Live like you were dying.
It's funny, yo. You get the news you never expect to, an' suddenly, ya wonder what it is you did with yer life. When I sit an' look at the cat scan printout in my hand, Rude standin' behind me, faithful like always, I gotta ask myself the same question, an' ta be honest. . .I'm not sure I like the answers very much. I had a feelin' at some point or another shit would catch up with me, ya know? I mean, after all I killed three hundred thousand people with the push of a single button, it ain't like I didn't deserve death myself, an' some pain, even though I've tried to make up for it since then.
It's such a tiny thing, really. Tiny fuckin' lump, somethin' so small, you'd think it wouldn't be much of a problem at all. Lookin' at the film, I can hardly even see it, but it's gonna kill me just as sure as a bullet would. Just a whole lot slower. The moment the doctor said that one word, the one I wasn't even sure how to react to, I could feel my partner an' husband an' my everything flinch behind me, like it was the last thing he'd expected or wanted ta hear. Not that I blamed Rudy, not a bit, it ain't exactly somethin' I wanted to hear either. Cancer. . .fuckin' brain tumor, imagine that shit. Never thought that'd be the way I'd go out. Thought I'd be shot, or blown up, somethin' a lot faster an' a lot more violent.
Now, I got Rude an' the little girl we adopted askin' me how much time I got left, an' what I plan to do with it. It might take me a bit ta answer that question, 'cause there's so much I haven't done, that I wanna.
The red headed Turk had been brought in after collapsing at his desk after a fairly routine body guard duty stint. Reno of course being who he was had stoically brushed it off as having skipped lunch, it was nothing, after all, he was only thirty six, how bad could it be when he was so young, even for a Turk he was in the prime of his life still. So when the doctor came back into the room, the first thing he did was try to read his face, because that was how one could always tell if it was bad.
Unfortunately, the doctor had one of the best poker faces the slender male had ever seen in his entire life, so all he could do was sit with his hands in his lap and wait for the man to tell him, even though at that moment he wanted to reach his hands around the man's neck and wring it to get some kind of word out of him. "Well, doc? You got a better poket face than my husband does, but it can't be that bad, right?" Even as Reno asked that question, though, his gut started churning, because a doctor being silent that long was never good news.
"Mr. Kiribani. . .you know I wish the news were better." The doctor was a man who wasn't that many years older than Reno himself, perhaps five years, with graying temples along the sides of his close cropped dark hair, and wire rim glasses that sat half way down a straight, narrow bridged nose. He gave the redhead a serious look, then slid his glasses off to expose round dark eyes. "We've examined the cat scans and the mri closely just to be certain, because there is always a chance that things might be mistaken or overlooked, but there is no mistake."
Reno felt the grip of the hand on his shoulder as the next fifteen minutes passed in a haze, the words "tumor" and "malignant" and "inoperable" winding around one another. He didn't realize it, but his face had begun to grow paler with each word that was spoken, until finally all he could do was swallow thickly and look up at Rude, the emotions making his throat bob and his heart pound as he fought back the urge to burst into tears, something he had far too much pride to do in front of someone he didn't know. "Y-you'll have to excuse me a bit, yo. Please? I g-gotta go." He got up and walked out, heading toward the bathroom he'd remembered seeing as he'd walked in.
Rude quietly apologized to the doctor and promised that he'd pick up the paperwork on the way out. "I need to see to my husband, so if you'll excuse me, I'll see to the official things before we leave." the imposing tan skinned bald man said as he turned and walked out, his dark eyes covered in designer shades, for which he was glad in that moment, for them to see his own eyes beginning to fill would have been too much for his own pride to take.
Ugly choking noises came from one of the stalls as Rude walked into the bathroom, the sounds heart wrenching. If there was one thing he remembered it was that his partner was far from a delicate weeper, when he actually did let loose. "Ren?" he whispered as he followed the sounds, trying to find him, which he finally did, in the very last stall, where the lean muscled Turk with the build of a dancer leaned against the wall of it, crimson ponytail making rustling sounds against the black linen of his uniform as his shoulders shook with his sobs. His hands had been shaking so hard when he'd closed the door and slipped the latch that he hadn't locked it and when Rude had found him the door had swung open easily.
"What am I gonna tell Lori, Rude? How do I tell her one of her papas is dyin'? I'm only fuckin' thirty six! This isn't supposed to happen to people as young as I am, fuck!" The last curse was accompanied by the metallic ringing of a fist hitting the wall of the stall, the steel bowing and bending under the force of the blow. "I should have at least thirty fucking years left. . .not six months! How do I tell Laney, an' Tseng, an' Rufus? How do I even deal with that when I don't even know how to take it myself?"
Rude pulled him in tight, burying his face in the scarlet mullet, half expecting Reno to tell him his beard tickled like he always did, though he wondered if he'd even have the mind to do it with things as they were. "We'll do it together, aibou. You know I won't let you fall, and I'm not going to force you to do anything like this alone." He wouldn't be so gauche as to destroy Reno's pride by carrying him out, he would wait until he'd gathered himself together enough to leave on his own.
In that moment I wanted ta just curl up an' die right there. I just felt so lost, but Rudy bein' there helped, that he understood helped even more. He knows I hate showin' fear or sadness in front of others, he knows me better than I know myself I think sometimes. If there's one thing I hate it's bein' at such a loss for what to do that I feel like I'm bein' buried in it all.
That he didn't baby me was the thing I'll remember most from him, 'cause he knows I hate bein' babied, so that he preserved my pride that way I'll need to make sure to thank him for later. The other thing I'm gonna remember is the warmth of the broad chest, an' the clean pine scent of his aftershave that filled my nostrils helped me calm back down so I could handle the rest of what was comin'.