James does not sleep.
He watches his boyfriend sleep, yes; chest rising and falling in the muted light from outside, raindrops casting shadows across his skin. He can’t sleep. He calls them both in from work because suddenly nothing like that matters as much as it did 24 hours ago, and more importantly because he feels like it’s too soon to leave Draven alone. And James had loved Draven’s dad just like he would his own, despite the challenges. James cried on and off for a few hours, shifting between distress and confusion and anxiety for his partner; there were a few times when he was afraid he would wake Draven, but he was too far into dreamless sleep to be bothered because James had crushed up a dose of the sleeping pills the doctor had given him for Draven in the ER and mixed it in with some water and had his boyfriend drink all of it, and Draven, who would have noticed himself being drugged in an instant had he not been too deep in shock and horror to function, drank it with trembling hands and tear streaks down his pale face, sitting on the side of his bed wearing James’ Pink Floyd shirt and sweatpants, looking smaller than he’d ever seen him before at 3am with blood under his nails.
So it’s James — up at 6am watching the rain hit the kitchen window with a cup of black coffee — who answers Draven’s mother’s phone call, because his boyfriend is still passed out in his bed in the other room when his iPhone starts buzzing on the kitchen counter, thrown to the side in the haze of hard, cold grief of the night before. He’s never answered a phone call for his boyfriend before, and considers not answering until he turns it over and sees “Mom” written on the screen, and imagines how worried she must be, how Draven might not be in a mental state to call her back for another couple days.
And so he picks it up.
“Hello?”
“Draven?” He’d only met Draven’s mother once the year before, and hoped she’d remember him. “Are you there?”
“It’s James,” he says stupidly, then works to correct himself. “Uh, sorry. Draven’s boyfriend.”
“Is he okay?” Her voice is thick with worry. “Is he there? Can I talk to him?”
“He’s okay. He’s sleeping in the other room right now, I took him home and got him cleaned up. They checked him over at the hospital.”
“Is he— how is he doing? How is he taking it? I heard he found him—”
“He did. He’s…not taking it very well, but he’s resting. I think he’s toughing on through it okay.” James swallows, remembering walking into the ER to find his boyfriend sitting, soaked in his father’s blood, clutching to a piece of his father’s scalp.
“Please let me talk to him.”
“Mrs. Kondraki-” he says, then trails off, realizing that he’s not sure of Draven’s mom’s formal name. “Uh, Alice—”
“James,” she says, seriously. “Please.”
“He’s asleep—”
“James. Let me talk to my son.”
James sets down the coffee cup on the counter and runs one hand through his hair.
“Okay. I’ll…I’ll so see if I can wake him up, but the doctor gave him some sleeping pills, so he might be kind of out of it.”
“That’s fine,” she says. “I won’t keep him awake long. He’s not going to work, is he?”
“God, no,” replies James, walking to the bedroom door that he’s left open a crack. It’s dark inside. “No. I called both of us in for a few days, and then just thought I’d see how he was doing. I’m thinking a couple weeks before he’s ready, but we’ll just take it one step at a time and cross that bridge when we get to it.”
He hears Alice sigh on the other end of the line. “Okay. That’s…that’s fine. He just— you know how he can be—”
“I know exactly how he can be. I’m the same way,” he says, lingering in the doorway. “Here, give me a sec, I’m gonna see if I can wake him up.”
He hears Alice reply over the phone, but has already pressed it against his chest as he creeps into the room.
Draven is curled up in a fetal position on the far end of the bed, hair mussed against the pillows, sides making the blankets rise and fall evenly with his breathing. James walks softly — mostly out of habit of coming to bed second than anything else — to the other side of the bed and shakes his arm gently.
“Draven,” he whispers. “Draven. Hon. Wake up.”
Draven continues sleeping soundly. James sighs and places the hand not holding the cell phone on his upper back, rubbing his way up his neck and into his thick black curls.
“Draven.”
He sees his partner’s eyes twitch slightly under their lids. He shakes his shoulder again.
“Draven. Hey.”
