There were people walking through the corridors. He could hear the footsteps echoing off the walls of his ward, which was usually shrouded in a thick layer of silence. He wished he could get up and walk away. It was hard to think anything else, stranded on the white island of a hospital bed, tangled and strangled by tubes and wires. The muted pulse emanating from the machines only vaguely registered in his mind as the sound of his own heartbeat, and he had become accustomed to blood bags and masked men and women peering in at him as if he were dead already, and they had only been assigned the somber task of looking after his body.
His appearance had begun to deteriorate, due to the radiation from his frequent chemotherapy sessions. His skin had lost all color and looked strangely artificial, except for the ghostly dark splotches under his eyes that were startlingly real. His eyes themselves, that had once been fiery and bright, had turned the same dull shade of grey that had washed over his entire face. Having no usual company, he had mostly abandoned the need for use of facial muscles, and now was only barely able to open his mouth, or move his lips or eyebrows. Any brief flashes of emotion that passed through his neural pathways went unrepresented. His hair, that was at one time thick, sleek and lively, had thinned considerably. He remembered when he had started to lose his hair. Each sweep of a hairbrush tugging entire clumps out. He had cried over it, in anger and despair. It seemed so stupid now.
The footsteps in the hall approached the door of his room, that stood open unless he ever needed 'help'. He had taught himself, across days, to recognize the pace of doctors or nurses that he came in contact daily, so he could tell when it might be time for another blood withdrawal. He didn't eat anymore, but it had at one time been useful for identifying mealtimes. He had stopped eating a while ago. It was physically painful. He now only faced daily injections that provided him with enough nutrients to drawn out the end of his life for a little while longer. He had not estimated the footsteps to approach any further, and found himself strangely panicked as it became obvious that they were soon to enter his room. He made as much of an effort and he could to cross his arms across his fragile chest and tuck his face into his shoulder. One of the remaining locks of his thin black hair fell tauntingly across his eyes, hiding them. He tried to stay still, with closed eyes as the softened footsteps of only one visitor entered his doorway. Don't look at me, he repeated in his head, Don't look. You won't like what you see.
Turn away,
If you could get me a drink of water,
'Cause my lips are chapped and faded...
Call my aunt Marie
Help her gather all my things,
And bury me in all my favorite colors.
My sisters and my brothers, still,
I will not kiss you,
'Cause the hardest part of this is leaving you.
He could hear his visitor stop for a moment, no doubt standing over him. He could feel their eyes on his face. I told you not to look at me, he mentally reprimanded the visitor. He listened as the visitor made their way to the lone chair that usually sat empty across from his bed. He had stared at that chair for hours, memorizing it's shape and pattern. That chair was carved into his brain for good. He tried to imagine a picture in his head of who was sitting in the chair, but the light fading in through his eyelids was distracting. He shifted slowly and his eyes rolled open weakly. He gave up trying to keep them closed.
He was almost sure that his drugs were just doing a number on him when the glassy blur of a room transfigured into a familiar shape. Another body, that wasn't a doctor or a nurse. Another body that he recognized, and the closest thing to tears that had come to his eyes in the last month threatened to roll off his eyelashes and down his hollow cheeks. The boy in the chair stared disbelievingly at him, stumbling out of the chair towards the hospital bed. The movement, though not his own, filled the patient with a breath of life. He tried to formulate a word, but he could barely get his lips to open. And what was there to say.
"They told me you were sleeping," the visitor mumbled, adjusting his glasses self-consciously. His hair was blonde, and stuck out in quirky spikes on the sides of his head. He shrugged awkwardly, shivering slightly, as if he felt cold and uncomfortable in hospitals. Which most people did. It was a gallery of sickness, and death. Any living person would be frightened. The patient tried to focus his eyes on his friend, but his face was swallowed in a blurry fog. Am I crying? No. I would know if I was crying.
He shifted inward, pressing his back up against the padding of his cushion. He could feel the vertebrae on his spine as he curled up. He had always been small, but he looked his smallest today.
"I'm awake," he managed to spit out a few words at last, and immediately regretted it. His tongue felt clumsy and swollen.
