Fic: Lucky (Ch. 41)
Jul. 13th, 2010 03:03 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
unavez18.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
shelter_dinerCharacters: Zach, Shaun, Cody, etc.
Rating: PG13
As much as Zach loved school and the opportunity he’d been given to explore his art, he didn’t know anyone who was impervious to the charms of the onset of summer. No matter how enjoyable his classes were he still felt a sense satisfaction at the notion of completion, as well as pure relief that a responsibility had been lifted from his shoulders. The summer was wide open, a blank page yet to be filled with happy memories, and he felt he could certainly use some more of those.
He was in his last class in a cold, impersonal lecture hall, as the next year at Cal Arts would consist of workshops and independent studies to prepare him for his final project. Three years ago the idea of building himself up to the point where he would have an exhibition of his own had seemed like a far-off pipe dream, but now he found he was actively looking forward to the moment. He’d noticed his artwork had started to take on more vivid colors again, though the darker period would always be with him and would probably end up being a part of his exhibition. As the sting of the colder season had melted into warmer days, he’d turned from mourning towards acceptance, and now he felt like the best way to honor and remember Jeannie was with a sense of gratitude for the incredible gift she had given him in Cody.
Zach took out his notebook and began to sketch. Whenever a moment of inspiration struck him he did so, and unlike his earlier schooling experiences, at Cal Arts no teacher would stand over his desk and “tsk” disapprovingly at his absent-mindedness. He drew Cody, standing in front of the squat, sprawling building that was his school, larger than life and smiling confidently. Then he added Shaun by his side with a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t often draw people as the focal point of his artwork, but in this case, he could make an exception. The two of them were more focal in his life than anything else.
He pulled out some markers and began to shade in the building, and was so wrapped up in his work that he was startled when the people around him began to stir as the class had come to a close.
“You coming?” Jordan asked. “Or, you know, you could be one of those nerds who wants to savor his last class before summer.”
Zach laughed. “Nah. I like summer just as much as the rest of you young kids,” he replied.
Jordan shook his long hair away from his eyes with a flick of his head. “Cool, dude. Catch up with ya later. Oh, and If you can, tell Gabe to quit taking such long showers at our place when he comes over to stay with Amber. He uses up all the hot water,” he added before strolling away.
Zach grinned as a response and took a few more seconds to gather up his belongings before heading out. Jordan had already bounced away in the crowd when Zach felt his cellphone buzz to life in his pocket. He fished it out saw that he had several missed calls, which wasn’t of its own an unusual occurrence. Several buildings at Cal Arts had poor reception, and the lack of signal caused any incoming calls or texts to bombard him as soon as he stepped out into the sunlight.
But as he opened up the phone to see who had been trying to reach him, he began to get the feeling that something might be different about this time. There were five missed calls blinking on his screen-- two from Cody’s school and three from Shaun, as well as one text.
Zach switched to the text quickly. It was from Shaun, and all it said was “Call me now.”
He wished there was somewhere to sit nearby, but he had come to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk, causing people to have to dart around him. He didn’t feel like he had the time to search for a better place to stand as he nervously dialed Shaun.
Shaun knew he was in class; he was good at remembering Zach’s frequently changing schedule. So there weren’t many reasons why he would call at that time, let alone call three times, and then follow up with a demanding text. Zach already knew in his gut that something was wrong.
“Okay, listen,” Shaun started without even saying hello as the call went through. “Just don’t panic.”
At which point of course Zach did begin to panic. Fear rose in his chest and threatened to cut off his airway.
“He’s fine, okay? I promise he’s fine . . . but I’m at the hospital and I need you to come.”
Shaun’s voice was shaking, and the unusual note of weakness in his tone caused Zach to feel ten times worse.
“Babe, did you hear me? He’s fine . . . but he probably broke a bone. Please promise me you’ll drive carefully. Or better yet, wait for Gabe or Amber to take you. I called them and they said they were on their way over to get you.”
“Right,” Zach finally found the breath to speak. “He’s okay?”
“He’s okay,” Shaun repeated, but his voice still trembled slightly with some suppressed emotion. “Just please hurry.”
Before Zach could press him for more details Gabe and Amber ran up to him, each grabbing at an arm.
“Come on dude, let’s roll. My car’s nearby,” Gabe said. Zach didn’t move immediately, so Amber took the phone from his hands. “We’re coming Shaun,” she said, and they dragged him away.
