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Kal Weber | Maui (manaiakalani) wrote in paxletalelogs, @ 2017-12-18 10:45:00

How do I feel by the end of the day?
Who: Chris & Kal.
What: Chris gets a phone call intended for Kal.
Where: Good Samaritan Hospital.
When: Dec. 18

Chris pulled cabinet doors open and shut, leaning back on his good leg to mark off their disposition on an inventory list for a new property he was about to put on the market. The work kept him busy, his mind off of everything else swirling around him that was out of control. There were a few tenants he had a showing with later that day; everything had already been planned and accounted for, so when his phone vibrated in his pocket, his brow furrowed.

Tucking the list under one arm and pulling the phone out didn't provide any answers; the number wasn't in his phone, and he didn't immediately recognize it. Hitting the 'Accept Call' button, he put it to his ear.

"Mr. Cristobal Rodriguez?" A serious female voice inquired.

"Uh, yes, this is he."

"You're listed as the next emergency contact down for a Mrs. Ali'ikai Mahi`ai, after Kahale Weber. Mr. Weber wasn't answering so we're contacting you—"

"Wait, what? What's wrong?"

"Mrs. Mahi`ai suffered a fall at home; she's here with us at Good Samaritan Hospital, but we've been trying to contact next of kin for a few hours now. We have some paperwork, and a few decisions that Mrs. Mahi`ai can't make for herself while she's unconscious. Are you in a position to do this?"

Chris worked his jaw for a moment; memories of his own grandmother's fall, of how she'd been rushed to the hospital, his mother likely getting a call the same as this. He found himself nodding, only to have the woman (a nurse, most likely, unable to see his movement and running on too little sleep to play such games) ask him again.

"Yes, I'll be there..." He looked at his watch, an analog thing held over from his grandfather. "Within the next 15 minutes."

"Good; please walk through into the ER and up to the nurse's station and we'll get you to where you need to be."

She clicked off without so much as a goodbye, but Chris had to imagine there were more calls to make, more patients to see, more family members to get a hold of. Chris had no idea where Kal was—overseas, maybe, somewhere mucking about in a jungle. Despite the mixed feelings that surged up when thinking of the man (his former best friend? What were they now?), Chris set the paperwork he'd been working on on the kitchen counter and made his way as quickly as possible to the door.

---

Chris let his eyes slip closed as he leaned back in the uncomfortable hospital chair; machines beeped around a bed, upon which a solitary, unmoving figure slept deeply. Kuku, Kal's grandmother, had tubes running in and out of her, but she was stable. His jacket was slung over the back of his chair, and he scooted, trying to get to even the barest point of something like comfort. People stayed here overnight; was it so much to ask for a few cushions? He'd been awake most of the night, answering questions, signing a few papers, and then finally seeing Kuku wheeled out from the brief surgery to fix her shattered hip. She'd been unconscious then, and remained so; doctors had her on sedatives to combat the inevitable pain that, at her advanced age, she would not be prepared to cope with.

Leaning forward, he finally decided to forgo the attempt to sleep as morning light started to seep through the windows. Coffee beckoned, and he slowly and ungainly rose from his seat, just as Kuku's grandson came charging down the hallway. Chris froze, recognizing the other man's elephantine gait anywhere.

Kal had such focus on the room numbers he passed that he didn’t realize anyone was in kuku’s room. He charged down the hall, counting up with each passing room, but all speed left him when he got to the doorway and found kuku laying in the hospital. So still, so small, so delicate looking. He took in a shaking breath before he noticed the frozen figure on the other side of the bed, his dark eyes darting up to find Chris looking like a deer in headlights.

“What are you doing here?” He demanded, even though he already knew why. The hospital had finally gotten a hold of him through his employer and it took an additional day for Kal to return to southern California by means of different flights from the outskirts of the Arctic Circle and down the coast. They had told him that they went to the next person on the emergency contact lists, that being Chris who had been added when their relationship was better, when they spoke, when Kal trusted him.

Chris stood frozen for a moment, his hands extended up, palms down, fingers spread to indicate he had nothing on him. His shirt sleeves—a pale blue, matching the khaki suit he'd been wearing— were rolled up to his elbows.

