I was shell-shocked. I mean, a guy tells you that you have cancer, and who WOULDN'T be scared for their lives? Well, I mean, I had a ninety percent chance of survival. That was pretty good. But, of course, my entire life was pretty much an epic fail. I couldn't do anything right, it seemed. I suppose someone up here had a pretty weird sense of humor. But yeah.

I think it started when I was born. When I was born, the doctors, at first, couldn't tell whether I was a boy or a girl. So, after much contemplation and shouting at each other, apparently they finally decided that I was a boy. Which, gratefully, I am. A few years later, I conked my head on the corner of our marble fireplace at home and needed to get stitches. And the carpet had to be changed, because the bloodstains weren't going to be coming out any time soon. Then, as a teenager, I almost got shot by my old man, who had had one too many drinks and grabbed the gun for no particular reason. But somebody up here was screwing around with me for kicks.

But whatever. None of those things killed me. The cancer was what did me in.

In between Christmas and Easter of the next year, I was antsy all the time. I had cancer, and heck, I was seriously worried for myself. I was also scared that Ulquiorra and I would never meet again, so scared, in fact, that I debated shooting myself just so I could have an excuse to go to the ER in a vain attempt to see him. Yeah. Alright. I admit it. I was selfish. Happy now?

So I went and fell down the stairs. Not on purpose, but on accident. But I cut my forehead on the corner of one of the stairs - hey, those stairs were pretty damn sharp, okay? - and then I was all, "Okay. I'm going to the ER. I can't slap a Band-Aid on this big boy." So I drove over to the ER and bingo, guess who was there? Yup. That's right.

So I got checked in, and he stitched me up. I stared at him, and I could tell I was making him slightly uncomfortable. But hey. If I wanted to look, I would look. And he was freaking gorgeous. He bit down on his bottom lip gently in this really cute, uke-ish kind of way, and that made me smile. Gods...what I wouldn't have given to have stayed alive, to have stayed with him...

"So, how you been...Dr?" I asked.
"Just call me Ulquiorra already. God knows you're in here enough," he replied. This made me smile.
"Alright then. Ulquiorra. How are you?"
"I'm fine. And you?"
"I'm all right."

"And...what of the cancer?" The fact that he was even asking was just incredible to me.
"Well, I am now minus a ball, but I think you already know that. Um...turns out that the cancer meta..meta...that really long fancy word for the cancer spreading to other parts of your body." Great, Grimmjow, I told myself. You just sounded like a complete idiot. (Grimmjow: 1. Ulquiorra: 2.)

I watched him for a moment. He was worried, that much I could tell. I'm pretty good at reading people, and I could tell that he was worried and trying to hide it.

"Oh, look at you, that's precious! You're worried about me!" I said, smirking.
"No, I'm not. It would be very unprofessional for an ER surgeon to worry about a patient," he said, in that snippy kind of way.
"Well then...what say you that after your shift ends at eleven, we be unprofessional and have lunch somewhere? My treat. I know you gotta have a whole shitload of student loans anyway." He raised an eyebrow. I bet he was wondering exactly how in the heck I remembered what time he got off work.

One of the nurses looked into the room and told me, "Oh, Ulquiorra would LOVE to go with you!" before he could answer. Not like I would have taken no for an answer, anyways.

"Well, then, that's great!" I said, grinning up at him from where I was.
"Okay. Fine. Whatever. Just let me finish stitching you up and then we'll talk about it."

He finished, charged me, and it was over. Then we went out to lunch. Hell, if Ulquiorra didn't already know what the frick was going on, I've got to commend him for total and complete obliviousness. Because it was a date. Yes, that's right. A date. Not a one night stand, but an actual, real date, where both people had some attraction to each other.

It was nice. Very nice. I was happy, and I could tell he was too. During the dates that followed, we shared hugs, kisses, keys, beds, things like that. And while I waited for him to get off his shift during the ER, while he went to Dying Sun and just sat on a barstool and watched me mix drinks before he had to go to work, the cancer was almost forgotten between the both of us.

I wish I'd spent more time with him. I don't know how that would have been possible, but I wish I had.

I held back information from him, so that I wouldn't hurt him. I knew he was tired enough what with his shifts and all that, and I didn't want to stress him any further for fear that he would snap. And, of course, as all bad things do, he found out about it sooner or later. From no one else than Stark, my cancer specialist.

Why he didn't bother to check the medical records, I will never know. But that's the way it was.

Needless to say, when I'd first heard the news, I'd freaked out. When I heard Stark say that I had Stage IV Testicular Choriocarcinoma, a word that I couldn't even PRONOUNCE, I knew there was something freaking wrong with me. When he said that there were only four stages of cancer, I wanted to cry. When he told me an estimate - nine months - I stood up, calmly walked out of the office, drove my car back to the house that Ulquiorra and I now shared, collapsed onto the couch, and screamed my lungs out.

The neighbors probably heard me. The cry of a dying soul wanting to leave its mark on the Earth.

And sooner or later, Ulquiorra found out. And at that point, I had calmed down, and I comforted him while he freaked out. It was ironic. But I didn't care anymore.

I spent most of my spare time praying.

Of course, God didn't answer. Probably to punish me for something wrong I had done before. What that would be, I don't exactly know.

But I screwed up somewhere along the way, and it came back to bite me in the ass.