Finale
Pairing: Kevin x oc
Word Count: 2,113
Warnings: mentions of suicide, death, chronic pain, terminal illness, terminal cancer, lot of angst, bit of fluff
Summary: Till death do us part.
Mini Series; Part 1, Part 2.
Not Ready Yet - Alexander Stewart
His body hurt. Everything hurt, but he was in front of Violet's door. He used the doorframe for support as he pressed the button to the intercom.
"Violet," he breathed out, resting his head on the doorframe. Ignoring the footstep coming into the hallway. People talking. Dr. Staton saying something to him. "I don't know if you can hear me, but if you do, I love you." He stared at the door. Waiting, as if it would open and Violet would walk right out. And say it right back.
Dr. Stanton put a hand on his shoulder to guide Kevin away from the door. Her voice was distant. He wanted to be anchored to that spot and wait for someone to say something over the intercom.
Violet felt like she was in a dream. A place she's been before. The lake was wide open, trees along the shore were bare. Leaves rested over the water. Her heart beat was faint in her chest. The pain she felt before from nerves pinching gone. No screaming muscles. Easier to breathe.
She looked out at the lake. This smoke, a black cloud was making its way towards her. Just as the shadows in her story.
"Violet," Kevin's voice was an echo in the air. "I don't know if you can hear me, but if you do, I love you." A tear slipped down her cheek, the cloud of smoke did not stop. It kept coming. She knew her fate with the darkness.
She'd disappear. Forever, once it consumed her. No more card tricks or illusions. Nothing could keep her safe from this.
"Funny isn't it?" A boy spoke, startling her. He wore torn jeans, a black and white plaid shirt, and combat boots with no laces. His hands were in his pockets. His curly hair was tamed by a dark beanie. Violet only stared at him as he moved to the waters edge. He glanced at her and smiled before looking back at the creeping dark cloud.
"What's funny about dying?" Her voice broke,staring at the boy with disgust.
The boy shrugged his shoulders, tilting his head to the side. "Dying? No, no. I wasn't talking about that."
"Then what?" Her voice was bitter as she spoke.
The boy turned his head to look around them, not pin pointing a single direction of where the echo came from. "A boy telling you, he loves you, yet you can't do much about it."
"That's not funny either." Violet argued, she wanted to slap him for thinking how funny it is for someone to confess love for someone who can't do anything. "It's heartbreaking." She wanted to go back and tell Kevin she loved him.
The boy rolled his eyes at her, sighing heavily. "Baby, you need to chill." The pet name rolled of his tongue. "A dance with death, that's not funny."
"I dance with death every day."
He looked her up and down, now wearing the confused experssion. "You? Dancing with death?"
"Yeah, terminal lung cancer." Her voice was a whisper, her confidence of defending what was and wasn't funny stripped away. As saying the diagnosis all over again, accepting her fate once more.
The boy stared at her, biting his bottom lip. "Suicide watch." He breathed out, picking up a couple rocks from the shore. "Few brushes with death, but that," He pointed to the dark cloud. "I never got to touch that. I can only wait for it to." He throws another rock. It skips across the surface until disappearing down below.
Violet picks up a small rock and throws it. Watching the lake swallow it as she did hundreds of pills. "Someone must love you enough, if you never touched it."
He drops the rock in his hand, letting it roll into the lake. "I guess. But that took her too." He didn't look at Violet, only watched the cloud. "And now it'll take me, if they finally let it." He glanced around them again. He finally looked at Violet. "I hope you get to see him again."
"Huh?"
"That boy, the one who said he loves you." The boy said, walking into the lake. No care in the world if he took his boots off or not. The boy walked forward, not looking back at Violet. She watched him walk into the dark cloud, waist deep in the water. It swallowed him whole, and she was paralyzed to the shore. She couldn't even scream for him to not go there.
"I love him too." Violet finally breathed out, stepping slowly away from the shore. She turned around and began to run. She needed to run, it will not swallow her too.
Kevin sat outside that room when he could. Leaning against the wall, clicking the intercom button even though he hadn't heard a response. He hasn't been able to go into her room. Everyone has stopped by, talking to him, clicking the intercom to talk to Violet. No one got a response either.
Natsuki would tell Violet the story she was writing. Cheri telling Violet about another gift she had gotten or where her parents were in the world. Amesh would try to explain the game he was trying to play. Ilonka would talk about anything new happening in the woods. Spencer would try to tell another scary story, but Natsuki would tell him to stop.
And Kevin he would tell her a story. Nothing scary. No ghosts. Just a story. In his hands was her deck of cards.
The day that he ran out of group therapy and Dr. Stanton had him walk away from the isolation hall, he went up to Violet's room. He found comfort in her room, the way she kept it neat and half the room empty. He looked for her deck of cards, knowing if she were to wake up, she would want them.. if only she would wake up. He found them in her nightstand with Ilonka's help after the girl found him snooping.
