Here With You | ✔

CHAPTER TWO; part one

Calvin Sumner

     I miss Dres.

     But, I also really miss Dres's dick.

     Which he is stingy with. Like he was stingy with it before quarantine, and I can't help thinking that if he had just, you know, let me get my fill, this would be easier. But alas, here I am, utterly dick-deprived.

     It's been five weeks since I moved back home with my mom. She and I work on opposite schedules. It's purposeful as to lower the risk of cross exposure. So I've just gotten home from a night shift when she's heading out the door, leaving me with the house to myself for the next twelve hours. It's lonelier like this, but also safer.

     Three days into quarantine, we had this huge, monumental fight. I'd just come off of a double, had seen enough patients that I wasn't even seeing properly and pronounced more patients than I had in my entire career. I wanted my mom out of this. I was ready to move into a hotel for the rest of the pandemic, but she flat out refused to be sidelined. I pulled out a three tier argument, starting with logic ("think of your age, mom"), then with non-logic ("if something happens to you, you'll never get to see me grow up"), and then flat out desperation ("please, please, please, please.")

     It felt like I was constantly fighting with the people I loved to keep them safe, which was supremely freaking annoying. And exhausting.

     Mom won the argument, needless to say. The way she always does.

     "Calvin, I have no risk factors. I'm completely healthy. And my patients are pregnant moms not covid-positive emergencies. We're not even allowing family in delivery. And everyone's wearing masks. I have very little exposure. You, on the other hand..."

     She was right, of course. Which was why I said I'd move into a hotel, then, to reduce her risk of exposure from me. Which only further escalated the argument. She straight up body blocked the exit and wouldn't let me leave. Because what if something happened to me? Nothing's going to happen to me even if I do catch Covid and chances of that occurring are high and very likely. But I'm young, active, healthy. I'd likely be fine.

     "Likely isn't definitely," she'd said. "The coronavirus is a valkyrie. Do you understand what I mean when I say that?"

     "Uhm, no, should I? What the freak is a Valkyrie..."

     "I mean it chooses who lives and dies without reason, like a whim. You've seen healthy and unhealthy, young and old succumb to this disease. So don't be reckless."

     "I'm not reckless. I'm trying to keep you safe."

     "I've lived a long, fulfilling life Calvin. You, on the other hand — your life is just beginning. So maybe if someone needs to sit this one out..." She'd shrugged.

     It wasn't like the thought hadn't crossed my mind. I could be at home with Dres, in the sexiest, steamiest quarantine of my life. Stuck in a five by five space with absolutely no interruptions, no distractions, only Dres? Sign me up.

     That wasn't real life, though. I took an oath and I owed it to my colleagues, at the very least, to stay and help fight this battle with them.

     We came to an agreement eventually. Socially distanced living arrangements, opposite work schedules, minimal interaction. A different type of quarantine. A safer one, but a sadder one, too. You genuinely do not realize how much you'll miss interacting with people until you have to stop interacting with them, at least in person.

     You would think with all that's going on, all of the stress and exhaustion, I'd be lights-tf-out in t-minus five, but after I've decon'd and crawled into bed, I'm unable to shut my brain off. It's running its own marathon, a leg still in the ER thinking about magical cocktails of medications we haven't tried yet, anything that could help, that could postpone death just a little bit longer, something that will help people hold on.