[Fic] Hard Lines: Chapter 6
Rating: PG-13 (Likely to turn NC-17 later, but undetermined)
Beta: My lovely Laura aka- gottriplets and the lovely Rebecca (andiheardeverything) both of whom are the only reason this fic looks anything remotely coherent or medically accurate ;)
Warnings: Cancer, discussions of terminal illness and infidelity (NO character death ;), for those of you who are triggered by that )
Summary: Blaine’s elaborate plans for the “best senior year ever” get brought to a halt and his dreams of a future are stripped away when he discovers that the headaches he’s been having, aren’t really headaches at all and all of his strange behavior lately, including cheating on Kurt, can all blamed on one thing - there’s a tumor growing inside of his brain that’s doing it’s best to kill him. (AU post “The New Rachel”)
AN: Thank you for all the lovely responses I got about this story. I'll be posting every Friday for now.
Tumblr // FF.net // AO3
Previous Chapters: Prologue // Chapter 1 // Chapter 2 // Chapter 3 // Chapter 4 // Chapter 5
****
Blaine lay on the cool metal table and did his best to stay completely still as the radiation therapist started arranging his body like a toy, putting him into place for his treatment. He tried to force his heart rate to slow down, as if that might somehow negatively affect how the treatment worked. He tried to will his hands to stop sweating so much - what if it made him slip out of position? If he moved, the radiation could hit the wrong part of his brain and destroy his healthy cells instead and he didn’t have enough of those to spare.
Even with the face mask on to help him stay in position, he still thought he was going to mess it up somehow.
What if he had a seizure? What would happen then? Would the face mask hurt as his body thrashed around against his will? Would the radiation hit the wrong part of his brain as he violently shook? If he didn’t have a seizure, it might still hurt. Everyone told him it wouldn’t, but what if they were lying? How could shooting high doses of radiation into his head not hurt?
He tried not to think about any of it. The message boards he’d been reading all morning suggested that he focused on something outside of the cancer to get him through it, but he didn’t see how that was realistic. How could he stop his mind from focusing on all the things that could go wrong when every other second he was getting a new instruction?
“It’s important that you stay still.”
“Deep, even breaths.”
“Move your arm up,” she’d say as she manhandled him like he was a doll.
“Relax.”
Nevertheless, he closed his eyes and took a deep, calming breath. To distract himself, he began to run through their Sectionals set list in his mind, determined to make it through this session without sending himself into a panic attack.
“Okay, you’re all set,” the therapist said with an enthusiastic smile like his pediatrician used to wear when he was five and had just been given a shot. “I’ll be in the room right next door. It’ll be over before you know it.”
Once the massive machine was turned on and began to slowly move around his head, it probably took less than five minutes. To the people in the other room, he was positive that the entire process felt quick and painless. Five minutes went by incredibly fast when you didn’t have to wear a mask that made you feel like Hannibal Lector.
He was convinced it wouldn’t ever end and he had to stop running through the songs for Glee because he kept seeing himself falling off stage and letting his team down again, just like he had in Grease. Instead, he thought about what he would be doing right now if he never got cancer. He’d be in English class with Artie. They were reading The Hobbit which just figured. Of course his teacher would wait until he couldn’t come to class to start reading something cool.
His skin itched and he wasn’t sure if it was from the radiation or if he was just being paranoid, but either way he couldn’t move to scratch it and that was driving him crazy. Then his only working leg started to tingle in a way that would have been unfamiliar if it weren’t for the tumor growing inside of his head. If the machine ever stopped and he was allowed to move again, he still wouldn’t be able to walk which was just his luck.
The radiation is going to work, he said to himself. It’s going to work, then you’re going to go to Chicago and that doctor will agree to operate and you will get through this just like you’ve gotten through every other hardship in your life. Nothing bad ever lasts forever, isn’t that what his mom always said?
After what must have been the longest five minutes in history, the radiation therapist finally came back in and started unscrewing the mask that was holding him to the table.
“See, that wasn’t so bad?” she said with a kind smile.
“Speak for yourself,” he muttered, knowing he was being rude but unable to stop himself. Why did people always act so unnaturally cheerful around cancer patients?
“How do you feel?” she asked as she helped him sit up on the table. He moved to swing his legs around, but of course, only the broken one obeyed and before Blaine could even stop himself or fully understand why, he was crying.
“Hey now, it’s okay,” she said, immediately bringing a hand to his head to check for a temperature. “I can help you, just talk to me. What’s going on?”
“My leg,” he whispered, his entire face flaming in shame as tears continued to fall against his will.
“Can you feel this?” she asked him as she began tapping at both of his feet. He nodded his head.
“I can feel it, I just can’t make it move,” he said, frustrated.
“It’s okay,” she tried to soothe him. “Your tumor is pushing on your motor cortex; we knew this would be a symptom. It’ll pass soon enough. Why don’t I go and get you a wheelchair for now.”
“If my mom sees me in a wheelchair she’s going to freak out,” he groaned, as he angrily clutched at the front of his pants trying to make his leg work through sheer force of will.
“You have cancer, sweetheart. Your mother is worried either way,” she said. “At least this way we can get you out of this room and somewhere more relaxing. I’m sure all the stress of the morning is just catching up with your body.”
“So you’re saying I’m causing this to happen? Like I’m the Incredible Hulk or something and if I can just keep from getting angry I won’t turn into an uncontrollable monster?” he said sarcastically.
“More or less. I’m saying that the stress isn’t helping.”
“I don’t want my mom to see me like this,” he said, resigned to the fact that there wasn’t much he could do about the matter.
“Sweetheart, you can’t stay here. What would you like me to do?” she asked.
“Make my leg work,” he said, unable to control his snarky comments today. Thankfully, she took it all in stride and he had to wonder how often she had to deal with bratty patients.
“Let’s get you into a chair and you can head on home for the day. I’m sure you’ll be more comfortable there than here,” she said with a smile that he didn’t deserve in the least.
“I’m sorry. I know this isn’t your fault,” he said, gaining a better control over his emotions and he began talking himself off of the ledge he was on. He was being ridiculous and unforgivably rude.
“It’s not yours, either.”
Funny how having a tumor could excuse all sorts of otherwise deplorable behavior, he thought. It wasn’t right. He shouldn’t be allowed to treat people with less respect just because he had cancer. This wasn’t the type of guy he wanted to turn into. Would this be how people remembered him when he died? Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
He needed to be better than this disease - if not for himself, then at least for the people around him.
“How do you feel?” his mom asked as he was rolled out into the lobby where Kurt and his parents were waiting for him.
“My leg went numb,” he said, eyes glued to his cast. He couldn’t bring himself to look up and see the worry in their eyes or worse, the pity.
“Is that normal?” Kurt asked.
“Completely,” she explained. “If it doesn’t go away in an hour or so, we can run some more tests, but I don’t think that will be an issue.”
“It won’t have permanent effects?” his dad asked.
“Oh, God,” Blaine groaned, he hadn’t even considered the fact that this might last forever.
Then again, forever might not be that long if the treatment didn’t work.
“Like I said, I think the symptom will pass soon enough. If it doesn’t, we can run some tests but I see no reason to worry about it right now,” she explained.
“How do you feel?” his mom asked, patting him on the head like he was a dog. “Do you feel like it worked?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “It’s only the first treatment; I doubt I’d be able to tell.”
“What was it like?” Kurt asked.
“Claustrophobic, but I guess I’ll get used to it,” he said with a shrug, trying to remain positive as they began pushing him along towards the exit and his dad ran ahead of them to bring the car around. The old saying that misery loves company wasn’t really true and Blaine didn’t want to push everyone away by complaining all of the time. He was sure he really would get used to it eventually.
“I’ll get easier every time you go,” his mom said with an encouraging smile. “And before you know it, you’ll be cancer-free and you can go back to doing normal stuff again!”
“Right,” Blaine said, biting his tongue. He’d promised himself that he was going to try and fight and part of that was letting himself believe that he could actually do this.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
No, he was going to beat this. He just had to survive the next 8 weeks of intensive treatment. They just had to find one doctor willing to operate...
****
After a long two weeks of wearing an air cast that prohibited him from moving his wrist, he was finally able to trade it in for a simple elastic brace, enabling him to finally use two crutches when walking. It was amazing how much easier it was for him to get around now, even with his leg still in a cast. Therefore, when it came time to leave their hotel room and head to Northwestern Memorial for his appointment, he outright refused to take a cab. Their visit was too short to actually take in any of the site so he’d insisted on walking. At least that way he’d be sure to see something, even if it was only five minutes of Michigan Avenue.
He hobbled along the sidewalk, trying to devise a plan to convince his mother that they needed to go shopping. The Ralph Lauren store they passed was calling his name and after surviving his first week of radiation he figured he deserved at least a few new sweaters, perhaps that jacket he’d seen in the window of Banana Republic?
The hospital was only a few blocks from the hotel and Blaine could manage it easily but his mother was glued to his left and his father to his right, both looking at him like they thought he would fall at any moment. He felt like a baby again taking his first steps on his own. In fact, no matter how many times his parents assured him that he was fine and tried to go about things like they were business as usual, they kept hovering. At the airport yesterday they’d insisted on a wheelchair. They’d requested a handicap accessible hotel room for his legs. His mom even tried to style his hair for him this morning.
It was too much and it had given him a headache. He’d had a headache since they’d left his radiation treatment yesterday morning, but he hadn’t said anything. Anytime he talked about his symptoms, his dad would get a sad look in his eyes and his mom would nag him about taking his medication. They’d give him some encouraging words that sounded much more helpful on paper than in practice. Then they’d go back to their permanent state of denial. If you asked them, they would say that Blaine was perfectly fine.
As much as he wanted that to be true, it was a lie. On top of the headache, he’d noticed his coordination was off. This morning, he kept trying to pour shampoo into his hand and missing. He’d stumbled several times and there was a big bruise forming on his shoulder from where he’d bumped into the doorframe.
It was getting worse. He wasn’t sure if it was the increased stress, the lack of sleep, or if the tumor was growing; but now his tongue was starting to tingle and go numb. His body was betraying him at a rapid pace and that scared Blaine because the radiation was supposed to be helping shrink the tumor and increased symptoms usually meant that tumor was getting larger.
“Did you email your grandfather back yesterday?” his mother asked.
Blaine had responded to his grandfather, but he just shrugged. It was embarrassing trying to talk when he couldn’t use his tongue. He knew that if he said anything, his words would be slurred. His parents didn’t need to hear him sound like that.
“Blaine Devon, I asked you a question! You don’t just shrug at me, it’s not polite.”
Blaine looked up at her and shrugged again. She opened her mouth to reprimand him again before closing it and giving him a knowing look.
“Oh, sweetheart.” She cupped his face in her hands and he pushed her away. He didn’t want this right now.
