kings of babylon [completed]

sick

Eve knew what was happening. When he was with Luc, it could slip from his mind. When he toyed with herbs and candles and played with Ponyu, he could pretend he didn't know how long he had left. The past half year, it was even easier, even as he got worse, because every day was a new journey with a friend, something he'd never had before. But he couldn't escape it.

For Non-Hodgkins lymphoma cancer, the survival rate was relatively high. It was past fifty percent at very least, and Eve held onto that, especially as the years passed.

He was fourteen when he was diagnosed. Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary until he went to his annual check up and he was told his lymph nodes were swollen. His doctor has said not to worry about it, but they went and did some tests anyways. Cancer ran in the family, but Aunt Alice had recovered with only a few chest scars, so Eve could get through this.

That's what his parents had said. Eve believed it, especially when he hit his fifteenth birthday. His sixteenth rolled around and he was convinced he could move past this... then the night sweats started. Eve began feeling pains in his stomach and blackouts were a monthly thing. His parents urged him to start chemo or radiation therapy, but he refused. Eve saw what chemo did to people, and he was absolutely not going to succumb to that, plus he was convinced that maybe, just maybe he could pull an Aunt Alice and push through it with only a few scars.

Eve was even more convinced of this when he passed his seventeenth birthday. But then his already crescent moon body waned even more. He was tired eighty percent of the time and had little to no appetite. He was getting worse but he refused to believe it. He threw himself into those little hobbies even harder, desperate not to think of death or loneliness or any of the terrible things that were pressing into him suffocatingly.

And the last seven or so months, he succeeded, thanks to Luc. Eve couldn't possibly feel bad when he had Luc with him, and, in recent months, it had seemed as though Luc never left his side.

Until the pain became too severe for Eve to brave without hospital assistance. Until he started hallucinating and not keeping down any food at all. He was in stage four, he knew, there was no going back.

Eve's parents were pretty much always in the room when Eve was conscious, so he barely saw Luc, and even when he did, it was almost like the other man couldn't bear to be in the room. It hurt Eve's feelings, but he said nothing.

In the time he was conscious and aware, he made arrangements. Eve told his parents that he was thankful they took care of him and loved him and had always supported him, in everything. When the cancer diagnosis brought mood swings. When the cancer diagnosis brought weeks of depression. When the hospital bills made their shoulders sag. Eve couldn't fully articulate how grateful he was, but tried anyways. His mother and father, after this, had wrapped themselves around Eve's decaying body and told him they loved him too, that they understood, but he'd be okay. Eve pretended to believe it.

His brother, Harry, came by too. Talking to his parents was easy, he'd basically said all those things before, but he'd never had to say these things to Harry.

Harry was four years older than Eve, and Eve had always looked up to him, as younger siblings often did. Harry was in college to be a cop, and on the side he performed musical theatre. He'd always been open about what he had passion for and was constantly smiling and laughing, and was great with people. Eve had always wanted to be like that but, as they got older, and Harry was consumed with his life and Eve with his, they grew apart.

Eve had been awake for less than an hour and was getting pain meds pumped into him when Harry entered the hospital room, his hands in his pockets, looking almost awkward, which Eve would've never used to describe his brother.