Chapter fourteen: Death

"Lupus," Chase explained to Ritsuka calmly. "Is incurable at the point you're at." Soubi held onto his hand as Ritsuka absorbed the words. Soubi had been gone for a couple hours and Ritsuka had begun to worry when he returned looking less worried than usual.

But now Ritsuka was in distress. "Wh-what's he talking about?!" He shot at Soubi in fast Japanese.

"Its incurable," He told him quietly.

"There's got to be something!"

Soubi glanced at Chase who pointed at the door with a questioning look as if asking if he should leave. Soubi nodded and held on to Ritsuka's hand tighter. "I'm sorry, Ritsuka," He said, leaning down and feeling water blur his vision once again. He didn't want Ritsuka to see him weak and crying. "I wish there was another way. I'll still do the spell if you want me to. I won't be able to live without you, anyways."

"And what makes you think I'll be able to live without you? I need you! I need you by my side, I need you to take my hand and guide me through it all! I wanted to move in with you after we got back to Japan! I wanted you to take my ears! I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you!" Ritsuka held onto Soubi, pulling him basically onto the bed with him. He was sobbing now, his tears being that of anguish, frustration, and confusion. He whimpered against Soubi as he held on to the man tightly.

"Ritsuka," Soubi whispered, his voice breaking slightly. Just hearing the other's name calmed him down. It felt so sweet on his lips, as if he were meant to say it.

Ritsuka loosened his grip on Soubi and stared directly into his eyes, "Stay with me for however much longer I have. I'm only going to get worse, so I'm going to need you here. I want to know everything about you. Forget what Seimei told you not to tell me. That's all in your head. He has nothing with you. Tell me. Talk to me. Teach me what I don't know." He broke off in a violent coughing fit. "Well, that's new," He said after a couple minutes of hacking.

"You know I can't break orders…"

"I'm about to die and you can't do that?! I'm telling you that whatever power you think Seimei has over you, he doesn't!"

Soubi smiled weakly, shifting his position so that he was sitting at the end of the bed near Ritsuka's feet. "Why?" He asked. "It's not a happy story. Why do you want to know?"

Ritsuka didn't look irritated as Soubi imagined. Instead, he returned his smile with a brilliant laid-back grin. "Why not? I want to understand why you're the way you are. I want to know how you lost your ears, what happened to your parents, how you met Seimei, things like that." He coughed a coupled times again and then quieted down.

"Alright," Soubi took a deep breath and began his long story.

It just didn't add up!
But it did at the same time. Everything Ritsuka had was a symptom of Lupus. Everything. It had to be Lupus. That was the only explanation for what was happening.

House knew it was wrong, though. Something told him it was wrong. His gut told him it was wrong. The more he studied the symptoms, the more he confused he got. The rash was a silvery color, not red or purple. It wasn't in the right spot, either. People with Lupus usually had the butterfly rash going across their face. Ritsuka had the grayish rash on his arms, instead.

And the psychosis didn't add up either. People with Lupus had depression anxiety and depression, not psychosis. Ritsuka had been full out delusional. He wasn't anxious or depressed; in fact he seemed quite happy, especially around Soubi.

"House!" House's head snapped up when Cuddy yelled his name.

"What do you want?" It was around six hours after House had dumped an emotionally broken Soubi onto her. "Did you finally cure him or what?"

"I talked to Soubi hours ago. You come up with a final diagnosis yet?"

"It's Lupus," House told her.

Cuddy looked up at him, "Well that's great! You can cure him and they'll be on their way back home!"

"The Lupus is too advanced," House simply stated. "Anyways what did you want in the first place?"

Cuddy put a file down on his desk; "You're on clinic duty until the end of the day as punishment for not sedating a teen during a colonoscopy."

Ritsuka was on the verge of tears again by the time Soubi was finally done. He had told him everything, and had broken orders by telling him and explaining to him the truth. They were still in the same positions as before, with Ritsuka lying in the hospital bed and Soubi sitting at his feet.

Ritsuka had grown worse and worse over the hours. His coughing fits were more frequent and he had asked Soubi to shut off the lights in the middle of the story, saying that the light had bothered him. His hands were beginning to swell and he groaned out of pain every so often. He was a mess, and Soubi hated what it meant.