Their pity was suffocating and he didn’t want it. What he wanted was to be back home in Ohio with his friends trying to stay awake during US Government by passing notes back and forth. Or lying in Kurt’s bed listening to Adele and Florence while reading the latest issue of Vogue. He wanted to be at home sleeping in his own bed, not on his way to get a second opinion because he had cancer and his doctor told him it was inoperable.
“You know it’s just because you’re not sleeping. They said it gets worse when you’re not taking care of your body. Don’t worry; the doctor we’re seeing today can help you.”
Blaine rolled his eyes. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe this doctor could help him; he had high hopes based off of the research he’d done. That was all it was though, hope. He wanted to remind her that they might not get the news she wanted to hear today. She should be prepared for the worst so that she wouldn’t cry and throw a fit like she had in the hospital last week. He couldn’t tell her any of that though. Even if he could speak clearly, she would never be willing to listen.
“Hey, Sport,” his dad said, squeezing his shoulder encouragingly. “Why don’t we go check out Millennium Park after the appointment? They’ve got a lot of cool street art and we can stop by the Art Institute, too. It’s right there.”
Blaine was about to nod, because anything but a hospital sounded like a good plan to him and he’d always loved art. He’d love to spend some time with his dad doing something that he enjoyed doing. He’d love to pretend this was a family vacation instead of a medical obligation. Before he could agree, his mother started nagging his dad.
“Really, Bill? He’s sick - he can’t be outside, It’s freezing. He needs rest; how do you expect him to get better? What are you thinking?”
“He’s a kid,” his dad said.
They continued to argue about what was best for him as if he wasn’t standing right between them. They’d been neglecting to include him in any decisions about his health which was bad enough, but now he couldn’t even be allowed to say whether or not he wanted to go check out some street art at the park? Wasn’t it good for him to get out and keep moving as long as he could? Those message boards had said it was a good idea for him to get out and do the things he loved because it would keep his body moving, as well as keep his mind focused on the positive things.
If he could talk, he would have cut in and reminded his mother that allowing him to do the things he enjoyed was exactly the kind of thing the preached about in her self-help books, but he couldn’t speak so it was a moot point.
He pushed them away and moved ahead of them as fast as his crutches could take him. He just needed some distance and wanted to be anywhere but there.
“Blaine!” he could hear his mother calling after him.
“Let him go,” his dad said. “He’s not even out of eyesight.”
Thankful that for once in his life, it seemed like his dad understood his need for space, he pressed ahead. As he paused at the next crosswalk, he pulled his headphones out of his pocket and stuffed them into his ears, thankful for the invention of hands free headsets since walking while talking on the phone was pretty much impossible with a broken leg.
There was only one voice he wanted to hear right now.
He quickly found Kurt’s name in his contacts list and pressed the call button.
“Hey,” Kurt answered with his loving voice. “You finished early. I thought you weren’t supposed to be done until later on this afternoon? What happened?”
Blaine felt stupid; he couldn’t even say anything. He didn’t know why he picked up the phone; he should have just texted Kurt. Only he knew there was very little that would have calmed him down besides hearing his boyfriend tell him it would be okay.
“Blaine?” Kurt asked, when he didn’t respond.
Blaine let out a frustrated groan.
“Oh,” Kurt whispered, understanding far more than Blaine had given him. “It’s alright, okay? It’s going to be alright. You know it doesn’t usually last that long. Just try to breathe. The doctor said that stress can make your symptoms worse. It’s going to be alright, you don’t need to worry. Okay?”
Blaine let out something between a sigh and a whine. Kurt had already started to make him feel better, but Blaine was still embarrassed that he couldn’t even say anything. He’d called Kurt on the phone and couldn’t do anything more than grunt at him. He was the world’s best dressed caveman.
“Is this about your parents?” Kurt asked. “Grunt or something if it is?”
Blaine grumbled something unintelligibly that, on a normal day, one where his body cooperated with him, would have been a yes.
“They love you. They are just handling this the best way that they can. You have to cut them some slack. It’s not an easy thing to wrap their mind around. I’m still trying to get used to the idea,” he said.
Blaine knew that Kurt was right. Kurt was always right. It was one of the reasons Blaine loved him so much. He always knew the right thing to say to calm him down and make him feel better. He was always so strong, like a rock. Blaine wished he had some of that strength. He could use it right about now.
“Just try to be patient,” he continued. “You told yourself that you were going to try. If this doctor can’t help you then he can’t help you, but at least you tried. The worst thing he can do is say no and then you’ll be exactly where you are now. But you have to give somebody the chance to say yes, that’s the only way you’ll be able to fight this. That’s all your parents are doing, they are trying to help you fight this the only way they know how.”
“I-ov-eww-ooo,” Blaine said, hoping Kurt understood what he was saying. He blushed, ashamed of how his voice sounded. Wasn’t it enough that the tumor was taking his life, did it really need to take his voice, too? He realized that he needed to stop hiding from Kurt. If his boyfriend was really in it for the long haul like he said he was, he had a lot worse than a few slurred ‘I love you’s’ ahead of him.
“I love you, too. Okay? So much.” Blaine could hear the smile in his voice. “Listen, I’m running out the door that that interview Isabelle wants me to do and you should really hang up and get back to whatever it was you were doing. Text me when you’re finished and have some news okay?”
They hung up the phone and Blaine realized that he was standing in front of the hospital. It was big, much bigger than his hospital back in Ohio. It didn’t even look like a hospital, it looked like an entrance to one of the city’s many skyscraper offices, and it was just so tall. As he peered through the door, he saw a big purple banner with the hospital’s logo and the words, “Welcome to One of America’s Best Hospitals.”
His stomach began to bubble with nerves and everything suddenly got a whole lot more real. This was it. One of the best doctors in the country was going to take a scan of his brain and tell him if he was going to be able to operate or not. He was going to tell Blaine if he was going to survive or not.
The stakes were suddenly higher than he could reach and no matter how much Kurt’s phone call had calmed him down, it was worthless in the face of all of this.
It was only a minute later that his parents finally caught back up to him and this time, he felt himself reaching out for his mom’s hand. No matter how annoyed he had been with them previously, there was no way he was going to be able to go through those doors without his parents there to reassure him it would all be okay.
“These people can only help us, okay?” his father said with a sympathetic smile.
“It’s going to be alright, Baby.” His mom squeezed his hand tightly.
Blaine worried his bottom lip, but nodded bravely. He followed in after his father; his mother, thankfully, didn’t leave his side. They entered into the spacious lobby and Blaine was surprised to see that there weren’t any bright and obvious signs directing people where to go. Everything looked rather elegant and sleek. It looked expensive. He didn’t want to think about how much an appointment like this was going to cost his parents.
After speaking to somebody at the reception desk, they were handed a map and directed towards the elevators. As they waited for their elevator to arrive, Blaine looked down at the map they’d been given. This hospital was much bigger than the one he had been going to in Ohio. There were several buildings that belonged to the hospital scattered throughout the neighborhood and the list of wings the hospital had was extensive. He didn’t realize doctors could specialize in so many different things. He supposed that was supposed to be part of the appeal, the more specialized the doctor, the better the care.
What was the difference between the cancer center and the center for brain tumors and which one would he be going to?
They all walked onto the elevator, silently. None of them had much to say. He could tell that his parents were walking on eggshells with him. He didn’t know how that made him feel. On one hand, it was nice that they were acknowledging his needs for a change. On the other hand, he didn’t want them to treat him like a delicate piece of china. One wrong move and he’d come crashing to the floor, shattered.
They made their way down a few twists and turns, following the signs hanging from the ceiling until they finally reached the wing for brain tumors. The sign alone made his head pound harder.
“Checking in for Blaine Anderson,” his mother said to the nurse at the front desk. Blaine and his father took a seat and let his mom handle things. She always felt better when she could be in charge of something and Blaine was happy to let her, he wasn’t feeling all that great and could stand to sit down.
“Ah, yes. You had an appointment with Dr. Herzog,” the nurse said. “She’s been pulled into an emergency surgery, so she might be awhile. If you’d like, you’re welcome to wait downstairs where we have several dining options, a few coffee shop and even a tea room. I can call you when she is available again?”
Blaine tuned out the conversation as soon as he heard that he was going to be stuck here awhile. Wasn’t that how it always went at hospitals? Hurry up and wait. He looked around at what could possibly be his new home for the next few weeks if they agreed to operate. It was a nice facility. It looked clean and well kept. There were a lot of patients here though, at least fifteen different charts lined the nurse’s desk and Blaine could see more piled up beside the woman.
Did more patients mean that they had a higher success rate? He prayed so because it was going to take a miracle to save him.
There was joyous laughter coming out of one room, while somebody sobbed hysterically in another. A teenage boy pushed his mother around in a wheelchair. A man was helping his father - a man old enough to be Blaine’s grandfather - walk around. That’s when it hit Blaine.
All the patients here were old. They were all real adults, not eighteen year old boys that barely had enough life experience to deserve the title. They’d had their chance to live, he didn’t belong here. Why did he have to have cancer? He was too young.
His head felt like somebody was slamming it repeatedly into a brick wall. His eyes had started swimming from the pain and the room started to dance around him. He knew he was going to be sick; he always got sick when the pain got like this. He stood up to find a bathroom and his legs gave out.
“Blaine!” his father exclaimed, shooting to his feet just in time to catch Blaine before his head hit the wall. His dad lowered him back into his chair and his mom and the nurse quickly made their way over.
“Are you alright?” his mother asked.
Of course he wasn’t alright. What kind of a question was that? He’d just fallen trying to stand up. He was worse than a toddler learning how to walk. It was demeaning. How was he ever supposed to be capable of anything if he couldn’t even get up to go to the bathroom on his own?
Blaine nodded, wanting to just say yes and get her to leave him alone. He didn’t want a speech from her today. The quick movement of his head caused things to start spinning more severely and soon he was throwing up in the middle of the hallway.
When he was finished getting sick all over the black and white tile, he sat up and looked at his parents pleadingly.
“Can we go home?” he asked, or at least tried to say. To his benefit, at least his tongue had started working again and he could actually talk.
His parents didn’t respond, but he could tell they were having a silent argument over his head. He just rolled his eyes.
“Is it your head?” the nurse asked.
Blaine nodded, this time much more slowly and not quite as big. His eyes never left his father. He was silently begging for him to be on Blaine’s side. If he could just get his dad to let him leave, he knew it would only be a matter of time before his mother caved, too. The last thing he wanted was to be admitted to the hospital. He knew the drill. They’d hook him up to an IV and keep him for observation and all of his plans of shopping on Michigan Avenue and trying to at least pretend this was a vacation would be out the window.
“It’s hard to be in a new place,” the nurse said. Her hands went up to cup his face. He wanted to push her away, but she started massaging his head and it actually helped relieve some of the pressure. “A lot of unfamiliar stimuli can be hard for people. You’ll be okay. If you’ll let me, I can admit you and we can get a doctor to give you something for the pain.”
