Trial: Chapter 1
Title: Trial
Author: 2he_re (Heather and Reena)
Fandom: Jonas Brothers
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: M-preg, Joe/Nick
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, the real people in it are used without their permission and we do not own them or have any copyright to any part of any of them. We do not believe any of this happened, is likely to happen, or will happen. It is simply a story created around known facts about those involved.
A/N: For our lovely mother hen's birthday, may she have a lovely one.
Summary:
All Nick wants is a cure.
~*~
“I don’t know why you’re doing this,” Joe mumbled as he gripped the top bunk rail for stability. He watched as his little brother dumped the new pills into his palm for the first time, swinging back and forth with the motion of the bus. They’d gotten the prescription only the other day from the diabetes specialist - who got buttloads of money because Nick said it was okay to screw himself up, pretending whatever he took was helping, when in reality it was eating him alive. But that wasn’t what the specialist said. No, why would the specialist say something like that? The specialist who helped concoct this newfangled drug wanted money and fame and fortune and rattled off to Nick that this would be the cure.
Nick believed the bullshit he was given. “It’ll help,” he replied to his older brother. He shook the two little white capsules around, before putting them into his mouth. His tongue pushed them back, and he took a gulp of water. He made a face as the oversized tablets went down. He had never liked anything going into his throat whole.
“How’s taking pills not labeled safe by the FDA helping?” Joe shuffled around a little on the moving bus.
Nick rolled his eyes in response. “The FDA hasn’t approved a lot of drugs that are used in other countries that work perfectly fine. The FDA has some problems.”
“This isn’t a drug that’s been approved in another country, Nick. It isn’t even out of the lab yet.”
“Joe,” Nick whined, sitting down on his bottom bunk.
“They said it could mess you up for life.”
“They also said it could cure me.”
“No,” Joe replied. “They said it could help in the development and research of a cure and could become a substitute for monitored insulin. It’s a clinical trial. They don’t know anything. They want money. If the drug goes through, they get billions, no, trillions. They don’t care if they mess up one person along the way to gain what they want.”
Nick sighed. “This isn’t a total risk, Joe. I’m sorry if that’s something you don’t understand.”
“No, it is a total risk. You’re in the second phase run of the drug.”
“Which means I’ll be monitored more than if I did a run for them later in the development of the drug, or if I had been earlier. First phase means people without the disease, remember?”
“Yeah, right now’s just the perfect time to offer your body up like a slut, couldn’t be more monitored than this when everyone’s waiting for you to swell up like a balloon.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “You’re just being pessimistic. They’ve already figured out the side effects; what I’m doing, it’s just gathering information to get the drug the go ahead. Relax, they promised nothing tragic would happen to me. I’m not going to die or anything.”
“They can’t promise you anything,” Joe snapped. “That’s why you signed the waiver, saying you wouldn’t hold them liable if anything happened. They don’t care what happens to you. They’re in it for the hundred billions the drug can make them.” Joe ran a hand through his hair as Nick stubbornly refused to acknowledge his words and the fact that the drug could kill him and the makers wouldn’t care either way.
It was a new drug, almost straight out of the bio-lab. The specialist said it was the future, the cure, and Nick could have a part in it. The specialist sold the idea, the drug, to Nick as one day replacing the need for monitored insulin, with a device or otherwise. Everyone who had persuaded Nick into agreeing to the clinical trial had said it would be a cure; would allow people everywhere to live without what he had, without going through all the same frustration he had. They sold that idea of a world without Type 1 diabetes to Nick, and he ate it right up, the whole family had, except for Joe.
Joe considered it one big fucking lie, and Nick had fallen hard for it.
They’d been told time and time again that Nick would never out grow diabetes, because his body would never start functioning properly. Joe remembered the doctor saying Nick would live with Type 1 diabetes for the rest of his life and had to learn how to deal with it. There were things to make life easier, but there wouldn’t ever be a cure without other, horrible side effects. The doctor had told them to never get their hopes up and anyone claiming they could fix Nick was working a sham.
So they went through a bout of grief, accepted Nick’s medical status, and moved on.
