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ROAN woke up in bed and was so warm and cozy, he decided he wasn’t getting up. Except things started nagging at him, little things he couldn’t quite dismiss as easily as he wanted to. Like the fact that the body cuddling him was a bit too large to be Dylan and also smelled ever so faintly of tiger.
Paris would do this a lot, not so much snuggle against him as cover him like a blanket. He rather liked it, actually. He loved the smell of him and the feeling of his weight, the way his warm skin felt against his. It felt like Paris was trying to protect him even in their sleep, and while he would normally balk at the idea of anyone protecting him, he still liked the comfort of it.
He was aware this was all wrong, yet at the same time he actually didn’t give a shit. “Am I supposed to think I’m dead or something? ’Cause you know, even if I believed in an afterlife, I know this wouldn’t be it.”
“Why?” Paris asked in his teasing voice. “Am I not divine?”
He sighed heavily, although he felt a twinge in his chest. That was exactly the kind of cheesy joke Paris would make. “I’m brain damaged, is that it? I had an aneurysm, and a section of my brain has died. Now I think you’re here, or I’m imagining it as a comforting fantasy.”
Paris stroked his hair and nuzzled his neck, which was familiar and nice. “You have to be cynical about everything, don’t you?”
“I know this is my subconscious or unconscious, or a hallucination. I’m just wondering how bad it is.”
“How would I know? I’m you.”
“Good point.” Paris’s hand was on his stomach, so he picked it up and kissed his palm before letting it fall back on his chest. “I miss you.”
“I know, sweetheart,” Paris replied sympathetically. “But you have Dylan now. You love him, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.” It was funny, but while he could easily lie to himself, he couldn’t while he thought he was talking to Paris. “But not like you. It’s different.”
“It would be. But you be good to him. Hear me?”
“I hear you. But if I’m a drooling vegetable, there’s no way I can be.”
“Like that would ever happen to you,” he said, giving Roan a quick kiss on the nape of his neck. “You’re a superhero, remember? You can only die on television.”
Roan was puzzling over that cryptic comment when he woke up, not overly surprised to be in an uncomfortable bed, surrounded by the horrible smells of a hospital.
But having Tank in his room? Yeah, that was a surprise.
For a moment, he thought he was still dreaming, but then Tank noticed he was awake and said, “Bonjour, Roan. How you feeling, ’ey?” Tank had started growing facial hair that looked like a combination of a soul patch and a goatee; it was hard to say if it was intentional or accidental. It was also, oddly enough, a reddish gold, whereas the unruly mop of hair on his head was a sort of polished-cedar color. He was standing up near the back corner of the room, and it looked like he’d been checking a text message on his phone. Only now, with this new weird facial hair, did Roan see an oh-so-slight resemblance to the late Alice In Chains singer Lane Staley, although Tank was shorter, more muscular, and undoubtedly much more Quebecois (and less heroin addicted).
Roan stared at him a moment. “What are you doing here?”
He didn’t seem at all offended by the slightly confrontational nature of the question. “I heard you were in the hospital, yeah? So I thought I’d drop by, see how you were doing.” He picked up a big bouquet of flowers wrapped in blue paper off the room’s lone chair. “I brought you these.”
Again, this remained so weird he wasn’t sure he was awake. But why would he dream that facial hair? “I’m not really a flower kind of gay.”
“There’s a beer in it.” He reached into the bouquet and slid out the top of a beer bottle, which seemed hidden by a large yellow spider mum.
“I love you.”
“I’ve visited lots of people in hospitals,” he said, putting a strange emphasis on the final syllable. “I know ways around things.” He put the bouquet down on the chair again, carefully, as if he was afraid the beer might roll out.
“Microbrew?”
He nodded. “Canadian, not that watery American piss.”
“Will you marry me?”
That made Tank grin at him, and it was oddly childlike. And unlike many hockey players, he appeared to have all his teeth. “If I was gay, I’d be all over you. I gotta thing for redheads.”