"They called me, when they couldn't get a hold of you. I just signed some papers, gave the OK for her to go into surgery. She's stable, now." He swallowed, wondering if now was a good time for him to make his exit. Despite the trepidation closing his throat, he put his hands down, and then tucked one into a pocket while the other rose to grasp at his nape. "So... you were outta town?" Not that he would have known, but the more talking he could get Kal to do, more of a chance to close the growing gap between them.

Kal’s jaw seemed to adjust as he clenched his teeth. His eyes moved from Chris to his grandmother to Chris again as he seemed to determine whether or not he was going to loudly kick his former friend out of the room, or if it wasn’t worth the trouble. Ultimately, his tense stance that aired of an impending attack settled, and he moved toward his grandmother’s bedside.

Looming over it, he felt a pain in his stomach as he again realized just how small and frail she had become in recent years. He’d towered over her for most of his life by this point, but it still was striking. She had grown old, he knew this, but he didn’t realize the entirety of it until that moment. “Arctic Circle,” Kal replied, his gaze still on his grandmother. The chairs were on the other side of the bed, by Chris, and Kal did not yet feel comfortable enough being that close to the man. Breaking his nose a second time was too tempting. “It took a minute for them to get ahold of me, then another for me to get the flights down here.”

Chris took a step toward the bed as well, and then rethought his position, lingering by the chair. The hand behind his nape descended, hanging by his side.

"Yeah," he said, unsure of how to reply. "I stayed... Probably gonna need to see a chiropractor, these chairs..." He shook his head, reeling in the joke almost before it was completely born.

"They said she's doing all right. Just needs some time to recuperate, and then she can probably go home." He didn't linger on the probably; something else could always pop up. The elderly were fragile creatures, though kuku had never struck him as such. Now, with her in the bed, she seemed impossibly small, like she was made of paper. His gaze moved up from the bed to Kal. He could see the worry written plainly on the other man's face.

"Are you all right, Kahale?"

Kal took a long, deep, slow breath. His chest expanded, making him look even larger, and he allowed himself to slowly breathe out before he replied. “I don’t know. Just trying to figure out what to do with her. I ran away, like you said. Abandoned her and here’s the result.” He looked at Chris, his eyes narrowed as he replied with an angry, pressured tone, “I guess you were right.”

"Kal, I—" Chris hung his head, eyes closing. He quickly fixed his attention back on his friend's face.

"Look, I was drunk and I was mad, not that either of those excuse what I said. I was just... I was trying to get you and Daniel away from asking about shit because I was scared. I didn't want to lose either of you, and that's pretty much how it seemed like it was gonna go, no matter what I did. And, of course, I made it worse, as I usually seem to do..." He ground his teeth slightly, eyes studying every flicker in Kal's expression.

"I'm sorry. And you didn't abandon your grandmother; you and I both know how independent she is—I'm sure she'd be slapping you upside the head right now if she was awake. Being here, worrying over her instead of, I don't know, surfing with penguins." The smallest of smiles started at the edge of his mouth, hoping the same would catch fire on Kal's.

Kal looked at his friend, even met his eyes, but he didn’t smile. Then again, he didn’t reach out and punch Chris again so overall it was a better interaction than what they had experienced before. “But you still meant it, didn’t you? I abandoned you. I left you here and I’m the cause for this.” He moved his hand, indicating Chris’s leg. “Deep down, you blame me a little if not more than that. You may have been drunk and running your mouth but you still meant it.”

Chris sighed. "No, I don't blame you. I mean, yeah, if you were here, things might've been different. Maybe I'd be in a wheelchair. It... I made a lot of stupid decisions, all on my own. You were always the one saying my dad was a shady character, but I was the one who refused to believe it.

"It's always been easier for me to blame other people, Kal. There's..." A hand reached up, sweeping back over his hair as he became visibly uncomfortable with the way the conversation had turned. "I've done a lot of bad things, shit I'm not proud of. And there's really no one to blame but myself. And it's something I have to deal with, on my own. I was just... I was trying to deflect. Which, I guess I did a little too well because..." he motioned at his nose "...I had a fracture that took two weeks to heal. Thankfully no surgery needed, so you still get to look at this pretty face.

"And I know we're still not good, but... I'm just saying, I'm the one who fucked up. Not you. OK?" His brows lifted, waiting for a reply.

