I'm a little behind on chapter upload compared with , but ah well, I begin to wonder why I'm uploading it here anyways.
Message towards :
I'm a little hurt here. I have never worked on a story as hard as I did on this one, and still, there's no one to read this.
I've been inactive on this damned site for far too long by now. Yet, because I'm receiving way more than enough comments on , I claim it my right to submit the next chapter already.
After this story I believe you all understand that I'm leaving behind me. For I've learned everything there is to learn within this stage of my life. Anyone interested can still find me on , or within daily life, crossing the streets of Belgium like any other ordinary fifteen year old teenager. :)
Enjoy anyways. For those who care to read anything longer than 500 words.
(sucky chapter, I warn you…)
Chapter 3
The pet scan had been done, and as Zuko had been asked to wait for the results they had figured everything out. They knew the exact dose of medication they were supposed to give him, the exact state of cancer cells down his veins. Huang had been given the X-rays for closer examination later that day. For now they had to give the patient his first dose of chemo, because if they would not, they knew chances on survival would be ridiculously small.
A frown crossed the doctor's forehead as he increased speed on walking through the building. Let's see… The chance of survival for this patient was about 50 to 100 in his current situation. Most likely he'd discover a tumour somewhere down his body in later phases of the cancer, so it would drop to 30 to 100. One wrong dose of chemo? 10 to 100. After that he would most likely pass away immediately. If he would not and survived the mistake in the medical treatment, his body would have lost a lot of strength and the level would fall even lower, to 1 to 100. Then, there's the surgery to remove the tumour.
And now he questioned himself and his will. Was it really worth the battle?
'Will it hurt?' Zuko suddenly asked, breaking the barrier between them shaped silence. He gave the doctor a worried yet well aware stare, eyebrows pointing upwards and eyes wide. The doctor sighed as he saw the sorrow bathing across the kid's facial expression and put a halt to their rushing through hallways and doors.
'Yes. Most likely, it will.' he replied, giving him a sheepish smile to cheer him up. Action, of course, failed. The pale teen hung his head down and bit his lower lip, skin tightening as his teeth put strong pressure down there, fingertips trembling just the slightest as he brought them up towards his mouth so he'd be able to bite his nails instead. A bad habit he had created through the stress of the past few weeks, but at least it was better than to fracture the veins of his lips with his teeth.
'Is it… Safe? Safe to do chemo on me already?' He fiddled nervously with the cloth of his white vest. 'I have only been here for one night.'
Huang now managed to put on an actual smile. 'Of course it's safe, kid.' He patted the boy's head as if he were talking to a ten-year-old. A strong, firm hand, rushing through Zuko's raven dark hair. 'And once all of this is over, you're free to go home again.'
That wasn't exactly the truth he was telling, though it did come pretty close to it. He was free to go home if he swore he would note down any possible side-effect the chemo would give him. Though the doctor had made his own list of what would most likely happen to this patient; nauseous for at least twenty four hours straight, possible head ache, easy bruising. He'd bet all of his soul on that. After all, he'd been reading through this patient's file all night. He knew pretty much everything about him now.
Well, except for his sexuality, of course. The file hadn't exactly warned him for that.
'Doctor?' the boy asked, quietly, almost too quiet to be heard through all the noise of the life-like hospital.
'Yes?'
Another moment of awkward silence. Zuko's gaze fell towards the tiles covering the floor, as he rubbed the sides of his shoes together nervously. 'What exactly is chemo?'
'Excuse me?' Huang asked, as he turned the head to have a better look at the boy.
'Chemo.' Zuko continued to stare down at his shoes. 'What is it?'
It surprised the doctor that his patient – who was old enough to have quite an amount of knowledge by now – had no idea of how they treated most cancer patients they had in every hospital on the world, and something told him that this conversation could last quite long. He smiled at the boy – forgetting the hatred he was supposed to feel towards this homosexual – and nodded at two chairs leaning to the bright while wall, motioning for him to sit down. Zuko did as told and sat down, leaning deeper down the chair to look a little more confident, even though it created quite a reverse appearance.
'Chemo…' Huang started, sitting down as well. 'Chemo is a treatment which exists of injecting special kinds of medications, known as cytotoxic antibiotics or antineoplastics. Though we use the term cytotoxic because it's easier to pronounce.' The last sentence came out with a smile, though he failed to bring one to the teenager's face too. He cleared his throat as he continued.
'Anyway, as you know antibiotics are not used easily by a regular doctor when you've caught a cold. Because they are known to not only destroy the ill cells, but the healthy ones too. As in this case, the effects are a whole lot worse than you'd expect from a simple injection. The side effects chemotherapy might cause are an extremely long list, young man, and I'm sure you know some of them.'
Zuko finally let his gaze get up to meet the doctor's again as he nodded. 'Don't you, like, grow bald that way?'
