There is a wait in the emergency room. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but there it is: Keye is sitting in a row with a man who appears to be missing a finger, and a small girl on her mother's lap, whose leg was twisted at an odd angle.
Keye had closed his eyes and turned his face away when they had entered the hospital, and he remains like that now. The places frighten him, and he doesn't want to see.

A few moments later, Bo strides in briskly. He is attired in a business suit, and would look nice if it wasn't for that unprofessionally red-tipped hair. He doesn't even offer a greeting to Keye and Alexander...just walks right up to the desk, acquires some papers, and starts filling them out.

Alexander is sitting next to Keye, one arm across his shoulder and a very deep frown on his face. He doesn't like this place, if only because it makes Keye so very upset. He doesn't like that he has to be here, because it means that Keye is hurt. And put Keye hurt with Keye upset, and you have very grumpy Alexander.

He looks surprised when Bo comes in, though, because last time he saw the person, Bo was wearing black pajamas with orange bats. This is a very different Bo from the last one.

At least appearance wise.

He gave Keye a squeeze.

Once finished (by this point, the girl with the broken leg is being cared for), Bo turns around and marches (almost literally) over to Alexander. He rests one hand on Keye's head, and the boy's breathing evens out, like Bo pushed a 'sleep' button.
"Here. I have kept them from putting him in psych, and given you visitation rights. I cannot stay; I will come later and tell him I have flown in from Austria to see him. I will be...around, if you need me."
He leaves, and Keye wakes again, apparently with no knowledge of his brief nap.

Bo couldn't have left Keye asleep?

"It's our turn," murmurs Alexander, helping Keye sit up.

And the nurse who'd come over to get them did whatever it is that nurses do when leading someone out of the waiting part of the emergency room and into one of the treatment rooms to get stitches and all that stuff.

He thought it best not to, as he didn't know the extent of the injuries.

She puts him on a gurney, because she doesn't want poor Alexander to have to carry him anymore, he can't walk, and she certainly can't carry him.
This causes some distress on Keye's part. His eyes fly open, flashing a variety of interesting colors.
"I want Dr. Barclay to come with me! Don't make him stay outside!"

Alexander taps the nurse on the shoulder and murmurs something in her ear ("I have visitation rights.") and moves next to Keye.

"I'm here, son. I'm not going anywhere."

A pointed look at the nurse, who does not contradict him.

"Shh. It's all right."

He squeezes Keye's left hand.

A relieved sigh. Alexander's presence is doing wonders for Keye's hospital problems. He's not relaxed of course, not even close...but normally he'd have to be sedated for this sort of thing.
He turns away and squeezes Alexander's hand hard when the nurse removes the towel, injects a painkiller, and starts to put in stitches.

Alexander let him squeeze his arm, stroking the boy's hair and murmuring soothing nothings. He would be pleased to get out of here, so that Keye could get back to normal (or as normal as Keye ever got) and they could, oh, do something ridiculously normal, like go and watch a movie or something.

Something that ordinary fathers and sons did.

"It's all right, Keye."

Someone give the poor man a hug?

Keye would, if he had an arm free, but after the nurse finishes the stitches, she proceeds to do various other things...blood pressure tests, drawing some blood to test that, et cetera, to see if he needs a transfusion or whatnot.
Finally, she finishes and scurries off to analyse the results.
Immediately, Keye was clinging to Alexander again.

Alexander strokes Keye's hair some more and puts on a smile for his boy.

"We'll be through here soon, and then we can go home, all right? And you can rest, and I'll pull something out of the refrigerator or the freezer. You don't have to be alone. You won't be alone as long as I have anything to say about it."

A possessive squeeze.

Keye is his.

"I love you." Keye whispers, trying to get it said before the nurse comes back. "I'm really, really sorry for what I did."
Then the nurse does come back in and tells them that Alexander's timing was perfect. Keye will live without a blood transfusion, though he is sternly informed to take it easy for a while. Counseling is also recommended, which makes Keye's face cloud over.
But they're free to go.

"I love you too..." He doesn't say 'you're forgiven' because the nurse comes back in before he has a chance to get the words out. Instead, he gives Keye another of those possessive squeezes.

Mine, he seems to be saying, every time he gives the boy a hug.

And he doesn't care who knows it, anymore.

"Let's go home."

Does he have to carry Keye again?

Nope. He's given a wheelchair, and is very disgruntled about it.
"I would be fine walking..." he growls at the nurse, but she shakes her head sternly and nods to Alexander, like 'You're pushing, and you're not letting him get up.'
Remember the bit about taking it easy, Keye?

Alexander has no intention of letting Keye get up. If he has to, he'll hold the boy in the thing with magic. The professor is stubborn like that, and he's already come too close to losing Keye tonight.

He pushes Keye, in the wheelchair, out the door and to his car.

"You're not going to do this to me again, are you?" he asks.

Alexander has forgiven him already, but he wants to make sure that he isn't going to have to do this on a regular basis. He can't handle that kind of fear more than, say, once a year.