They didn’t talk at all as they hurried to Gabe’s car, though Zach wondered how long his friends had been looking for him. What he really wanted to do was call Shaun back, but he had enough presence of mind to realize he was probably busy at the hospital, and cellphone use was typically frowned upon there. He didn’t realize how distraught his silence made him appear until they were already in the car heading out of the parking structure, and Gabe gave him a pointed look in the rearview mirror.
Amber shot Gabe a withering glare. “Yeah, but Zach is a dad now, and he wouldn’t be a very good one if he wasn’t worried about his kid, dummy,” she said.
The familiar banter of his friends brought some sense of normality to the moment, and Zach found his voice again. “I know he’s okay . . . I guess you’re right, I should chill . . . it’s just that Shaun sounded kinda . . . weird on the phone. And he’s usually the chill one, ya know?”
“I’m sure he’s just worrying like a dad, too,” Amber said at the same time that Gabe said, “Yeah, you’re right dude, he did sound sorta weird.”
Amber pierced him again with her gaze. “Well Shaun doesn’t lie and he said Cody was fine, so I’m sure it’s just that he wants you there.”
Zach nodded, but noticed that Gabe’s expression remained pensive.
*
Amber and Gabe stayed to park the car as Zach shot out, making his way through the maze of the hospital at full speed with only a few breathless stops to ask for directions.
But he froze at the doorway to the waiting room where Shaun was hunched over in a beige chair. His eyes were clearly red, and the remnants of tears lingered around them. Zach had seen Shaun cry perhaps only a handful of times in their years together; by comparison, Zach was the crier in the family. So seeing Shaun like that, wracked with emotion, suddenly sent Zach hurtling from the “it’s a natural part of growing up” place Gabe and Amber had brought him to and back into a mode of sheer panic.
He clutched at the doorframe as the room began to spin around him, unable to believe that things were okay if Shaun looked like that. His knees were starting to give out and the only thing keeping him up was the support of the wall beside him.
Shaun looked up suddenly and rushed over to him. “Zach, no, no, baby, he’s fine. He’s fine. It’s just a broken arm.”
The adrenaline rush was too much and his knees finally did give out, but Shaun had both arms around him by this point and was able to keep him upright.
“He fell off the jungle gym thing at school and landed wrong. It’s just his arm.”
“His arm?” Zach repeated stupidly.
“Yes, babe,” Shaun kissed him. “He’s fine. Everything is okay.”
A few tears of relief slipped out and Shaun quickly wiped them off Zach’s face. “Come on, let’s go. They should be putting on his cast now.”
“Okay,” Zach whispered, feeling the support of his own legs return. Shaun led him down the hall and past a nurse’s station. The petite brunette behind the counter opened her mouth as if to say something, but Shaun shot her a hard glare and they passed by without comment.
They paused outside the curtain to Cody’s room where they could hear his cheerful voice. “And it will dry hard? And it’ll stay that way even if I get wet?”
“Well, you should try not to get it too wet,” the doctor laughed.
Shaun was right, evidently; Cody seemed entirely himself. They pulled back the curtain a little to enter.
Cody looked up quickly at his fathers with wide eyes. Suddenly his lower lip started to tremble and he spontaneously burst into tears. Shaun and Zach rushed to him, awkwardly trying to reach around his newly formed cast and the doctor and nurse in the room.
“Hey, kiddo, you’re okay,” Shaun said, smiling to encourage him.
The nurse chuckled. “Kids do this sometimes; he really is fine, he shouldn’t be in any real pain right now . . . it’s just a bit of shock and then when they see their parents they can get a little emotional.”
Zach grabbed a tissue and dabbed away Cody’s tears, and he eventually stopped crying, leaving only a watery trace in his big eyes.
“You alright now?” Zach asked him worriedly.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” Cody sniffed. “Can you sign my cast as soon as it dries?”
*
Zach and Shaun sat up with Cody in his bedroom that night until his eyes finally drooped close, his freshly decorated cast held tightly to his chest like a badge of honor. Once over his initial emotional outburst Cody had been nothing but smiles for the rest of the evening while demanding tales of every broken bone Shaun and Zach had ever had.
More due to the events of the day than the late hour, both men were exhausted. They were drained mentally and physically, and once in their own bed they lay staring at the ceiling and holding hands, trying to regain their balance.
