LIFELINES
CHAPTER NINE
The next chemo installment hit Dick with such force, no amount of recuperation days would have prepared him for it.
Bruce showed up unexpectedly shortly before the treatment began. Neither he nor Jason were very excited to see each other, but they nodded in greeting and then ignored the other more or less politely.
Ivy's fungi was still an issue at the manor, but Leslie had pumped Bruce and Alfred with enough drugs to make them resistant. Tim and Damian still displayed traces of it in their blood, though, and as long as those were present and the manor not yet disinfected properly (Dick didn't envy Alfred that job), it remained forbidden ground for Richard.
When Dr. Flores entered the ATU, she handed Dick about a hundred documents to sign while she explained the new procedure, comprising of a prolonged administration and stronger dosage. But Bruce and Jason both underestimated her warnings, just like he did. When the biohazardous bottle started to drip liquid into the hypertonic saline solution that was connected to his vein, he was awaiting sickness and tiredness, nothing more.
And 'nothing more' happened for the first 20 minutes. He was talking with Bruce about some petty criminal, when the nausea hit like one of Bane's punches and the vomiting began. Jason, leafing through some magazine, passed him the bucket without so much as looking up.
But something was different this time, Dick noticed very soon, when the retching and gagging wouldn't stop and the pain in his intestines became more burning with each second. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Jason and Bruce exchanging worried glances, but his vision soon grew blurry while his throat began to constrict painfully.
The heaving wouldn't stop, even when nothing was left in his stomach to force up anymore. He almost choked on his own gastric acid when the need to breathe became too much to bear, but his stomach kept churning and the retching and coughing continued. Semi-conscious, he wondered how fast his body was shutting down, but soon it became impossible to grasp a coherent thought.
At some point he heard Bruce and Jason's voices, but couldn't make out what they said – there was a wooshing in his ears that drowned out everything else. Then he felt the bed shift and strong arms wrapped around him and pulled him up, away from the bucket and into a more upright posture that allowed him to breathe.
He gulped down the cool air greedily, shaking, but the new position shifted his awareness of pain from his stomach to his head, to the splitting headache and the wooshing in his ears that just got louder and louder.
Dick's stomach tried desperately to empty itself, though there wasn't even gastric acid left to force up, and the gasping, panting and reflexive swallowing made his head swirl and his lungs burn. Bruce was trying to feel his pulse; he could feel fingers poking against his neck, but he couldn't manage to get a steady hold of his convulsing body.
Keeping his eyes open soon became too strenuous. His eyelids grew heavy, the prickling behind them stronger, but the adrenaline that pumped through his veins prevented him from losing himself to unconsciousness. Bruce was calling his name, he could see his lips moving when he managed to pry his eyes open, but the only sound he was able to hear besides the rushing was his own, rapid heartbeat.
There was a stabbing pain in his joints every time he moved – and since he had started to shake violently, he felt as if someone was picking his arms and legs apart with small pincers that dug deep into his flesh. In a moment of inattentiveness he slipped from Bruce's grasp and landed in a boneless heap on the pillows and blankets, not able to move his limbs to break his short fall.
He was feeling miserable, to make a long story short, but that was only the beginning. The chemo he had gotten so far had reduced him to a shivering, barely breathing creature in nothing more than half an hour. Richard had never felt anything like this before, and he had been through many versions of pain in his 23 years. He probably would have cried, if it weren't for Jay and Bruce.
Scratch that, he definitely would have cried, if the retching hadn't dehydrated and exhausted his body too much to produce tears or enable sobbing. For that reason, he found himself lying on his hospital bed, unable to move his aching limbs and barely strong enough to keep his eyes open.
His head was throbbing, his vision spinning. Slipping in and out of consciousness, he couldn't get a proper grip on his mind to force away the images and memories that always came with the feeling of imbalance. He kept seeing the tent of Haly's circus, its ceiling, and then he was falling falling falling from the trapeze into the net down below.
