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Youtopia, Ch. 19 |
| Written by retrocious.[/sneh] | |
| Saturday, 17 May 2008 | |
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Share it:      "I can't believe I let you talk me into this," He hisses for the umpteenth time, his arms crossed snugly across his chest. I let the zine fall to the floor as I take a seat beside him and let out a soft chuckle. "What's so funny?," He barks, his eyes holding steady on the skeleton poster tacked to the wall. "You." Morgue rolls his eyes and grunts unapprovingly, but it's true-- besides the fact that the standard hospital gown makes him look like even more of a drag queen than usual, he's been acting like a five-year-old being forced to get a shot. "Look," I say seriously, "I'm worried about you, okay?" I place a hand on his shoulder for visual evidence, but he continues to stare bullet holes into the wall. "You know you should talk to Dr. Atlas about this...you don't have to say anything, really," I add quickly once Morgue starts to look mortified. "Just that you want to get, you know, some tests done." "Tests?" "Don't act stupid, Morgue." "I'm not 'acting stupid'." "Well you could've fooled me." He doesn't even bother glaring at me, and I sigh. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea...getting Morgue to come to the doctor and all. I figured, you know, he should get checked for like...diseases and stuff, and he should, obviously, but maybe I was forcing him into things too soon. From what I've heard, recovery from...this sort of stuff...takes a long time. At least, it does with girls. "Just ask him to check if you have, you know, AIDS or something." Finally, he does turn to me, his pupils smoldering. "AIDS? What, just because I'm gay you assume I'm crawling with STDs?" "What, no, I'm just saying that Shane--" "It doesn't...he doesn't. Have anything. Alright, so can we just leave?" "Leave?" A deep voice booms from behind us, and I jump skittishly off the bed. "You can't go without letting me at least say hello to my favorite patient," The owner of the voice, a balding man in his fourties', says as he steps into the room grinning. I'm the only one in the room courteous enough to return the grin. "Well, Berkeley, it's nice you've decided to drop by-- any special occasion?" "He's here to, uh, get a checkup," I answer, returning to my cozy plastic chair and my Sports Illustrated as Dr. Atlas beams with a fury at Morgue. "Oh? That's interesting-- it says here you're not due for a couple of months, at least." Technically, the man's addressing Morgue, but he may as well have been attempting to elicit a response from a brick wall. "He wants some tests done." Dr. Atlas turns to me. "I think he can speak for himself." "Yeah," Morgue says softly. "I can-- and I'm saying, let's leave." He's about to slide off the bed but the doctor halts him. "Wait. What tests?" Morgue shakes his head. "Nothing, no tests, just--" "Morgan," Dr. Atlas commands in an Em-like manner, "You can tell me. I'm your doctor, and as your doctor I'm concerned about your health. If there's anything at all that you believe might be wrong with you health, by all means let me in on it so we can fix it." "Nothing's wrong." "He wants to get an AIDS test," I correct. I ignore Morgue's scandalized reaction and wait to see how Dr. Atlas responds. I mean, the guy can't possibly get requests like these every day...how many gay patients could he possibly have? "You can't test for AIDs. You can test for HIV, however." He makes a little tick on a clipboard on the counter, nodding his head. "We can do that right now-- and in fact, we just recently obtained the methods for doing rapid HIV testing, so you can have your results within as little as ten minutes." Though the good doctor's still smiling like a labcoated Santa Claus, both my mouth and Morgue's are slightly agape and slowly growing numb. "That's it?," I say. "Yup. We're one of the few professional clinics around the area, actually. We just have to get a little blood sample and screen the antibodies-- and you'll know in no time." He begins to shuffle the foreign medical-related objects on his desk. "You...um...you don't want to know why I want to get one?" Morgue questions in this meek squeak of surprise. He coughs into his shoulder as he pulls on a pair of gloves and shrugs. "If you don't want to tell, you don't have to-- I'm not going to ask. Your business is your business." "Oh. Well...why do you think I want to get one?" "Because you're responsible, I'd like to think. But I'm guessing that's not solely the reason." He shifts back to us, his smile wavering. "Did something happen, Morgue?" "Yeah." His voice throws itself into the warm atmosphere of the room like a rough, heavy stone. "Something happened." "I'm sorry," Dr. Atlas replies, as gentile and paternal as ever...he doesn't even need to reach out to Morgue to prove that he cares. "Do you want to talk about it? It doesn't have to be with me-- there are a number of psychiatrists out there who I've seen do wonders for