Off Label Use
Troy moved the gnawed-off tip of the kebab skewer over to the salt shaker. "And that's the electron jump, which happens all over as the plasma heats up."
Jennifer blinked over the candle on their table. "Right," she said softly, picking up the little wax-stained vase and moving it aside. Her eyes glinted green in the fire.
She looked up, and Troy found that he'd been staring. He dry swallowed. "Uhm."
"Go on." She smiled reassuringly.
"Okay, so, as it heats up the electrons have less and less trouble jumping off the atoms. So the plasma starts ionizing, and it all stops cohering, it's like, uhm." He twisted the remnants of his kebab stick between black-furred fingers.
"Mmm? The molecules break apart?"
"Oh, uhm, no, it's all free atoms, the heat's already broken apart all the molecular bonds." He flushed a little under the fur, embarrassed. He set the salt shaker away from the pepper shaker, the spoon further away, the sugar sachet, breaking apart his 'molecule'. "Sorry. The electrons are jumping around kind of, uhm. Free? But then they start shearing off and, uhm."
Troy could've sworn he'd been able to see the waiter in the corner of his eye, watching him strew debris over the restaurant table disapprovingly. But now the waiter was missing? Troy twisted his head uncomfortably to check, gulping down another nervous breath. No, the waiter was where he'd been before. The waiter looked away, pointedly not making eye contact. None of the other diners cared, though some tourists had been ogling him and Jennifer for awhile, earlier.
"Sweetie?"
Troy shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut. "Uhm."
"You okay?"
He looked up and found her smile, smiled back. "Uhm. Yeah. Just the extra glass of wine, I guess."
Her smile eased a bit, lost its tension. Jennifer set her elbows on the table and propped up her head, watching the spoon and the sachet and the bits of kebab stick. "So it's kind of a soup? And the electrons aren't sticky anymore?"
"Yeah." He nodded gently, staring at her. "Really hot soup, but yeah."
She was good to stare at. Beautiful. Red hair, long muzzle, her neck, the curve of her shoulder, the faint little rise of her sandy fur beside where it was flattened under her dress's shoulder strap. Troy didn't blame the tourists, really, if they'd been looking at her for that.
Humans stared at furries because they were strange, usually. Like, look at that table over there, there's a pretty thylacine talking to an overgrown lab mouse. Wow. Isn't that weird?
Troy didn't get it. Maybe being the overgrown lab mouse in question was a factor. But if it was because of Jennifer's beauty, then he could understand. From her blazing green eyes to the dark, so very dark, tip of her nose... Yeah. He could stare at her for a long time, too.
Especially her eyes, bright in the candle-light.
"Troy?"
"Jen?"
"Are you okay? You don't look alright."
"I'm okay." He swallowed down a nervous breath. And another, and another. "Are they turning down the lights? It's really, uhm." Annoying. "Romantic."
"Troy? Troy? Sweetie, are you okay?"
It was funny. He could feel her hand on his shoulder but couldn't see it, the lights were so low.
He felt thirsty.
Jennifer was clutching his hand so hard it hurt and her face was tight with fear. "Troy? Troy, sweetie? Sweetie? "
Her voice was, was just this side of panic. Not enough to make a scene. He didn't want to make a scene either, it was just their nice dinner and he was telling her about a bit of his thesis and she hadn't understood so, so he'd been explaining plasma and the lights had been out and they were okay now, but he was having trouble breathing.
"I'm okay," he mumbled.
"Troy, you wanna go home?" Her eyebrows. Her eyebrows had this arch that made his heart break. He didn't, didn't want to make her feel like that.
"No, no, it's okay, I'm, uhm." He reached for his water glass, next to the wine. "I'm really thirsty."
The water glass slopped into the wine glass. The table cloth got wet. It got wet because the water glass had fallen over and he hadn't quite noticed. The waiter was gonna yell, Troy thought. The lights weren't right, either. And the spilled salt on the table looked good. Really good. He was salivating, his tongue itching for it.
"Sweetie, you're not okay..." She didn't want to raise her voice, he could hear it in her. Didn't want to make a scene.
God damnit. It was. It was just a night out for them. A nice dinner, for once, while he was in the country. Just once nice dinner. For her. And he'd fucked it up. He squeezed his eyes shut and focussed on pulling in air. It didn't help.
He pressed his hand down over the scar under his shirt, under his belt, where more than sixteen years before he'd cut himself open and taken out his liver and put in his clone-brother Berlin's. Back in the lab, as children.
He knew exactly what this was. "It's fine," he wheezed. It wasn't. It really wasn't. "Uhm. Jen, could, could you call a cab?"
"Home?" Her hand shot into her handbag, for her phone.