Blaine didn’t want to say yes. He didn’t want to be in the hospital, on what would hopefully be his last few days of freedom before getting a surgery he so desperately needed. He couldn’t deny, however, that he needed some help. He was too overwhelmed and the pills his doctor gave him wouldn’t cut it. He needed something more powerful to stop the constant throbbing. He agreed to being admitted and he could hear his mother give a sigh of relief.
His dad helped him to his feet and slowly, because when they tried to go faster he started to gag again, they made their way over to an empty room. The second his head hit the pillow, he closed his eyes. The florescent lights had been blinding him and once somebody closed the curtains and shut off the lights entirely, he could feel the pain begin to subside minutely. It wasn’t enough for him to turn away the drugs, but it was enough to stop him from throwing up again while he waited for the doctor to come.
“It’ll just be another minute,” he nurse said, rubbing at his temple.
True to her word, barely sixty seconds had passed - he’d been counting in his head to help him relax - before somebody was walking into the room. They began speaking to his mother about his medical history, careful to ask about any allergies. He heard the shuffling of paper, which he could only assume to be his mother handing over his medical file. After a couple more minutes of questions, he felt somebody pull up his sleeve and begin the process of putting in an IV.
“He doesn’t have a central line?” the doctor asked.
“He’s scheduled to get a portacath put in next week before he starts chemo,” his mom answered.
Blaine kept his eyes closed, not willing to leave his somewhat relaxing black cave. He didn’t remember much after that.
Later, he woke up to the light sound of a game on the TV. The lights were still off and the room was glowing with the soft sunlight streaming through the closed curtains.
“Dad?” Blaine said, his voice hoarse with sleep and whatever drug they’d used to knock him out.
“Hey, Champ.”
“I fell asleep?” he asked, unsure of the details. He always got like this on pain medication; he was as much a lightweight with drugs as he was with alcohol.
“A little over an hour ago,” his dad explained, turning off the game. “Your mom is talking to a doctor about adjusting your medication. She doesn’t think this should still be happening with the pills you’re taking.”
“Can we go back to the hotel now?” he asked.
“Unfortunately, we’re going to be stuck here a little while longer. But the second they give us the all clear we’ll be out of here, I promise,” his dad said.
“Then can we go to Millennium Park like you said?” he whined. He knew he was being childish, but he couldn’t help it.
“Why don’t you let me perform my neuro-exam and I’ll talk to Dr. Herzog about letting you free for the night,” a younger doctor knocked on the doorframe before letting himself in. “I’m Dr. Freedman.”
“Just a neuro-exam?” Blaine asked, always skeptical when doctors told him these things. There was always just one more test and only another few minutes that seemed to show up unexpectedly.
“You’ll need to get an MRI, but they are pretty backed up downstairs and we wouldn’t get you in until late tonight. It’s probably going to be less stressful all around if you come back first thing in the morning,” the doctor explained.
“Okay,” Blaine sat up in the bed, ready for what must have been his hundredth ‘routine’ check up in the last two weeks.
“I’ll just go and grab your mother,” his dad said, standing up.
“Don’t,” Blaine pleaded.
It wasn’t that Blaine didn’t like having his mom around. In fact, he clung to her whenever he was scared, but neuro-exams weren’t scary anymore. In fact, what worried Blaine the most was having to see his mom’s face when he didn’t pass the exams with flying colors. It was one thing to listen to her cheer him on every time he managed to do something as simple squeeze the doctor’s hand. It was a million times worse to have to see the sad look on her face when he failed to do something and he didn’t want to deal with that pressure.
His dad looked from the door back to Blaine several times, obviously weighing his options. His mom wouldn’t be happy when she found out that he’d had an exam without her and he knew that she would blame his dad for that.
In the end, Blaine’s puppy dog eyes won out and his dad sat back down quietly, biting his tongue.
The exam was simple. He started out following a light with his eyes. He listened to different tones on a set of headphones to test his hearing. He answered some basic questions to test his memory. Blaine had always passed these tests with flying colors; the cancer hadn’t affected that part of his mind yet.
After those came the tricky tests. He had to try and walk in a straight line across the room, which was hard enough on crutches but he was doing better now that he could use two. He had to balance on one leg and he did marginally better than last week, at least he didn’t manage to fall, even if he did have to wave his arms around like an angry goose gone wild just to stay upright. Had his mom been there, she would have told him it was proof the radiation was working.
He raised his hands and tossed a foam block with relative ease but failed to catch it when the doctor gently tossed it his way. He raised his broken leg without a problem but didn’t have full mobility in his right leg. He’d already known that his coordination was starting to go, but it was always scary to watch the doctor write in his file every time he so much as stumbled.
The exam didn’t last more than twenty minutes and, true to his word, the doctor convinced Dr. Herzog to discharge him for the night. An hour and a half later, armed with a stronger prescription for the pain, his family was walking out of the hospital and into the cool, brisk night.
“Can we go somewhere?” Blaine asked. It was only five o’clock. The sun was just beginning to set and they didn’t have to be back at the hospital until six o’clock the next morning.
“Where do you want to go?” his dad asked at the same time his mother started to object.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said. “You should go home and rest. It’s been a long day.”
“Right,” Blaine said, kicking some snow around with his casted leg. It was stupid of him to ask anyway. He knew that she was never going to let him off of the tight leash she had him on. At least not until the cancer was gone, which meant he might die trapped under house arrest. He’d never get the chance to do anything fun again. “Whatever.”
“I’m sorry, Blaine,” she said, ruffling his hair a bit. “Maybe when you’re better we can come back to Chicago and see everything. How does that sound?”
“It’s fine, whatever,” he said. He hated that she kept doing that. Promising him that they would do things when he got better; what if he never got better? He was going to die with promises to have a life later but never actually get a chance to do anything.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” she asked, finally taking the time to really look at him.
“It’s just that-” he gritted his teeth, unsure how to tell his parents that he just wanted to spend some time together as a family. He’d been nervous all week about this appointment and what it could mean for him. Would it be his saving grace or would it be his downfall? He just wanted to do something that had nothing to do with doctors or hospitals, even if only for a night.
“I really want to go to Navy Pier. We went last year after we won Nationals and it was really fun. I think it’d be nice to get to do that together,” he said.
“Navy Pier is outside, you’ll catch your death,” she chided.
“I’ve already caught my death,” Blaine responded bitterly, with a roll of his eyes. Before waiting for her to deny his request again, he began making his way back to the hotel. He couldn’t believe she wasn’t allowing him this one thing. It was such a simple request.
“What’s this really about?” his dad asked, hurrying to catch up to him. Blaine was getting to be pretty fast on his crutches.
“It’s the last chance I’ll probably ever get to be a kid,” Blaine said, starting to tear up. “And you guys keep telling me to be positive, but it’s pretty hard to be positive when I keep getting told that I’m dying. Or when I can’t even form words anymore and my head is pounding like it’s being hit with a sledgehammer. Everyone in there is so old. They’ve all lived their lives and gotten the chance to do all these things before they got cancer and I just want to get to live my life while I still feel up to it. I want to do some of the stuff we never got to do together.”
“We love you,” his dad said, giving him a guilty look. “You know that it was never about not loving you, right?”
“I know that,” Blaine said, feeling bad for bringing it up. “You guys had Cooper to worry about and we were just so far apart in age that it was hard.”
Blaine always felt horrible for causing his parents any guilt. They weren’t bad parents; they just weren’t always the most attentive. Blaine was never a fussy baby. He didn’t cry a lot. He never demanded much attention, which was good. Cooper always needed so much of it. When Blaine was a baby it was all about shuffling everyone’s schedules around to get Cooper to voice lessons, acting classes, auditions, and dance classes. Then when Cooper finally got old enough to drive, his parents had broken curfews, underage drinking and girls sneaking into the house to deal with. They didn’t ever mean to neglect Blaine. Blaine just didn’t need them as much, he wasn’t getting into trouble.
Once Cooper had left for college, Blaine was already accustomed to taking care of himself. He didn’t need his parents anymore. Then his mother started writing, and once she got published she was hardly ever home. It wasn’t that they didn’t love Blaine; he just got forgotten a lot. They trusted him on his own; he knew it was a sign that they respected him enough to leave him to his own devices.
It was just that sometimes he really wished he had been able to enjoy his childhood. He wished his parents had taken him to Disney World. That his mother had chaperoned school field trips or his dad had coached little league. His parents weren’t to blame for that. If anything, Blaine only helped push them away further. He was the one that came out to his parents and wrote them off before giving them time to process the fact that he was gay. He was the one that went running to Dalton when the bullying got bad and found every excuse imaginable to not come home on the weekends.
Now he just wanted to fix it. He wanted a chance to really get to know his parents.
“I’ll call a cab,” his mother said with a sad smile. “But we can’t stay too long; you still need your rest.”
It felt like the smallest victory in the grand scheme of things, but to Blaine it meant everything. The chance that maybe it wasn’t too late to really be a family made him feel that maybe things did happen for a reason. Kurt would kill him if he knew he was thinking that and his mother would start begging him to go to church again, so he kept that realization to himself.
****
Sunday afternoon, Blaine’s last day in Chicago, he found himself sitting in Dr. Herzog’s office, waiting for her to come back with the results from all the tests they’d ran this morning. She was supposed to be coming back to talk to them about treatment options and let them know if she’d be able to operate or not. His mother kept smiling at him like she knew this nightmare was about to be over, but Blaine knew the truth.
He’d already had his hope crushed.
The interns weren’t very subtle here. They had been practically fighting to make him comfortable when he’d first arrived this morning, each trying to win over his affections. They’d snuck him candy as they wheeled him to his tests, they helped him break into the Wi-Fi network so he could FaceTime Sam on his phone. Ever since he’d gotten back from his MRI over an hour ago, they’d been avoiding him like the plague, none of them able to even look him in the eyes.
He’d watched Grey’s Anatomy religiously for years. He knew that they were fighting over him because they all wanted to scrub in on his surgery. Now they’d all disappeared which could only mean that he wasn’t going to have any surgery.
He wasn’t going to get the surgery he needed to save his life.
He wasn’t even sure why he was still here. He knew he was only going to hear bad news about inoperable tumors and doing what they could to make him more comfortable. What did that even matter? Did they really think there was anything they could do to make him comfortable with the idea of dying?
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Well, what good did that do when no amount of kicking and screaming was going to fix the unfixable? Didn’t there come a time when fighting just became pointless? At what point was it okay for him to throw in the towel, because right now felt like a pretty great time.
The door to the office opened, echoing loudly into the room like only a hospital door was capable of doing. His father gave him a comforting squeeze on the shoulder as Dr. Herzog made her way into the room and sat behind her desk. The welcoming smile she wore when they’d first met was gone, replaced with a cold, distant look. He wondered how often she reported bad news to patients and their families and if it made her cold.
“We’ve gotten the lab results back for Blaine,” she said, scanning his file, not meeting his eyes.
There was no way that she didn’t already know what the results said. Blaine had been able to read it on all of the staff’s faces since he’d gotten back from his testing. She was avoiding looking at him. There wasn’t another good explanation.
