A/N: I have noticed that I have a problem keeping my writing in the correct tense. I apologise if it is distracting. Also any grammatical errors are mine alone.
This fic actually came off the back of a different idea that danced through my head as a necessary bit of back story. Decided to post it as a one shot. I tried to keep Chang from being OOC, not sure whether or not I managed it but then I would expect him to act a little oddly after such news.
I would appreciate it if you would let me know what you think:)
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters and I don't make money from this.
Cancer.
He sits alone, fidgeting uneasily in the uncomfortably hard seat. He wants to pace but the way his legs are shaking he doesn't dare try and stand, wouldn't want anyone to accuse him of being nervous.
It says no smoking on the door so he's doing his best to resist the urge. More than anything he wants something to occupy his fingers so instead he is scratching at the faded armrests, pressing so hard that his fingers are starting to throb and his nails are leaving little half moon indentations gouged into the leather.
When the doctor finally opens the door he takes one look at his solemn face and already knows the answer he came here for. Chang doesn't need to be told, has known him too many years to not be able to read the results right off of his face.
The old man takes the seat opposite him in silence, sinking into his leather backed office chair like he's the one that has just received bad news.
"Do you mind if I smoke Doc?" He doesn't even wait for an answer before he's got the small cardboard packet in hand. He shakes one out, places the filter between his lips.
"You know that's probably what got you in this mess in the first place." Chang shrugs though he knows that the old man is right.
"Nothing to do about it now."
He lights it up, inhales, the rush of nicotine instantly calming the tattered remains of his frayed nerves. He holds the packet out to the old man, a gesture of generosity.
"I'm right aren't I? There's nothing to do about it."
The doctor takes one too. Leaning forwards to dip the tip of it into the flame that Chang offers to him. When he exhales he blows the smoke between gritted teeth.
"We can try some aggressive treatments, chemo, but…"
"But it probably won't work." The gangster finishes for him.
The old man looks nervous. Chang notices the way his eyes flick to the gun holster which peeks around the edges of his jacket with every casual movement of his arm. He lets out the breath of smoke he'd been holding in his lungs. Before he knows it a deep, throaty chuckle has escaped with it.
"Relax Doc. I'm not gonna kill you for telling me the truth."
He's skipped right past the other four stages and settled right into acceptance. There is no point in denial when he already suspected that it was going to be bad news; that had been the only reason he had finally relented and come to see the old man in the first place. After surviving so many gunfights that he's lost count, had at least a dozen bullets dug out of various parts of his body, this must be fates way of telling him that he is supposed to be dead. Chang knows that he should be angry but he's not; there is no bargaining with a capricious God.
He stands, somehow, moving to watch the world out of the window. The birds, and the trees and the sky, it will all still be here after he has gone; he has never felt so insignificant.
"How long?"
"Six months. Maybe a year at most. By then if you're not dead you will probably be bedridden."
Chang chews on that for a moment. He gets a flash of himself, skin pallid and waxen, his features drawn, skin sagging with dehydration. That was not a death, it was torture. With that image haunting him he violently stubbed out the remains of the cigarette on the window sill, before the old man notices that his hands are trembling. He watches the doctor's reflection in the glass.
"Can I ask you a question Doc? You have all these patients come through here. Most of them are younger than you. What do you think when you have to tell one of them that you are going to outlive them?"
From the look on the old man's face he thinks that he has just prodded at a weak spot in the doctor's leathery hide. With it comes a hollow satisfaction that settles bitterly in his gut. Chang doesn't wait for an answer before he drops the usual pile of crumpled dollar bills on the lacquered desk and leaves, carefully closing the door behind him with a gentle click.
The weather is warm outside though still too early in the season for it to be uncomfortably hot. A salty sea breeze carried in from across the bay. He makes it as far as the courtyard before he can't walk anymore and he lets himself sink down on to a wooden bench that, with rainbow shaded blooms of lichen covering the slats, looks like it has seen better days.
He can feel the acid vomit burning at the base of his throat, his stomach is trying to crawl up and out of his mouth. It's getting hard to breathe, his throat is tight and every inhalation feels like a blow to the ribs; it's as if his body has turned in on itself, twisted backwards in an attempt to stop him moving, though he is sure that it is a trick of his brain. He wonders if it would help to dig his lungs out himself, to carve a cavity into the chest in the place where they should be.
He is vaguely aware of the wheel chair as it stops next to him and a woman's soft tone uttering promises that she will return shortly before she scurries off elsewhere.
"Can I have one of those" he raises his head to look at the source of the voice.
He is surprised to find an old man wheezing away into an oxygen mask, pipe trailing over his shoulder to the canisters hooked on the back of his chair. With a single bony finger he is pointing at the crumpled white packet that Chang has been staring blankly at for he doesn't know how long. The gangster is so stunned by the request that he is holding the carton out before his brain has even registered the movement.
"Are you sure you should be smoking?" The guy glares at him like he is stupid. Chang can't remember the last time that anyone dared to look down on him in such a way. He has almost forgotten what it is like to be beneath someone. He wonders whether this man has balls of steel or if facing his own mortality has build him a cast iron heart.
"It's not like it can do any worse."
He clumsily pushes the mask away, up over the top of his head and disregards it as it tumbles to the floor. The old man's wrinkled digits tremor as he weakly pulls one free of the cardboard and looks ready to cry when he places the filter between his thin, shrivelled lips. Chang leans in to light it, he doesn't want the man to set himself on fire after all and watches with a morbid fascination the indescribable expression that flickers across his frail features.