"Uhm. You can go if you want, but, uhm. I. I gotta go to the hospital."
He hadn't meant to drop off, but it was hard. He felt so goddamn tired, waiting for all the nurses and the duty doctor and all those damn panicky people to find an oxygen mask that'd fit his face even though it didn't really matter. They didn't have to get a special mask, the medical staff just weren't thinking straight because he was a furry and his blood oxygen was dropping on them. But the solution was so easy. It turned out to be easier for him to fall asleep, than for him to explain it to them.
Troy woke up with an oxygen mask on.
A neat little triangle of plastic that was meant to fit over a human's nose and mouth and didn't fit over his, so a nurse who was more panicked than she had any right to be was looming over him with her hands wrapped around Troy's muzzle, bending the extra-large mask down. The nurse was using too much pressure, it kind of hurt. But at least it was only one nurse, now.
He flapped his hand at her until she let go, so he could speak.
"Uhm. Thanks."
She held the mask steady, but didn't clamp his mouth shut again. "Take slow breaths, Mister Salcedo. Slow, deep breaths."
Troy knew how to breathe. Didn't he? Yes, yes he did. He definitely knew how, and his chest was already moving, so it was okay - he didn't have to make himself breathe. He was already breathing, so it was fine. What was this lady's problem?
He fumbled the mask from her and pinched it at where it would fit over the bridge of a human's nose. The plastic warped, and it fit pretty much okay over Troy's nose, but not his mouth, so he sucked in deep breaths through his nose and blew them out with his mouth.
The nurse back up a step, watching him, instead of trying to help. Thank God.
Troy sucked in shallow breaths until he felt steady. His eyes trailed around the little examination room. "Where's Jennifer?"
"Are you with someone?" The nurse's eyes were wide, round, worried.
Jesus Christ. He just needed medical attention, it wasn't like he was dying. Well, arguably he was dying, which is why he needed the medical attention, but really that wasn't the point.
The point was, he wanted to see Jennifer. "Yeah, I'm with someone." It felt good saying that. With someone. "Pretty girl. If she's still here?"
The nurse didn't even look at the door.
Troy's heart sank. She hadn't really gone home, had she? It was all a little murky after... before he fell over in the waiting room? Or, no, it was walking in. Was it? He wasn't sure.
"Uhm." Troy swallowed down air. But that wouldn't help, so he took a deep sniff off the oxygen mask. "Pretty girl. Redhead? I don't know where she is. She's... she's like me, but a sandy colour? Looks like a dog?"
The nurse's eyes lit up at that last description. "Si. Yes. I saw her outside, I'll get her for you."
Troy shut his eyes and tried to relax on the gurney. He felt warmer, and it wasn't just the oxygen.
The door clicked shut behind the nurse, then it popped back open, and Troy caught Jennifer's eyes blazing their green, a frightened green, and two steps and her hair was dangling in his face and her lips were pressed to his skull so, so hard.
Troy moved the mask aside and kissed her cheek, her long hair tangled between them.
Jennifer smelled like tangerines.
Troy liked tangerines. Yes. As of now, he liked tangerines very much.
She kissed him over and over and over, hard wet smooches on his slightly parted lips and she didn't stop until he tapped her ear with the oxygen mask.
She drew back, eyes flicking from point to point on his face like he was going to vanish in front of her eyes. Errant threads of her hair floated in front of her nose, some stuck to her lips.
Gracefully, she swept her hair back behind her shoulder.
All better.
Troy smiled vaguely and tucked the tip of his nose back into the pinched oxygen mask.
She didn't say anything, just clutched at his hand, his right hand, crushing it in her grip.
Her hands were beautiful. Every little thing about her was.
"Hi," he wheezed.
Her eyelids fluttered, blinking hard. Really hard on her wonderful, if kinda over-moist, eyes. She dipped her head and twisted to kiss him on the mouth again, side-on, under the oxygen mask.
"Hi," she replied, finally.
Troy smiled.
Jen didn't smile back, but that was okay. She stroked her fingertips over his scalp and looked up at the nurse, who'd been in the door. "He's going to be okay, right?" she plead.
"Of course," the Nurse soothed. Troy appreciated that, because, strictly speaking, the nurse wasn't qualified to even guess at that. "The doctor will come soon."
Jennifer looked back at him, frowned, but not in fear, not in fright, not in anger. Sorrow, maybe.
"I'm fine," he murmured at her.
"Bullshit." The frown drew tighter, fiercer. She stroked the side of his face, hard.
Okay, maybe she was a little angry.
He smiled serenely anyway, meshed his fingers with hers. "I've got you, Jen. How can I not feel fine?"
It took her awhile, but she smiled back.
Definitely not just the oxygen making him feel warm.
