Chapter Text
At first, Zeke thought it was just another weird Casey behavior, dropping a sentence in the middle of it and staring vacantly into space for a minute or two, and then not being able to pick the conversation back up. But Casey was like that -- he couldn’t concentrate well enough to follow a sitcom, so it never surprised Zeke that conversation was not Casey’s strong suit.
But once, after one of Casey’s blank moments, Casey made an awful face and complained, “My mouth tastes funny.”
“Did you brush your teeth?” Zeke asked, unconcerned. Casey chewed on his fingers and his lips and pencils and straws all day long, of course his mouth tasted funny.
“It’s metal,” Casey said, agitated. “What did you put in my mouth?”
“Nothing,” Zeke said impatiently. “What did you put in your mouth? Here, have some gum, it’ll make the taste go away.”
The gum gave Casey something to chomp on and distracted him for awhile, but later that night, once Casey was asleep in the back seat, Zeke tried to get comfortable stretched out in front and thought about Casey’s weirdness and him complaining, “It’s metal.”
A stop at the library the next day gave Zeke most of his answers: classic symptoms of petit mal seizures. He rubbed his hands over his face and thought about medicines and medical charts and wished he could take a peek at Casey’s, just for a minute. For every thing they’d been giving Casey to fuck him up, they may well have been giving him something to help him, to control the damage they’d done, but there was no way to know now. There was just Zeke fumbling along by looking up medical advice on the Internet and buying what he could over the counter, what he had to on the street.
He’d had a seizure, a grand mal, the kind you see on t.v. medical dramas, on their third day out, deep in withdrawal and in such a bad way that Zeke was doubting himself at every turn. He’d almost taken Casey to an emergency room, but they weren’t far enough yet, there hadn’t been enough time, they were probably still showing up on the local news, and Zeke had not yet refined all the lies and half truths and unspoken assumptions that he would hone to perfection over the years to never make anyone doubt that Casey was his. To take Casey to the hospital then was tantamount to sending Casey back. Even so, Zeke had thought about it, then touched the scarred wrists and toughed it out.
_____
They had a real Christmas in Minnesota, by which Zeke meant that he bought Casey the Star Wars trilogy on video and wrapped it in actual Christmas paper, and they ate heated-up KFC, so that they had chicken and mashed potatoes and vegetables along with store-bought pie while they watched A Christmas Story about five times in a row.
By the time mid-January rolled around, they were snowed into the trailer and Zeke wanted to take those Star Wars tapes and smash them against the wall. Casey was like a five-year-old who wanted the same cartoon over and over again. He was always falling asleep during them, too, only the tape would keep running, and when Casey woke up, he’d rewind back to the last part he remembered and start them back up again, so one viewing for Casey really meant one and a half viewings for Zeke.
Why, he sometimes pondered, did Han Solo get Chewie as his sidekick, when Zeke had ended up with Casey? Zeke was cool, he deserved a Wookie as his road trip companion and partner in crime.
When Casey popped Empire in one afternoon, Zeke retreated to the bedroom with a book. He could still hear the theme song playing through the thin metal walls and doggedly blocked it out.
When instinct and silence from the television told him the movie was over, he re-emerged. As he’d expected, Casey was sound asleep on the couch and the t.v. screen was blank. Zeke flipped off the set and threw a blanket over Casey. He’d been childish and cranky all day, and this was his second nap since waking up groggy and churlish at noon. Zeke hoped he wasn’t getting sick -- he’d shoveled the drive three days before, but of course no snowplow had been down the road, so his neatly shoveled driveway led to a wall of snow. And it had snowed since then, so really all he had was a driveway full of snow leading to a road even more full of snow. At any rate, no pharmacy for Casey. Zeke stood in front of the refrigerator, half thinking about dinner, and made a mental note to check their medicine cabinet stock.
From the couch, Casey made a strange sniffling/whimpering sleep noise, and Zeke called, “Hey, man, what sounds good for dinner?” When silence answered him, he opened the fridge and muttered, “All right, but don’t tell me I didn’t ask.”
He’d pulled a frozen lasagna out of the fridge when Casey made another noise, this one more choke than whimper. “Casey?” Zeke asked, and covered the few feet between kitchen and living room with large strides. As he leaned down to look at Casey’s face, he saw Casey’s legs jerk out of the corner of his eye and realized with sudden clarity that this was a seizure.