“We’ve determined that the tumor is inoperable-” she started to explain, saying the words Blaine had dreaded hearing, but his mother cut her off before she could continue.
“What? That’s impossible! This is one of the best hospitals in the country!”
One of the best hospitals in the country and they still couldn’t help him. Blaine tried to wrap his mind around those words, really forced himself to make sense of them. He was drowning and nobody around him knew CPR. They could barely swim themselves. No amount of kicking and flailing was going to get him to the surface; he wasn’t going to find any air.
Blaine didn’t have to go quietly into the night like the poem suggested. He could kick and scream and fight all he wanted, but he would be leaving this world one way or another. He should just let it happen, wasn’t there more dignity in that?
“There isn’t a lot we can do with where the tumor is located. If we tried to remove it, it would kill Blaine.”
“You don’t have to remove it all, though,” his dad said, his voice sounded wet and Blaine didn’t know if he could handle it if his dad started to cry. He himself was already choking on the hopeless feeling that felt like a noose around his neck.
“We can’t remove any of it, not without risking your son’s health,” she explained patiently.
“So you’re going to let my son die because you’re too scared to perform a surgery that might kill him, does that make any sense to you?” his mother said, starting to yell.
“Stop,” he said, quivering.
Despite how quiet he had been, the whole room had managed to hear him and turned to look at him.
“Blaine-” his mother started but he held her off with the wave of his hand.
“Thank you, for your time,” he addressed Dr. Herzog, speaking slowly for fear that he was going to break down and start crying. “We have a plane to catch.”
“Sweetheart-”
“We have a plane to catch,” he repeated himself, his voice commanding and leaving no room for argument. “We’re going home,” he said, grabbing his crutches. He left the room with barely a glance back and he was surprised with how quickly both of his parents followed after him.
He knew that leaving so abruptly was rude and ungrateful but he couldn’t listen to the doctor talk about aggressive treatments and prolonged time. He didn’t need to hear it again when it would only upset everyone involved. He hadn’t told anybody, outside of Kurt and even then he’d been reluctant to say it aloud- but he’d invested so much hope in the chance that this doctor would fix all of his problems. He’d prayed for some magic solution to all of this but it wasn’t something that was going to be argued away like his parents were used to. No amount of money could stop the tumor from killing him. All the positive energy in the world would do nothing to cure him.
He was dying and it was time he got used to the idea.
As they waited for the elevator to reach the first floor, Blaine could see his parents trying to hide their tears. His mother was wearing a false smile full of bitterness, but she was determined to stay positive for his sake. He didn’t know why she didn’t just give it up; it clearly wasn’t doing them any good.
“There’s another doctor at Johns Hopkins,” his dad said, pulling out his phone. “They say he can work miracles.”
“Book it,” his mother said, squeezing Blaine’s upper arm tightly. He could tell that she wanted to hold his hand but it was hard for him to do that without dropping his crutches. The elevator doors opened and she was forced to let go.
Blaine tried to ignore the sharp intake of air as he pulled away from her and started towards the main doors. He didn’t want to know what she was thinking. As hard as this was going to be for Blaine, it was going to be just as hard on his parents.
What was the saying? Parents shouldn’t have to bury their children?
His vision swam as he held back his cries. He just kept pushing ahead, unable to stop. Once he stopped he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to start again. The road ahead was dark. It was overwhelming and filled with terror and dread. But at least it was a road and it hadn’t run out yet-
As the automatic doors slid open, the cool air hit his body and sent a shiver down his spine. He took a deep breath in, ignoring how the air froze his throat. It was better than breathing in the stifling hospital air that always held a hint of death and despair. He started walking, but when he reached Michigan Avenue again, he realized the last place he wanted to be was back at the hotel, stuck in another room that would only make him feel claustrophobic. The world was closing in on him and he didn’t know how to push it away.
He took a left instead of a right and ignored his parents’ worried conversation behind him. They didn’t know how to help him and that was just perfect because he didn’t know how to help himself either. He passed shop after shop but couldn’t be bothered to even look inside the places he would have once begged to enter. What did a new sweater or jacket matter in the face of death? What would he do with the latest iPhone? It was all so completely pointless. He pushed through the crowds, breathing in heavily, feeling like he was being stabbed repeatedly in the chest. All of these people were walking about like it was just a normal Sunday. It wasn’t right. Couldn’t they see how different everything now was?
“Blaine, this is the Tribune Tower, do you want to look around?” his dad asked while his mom pleaded with him to slow down.
He ignored them and made his way across the bridge, unsure of what he was looking for but knowing he hadn’t found it yet. He couldn’t stop, not while his skin was still crawling and his stomach was twisting itself into a knot.
“Why don’t we get something to eat, some of these restaurants look nice,” his dad commented.
“I don’t want to eat!” he yelled, not bothering to even turn around and see what was sure to be the stricken faces of his parents.
Eventually, they came across what appeared to be a park and without rhyme or reason, Blaine abruptly turned and made his way through the gardens, watching as laughing children ran past, being chased by frazzled parents. He wondered if those parents had any idea of how fragile their children’s lives where. He longed for the ignorance of those kids, running around as if nothing bad could ever happen to them.
That had been him. This past summer he’d run around with his friends as reckless as any teenager, never thinking that time was so limited.
He veered off the path they’d been taking and cut over, needing to get away from the kids that just reminded him of everything he was trying to run away from. His parents had fallen silent by this point and he didn’t know what to make of that. His mom should have been pestering him about getting inside before he froze to death. His dad should have been reminding them that their plane was going to leave later that night and they still needed to get their things from the hotel. Neither of them said a word though as Blaine stumbled across one of the strangest sculptures he’d ever seen.
There was a giant bean shaped mirror in the middle of the plaza, reflecting the sunset and skyline off of its walls.
“It’s called Cloud Gate, but most of the locals just call it the Bean,” his dad said into his ear, resting a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“It’s weird,” Blaine commented, though all three of them were captivated by it, watching the sun set slowly until they had been standing there long enough to only see the reflection of the city lights on the surface.
“It’s actually really beautiful in a different kind of way,” his mother commented after what must have been almost an hour of silence if the now darkened city was any indication. When they’d left the hospital, it had still been light outside.
“Yeah, it’s cool,” Blaine commented, still sniffling a bit but for the most part he’d come back to himself.
“Are you guys hungry? We’ve probably got enough time for a quick dinner before we have to get to the airport,” his dad asked.
“I don’t want to have the treatment,” he said, his eyes not leaving the reflection of the three of them. It was almost hypnotic.
“I know it’s hard, but it’s going to help you,” his mom said.
“It’s not,” he said calmly, sure about his feelings in a way he hadn’t been since the diagnosis.
That was how he knew he was making the right decision. Hope had always been fizzling under the surface and was clouding his judgment making him unsure and tentative in his decisions. Now he knew for certain how he wanted to deal with this. He didn’t want to hide behind chemo and radiation. He didn’t want to live in fear of death. He wanted to face it head on. He wanted to live every moment that he had left and when death came, he wanted to open it with welcome arms without a hint of regret.
Hadn’t Dumbledore taught him that death was just the next great adventure? Wasn’t that the entire message of the Deathly Hallows book that he’d read every year like clockwork - that death should be greeted as an old friend knowing that if you lead a life filled with love that you didn’t have anything to fear?
“The treatment is going to give you more time,” his dad tried to persuade him.
“If we have more time, Sweetheart, we can find somebody that’s willing to operate.”
“We’re not going to, can’t you see that?” he asked. “We need to start accepting that this is our life now. I have cancer and that’s not going away.”
“You have to let us try,” his dad argued.
“I love you both, and I would do a lot for more time with you guys because there’s never going to be enough. But that’s just the point; I want to spend my time with you and Cooper and my friends, not in a hospital.”
“If time’s what you want-”
“Time is what I want,” Blaine said. “I’m just asking for you to give that to me. Let me live my time out how I chose.”
“We can’t just give up!” his mom protested and he could hear the desperation in her voice. The fear. That wasn’t how he wanted to live out his life.
“Exactly,” he replied calmly, placing a soothing hand on her shoulder. “I can’t just give up the time I have left to spend it with doctors and nurses I barely know. I want to live.”
“There’s somebody out there that can help you,” his dad said. “I have a list of at least fifteen doctors that are willing to try and help you.”
“The only people that are going to be able to help me come to terms with death don’t work in a hospital.”
“You aren’t dying!” his mom cried.
“You can’t ask us to just stop,” his dad said, looking at Blaine like he’d lost his mind.
“I’m not asking. I’m telling,” he said, feeling guilty for it but knowing that this was what he had to do for his own piece of mind. In the long run, it would be better for everyone this way. They’d see. “I’m eighteen. You can’t make me do anything and I’m telling you- I hope that you’ll understand but if you don’t, I’m still going to make this decision.”
“We should think about this some more,” his dad said and immediately tried to get them to leave and find a restaurant to eat at. Blaine was clearly hungry and was too tired to make these kind of decisions right now.
“I don’t need to think about it. I want you to call the hospital and cancel my radiation sessions. I’m not going back.”
“You’re not thinking straight!” his dad said, getting angry and desperate but Blaine couldn’t be angry at him. He understood how his dad felt, but there wasn’t anything he could do to fix it. Blaine would still be dying in the end, no matter what treatment he had or doctor he saw.
“There has to be some compromise here,” his mom said.
Blaine just looked at her pitifully, there wasn’t.
“What’s the plan?” she pushed him.
“I don’t know. Be at home for awhile. Give my friends time to say goodbye. Go to France with Kurt, we’ve always wanted to see it. Finally take that family trip to Puerto Princesa? I’d like to do something with just Cooper.”
“Okay,” his mom agreed surprising both Blaine and his dad.
“Neile!” his dad protested.
“Okay?” Blaine whispered, barely believing it. Of anybody, his mom had been the last person he’d expected to agree to his decision.
“Okay, your father and I will make sure you get to do all of those things. We’ll pay for your ticket to France and we’ll book a family trip back to the Philippines,” she said and Blaine’s heart started to fill with hope that he’d actually get his wish. His voice was being heard.
“What are you doing?” his dad asked.
“Compromising. We’ll do these things Blaine, but you have to do something for us,” she said.
“What?”
“Give us time,” she said with a pointed look.
“But I don’t-” he’d been about to remind her that he didn’t have time to give, but she cut him off.
“You have a good six months at least. Give us three of those and after that, if you still want to stop treatment, you can do whatever you’d like with the rest of your time. We’ll pay for anything you decide you want to do.”
“I’ll be sick by then, too sick to do anything,” he argued.
“Not if you get treatment for the first three months and let us take you to any doctor we think might help without complaint.”
Blaine knew there were probably a million reasons to deny her request, the first of which was that they were just postponing the inevitable, but in the end he agreed. If three months was what his parents needed to know that they’d tried their best. If that would give them the peace of mind to let him go- if it would alleviate any bit of their guilt and anguish, then he didn’t really have a choice.