A chuckle escaped the doctor's lips. 'Yes, that's a way to put it, indeed.' He doubted for a split second, though eventually he brought his hand up to brush through the young man's raven coloured hair. It felt soft, was about 2 inches long and the locks were all healthy. It was quite a shame that he'd have nothing of it left. 'To be more exact, you simply lose all the hair covering your body. Hair on your head, facial hair, the tiny hairs on your arms and legs…'
Zuko felt his stomach turn at some of those thoughts. He tried to imagine himself bald, not a single hair left on his head, exposing all of his pale skull to the cold outside air. Yet somehow, he managed to smile as well as frown is disapproval. 'I can live without the hair, it's not like I can't buy myself a wig, or something.'
'Don't think that losing a bit of hair is everything you'll be going through, young man.' Huang replied, a frown across his eyebrows and voice stern and shallow. 'You could feel nauseous for days, which will lead to vomiting, you can have unexplainable pain through all of your body, depression of the immune system, diarrhoea or even constipation, hearing loss, memory loss, weakness of the heart… The list goes on.'
Words were lost down Zuko's throat for at least two minutes in a row after that. Nothing to be heard, except for the footsteps of passer bys, the gentle rattling of the rain against the window and the slow and suspiciously relaxing mood of their own breathing.
'Anything else you'd like to know before we start?'
'Yes.'
'Then what might that be?'
Zuko folded his hands together. 'Can I… make a choice?' Gaze stared even deeper down the floor, voice trembling, yet it was obvious he was trying to keep it steady. 'Choose not to do chemotherapy?'
Huang's eyes widened just a bit, as he felt his breath hitch somewhere down his throat, stuck just between his lungs and midriff. It took him quite a while to think about what to reply. 'You may extend the date, of course, yet choosing not to do any chemo at all is a choice you will have to pay with your life eventually.'
Silence fell again. Zuko felt his eyelids close and his breath tone down, eyelashes brushing each other shortly before flashing upwards again, for his eyes to open. 'Death?' his lips spoke, yet his head felt too light to even care about his deeds right now. The doctor nodded as response.
A chuckle escaped Zuko's dry lips and he sat up straight in the chair, giving the well-educated doctor a look that could well have been either a frown or a smile, which humanity had given the name regret. Regret of his own decision. 'If that's all there is to fear, then why the hell not?' he spoke, eyes wide as his legs finally began to move once more. He got up from his chair and wiped his lap clean. 'Give me all fucking cytoshit you can find, it's not like I'll survive this anyway!'
The rain continued to tap along the window, unaware of the grief spread within these cursed hospital walls. Yet there was not a single happening on this planet that could force these raindrops from patting the building on the back.
- - - - - - - - -
Poke. Poke, poke.
Zuko gently prodded the tip of his index finger to the tiny hole the needle had left in his now rather vulnerable skin. Much like a footprint, yet then the size of an ordinary bleeding pore. Huang had put a plaster over it to keep the few droplets of blood from spreading over his icky green hospital clothes or bright white bedding, as if he'd actually save the household staff work with washing that way. Those people had to face the confrontation with hundreds of blood-soaked blankets and pillows every day, so what great difference would those three or four droplets of healthy – and with healthy meaning aids-less – blood make? Not the tiniest bit, obviously.
He smacked himself in the face rethinking his thoughts just now, burying his nose down the palms of both his hands after that. Damn it, the doctor was right: it truly wouldn't take long for the first side effects of the chemo to take place. Although he wasn't sure whether mood swings were part of reactions to the mix of antibiotics eventually named chemo, or reactions to the explosion of hormones pregnant women would have. If it was not part of any chemotherapy reaction then he moved on to an other possible explanation; memory loss in an early state, also due to the chemo.
It was raining outside. Droplets of rain sprinkled down his window sill, crashing down the cold stone it had been made of and detonate to millions and millions of tiny water drops, either fading away down the atmosphere or washed away by an other droplet. Endless, this ritual of nature itself seemed, even though Zuko knew very well that someday the rain would have to stop. And if the rain stopped then the clouds would move away. And if the clouds moved away the sun would reappear. And if the sun reappeared, then everything in everyone's life would go better. After all, drama in sappy American series is enforced with the sad and negative emotions rain can bring, so good things would more likely happen when the sun warmed everyone's face and hearts.
My insides all turned to ash…
So slow…
Zuko cried out loud the very moment he heard the tune of that song play through his mind, telling him his cell phone was ringing. Even though he only heard a simplified version of the rather complicated song, his mind remembered the text clear enough to add it to the melody immediately, regaining the ability to think clear. Something he surely needed at times like these.
He grasped the device off the night stand and pressed a finger to the green button, bringing his hand up to his ear to hear the voice he'd been hoping to hear. 'Jet?' he spoke. The reply on the other side took quite a long time to get through.
