There’s still a band aid on Sevo’s arm from the needle. Fresh, not the one the doctor had used, but there because Sevo knows that he gets infections easily, and he can’t just take it off the day after to let the ‘air heal it’ like most. He gets a glance from the doctor, first at his arm and then at his face. Part of Sevo wonders what she must be thinking, with the folder in her hand that either declares Sevo healthy or not. Were it him, he’d state the verdict upon entering the office, then do what else he had to do before being able to actually talk.
She takes her time though. Enters the office with a murmured hello, shuts the door behind her and approaches her desk. Thing is that Sevo is patient too, but sitting in silence as she sets that damn file down and starts typing on her computer, checking another pile of papers and adjusting her chair… that’s just torture. Fist clenching, teeth setting, eye narrowing torture. …So maybe that’s what draws her glances, not the band aid after all. At least it makes her lift the file, open it, - read it - but that’s closer to what Sevo really wants.
“Look.” He says after a minute passes. “Can yuh please-”
“My apologies, Mr. Poe.” Comes the doctor’s reply, almost causing Sevo to start. Poe, not Lesshney, his fake name hovering heavy over his head.
“It’s fine. I just… mi’ be best tuh tell someone when yuh first arrive n’ here.”
“No.” She replies, voice gentle, setting the file down once more. “I’m sorry, because the results came in and…”
A bittersweet look crosses her face, and Sevo wants to die.
Finally she clears her throat, expression warm and motherly, like she’s softening a blow. “Mr. Poe, I regret to inform you that you have cancer.”
About then is when he can’t keep listening.
There’s something to be said for being diagnosed. If it does anything truly good for you, it shows how awfully fragile the people around you are. Sevo lets out the news gradually, starting with those closest to him, and finally ending with those who only need to know as to understand why he might not be able to be around some days. Everyone takes it worse than he does. Many cry, lots insist he has to be joking. Some just stare, and at least one got angry at him for saying it. Everyone hugs him though, everyone that’s told in person at least. Stifling, too-tight hugs that leave his body aching like a hint of what will, according to his doctor, come.
They all ask questions too.
Ask my doctor, I don’t care.
‘But what - what stage is it?’
I caught the number four.
‘Are you doing treatment?’
There’s money to be wasted on it. …Yeah.
I’m ah… I’m fine. No, I am fine. S’okay.
‘You’ll be okay though, right?’
Sevo never answers that one.
One person commented, snidely that he didn’t know much for it being his disease. A snap back of ‘yuh try tuh pay attention wh’n bein’ told yer gon’ die’ shuts him up quick though. What’s worse though is everyone who tries to tell him ways to get better, things to do to feel better. Who say they’ll send him gifts and take him places and-
Turns out when people think you’re dying, they give you the things they say they will. Sevo finds that he’s gotten more gifts than ever in his life, be it food or medicine or ‘artistic releases’. Various other things as well, most of it bullshit that Sevo throws out as soon as the person leaves. They all text him, email him, call him asking if he wants to do things, if he needs help, and so on. His lover does too, sometimes, but Sevo can live with that. Everyone else he just ignores.
Indoors is Sevo’s only solace. He leaves to go to the cancer ward, and that’s just about it. Driven there, not taking his bike since no one seems to trust him to take care of himself anymore. Sevo can’t help but feel that they all care in ways that don’t include going in and sitting with him as they stick him full of needles and shove him under machines. Like people only want to show that they ‘care’ when they don’t have to be directly involved with what’s really going on.
He doesn’t try to make friends with the other patients either. Most of them look worse than he hopes he does, frail bodies and little hair, or red eyes and skin a pasty shade that does not naturally occur. Sometimes they try to talk to Sevo, but he tends to turn away, or pretend to be asleep, maybe even ask the nurse for a bathroom break just to avoid it.
Why talk to people who are going to die?
Avoiding people was a bad idea. Sevo figures his gloom had to have carried over to life in general, and the hospital eventually assigns him a therapist. A woman, and Sevo expects someone in her fifties in a black suit with a bun for her hair.
Instead he sees a girl around his age wearing a flowy multi patterned skirt, tank top, and the longest braid he’s ever seen trailing down her back. At first all he can think is that it’s worse, instead of a business woman he has a hippie.
Then she opens her mouth.
Witty, smart, good at listening - and she calls Sevo out on his bullshit before five minutes pass. That first meeting isn’t much other than getting to know him, his situation, and explaining how the other meetings are going to work. Sevo asks if she can come to his house instead of having him come to her, and she instantly agrees.
Her name is Bluebird, and she’s the first one Sevo’s been honest with in weeks.
On their fifth meeting Sevo asks about her name. He’s feeling weak and nauseous, and his hair is already falling out a little, though he hasn’t noticed yet. But he’s hungry so he’s laying on the couch while she cooks for him, ears catching his small words and replying with strong, kind ones.
Turns out, she explains, her mother got pregnant at what Bluebird calls a ‘hippie convention’. Only she didn’t know the man she slept with, and when she gave birth she didn’t know what to call her - their - child. So she named her daughter after her best memory of that man, which was the bluebird tattooed over his heart. When Sevo laughs she just smiles in response and brings out a plate of food for him, sitting in one of the chairs as they continue to talk.