Beta: My lovely Laura aka- gottriplets and the lovely Rebecca (andiheardeverything) both of whom are the only reason this fic looks anything remotely coherent or medically accurate ;)
Warnings: Cancer, discussions of terminal illness and infidelity (NO character death ;), for those of you who are triggered by that )
Summary: Blaine’s elaborate plans for the “best senior year ever” get brought to a halt and his dreams of a future are stripped away when he discovers that the headaches he’s been having, aren’t really headaches at all and all of his strange behavior lately, including cheating on Kurt, can all blamed on one thing - there’s a tumor growing inside of his brain that’s doing it’s best to kill him. (AU post “The New Rachel”)
AN: Thank you for all the lovely responses I got about this story. I'll be posting every Friday for now.
Tumblr // FF.net // AO3
Previous Chapters: Prologue // Chapter 1 // Chapter 2 // Chapter 3 // Chapter 4 // Chapter 5
****
Blaine lay on the cool metal table and did his best to stay completely still as the radiation therapist started arranging his body like a toy, putting him into place for his treatment. He tried to force his heart rate to slow down, as if that might somehow negatively affect how the treatment worked. He tried to will his hands to stop sweating so much - what if it made him slip out of position? If he moved, the radiation could hit the wrong part of his brain and destroy his healthy cells instead and he didn’t have enough of those to spare.
Even with the face mask on to help him stay in position, he still thought he was going to mess it up somehow.
What if he had a seizure? What would happen then? Would the face mask hurt as his body thrashed around against his will? Would the radiation hit the wrong part of his brain as he violently shook? If he didn’t have a seizure, it might still hurt. Everyone told him it wouldn’t, but what if they were lying? How could shooting high doses of radiation into his head not hurt?
He tried not to think about any of it. The message boards he’d been reading all morning suggested that he focused on something outside of the cancer to get him through it, but he didn’t see how that was realistic. How could he stop his mind from focusing on all the things that could go wrong when every other second he was getting a new instruction?
“It’s important that you stay still.”
“Deep, even breaths.”
“Move your arm up,” she’d say as she manhandled him like he was a doll.
“Relax.”
Nevertheless, he closed his eyes and took a deep, calming breath. To distract himself, he began to run through their Sectionals set list in his mind, determined to make it through this session without sending himself into a panic attack.
“Okay, you’re all set,” the therapist said with an enthusiastic smile like his pediatrician used to wear when he was five and had just been given a shot. “I’ll be in the room right next door. It’ll be over before you know it.”
Once the massive machine was turned on and began to slowly move around his head, it probably took less than five minutes. To the people in the other room, he was positive that the entire process felt quick and painless. Five minutes went by incredibly fast when you didn’t have to wear a mask that made you feel like Hannibal Lector.
He was convinced it wouldn’t ever end and he had to stop running through the songs for Glee because he kept seeing himself falling off stage and letting his team down again, just like he had in Grease. Instead, he thought about what he would be doing right now if he never got cancer. He’d be in English class with Artie. They were reading The Hobbit which just figured. Of course his teacher would wait until he couldn’t come to class to start reading something cool.
His skin itched and he wasn’t sure if it was from the radiation or if he was just being paranoid, but either way he couldn’t move to scratch it and that was driving him crazy. Then his only working leg started to tingle in a way that would have been unfamiliar if it weren’t for the tumor growing inside of his head. If the machine ever stopped and he was allowed to move again, he still wouldn’t be able to walk which was just his luck.
The radiation is going to work, he said to himself. It’s going to work, then you’re going to go to Chicago and that doctor will agree to operate and you will get through this just like you’ve gotten through every other hardship in your life. Nothing bad ever lasts forever, isn’t that what his mom always said?
After what must have been the longest five minutes in history, the radiation therapist finally came back in and started unscrewing the mask that was holding him to the table.
“See, that wasn’t so bad?” she said with a kind smile.
“Speak for yourself,” he muttered, knowing he was being rude but unable to stop himself. Why did people always act so unnaturally cheerful around cancer patients?
“How do you feel?” she asked as she helped him sit up on the table. He moved to swing his legs around, but of course, only the broken one obeyed and before Blaine could even stop himself or fully understand why, he was crying.
“Hey now, it’s okay,” she said, immediately bringing a hand to his head to check for a temperature. “I can help you, just talk to me. What’s going on?”
“My leg,” he whispered, his entire face flaming in shame as tears continued to fall against his will.
“Can you feel this?” she asked him as she began tapping at both of his feet. He nodded his head.
“I can feel it, I just can’t make it move,” he said, frustrated.
“It’s okay,” she tried to soothe him. “Your tumor is pushing on your motor cortex; we knew this would be a symptom. It’ll pass soon enough. Why don’t I go and get you a wheelchair for now.”
“If my mom sees me in a wheelchair she’s going to freak out,” he groaned, as he angrily clutched at the front of his pants trying to make his leg work through sheer force of will.
“You have cancer, sweetheart. Your mother is worried either way,” she said. “At least this way we can get you out of this room and somewhere more relaxing. I’m sure all the stress of the morning is just catching up with your body.”
“So you’re saying I’m causing this to happen? Like I’m the Incredible Hulk or something and if I can just keep from getting angry I won’t turn into an uncontrollable monster?” he said sarcastically.
“More or less. I’m saying that the stress isn’t helping.”
“I don’t want my mom to see me like this,” he said, resigned to the fact that there wasn’t much he could do about the matter.
“Sweetheart, you can’t stay here. What would you like me to do?” she asked.
“Make my leg work,” he said, unable to control his snarky comments today. Thankfully, she took it all in stride and he had to wonder how often she had to deal with bratty patients.
“Let’s get you into a chair and you can head on home for the day. I’m sure you’ll be more comfortable there than here,” she said with a smile that he didn’t deserve in the least.
“I’m sorry. I know this isn’t your fault,” he said, gaining a better control over his emotions and he began talking himself off of the ledge he was on. He was being ridiculous and unforgivably rude.
“It’s not yours, either.”
Funny how having a tumor could excuse all sorts of otherwise deplorable behavior, he thought. It wasn’t right. He shouldn’t be allowed to treat people with less respect just because he had cancer. This wasn’t the type of guy he wanted to turn into. Would this be how people remembered him when he died? Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
He needed to be better than this disease - if not for himself, then at least for the people around him.
“How do you feel?” his mom asked as he was rolled out into the lobby where Kurt and his parents were waiting for him.
“My leg went numb,” he said, eyes glued to his cast. He couldn’t bring himself to look up and see the worry in their eyes or worse, the pity.
“Is that normal?” Kurt asked.
“Completely,” she explained. “If it doesn’t go away in an hour or so, we can run some more tests, but I don’t think that will be an issue.”
“It won’t have permanent effects?” his dad asked.
“Oh, God,” Blaine groaned, he hadn’t even considered the fact that this might last forever.
Then again, forever might not be that long if the treatment didn’t work.
“Like I said, I think the symptom will pass soon enough. If it doesn’t, we can run some tests but I see no reason to worry about it right now,” she explained.
“How do you feel?” his mom asked, patting him on the head like he was a dog. “Do you feel like it worked?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “It’s only the first treatment; I doubt I’d be able to tell.”
“What was it like?” Kurt asked.
“Claustrophobic, but I guess I’ll get used to it,” he said with a shrug, trying to remain positive as they began pushing him along towards the exit and his dad ran ahead of them to bring the car around. The old saying that misery loves company wasn’t really true and Blaine didn’t want to push everyone away by complaining all of the time. He was sure he really would get used to it eventually.
“I’ll get easier every time you go,” his mom said with an encouraging smile. “And before you know it, you’ll be cancer-free and you can go back to doing normal stuff again!”
“Right,” Blaine said, biting his tongue. He’d promised himself that he was going to try and fight and part of that was letting himself believe that he could actually do this.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
No, he was going to beat this. He just had to survive the next 8 weeks of intensive treatment. They just had to find one doctor willing to operate...
****
After a long two weeks of wearing an air cast that prohibited him from moving his wrist, he was finally able to trade it in for a simple elastic brace, enabling him to finally use two crutches when walking. It was amazing how much easier it was for him to get around now, even with his leg still in a cast. Therefore, when it came time to leave their hotel room and head to Northwestern Memorial for his appointment, he outright refused to take a cab. Their visit was too short to actually take in any of the site so he’d insisted on walking. At least that way he’d be sure to see something, even if it was only five minutes of Michigan Avenue.
He hobbled along the sidewalk, trying to devise a plan to convince his mother that they needed to go shopping. The Ralph Lauren store they passed was calling his name and after surviving his first week of radiation he figured he deserved at least a few new sweaters, perhaps that jacket he’d seen in the window of Banana Republic?
The hospital was only a few blocks from the hotel and Blaine could manage it easily but his mother was glued to his left and his father to his right, both looking at him like they thought he would fall at any moment. He felt like a baby again taking his first steps on his own. In fact, no matter how many times his parents assured him that he was fine and tried to go about things like they were business as usual, they kept hovering. At the airport yesterday they’d insisted on a wheelchair. They’d requested a handicap accessible hotel room for his legs. His mom even tried to style his hair for him this morning.
It was too much and it had given him a headache. He’d had a headache since they’d left his radiation treatment yesterday morning, but he hadn’t said anything. Anytime he talked about his symptoms, his dad would get a sad look in his eyes and his mom would nag him about taking his medication. They’d give him some encouraging words that sounded much more helpful on paper than in practice. Then they’d go back to their permanent state of denial. If you asked them, they would say that Blaine was perfectly fine.
As much as he wanted that to be true, it was a lie. On top of the headache, he’d noticed his coordination was off. This morning, he kept trying to pour shampoo into his hand and missing. He’d stumbled several times and there was a big bruise forming on his shoulder from where he’d bumped into the doorframe.
It was getting worse. He wasn’t sure if it was the increased stress, the lack of sleep, or if the tumor was growing; but now his tongue was starting to tingle and go numb. His body was betraying him at a rapid pace and that scared Blaine because the radiation was supposed to be helping shrink the tumor and increased symptoms usually meant that tumor was getting larger.
“Did you email your grandfather back yesterday?” his mother asked.
Blaine had responded to his grandfather, but he just shrugged. It was embarrassing trying to talk when he couldn’t use his tongue. He knew that if he said anything, his words would be slurred. His parents didn’t need to hear him sound like that.
“Blaine Devon, I asked you a question! You don’t just shrug at me, it’s not polite.”
Blaine looked up at her and shrugged again. She opened her mouth to reprimand him again before closing it and giving him a knowing look.
“Oh, sweetheart.” She cupped his face in her hands and he pushed her away. He didn’t want this right now.
Their pity was suffocating and he didn’t want it. What he wanted was to be back home in Ohio with his friends trying to stay awake during US Government by passing notes back and forth. Or lying in Kurt’s bed listening to Adele and Florence while reading the latest issue of Vogue. He wanted to be at home sleeping in his own bed, not on his way to get a second opinion because he had cancer and his doctor told him it was inoperable.
