For Amber, as a very belated secret santa. Oops?
Assignment 7, Survival Studies 5: Prompt: Write about someone with medical needs
Max Polkiss is just nineteen when his mother succumbs to her cancer.
It's not exactly sudden, but it's not exactly expected either. Her last remission had lasted three years, and they'd thought maybe this time it was going to stick.
Then she had some trouble breathing and they found a mass in her lungs and it was too late to stop the rapid metastasis, and within a month she was closing her eyes with an undeniable finality.
He watches her slip away, and he knows in that moment that nothing will ever be the same.
His mother was a beacon of kindness, a woman who was both gentle and fierce. He remembers standing in the kitchen with her at nine years old, learning how to bake cookies — remembers her leaning down to whisper the secret recipe conspiratorially in his ear, as though he'd even remember it past the oven timer. He remembers her laugh, bright and loud and full of pure joy.
He remembers the way she'd take him on walks all the time — walks to the park to feed the ducks, but never with bread, because that was bad for them, she said. Walks to school and back. He remembers walking out of the school doors to find her waiting for him, time and time again.
He remembers the first day she wasn't waiting.
Max was 10 years old the first time his mother was told she had cancer.
Breast cancer, the doctors told them. But this was good, the doctors said. Breast cancer had one of the highest rates of survivability.
But it was still cancer.
A surgery to remove the tumours should be sufficient, the doctors said.
And then there was surgery, and there were X-rays, and more biopsies, and then there was chemotherapy when the doctors were wrong. With the chemotherapy came the hair loss and Max stumbling into the bathroom to find his mother curled over and vomiting.
She didn't go on walks with him any more.
But then the chemo was over and the biopsy came up clean and X-ray looked clear and Max thought maybe the doctors were right this time.
It was three years after that when they found cancer hiding in the lymph nodes of her armpit, and it all started again. This time, there was no breast tissue left to remove.
But the chemotherapy did its job.
Until three years later, and another relapse.
And then three years after that, but this one was different.
This one was coughing up blood and chest constricting and the word that felt like a death knell tolling — metastasis, metastasis, metastasis.
It was chemo that didn't stop the cough and just meant that she was vomiting blood now too.
Max wasn't sure if it felt more real because it was worse or because he was an adult and she felt less like she needed to hide it from him, but either way, he felt like he was fracturing right along with her, like he could feel her mutated cells crawling along his own veins, trying to sabotage him.
Her laugh changed from bright bells to an achy, creaky, pained cough, and that was when Max knew.
…
And then there was a whirlwind of funeral and wake and too many condolences to count, none of which felt like they mattered. No matter how many condolences they got, she wasn't coming back.
She had a funeral full of friends and people saying how sad it was that she was gone but none of it mattered because none of it changed anything.
And somehow Max's cookies never tasted the same without her there smiling as he baked them.
He stops baking them.
…
He can't help but notice he never told her.
He never told her.
It was never the right time, because when she was sick he didn't want to risk upsetting heer and when she was well he didn't want to ruin anything and he couldn't even manage to tell his mother when he got his first boyfriend at seventeen and now he can't.
And he'll never know what she would've said.
He doesn't think she would've minded. Him being gay.
But… he'll never know.
…
He wants to drop out of his business courses, get a job, help his dad. They aren't poor, but they aren't rich, either. They own the small home on Magnolia Crescent, but they've paid for a lot of in-home medical care and funerals aren't cheap and Max knows university isn't either.
But when Max brings it up his father looks him in the eye and says, "You may be an adult, but that doesn't mean all of this is on you." He shakes his head. "Besides, your mother loved bragging about her son going to university."
That much, Max acknowledges, is true.
He doesn't bring it up again. And he doesn't drop out. But he does get a job. It's not much, just a part time position at a grocer.
The look in his father's eyes when he hands him his first check is somewhere in between pained and grateful, and Max knows his decision wasn't wrong.
…
And life goes on.
Max studies and he works and he feels her absence like the ache of a phantom limb, his body unable to let go of the awareness that something once was there.
...
It's six months later that he walks into the living room after his afternoon class to find his father has knocked a hole in the ceiling, strung a rope over a high beam, and hung himself.
Max feels like he's been punched in the chest. He can't take in a breath.
He can't get his thoughts to settle. He can't… why would…
He bites the side of his mouth, hard, and the shock of pain is brief and bright enough to startle him into moving forward, taking a pulse.
There's nothing there.
He closes his eyes, gives himself the moment, and then moves away picking up the phone and calling 999.
…
This time is different than burying his mother.
This time Max is alone. He's just turned twenty and he's organizing a funeral for his father.
He's not sure how to do this. He's not sure how to do any of this.
He wants to curl up under his mother's duvet and feel her arms around him, the way she always held him when he had nightmares. He wants to feel his father's hand on his shoulder, firm and solid as his voice said, "I'm proud of you."