Joe thought Nick dealt with the whole thing perfectly fine. He ate what he could eat, never complained about not getting to eat something, indulged when he wanted and never seemed inhibited by the OmniPod. So why did he think he had to put his life on the line for some stupid trial? There were others to do that. People less important than his little brother who weren’t spending their every waking hour trying to give hope to others. Nick was a figure head. It was stupid, irresponsible, and reckless to give him some trial drug. Especially if it destroyed him. Then all the kids would be, “Oh no, look, he’s funny now, like bad funny, from taking something that could help him. Nuh-uh, I’m not taking anything for my health anymore.”
“Joe,” Nick pleaded, more forcefully this time. “If anything is going to go wrong, which I doubt it is, they’ll catch it. They’ll make me go off the drug, or they’ll fix it or whatever. I promise if anything strange starts happening to me, I’ll go off it anyway. I’m not going to be addicted or something. And we have weekly visits to the doctor, weekly blood tests. I’m allowed insulin if I need it, and I’ll finally be able to eat whatever I want, do whatever I want without a little OmniPod growth.”Nick tried to grin at his “joke”. Joe didn’t really find it funny, and Nick’s grin looked like a grimace. “I’ll be normal except for a pill or two and almost everyone takes pills. By looking at me, you couldn’t know there was something wrong with me. There wouldn’t be anything wrong with me. The pill would fix that.”
Joe bit the inside of his cheek, trying to keep from saying everything he thought. Nick would not appreciate his pessimisticness.
Nick offered a small smile. “You know I have to do this.”
Joe exploded. “No! No you don’t. Never. Never do you have to put yourself on the line for some sort of drug, especially when we’re sure it won’t work and will mess you up.”
“Well how do you know that?” the younger demanded. He glared at Joe, what was his problem? “You don’t know what the drug can and can’t do.”
“It will fucking screw you up!”
“Joe!”
Joe turned away, hand on the back of his neck. “Sorry,” he mumbled. He sat down on the bunk across from Nick, the two avoiding eyes. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “It’s just… You know, it could -“
“I know.”
“All over and…”
“Hey, I know.”
“No you don’t.”
“Yes, I-“
“Look,” Joe rushed on, words coming quick and accusing, “you’re not going to lose a brother over this if something goes wrong. I’m going to. And you’re the one carrying the band right now. If you drop out, off the planet, because of this thing everything we worked so hard for, everything, is going to vanish, and then where are we all going to be? With a sick you in a hospital with needles poked into you as they try to find out what the hell’s happening, with bills piling up and no way of paying them and Mom crying and Dad yelling and Kevin going off to live somewhere else, with me stuck in the middle, trying to sort things out as you’re lying on your death bed and Frankie’s not going to understand why you’ll never play ball with him again, while behind him the whole world’s crying as they find out you couldn’t succeed in finding this ‘cure’ that you spent most of your life supporting the development of and then what would happen once they find out that the ‘cure’ killed you? What are they-“
“Stop!” Nick screamed. “God, for Christ’s sake Joe, just stop...”
Joe looked down, pressing his hands together, pulling at the skin of his lip with his teeth. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Nick muttered back, exasperated, confused, unsure. “Okay then.” A silence fell between the two brothers. Joe wished he could call it comfortable.
“Are you at least still taking insulin, because-“
“Shut up.”
“I know you said-“
“Damn it!” Nick stood, bearing down on Joe in the too tight space. “Do you think I’m not old enough or smart enough to know anything? I know what I’m getting into. I’m a big boy, I can read a stupid informed consent doc and a pill bottle label. And while you say I ‘could’ die, I know I’m also helping thousands of people. Thousands, Joe. One life is worth thousands.”
“So you’re admitting this will kill you?” Nick opened his mouth to speak, but Joe barreled on, nose wrinkled in disgust. “Do you already have your funeral planned out, suicide note written?”
“I’m not suicidal,” Nick hissed.
Joe scoffed. “Sure you’re not.”
Nick stormed out of the bunk area, the thin door clattering behind him, between the brothers.
