Chapter 12: An Empty Tank
He woke up. The last thing he remembered was thinking that might not happen. But here he was, awake, and therefore alive. That was good. However, the sensation of an endotracheal tube in his mouth was decidedly not good. He could tell he was anesthetized enough that the tube didn't trigger a reflex to cough it up, but he could still tell it was there and he didn't like it. The last time he had one had been years ago after his last out-of-control asthma attack, and he vaguely recalled sobbing after it was pulled out and begging for it to never happen again. Clearly, those prayers had not been answered, because here he was again.
"Steve?" His mother's voice, fraught with lack-of-sleep and intense relief, drifted into his awareness. He angled his head slightly towards the sound and blinked heavily to get his eyes to focus. There she was, smiling despite red eyes that indicated she'd spent quite some time crying. Over him. He'd promised to be careful, and he'd broken that promise and sent everyone he loved spiraling. Of course Jim's sweatshirt would have dog hair on it, he should have realized that before he put the stupid thing on. If he'd just been man enough to handle another fifteen minutes of being cold, he wouldn't be here, and his mom wouldn't be looking at him like he'd just risen from the dead.
"Oh, thank God," she said, grasping his hand and squeezing it. Steve squeezed back and did his best to offer a smile to reassure her. "I love you," she muttered.
"I love you too." The words were right there, begging to be uttered, but he could only stare in silence and hope she understood. He worked his jaw around the tube, the best way he could devise to ask the most important question on his mind right now.
"They've been trying to wean you off for a few days, but the attack rendered your lungs so weak they're just being a little slow to take up their full job again," she explained. Steve's eyes widened at the realization of how much time had passed. A few days? Last time, he'd only been intubated for one. Mom understood the panic in his expression, as she ran a loving hand through his hair and promised, "It'll be alright. You just need to rest." Steve nodded, already feeling sleepy even though he'd only been awake for a few minutes at most. He drifted off with his mother's fingers still carding gently through his hair.
~0~
They finally pulled the tube two days later, after Steve officially passed the necessary tests. Despite ample warnings from the nurse, Steve was woefully unprepared for the sheer awfulness of extubation. "Cough," he was told, and he instantly obeyed. As he coughed, the nurse slid the tube through his throat and it popped out accompanied by a thick string of saliva that stuck to his chin. For a frightening few moments, he forgot how to breathe entirely, gasping and coughing in a futile attempt to draw air into his lungs. "Come on, Steve, breathe for me," the nurse prompted. "You got this." Finally, he gulped down a reasonable lungful of air and the panic abated. He only experienced a second or two of complete freedom before an oxygen mask was pressed against his face. Steve wanted to resent it, but he knew his own lungs well enough to recognize that he needed the extra help. Now that his throat was free, he wanted to speak every thought that had popped into existence since his awakening, but the doctors warned him not to overdo it. He said to his parents, "I love you," and those three little words hurt badly enough that he would have elected to stop there, if it weren't for the importance of another thought that sat at the forefront of his mind.
"Bucky?"
"We've been keeping his family updated," Mom explained. "He visited while you were still asleep, and I'm sure he'll come back now that you're up."
Steve nodded. He hoped Bucky wasn't eaten alive by worry, but he knew that if he'd seen Steve unconscious and intubated, it was unlikely he had much peace of mind. Neither did Steve, frankly. The fact that he'd been on a ventilator for so long unnerved him. So did how breathless he felt after doing even the minutest of tasks. Even on his sickest days, he hadn't felt like his lungs failed him this miserably.
Bucky and his mom visited just as Steve gained the stamina to hold up an end of a conversation without feeling like he was going to pass out. The pure, wild-eyed terror in Bucky's eyes when he caught sight of him was enough to make Steve want to hide under the sheets. "I'm so glad you're…alive," Bucky declared, looking close to tears. "When it happened, I—I was afraid you might not be."
"Yeah, I'm alive," Steve restated. He still felt like death warmed over, but he was confident he would survive. "Thanks to you." If Bucky hadn't ushered him to the nurse's office when he did, Steve might have collapsed in the hallway and things could've turned out differently.
"Thanks to me? I didn't do anything."
"Yes you did. You kept me…focused," Steve said slowly.
"Well, I tried my best not to just stand there and flounder while the nurse called nine-one-one."
"You were great."
"It certainly didn't feel like it." Bucky sighed and hopped up to sit on the foot of the bed, facing Steve, like they often did. Steve tucked up his legs to give Bucky more room. "Jim feels horrible, by the way. It took some convincing to get him to stop believing he'd be charged with criminal negligence."
