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Orlando had just finished his first cup of coffee and was ready to go outside for his morning round when Viggo came downstairs. It was a few minutes past 7am and Viggo, who basically never got up before nine, was two hours early and looked the part.
He had put on a pair of jeans and one sock, nothing else. If Orlando had to take a wild guess, he’d wager that Viggo was also wearing nothing underneath those jeans, but for once this didn’t cause a tight feeling of anticipation in his groin.
It was a possibility that Viggo had only dressed halfway because he’d just had a seizure. Sometimes, those left him confused about the most basic tasks for a while. Not too long ago Viggo had made a grab for a t-shirt (one of Orlando’s no less) only seconds after the twitching had stopped and had tried putting it on with his head through one of the sleeves. He’d grown increasingly frustrated when his efforts had turned out to be unsuccessful.
But Orlando had been downstairs the whole time and he was almost certain Viggo would have called for him. Viggo knew that Orlando hated it when he toughed it out on his own for no particular reason other than habit. So, assuming Viggo hadn’t had a seizure something else had to be wrong for Viggo to lose interest in dressing himself not even halfway through the process.
A bout of something they called Viggo’s lows was another possibility. Orlando had learnt early on that there were stages to those. If the seizures got to him, if the meds made him irritable or if life simply seemed to crash above his head, the first thing Viggo lost interest in was personal hygiene. He started to dress in exactly the same clothes he’d gotten out of the night before. He stopped showering, stopped brushing his teeth and shaving. It was too much hassle, too much effort for no gain whatsoever – at least that was his reasoning. If Orlando let Viggo be and his mood deteriorated further, loss of appetite would be next. The problem was: Not taking care of one’s body in such a drastic fashion wasn’t at all advised when taking strong medication, which was why this was usually the point when Orlando put his foot down.
It was imperative that Orlando find out what was wrong and why Viggo was downstairs in about a third of his clothes with red-rimmed eyes and a subtle tremor in his right hand.
“God, Viggo. You look like shit,” Orlando said by way of greeting, because past experience showed that being blunt garnered better results with Viggo than mincing words. It was also a foolproof way to gauge how he was feeling overall. Viggo wasn’t good with subtleties and double meanings, especially when he wasn’t feeling his best.
“I do?” Viggo said. His voice was raspy and thick from sleep. He rubbed his forehead, then his cheeks and finally his chin absentmindedly. Quite obviously he realised only now that he hadn’t taken the time to shave.
Orlando went over to where Viggo was standing at the bottom of the stairs and put a hand against Viggo’s forehead, then against his cheek. In the end he let it rest in Viggo’s neck. Viggo was still bed-warm, obviously having clambered out from under the covers mere moments ago. But he wasn’t sweaty. He had no difficulty speaking either. His answer was short, yes, but it was spoken in his normal tone of voice and not in the laboured fashion he adopted post-seizure that suggested each word took the long way around in his brain. Orlando asked anyway, just to make sure: “Are you okay? Did you have a seizure?”
“No, I’m fine.” Viggo grabbed Orlando’s hand, the one that rested against the nape of his neck, and drew it away, kissing the palm lovingly before letting go.
Orlando frowned, took Viggo’s hand again and dragged him in the direction of the kitchen, sitting him down at the island. He kissed the crown of Viggo’s head before sitting down as well. “You don’t look fine. What’s wrong?”
“Just a bad dream, is all.” Viggo didn’t look at Orlando and rubbed his eyes.
Orlando waited him out – sometimes that was all that was needed – but Viggo didn’t speak further. “Care to share?” Orlando prompted eventually.
At that Viggo looked up and right into Orlando’s earnest face. “It’s … it was …” He looked down, fidgeting with his hands.
Orlando tried again. “You don’t have to tell me, your dreams are your own. But you look like you need to get this out of your system. Maybe write it down instead?”
Viggo shook his head. He took a deep breath and started anew: “I dreamt that I was healthy.”
Viggo looked down again, as if he wanted to avoid seeing Orlando’s reaction. Meanwhile, Orlando didn’t quite know how to react. Viggo had been living with the epilepsy for eight years. There had been a lot of rough patches from what Orlando could tell. He was doing quite well at the moment, but at this point his doctor found it unlikely that he’d ever get rid of the seizures or the medications. It probably was a normal reaction to envision something that could never be. Orlando wanted to say something, but Viggo beat him to it: “I was healthy. And you were the one having epilepsy.”
“Oh,” Orlando said and closed his mouth. What could he possibly say to that? In the end he settled on: “How did that make you feel?”
Viggo shrugged: “Good. Relieved. Light, in a way.”
Orlando nodded. He thought he understood.
“But then I felt like a weight was crashing down on me, choking me. It felt awful. I felt awful.”
Orlando just had to ask. “Why?”
Viggo looked up. He seemed part sad and part angry. “It felt so good in the beginning. Like the past years were nothing but a bad dream, like finally everything was back to normal. The way it was supposed to be.”
Up until this moment Orlando had believed that Viggo had made peace with the situation, yet the dream seemed to have shaken him pretty badly. Viggo saw that realisation dawn on Orlando’s face. “It’s not like that. Not quite, at least. I’m okay with how things are. Or at least I thought I was. I don’t agonise over it, not in the way I used to. But … I’m shit at this whole thing. I’m shit at being an epileptic.”