'Maybe. Depends on what you need him for.' The irony and somewhat sharp yet smooth tone of the voice confirmed his expectations and the hospital patient let out a laugh in happiness.
'I'm so glad you called, Jet! I really missed you through the past few hours, you know…' Zuko made some kiss sounds and cuddled the phone to his cheek, not perfectly realizing what he was giving all his love to now. He could hear Jet chuckle on the other side of the line and sensed the slight bit of bitter irony once more. 'Save that for the judge, dear, I don't believe a word you're saying.'
Strange enough, that did not sound too ironic. Zuko felt his eyebrows point upwards as he put the phone back where it belonged: to his ear. 'Baby, what's wrong? Are you mad at me?'
Jet snorted. Zuko whined. 'Why? What did I do wrong?'
'It's not something you did, it's something you didn't. You won't tell me what's keeping you in the hospital while I know it's something I have to know.'
Zuko fell completely shut. The rosy skin covering his cheeks turned white and his voice got swallowed down the darkness of the deepest depths of his throat, as well as his courage and breath. The complete zone between his midriff up to the Adam's apple had been declared imprisonment area for everything he needed most in these circumstances.
'Well? Care to speak up now?' Jet snapped through the phone, obviously growing more and more annoyed as the tense seconds passed by. Zuko suddenly remembered how to combine his lips and tongue to speak and he let his voice be heard.
'Jet, you have to understand I can't just-'
'Can't just what, exactly?'
Awkward moment of silence, Zuko's hand trembling as he held the phone, breath raging though there still was lack of oxygen making his head feel rather cloudy. For a moment he thought he'd faint. Not to the words Jet had said, but as a reaction to the chemo he had just been given. Therefore there was nothing to be said through the next thirty seconds of silence. Jet hissed.
'Yeah, that's exactly what I expected you to say.'
'Jet, wait…'
'I'm not asking much, Zuko, I'm just asking why you're forced to spend two nights in a hospital? You didn't break any bones, did you?'
A sigh escaped Zuko's throat and found its way up through his lips, not too certain of what to answer now. Not that he didn't know what he was supposed to say, it was the lie to tell instead he had to come up with now. Yet every time his mind tried to figure something safer out to tell, his heart brought him back to the cruel, cursed reality he had to face. Cancer. He had cancer. Blood cancer, to be exact. And many doctors would try and save what's left of his life with their fucking chemotherapy, at least one session every two weeks, most likely one per week eying the graveness of the situation.
'No.' he replied eventually. 'No, don't worry, I'm doing fine.'
'Excuse me?' The mockery and indignation practically dripped off the tone his voice had, thick as butter yet sharp as blades. 'Zuko, you are in the fucking hospital! You're not doing fine at all!'
Zuko was on the verge of tears now. He did everything he could to keep control over his voice, to resist the urgency to telling his boyfriend the truth, to make sure he wouldn't say or do anything stupid now. 'I'm sorry…' he whispered quietly, almost too quiet to be heard by regular human ears, one single tear dripping over his chin. Followed by another. And another. Oh lord he hated crying. He hadn't cried once in the past two years before the doctor had given them the horrible news, and now it must've been at least three times in the past two days.
And for just one moment, one second, he wondered how much better life would have been if that man hadn't discovered the cursed cancer cells among his blood.
'Are you crying again?' The bitter tone down Jet's voice had sunken to a lower, softer level, sounding rather gentle compared to the last tone he had brought. Zuko simply nodded, not aware of the fact that there was no possibility for Jet to see him do that. A deep sigh came from the other side of the line as the cancer patient sobbed. 'That's it. I'm coming over, Zuko, I can't stand this.'
A short yet definitive beep made clear that Jet had hung up on him.
Zuko sat there, knees together on the bed, both his hands holding on to the cell phone as his lips trembled nervously. Eventually his fingertips lost all the force they had left and dropped the device to the bedding. Fear yet challenge covered his mind much like a blanket of doubt, knowing that he had about half an hour left to come up with a suitable lie to tell. He couldn't just tell the truth and say he had cancer, right? He couldn't possibly break his boyfriend's heart like that.
He let his body sink down to the sheets and bent his knees up, locking both his arms around them as he closed his eyes. Pain and misery managed to faint away slightly once he got the chance to get rid of his ability to see.
Believe me when I say that the next chapter belongs to one of my favourite of them all.
Expect the next chapter once receives its comments again. This is not an unpopular nor a bad story just because no one takes the time to read anything longer than 1000 words or because no one seems to feel ANY sympathy at all towards gay couples.
Another proof of the American nation being one complete retard alliance against equal rights for everyone. Because ah well, the white straight fat man will always be more important than the black/white gay non-obesities patient.
… I wouldn't mind being reported for my opinion. An easier way to get off this site. :) Yet it'd be pretty damn lame.
Next chapter will be up… ehh… whenever I say so!