“You know it’s just because you’re not sleeping. They said it gets worse when you’re not taking care of your body. Don’t worry; the doctor we’re seeing today can help you.”
Blaine rolled his eyes. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe this doctor could help him; he had high hopes based off of the research he’d done. That was all it was though, hope. He wanted to remind her that they might not get the news she wanted to hear today. She should be prepared for the worst so that she wouldn’t cry and throw a fit like she had in the hospital last week. He couldn’t tell her any of that though. Even if he could speak clearly, she would never be willing to listen.
“Hey, Sport,” his dad said, squeezing his shoulder encouragingly. “Why don’t we go check out Millennium Park after the appointment? They’ve got a lot of cool street art and we can stop by the Art Institute, too. It’s right there.”
Blaine was about to nod, because anything but a hospital sounded like a good plan to him and he’d always loved art. He’d love to spend some time with his dad doing something that he enjoyed doing. He’d love to pretend this was a family vacation instead of a medical obligation. Before he could agree, his mother started nagging his dad.
“Really, Bill? He’s sick - he can’t be outside, It’s freezing. He needs rest; how do you expect him to get better? What are you thinking?”
“He’s a kid,” his dad said.
They continued to argue about what was best for him as if he wasn’t standing right between them. They’d been neglecting to include him in any decisions about his health which was bad enough, but now he couldn’t even be allowed to say whether or not he wanted to go check out some street art at the park? Wasn’t it good for him to get out and keep moving as long as he could? Those message boards had said it was a good idea for him to get out and do the things he loved because it would keep his body moving, as well as keep his mind focused on the positive things.
If he could talk, he would have cut in and reminded his mother that allowing him to do the things he enjoyed was exactly the kind of thing the preached about in her self-help books, but he couldn’t speak so it was a moot point.
He pushed them away and moved ahead of them as fast as his crutches could take him. He just needed some distance and wanted to be anywhere but there.
“Blaine!” he could hear his mother calling after him.
“Let him go,” his dad said. “He’s not even out of eyesight.”
Thankful that for once in his life, it seemed like his dad understood his need for space, he pressed ahead. As he paused at the next crosswalk, he pulled his headphones out of his pocket and stuffed them into his ears, thankful for the invention of hands free headsets since walking while talking on the phone was pretty much impossible with a broken leg.
There was only one voice he wanted to hear right now.
He quickly found Kurt’s name in his contacts list and pressed the call button.
“Hey,” Kurt answered with his loving voice. “You finished early. I thought you weren’t supposed to be done until later on this afternoon? What happened?”
Blaine felt stupid; he couldn’t even say anything. He didn’t know why he picked up the phone; he should have just texted Kurt. Only he knew there was very little that would have calmed him down besides hearing his boyfriend tell him it would be okay.
“Blaine?” Kurt asked, when he didn’t respond.
Blaine let out a frustrated groan.
“Oh,” Kurt whispered, understanding far more than Blaine had given him. “It’s alright, okay? It’s going to be alright. You know it doesn’t usually last that long. Just try to breathe. The doctor said that stress can make your symptoms worse. It’s going to be alright, you don’t need to worry. Okay?”
Blaine let out something between a sigh and a whine. Kurt had already started to make him feel better, but Blaine was still embarrassed that he couldn’t even say anything. He’d called Kurt on the phone and couldn’t do anything more than grunt at him. He was the world’s best dressed caveman.
“Is this about your parents?” Kurt asked. “Grunt or something if it is?”
Blaine grumbled something unintelligibly that, on a normal day, one where his body cooperated with him, would have been a yes.
“They love you. They are just handling this the best way that they can. You have to cut them some slack. It’s not an easy thing to wrap their mind around. I’m still trying to get used to the idea,” he said.
Blaine knew that Kurt was right. Kurt was always right. It was one of the reasons Blaine loved him so much. He always knew the right thing to say to calm him down and make him feel better. He was always so strong, like a rock. Blaine wished he had some of that strength. He could use it right about now.
“Just try to be patient,” he continued. “You told yourself that you were going to try. If this doctor can’t help you then he can’t help you, but at least you tried. The worst thing he can do is say no and then you’ll be exactly where you are now. But you have to give somebody the chance to say yes, that’s the only way you’ll be able to fight this. That’s all your parents are doing, they are trying to help you fight this the only way they know how.”
“I-ov-eww-ooo,” Blaine said, hoping Kurt understood what he was saying. He blushed, ashamed of how his voice sounded. Wasn’t it enough that the tumor was taking his life, did it really need to take his voice, too? He realized that he needed to stop hiding from Kurt. If his boyfriend was really in it for the long haul like he said he was, he had a lot worse than a few slurred ‘I love you’s’ ahead of him.
“I love you, too. Okay? So much.” Blaine could hear the smile in his voice. “Listen, I’m running out the door that that interview Isabelle wants me to do and you should really hang up and get back to whatever it was you were doing. Text me when you’re finished and have some news okay?”
They hung up the phone and Blaine realized that he was standing in front of the hospital. It was big, much bigger than his hospital back in Ohio. It didn’t even look like a hospital, it looked like an entrance to one of the city’s many skyscraper offices, and it was just so tall. As he peered through the door, he saw a big purple banner with the hospital’s logo and the words, “Welcome to One of America’s Best Hospitals.”
His stomach began to bubble with nerves and everything suddenly got a whole lot more real. This was it. One of the best doctors in the country was going to take a scan of his brain and tell him if he was going to be able to operate or not. He was going to tell Blaine if he was going to survive or not.
The stakes were suddenly higher than he could reach and no matter how much Kurt’s phone call had calmed him down, it was worthless in the face of all of this.
It was only a minute later that his parents finally caught back up to him and this time, he felt himself reaching out for his mom’s hand. No matter how annoyed he had been with them previously, there was no way he was going to be able to go through those doors without his parents there to reassure him it would all be okay.
“These people can only help us, okay?” his father said with a sympathetic smile.
“It’s going to be alright, Baby.” His mom squeezed his hand tightly.
Blaine worried his bottom lip, but nodded bravely. He followed in after his father; his mother, thankfully, didn’t leave his side. They entered into the spacious lobby and Blaine was surprised to see that there weren’t any bright and obvious signs directing people where to go. Everything looked rather elegant and sleek. It looked expensive. He didn’t want to think about how much an appointment like this was going to cost his parents.
After speaking to somebody at the reception desk, they were handed a map and directed towards the elevators. As they waited for their elevator to arrive, Blaine looked down at the map they’d been given. This hospital was much bigger than the one he had been going to in Ohio. There were several buildings that belonged to the hospital scattered throughout the neighborhood and the list of wings the hospital had was extensive. He didn’t realize doctors could specialize in so many different things. He supposed that was supposed to be part of the appeal, the more specialized the doctor, the better the care.
What was the difference between the cancer center and the center for brain tumors and which one would he be going to?
They all walked onto the elevator, silently. None of them had much to say. He could tell that his parents were walking on eggshells with him. He didn’t know how that made him feel. On one hand, it was nice that they were acknowledging his needs for a change. On the other hand, he didn’t want them to treat him like a delicate piece of china. One wrong move and he’d come crashing to the floor, shattered.
They made their way down a few twists and turns, following the signs hanging from the ceiling until they finally reached the wing for brain tumors. The sign alone made his head pound harder.
“Checking in for Blaine Anderson,” his mother said to the nurse at the front desk. Blaine and his father took a seat and let his mom handle things. She always felt better when she could be in charge of something and Blaine was happy to let her, he wasn’t feeling all that great and could stand to sit down.
“Ah, yes. You had an appointment with Dr. Herzog,” the nurse said. “She’s been pulled into an emergency surgery, so she might be awhile. If you’d like, you’re welcome to wait downstairs where we have several dining options, a few coffee shop and even a tea room. I can call you when she is available again?”
Blaine tuned out the conversation as soon as he heard that he was going to be stuck here awhile. Wasn’t that how it always went at hospitals? Hurry up and wait. He looked around at what could possibly be his new home for the next few weeks if they agreed to operate. It was a nice facility. It looked clean and well kept. There were a lot of patients here though, at least fifteen different charts lined the nurse’s desk and Blaine could see more piled up beside the woman.
Did more patients mean that they had a higher success rate? He prayed so because it was going to take a miracle to save him.
There was joyous laughter coming out of one room, while somebody sobbed hysterically in another. A teenage boy pushed his mother around in a wheelchair. A man was helping his father - a man old enough to be Blaine’s grandfather - walk around. That’s when it hit Blaine.
All the patients here were old. They were all real adults, not eighteen year old boys that barely had enough life experience to deserve the title. They’d had their chance to live, he didn’t belong here. Why did he have to have cancer? He was too young.
His head felt like somebody was slamming it repeatedly into a brick wall. His eyes had started swimming from the pain and the room started to dance around him. He knew he was going to be sick; he always got sick when the pain got like this. He stood up to find a bathroom and his legs gave out.
“Blaine!” his father exclaimed, shooting to his feet just in time to catch Blaine before his head hit the wall. His dad lowered him back into his chair and his mom and the nurse quickly made their way over.
“Are you alright?” his mother asked.
Of course he wasn’t alright. What kind of a question was that? He’d just fallen trying to stand up. He was worse than a toddler learning how to walk. It was demeaning. How was he ever supposed to be capable of anything if he couldn’t even get up to go to the bathroom on his own?
Blaine nodded, wanting to just say yes and get her to leave him alone. He didn’t want a speech from her today. The quick movement of his head caused things to start spinning more severely and soon he was throwing up in the middle of the hallway.
When he was finished getting sick all over the black and white tile, he sat up and looked at his parents pleadingly.
“Can we go home?” he asked, or at least tried to say. To his benefit, at least his tongue had started working again and he could actually talk.
His parents didn’t respond, but he could tell they were having a silent argument over his head. He just rolled his eyes.
“Is it your head?” the nurse asked.
Blaine nodded, this time much more slowly and not quite as big. His eyes never left his father. He was silently begging for him to be on Blaine’s side. If he could just get his dad to let him leave, he knew it would only be a matter of time before his mother caved, too. The last thing he wanted was to be admitted to the hospital. He knew the drill. They’d hook him up to an IV and keep him for observation and all of his plans of shopping on Michigan Avenue and trying to at least pretend this was a vacation would be out the window.
“It’s hard to be in a new place,” the nurse said. Her hands went up to cup his face. He wanted to push her away, but she started massaging his head and it actually helped relieve some of the pressure. “A lot of unfamiliar stimuli can be hard for people. You’ll be okay. If you’ll let me, I can admit you and we can get a doctor to give you something for the pain.”
