This was hard work. It was tough, but I feel ultimately good about it.
House: Ravenclaw, Category: Themed, Prompt: Space Between (song) - note at bottom regarding this, WC: 2211
This is non-magical, Muggledom.
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"Are you alright in there, Freddie?" George calls through the bathroom door, knocking against it. I assume he's asking about the coughing.
"Fine Georgie," I reply, hand momentarily away from my lips. The coughing starts all over again, hot liquid rising up my fthroat. It splashes out onto my hands, much too red for normality. But it's something I'm getting used to. George mutters something at the door and disappears, giving me space to collect my thoughts and wash away the blood from my hands.
He's in the kitchen when I leave and quickly vanish into my room, pulling out another shirt. I check the calendar for the next hospital appointment. Thursday, coded as 'Bank'. So that if George is suspicious, he won't actually know what's going on. I'm not exactly ready to tell my brother that I'm dying yet. He'd be disappointed, sad, and probably wouldn't speak to me. That's not something I want.
Three days later and I'm in the hospital waiting room, feeling sick.
"Mr Weasley, Dr Fish is waiting for you," says Leanne. I nod my thanks, rubbing my hands against my jeans in nervousness. Today we get to talk about the joys of chemotherapy.
The back of my shirt is wet with sweat, the stench of antibacterial thick and overpowering in the air. Dr Fish is nice, but cancer isn't, so this day is really a mixed bunch. His room is quiet when I enter, not playing the music we've listened to before to block out the numbness. I remember when he told me about the disease, explained the condition. My entire body had frozen, as if in paralysis. Everything was cold. But then he started playing an old Kaiser Chief's song, and we could have an actual conversation.
"Fred, good to see you." Kevin throws out his hand for me to shake and laughs awkwardly. "Although, our conversation isn't going to be the most pleasant." I shake his hand and try to smile. Inside my body, everything seems to have turned to absolute mush.
"Yeah," I mutter. He turns to the computer, as if to turn on the music. "It's alright doc, I don't need it."
"Good man. Right, first of all, have you told George yet? Your family?"
"No."
"Are you going to?"
"Not if I get through chemo and am magically cured."
"Fred. It's terminal. The chemotherapy isn't going to cure you completely," Dr Fish says, placing his fingertips together and reminding me of a much older Headmaster. I nod in response. "Anyway, you should tell someone else. I know that this is all confidential, but the chemo is going to be difficult and you might need at least someone else involved; someone to be there for you."
We talk some more about the treatment and about the side effects before he tells me the starting date for the first batch. Three weeks from now. Three weeks for me to get my act together and tell my brother about what's been going on. I run a hand through my hair again, then change gear in the little Toyota George and I share. It's stiff and old, but we love it all the same. My skin is beginning to itch again and chest tighten. But it has to wait until I'm back at the flat.
I'm coughing when I walk through the door, my back ache from the strain of it.
"Oh, you're back!" George hollers, on his way out. "Got the car keys?"
It's then that my mistake is made.
I reach for the car keys with my right hand, trying to swap the hand I cough into. He's staring.
"What?" I ask, quickly trying to wipe my mouth. Dammit.
"Is your nose bleeding?"
"Oh, shit." My back pocket already stuffed with tissues, I pull one out and press it to my nostrils, the blood gushing out as a sign of stress and my illness. "I better go upstairs and sort this out."
When George comes back later that day, he's not best impressed. He throws the car keys down on the couch after slamming the front door and demanding to know what's going on with me. Pale-faced and furious, he waits for a response that I just can't seem to get out. Eventually, he asks again, sitting down on the chair adjacent to mine.
"Fred, what's going on? Are you sick?"
"I've got cancer."
I don't really know what I was expecting – because I certainly wasn't expecting the words to just fall out of my mouth quite like that – but the silence is definitely plausible. The laughing however, not so much. George is actually smiling, choking out the laughter like my often bouts of coughing.
"Fantastic prank, mate. You really had me going. But cancer, jeez!" George chortles, his hand slapping the couch cushions in mirth. He leaves me at a complete crossroads. I've told the truth, and he hasn't believed me. I could either go with the prank thing, or attempt the same truth again. How do I make him believe? And if that what I actually want.
"Georgie, I'm not kidding. I'm dying."
That's it, bite the bullet.
"I'm getting chemo to slow it down, maybe get rid of it," I continue. "It's not going to be pleasant. Doctor said I should at least tell you, so there."
For at least ten seconds my brother stays where he is, hands clenching and unclenching, not saying a word. Then he stands, taking his keys with him. He slams the door on his way out of the room and flat.
Instead of making a big deal of it, I wade through the boxes of stuff for the shop to the pots and pans. Cooking it is. To avoid the obvious absence in the flat, I make up our favourite meal. Tuna pasta bake, complete with crisps on top, and three different types of cheese mixed in with the penne pasta. I take my time, in the vague hope that George comes back before it's ready. Not a clue where he's gone.
"Foods ready," I say as George comes back again, throwing his keys on the couch.
"Why the bloody hell didn't you tell me?" he demands. "Why didn't you tell me when you found out?"