"Not his fault."
"He would disagree. He gave you that sweatshirt."
"And I accepted it. My responsibility, my lungs, my fault."
"Steve, none of this is your fault. You can't help it that you're…"
"What?"
"Sensitive?" Bucky suggested. He was trying to describe Steve's condition without condescension.
"It's my job to be careful."
"And as your friends, it's our job to look out for you too. You don't have to do this all alone."
"I'm not alone. You're here." That comment did bring a half smile to Bucky's face, which Steve considered a win. "What's the rumor mill churning out?" he asked, wondering what people were saying about him at school. People must have seen him start wheezing at lunch and heard the ambulances.
"Well, most of the school knows you have CF and assumed it had something to do with that. There's only a few clueless ones, but some of them are pretty funny."
"Tell me."
"I've heard choking, anaphylactic shock, and—most notably—that it was a poisoning attempt."
"By who?"
"Alex."
"People think Alex tried to poison me?"
"I only heard whispers in the hallway, but the rumor is definitely out there. I don't know who started it or why, but I don't think Alex will take any heat for it. A few people have given him funny looks, but no one's going to report him on nothing but a rumor of attempted murder. It proves nothing except that people are suspicious of him."
"Pity."
"We know by now it's impossible to nab him. He's too careful, and his dad can cover up just about anything."
"I know. But it's nice to imagine that one day he might see karma for being an asshole."
~0~
Steve gained strength over the next several days, albeit slowly. Dr. Erskine checked his PFT, and Steve tried as hard as he possibly could to get a good result. He blew so hard that he nearly passed out, but the results didn't lie. The asthma attack had devastated his baseline lung function, which wasn't even that good to begin with. Worst of all, they still hadn't gotten him off supplemental oxygen. He'd graduated from mask to nasal cannula, but every time they lowered the rate past a certain level, Steve's oxygen saturation dipped. When even more days of recuperation and therapy failed to get his lungs back to performing satisfactorily, Steve's team told him that, barring a miracle, he'd be leaving the hospital on oxygen.
Upon hearing that news, Steve lost it. Until now, he'd been able to pretend that he would bounce back from this just like he had with every setback in the past. But evidently, this had put him over the line. Neither his mother's placations nor his dad's reasoning could calm him. Steve ripped the pulse oximeter off his finger because if no one could see the numbers then no one could tell him that his lungs could no longer support him without constant aid. Of course that triggered an alarm, and it was returned to its proper place where it told everybody that Steve's forceful sobbing had rendered his sats in the low eighties. No wonder he felt faint.
It was only that faintness and exhaustion that eventually calmed him down. In this state, Steve physically could not manage to maintain a tantrum any longer. After further evaluation, they found that he could manage sitting still for a while without his sats dipping dangerously low, but with even minimal activity he needed the extra oxygen. Lying down, even at the thirty degree angle he already slept at because of his tube feeds, proved to restrict his lungs enough that he needed the supplement then too. They tested him thoroughly to determine the exact rate he would need at rest and while sleeping. Prescriptions were written, arrangements made, equipment purchased, and Steve was released from the hospital to return home to a bedroom that looked more like a hospital room than ever.
He despised it.
His nose dried out to the point of discomfort from the constant airflow, and he was hyperaware of the tubing draped across his face. Every minute or so, he found himself reaching up to readjust it. In the past, he'd at least been able to look forward to eventually being free of the cannula when he recovered, but now he could only hope he got used to it quickly. The concentrator, a machine about the size of a mini fridge that converted the air in the room into oxygen, sat halfway between his bed and his desk. Whenever he was home, he remained connected to it via a seventy five foot tube that reached anywhere in the apartment. Both Mom and Dad tripped over it on a regular basis, a few times severely enough to wrench the cannula from Steve's face—which hurt, a lot—and the thing was always tangled. If he wanted to venture any further than home, he switched over to a portable cylinder he could roll behind him.
It was annoying to keep track of the thing constantly. His g-tube he only needed to handle twice a day, before and after overnight feedings, but he could ignore it otherwise. When he wasn't in the hospital on IV antibiotics, his port needed to be flushed once a month, but other than that it just existed beneath his skin and didn't bother him. But the oxygen was inescapable. Only the knowledge that he truly needed this prevented him from casting it aside. Besides, if either Mom or Dad caught him without it, they scolded him.