What on Earth did you say to that? He didn’t know, so he switched topics. “Where’s Dylan?” He was here, wasn’t he? What if he wasn’t here? He’d taken it for granted that Dylan would be here, but that wasn’t right, was it? Maybe this was what Paris—his subconscious—was trying to warn him about. What was in all this worry and stress for Dylan? He might come to his senses and decide that Roan simply wasn’t worth all this pain.
“He went to talk to a doctor I think. He wanted to—” He paused and his face screwed up briefly, like he didn’t like the taste of the word. “—damn. If he mentioned it, I forgot. Sorry. If I’m not in game mode, my attention wanders sometimes.”
“You don’t have ADD, do you?” This was a joke.
Tank shrugged as if the question was serious. “I exhaust my concentration. Sounds funny, doesn’t it? But I focus so tightly during games it’s like I don’t wanna do it if I really don’t hafta.”
“I believe it. You have sniper-like concentration.”
“Hardest part of being a goalie. It’s not guys lobbing shit at you or gettin’ in your face, it’s concentrating on a tiny, fast-moving piece of rubber while noise and people and lights are all around you, and just knowing without looking too hard who your guys are and who aren’t. I’d rather catch hundred-mile-an-hour slap shots than have to deal with a three on five with really hungry players and an angry, noisy crowd.”
This was all very interesting, mainly because Roan only knew that goalies were generally considered to be nuts; he had no idea of their perspective on things. As he sat up, he said, “Your reflexes are great, you know. I think they’re equal to mine.”
Again, that unselfconscious grin. Roan couldn’t help but think of most jocks as total assholes, but there was something very likable about Tank. There was something very off-putting too, but once you got to know him, it seemed like less of a worry. He was just an odd man, not scary odd (not constantly), just weird. “I’d hope they’d be better. You know how hard I’ve trained?”
Roan was going to point out he was super-human, therefore Tank shouldn’t feel bad about a draw, but that seemed both arrogant and presumptuous, so he didn’t say anything. He simply sat up and looked at the IV drip in his arm, trying to determine if it was just saline or something more. Then Roan decided to ask, “Why have you visited lots of people in hospitals? Is it sports related?”
Tank shook his head and scratched his arm. He was wearing jeans and a powder-blue T-shirt that seemed to be advertising a seafood place in a city called Trois-Rivieres (he was guessing because the words on the shirt were all in French), and where he scratched Roan could see both an old inoculation scar (?) and a tiny tattoo of a blue sun, with rays like starfish arms. “Sometimes. But mainly it was ’cause of my grandpa and my mom. My grandpa had emphysema that eventually killed him, and my mom got pancreatic cancer when I was a teenager, and she spent the last two months of her life in a hospital.” He shrugged again, but there was a little moment of pain in his eyes, hidden in a frown.
“I’m sorry.” Pancreatic cancer was a real bitch too. All cancers were bad by definition, but some were worse than others.
He shook his head, and the darkness that had briefly clouded his vision disappeared with the return of a friendly smile. “Nah, it’s okay. I learn things. Like how to steal meds from the supply closet. Wow, did me and my friends get high on the hospital’s dime.”
“You still do that?”
He shook his head. “Don’t know American hospitals so well.”
“Too bad. I was gonna have you go get me some Demerol.”
He tossed him a wink. “I’ll see what I can do.” He meant it too. Now that was a friend. Why he’d been adopted by a possibly crazy goalie he had no idea, but at least he was a cool guy.
The door to the room opened, and Dylan came in, looking to Tank before he noticed that Roan was awake and sitting up. “Roan!” he exclaimed, immediately coming to his side and embracing him in a powerful hug. He almost got tangled in Roan’s IV line.
Roan hugged him back and realized that that two day’s growth of beard he'd had after the transformation seemed thicker. Not only that, but Dylan had a dark fuzz of stubble on his cheeks as well, which he hadn’t had earlier. When Dylan pulled back, tears glimmered in dark chocolate eyes. “How are you feeling?”
“A little drugged, but okay. How long have I been here?”
“Only since yesterday.”