There was a hand that caught him, held him firmly, but he needed a few attempts to recognize it as Bruce's. In a rare moment of lucidity, he found himself back in the hospital, one arm draped over his eyes to the make the spinning stop, the other one outstretched and his hand in Bruce's grasp. He wasn't looking at him, but at the figures behind them. They were blurry, but Dick could make out Jason's voice; he was yelling at someone, and one of the blurs was pointing frantically into his direction.
But then the pain roared up again and hit him as if he was running into a brick wall. His stomach tensed up once more, and a low, weak moan passed his lips. Bruce was calling him, hands on his shoulders, shaking him, increasing the spinning and the pain in his body. He wanted him to stop, but only managed to form the words 'Opreşte-te', and he knew there was something wrong with that, but he couldn't fathom what.
There were hands that shifted him into a lateral recumbent position, probably to help him throw up, but he only curled into a ball, shaking like a leaf and gasping for air.
Then a sharp sting in his upper arm, and he found himself soaring through the air again, grabbing his father's outstretched hand. The heat of the spotlights following him while the audience clapped frantically...
…
A hand on his forehead catapulted him back into a world of pain. He groaned in protest, but leaned into the cold touch at the same time (that's not logical, cold touches shouldn't be comforting when one was shivering so badly). He opened his eyes a few millimetres, only to find the world tilting dangerously, colours (red and blue and green and white and) and shapes losing their (yellow and purple and) contours and blurring into each other, making his head spin even more. The hand appeared on his forehead again, forcing him to open his eyes (when had he closed them again?) in what seemed like hours... only then did he realize that it was not just his vision that was blurry, but that he was moving, somehow...
….
/It was hot under the ceiling of the circus tent, the spotlights shining in his eyes while he was swinging to gain momentum. The audience was silent, not even a sound to distract him, not even a breath was drawn. His grip shifted, the trapeze swung back, and then he let go of the wooden handle, soaring through the air in one, two, three –/
….
Cold.
Someone must have unbuttoned his shirt (cold cold cold), for he could feel hands trailing over his skin (burning), and then chilly, slimy touches at various spots on his chest. A beeping came up seconds later, regular but slow (one two three four...
…
/...four somersaults, until his feet touched solid ground again. Batman would be mad at him, and tell him again that the Quadruple was too obvious, but hell, he was so close to his parents when he did it, he couldn't resist the temptation. There he came, all black and scary, but Robin had never been afraid of him – /
…
Movement again, someone lifting him up. He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids were too heavy. Concentrating on the sounds, he could hear an angry (WorriedMadSadAfraid) voice, talking in a language he didn't understand and someone's labored breathing. Was that him? No. Someone (Jason!) whose smell he knew, against whose chest he was pressed...
…
/Zitka was there, waiting for her food. When he entered her stable she roared happily and threw him into the air, but caught him softly again. She lifted him above her head and dropped him on her back before she started to scarf the hay down. Mr Haly was calling him again, in need of someone to clean the lions' cages.../
...
There was a steady, roaring noise, and the smell of smoke; something was burning. He groaned involuntary and tried to shift to the side, but something was holding him in place. It made him open his eyes, this time more successfully, and he blinked at the car ceiling a few times, confused. Car ceiling?
His head rolled into the other direction, not quite as controlled as he had wanted it to, and he could make out Jason's blurry face, which turned just in that second.
"J..ay?"
His brother cursed softly and pulled out of traffic. A fast movement with his hand, too fast for Dick to follow. But the smell lessened, so he had probably thrown his cigarette out the window.
Jason pulled his seat back, to come to the same level as Dick. It made him realize for the first time that he was indeed lying down, even though one shouldn't lie in a car, right?
He lifted his head, irritated, and found himself strapped into the passenger seat, which was tilted back as far as possible to enable an almost horizontal position. On his belly, attached to his belt, lay an infusion bag, still linked to his arm.
"Whazzat..?" he asked, the words coming out slurred.
"This," Jason said quietly as he grabbed said bag and turned the little cog that controlled the flow of the liquid, "is what will make you go back to sleep before you realize how lousy you're feeling."
Dick only blinked at him confused, trying to make sense out of this cryptic answer, when his head started to feel fuzzy again and blissful darkness engulfed him.