He wants to wake up to a house that smells like chocolate chip cookies and know that his mum's in the kitchen. He wants to hear the sounds of boxing on the TV, and know that his father's in the living room.
He wants them here, alive.
But all he has left of his mother are photographs and boxes in the attic, and all he has left of his father are photographs, possessions, and the note that he left.
Max,
I'm sorry.
I can't do this without her.
It's not fair. Max can't do this without her either, and yet he's still here. He's still here, and now he's alone.
…
He does it.
He feels like he can't breathe, like there's something compressing his chest, pushing down on his ribs. But he still does it. He plans a funeral. He invites his father's coworkers, and friends, and even the brother that his father never talked about who Max only knows from photographs.
He picks out words to be forever carved on the headstone that shows where his father is buried, and it feels impossible and unfair and like it might break him.
His Uncle, the only family he's got left, doesn't come to the funeral.
In the end, does it matter? Does any of it matter?
He pays funeral costs and cemetery plots and everything he inherits is gone. He's twenty years old and he owns a house and not much else and his parents are dead.
He drops out of University but the bill for his last semester still takes almost everything he's got.
He picks up more hours at the grocery. gets a promotion to shift manager, and then a second job at a bookstore so that he can actually save some money.
He keeps moving.
…
He dates a few guys but nothing sticks. He saves a bit — it helps that he doesn't have rent to pay, but neither of his jobs pays much and transport to get to either isn't cheap. But he gets by.
He's twenty two when he starts dating Jeremy Barnes, and this one sticks.
He meets Jeremy at the bookstore, and Jeremy's smile is smooth and charming and Max feels something flutter in his stomach. So when Jeremy asks him to coffee, Max says yes.
And coffee turns into a movie which turns into a date at a bowling and then Jeremy invites him over and cooks dinner and Max wonders for the first time about about forever.
…
Jeremy is taller than Max, not that that's terribly hard. He's got sandy blonde hair and legs that go on for miles. He can cook like a god. His hands are soft and his voice is often sharp with biting sarcasm, and when they fight it hurts like hell, but when it's good it's great. And it's mostly good.
So when Jeremy's lease is up eight months in, Max asks him if he wants to move in, and Jeremy says yes. And that's good, too.
Jeremy's mother is a woman with kind, tired eyes who welcomes Max with a smile, and his father is a hard man with with a stern voice who has no love for a son who was never who he wanted him to be.
It's not easy, with either of them, but Jeremy's mother offers to help him however he needs and it's… nice.
...
He's twenty three years old when the knock on his door comes that will change the rest of his life.
Jeremy answers the door to find a blonde woman, stocky and dressed in a crisp suit, holding a clipboard.
"Max Polkiss?" she asks.
Max was in the kitchen, but he can hear her well enough, and he moves to the door, handing off a spoon to Jeremy and saying, "Don't let sauce burn." He wipes his hands on his pants anxiously. Something about the woman puts him ill at ease — she reminds him of something, though he can't quite catch the memory.
"I'm Max," he says anyway, because his mother had 18 years to engrain manners, and most of them stuck. He holds out his hand, and she shakes, brusque and firm. "What can I do for you?"
"May I come in, Mr. Polkiss? I have some news for you."
And suddenly the memory catches — her face reminds her of too many doctors, carefully blank, saying, the cancer has come back or you have two months to live or I'm sorry, but she's passed away.
Now he's more than a little anxious.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Ellen Grey, Mr. Polkiss. I'm a social worker."
Max frowns. He's not a child; he can't imagine why a social worker would want to talk to him, but he gestures her in anyway, and shows her to the couch.
"Did you… erm. Need some water?"
She shakes her head, gestures for him to sit.
"Please," he says. "Just tell me."
She looks at him, her eyes piercing straight through him. "I'm sorry to inform you that your Aunt and Uncle, Elaine and Richard Polkiss, have died in a car accident tonight. They are survived by their son, Piers." She pauses a moment, lets him take this in, and then says, "You are his only living relative. We've placed him in a transitory house for now, but…"
Max closes his eyes, and takes in a deep breath.
His Aunt and Uncle are dead. His father's brother and his wife.
Maybe that should hit him harder than it does, but honestly, his father rarely mentioned his brother. They didn't attend his funeral. Max doesn't even know if he's ever met them — he certainly doesn't remember it.
But.
He thinks of his cousin, younger than him and already orphaned.
Max knows all too well what it feels like to lose your parents.
He opens his eyes, looks up at Ellen Grey. "So what are the options here?"
"Either you can take custody of the young Mr. Polkiss, or he will go into the system, and we will do our best to place him with a foster family."
Max dated a boy who grew up in the foster care system, once, when he was twenty. Richie was full of horror stories: parents who only saw him as a check, kids who bullied each other, homes that weren't built to hold so many kids. He knows that's not every story, but he also knows the system is overcrowded and underfunded and…
He can't. He can't leave a kid to that.
