storybrooke: john+james (flashback) WHO: John Wolfe (Remus Lupin) + James Peterson (James Potter) WHEN: Flashback to about 7 years ago! WHERE: Storybrooke General Hospital WHAT: John is in recovery for a lung transplant financed by James's family. James and John are both 15. WARNINGS: N/A, there's not much talk about his illness
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For the first time in his life, James was actually worried that throwing money at a problem wasn’t actually going to solve it.
It was an unnerving feeling, especially with his friend’s life hanging in the balance. The transplant was covered, the lung was a match, but things could still go wrong. James had made the mistake of actually reading all the information they’d given him about the risks of the surgery itself and also the way John’s body might react badly to it. Which just went to prove that reading things was absolutely, positively the worst idea in the world.
He spent the entirety of the time that John was in surgery pacing a hospital waiting room floor and biting his nails. The wait seemed interminable, but finally it was over, and it had gone well. Then came the wait for John’s parents to see him first. Then for them to take the damn tubes out of John’s throat. James entertained himself - and John - by carrying on one-sided conversations by himself, even doing a silly voice to pretend John was talking back, but it was mostly just a charade to keep both of their spirits up.
Finally, at long last - only a few days, but that was an eternity to an impatient teenager - the tubes were out.
“Hey,” he said, grinning at John from beside the bed (where he’d spent as much time as they’d allow, the last few days). “Cat got your tongue?”
--
John smiled. "Hi."
His voice was rough from lack of use and from the tubes, barely above a whisper, but he was speaking. He was awake, he was breathing, and the doctors were optimistic about the transplant. He wasn't cured, his other lung was still damaged, but they believed he'd last several more years with the transplant they were able to do.
They'd been talking with him about all the things he'd be able to do once he made a recovery. As long as he was careful, he could be up and about, he could be active, he didn't have to feel chained to an oxygen tank. He'd be breathing more or less healthily on his own, if everything went right.
And it was all because of James. James and his stubbornness, James pushing his parents to help. John's parents were destitute because of John's illness, and his father had been laid off, leaving them without insurance. Because of James, his parents weren't going to suffer in crippling debt just to allow their son to live.
He couldn't even begin to process how grateful he was to the boy sitting beside the bed.
"Looks like my guardian angel won't leave me alone."
--
“Guardian angel,” James said. “No one’s ever called me an angel before.”
He grinned down at John, unbelievably relieved and glad to hear his voice. Hoarse and soft as it was, it was better than he’d been able to do the day before. It meant the lung was working, the way they’d said it did. James would’ve given his own lung, if he could have; unfortunately, he still needed both of his. Paying for the transplant seemed a very small thing to him, really.
“Seriously. How do you feel?”
--
John made a little face. "Tired," he said. "Honestly, I'm … on a lot of drugs right now? A lot? Like, all the drugs. So I can't give a good answer. I feel like I'm on drugs."
He reached out, offering his hand. He wiggled his fingers a little. "You saved my life," he murmured. "You know that, right? You saved my life." His voice broke with the emotion of it, and he coughed a little when his breath hitched. "And there you are, just you being you. Asshole."
--
“Sounds awesome,” James said. “Kinda wish I was on drugs right now.”
He was mostly joking. Despite all his ridiculousness, James actually didn’t get drunk or do drugs all that much. It wasn’t that he had anything against them, he just had plenty of fun without them. But it had been a really stressful couple of days, waiting to find out how John was going to pull through.
“Hey, hey. Some other guy died so you could get that lung - and some seriously talented surgeons put it in your chest. All I did was give them money.” It was really not much of a gesture, in James’s book. Having always had money, he thought very little of spending it. Granted, it was more money than he’d spent on - well, anything else, but that didn’t matter, did it? It wasn’t like he’d bought something stupid. It was his friend’s life.
--
It was a sobering thought. James wasn't just being modest — he was right. What James and his family had done was a little more complicated than saving his life. It wasn't as if anyone would have denied him the lung when it became available, but James's contribution meant that John's family didn't have to be crushed by the weight of more debt. John was already poor, his family already breaking under the weight of paying for John's care, and what James had really given them was peace of mind.
"Well, I… thank you," John said softly. "Even if you don't think it was much, James, it really… it's a lot. It means a lot." James was never really going to understand what it was to be poor, or how that stress could just destroy someone.
--
“Hey, I didn’t say that.” The money didn’t mean anything to him. The necessity of it, however, really did - and so did the sentiment behind paying it. “It means a lot to me too, okay? Not the money. You. You being healthy.”
James was uncharacteristically serious, even if it had seemed like he was being flippant just a moment ago. “Only seems like not much when you consider how much I’d have been willing to pay, or do, to keep you around. Least I could do, really.”
--
John bit his lip. He was blushing, he knew he was blushing, even when he was pale as a ghost and very, very high on whatever was in his IV. And maybe it was because he was high, because he wasn't really thinking, that he just said the very first thing that came to mind.
"You love me," he teased, but it came off as serious. He smiled faintly. "Look at your face, you love me."
--
“Of course I do, dumbass.” Just because James was willing to admit he had emotions didn’t mean he was mature about it. Under other circumstances he might have played it off entirely, but not when John was lying in a hospital bed. It had really brought home to James, who’d never really taken John’s illness seriously, that he might actually lose his friend. “And I’ve got a lot of money to spend on fancy doctors and stuff, alright, so don’t go thinking you can die on me easy.”
--
"You just won't let me go, huh?" John had been more or less prepared to die from the time he was four or five years old. It was just the kind of thing that was always in his life, even if people tried to keep it from him. It didn't mean he was all right with it, it didn't mean he was truly ready for it, but for the first time in a very, very long time, there was optimism.
He wasn't preparing to die, he was preparing to live, and that was a very strange feeling.
What was he going to do with himself?
He grasped James's hand, giving it a tight squeeze. "Yeah, well, I love you, too. Dumbass."
--
“Never.” James said it with all the absolute, egotistical certainty of his spoiled, teenage years. He grinned down at John, and squeezed John back. “Your dumb butt is stuck here being alive with me and Kit forever.”
He reconsidered that statement a moment later. “It’s actually not a dumb butt, it’s a pretty good one. Point still stands, though.”
--
"Yeah? Yeah, you just wait until I start breathing all this air and getting up and moving around," John murmured, rubbing his thumb over James's knuckles. "Maybe I'll start playing football or something. Run track. My butt's gonna get so sexy." He smiled lazily up at James.
--
“Ooooh,” James said, raising both his hands and waving his fingers in mock - but real - excitement. “I’ve never seen you running around. Playing football. Getting all sweaty.”
It was actually a really great mental image, now that he thought about it. Of course, he knew it wasn’t going to happen, realistically - John still had one really bad lung, and he was going to have to work at keeping the new one healthy. “You just work on getting out of this bed first, okay?”