The visitor leaned closer over him, a strange, grieving look on his face. "I got a call that I should come and see you, Karkat." The sound of his own name frightened him. He had almost forgotten that he had one. No one addressed him directly anymore. Karkat tried to blink his thoughts away.
"Oh," he replied, strangely satisfied with the severity in his friend's voice. "I thought that no one would want to..." Karkat's voice trailed off. The words had fallen right off his tongue, and he could no longer recall how exactly to phrase his thought.
Sollux pulled the string of his hoodie down so it was level with the other one. He seemed reluctant to lock eyes. Karkat couldn't help but stare at him. It had been so long since he'd been so close to another human face, and it fascinated him. Sollux looked away, to the tile of the frighteningly clean floor.
"No one did," he admitted, shrugging his thin shoulders sadly. His eyes darted back and forth and his face was cold and downcast.
Karkat tried to remember how to move his mouth to utter the right words. He could see things so clearly in his mind. The red, the blue, the black. The heartbreak. The bad news. "Terezi...?"
Sollux shook his head embarrassedly. "She got a call from the hospital too. She said... she didn't want to see you."
Karkat could feel a twitch in his face. He could feel something bubbling up inside him, a warmth rising from his chest to his cheeks. He had been in love once. It didn't work out.
"I can call her," Sollux's hand retreated to his front pocket, reaching for his cell phone, "You can still say goodbye."
Karkat shook his head slowly. His face tingled and he tried his best to cough out the words. It was shame. He felt ashamed. "I wasted my entire life hating," he choked, "And now it's too late to fix it."
Sollux shoved his cell phone back in his pocket. "It's not too late, Karkat." Karkat coughed vigorously, and had to sit up as far as he could to keep from choking. Sollux placed a nervous hand on his back. "Are you okay? Should I call a doctor?"
Now turn away,
'Cause I'm awful just to see.
And all my hairs abandoned all my body,
Oh, my agony...
Know that I will never marry,
Baby, I'm just soggy from the chemo
But counting down the days to go...
Karkat bowed his head close to his chest. All feeling was draining from his body, and the tingling sensation was fading into numbness. He shook his head again.
"It's okay," Karkat struggled to keep his eyes open. Something was wrong, his head was pounding and his chest burned as if it were on fire. It was tiring to keep his head straight on his shoulders, much less keep focused on anything. As much as it hurt, he managed a smile. "I'm fine."
It just ain't living!
And I just hope you know...
That if you say goodbye today,
I would ask you to be true...
Sollux rubbed his hand soothingly against Karkat's twisted spine, but the numbness had swallowed his entire body, and he didn't feel it. Karkat listened for the steady pulse exuding from the electrocardiogram, the drum he recognized at the beating of his own heart. It had slowed considerably. Sollux had noticed too, and hovered forlornly at Karkat's side, a hand still on his back.
"...Are you tired?" Sollux's voice was just above a whisper. Karkat looked as if he might fall asleep at any moment. Karkat nodded, and finally met eyes with his friend. There was so much that he wanted to say. Although his lips couldn't move, he tried to say all the words in his head and perhaps deliver his final confession to Sollux in a single glance.
"I'll let you sleep." Sollux nodded stoically, tugging his hand gently away from Karkat's back. The electrocardiogram kept it's slow beat, and Karkat's eyes closed in preparation for rest. Sollux stepped slowly back and took a look at his friend. Karkat was a pathetic sight. He looked dead, although his small chest rose and fell with breath. His hair covered his closed eyes like a curtain, and his frail hands rested peacefully on his lap.
Sollux reached quietly towards the oxygen machine that Karkat was receiving supplemental oxygen from. He carefully unhooked the end of the oxygen tube from the machine, and left it disconnected, and unnoticed on the floor. Sollux swallowed a lump in his throat and listened to the pulse of Karkat's heartbeat grow slower and slower. He switched off the lights and bid Karkat a loving goodnight. Forever.
'Cause the hardest part of this is leaving you...
'Cause the hardest part of this is leaving you.