Blaine didn’t want to say yes. He didn’t want to be in the hospital, on what would hopefully be his last few days of freedom before getting a surgery he so desperately needed. He couldn’t deny, however, that he needed some help. He was too overwhelmed and the pills his doctor gave him wouldn’t cut it. He needed something more powerful to stop the constant throbbing. He agreed to being admitted and he could hear his mother give a sigh of relief.
His dad helped him to his feet and slowly, because when they tried to go faster he started to gag again, they made their way over to an empty room. The second his head hit the pillow, he closed his eyes. The florescent lights had been blinding him and once somebody closed the curtains and shut off the lights entirely, he could feel the pain begin to subside minutely. It wasn’t enough for him to turn away the drugs, but it was enough to stop him from throwing up again while he waited for the doctor to come.
“It’ll just be another minute,” he nurse said, rubbing at his temple.
True to her word, barely sixty seconds had passed - he’d been counting in his head to help him relax - before somebody was walking into the room. They began speaking to his mother about his medical history, careful to ask about any allergies. He heard the shuffling of paper, which he could only assume to be his mother handing over his medical file. After a couple more minutes of questions, he felt somebody pull up his sleeve and begin the process of putting in an IV.
“He doesn’t have a central line?” the doctor asked.
“He’s scheduled to get a portacath put in next week before he starts chemo,” his mom answered.
Blaine kept his eyes closed, not willing to leave his somewhat relaxing black cave. He didn’t remember much after that.
Later, he woke up to the light sound of a game on the TV. The lights were still off and the room was glowing with the soft sunlight streaming through the closed curtains.
“Dad?” Blaine said, his voice hoarse with sleep and whatever drug they’d used to knock him out.
“Hey, Champ.”
“I fell asleep?” he asked, unsure of the details. He always got like this on pain medication; he was as much a lightweight with drugs as he was with alcohol.
“A little over an hour ago,” his dad explained, turning off the game. “Your mom is talking to a doctor about adjusting your medication. She doesn’t think this should still be happening with the pills you’re taking.”
“Can we go back to the hotel now?” he asked.
“Unfortunately, we’re going to be stuck here a little while longer. But the second they give us the all clear we’ll be out of here, I promise,” his dad said.
“Then can we go to Millennium Park like you said?” he whined. He knew he was being childish, but he couldn’t help it.
“Why don’t you let me perform my neuro-exam and I’ll talk to Dr. Herzog about letting you free for the night,” a younger doctor knocked on the doorframe before letting himself in. “I’m Dr. Freedman.”
“Just a neuro-exam?” Blaine asked, always skeptical when doctors told him these things. There was always just one more test and only another few minutes that seemed to show up unexpectedly.
“You’ll need to get an MRI, but they are pretty backed up downstairs and we wouldn’t get you in until late tonight. It’s probably going to be less stressful all around if you come back first thing in the morning,” the doctor explained.
“Okay,” Blaine sat up in the bed, ready for what must have been his hundredth ‘routine’ check up in the last two weeks.
“I’ll just go and grab your mother,” his dad said, standing up.
“Don’t,” Blaine pleaded.
It wasn’t that Blaine didn’t like having his mom around. In fact, he clung to her whenever he was scared, but neuro-exams weren’t scary anymore. In fact, what worried Blaine the most was having to see his mom’s face when he didn’t pass the exams with flying colors. It was one thing to listen to her cheer him on every time he managed to do something as simple squeeze the doctor’s hand. It was a million times worse to have to see the sad look on her face when he failed to do something and he didn’t want to deal with that pressure.
His dad looked from the door back to Blaine several times, obviously weighing his options. His mom wouldn’t be happy when she found out that he’d had an exam without her and he knew that she would blame his dad for that.
In the end, Blaine’s puppy dog eyes won out and his dad sat back down quietly, biting his tongue.
The exam was simple. He started out following a light with his eyes. He listened to different tones on a set of headphones to test his hearing. He answered some basic questions to test his memory. Blaine had always passed these tests with flying colors; the cancer hadn’t affected that part of his mind yet.
After those came the tricky tests. He had to try and walk in a straight line across the room, which was hard enough on crutches but he was doing better now that he could use two. He had to balance on one leg and he did marginally better than last week, at least he didn’t manage to fall, even if he did have to wave his arms around like an angry goose gone wild just to stay upright. Had his mom been there, she would have told him it was proof the radiation was working.
He raised his hands and tossed a foam block with relative ease but failed to catch it when the doctor gently tossed it his way. He raised his broken leg without a problem but didn’t have full mobility in his right leg. He’d already known that his coordination was starting to go, but it was always scary to watch the doctor write in his file every time he so much as stumbled.
The exam didn’t last more than twenty minutes and, true to his word, the doctor convinced Dr. Herzog to discharge him for the night. An hour and a half later, armed with a stronger prescription for the pain, his family was walking out of the hospital and into the cool, brisk night.
“Can we go somewhere?” Blaine asked. It was only five o’clock. The sun was just beginning to set and they didn’t have to be back at the hospital until six o’clock the next morning.
“Where do you want to go?” his dad asked at the same time his mother started to object.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said. “You should go home and rest. It’s been a long day.”
“Right,” Blaine said, kicking some snow around with his casted leg. It was stupid of him to ask anyway. He knew that she was never going to let him off of the tight leash she had him on. At least not until the cancer was gone, which meant he might die trapped under house arrest. He’d never get the chance to do anything fun again. “Whatever.”
“I’m sorry, Blaine,” she said, ruffling his hair a bit. “Maybe when you’re better we can come back to Chicago and see everything. How does that sound?”
“It’s fine, whatever,” he said. He hated that she kept doing that. Promising him that they would do things when he got better; what if he never got better? He was going to die with promises to have a life later but never actually get a chance to do anything.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” she asked, finally taking the time to really look at him.
“It’s just that-” he gritted his teeth, unsure how to tell his parents that he just wanted to spend some time together as a family. He’d been nervous all week about this appointment and what it could mean for him. Would it be his saving grace or would it be his downfall? He just wanted to do something that had nothing to do with doctors or hospitals, even if only for a night.
“I really want to go to Navy Pier. We went last year after we won Nationals and it was really fun. I think it’d be nice to get to do that together,” he said.
“Navy Pier is outside, you’ll catch your death,” she chided.
“I’ve already caught my death,” Blaine responded bitterly, with a roll of his eyes. Before waiting for her to deny his request again, he began making his way back to the hotel. He couldn’t believe she wasn’t allowing him this one thing. It was such a simple request.
“What’s this really about?” his dad asked, hurrying to catch up to him. Blaine was getting to be pretty fast on his crutches.
“It’s the last chance I’ll probably ever get to be a kid,” Blaine said, starting to tear up. “And you guys keep telling me to be positive, but it’s pretty hard to be positive when I keep getting told that I’m dying. Or when I can’t even form words anymore and my head is pounding like it’s being hit with a sledgehammer. Everyone in there is so old. They’ve all lived their lives and gotten the chance to do all these things before they got cancer and I just want to get to live my life while I still feel up to it. I want to do some of the stuff we never got to do together.”
“We love you,” his dad said, giving him a guilty look. “You know that it was never about not loving you, right?”
“I know that,” Blaine said, feeling bad for bringing it up. “You guys had Cooper to worry about and we were just so far apart in age that it was hard.”
Blaine always felt horrible for causing his parents any guilt. They weren’t bad parents; they just weren’t always the most attentive. Blaine was never a fussy baby. He didn’t cry a lot. He never demanded much attention, which was good. Cooper always needed so much of it. When Blaine was a baby it was all about shuffling everyone’s schedules around to get Cooper to voice lessons, acting classes, auditions, and dance classes. Then when Cooper finally got old enough to drive, his parents had broken curfews, underage drinking and girls sneaking into the house to deal with. They didn’t ever mean to neglect Blaine. Blaine just didn’t need them as much, he wasn’t getting into trouble.
Once Cooper had left for college, Blaine was already accustomed to taking care of himself. He didn’t need his parents anymore. Then his mother started writing, and once she got published she was hardly ever home. It wasn’t that they didn’t love Blaine; he just got forgotten a lot. They trusted him on his own; he knew it was a sign that they respected him enough to leave him to his own devices.
It was just that sometimes he really wished he had been able to enjoy his childhood. He wished his parents had taken him to Disney World. That his mother had chaperoned school field trips or his dad had coached little league. His parents weren’t to blame for that. If anything, Blaine only helped push them away further. He was the one that came out to his parents and wrote them off before giving them time to process the fact that he was gay. He was the one that went running to Dalton when the bullying got bad and found every excuse imaginable to not come home on the weekends.
Now he just wanted to fix it. He wanted a chance to really get to know his parents.
“I’ll call a cab,” his mother said with a sad smile. “But we can’t stay too long; you still need your rest.”
It felt like the smallest victory in the grand scheme of things, but to Blaine it meant everything. The chance that maybe it wasn’t too late to really be a family made him feel that maybe things did happen for a reason. Kurt would kill him if he knew he was thinking that and his mother would start begging him to go to church again, so he kept that realization to himself.
****
Sunday afternoon, Blaine’s last day in Chicago, he found himself sitting in Dr. Herzog’s office, waiting for her to come back with the results from all the tests they’d ran this morning. She was supposed to be coming back to talk to them about treatment options and let them know if she’d be able to operate or not. His mother kept smiling at him like she knew this nightmare was about to be over, but Blaine knew the truth.
He’d already had his hope crushed.
The interns weren’t very subtle here. They had been practically fighting to make him comfortable when he’d first arrived this morning, each trying to win over his affections. They’d snuck him candy as they wheeled him to his tests, they helped him break into the Wi-Fi network so he could FaceTime Sam on his phone. Ever since he’d gotten back from his MRI over an hour ago, they’d been avoiding him like the plague, none of them able to even look him in the eyes.
He’d watched Grey’s Anatomy religiously for years. He knew that they were fighting over him because they all wanted to scrub in on his surgery. Now they’d all disappeared which could only mean that he wasn’t going to have any surgery.
He wasn’t going to get the surgery he needed to save his life.
He wasn’t even sure why he was still here. He knew he was only going to hear bad news about inoperable tumors and doing what they could to make him more comfortable. What did that even matter? Did they really think there was anything they could do to make him comfortable with the idea of dying?
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Well, what good did that do when no amount of kicking and screaming was going to fix the unfixable? Didn’t there come a time when fighting just became pointless? At what point was it okay for him to throw in the towel, because right now felt like a pretty great time.
The door to the office opened, echoing loudly into the room like only a hospital door was capable of doing. His father gave him a comforting squeeze on the shoulder as Dr. Herzog made her way into the room and sat behind her desk. The welcoming smile she wore when they’d first met was gone, replaced with a cold, distant look. He wondered how often she reported bad news to patients and their families and if it made her cold.
“We’ve gotten the lab results back for Blaine,” she said, scanning his file, not meeting his eyes.
There was no way that she didn’t already know what the results said. Blaine had been able to read it on all of the staff’s faces since he’d gotten back from his testing. She was avoiding looking at him. There wasn’t another good explanation.