###### ####### #####
Awareness returned in steps.
First there was sound, then scent. He felt as if he was floating on air. Bodily awareness came with the arriving feeling in his limbs; fuzzy, but present. He knew this feeling – he had been drugged often enough. He concentrated on wiggling his toes, on moving his fingers against a soft fabric...he was lying in a bed.
Finally, he remembered how to open his eyes again. The muscles twitched, his lids fluttered. For a long moment he thought he hadn't accomplished it, but then he realized that it was dark around him, no lights illuminating the room he was lying in.
He turned his head carefully to examine his surroundings, while full control over his body arrived slowly but steadily. The fog in his mind cleared too, and he recognized his own bedroom in Blüdhaven. A soft breeze tickled his skin, and Dick turned his head to the opened window.
When his eyes had adapted to the darkness, he saw that he wasn't alone. Someone was sitting on the window ledge, knees drawn and head turned towards the outside world. He only recognized the figure when he saw a red, burning dot in the dark – Jason was smoking again.
It triggered a memory; not long ago he had seen him smoking, too... in a car?
"Jason?"
The figure moved towards the sound, the burning cigarette butt gone in a matter of seconds. He had definitely seen this before.
Dick tried to prop himself up on his elbows, but Jason appeared beside him in an instant and pushed him down again without much effort.
"Don't."
His brother's expression was serious as he reached over to switch the lamp on the nightstand on, the dim light made Dick squeeze his eyes shut.
A hand appeared on his forehead, triggering another déjà-vu, one he couldn't place right now. Opening his eyes again, he followed Jason's gaze to an empty infusion bag that had been provisionally nailed to the wall above his head.
"What's going on?" he asked, blinking confusedly.
Jay looked down at him pensively, brushed a hand against his forehead again and seemed to arrive at a conclusion, for he sighed slightly and then sat down in a chair beside the bed.
"What's the last thing you remember?" he asked finally.
Dick roamed through his memories – things were blurry, shapeless. "Uh, we were in a car?" he guessed unsurely, glancing at the other in hope of affirmation.
Jason nodded. "And before that?"
That was the tricky part. Richard furrowed his brow in effort, and winced when the memories returned to him. "Chemo..." He sighed and brought a hand up to run his fingers through his hair, but stopped short when he saw the indwelling venous cannula in his arm, which was still connected to the IV line.
Jason reached over and pulled the needle out, pressing a cloth against it carefully.
"You shut down completely during chemo. It was... scary." Jason looked away uncomfortably, but reached over and helped Dick into a sitting position, propping up the pillow at the head of the bed so he could lean against it.
"I think I remember..." Richard mused when he was seated comfortably again, but Jason shook his head.
"You were out of it most of the time, after they finally drugged you." His lips twitched slightly. "I've never seen Bruce like that. After you broke down, we tried to tell the nurses that something wasn't right, but they only said those were the usual chemo effects... Then you started to talk in your voodoo-language, and Bruce totally flipped. I don't know how many nurses he reduced to tears before a doctor finally showed up."
Voodoo-language? Dick wondered, amused, but he sobered when he realized that Jason wasn't finished yet, but needed a moment to gather himself.
"I think she only came to calm down Bruce, but when she felt your pulse she started to give orders and injected you with some sedative and hell knows what else," Jason was shaking, Dick noticed, and he swallowed thickly before continuing. "They wheeled you away, and we were trailing behind... then they hooked you up to an EKG and gave you oxygen and all that stuff. It looked really serious. I've never seen Bruce so anxious."
Jason shook his head in wonder. "You kept slipping in and out of consciousness the whole time, and they said they couldn't give you stronger medication while you were still getting chemo."
"And they let me go home after all this?" Richard wondered and Jason laughed out loud after that.
"Hell, no!" he chuckled. "But when they announced that you needed to stay, Bruce went all Batman on them. He kept screaming that he'd never let you stay at such a lousy place, and then actually managed to make them comply. They gave us all the medical instruments and we strapped you into the car. The whole thing went so fast, I only realized we were out when I was carrying you to the car."
