A/N: I got bitten by the bug, bad. Real bad. As in three fics and counting in two days, bad. I blame the USA thanksgiving day marathon, but I'm not complaining. It's getting me through (not)studying for finals. Don't own em, enjoy.
He was like a terminal illness. A pain, one that would not go away, no matter how much I wanted it to. One that could be drowned out by pills and numbed by alcohol. A pain that hurt more than anything else, as though my insides were being pulled out one by one. Vaguely like how it would feel to be mummified alive, by the ancient Egyptian methods. With a hook down my nose to pull everything inside of me out.
And like any terminal illness, he'd go into bouts of remission. Where I could forget about him, act as though he wasn't there. Where the pain would stop, and everything would be right again. Where I could be myself again, and not hide behind some stupid front, a stoic front. Emotionless, as though it didn't matter to me. Like any of my patients going into remission, and picking their lives back up again, as though nothing had every been wrong.
But like any cancer patient, there's always that inkling of doubt. That knowledge that even though the illness was gone for now, it was just that-gone for now. It would always creep back into life again. Start off slowly, something that you don't even notice. The lung cancer returns as a bit of a cough that you think is just bronchitis. Liver cancer that you think is indigestion. And by the time you notice the symptoms again, it's too late. It's back in full force.
But unlike cancer, there's no cure. There's no rounds of chemo that can be done, no radiation therapy. The only thing for it is palliative care. Treat the symptoms, but there's no treating the disease. No, rather in that way he was more like MS. Rather, much like MS. Leaving me weak and out of control, but with bouts where I'd think he was totally a non-factor in my life.
And like MS, attacks of him are brought on in moments of weakness. Following something traumatic. When I'm vulnerable, that's when I relapse, and fall back out of remission. Off the wagon. When all I can do is think about him, and be completely unable to stop it. Where the only thing I can do is treat the symptoms. An extra dose of Zoloft, a few extra beers to drown out the thoughts of him. A sleeping pill to get me to sleep without thinking about him. Fantasizing about him.
And like any incurable disease, he's ruined my life. Over half of all marriages in which one party is diagnosed with a terminal illness end in divorce, provided that the patient lives long enough. The other half grow stronger for it. I was always in the first half. Suffering from a disease I did not ask for, or did not want. Putting undue strain on each and every marriage.
There was nothing I could do about it. Like a virus, he had gotten into my skin and had bonded with each and every one of my cells. Inserting himself in there forcefully, provoking an immune response out of self-defense, and I suppose it was what ruined any chances we might have. He made the jokes, and it always made me wonder if maybe he did want it too. But I was too busy on the attack, attempting to keep him at a manageable distance that even if he did want it, I made it perfectly clear that I didn't.
Like cancer, he spread and metastasized through me. What started as a simple touch when he walked just a hair too close in the halls, despite how hard I tried to keep away from him, would spread through me like wildfire. And every time I'd wonder if maybe this was him trying to show that he felt that way too. And every time I'd realize he didn't, that it was just the way he was, another little part of me would die, eaten alive by this cancer.
Like alzheimers, he caused me to forget things, jumble them up, but only when I was around him. Every other memory didn't matter, only being in the presence of him did. He made me put him in the place of other encounters, as though he was meant to be there all along, he made me forget about anyone else in my life, ignore other events entirely. I was, perhaps, using the same methods of coping as he did, block out the pain and forget it didn't exist, but I wouldn't even have that if it hadn't been for him.
He was a terminal, incurable disease. Bringing nothing but pain and unhappiness with him. Destroying everything in his path. Sure, he could be treated, put into remission for a time. But after a while the treatments fail. The cancer spreads. The MS destroys another nerve. Leaving me hollow, empty, and in pain. And the worst part is, he'll never know what he is to me.
Because like so many terminal patients, I've let the disease define me. There are so many of my patients who find themselves lost when they go into remission. Who had built their lives around their disease, and find that when they no longer have the disease, they no longer have anything. They become co-dependent on the disease. They need their cancer, just as I need him. And I won't admit it, because no one ever admits that they need the thing that's eating them from the inside out.