people..." "No, it's just...could I get the test?" "Of course," The man says quickly, fiddling with his doctor tools again. Morgue jerks his head at the door, and the message that he's sending is not exactly cryptic-- he doesn't want me here for the drawing of the blood, or for the results. I shrug to myself and walk to the waiting room outside. What was I expecting? He had been pushing me away for a long time now. For some reason, he still thinks I put my homophobic biases ahead of our friendship. So, okay, I squirm a little when I see him macking with dudes-- but I'm not just going to dump him when life gets shitty. He doesn't have to go running to Em all the time-- I'm a big man, I can handle issues like these. At least, if he gave me half a chance to. There's no television or interesting pamphlets in the room, so I pull out my phone and began pressing numbers sporadically. I'm not really doing it to kill time, I'm doing it because I'm nervous as hell. What if that test comes out positive? What if he has HIV? That turns into AIDS, doesn't it? And you can die from that. Entire countries are being killed off in Africa...but that's Africa. This is America, and there must be some magical **** around that can make everything better for Morgue because I am not letting him die. It almost happened once, and there's no way I'm letting it happen again. I realize I'm sorta overthinking this too much and shake my head-- there's no one else in the room, so I don't look like a psycho. "He doesn't have AIDS," I say quietly to myself as I scroll with my thumb through my contact list. "He doesn't have AIDS." My 8th grade Science teacher told us that if you keep telling yourself something, you'll eventually start to believe it-- which is the thing that matters most. She said something about confidence and faith, and how that's important and ****. More important than what actually happens, since if you believe it will (or, in my case, won't) happen, you'll be able to get through the stress. So, thankful once more that I'm alone, I start chanting. "He doesn't have AIDS, he doesn't have AIDS, he doesn't have--" The phone rings, rudely interrupting me, and two little letters flash before my eyes-- Em. It's Em, calling, and I freeze. Em. Bringing Morgue to the doctor reminded me of something before, but I didn't really remember it until right now-- Morgue had said something about Em before, at school, that had glued itself to the back of my mind. It was that Em had gone through what he was going through. Before, I thought he meant relationship trouble and so I didn't think that much of it, but now... Not allowing myself to think any further, I answer. "Hello?" "Hey," She says lightly. "What's up?" "Nothing. You?" "Same." "Cool." It's a robotic conversation, giving me time to worry while my mouth mass-produces common phrases. Eventually, Em says something that jars me back into manual. "How's Morgue?" "M-Morgue? I don't...I haven't seen him." "That's a lie, you ass, I know you went over his house yesterday. What happened?" "Nothing. Nothing, we just, uh, chilled. You know, watched movies." I gulp. "Oh, alright. Was he...okay?" "I dunno, you should know, shouldn't you?" "What are you talking about?" I groan and inhale as deeply as my lungs will permit. "I know what happened with Morgue before, alright? What Shane's...doing to him. And I know why you don't want to have sex with me." She hesitates for a long while, and then softly asks, "What? You're...you don't know what you're talking about." "I think I do, Em. You know, you could've just told me this before. I'm your boyfriend, and your best friend. You can say these things to me, and I'll understand." No longer denying anything, she sighs into the phone. "No...no, you wouldn't. I know you mean well, but it's not that easy. It's not that easy, Foss." Her voice cracks and I automatically feel shitty. "Look, Em, I'm sorry...about everything, I just hate feeling like I don't deserve to know what's going on..." She won't even give me the time to defend myself. "I gotta go. Bye." "Bye," I utter in defeat and shut the phone as the door leading to the inner rooms swings open. Morgue, looking as blue as his hair, walks out alone and sleepwalks toward me. He sits down in the corner, close enough for me to give him a comforting pat, but I'm scared I might break him if I do. He looks so fragile. "Did you--" "No," He says before I can get more than a word in. "They're almost ready, but not yet." "Oh." I lean back into my chair. "Don't worry, Morgue. Just relax." "Shut up, Foss." "You don't have to be such a ***** about it, I'm just trying to be a loyal friend." "If you were really a loyal friend you'd stop me from liking you." "Oh, for fuck's sake!" I grab onto Morgue and force him to look at me. "I know it hurts, liking someone who doesn't like you back. It's happened to me. But that doesn't mean we can't be friends." He just shrugs and pulls away from my grip. "I dunno," He responds. "I dunno." Copyright 2008 retrocious.[/sneh] |
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