Through no fault of her own, Bluebird comments on Sevo’s loss of hair, only after running her fingers through it. He turns pale, drops his fork, and she tries to backtrack, but it’s too late. With a cool expression and heart he asks her to leave, feeling empty inside.
When she does, Sevo leaves his plate on the couch, his fork on the ground.
He goes into the bathroom and finds an electric razor. Though he’s never used one before he’s determined to try, plugging it in with a shaky, weak hand and flicking the switch. Sevo listens to that buzz for what feels like days as he struggles to shave his head. Every part of him is screaming for him to stop as he does, but he can’t, shaking and forcing the razor over his head, through his hair, until every black lock falls onto the floor. His head is smooth. Bare. All he sees is the weak, horrible prisoner that he’d been in the Warehouse barely over a year ago.
When his lover comes home, he’s found on the ground outside of the bathroom, sobbing hysterically. Spit flecks his lips, snot is rubbed away from his nose by his hands and his tears continue to fall from red, aching eyes. Less than a second after he’s drawn to his lover’s body, asked what’s wrong, he throws up.
Even assured it’s fine, Sevo still sobs until he passes out.
Treatment isn’t working. Sevo’s body is stiff, thin, and so weak that some days he can’t even move. There’s a pot near his bedside now for those days, so he can vomit without having to worry about crawling to the bathroom. No matter how many layers he wears he still feels cold.
After all this time, even his lover is distant now. He doesn’t feel sad or angry about it anymore though, just understanding. Sometimes he wishes everyone that felt that way would just leave. But he needs their fake smiles doesn’t he? Because fake or not, it’s those smiles that drive him to hospitals and take him to treatment.
Not like their dog can. Bluebird insisted on it, said that while cats are nice, dogs are the perfect healing animal for someone in Sevo’s position. Sevo decided on a golden lab, male, and named him Silver. Irony is his favourite kind of humor these days, sarcasm too, and he sort of feels the name is both of those things. Silver sleeps with him, cuddles him with his lover can’t, and it makes it easier to cope with. His eyes remind Sevo of an old friend, and eventually he gives Silver a middle name, Thor.
If Silver could talk like Thor could, he’d probably tell Sevo how to handle what comes next.
Operation. Sevo knows the game from the kids of friends, but this is the real thing, and you can’t just start over when you touch the sides. They scheduled him in awhile ago, but it only feels real now. He leans against the window as they drive there, shaking hands plugging his phone into the docking station and choosing a song.
Where Is My Mind filters through the car. His lover glances over, but doesn’t comment, and Sevo is glad for it. These last few moments of mostly silence are what Sevo will treasure as he enters surgery, he thinks. So he revels in them, memorizes each one. As he’s helped out of the car and into the hospital Sevo is there, but his mind is not. With each step his mind, his soul is letting go, and filtering back into a different part of his brain.
Sevo doesn’t think about it.
They tell his lover what’s going to happen. Have him strip and put on a robe, lay on a bed, and inject him with medication. He cries, feeling disconnected and yet there, and holds onto his lover with every ounce of energy he can. When he tries to say ‘I love you’ and his lips fail to move, Sevo simply thinks it, shouts it mentally as loud as he can, until he falls into a medicated sleep.
Nurses have to loosen his grip on his lover, even then.
When he opens his eyes, he knows. There’s only black around him, and two versions of him dcorating the empty space. Him. Him with hair, with strength, the him that he’s inside of - and then him. Weak, in a bed, thin and gaunt, and Sevo is surprised when he feels nothing at seeing it. Distantly he can hear his lover talking, as he approaches the sickly version of himself. Takes his own hand, and gently runs another over his bald head. He looks scared, and Sevo squeezes his hand, feeling nothing but calm.
“It’s okay.” He whispers, suddenly feeling that it is, truly, okay. Somehow Sevo has expected this all along, and he's okay with it. At peace. And as calm fills those eyes, he’s pulled away.
Sevo knows. Without even looking around he knows, his own hand being held, head being caressed just like he’d to himself moments before. Sevo breathes slowly, and squeezes that hand, even if it takes all his energy.
“It’s okay.” He says, a whisper without trying, and shakes his head when his lover tries to disagree. “S’ okay. M’… m’ naht here.”
“You -” A hiccup, and then, “Where are you?”
“I’m… Yer - yer askin’ me tuh marry yuh.” Sevo replies. His eyes are distant, and he sees it, clear as day. He’s there. “God. Yer so beautiful… I love yuh so much, yer so…”
He coughs, tears falling down his face, but feeling nothing but peace. Beside him, his lover sobs, and Sevo turns his head despite the ache.
“Tell every… everyone tha’ I - I love em. N’ yuh live fer me. Please.” Another sob, but Sevo keeps on, even as this world is growing dark, and that other scene brighter. “Fer me. I… promise, pr… mise…”
As he fades, even unable to hear that ragged promise from his lover’s lips, Sevo feels peace.
When he wakes, he’s in his lover’s arms, and he has a new wedding ring on his finger. Sevo knows that in this world he can control what happens. And he’ll not get sick. He’ll wait until his lover can really be there, instead of this version from his mind.
Heaven is lonely, but he can wait.
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