“Yesterday?” He’d been out for, what, twelve hours? Could he blame the drugs they gave him or not?
Before he could ask, a familiar voice said, “It should have been a lot worse.” Doctor Rosenberg came in, looking at his chart and shaking her head. “God, your luck. I’d play the lottery if I was you.” She looked up, noticing Tank. “You’re a new one.”
He must have guessed that was an invitation to introduction. “Tank Beauvais.”
“Your name is not Tank.”
“My real name is Thibault.”
She studied him for a moment. “Tank it is.” She pushed her tortoiseshell glasses up to the bridge of her nose and said, “I need to be alone with Roan for a few minutes.”
Dylan gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and told him, “I’ll be right outside.”
Roan nodded at him as Dylan gave him a small smile and a comforting squeeze on the arms before leaving the room, Tank falling in behind him without comment. The way Dylan acted, he couldn’t help but think Rosenberg was here to give him bad news.
“What’s with the Frenchman?” Rosenberg wondered.
“He’s a goalie. I’ve been adopted by a hockey team.”
“The Falcons?”
“You know of them?”
“I’ve seen the logos. I’m not locked up in my office all the time.”
There was no help for it—he had to just come out and ask. “I had another aneurysm, didn’t I?”
She gazed at him steadily, her hazel eyes giving him nothing. “Yes and no.”
Of all possible answers, this one was the most unexpected. “Well, that’s definitive.”
She rolled her eyes and tapped the clipboard holding his chart like somehow the answers on it were his fault. “The long and the short of it is, you probably did have an aneurysm, but beyond the burst blood vessels in your eyes, your blood pressure upon arrival, and initial head CT readings, we can no longer prove it.”
He mulled over everything she said carefully before answering. “Huh?”
“You’ve totally recovered.”
He considered this again. Yes, he was drugged. “Umm... didn’t I fully recover last time?”
“You weren’t brain damaged, but you did suffer some aftereffects. Now—” She shrugged with her hands, almost flinging the clipboard by accident. “Well, fuck me sideways. I don’t get these readings at all.”
It was always a little shocking when your small, grandmotherly doctor said “Fuck me sideways.” He rubbed his head, wondering if he was still dreaming. If he slapped himself, would she have him committed? “So... why I am here? I mean, if I’m all right....”
“We had to determine that. You did pass out. Besides, I wanna figure this out.” She lifted a page on the clipboard, scanned it, and then shrugged again. “I’m gonna give up, though. Life’s too short. Besides, I know you’ll wanna get out of here as soon as possible. So what I want you to do is give me the weekend.”
Lost. He felt totally lost and at sea and drugged without actually being drugged. What was going on here? “Are you speaking in riddles, or am I actually brain damaged?”
“I want to check you into Willow Creek this weekend,” she continued, as if he hadn’t actually said anything at all. Willow Creek was an infecteds-only hospital, the one where Paris spent a week recovering after he first met him. “I want to run a full battery of tests: PET scan, MRI, EEG, all the acronyms. It’ll just be me and a couple of trusted assistants. Scientific American won’t get their greedy little hands on you.”
“I’m on a case. I can’t do this weekend. Why the hell do you want to poke and prod me some more? Didn’t you do that enough when I was a kid?”
“Sorry, but you’ve grown up and adapted far beyond my comprehension. I can’t wrap my head around it. I feel like a moron, quite frankly.”
He grabbed onto the only word that really alarmed him. “Adapted? Meaning what exactly?”
She shrugged with her hands again, less violently this time. “Haven’t you noticed? Evolution takes thousands of years, millions, but you’re making it look like a lazy idiot. You’re adapting to your new situation, Roan, just like you adapted out of having a viral cycle.”
“That isn’t possible.” Was that why he'd started changing without realizing it the other night? Was he starting to adapt? That was insane. Bodies didn’t work like that—the virus didn’t work like that.
“Isn’t it? You’re the impossible man. The virus shouldn’t have incorporated into your DNA the way it did, and from there it’s just been an avalanche of impossibilities with you. Do I really need to point out that most virus children are ten years dead at your age? Or that all infected have viral cycles, except you? Come on. I think we’re both too old to dick around. You are a....” She didn’t have the word.