In any other situation Viggo’s statement might have been funny. It was quintessential Viggo: He was applying his sense of perfection to a situation where perfection certainly didn’t apply. Orlando couldn’t find any humour in it, especially since Viggo was dead serious. Orlando swallowed hard around the lump that wanted to form in his throat. “Viggo, it’s not a contest. And there’s no right or wrong here.”
“No? You don’t think the way I went about things was wrong?”
“No,” Orlando said with conviction. “You went about things the only way you knew how. It got the job done.”
“Mhm,” Viggo said. He didn’t sound convinced.
“Care to tell me why the dream didn’t feel good in the end?” Orlando asked. He could guess, but he wanted to know what Viggo made of the dream.
“I felt so good in the beginning, so free. But then I realised that somehow you had epilepsy now, like it was some contagious disease that had sprung from me to you. And I felt guilty. So guilty for having done that to you. I know what it means, I know what it does. I know how to go about it, and I didn’t want you to have to go through this. I wanted to help you so badly, but there wasn’t anything I could do. Nothing to make it better for you. It made me angry. Turns out I’m shit at being healthy, too. I thought I’d be a better person if I was healthy. But I’m not. I’m the same useless prick, just without epilepsy.”
It hurt hearing Viggo belittle himself like this, but Orlando supposed he understood. In a way, Viggo thought that being rid of the epilepsy would make his life magically better. But apparently, deep down he seemed to think he was damaged goods anyway, whatever happened from here on out. He believed that the image of him without epilepsy was some illusion that not only wouldn’t ever exist again, but that somehow had never existed in the past either. He had put his healthy self on a pedestal, giving it a shine it probably had never had in reality.
“Maybe you’re projecting too much into this. It feels really weird to say this, but you are not shit at being an epileptic. You weren’t before we met and you certainly aren’t now. You managed to live alone. You were independent, had a successful career. You knew how to live your life. I’m glad I could be the last piece of the puzzle for you. But it was you who did all the work. You’re the strongest person I know, the epilepsy doesn’t change that. If anything it made you into the person I know and love.”
Viggo drank in every word. “I wish I could believe you. I wish I wouldn’t be such a burden to you.”
“You are not. You never have been.”
“I wish I could be healthy for you,” Viggo said solemnly. “I wish I could give you that.”
Orlando smiled at Viggo, wistful. He wouldn’t lie to Viggo, he deserved better than being lied to. “That would be the most beautiful gift you’d ever give me. I want that for you, very much.”
Orlando had thought about this often: Viggo without epilepsy. Viggo who could do anything he wanted. Orlando wanted that, that part wasn’t a lie. But in a tiny corner of his mind he was afraid that this Viggo wouldn’t find anything worth loving in Orlando. In a way, Orlando had always perceived Viggo pre-epilepsy as a seperate person. And a seperate person might not have the same feelings for Orlando that Viggo did. Orlando liked to tell himself that they were fated. But maybe they were only fated in this particular constellation. And still, if there was a fairy godmother somewhere and he had one wish free he’d wish for Viggo to be healthy again.
“There are so many things I’d love to do with you and that I can’t. If I could give you my health, I could give you everything else as well,” Viggo said.
“You don’t have to give me anything. I will love you either way, I hope you know that,” Orlando said.
Viggo was silent. He seemed to think. “How about you make a list?”
“A list of what?” Orlando asked. The change in gear caught him unawares.
“You’re holding back on my account. I don’t want you to and I feel guilty about it, but at the same time I can’t really change that. Make a list of everything you’d like us to do together. Everything you can think of, no matter how far-fetched. Don’t think about how complicated it would be, how expensive and whether it’d be even be possible for someone who has epilepsy. Don’t think about that at all. Just dream. And then we’ll look at the list together and pick one thing. For starters.”
“I like that idea.” Orlando smiled. He was already trying to decide what to put on the list. And then he was thinking of the obstacles in their way.
“Anything, Lando.”
They both knew that some things were absolutely out of the question for people with epilepsy. Others were just out of the question for Viggo because he hadn’t really gotten rid of the anxiety for good. He was getting braver, though. So maybe an adventure-list was exactly the push he needed.
“Okay, I’ll make a list and then we’ll talk about it and pick something. But how about we do something right now that I know you’re okay with?” Orlando proposed. He wanted to make sure that they exorcised Viggo’s mood as quickly as possible.
“Like what?” Viggo asked, one eyebrow raised.
“Did you shower?” Orlando asked, already knowing the answer.
Viggo looked down on himself, took in his attire. He smiled crookedly. “I’m wearing one sock. I don’t even know how I got out of bed.”
“Thought so,” Orlando agreed. “It’s half past seven. Plenty of time until I need to leave for work. Do you want us to take a bath? Soak a little. You’ll feel better after, I’m sure.”
What Orlando was actually offering was some together-time. Water posed a risk to people with epilepsy since a sudden seizure – and the resulting loss of consciousness – could cause a person to drown. Viggo didn’t have sudden seizures, though, since the aura always gave him a head start. And yet Viggo didn’t take baths alone. Orlando suspected that something had happened in the past, something that had scared him pretty badly. And so they did it together, as a couple. Sometimes, it really was just that: a bath. And sometimes it led to something more.
“You want to?” Orlando asked.
“Yeah, I do,” Viggo said. “I very much do.”
Orlando stood, taking Viggo’s hand and drawing him to his feet as well. “Then let’s.”
And whatever happened from here on out would be a win in Orlando’s book.
- The End
(April 2025)