Learning To Count(Otabek x Yuri) [boyxboy]

Chapter Eighteen

Yuri's leg bounced uncontrollably the entire journey to the doctor's. He'd remembered a longer journey the first time, but he assumed it was just his nerves speeding everything up. His leg continued to bounce in this way right up until the moment he was called in to his appointment. Otabek sat with him and gripped his hand tightly for as long as he could, but he could only bring family members into the appointment and he didn't think Otabek could pass as his brother. His mother's expression of consternation mirrored his own troubled feelings as they sat down opposite the doctor. He couldn't even remember her name after the amount of medical professionals he'd been sent to.
'Yuri, hi,' The Doctor smiled broadly at him, shuffling a few papers on her desk and slipped one sheet to the front, eyeing it up before she spoke again. 'We need to discuss the results of the blood tests and your other checkups.'
When she appropriated the professional detachment required to deliver bad news Yuri knew it wasn't going to sound so good for him. He felt his mother tense beside him and he knew she had sensed this too.
'Your heart is very irregular, though I'm sure you are aware of this already, but also your blood pressure is incredibly low and you are severely deficient in... Well, in everything. Your kidneys are showing early signs of failure- this is most likely what's causing the stomach aches you told me about. To put it plainly, I would estimate that if you continue to resist treatment you have a maximum of four months left to live.'
He felt the air leave his lungs and his syncopated heartbeat slow down further. Why was he so surprised? He'd known for a long time this was probably going to kill him, but being given what was, in effect, a death sentence changed his perspective. He was well and truly dying and suddenly it felt very inescapable, making him almost regret the weeks he'd spent deceiving everyone at the clinic. Perhaps if he'd tried he might not have ended up where he was now, with everything he did being numbered. The days he had left were limited. Each time he closed his eyes it was counting down to the last time he ever would. Truth be told, he was afraid- in fact, he was terrified. He didn't want to die like this, in so much pain and feeling like he had wasted his entire life trying to achieve something as shallow as thin. What did thinness even award him other than a premature date on his gravestone and months of agonising? He barely even noticed his mother's tears. He couldn't think clearly and everything had condensed into a tiny bubble surrounding him. The doctor was still talking about alternative treatment and the medical help she could offer but he had tuned out the second she'd officially told him when he was going to die. He'd thought he had at least a year left of life- he had never thought he was that sick. He looked down at his thighs, their almost uniform straightness from top to bottom, and wondered how everybody else saw them. He could still see fat clinging with a vicious tenacity to his bones, but hearing that he was about to die put things in perspective with his dysmorphia. Maybe he wasn't as fat as he thought he was. Recently he'd even begun to think of himself as borderline underweight, but if he really was as large as he thought he was then there was no possibility of him dying. He could either deny that he was dying and claim that he was still as fat as ever or he could try to heal himself before his time was up. He wanted more than ever to get better now. As stupid as it might appear to an outsider who has not suffered at the barbed-wire hands of anorexia, this decision was impossible to follow through on. However much he might want to, it would still be unimaginably difficult to put food in his mouth and not throw it up just minutes later. He'd made so much progress, as sick as it sounded, so was he really willing to give all of that up, even if it meant it would save his life? Where had all his 'I'll die happy if I die skinny' bravado gone? He'd lived according to his own stupid rules for so long that he didn't know how to break them anymore. Even the little things such as playing football with his friends had become marred by his eating disorder- now all he thought about was how many calories he was burning.