Saigon and Anne came to visit, while Troy was waiting for his test results. Troy's brother was looking good, but his new hairstyle was ridiculous. Must've been Anne's idea, but Troy couldn't ask Anne - his... his sister in law? - why Saigon's hair was now a bleached acid white.
Not quite the right time, socially, and they had to make space for Philadelphia, and Florence and Dallas, and Turin. It was nice having brothers. It was even nice having so many of them, but it got loud at times like this.
They all went home after the test results came in and they were done treating Troy. Everybody except for Philadelphia. Philly sat in the corridor, waiting with Jennifer for the hospital to sign Troy out, fretting because Troy didn't want him paying for the medical bills. Just because Philly earned more didn't mean he had to pay for everything.
Besides, it was just a minor thing with his liver. Sort of.
At two AM Troy sat on a different examination table, in a different room with glossy paint on the walls, listening to the doctor's instructions.
"So between the hormone release implant we've put in your liver and the bile acid supplements, your liver functions should improve in the long term. In fact I'm pretty confident it's going to resolve fully. Your metabolism's quite normal otherwise, but we're going to have to monitor you from here. So when you go in to your hospital up north, don't let them try and do it locally, you're a special case. Insist they call us so we can do it teleoperationally, okay?"
"Okay."
Troy wished they wouldn't baby-talk him. Except for when they were putting in the implant. It had been a very big needle, and Troy had gotten enough of needles in his childhood. He didn't want any more of them, if it could be helped. It would've been nice to have Jennifer to hold his hand in the theatre, but she couldn't go in with him.
"It's going to take some time, so for the meanwhile I'm going to give you a Pee-Dee-Ee Five inhibitor. It's going to be a really cheap, quick, effective way to deal with your breathing problems. You've got breathing problems even though it's your liver because-"
"Because my liver's releasing too much angiotensinogen into the bloodstream, my sodium balance is all wrong and my kidneys are pouring out renin which is hacking up the angiotensinogen into angiotensins and. It hits the lungs, and." Troy felt tired of this. Tired, not angry. He'd been angry before, that's why he'd snapped, but now...
"The peptides get converted in your lungs," The doctor replied patiently, "where they're causing too much constriction of the blood vessels. That gives you very high blood pressure, hypertension, in your lungs and the surrounding blood vessels. The reduced flow means you can't absorb enough oxygen. Which is why you fainted." The doctor bobbed his hand with each step, as if guiding Troy through the process. The guy was patient. Very patient. More patient than Troy was.
Troy kind of preferred the female doctor he'd seen earlier in the night. She hadn't bothered trying to explain anything.
"You understand all that."
Troy nodded, not looking up. The guy wasn't the same kind of doctor Troy had known as a kid, but somehow Troy didn't want to meet his eyes.
"Okay. So we're going to give you a Pee-Dee-Ee Five inhibitor."
"Shouldn't you, uhm. Be giving me something that works on the enzymes for the angiotensins? In my lungs." Troy waved his hand uselessly.
"We can give you an Ace-inhibitor, but I'm worried about your kidneys. The Pee-Dee-Ee Five inhibitor's going to be the safest bet. It's also going to be a lot cheaper."
Cheaper was good. Troy nodded, numbly.
"Okay, so you take one of these every eight hours, and if you start having breathing problems you take four." The doctor held up a small plastic bottle of pills, the bottle's display showed the name of the active ingredient in the generic drug they were giving him. "You should also take four before you go to sleep. It won't hurt anything, just going to make sure that you won't have trouble breathing in the night. Okay?"
Troy squinted at it. "Kenlanafil?"
"Right. Now the side effects include-"
Troy put his hand over the doctor's wrist, holding the bottle steady. "Isn't that like sildenafil?"
"That's right, they're both Pee-Dee-Ee Five inhibitors. Now I guess you know about this, but the side effects are a little weird because-"
Troy's ears twitched, perking with interest. He took the bottle from the doctor and thumbed the label's display. He scratched his scalp, licking his lips while reading. "No, no, I'm pretty sure I know about the side effects." He paused, squinted up at the doctor in disbelief. "You treat pulmonary hypertension with these things?"
The doctor shrugged, helplessly. "Because of the common use for this class of drugs they're very widely available, very cheap, and very safe to use. It does the job."
Troy looked back at the label. "It certainly does."
Jennifer's bedroom was nice and dim, just a little light, and it was because she liked making it romantic. Nothing at all to do with fainting. It took until real late, there had been a lot of stuff to sign for Troy's insurance and Philly had wanted to pay even though it was covered, but eventually Troy and Jennifer had gotten home.