“I’m glad you were there for him,” Zach whispered into the darkness, caressing Shaun’s hand with his fingers.
Shaun turned his head away and said nothing for several seconds, but he swallowed audibly. When he looked back again the light streaming in from the neighboring apartment buildings reflected off a shining coat of tears that had gathered in his eyes.
“Zach, I have to tell you something,” he said.
“What’s wrong?” Zach turned on his side to face Shaun, draping an arm over him to pull him closer, at once both immensely concerned for himself in regards to whatever terrible news Shaun had while also filled with a desire to provide comfort in this apparent time of need.
Shaun bit his lip. “When the school couldn’t get a hold of you they called and told me Cody was on his way to the hospital, and that they suspected he’d broken something . . . and by the time I got there he was already being x-rayed.”
Zach nodded slowly, but he wasn’t understanding. Shaun had already told him the basic sequence of events that he had missed while he was in class.
Shaun looked back up at the ceiling before continuing. “So I went to the nurse’s station on his floor and they asked me who I was . . . ” his voice dropped, growing hoarse with emotion. “I don’t know why, but I froze for a second. I should have just lied and said I was his father, but for some reason I was worried that they might ask for ID, so I told them my partner had custody. The girl at the counter got all confused or suspicious or something and said she just had to ‘make a few calls’ regarding their policy on unattended minors. And she’s sitting there on hold on the phone for what seemed like forever, twirling a piece of her hair, and all I could think about was that Cody was somewhere there, alone, and they weren’t going to let me see him . . . I don’t often get violent urges, but I swear, I wanted to punch that woman in the face,” he laughed a little to cover his mounting agitation at recounting the story.
“They finally got a hold of the copy of the emergency card that the school had sent over, and since I’m the contact listed she decided that was ‘good enough,’ but by that time Cody had been moved to the casting room and you were almost there, and I just figured I should take a moment to calm down because I didn’t want him to see me like that. That’s why I was such a wreck when you came . . . I’m really sorry about that, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“God, Shaun,” Zach whispered, pulling Shaun closer and placing his head against his chest. He wove his fingers into Shaun’s hair and stroked him gently, shuddering as he imagined what he would have been feeling if their roles had been reversed. “I’m so sorry,” he said.
Shaun took the comfort of Zach’s embrace and snuggled in even closer against his body. “I’ve always known where I stood with Cody . . . I guess I just forgot that the rest of the world is not as casual about things as I am.”
Zach continued to run his hand through Shaun’s hair as his mind settled on something it had been glossing over long before Cody had first called Shaun ‘Dad.’ He’d toyed with the idea of bringing it up several times but always felt foolish for pressing at a matter that was so well understood between the two of them, and he never wanted Shaun to think he was posturing to the world instead of accepting their unity as a family. But now he felt it was time to speak his mind.
“Then I think we both need to adopt him, officially,” he said simply.
Shaun pulled back from Zach’s chest, and now the light that hit his eyes reflected only excitement. “Yeah?” he asked.
“Yeah. I mean, you’re his father in every way that counts. Why shouldn’t the rest of the world be forced to see that as well?”
Shaun smiled up at him, his eyes still shining. “God, Zach,” he said. “Sometimes I don’t know how I got so lucky. You’ve brought everything I ever could have wanted to my life.”
Shaun’s words struck Zach deeply, leaving a blazing warmth inside his chest. There was a time when Shaun would never have let his emotions show in such a raw fashion; when he would have covered his insecurities with a joke, or his passion with a sideways sarcastic remark. And there was a time when Zach would have held his tongue rather than display his own emotional cards for fear that somehow the intensity of his feelings would not be reciprocated.
It was nice to be past all that.
“I could say the same thing, babe,” Zach said, grinning playfully at the appropriation of Shaun’s nickname for him. “Loving you is the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
Shaun settled back against Zach’s chest, but Zach could tell he was still smiling by the way his cheekbones pressed up against his ribs. “I love you, babe,” Shaun said.
They fell asleep with smiles, having found their balance again.
***
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Date: 2010-07-13 11:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-14 03:21 am (UTC)LOVE IT!!
Date: 2010-07-14 02:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-14 03:52 pm (UTC)Such lovely, amazing writing. Thank you!
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Date: 2010-07-16 05:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-14 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-18 04:35 pm (UTC)