Still, the thought haunted him that he was dying. If he didn't choose recovery he was going to die in a matter of weeks, no question about it. Never again would he taste his mother's cooking or be able to hug her without her wondering if it was the last time. He looked across at the woman who had singlehandedly raised him from birth, giving him the best life he could have ever asked for, now trying her best to stay composed for him as usual. She had been the one holding his hand when he cried starting primary school, shushing him and telling him to 'go and be a big boy'. She had also seen him off to secondary school, when he'd refused to allow her to drive him in on his first day. She'd rolled her eyes but smiled all the same and fixed his tie for him (which he later messed up again so he didn't look like a knob). She had kissed every bumped head, bandaged every scraped knee, wiped away every tear until he'd begun to hide them. Now she had to drive him all across the country to find anybody who could help her dying son and she was at the blunt end of every judging stare he received, assuming her to be a bad mother. She had still loved him unconditionally throughout all of it and now he was taking away her only close family. He was murdering her only son. All of this said, she had never tried to understand why he was doing this- not that he knew himself, but it upset him nonetheless that she acted as if he was only doing to upset other people. The last thing he wanted was to cause anybody harm, although it seemed that this was all he was achieving at this point. He branched out from his immediate family to muse over who else would be affected by his death. His friends would probably cry and most of his year would (he hoped) go to his funeral. They'd have an assembly- they had when a year eight had been killed in a car accident when he'd been in year nine- where they'd talk about how much of an asset he'd been to the school and how much everybody would miss him. Undoubtedly they'd launch some big campaign against eating disorders and up awareness of the counselling services provided, putting up posters everywhere about how to spot an eating disorder and pretending they had no idea how severe his own was. A lot of people assumed blindly that since he was seeing doctors he was getting better. At least that way they made less fuss, but it was scary all the while to see how easily they could ignore it. All the overbearing mothers from school would most likely try to shove unwarranted advice down his defenceless mother's throat, telling her to do this and that even though they'd never lost a child, especially not to such a terrible thing.
Above all of this, there was Otabek... He would be devastated, and it wasn't out of the question that he'd blame himself for not intervening more proactively. What he didn't realise was that he'd helped Yuri in numerous ways by just being around at some of his worst moments and passing no judgement, instead offering unconditional support. He had no idea how to tell him what he now knew- that he had just months to live if he didn't recover.
'What you have to keep in mind,' The doctor continued, and this was the moment his mind drifted back to the real world. 'Is that he has a real chance of a quick recovery if he applies himself.'
It sounded like he was studying for an exam, not trying to alter his brain to be less posed against itself and save his own life in the process.
'You have many options, so I don't want you to feel like this is an ending. Anorexia is not a terminal illness, however bad it gets- there's always hope.'
He didn't feel very hopeful. Four months to recover? He'd had far longer than that already and been given so many chances that now he was on his last one it was so tempting to give up completely and succumb to the grave that had been softly beckoning him ever since this had started.
'Thank you,' His mother put a hand on his shoulder to signal that they had received their cue to leave. 'I'll talk to the receptionist about booking the next appointment, shall I?'
'Please,' The doctor smiled again. Yuri had come to believe that this smile was meaningless, nothing more than a mask to cover an emotionless shell. 'I'll see you next time. Goodbye, Yuri.'
'Bye,' He mumbled, trailing after his mum like a ghost. She kept a firm guiding hand on his shoulder, steering him back to the waiting room where his boyfriend was sat looking very pained and slightly hopeful. He took one look at him and he knew he couldn't crush that hope just yet. He could lie just a little longer.
'I'll tell him,' Yuri whispered into his mum's ear in case he jumped the gun and blurted out everything they'd just been told.
'How was it?' Otabek stood up, his hands clasped together.
'Fine,' Yuri forced a smile, having to dig his nails into his palm to stop himself from tearing up. 'Let's go.'
They settled into step together, Yuri making sure to walk faster than his mum so she wouldn't overhear the lies he was about to tell.
'She says I'm doing well,' He kept his voice light and carefree. 'I've gained weight in the last week and my heart's much better.'
'Really?' Otabek beamed and Yuri realised how stupid he was to be lying to him. It would only shatter his heart further in the long run. He couldn't turn back now; he would continue this deception to the grave, which certainly wasn't very far.
'Yeah. I really am getting better.'