Steve was content to suffer alone in his room, but inevitably he had to return to school. His pile of make-up work loomed hauntingly high, and there was no medical reason for him to be absent any longer. Mom and Dad sent him back on a Wednesday so he wouldn't have to jump back into a full week. Steve was terrified. Never before had he paraded around the school wearing such a blatant badge of illness.
"Steve, I'm sure it won't be that bad," Dad assured him before sending him off that morning. He was wrong. It was just as bad as Steve had feared. Every single gaze, students' and teachers' alike, turned to him. Bucky and Jim did their best to distract him, but even their valiant efforts failed. Steve wanted to cry, but that would inevitably draw more attention. All morning, he forced himself to pay attention to his teachers and not the people failing to hide the fact that they were staring at him. It was exhausting.
He thought it couldn't possibly get worse, and then at the end of the day he ran into Alex.
Bucky bristled beside him, fully prepared to diffuse a physical confrontation. Steve accepted his fate and braced himself for an onslaught. Alex stared at him blankly, but his expression soon morphed into one of pity instead of derision. No words were exchanged, but nonetheless Steve got the message: "Not even I would stoop low enough to openly bully an invalid." He would've been less upset if Alex had insulted or made fun of him. Even hearing the stupid nickname Wheezy Smurf would've been better than silence.
"That was…unexpected," Bucky said once Alex was out of earshot.
"I hate him," Steve grumbled.
"Why? Because he finally didn't take advantage of an opportunity to belittle you?"
"Because he drew the line at visible illness. I'll bet he's patting himself on the back for being a good person because he didn't make fun of this." He gestured to the oxygen tank beside him.
"Well, if I were you, I'd accept that he's a lost cause and just be grateful that he doesn't want to bother you anymore."
"Just because I'm an invalid doesn't mean he won't bother any of you guys. I won't always be there to shield you with my pathetic-ness."
"Steve, you're not pathetic."
"Alex disagrees."
"And since when do you care what that asshole thinks?"
"Since he deemed me unworthy of his attention."
"Wait, are you seriously asking to be picked on? I'm sure if you asked, he'd be more than happy to continue to torment you."
"If I ask, then it's charity."
"Oh, I see. You want him to bully you of his own accord. You're insane."
"Alex was the one person I could count on to treat me normally after this," Steve snapped, turning so Bucky had a perfect view of the cannula. "Everyone else looks at me like I'm about to blow away."
"Even me?" Bucky croaked.
"Yeah. Especially you."
"Well it's hardly my fault I'm a little uneasy after watching you stop breathing in front of my eyes just because you borrowed our friend's sweatshirt."
"I get that I'm fragile, but could you please stop looking at me like I'm made of glass?"
"I'll try," Bucky promised. "But I'm just so scared for you all the time."
"You don't have to be. I'm fine now."
"But you're not," Bucky countered, gaze focused on what sat below Steve's nose instead of the blue-gray eyes above it. "And you're only going to get worse until one day…" he trailed off. Steve's anger diffused like the air out of a balloon as soon as he realized what Bucky was alluding to. Of course he would be scared, because every event that damaged Steve's lungs like this put him closer to the inevitable. Steve knew that CF ultimately reduced his life expectancy, but in the grand scheme of things he didn't think about it that often. He was too busy staying on top of meds, treatments, and tube feeds to worry about the day when those things weren't enough. But Bucky didn't have all that to distract him from the fact he'd made a best friend out of someone likely to live barely half as long as him. Just how many times had that thought crossed Bucky's mind since the asthma attack?
"I'm sorry," Steve exhaled. "You're right. And I hate that I gave you another reason to think about that."
"It's not your fault. And I totally get that you don't want to be treated differently because of this, and I promise I'll try to keep my fretting private."
"Thanks. Unless I'm actively in crisis like last time, then please fret all you want. It probably saved my life."
"I don't know about that."
"I'm serious. And, uh…if you ever want to talk about it—if you think talking to me would help at all—don't be afraid to bring it up."
"Are you serious?"
"Yeah."
"I just might take you up on that."
"Okay."
"But not now," Bucky backtracked.
"Of course. I've still got a lot of work to do to catch up," Steve explained.
"You do that. I promised Gabe I'd look through the catalogue of high school courses with him and help him decide which electives to take."
"Is that already out?" Steve knew they were supposed to sign up for classes in January, but he thought it would be later in January than now.
"Oh, yeah. You missed the boring lecture where they took us through the process and talked about graduation requirements and all that jazz."
"It might be boring, but it sounds important."
"You can get all the same information on the internet," Bucky assured him.
"I'll add it to my to-do list."
I am so excited for next chapter, you have no idea :)