“We’ve determined that the tumor is inoperable-” she started to explain, saying the words Blaine had dreaded hearing, but his mother cut her off before she could continue.
“What? That’s impossible! This is one of the best hospitals in the country!”
One of the best hospitals in the country and they still couldn’t help him. Blaine tried to wrap his mind around those words, really forced himself to make sense of them. He was drowning and nobody around him knew CPR. They could barely swim themselves. No amount of kicking and flailing was going to get him to the surface; he wasn’t going to find any air.
Blaine didn’t have to go quietly into the night like the poem suggested. He could kick and scream and fight all he wanted, but he would be leaving this world one way or another. He should just let it happen, wasn’t there more dignity in that?
“There isn’t a lot we can do with where the tumor is located. If we tried to remove it, it would kill Blaine.”
“You don’t have to remove it all, though,” his dad said, his voice sounded wet and Blaine didn’t know if he could handle it if his dad started to cry. He himself was already choking on the hopeless feeling that felt like a noose around his neck.
“We can’t remove any of it, not without risking your son’s health,” she explained patiently.
“So you’re going to let my son die because you’re too scared to perform a surgery that might kill him, does that make any sense to you?” his mother said, starting to yell.
“Stop,” he said, quivering.
Despite how quiet he had been, the whole room had managed to hear him and turned to look at him.
“Blaine-” his mother started but he held her off with the wave of his hand.
“Thank you, for your time,” he addressed Dr. Herzog, speaking slowly for fear that he was going to break down and start crying. “We have a plane to catch.”
“Sweetheart-”
“We have a plane to catch,” he repeated himself, his voice commanding and leaving no room for argument. “We’re going home,” he said, grabbing his crutches. He left the room with barely a glance back and he was surprised with how quickly both of his parents followed after him.
He knew that leaving so abruptly was rude and ungrateful but he couldn’t listen to the doctor talk about aggressive treatments and prolonged time. He didn’t need to hear it again when it would only upset everyone involved. He hadn’t told anybody, outside of Kurt and even then he’d been reluctant to say it aloud- but he’d invested so much hope in the chance that this doctor would fix all of his problems. He’d prayed for some magic solution to all of this but it wasn’t something that was going to be argued away like his parents were used to. No amount of money could stop the tumor from killing him. All the positive energy in the world would do nothing to cure him.
He was dying and it was time he got used to the idea.
As they waited for the elevator to reach the first floor, Blaine could see his parents trying to hide their tears. His mother was wearing a false smile full of bitterness, but she was determined to stay positive for his sake. He didn’t know why she didn’t just give it up; it clearly wasn’t doing them any good.
“There’s another doctor at Johns Hopkins,” his dad said, pulling out his phone. “They say he can work miracles.”
“Book it,” his mother said, squeezing Blaine’s upper arm tightly. He could tell that she wanted to hold his hand but it was hard for him to do that without dropping his crutches. The elevator doors opened and she was forced to let go.
Blaine tried to ignore the sharp intake of air as he pulled away from her and started towards the main doors. He didn’t want to know what she was thinking. As hard as this was going to be for Blaine, it was going to be just as hard on his parents.
What was the saying? Parents shouldn’t have to bury their children?
His vision swam as he held back his cries. He just kept pushing ahead, unable to stop. Once he stopped he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to start again. The road ahead was dark. It was overwhelming and filled with terror and dread. But at least it was a road and it hadn’t run out yet-
As the automatic doors slid open, the cool air hit his body and sent a shiver down his spine. He took a deep breath in, ignoring how the air froze his throat. It was better than breathing in the stifling hospital air that always held a hint of death and despair. He started walking, but when he reached Michigan Avenue again, he realized the last place he wanted to be was back at the hotel, stuck in another room that would only make him feel claustrophobic. The world was closing in on him and he didn’t know how to push it away.
He took a left instead of a right and ignored his parents’ worried conversation behind him. They didn’t know how to help him and that was just perfect because he didn’t know how to help himself either. He passed shop after shop but couldn’t be bothered to even look inside the places he would have once begged to enter. What did a new sweater or jacket matter in the face of death? What would he do with the latest iPhone? It was all so completely pointless. He pushed through the crowds, breathing in heavily, feeling like he was being stabbed repeatedly in the chest. All of these people were walking about like it was just a normal Sunday. It wasn’t right. Couldn’t they see how different everything now was?
“Blaine, this is the Tribune Tower, do you want to look around?” his dad asked while his mom pleaded with him to slow down.
He ignored them and made his way across the bridge, unsure of what he was looking for but knowing he hadn’t found it yet. He couldn’t stop, not while his skin was still crawling and his stomach was twisting itself into a knot.
“Why don’t we get something to eat, some of these restaurants look nice,” his dad commented.
“I don’t want to eat!” he yelled, not bothering to even turn around and see what was sure to be the stricken faces of his parents.
Eventually, they came across what appeared to be a park and without rhyme or reason, Blaine abruptly turned and made his way through the gardens, watching as laughing children ran past, being chased by frazzled parents. He wondered if those parents had any idea of how fragile their children’s lives where. He longed for the ignorance of those kids, running around as if nothing bad could ever happen to them.
That had been him. This past summer he’d run around with his friends as reckless as any teenager, never thinking that time was so limited.
He veered off the path they’d been taking and cut over, needing to get away from the kids that just reminded him of everything he was trying to run away from. His parents had fallen silent by this point and he didn’t know what to make of that. His mom should have been pestering him about getting inside before he froze to death. His dad should have been reminding them that their plane was going to leave later that night and they still needed to get their things from the hotel. Neither of them said a word though as Blaine stumbled across one of the strangest sculptures he’d ever seen.
There was a giant bean shaped mirror in the middle of the plaza, reflecting the sunset and skyline off of its walls.
“It’s called Cloud Gate, but most of the locals just call it the Bean,” his dad said into his ear, resting a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“It’s weird,” Blaine commented, though all three of them were captivated by it, watching the sun set slowly until they had been standing there long enough to only see the reflection of the city lights on the surface.
“It’s actually really beautiful in a different kind of way,” his mother commented after what must have been almost an hour of silence if the now darkened city was any indication. When they’d left the hospital, it had still been light outside.
“Yeah, it’s cool,” Blaine commented, still sniffling a bit but for the most part he’d come back to himself.
“Are you guys hungry? We’ve probably got enough time for a quick dinner before we have to get to the airport,” his dad asked.
“I don’t want to have the treatment,” he said, his eyes not leaving the reflection of the three of them. It was almost hypnotic.
“I know it’s hard, but it’s going to help you,” his mom said.
“It’s not,” he said calmly, sure about his feelings in a way he hadn’t been since the diagnosis.
That was how he knew he was making the right decision. Hope had always been fizzling under the surface and was clouding his judgment making him unsure and tentative in his decisions. Now he knew for certain how he wanted to deal with this. He didn’t want to hide behind chemo and radiation. He didn’t want to live in fear of death. He wanted to face it head on. He wanted to live every moment that he had left and when death came, he wanted to open it with welcome arms without a hint of regret.
Hadn’t Dumbledore taught him that death was just the next great adventure? Wasn’t that the entire message of the Deathly Hallows book that he’d read every year like clockwork - that death should be greeted as an old friend knowing that if you lead a life filled with love that you didn’t have anything to fear?
“The treatment is going to give you more time,” his dad tried to persuade him.
“If we have more time, Sweetheart, we can find somebody that’s willing to operate.”
“We’re not going to, can’t you see that?” he asked. “We need to start accepting that this is our life now. I have cancer and that’s not going away.”
“You have to let us try,” his dad argued.
“I love you both, and I would do a lot for more time with you guys because there’s never going to be enough. But that’s just the point; I want to spend my time with you and Cooper and my friends, not in a hospital.”
“If time’s what you want-”
“Time is what I want,” Blaine said. “I’m just asking for you to give that to me. Let me live my time out how I chose.”
“We can’t just give up!” his mom protested and he could hear the desperation in her voice. The fear. That wasn’t how he wanted to live out his life.
“Exactly,” he replied calmly, placing a soothing hand on her shoulder. “I can’t just give up the time I have left to spend it with doctors and nurses I barely know. I want to live.”
“There’s somebody out there that can help you,” his dad said. “I have a list of at least fifteen doctors that are willing to try and help you.”
“The only people that are going to be able to help me come to terms with death don’t work in a hospital.”
“You aren’t dying!” his mom cried.
“You can’t ask us to just stop,” his dad said, looking at Blaine like he’d lost his mind.
“I’m not asking. I’m telling,” he said, feeling guilty for it but knowing that this was what he had to do for his own piece of mind. In the long run, it would be better for everyone this way. They’d see. “I’m eighteen. You can’t make me do anything and I’m telling you- I hope that you’ll understand but if you don’t, I’m still going to make this decision.”
“We should think about this some more,” his dad said and immediately tried to get them to leave and find a restaurant to eat at. Blaine was clearly hungry and was too tired to make these kind of decisions right now.
“I don’t need to think about it. I want you to call the hospital and cancel my radiation sessions. I’m not going back.”
“You’re not thinking straight!” his dad said, getting angry and desperate but Blaine couldn’t be angry at him. He understood how his dad felt, but there wasn’t anything he could do to fix it. Blaine would still be dying in the end, no matter what treatment he had or doctor he saw.
“There has to be some compromise here,” his mom said.
Blaine just looked at her pitifully, there wasn’t.
“What’s the plan?” she pushed him.
“I don’t know. Be at home for awhile. Give my friends time to say goodbye. Go to France with Kurt, we’ve always wanted to see it. Finally take that family trip to Puerto Princesa? I’d like to do something with just Cooper.”
“Okay,” his mom agreed surprising both Blaine and his dad.
“Neile!” his dad protested.
“Okay?” Blaine whispered, barely believing it. Of anybody, his mom had been the last person he’d expected to agree to his decision.
“Okay, your father and I will make sure you get to do all of those things. We’ll pay for your ticket to France and we’ll book a family trip back to the Philippines,” she said and Blaine’s heart started to fill with hope that he’d actually get his wish. His voice was being heard.
“What are you doing?” his dad asked.
“Compromising. We’ll do these things Blaine, but you have to do something for us,” she said.
“What?”
“Give us time,” she said with a pointed look.
“But I don’t-” he’d been about to remind her that he didn’t have time to give, but she cut him off.
“You have a good six months at least. Give us three of those and after that, if you still want to stop treatment, you can do whatever you’d like with the rest of your time. We’ll pay for anything you decide you want to do.”
“I’ll be sick by then, too sick to do anything,” he argued.
“Not if you get treatment for the first three months and let us take you to any doctor we think might help without complaint.”
Blaine knew there were probably a million reasons to deny her request, the first of which was that they were just postponing the inevitable, but in the end he agreed. If three months was what his parents needed to know that they’d tried their best. If that would give them the peace of mind to let him go- if it would alleviate any bit of their guilt and anguish, then he didn’t really have a choice.