Justin

Justin

I was lucky that I had a couple of towels in my gym bag. Jhondie used them to keep from turning the cars into mud pits. She wiped off some, but she was still filthy. I ended up with more mud on me trying to help her than I did in the actual fall. I dropped her off at her car and followed her back to her place. I was hoping she wouldn't watch me in the rearview mirror. I was still upset about the disks, but I couldn't help laughing every time I thought of Jhondie covered in mud, sliding down the hill.

After I started working for the boss, I got into the habit of carrying a spare set of clothes in my car. It's come in handy a few times. When we got to Jhondie's, I grabbed them out of the back and went inside with her.

"I'm going to take a shower," she announced. I was hoping she would. I was actually starting to get a little worried about her. She wasn't looking like she was feeling good, and I saw her taking something when I came into the house. If she was taking her Tryptophan than she really wasn't feeling good at all. I hoped she would feel better later. She'd been looking forward to having the weekend off for a while.

"You mind if I borrow it after you?" I asked. She smiled and I had a sudden thought that she was going to invite me into hers.

"No problem," she replied and sauntered into the bathroom. She was going to drive me crazy, and I think she knew it.

Jhondie

I was starting to get the shakes. They were precursors to seizures. This was not the time for me to go into seizures. We'd already had one setback this weekend, and I didn't want another. I took some Tryptophan when I got home, hoping that it would stop them. Sometimes it would, sometimes it wouldn't. It's actually how Dr. Lee found out last month about me. I had some massive seizures in his office; ironically, they came on when I was getting my meds.

Justin had been there, and it was the first time he ever saw me have a seizure. He knew I had them, but it wasn't the same. Dr. Lee saw my barcode; the one he saw removed just a few months before. He wanted to know what was happening with me. He had been a neurologist in China, and he knew these weren't normal seizures. It was either tell him the truth or get a new supplier. He was shocked, but he said that he had heard about things like that in China. He'd been recruited for a secret government project once, but had refused. He never thought he'd meet a real live success. I wasn't feeling like a genetically engineered success story just then, but he was impressed. He said that he had to keep it as doctor-patient confidentiality, and so far things were good. I had been feeling pretty good until today.

Justin saw me popping some Tryptophan when he came in, but he didn't say anything. Maybe he thought it was just aspirin. I didn't want to worry him that I was getting sick. It was just part of being a screwed-up science project. You live with what you have to. I thought the Tryptophan was helping at least. By the time I got into the shower the shakes had stopped. This was a start.

The water turned black as I stood under the spray of hot water. I felt so nasty. I washed my hair twice and scrubbed a few times until the water was finally running clear. I was pretty sure that about ten pounds of mud had flowed off of my body and down the drain. You wouldn't think the human body could be caked in so much filth, but I had managed quite well. It felt so good to be clean again once I stepped out of the shower.

Justin was waiting his turn. "You want me to throw your clothes in the wash?" I asked when I went into the hall. He didn't answer for a moment. It hit me that I was only wearing a short towel. It was habit for me to go to my bedroom in just a towel, so I didn't think to grab a robe before I went into the bathroom. I felt myself blushing a little under his intense stare. "Justin?" I called. He jumped like he hadn't heard me. "Your clothes?"

"Oh, yeah, sure, that would be great," he muttered. "I'll just uh, hand them to you, you know…" or maybe he could just strip down right there. No, that was a bad thought just then. That was a heat thought. Was it that time? No, not even close. Why was it such a bad thought then? What was the matter with us? He went into the bathroom, and I had the urge to follow him in there and let the dice fly. He shut the door before I could.

A few seconds later the door opened a little and he handed me his jeans and shirt. I got a glimpse of a well-muscled leg before the door shut again in a hurry. I needed to calm down. It wasn't a serotonin drop causing me to shake again. I threw the clothes in the washer and put them on a cold wash. It was probably going to take a couple of goes to get them clean, but we had all day.

I went back upstairs to get dressed. I was starting to shake harder, and it wasn't from thinking about my gorgeous boyfriend naked in the shower. I needed some more meds. The hallway seemed a mile long. I grabbed the wall, my entire body trembling, violent jerks running through it in intervals. Just the beginning. Cody crying frantically. Needed meds. Legs spasming. Couldn't move. Falling. A thump. Somewhere I knew the thump was me hitting the wall, but it was a thousand miles away. Hands near me. Arms around me. Justin.

Justin

I had just gotten out of the shower when I heard a loud thump like something had just hit the floor. I yanked on my boxers and ran into the hall. Jhondie was on the floor leaning against the wall and curling in the fetal position, her body convulsing savagely. This was only the second time that I had ever seen her go through seizures, and the first time Dr. Lee had been there to help. I ran to her, and knelt beside her, not sure what I could do.

Her meds. Tryptophan. She usually had some in her purse. She had to have more up here. "Jhon, where's your Tryptophan?" I asked, hoping she would be able to tell me. She said that sometimes the seizures were just uncontrollable shaking, and other times it was like a grand mal seizure when her entire body would be out of control.

"Desk," she gasped. "Drawer." Her eyes met mine for a moment, and the fear in them tore at me. I knew she still equated seizures with being killed. Leftovers from Manticore I guess.

I jumped up and ran into her room, yanking open her top desk drawer. There was a large brown bottle in it. I opened it and sniffed the pills. Tryptophan has a very distinct grassy smell to it. This was it. I grabbed the bottle and went back to her. The convulsions were already getting worse. How many to give her? Sometimes she would start to get a funny look and then take one or two. Dr. Lee had given her like five when she seized at his office.

I poured a handful, kneeling beside her again. She tried to take them from me but her hand was shaking too violently to grasp, her fingers refusing to close on the pills. I held the pills up to her mouth, basically dumping in a few. She swallowed reflexively, and I held her for a few minutes until the shaking began to diminish. She was able to get enough control to take a few more and that helped bring the seizures almost to a stop. There were still a few aftershocks, but I could tell the worst was over. At least I hoped it was. Cody was walking back and forth meowing frantically. I kicked at him a few times and he finally went downstairs. The last thing Jhondie needed was to be worrying about her damn cat getting upset.

She was limp against me, and I figured that she needed to rest. I knew she didn't sleep but after what her body had just gone through, she needed some. I picked her up and carried her into her room, laying her on her bed and pulling the blanket over her. She was still wrapped in her towel, but I wasn't going to try and take it off and get her into something more comfortable. I'm not a perv, but I'm not a saint either. I took her hand and squeezed it lightly. Her eyes opened.

"I'm going to go downstairs, okay?" I said to her. I didn't want to go home and leave her. It was very possible that she could have more seizures.

"Don't go," she murmured, holding my hand, tugging on it lightly. Her eyes were already closed. Damn seizures really took it out of her. Her eyes flicked open, pleading with me. How was I supposed to say no?

I lay down on the bed, wrapping my arm around her waist so that we were laying spoon fashion with her back against my chest. We had the blanket between us, but I could still feel her body against mine. She was still occasionally jerking as the last of the seizure finished tormenting her body. In a few minutes she was still against me, her fingers intertwined with my hand that was resting lightly on her stomach.

She muttered something that I couldn't catch. Poor baby was already about ninety percent asleep. "Jhon? Baby, what did you say?" I whispered into her ear. She snuggled tighter against me and repeated it. My jaw dropped and I couldn't breathe for a moment.

"Love you Justin."