But he's twenty-three. He's not ready to raise a kid.
"How old is he?" Max asks.
"Seven."
Seven.
And god, maybe it's stupid. Max has never even considered kids. He's been dating Jeremy for almost a year, but neither of them has brought it up.
But Max can't.
"What do I have to do to get custody?"
…
Piers is so small. That's Max's first thought. He's so small.
Max doesn't know much about children but god is a seven year old supposed to be that tiny?
He's wearing a grey t-shirt and jeans that are too short around the ankles and Max could wrap his fingers around his wrists twice. He's short and slim and his hair is dark like a raven's wing.
They bring him to meet Max in the foyer of the temporary housing they've got him in, and Max kneels on one knee, places himself on Piers' level.
They're strangers. They're family.
"Hi," Max says. "I'm Max."
Piers tips his head ever so slightly. He blinks a few times, worries at the hem of his t-shirt. "Piers," he finally says, and his voice is a low mumble.
"I'm your cousin. I… I know what happened to your parents, and I'm sorry. But I… I'm here to offer you a place. To live."
Max doesn't know how to talk to children. He doesn't know what he's doing. This might be a terrible idea.
But Max knows what it is to be alone.
"Will you come live with me?"
Piers looks at him with a solemnity that cannot be normal in a child that age. "Okay," he finally says.
…
Max had never been able to move into his parents' bedroom. It felt too much like giving up, admitting they were gone. It had always been a sacred space. Something that was theirs, not a place for him.
But it feels even weirder to put Piers there. So Max moves.
It still makes something in him feel uneasy. He doesn't sleep as well. It's unfamiliar, and yet too familiar, a place to flee nightmares in childhood, a place where his mother spent too many days dying.
He gives Piers the bedroom that has always been his. The walls are pale blue and the sheets are grey and Piers looks around at the room like nothing quite makes sense, like maybe he's the same kind of lost Max knows all too well.
And Max knows he's in this. He's all in.
"We can paint it, if you like," he tells Piers. "Whatever color you like."
"Really?"
"Sure. What do you like?"
"Orange?" The question is tentative, like he still doesn't believe it.
"Orange it is," Max says, and they go to get paint the very next day.
…
Piers is a weird kid. Weird in the kind of way that makes Max wonder.
He eats like he expects it to be taken away, looks at everything Max offers with doubt and mistrust, and Max… Max is afraid he might know what that means.
He's not equipped to deal with this. He's not equipped to deal with any of this.
But he knows what he can do.
For the first time since his mother died, Max walks into the kitchen, pulls out the mixing bowls, and starts making cookies.
…
"I didn't sign up for this," Jeremy says, and Max feels like he should've seen this coming but he feels blindsided, ambushed.
"I know," he says, and his voice comes out smaller than he means it to.
"I can't… Max. I'm not gonna be this kid's father. I know… I know you think there was no other way for this to go, and I respect that about you. But I'm not… I can't."
Max closes his eyes, breathes in deeply.
"I love you," Max says, and it sounds like goodbye.
"I love you, too," Jeremy says.
He moves out two days later.
…
Piers doesn't trust Max. Not at first.
Max makes cookies and doesn't promise anything he can't deliver. He talks to Piers openly, answers whatever Piers asks. Enrolls him in school and makes him school lunches and tries to take most of his shifts when Piers is at school. When the grocer lets him go for his limited availability, he picks up an awful 9-5 secretary job and quits the bookstore and hires a babysitter to pick Piers up from school and stay with him until he gets home.
It sucks and it's terrible but it pays a little better — enough to make the babysitter worth it — and it means he's mostly home for Piers so it could be worse.
He bakes. A lot. It's calming. It reminds him of his mother in a way that hurts a little less every time, and at the end of it he and Piers can eat cookies and cakes and pastries.
The first time Piers feels confident enough to yell at him, Max thinks maybe they're gonna be okay.
Word Count (Dragons, writing month, auction): 3004
Auction: Present tense
365 - promotion
Insane - 444. promotion
Seasonal: Days: 4th June: National Cheese Day - W/about someone who loves cheese. Alt, w/about someone 'quiet as a mouse'; Spring: (word) Bright; Amanda's: Carl Grimes - Write about trauma at a young age fic. Alt. Write about child looking up to someone.; Hufflepuff: Trait: kind
WC: Disney: S3: So This Is Love - Write about someone falling in love; Liza's: 8: Write about someone who looks younger than they are; Arcade: Ken Masters: (trait) blonde, (theme) family, (plot point) protecting someone; Bex's Basement: Stephen Strange/Sorcerer Supreme: (Dialogue) "There was no other way."; Film Fest: 14. (AU) Single Parent
Pinata: HurtComfort
Constellation: Lynx, 6. 6 Lyncis: (word) startle
Funfair: Basket: Rabbit-shaped: (trope) kid!fic