I lay the clumps of pasta bake into two bowls, setting them on the table. George sits down, furious. But I'm thinking about what to say. He's waiting.
"It's complicated." Clearly that wasn't the right thing to say. "It's… I'm dying, George. I didn't want to – oh crap – I didn't want to disappoint you." My eyes sting painfully, and I know that my cheeks are horribly flushed. George starts picking at his bowl of food. "I didn't want to think about it."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"What is there to talk about?" I ask, taking a large mouthful of food. "I'm leaving you. I'll be gone, and you'll be here on your own. I'm not going to be your brother anymore."
"Freddie you'll always going to be my brother." George sets his fork down. "If I'd just known, anything, about what you were going through. Christ, I thought you were fine."
We eat in silence for a few minutes, my heart slowly tearing itself into two pieces. It's painfully quiet, as if time is teasing me with the seconds I have left on the planet. As if it's stretching every moment beyond comprehension. Some horrible torture. The truth is out.
"You don't have to do it alone," he finally spoke. "I don't want you to. I want to come with you."
"To the chemo?" I swallow hard. "George, you know –"
"I can guess what it's going to be like, you don't need to tell me." He sounded resolute. "I want to be there."
Three weeks following this conversation, it feels like I'm about to crap myself, throw up, and spontaneously have a nosebleed all at once. George is driving, with me in the passenger seat, peeling hands clenched tight on the material, eyes watering. He claps me on the shoulder when we're stepping out of the car, smiling as though he's going to bolt. But I know he won't. I feel completely spaced-out; so much so that George calls my name several times before signing me in by himself – or so he tells me later.
It's a horrible experience. They plug a tube into me and give me a paper bowl to throw up into. George tells me jokes in between the throwing up. He keeps on the brave face, while I try desperate to find mine. It's a little bit more difficult when it feels like my guts are turning themselves inside out.
George comes with me every time, determined to somehow bring me back from the grave. I think that's what he's doing. I don't know if it's possible. Sure, I can hold onto the hope that the chemotherapy works, but George is relying on it. If it doesn't work, I will be the greatest disappointment to have ever lived; if my body refuses the treatment and gives up on itself.
Suddenly, I'm back in Doctor Kev's office, and the music is playing. It's a bad sign. Billy Talent this time, supposedly to shock me back into some semblance of self.
"It didn't work," I say before he can speak. Simply, slowly, he shakes his head.
"Fred, you should be proud. You gave it a go. You tried it. It didn't work." He pauses. "It happens to the best of patients."
My vision is fuzzy, growing weaker as I listen to him speak. All I can do is stare at the tiny scar on my arm where they inserted the tube. That tiny blob of healing red. I can't be proud of that scar because it hasn't done anything to help me. It's a pointless blotch on my skin. My body hasn't even healed it properly.
"Because I'm really dying now I'm a good patient?" I snap, mind reeling. "Sorry, I..." My voice falls flat. There isn't anything for me to say at all. Dr Fish doesn't say anything back, but we share our silences in the almost-too-loud music, me unable to get up, and him unable to move me from the room – whether out of ability or moral code, who knows.
George is in the waiting room when I finally have the courage to stand up straight and leave. Dr Fish tells me he'll see me soon. I don't really know what the end of my life looks like anymore, but, apparently, he's there now. George stands, awaiting the news of the scans. I shake my head. For a second, his grinning face falls, and that's everything that makes me break.
We make it back to the flat in one piece, but I can't seem to leave the car. It's holding me up, supporting me. Clawing at the dashboard, gasping for air, nose bleeding. Dying. Dying. I am actually dying. Maybe I held onto the treatment more than I thought I would. As usual, disguising everything under jokes.
"There'll be something else, won't there Freddie? There's another cure out there somewhere?" George asks, handing me tissues to stuff under my nose. I'm not sure whether he's asking for me or for him anymore. So, I shake my head.
"Not quick enough," I get out before the sharp breathing begins again. "That was it."
The flat is too quiet that night. Dinner is made and we both stay up watching tv in silence, eating crisps and pizza that went cold hours ago, dunking it into ketchup. I'm cold, but don't say anything. Eventually, George's head falls back against the settee cushions, settling into a snooze. I don't do anything to wake him up, in fact turn down the volume on the tv to allow him to sleep for a while. It turns down to the lowest setting so I can barely hear it – not that I need to, it's flashing images and white noise.
"You'll never really be gone," George murmurs, opening one eye a sliver. "You're a part of me. You're not really leaving." He's tired, I know. It's why he doesn't make sense right now. Yet, I can't quite help but think that he might be exactly right. I'm not sure whether that's a comfort or not.
I fall asleep assuming that it is. Perhaps I will remain in the space between our two worlds, halfway between gone and living. Not completely out of reach, but hovering somewhere in the middle.
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Thanks all for reading!
Note: Only certain lines of the song have been used as prompts. "You said you were fine", "I didn't want to let you down", "You can find me in the space between where two worlds come to meet", "You're a part of me", "Be proud of your scars", "You'll never be alone".