Dick was shocked. All of this had happened while he was unconscious? "How long was I out?" he asked, scared of the answer, glancing outside into the night.
"Hours," Jason answered soberly. "The sedative only worked properly after the chemo was over. You developed a fever after a while."
"Wow..." Dick whispered, overwhelmed, and they stayed silent for a few minutes.
Then Jason got up and clapped his hands. "Okay, time for business. Get up!"
Huh? Richard stared at his brother, incredulous.
"Don't look at me like that. I am definitely not going to change your diapers."
Immediately Dick jerked up and lifted the blanket, dreading the worst.
Jason laughed. "No, nothing happened so far. But I don't plan on spoiling you that much; that's Alfred's job."
Recovering from the shock and muttering Romanian curses under his breath, Dick grabbed Jason's arm for support, and together they somehow managed to raise him to a standing position.
Dizziness was there at once, and his legs felt like jelly. He clasped an arm around Jason's shoulder instantly and leaned against him heavily, as his brother dragged him along. When they finally arrived at the bathroom, they both stood there and stared at the door clueless.
"Uh," Jason began awkwardly, "maybe I should..."
"No."
"Do you need me to..."
"No."
Daring to let go of his brother, Dick steadied himself for a moment before pushing the door open and staggering into the room. Jason stayed on his heels closely. "Are you sure you ca –"
"Yes."
He turned around shrugging and walked out, closing the door behind him.
"Call if you need me... and don't lock the door!"
"Are you sure you don't want to change my diapers? You seem awfully interested." He may have sounded cocky, but Dick slumped down next to the toilet the moment Jason shut the door. Closing his eyes helped to slow the spinning of the world and ease the nausea that had ensued on their little walk.
When he opened the door a few minutes later, Jason was leaning against the opposite wall and sprang to his aid immediately. Dick was glad for the support. Those few minutes on his own feet had worn him out terribly; he could feel himself shaking already, and the tiredness was invading his mind again.
"Will this happen after every chemo now?" he asked in a small voice as they made their way back to his bed.
"Probably not," Jason said, sober, "they admitted that they messed up with the pain medication after Bruce almost choked the doc."
"Almost choked the doc?" Dick leaned back into the pillows thankfully. When he opened his eyes, Jason was hovering above him again, hand brushing over his brow. "What?"
"Your fever is rising again."
"I'm fine."
"No, you're not," Jason huffed at him annoyed. "It's high time you face that."
Dick could feel his mind fogging again – sleep was luring him in. Jason hadn't noticed yet, and Dick decided that he needed to get a few things straight before he was out again for who knew how long.
"So where's Bruce? Why did he leave you alone with me?"
"Oh, he wanted to come along, he really did." Jason ran a hand through his hair while he recalled, "but after we strapped you in the car, someone called his emergency number. Cassandra got hurt, and it sounded pretty serious."
Dick pushed away the worry that pumped through his body immediately. He needed to hurry, his eyelids were becoming heavier with each second. "After your death, he promised to never be late again; that's why he goes running at every emergency."
Jason definitely hadn't been prepared for such a turn in their conversation. His brow furrowed and he touched his brother's forehead again, obviously believing that Dick was talking through the fever. He wouldn't have continued with the discussion if he'd taken Richard seriously.
"Well, if he had killed the Joker, there wouldn't be so many emergencies now, would there?"
"He did nothing to kill the Joker," Dick managed to utter, his speech becoming slurred again and his eyelids dropping. "But he did many things that almost killed himself."
Jason replied, but Dick was already pulled under a blanket of fever and sleep again, where he stayed for the next few days.
Although he regained consciousness sporadically, he lost his grip on time completely. Only when the fever lessened did he realize that Jason hadn't left for Gotham as usual, but had stayed in Blüdhaven with him.
-tbc-
...okay, I have to admit, I loved writing this :). This is definitely my most favourite chapter so far, and I would love to know what you think about it! Don't get used to fast updates, though, I fear this was the exception to the rule.
Love to all the reviewers, followers and readers in general, you all make my day! Pekuxumi