“Freak?” he suggested.
“Hybrid,” she replied with an evil scowl. “If you were at all an optimist, we could say you were the best of both worlds.”
“My mother was a human and my father was a virus,” he replied sarcastically. Before she could tell him to knock it off, he held up the IV line. “So what’s this, then, if I’m fine?”
“Fluids. You were dehydrated and, believe it or not, mildly malnourished, and probably exhausted considering the way you slept. You’ve got to remember the way your metabolism changes even during partial shifts. It’s playing holy hell with every system in your body. You probably need ten hours sleep on days of change, and fuck knows how many calories, maybe ten thousand or so. You can’t act like it’s just a normal day, because it’s not.”
“Could it have been a migraine?”
She shook her head but then shrugged. “Can’t actually rule that out. We don’t know for sure how the change affects your migraines, so it’s possible there could be a trigger mechanism. But dehydration is definitely a trigger, so keep your fluids up, damn you.”
He dry washed his face, trying not to notice how hot and itchy his beard was, and wondered why he was so mad. What was he mad at? Her? Himself? His virus? “Am I in danger from aneurysms anymore?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I think you started having one, and it stopped.”
“Stopped?”
She nodded. “Makes no fucking sense to me either. Maybe it was just some weird kind of seizure. I can’t rule that out either.”
“It hurt like fuck.”
“No reason a seizure couldn’t.”
That was a fair point. “But you don’t think it was.”
“No. I think you almost had an aneurysm, and your body fought back. But since that’s illogical and can’t be proven, that’s pure speculation on my part.”
This was frustrating and threatened to make his head start hurting all over again. He noticed that there was one of those reusable shopping totes sitting on the floor beside the chair—Tank had been blocking his view of it. (Goalies made better doors than windows, even off the ice.) Were there clothes in it? He was pretty sure there were, as he thought he recognized the color of his zombie T-shirt (burnt orange). Dylan brought clothes, and Tank brought beer. He knew some great guys. If Dylan had also included his cell phone (he seriously needed to call Holden if he’d lost a day), he’d have to marry him later today.
“You’ve already tuned me out, haven’t you?” Rosenberg asked. It wasn’t accusatory, just weary.
“Am I going to drop dead of an aneurysm or not?”
“I don’t know. You could live until one hundred or die in sixty seconds; there are limits to adaptation. That’s why I want to get you into Willow Creek and scan the shit out of you.”
He got out of bed, taking a moment to steady himself, and then hauled the IV stand across the room with him as he walked to the bag of clothes. Yeah, he was wearing a stupid paper gown and his ass was hanging out, but Rosenberg had pretty much seen every inch of him so it didn’t matter. As he stepped into his jeans, he told her, “I have a case to finish. Once I’m done... fine, Willow Creek. But only to find out how much of me is still human.”
“Don’t be an asshole. You’re human.”
“Yeah, a human who can change into a lion and stop his own aneurysms.”
“Speculation on my part,” she replied archly. “Don’t go on a self-pity trip.” He ripped off the paper gown and tossed it aside before pulling on his shirt. “Holy hell, when did you get so many tattoos?”
“A weird side effect of my self-pity trips. What did you say to Dylan? He looked upset.”
Here she paused, long enough for him to feel a warning spasm in his gut. What had she said? “I might have mentioned the thing about not knowing if you were all right or on the precipice.”
“So he thinks I could drop dead any minute. Terrific. Did you have to scare my boyfriend? Was it emotional blackmail to get me into Willow Creek?”
He got the evil scowl again, but probably for a good reason. Doctor Rosenberg could be a huge pain in his ass, but she usually wasn’t that manipulative. “I was thinking aloud. I’m worried about you, you stupid prick. And I’m not alone.”
He had to give her that. He was kind of worried too. In theory, this should have been good news. Maybe he wasn’t about to drop dead; maybe his head wasn’t going to implode.
So why didn’t it feel like good news?