Joe ran stiff hand through his hair, drawing in a jagged breath. Nick couldn’t know a doctor would catch something before everything went wrong. The way they would know if something was wrong was because there would be something wrong. You couldn’t catch something that wasn’t there.
Nick said he was helping thousands this way. He said it in the same way people talk about war. A few men would put down their lives so the rest of the world could live in peace, without fear.
Joe knew Nick desperately wanted a cure. Hell, he understood why, even if Nick never complained about having to watch what he ate or checking his levels. Fuck, Joe would never want to be labeled a freak for having something not everyone did, being an abnormality. He only wondered when the change had come to Nick for him to put his life on line to become normal. They were nothing like normal and would never be. What was one more abnormality?
Kevin popped into the bunk area, and Joe scowled at him. “I don’t want to talk,” he said before Kevin could get a word in edgewise. Because that was all Kevin ever wanted to do: talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Kevin thought talking solved everything, healed all wounds, something like that. Joe didn’t like talking, unless it gave him something he wanted.
His talk to Nick before was supposed to have gotten Nick to end the clinical trial. Ha.
Kevin shook his head, a small smile on his face. “You never want to talk.”
Joe said nothing, looking down at his fingers, hanging between his knees. Go away, he thought. Go away, go away.
“What was getting Nick so riled up?”
“Go away, Kevin.”
Kevin sighed, sitting down on the bunk next to Joe. Joe tried to scoot away, but Kevin put a hand on Joe’s knee. “If I don’t talk, do you still want me to go away?”
Joe shrugged. “If we don’t talk, you don’t have to go.”
Kevin stayed, and the younger fidgeted with the warmth from Kevin’s had. He hadn’t really expected Kevin to stay. He wanted his brother gone, to tell the honest truth. He wanted to find something to take his anger out on, let it be a video game or some stupid song writing.
He didn’t understand how Nick could be so fucking stupid and agree to such an insane thing. A clinical trial, phase two.
“You sure you don’t want to talk?” Kevin butted in.
Joe growled. “Get out.”
“You’re on my bunk.”
“You don’t even bunk with us anymore. You get an SUV with your wife,” Joe spat.
Kevin flinched away, hand leaving Joe’s knee. Joe rolled his eyes at the action. What had Kevin expected, getting a wife and still touring with them all? Joe crossed his arms, staring angrily out at where Nick had sat before. Kevin pursed his lips, neither said anything. Joe could hear Nick’s clipped words through the door, insisting how everything was fine and to stop asking him.
“You tried to talk to him about the clinical trial, didn’t you?” Joe jumped at Kevin’s voice. He hadn’t betted on Kevin talking and didn’t particularly want him to continue. “You know, they could be feeding him a placebo. So there’s nothing to worry about.”
Joe snorted. “A placebo? Really? So we’d just have to wait for him to pass out because of off sugar level and all will be fine?” Kevin opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came to mind that would satisfy his brother’s sharp comments. “Really Kevin, get a clue.”
“You know his mind’s set on this,” Kevin finally said, like Joe didn’t already know that.
“Obviously set on killing himself.”
Kevin’s eyes flashed. “So that’s what you said to him? What made you think he wouldn’t take a dosage because of that?” Kevin gritted his teeth at Joe’s refusal to respond. “He’s not suicidal, you know that, and it was stupid of you to say.”
“Right, sorry, that’s my thing.”
“Joe, I didn’t -“
“Yeah, whatever.” Joe pushed himself up off the bunk, planning on going somewhere, but having nowhere to go. He settled on climbing into his bunk, the one Nick had sat on. Kevin gave him a disapproving look, the kind that had become more common recently, since Dad had started to take on clients, and Mom tried increasingly hard to hold on to the ties of all her old friends back at home. In other words, Kevin, for whatever reason, had christened himself the one to take up the parenting where it had started to slack.
Joe slid the curtain across the bunk, shutting Kevin’s view of him. He heard his brother sigh. Joe pulled out his iPod and started blasting the first song that came on into his ears like nothing was wrong, because that was the way they did it around here. Forget and move on. Kevin seemed to be the only one who ever had that problem.
~*~