"You okay?" Soubi asked him after a minute of silence.

Ritsuka shuddered, his eyes sliding shut. "Yes…" He muttered after a moment. His eyes fluttered open, his eyelashes sparkling with wetness. "Hey, are you… crying?"

Soubi instantly put a hand to his face and felt definite wetness. "I guess," He said with a smile. He didn't know why he was crying, but it was probably for a number of different reasons.

"Thanks for telling me the truth. And… I want you to know that I meant it when I said that I love you. It wasn't out of panic. I meant every word of it and I'm not taking anything back," Ritsuka's words were strained; he was trying to keep the pain he was in from his voice.

It was still strange for Soubi to hear those words coming from Ritsuka's mouth. He loved hearing them, though. As a reply, he gently kissed the boy's soft lips and held on to one of his hands.

"You know you really freaked me out the first time you did that," Ritsuka pointed out with a small laugh.

"I suppose it would have been a little frightening."

"A little?!" Ritsuka faked being mad with a tell-all grin. "Come on you were this random person hanging around outside of my school, claiming to be my dead brother's friend. You said you wouldn't do anything, and the next moment I've got your tongue in my mouth!"

"I didn't do that the first time." Soubi remembered that day. It was a day he would always recall; one that he would never forget. He frowned, knowing that Ritsuka wouldn't be around much longer to share that memory with him.

"You'll find somebody else," Ritsuka said, sensing his inner turmoil and giving his hand a weak squeeze.

"No I won't," Soubi cast his gaze downwards, not wanting to look at the dying boy's face. "after you die I'll probably belongin a mental hospital."

"Why do you say that?"

Soubi shook his head, "Because my mind shut down when I first heard about the disease. I fell apart."

Ritsuka reached out towards him, probably to hug him, when he seemed to lose control of his wrist. It dropped and hung as if it was unusable.

"God dammit!" Ritsuka cussed suddenly. "I've lost control of my health, my body, and my mind! What next?!"

They both stayed silent, knowing nothing was next.

"You have to do something to help him," Soubi said to Foreman. Foreman and Thirteen had both come to check on them. Ritsuka was weak as ever. He was constantly squirming from the pain and unable to walk since he kept falling over. "There has to be something to get him out of his misery."

Foreman exchanged glances with Thirteen, as if both were uncertain of something.

"We could… permanently sedate him," Thirteen ventured.

"Which would mean-" Foreman began to explain.

"I'm not an idiot," Soubi retorted sharply. "I know that it means killing him and I knew that was a choice. Ritsuka already said he wants to do it if it gets him out of the pain he's in." He couldn't even look at Ritsuka without desperately wanting to do the spell.

"He is going to die anyways," Foreman stated, glancing at a coughing, twitching, broken Ritsuka.

"Don't remind me!" Soubi growled.

"We're going to need you to sign the consent," Thirteen told him. "And we'll have to go tell House, too."

"You really think that he's going to sign?" Foreman questioned Thirteen casually an hour or two after leaving. They had had to look for House and ended up without results, get the consent papers, inform Cuddy, get more paperwork, alert some staff, and do some paperwork.

"The guy doesn't want to see the kid in pain. The kid doesn't want to be in pain. Why not do it?" Thirteen replied as they neared the room. "Wouldn't you want to die painlessly if you had Lupus?"

Foreman simply shrugged the question off and pushed the door open to the room. Ritsuka seemed even worse. He had a wrist drop in one hand and a foot drop in one foot. His hands were moderately swollen and his rash was definitely spreading. He was talking to Soubi in fast fretful Japanese, only calmed by the man's soothing voice.

Foreman explained the forms to Soubi and went over everything that would happen. What Thirteen, Foreman, and probably Chase would do is give Ritsuka a heavy sedative and let him go until he died. Soubi kept absentmindedly nodding and casting worried looks over at Ritsuka. He was about to sign after asking for a few minutes alone with Ritsuka when the door to the room slammed open.

"Drop that pen!" House yelled.

Hello again.

ANOTHER CLIFFHANGER!!!

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~Wolfie