouldn't have put you in the position of knowing about my situation if I'd had a choice." Troubled brown eyes slid away from his. "I'd hoped, for your sake, you'd have forgotten I ever existed by now."
Fuck. What could he reply that wasn't 'I could never forget you no matter how hard I tried'? He stepped away until his back was to the glass. "Well, I'm looking at you now, and I can see you exist. I'm saying you have a house to exist in, when you're released."
"You're a remarkably generous man, Josh. I won't—"
"Stop doing that. It's a damn pattern with you. You compliment me and then you usually throw whatever I'm offering away and stomp on it for good measure the minute after that."
"Go get your friend, then," Emery said, anguish bleeding into his rising voice, "and have him explain the side effects of the drugs you'll need to take for months on end, then tell me if you believe that to be an acceptable risk."
Josh still held his gaze. "I don't have to — whatever they are, compared to the alternative, it's an acceptable risk. And it certainly beats following you in and out of shelters like a deranged stalker for months."
"Josh—"
"Please. I promise I won't be this hard to live with if you let me have this one. You're not homeless, Emery. And you're not alone."
Emery shut his eyes, but not fast enough that Josh couldn't see the flash of bone-deep yearning in them. No matter his arguments, a part of him wanted to live more than Emery himself believed. When he opened them again they were watery, his voice hoarse. "I can't begin to tell you how much you make me want to take you up on your offer."
He seemed poised to continue, leading Josh to interrupt him before he could begin to utter the word 'but'. "That's settled then. I have your word you'll get Mark or whoever is on call to call me to come pick you up when you're discharged?"
"Josh..."
Emery was wavering. He only had to close it. "Or do I have to get comfortable in a waiting room chair for the next few days so I won't miss it happening?"
Emery fidgeted with the hem of the bedsheet again. "You'll have months to regret that decision if I infect you. How could that ever truly be what you want?"
That was no kind of question at all. "I'll have the rest of my life to regret any other decision if I let this thing kill you because you were on the streets ruining the rest of your immune system."
"I have no way of paying you," Emery countered, and this time Josh was sure he'd done it deliberately, a way to make him angry so he'd rescind his offer, but knowing that and managing to not be affected by it were two different things.
Well.
Emery had gotten half his wish — Josh was powerless to prevent the hard sharp anger that lodged somewhere in his chest — but there was no amount of anger that would cause him to want to abandon Emery to his fate. He was just as powerless to prevent coldness from seeping into his voice as he was to prevent the rest.
"Not everything is a transaction. Hardly anything is, with me — that's more up your alley." It was petty to add that, but Josh had never claimed to be the bigger man. "But I think you know that already. Are you going to make me beg? Will that give you back some of that pride of yours?"
And there it was again, just as the night before the last: at the disdain in his words Emery shrunk in on himself, looking like he'd taken a beating; every remotely good emotion fled his eyes, leaving only weary resignation in its stead.
"No, I... No. You have my word. I'll have them call you when I'm released."
"Thank you." He pushed away from the glass, exhaustion catching up with him. "Try to get some rest now, and I'll do the same."
Predictably, Mark was hovering outside. Less predictably, he had no pre-prepared rant over the idiocy of taking Emery home. At times like these, the doctor in him outweighed the friend, and that was a relief to Josh; the last thing he needed was to defend his life's choices while running on no sleep.