"What are his symptoms?"
"Diahorrea, vomiting, fever..." Maddie rattles off to the Nurse at the triage desk.
"Do you know how high?"
"Thirty eight, eight," Supplies Geordie.
"We're worried about dehydration," Maddie interjects. Both of them look fraught with worry
"Alright, let's get him checked out. Which one of you is the mother?" The nurse asks, barely looking up as he writes notes on a clipboard.
Maddie and Geordie look at each other, this is the first time they've been asked that question and they both fumble over the answer with Geordie answering in the end, "I'm the birth mother."
"Well, why don't you come back with him and you can wait here?"
"Actually, we're raising him together, we're a couple..." Geordie says, finally finding her voice.
"Well, in that case do you have adoption paperwork?"
"Adoption?" She asks, confused.
"He means for me," Maddie clarifies. "No, not yet, we've planned it..."
"I'm sorry but we can only allow the child's legal guardians to go in," explains the nurse.
"Fine!" Maddie puts her hand up, frustrated by the system but more frustrated that the longer they argue, the longer Gus isn't being seen. "Stop talking, just take him. Now!"
Handing Gus over to Geordie, Maddie watches the three of them disappear behind a door and down a long corridor before turning back to the waiting room.
"Excuse me, I need to go back there," She tells the clerk nearby, "My partner has forgotten our baby's blanket and I don't want him to be any more upset..." Maddie runs the blanket through her hands as she's talking, Gus has never spent a night without it and it goes everywhere with him.
"Look Miss...or whatever you are," The clerk says dismissively, "I believe it's already been explained to you that only the child's parents or legal guardians are permitted to be with him."
"And I believe it needs to be explained to you that I'm the one who loves him and walks him and feeds him and changes him and cleans up his shit and pays the bills, and you listen to me!" Maddie cries, fed up of not being listened to or even looked at. "I stay up half the night worrying that he will grow up to be happy and healthy and loved. So don't you dare tell me I have no right to be with him, you officious homophobic cunt!"
Michael takes in the scene before him, arriving at the end of Maddie's rant, just in time to see the clerk scrape back the wheels on her chair with an offended look on her face.
"What's going on? How is he?" He asks Maddie who turns to him with tears in her eyes from frustration and worry.
"I don't know! They won't let me back there."
"Why?" Michael asks confused, looking between Maddie and the clerk.
"I'm not legal, I'm not anything apparently."
Michael turns on the clerk, "Is that your fucking bureaucracy?"
Before the clerk can answer, the same nurse as before appears and Maddie grabs his arm, "Excuse me, this is the father," She tells him, indicating Michael who's still glaring at the clerk.
"I'll take you back," Offers the nurse.
"Well, she's going too," Michael says, nodding at Maddie.
"No. Don't worry, Just take this to him," Maddie passes the blanket to Michael, knowing the rules won't let her in there. She smiles encouragingly at him, willing him to go back with the blanket for Gus without causing any more of a fuss and then leans against the waiting room wall once he's gone through the doors, breathing out heavily, her mind racing.
~~~
"Not even six months old and already my kid's a drama queen," Michael tells the others, sweating as he presses his thighs together on the equipment at the gym the next day.
"Well, at least you know he's yours," Sam points out, sitting next to him on another thigh press.
"The good news is that he's alright," Calum says, looking down at Michael as he waits his turn.
"I had to go down to the hospital by myself because someone left their mobile off..."
"I had to deal with my own crisis!" Calum objects, before explaining to Sam and Corey, "Stephen's throwing a dinner party. Us and two other couples, one of them's straight..."
"He eats with straight people?"
"Eek, you never know where their hands have been!"
Corey sniggers at Sam before turning to Calum, needing something cleared up, "So, what's the problem?" he asks, eyebrows knitted together as he and Calum swap places with Sam and Michael.
"The problem is, what do I talk about?!"
"What do we talk about?" Points out Sam.
"These people aren't like us!" Objects Calum. "They're professors and doctors and things..."
"We're things! Ad execs, accountants and..." Sam points out Michael and himself and then stops when he turns to Corey.
Corey graciously decides to helps him out, "Couturier to disco trash!" He supplies, rolling his eyes as if Sam was supposed to know that's how he defines his job.
"The thing is, after two minutes it'll be painfully obvious that I don't fit in and Stephen will dump me on the spot."
Michael raises his eyebrows, Calum's being his usual positive, confident self. Not.
"Then we'd better get to work, right Professor Higgins?" Asks Sam, confident that Corey will get his My Fair Lady reference, he's not disappointed.
"Right Pickering! We'll turn you from a simple flower girl into a lady!"
"Talking of ladies, spread 'em!" A familiar voice pops into Corey's head as he's talking to Calum.
"What are you doing here?" Corey asks internally, hoping that no-one will notice he's being weird.
"Turning you from a candy arse into a stud. Now spead 'em!"
Corey jumps, looks around quickly and starts on the thigh master like he's never done before.
"What's with GI Jane?" Asks Calum in amazement as Corey goes head down and hell for leather, opening and shutting his thighs with speed, grunting as he presses outwards.
"If he's not careful he may actually break a sweat! Or a nail..." Sam answers, looking from his best friend to Calum, clearly surprised himself.
~~~
"He's down, for a while anyway," Geordie tells Maddie, collapsing next to her on the sofa.
Maddie's so tired she can hardly reply. "That's good," she murmurs.
"What are you thinking about?" Geordie's noticed that Maddie's been far away ever since they got back from the hospital.
"Hebrew school." Not the answer that Geordie was expecting.
"He's still a little young don't you think?" She asks, laughing tiredly.
"No, when I was a kid in Hebrew school Rabbi Grissman used to say to us, 'If you ever forget you're a Jew, a non Jew will remind you.' I always wondered what he meant until Sarah Masters called me a jap on the playground. Then I knew what he meant. I'd forgotten I was different until I was so thoughtfully reminded. The same thing happened at the hospital last night."
"Well, they had no right..."
"Yeah they did. They had every right. But we have a right too, to protect ourselves."
"How?" Geordie asks, always amazed how detached Maddie can become when it comes to legal matters. She wonders whether she's been chewing this over all night, it wouldn't surprise her.
Maddie turns to look at her, "We need to talk to Michael."
Geordie runs her fingers through her hair and sighs.
YOU ARE READING
Queer as Muke
Fanfic"The thing you need to know is, it's all about sex. It's true. In fact they say men think about sex every twenty-eight seconds. Of course that's straight men. With gay men it's every nine." Twenty nine year old advertising executive Michael Cliffor...
