Late, late night.

So Tim's been sick as anything. Coughing, achy, fever going up and down and up and down and up and down. Course he didn't tell me about the history of spiking fevers with delirium until last night, so I wasn't too worried until then -- as soon as he said that, I knew I was going to be staying at his and Ray's place for the night instead of my apartment.

For those still catching up, Tim is the gay man mentioned in my earlier post, and my lover. Perhaps an odd thing for a woman to say, but the situation is an odd thing. He's perfectly capable of appreciating a pretty woman; it's the typical female way of thinking that's not attractive to him, and apparently I'm sufficiently male in my thought processes that I count as a guy in his world. Which is fine by me; nay, bloody brilliant. Mostly I try not to think about it too hard, in case it stops working.

Ray is his boyfriend. Ray's more into girls (and he's plenty into me, and vice-versa) but somehow Tim and he work just fine. I did say it was an odd thing, didn't I?

Ray means well, but he also sleeps pretty deeply, and hasn't got a lot of experience with fevers. I do, and I sleep lightly, so I figured I'd crash on the couch and if I heard Tim talking to orcs (which is what he did the last time he had a bad fever), I'd haul his butt to the hospital.

Tim couldn't sleep, so he alternated between lying in bed for a while and snuggling with me on the couch. And the fever went up, and down, and up, and down, and never quite reached 102 but kept coming close. And then the fever would break and he's shiver and I'd wrap the blanket around him and hold him close and pray. And then it'd go up and he'd moan and sweat and ... it was awful.

Probably would have been fine had the thermometer not broken. I can tell if he's warmer than usual but I can't judge it finely enough, so that was when I decided it was time for the hospital run. Woke up Ray, got everyone bundled up and into the car, and off we went.

Which was the part I hadn't been looking forward to. I don't like hospitals much anyway, and on top of that there was the possibility of them giving Ray and I a hard time when we both wanted to stay with Tim.

Which they totally didn't. Didn't blink, didn't look at us funny. Nothing.

Ray went to deal with the financial stuff while I helped Tim out with the triage nurse. He was hanging on pretty hard but I could tell the fever was making him fuzzy-brained. Ray wasn't done when Tim and I went back, but they readily agreed to go and get Ray when he was done with the money.

And there we waited. And I know anyone paying any much attention could tell what was going on. Ray and I holding hands, then Tim and I holding hands, then Tim and Ray holding hands, depending on who was where and needed a hand to hold. I fell asleep against Ray at one point. Ray expresses anxiety by hanging onto Tim and telling him he loves him so I know they got a good eyeful of that. And? Not a blink, not a mutter, not an odd look. Everyone who came in quite deliberately addressed all three of us.

The best part, though, was the way the three of us worked as a team throughout the whole situation. It's what we've been trying for, but it's hard. Tim and I are used to working together; Tim and Ray are used to working together. Ray and I are still getting to know each other (though it's going very, very well so far). And integrating the three of us into a whole has had fits and starts, great leaps forward and a few backward. It's slowly getting better, though. Little by little.

And that's fine. We don't want to rush it; we don't want to rush into anything. I've spent years and years trying to find the right two people to be with and have had it fail terribly every single time before now. I don't want to mess this up; it's got far too much potential to be very, very good.

And Tim? Ibuprofin is keeping the fever under control. He's got a mild case of pneumonia but we caught it early and he's already on drugs. And they gave him a nebulizer treatment for his wheezing.

See, his father has severe emphysema. Can't even visit Tim in Colorado because there simply isn't enough oxygen in the air. Has to do a nebulizer treatment every couple hours or so. Eventually, and probably fairly soon, that emphysema will kill him.

Tim's been trying to quit smoking for years. Hasn't smoked for a couple of days anyway, since he's been so sick. But that nebulizer treatment? Really drove home that if he doesn't do something about it, he's going to be his father. So he's said 'this time, for sure' and I'm going to do what I can to help him stick with that.

I'm at their place now, even though Tim and Ray are both asleep. I don't need to be; Tim's fever is well under control and Ray doesn't seem to be coming down with it. But I just feel better here, where my two men are, blogging and catching up with email, and sneaking into the bedroom every once in a while just to watch them sleep.