The next thing he knew, he was on his knees on the couch, holding Casey’s body as gently as he could without letting him roll off or hurt himself. Casey’s eyes were so constricted that the pupils were mere pinpricks in a center of blue, and he was making strangled, whimpering noises deep in his throat.
“It’s OK, it’s OK,” Zeke said, and was amazed at the calmness of his voice. “Just hang on, buddy, it’ll be over in a minute.”
Casey’s body continued to jerk, muscles tense and strained. After a couple of minutes, he suddenly went limp and gave a low, deep moan.
“Hey, buddy, look at me,” Zeke said, cupping Casey’s face in his hands. “Look at me, Casey. How’re you doing? How you feeling?”
“No,” Casey said clearly, and his eyes did not focus on Zeke.
“It’s all right, man, it’s just me,” Zeke said. “Just Zeke. Come on, look at me.”
“I don’t know where she is,” Casey said, and moved without direction under Zeke’s hands. Zeke slid off the couch to kneel beside it.
“I’m right here,” he said quietly, and touched Casey’s face. “Come on, buddy, look at me.”
Finally, Casey’s eyes slid over to Zeke’s face and Zeke saw recognition in them. Before he could voice his relief, Casey muttered, “I’m gonna throw up.”
Years of life with Casey had trained Zeke to dodge unexpected vomit, so before it happened, he had rolled Casey onto his side and let the younger man be sick on the wretched ‘70s shag carpet. Casey coughed and sputtered and spit bile for a bit after, but it finally was over and Zeke lowered him back down.
“Sorry, sorry,” Casey muttered. “Don’t tell Dad, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Zeke said. “Let me clean you up.”
This, too, came naturally after all this time. Water (in a plastic cup, with a straw) for Casey to rinse his mouth. A cool cloth to wipe his face off. A rag and cleaner for the carpet. And when Zeke noticed the damp spot on the blanket that meant Casey had wet himself during the seizure, he didn’t flinch while he pulled off blanket and jeans and underwear. He threw them in the washing machine and brought out a pair of Casey’s pajama bottoms and a fresh blanket.
Casey was staring vacantly outside, still motionless on the couch, when Zeke returned. He stayed limp and doll-like while Zeke put the bottoms on and covered him with the new blanket.
“Better?” Zeke asked.
“I’m tired, Zeke,” Casey said dully.
“Then go ahead and sleep,” Zeke said. “I’m not going anywhere.” He sat down beside the couch and rested his chin on the cushions and watched as Casey shut his eyes.
_____
Zeke thought about MRIs and CAT scans and medicines. He thought about emergency rooms and doctors and specialty clinics. He thought about trials and treatments and people he’d been in prison with who had had better medical care than Casey did.
He was still thinking two hours later when Casey opened his eyes again.
“Feel better?” he asked quietly.
Casey licked his lips and Zeke held the straw up so he could sip at the water. Once he’d drank, Casey raised himself on unsteady elbows and leaned back against the arm of the couch. Then he looked bleakly at Zeke, and Zeke’s heart gave the same stuttering little jump it gave every time the real Casey suddenly appeared.
“What are you doing here, Zeke?” the real Casey asked, and Zeke shook his head.
“Don’t, man,” he said, but he knew there was no warning in his voice. He’d long ago lost the ability to sound menacing to this Casey.
“Do you know what I heard Mr. Furlong saying once about you?” Casey continued. “He said in 10 years you would either have won a Nobel Prize, or you’d have died an anonymous, senseless, violent death, and that you just couldn’t decide which way you’d rather have it. And now here we are. Zero sum game. No one wins.”
Zeke stood up, taking the plastic cup with him. “You want anything?” he asked. “More to drink, something to eat?”
“No,” Casey said dully, and then added, “Yes. Something to eat. What time is it?”
“Past dinner,” Zeke said, and went into the kitchen. A puddle of water had formed under the lasagna on the counter.
Once it was in the oven, Zeke put the clothes in the dryer and then got Casey a fresh glass of water. Casey was upright on the couch now, staring bleakly outside. He accepted the glass without comment. Zeke held onto it after Casey reached for it, their fingers briefly touching, and waited for Casey to look at him.
“Game’s not over yet,” Zeke said quietly, and Casey regarded him solemnly.
“No, it’s not,” he said, and even though his eyes were damp, his voice was strong and serious and filled with the intent to win.