Kal’s jaw was still set but he kept his eyes on Chris all the while. There was still anger there but most of all, hurt. It had wounded Kal deeply when Chris had thrown those words in his face. All of Kal’s fears, the blame he placed on himself over Chris’s own injuries, seemed to be solidified. “I can’t just forget what you said,” Kal admitted. “You know the right words to really injure someone, Chris,” he continued with a tired sigh as he looked back at kuku and promptly frowned. “Thank you for coming to her.”

Chris shrugged. "I know you'd do it for my family if something happened. And I mean, we are basically family. Right, braddah?" The word sounded slightly awkward coming out of his mouth, but he said it anyway. He shifted in place.

"You mind if I sit? I've been wearing this damn thing since I got here," he said, motioning to the brace that was just barely visible under his clothes. He'd taken it off for brief stints in the bathroom, but it wasn't the same as having a longer, unbroken period of rest. "Came right from work, didn't realize there'd be another emergency happening..."

Kal nodded and took a step back. He waited a moment before he spoke so Chris could take the seat he needed before continuing the conversation. “I’ve been working on getting her into a home, you know,” he said lowly, nearly a whisper that was heavy with some sense of guilt. “She was warming to the idea but in the end, I couldn’t force her to move. Despite her becoming forgetful, despite her showing up at the apartment, it was one time and she didn’t injure herself or anyone else. The law still sides with her that she’s capable of her own decisions. I’d need a doctor to go to the state and say she’s unfit to live at home and strip those rights from her. Otherwise, I just have to get her to agree with me. She likes her house, she doesn’t want to leave it, and I’m not going to lie, with everything going on at the apartment I’ve thought of moving back in with her.

“But that doesn’t fix the fact that she could fall and hurt herself when I’m traveling… and I honestly don’t know if even this would be enough to convince her. She’s stubborn.”

Chris shrugged. "This could be enough, Kal. She's fragile, she fell. Or, if you want, we could get her one of those 'help I've fallen' buttons, but that'll just put her back here." He didn't want to say it as he wetted his lips, his eyes drifting back to kuku's prone form in the bed. There wasn't anything either of them could do to slow the aging process, let alone stop it. His gaze flicked back to Kal's face.

"If she were in a nursing home, there'd be people around all the time to help her, keep her company. You'd be more than free to go galavanting off to the middle of nowhere." The joke was poorly timed, but Chris couldn't resist the jab. He quickly tempered it. "We could, you know. You still promised to take me somewhere. Just...not the back of a jeep through mud, OK?" He winced, remembering the ridiculously wild weekend Kal had talked himself and Daniel into. The thought speared the last humor in him, the corners of his mouth immediately turning down.

It was the first spark of humor to appear in Kal’s eye, the first quiver of his lip threatening to turn up into a smirk. He looked at Chris and the empty chair beside him and gave it a nod. “Do you mind if I take that seat?”

Chris shook his head, repositioning himself as though to make room for Kal's larger figure to pass him by. His brace pinched, and he wished for the umpteenth time that he could take it off. His hands went to rest on the arms of his chair, then settled over his stomach. It growled.

"Oh, uh, I was about to get some coffee. Maybe some food. Haven't had breakfast yet—you?"

Kal was ready to move to the open chair and paused. As if in answer, his stomach growled and he frowned as his gaze moved back to his grandmother again. “Honestly, I can’t remember when I ate last. I’ve been on the move since I heard about her, I didn’t think to eat.” He glanced at Chris almost shyly. “We could go down to the cafeteria, if you’d like.”

Chris's fingers rapped on the arm rest, his head already bobbing. "Sounds like a plan to me. Feeling more human will do us both some good." He rose from his spot, turning to grab his jacket—which held his cell phone, his wallet, and his keys. Rather than slipping it over his shoulders, he folded it over one arm, and gestured toward the door.

"After you?"

Kal raised an eyebrow, a joke nearly on the tip of his tongue. Something about first dates, being a gentleman, taking him out for drinks; some joke he would have said so easily before. But that was before and he wasn’t going to be anywhere near the person he was with Chris, not for awhile at least. “Thanks,” he replied instead as he took charge and stepped out into the hallway first, pausing for Chris to catch up while kuku was left with only the company of beeping machines.