He coughs and splutters; a nauseating, wet sounding gargle that comes from the phlegm clogging up his airways. It's deep and chesty and sounds painful. Chang wonders if this is what he has to look forward to in the coming months; his entire life reduced to a mirror of this shivering wreck all because of the mass produced death stick he habitually holds between his fingers.
But still that haunting thought is not enough to stop the gangster from drawing one out for himself. Before he has even realised it the smoke is rolling out through his lips. What does one more matter to lungs already stained a thick, tar black and far beyond saving?
In truth when Chang had first started out he'd never expected to live this long; long enough to see his skin begin to crease and his hair start greying at the sides. Long enough that there wasn't many that mattered to him left to bare witness when it was finally his turn to be lowered into the ground. He casually flicked the cherry from the end of his cigarette. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
"You look like you're staring death in the face. I'm guessing you got some bad news huh." Chang wondered if he was that obvious or whether the man was naturally astute. He struggled to think of a smart ass answer, when nothing came to mind he held his tongue. "Look at you, sitting here with this old fool like you have all the time in the world. Don't you have anywhere better to be?"
Chang watched the cigarette between his fingers smouldering, unable to find the energy to raise it to his lips. Did he? Before he even realises it his mind is caught up in memories of angry, crystalline blue eyes, wild blonde tresses and the bitter smell of cigar smoke that haunted him at night when he closed his eyes.
"What do you tell that one person?"
"Your girlfriend?" The old man asks, giving a cursory glance over the gangster's fingers, observing the notable lack of a ring.
"Not even close" he exhaled with a sigh.
Whatever the old man might have answered is interrupted by another coughing fit. With his admission left hanging Chang finishes his smoke in silence. Somehow, in between his hacking, the old man manages to finish his own without killing himself. He stubs it out on the wheel of his chair. He keeps the remains however, teases it back and forth between his fingertips. In a moment of mercy Chang helps him scoop his mask back up and return it to its position before the nurse returns.
When she does, in a set of pale blue scrubs that look conspicuously like they have been changed in a hurry, he watches her nose wrinkle as she catches the fading smell of smoke. She scowls, shoots him a filthy look as if she thinks that he gives a damn. He expects to be scolded but she bites her tongue so suddenly that he can't help but wonder if she has recognised him and his type, or maybe made out the faint outline of his gun beneath his jacket. Instead she quickly gathers up the husk of a man, checks that his mask is still in place and tucks the blanket in around his legs a little tighter before she moves to wheel him away.
Unexpectedly a frail hand latches on to the sleeve of his suit, thin alabaster skin almost translucent against the black fabric. Meeting his eyes for the first and last time Chang is startled by their vibrancy; they are all that remain in testament to the man he used to be. His words are muffled by the mask and the continuous hiss of oxygen.
"You don't."
He expects more but it never comes. The nurse pushes forwards and the old man doesn't even try to hold on, his fingertips sliding away effortlessly. Chang keeps watching their backs until the two of them turn into the building, the automatic doors sliding closed behind them and finally they are gone.
He doesn't know how long he sits there before the shrill tone of his mobile phone cuts through the sombre silence. He knows who it is without looking at the name flashing across the screen; he set this tone especially for her, though he thinks if she ever finds out she might just smack the little smirk it causes each time he thinks of it right off his face. With a quick glance at his watch he can already guess why she is calling. He takes a deep breath, holding it for a second before blowing it back out between his pursed lips. With his thumb he jabbed at the answer button before pressing the handset to his ear.
"Balalaika"
"You are late." Her husky, accented voice carries a familiar tone of annoyance that masochistically sends shivers up and down his spine.
"I had some personal matters to attend to."
"Then next time I would ask that you can attend to them in your own time and not mine." This time it sounds like she might be genuinely angry with him which surprises him just a little.
Where as when they had first met they were both full of hatred and consumed with the need to destroy each other now they had settled in a welcome, yet uneasy truce. The both of them were getting older and though there would never be true peace between the two of them, the long years had done wonders for cooling angry blood.
"I'm sorry" he responds honestly, unable to conceal his fatigue. She is so quiet on the other end of the line that for a moment he thinks that she may have hung up on him.
"Are you alright Chang?"
It's odd that she would ask but he supposes that it is his fault because he has upset the status quo already with his uncharacteristic apology. It's the uncertain concern in her voice that makes it occur to him what the old man had meant with his final words. Yet still, for the briefest of moments, Chang wants to tell her the truth because deep down some long lost childish part of himself thinks that maybe if he does she'll admit that maybe she actually gives a damn.
He knows that he's lying to himself.
In the end he bites his tongue because there is an unfamiliar fear rotting in his brain like the lungs in his chest and even with nothing left to lose he does not want risk the shrivelled remains of his heart being crushed beneath her boot heel, either from her reaction or her lack of one. He can't imagine her grief anymore than he can imagine what she had looked like before the horrors of war had ruined her face.
"Yeah, just…bad day" he sighed.
"As bad as mine? I swear if I have to listen anymore of the Cartel's incessant bitching I am going to start shooting them."
"Just shoot them? That seems lenient of you."
"If I take their tongues first then they cannot squeal." He didn't doubt for a second that she meant the threat, her casual tone belying the true nature of the wolf that he knew lay beneath her skin like it were sheep's wool. "Why don't you meet me for a drink? We can discuss what you missed this afternoon."
It doesn't matter that she can't see him through the phone line, sitting there under the weight of her offer left him feeling exposed and raw. Drawing them from his breast pocket he slides his sunglasses back into place, his eyes once again carefully concealed behind their polarised armour. It is only like this he finds that he has the nerve to answer her. Given the choice, the face he wears now will be his death mask.
"Sure thing babe."