He'd open hand shuffle the cards, thinking of how Violet told her story with them. He then started throwing cards out. First one, Queen of Hearts.
"There once was a queen, she was beautiful." He began, feeling a hand reaching for the deck.
Natsuki placed the next card on top of the Queen of Hearts. King of Diamonds. She rested her head against Amesh's shoulder, his arm around her shoulders. "She had an alliance with a king, one that looked for gems."
"The two made a deal, for ten years they'd look for valued gems." Spencer drew a ten of diamonds, adding to the collection. Soon everyone was taking turns of drawing cards and placing them into the pile as they told a story of a partnership. It wasn't like how Violet told her story, without having to look a the card or making a random Joker or blank card appear, but it was a story they wanted her to hear.
"The queen by her people earned the name, the Mad Hattress, as she was a queen of illusion, it's why the king wanted to work a deal with her and finding gems for ten years." Kevin spoke, no one drew or reshuffled the pile in front of the door. He continued the story without them. "She was a master of slight of hand, no matter how much the jealous queen got. One day she disappeared though. The shadows took her and she disappeared."
"The king was broken." Amesh picked up the deck of cards, straightening them out before handing Natsuki the deck. She shuffled them twice before handing them back. He drew a card without looking at it. "They only got nine years of looking for gems together." He flipped over the card, it was the Seven of Spades.
"But it was enough time for the king to know he fell in love with the queen." Kevin continued, not bothering to pick up a new card. He already had his hand. "He knew that walking into the shadows to find her would be difficult, however he made her a promise once, their deal. Why not make another promise? A promise to find her." Kevin closed his eyes. "Even if it meant death to them both."
A silent moment between the group. No one touched the intercom button. No one picked up the deck of cards. No one spoke. They let their version of Violet and Kevin's story hang in the air. The vow at the end made everyone look at the door.
Seconds turned to minutes. Dr. Stanton stood at the end of the hallway, watching the small ground of friends closely. She's had to remind them before, no one ever made it out of that room. If they did, which was a one in a million chance, the patient goes back in there. Only the second time is always worse.
She watched them, her gaze moving across each face. Only one person stared back at her. Eyes belonging to someone who wanted to tell Dr. Stanton that this was their time with Violet. Not hers to steal away. To let Dr. Stanton know, they weren't giving up on Violet. Not that easily.
"Till death do us part."
A whisper coming from the intercom had everyone jumping from either leaning against the wall, sitting on the floor. It didn't matter where they were, the sound of someone's voice startled them.
Dr. Stanton moved from her spot, grabbing a mask before going into the room. Not allowing anyone of the young adults follow her.
The door was closed, they heard a muffled voice. No one dared to knock or press the intercom in case Dr. Stanton told them to leave.
"Come on," Spencer spoke softly, patting Kevin on the shoulder. "We can talk to her later, when we meet for the Midnight Club." His friend's words made Kevin want to stay put, however he knew that Dr. Stanton would make him go to sleep in his own bed instead of the chair in the hallway.
Pocketing the cards, he slowly walked behind the group, glancing over his shoulder towards the door. Part of him, told Kevin to stay and ask when Dr. Stanton left that room. The other, told him to keep looking forward, he'll see Violet in the morning.
It was the pain in her nerves, hitting full force that told Violet she wasn't in a dream. She had maxed herself out on morphine, however that pain stayed like the metastasized tumors in her body.
In her dream, she ran like hell through that woods, away from the lake and black cloud. She pumped her arms and urged her body forward. Even when her limbs were made of led, she kept running. She wasn't ready to die yet.
She still had things to do and say before she died. One of them, loving a person with every part of her being. Having them know, she loved them.
Pressing that damn button after hearing their story, the king going into the shadows after the queen. She needed to respond. Give them a sign she was either there or had crossed to the other side. Though the other side was less painful.
At least she told Kevin she loved him back. Maybe?
The door to her room opened and closed. She didn't look to see who it was. "Can we not do this today Stanton? I can't." She breathed out, exhaustion and pain radiating her body. Her eyes were closed, the thin blanket pulled up to her chin.
The mattress dipped under someone's weight. "Not Stanton."
Violet's eyes opened wide to his voice. She glanced up at him, seeing his charming smile. He reached out a hand, placing it on her hip. Small circles traced with his thumb over the blanket. "Hi." Her voice a hoarse whisper.
"Hey yourself." He moved from the right side of her bed to the left. Kevin held her, shuffling an arm under her pillow, not caring if his arm fell asleep. He just wanted to be close to her.
"You're not wearing a mask." She closed her eyes again, feeling him wrap an arm over her waist. "If Stanton caught you."
"I have one in my pocket." He cut her off quickly, his grip on her waist tightening. "Just let me hold you." He mumbled into her shoulder.
This made her laugh. Not a full belly laugh before her diagnosis, but it was enough to get her to laugh at his desperation to be near her. "I don't have much of a choice, do I?"
"Nope." He placed a gentle kiss on her shoulder.
"Deal."
