#queue or be queued

“I’ll get you some ice for your hand,” muttered Talli before shuffling off to the freezer.

It wasn’t a particularly hot day, but the cold mist billowed out of the freezer door nonetheless as Talli searched for something for Milo’s clobbered hand.  They sighed, their breath mingling with the freezer-fog, enjoying the feeling of the cooler air on their face.

They were quickly pulled from their reverie, however, by a loud bang, followed by a shout, coming from the yard, where Talli had left Milo.

“God damnit, Milo!  Just wait til we find the hammer if you’re aim’s that bad.  Let’s just—” but Talli was interrupted by loud hammering.  The man wasn’t going to have any fingers left if they didn’t get back soon, so Talli grabbed the nearest ice-pack and a tea-towel from off-of the floor, and ran back to Milo, practically prying the rock out of the stubborn fool’s hand and replacing it with the wrapped ice-pack.

“I said I’m fine,” milo growled, ice in his voice, but, to Talli’s relief, he still accepted the pack.

“You rest your hand for a bit,” Talli ordered as sternly as they could muster, and that was that, they hoped.

Ten minutes later, and Milo was growing restless.  He’d started fiddling with whatever was lying around, mostly tapping washers against wooden panels like some kind of useless woodpecker.  When that inevitably got boring (not a moment too soon, Talli thought to themself), he occupied himself with searching for the elusive hammer, which, to Talli’s dismay, turned out to be even louder than the washer.

They were on the verge of snapping at Milo when an ‘aha!’ erupted from the living room, where Talli had asked as politely as they could muster that he relocate his systematic deconstruction of their tool-crate.

Now he emerged, hammer in hand, trying his best to look like his usual, smug self, but missing, landing instead at something resembling mild amusement.  As he recommenced his hammering, now equipped with the proper tool, Talli couldn’t help but notice that Milo’s hands were covered in dust, grease, and cuts from the toolbox.  His right hand—the one he was supposed to be resting—was swollen and bruised.  The ice-pack was nowhere to be seen.

“You should take a rest too.  You’ve been working your arse off as much as I have.”  He smiled weakly, but there wasn’t an ounce of sympathy in his voice as he ushered Talli back inside.

The were starting to worry at this point.  It wasn’t like Milo to be this...irritable—this stubborn.  But, they thought to themself, if he didn’t want to talk, there was nothing they could do.  Two howls of hammer-induced pain later, however, Talli was starting to doubt that resolve.  When they heard the sound of splintering wood, their mind was made-up.

By the time they arrived back in the garden, the bottom shelf of the bookcase was in pieces, Milo poised to take not the hammer to the next shelf, but his own already bleeding fist.  There were tears in his eyes.

“Hey, hey, no,” Talli cried-out as they ran towards him.  He didn’t resist when they pulled him away from the bookcase and into a tight hug, instead just continuing to cry into their arm, neither of them speaking a word.  When they finally let go of each other, Talli could see that Milo’s eyes were red from the tears, and his nose dribbled uncontrollably.

“What’s going on, man?  This isn’t like you.”

A pause.

“Milo?”

“It’s...It’s Simon.  He’d been complaining about a sore back for ages.  We weren’t worried—figured maybe he just needed a chiropractor and some painkillers to get him through it.  Then he started getting sores.  Just wouldn’t heal… He went to the doctor, and…”

Milo went quiet.

“...and?”

“Melanoma.  Big one, from the sounds of it.”

“Shit,”

“Doctor says they reckon they caught it early enough—that if Simon starts treatment soon, they’ll have it before it has a chance to spread, but…” Milo’s eyes welled-up again.  His voice was shaking.  “I’m so scared, Tal.  What if they didn’t get it in time?  What if the treatment just makes it worse?  I’m not even sure we can afford it.  Everything’s falling apart around me and all I can do is watch.  Si’s been so much more distant since we found out.  I mean, of course he has, but I’m worried that even if I don’t lose him, I still might.  And I mean, look at me.  I can’t even keep a bookcase together.  How am I going to keep a relationship together?”

“Jeez, Milo.  I’m so sorry.”  Talli offered their hand to Milo and pulled him up.  “Have you...Have you talked to Simon about this?”  They disappeared into the toolshed before returning a moment later, carrying a plank of wood to replace the shelf Milo had broken.

“How can I? The thing’s in his back.”  He interrupted himself to do some hammering before continuing.  “God, I can only imagine how scared he must be about all this.”

“Of course, but can you imagine how worried he must be about you?”

“About me?  He’s got bigger fish to fry, Tal.”

“Don’t be daft.  You know damn well that you mean the world to him.  I bet he’s worrying his arse off about the exact same things you are.”

“...I don’t know.  I need to be strong for him, to help him through this shit.  I just...don’t know if I can do that—make it through this on my own.”

“Sometimes you can’t make it on your own, but that’s why you’ve got people like me, and, more importantly, people like Simon—so that you don’t have to.”

The two of them lifted that final shelf into place, and with that, the bookcase was complete.

Writer’s Notes