She was treating him like cotton wool. Delicate, delicate, delicate. Kissed him and brought him to bed and even given him warm milk. Fluffed up the pillows and tucked him in on his side of the bed.
It was a little out of character for her, especially after a dinner, but she must have figured he'd want to sleep. She sat down on her side of the bed, wearing a button-down pyjama shirt he'd never seen her in. Most nights he was with her, she slept nude.
He laughed. "Wow. Plaid?"
Jennifer smiled awkwardly, smoothing down the fabric. "It's, uhm." She paused a long time. "You really aughta rest, you know? I'm fine. I'm really fine."
"Really?" He lifted an eyebrow pointedly.
She giggled. "Christ, Troy. I don't want to put pressure on you, you're sick... I mean, if you want, but I figured..." She shrugged her shoulder, just the one, watching him curiously. She grinned vaguely, her tongue poking to the side slightly, tip caught between her teeth.
"I'm fine." Troy picked up the pill bottle and shook out six.
"That's what you said before." She slipped under the sheets, smiling at him. Happy to have him there, have him be okay, rather than in a hospital.
Troy counted the pills. Thirty milligrams. He slapped them into his mouth and swallowed them dry.
Jennifer winced, shutting her eyes. "That really freaks me out."
"What?"
"Not even with water? Just, bang?" She reached across his body, hugged him.
Her arm was very, very warm on his bare chest. "Just bang," he confirmed, rolling over to kiss her.
Her lips were warm. She still smelled like tangerines. "I thought you were meant to take four?"
"It's perfectly safe stuff, Jen." He brushed his nose to her lips, her chin. Grazed his nose through her fur, lower, to her neck. The perfume was stronger, there. "Four is actually kind of low? Most people take more. A lot more."
"You sure?"
"Yeah." He kissed her collarbone lightly.
Jennifer smiled vaguely, and rolled onto her side, away from him, so he could snuggle in along her spine like he always did. It gave him her ear to play with.
He shut his mouth over the tip, gently ran his tongue along the edge.
She relaxed in his arms. "If you want to do stuff tonight, I can, uh. Y'know... do all the work? So you don't strain yourself."
"It's fine," he murmured. "Right now I just want your ear."
"Okay." She settled, turning her head a little. "Hug me a little tighter?"
Troy kissed her ear softly, softly softly softly, and wrapped his arms around her tummy, pulled her close so her spine was firm on his chest, on his stomach.
"Mmm." He could hear the smile in her voice.
Her night shirt was kind of interesting. Sort of alien? Lots of buttons. Troy was very delicate with two of them, over Jennifer's sternum. One, pop, two, pop.
"Mmm..." her voice was a little deeper. She flexed, a firm warmth all along his body.
He slipped his hand into her night-shirt, cradled her warm breast in his hand, slowly, slowly rubbed warmth into her already hot nipple with his palm.
Her breathing took on a faintly ragged quality. "Uhm. Troy?"
Christ. His tongue still ached for it. The taste of salt. He pulled the blankets down, hauled himself over her and nosed at the gap in her shirt hungrily.
Jennifer settled on her back, ran her hands over the back of his neck. Hard, until she realized what she was doing. Then she slowed down, did it gently. "Uhm. Troy, you're sick..."
"I'm better. I took my medicine," he purred. He pulled the fabric taught, ran his tongue along the warm, dry fur of her breast. Found it there, just there, the perfect warm sweat-salt taste of her nipple.
"Uhm, uhm. ... Troy..." She clutched at his fur. "Uhm." She hesitated. "I don't want you to, uhm. Strain yourself? Are you okay? Are you really really okay?"
He paused, dug his nose in against the saliva on her skin. He breathed heavily through his nose, as if seeking oxygen, but what he really wanted was her unperfumed smell, the weirdly dry-earth scent of her skin. "Read the pill bottle. Look up the drug's development history."
Jennifer squirmed underneath him, stretched for the bottle.
Her flesh felt warmer and warmer still, and he wanted that warmth. He swirled his tongue where she was warm, started picking at the buttons."It lets the smooth muscles, lining my blood vessels, relax," he explained, "So there's a lot of easy, unrestrained blood flow in my lungs..."
Her eyes flickered across the little display in the label, scrolling it with her thumbs. "So it's an analogue of sildenafil, made to, to target the thingy enzymes better, and-" She stopped. She just stopped. Her tail thumped the bed once, eagerly, and she felt between his legs. Between his legs, where he felt very warm.
"And that's what easy, unrestrained blood flow does to my dick," he murmured into her breasts.
"Ohmigawd," she squeaked. "They gave you Viagra."
"Kinda. And they gave me enough for the rest of the week."
"Ohmigawd. "
Yeah. Tonight, Jennifer was going to invoke God's name a lot.