Hide the Truth From My Eyes

I received the phone call at ten in the morning, at work. The hospital. First I panicked. I thought something had happened. That they were calling to announce Mike's death. My mind blew up and I was on the edge of breaking down crying when the guy on the other end of the phone said that Mike was fine, that he wasn't contagious anymore, still ill, still in danger, but better and not contagious.
I broke down crying, still. 

All the emotional tension was released. The poor man on the other end of the line was trying to tell me the end of his communication as I bawled, but hey-ho. He threw in my ear that Mike was being transferred in the hospital at the other end of Cardiff, that was sterile in the means of the epidemic. He also said I could go see him. 

"You're kidding right?" I hiccuped between two sobs. 

"No, just go to the other hospital, they'll let you see him. But don't try before Saturday."

I thanked him and hung up. I started smiling through my tears, to finally end up laughing and crying at once.
My Mike was okay. My boyfriend was fine. It didn't matter how much he was fine, he was living. He was alive! 
My colleagues looked at me all weird as I made my nervous breakdown. I felt so happy I could have token the guy across from me by the hand and dance with him. 
Mike, Mike, Mike. This simple name brought me to complete and total happiness. The fact to know he was going to live, was so overwhelming it almost felt like this amazing sensation just in the middle of an orgasm, when it's just like the other person and you, alone on the planet, last living creatures, in total fucking bliss. 
I took the picture on my desk and kissed Mike's face. 

"I'm coming, cariad."

--

I stepped out of the bus, on the other side of the road from the hospital. My heart was beating too fast. The idea of seeing Mike was stirring my insides. 
I walked in, in my white tee, blue jeans and dark grey sweat-shirt, with my ID in pocket, an over-the shoulder bag across my chest. I headed towards the welcome desk and waited for my turn, hiding my impatience as much as I could. 
I finally got face to face to the woman behind the desk. I smiled.

"Hello, I would like to see Michael Lewis, he's recently been hospitalized here..."

She tapped something, surely Mike's name, on the computer's keyboard near her. 
She was blonde, plump, wearing a large shirt. 
She frowned.

"We have two Michael Lewis that arrived recently."

"He's been transferred four days ago." I affirmed.

"You have his middle name or his birth date?"

"Michael Richard Lewis, he's born on the 17th of August--"

"Ah there, I have him. And you're his brother? You have to be family to see him."

"I'm his partner."

The woman's eyes widened for a second and then she coughed a little, turning to look for a paper in the clean heap near her. Oh, joy, she's shocked.

"Oh... Okay... You... You don't look like you're..." she stuttered.

"Gay?" I asked her with a smile.

"Yes... If that's not... Sorry."

"No that's fine, I get that a lot." I smirked again as she pulled a paper out of the heap. "Well, with the insults..." I let out a nervous little laugher. 

"That must not be easy everyday..."

"It's not. But well, what do you want, it's the price to pay to love who I love. Just because I have a little muscle doesn't mean I'm a raging hetero" I smiled.

She chuckled and gave me the paper she had been filling. 

"Well, I wish you good luck. The last reports said his tension was better."

"Thank you very much" I beamed at her. 

I turned on my heels to see the puzzled look on a young woman's face behind me. I smiled politely at her and looked at the visit paper the receptionist had given me. Room 57. The receptionist called a name. A woman, brown hair in pigtails, white coat and pink cheeks, came out of the staff room. 

"Hello, I'm the doctor Jaddo. I'm house physician. Mr Lewis is my patient. Can you give me your paper?"

I gave it to her and she read it. A smile spread on her lips.

"You're that Stuart he always talks about?"

My chest warmed up.

"Well... I guess so" I grinned.

"He's very eager to see you. He's been doing better every day. He's still weak, he still needs breathing help, but he no longer vomits EVERYTHING he eats. A good half of the time though he does so we just put him under IV and inject nutriments into his blood. His tension got back to 8, which is pretty good."

I grinned again, feeling relief wash over me. I walked through the hallways after her, my stomach making loopings in my belly. 54, 55, 56...57. Her hand grabbed the handle and she opened the door, walking in.

"Mr Lewis? Your partner is here."

I stepped in slowly. Mike was lying in one of the two beds. I didn't take the time to detail him, I ran towards the love of my life.

"Mike!"

"Stuart!" he giggled weakly.

I seized his face delicately between two hands and kissed his pretty lips. I felt him smile in the kiss and he licked my lips, as I pulled away. I smirked and started to cover his nose and forehead with kisses, passing carefully my arms around his hospital pyjamas-clad chest. The Dr Jaddo wasn't here anymore as I hugged Mike. I then got back to a few chaste kisses on the lips and finally opened my eyes to watch him. He had a thin tube plugged into his nostril, and an IV into each arm. I assumed he had electrodes on his body too, seeing the beeping machine at his right. At his left wrist, a hospital wristband. They had cut his hair a bit, his beautiful dark eyes were reddish and his eyelids heavy. I took his hand and lay several kisses onto it.

"Mikey boy, you can't imagine how much I missed you and I worried..."

"...Why do you have white hair here?"

I stared at him for a second.

"It's cause I was so worried for you, cariad." I murmured, his hand still in mine. "I think so at least. Maybe I'm just old..."

"Please Stu," he smiled. "Look at yourself. You're all but old. My beautiful boyfriend." 

I felt my cheeks heat up and bent over to put a kiss on his lips. My hands fell on his collarbones and my thumbs started to massage them. I heard him sigh in ease.

"Mm... For once it's not something that hurts..." he whispered happily. 

I smiled gently and my hand slid up to the side of his face, so that my thumb was massaging his temple.

"It hurts? How did the three weeks go?"

"Horrible. Never felt that bad of all my life. In the beginning I was always puking... And all... They kept drugging me but it hurt even more. I couldn't move."

His voice was starting to choke a bit so I put a finger onto his pretty pink lips. 

"Shht, don't do too much. You look like a dead man." I smirked as I made a strand of dark hair wrap around my forefinger. "Oh my poor little baby..." I murmured. "My Mike I love you."

I put a sloppy kiss on a spot in his neck I knew always sent a jolt of pleasure down his body. On the vein, on the right, in the crook.
It worked. He released a pleased moan.

"Makes it better?" I asked, smiling, rubbing his nose with my forefinger. 

I plunged to catch his pleading lips into mine.

"I missed you so much, oh god."