(Even that would be a bit often, for his taste.)

He hangs his head.
"No."
He's very, very ashamed of himself.
"Iunno what I was thinking..."

"Just as long as you never do it again, I don't care what you were thinking. I don't know what I would do if I lost you, son."

And at the car now, and opening the door and bundling Keye inside--without letting the boy get up on his own feet--onto the pile of blankets that Alexander had left in the car when he carried his boy into the hospital.

Then around to the driver's side and a squeeze of Keye's hand as he starts the car.

Wearily, Keye leans back in the seat, liking the softness of the blankets.
"I won't. When did these get here?"
He squeezed Alexander's hand in return with a small smile.

"They've been here the whole time; I wrapped you in my blankets before I carried you down to the car. You were soaking wet, and I didn't want to try to undress you and put something dry on. The blankets were the next best thing."

Keye really was out of it, wasn't he. Oh well.

He backed out of the parking place and started heading home.

You know, Alexander's been living in that apartment since he moved to Bayfield and became a professor at Keaton, but it hasn't felt like a home, a real home, until now. I guess there's something to the idea that a house is not a home unless there is love.

"Oh."
He furrowed his brow, trying to keep his exhausted brain ticking, at least a little.
"Then...what will you sleep on tonight? They're kind of wet now."

"I have others, Keye. Don't worry about me."

Granted, those 'others' are nowhere near the quality of the ones that he bundled Keye in to take him to the hospital, being things left over from his university days, but he doesn't care.

What's one night spent a bit uncomfortable compared to Keye?

"Oh...okay..."
He chewed his lower lip, glancing sideways at Alexander.
"C...c'n I sleep on the floor of your room, just for tonight?"
He really doesn't want to be alone. Chances are, this clingy behavior will continue until he gets his feet under him again (literally and figuratively).

"The floor?"

If either of them is going to sleep on the floor, it will be Alexander. He is not going to let his boy sleep on the floor, no way. (And, hey, wasn't there some kind of idea out there somewhere that sleeping on the floor was good for your back? Maybe Alexander could use the 'therapy.')

"Certainly not."

Aw, poor Keye.

"You may sleep in my room, but I will be on the floor."

Or maybe not poor Keye.

I dont know. The floor has always hurt my back. Maybe it only helps if you have back problems to begin with.

"Nuh-uh! No way. You aren't sleeping on the floor in your own room, that's ridiculous! I will make a big pile of blankets and sleep in it."

Maybe so.

"You are not sleeping on the floor, Keye. I won't have it."

Isn't this the silliest argument ever? They're fighting over who gets to make the other one sleep on the bed.

Oh well. It's better than some of the other arguments that they've had in the past. Much, much better.

"What if I put pillows in, too? C'mon, I hurt my wrist, what's the floor gonna do to it?"
Marvel at the power of drowsy wonder-boy's logic.

"If anyone sleeps on the floor, it will be me. And you are not going to be able to make me change my mind, so you might as well give up." For once, Alexander is not going to give in to the pleading faces that Keye makes, nor is he going to allow the boy's persistant (lack of) logic to wear him down.

Keye is sleeping in a bed tonight. That's final.

"Fine, I'll sleep by myself in my room."
He pouts, wishing Alexander wouldn't make him feel guilty by insisting on sleeping on the floor...he can't allow that to happen, which is a real shame, as he has no desire to be alone.

"Then I will sleep on the floor in your room." Alexander doesn't want Keye to be alone either. Keye does things that frighten him when the boy is alone, and he isn't going to leave him alone for a while.

This argument could quite conceivably go on for a very long time.

"You won't sleep on the floor anywhere."
Eureka!
"I'll sleep on the couch in my room, and you can take the bed!"

Alexander would argue about Keye's taking the couch, but at least the boy isn't trying to sleep on the floor any longer, and the man knows from experience that the couch has some kind of sentimental meaning for Keye.

So he doesn't argue.

"I suppose that will do."

Though that's a grudging concession if ever I saw one.

Pleased, Keye grins and bounces in his seat a little, until dizziness forces him to stop.
"Uuugggh. Feel like shit."

"I'm not surprised." Dry. Very, very dry.

"You are going immediately to bed when we get home." If Keye decides that he's hungry or something, well then, Alexander will break one of his biggest rules and bring the boy food in his bedroom.

But Keye is going to bed.

"Okay." Keye would argue, usually, but at the moment, he can't think of any reasons...also, he figures that he's caused enough trouble, and what he needs to do now is shut up and let Alexander relax.
So he shuts his mouth (with a bit of his usual jaw-clenching) and holds his hands between his knees to keep from fidgeting.

Alexander was very glad that Keye was not arguing; it made for more peace of mind for the man, and less worry that Keye was going to hurt himself by trying to do too much before he was ready to. He reached over and gave Keye's hand a squeeze again, smiling in a way that softened his features.

"Good lad."

((Move to apartments now?))