[fic] he's like a virgin losing a child: chapter four (1/2)
Title: He’s Like a Virgin Losing a Child
Pairing(s): Akame
Genre: Romance, Angst, AU
Rating: PG-15
Summary: Five years in the future, Jin is living in California, suffering through problems he'd never in his life thought he would have to deal with. But then Kame comes to visit- poor destitute Kame- and he brings a boy with him. But when the boy is struck with problems of his own, Jin is forced to forget his situation to help the small family deal with this unforeseen villain.
At Jin’s words, ‘Well, it’s you,’ Kame immediately pops out of his chair as if he had been physically shocked by a jolt, or nudged sharply on his back, and he presses Jin for answers, for reasons. Jin had been sure Kame would have figured it all out from that simple line, and he had held his breath, felt his heart beat a thousand times faster as he uttered the words, so Kame’s ignorance hurts him something fierce. Even as they go inside, even as they put To-kun to sleep, even as they ready themselves for sleep as well, Kame keeps asking Jin, and Jin keeps refusing to tell him.
“If you can’t figure it out,” he says, after Kame asks the same question for what seemed to be like the millionth time that night, “then I’m not ready to explain it to you.”
Kame fumes but stops asking, and heads off to bed without saying goodnight to Jin. If one thing hadn’t changed about Kame, it was his ability to make Jin feel like a patient parent holding on through their child’s storm of a tantrum.
The next morning that storm has blown over, and Kame is back to normal, making no mention of the night before. Jin wonders if he’ll ever be man enough to tell Kame he knows the secret. Then he remembers all the previous moments where he was so sure he would be able to tell Kame, only to back down like the day previous, and realizes that no, it would always be left unsaid.
* * *
It’s not until a few days later that Jin notices his symptoms are getting worse.
It starts first with the names of things. One minute he’s perfectly aware that a toothbrush is to be called a ‘toothbrush,’ or that the laptop he has tucked away in an office somewhere is to be called a ‘laptop.’ The next and he’s calling the toothbrush ‘that thing with the, uh- the bristles right? Attached to the plastic… stick?’ or the laptop ‘the big, boxy sorta thing, you know, and that screen thing that lights up when you turn it on, to like, research stuff?’
It’s embarrassing, it’s humiliating, when he finally remembers himself and remembers the objects’ names and is exposed so horribly to Kame and his nephew. He always excuses himself from their presence when it happens, and is only able to face them again when he forgets what had happened as well.
Then it’s forgetting what he is doing right in the middle of completing an action. Kame would ask him to fetch the medication for To-kun per say, and he would go directly to where he knew it was kept, only to stop halfway through and forget all about Kame’s request. He’d go off to watch TV, or fix himself something to eat, and when Kame would find him later to ask what had happened, he wouldn’t remember what he was supposed to have done even after being reminded.
Kame would say Jin had forgotten again. He’d deny it and tell Kame he hadn’t. A fight would always follow, and the house would be a turmoil of high-strung emotions until Jin would forget yet again all about their arguments.
Then it’s nights where he wakes up not knowing where he is, when he gets up from bed to wander the house until the noises he makes as he clumsily moves along jar Kame and Tohaku from their slumber. And he can’t sleep very much at all, or when he does it’s a deep sort of sleep he never wants to wake up from. When he finally manages to pull himself out of that stupor, terror makes him feel like he never wants to return to that state again. He quickly forgets and the cycle starts all over.
And despite everything, despite the troubles and the worry and the shame, he still refuses to take it seriously. Even though the times when relapses occur increase at a steady, steady rate, he makes no effort to combat it’s onward march. Sure, he takes his medication and goes to the regular doctor check-ups; what he doesn’t do is acknowledge that the disease is overtaking his mind.
And it’s not until Kame takes it seriously that he begins to realize the folly of his ways.
It happens on a Tuesday night. He wakes up disoriented around 3 AM, and can’t remember where he is or even why he is for a moment, but there’s a glow coming from the crack under the door and it grounds him, brings him back if only a little. He pushes the covers back, and stumbles out of bed. He trips over nothing, has to fight the haze, has to remember how to walk even, but he makes it to the opposite wall and pushes open the door.
Kame is sitting Indian-style just across from Jin’s room, Jin’s laptop perched precariously on his knees. He looks up as the door opens. One look, one glance, and his eyes meet Kame’s and suddenly everything is clear again.
“Hey, the Health and Age Association says apple juice may help protect against memory loss, did you know?” Kame asks. “That’s good,” Kame continues without waiting for an answer, “since you recently bought some cans of the stuff for Tohaku. Maybe he’d share.”
“Uh,” Jin replies. He wonders if his mouth is hanging open, and if Kame notices. “Uh…”
“Hmm?” Kame says, as he turns his attention back to the screen on the laptop.
“What are you doing?” Jin asks. His voice cracks on the last syllable.
“I’m just looking up things. You know, about your Alzheimer’s. What. ” Kame deadpans when Jin fixes Kame with a look that screams ‘are you nuts?’
“What. Can’t I?” Kame continues, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world to be sitting on the floor just outside Jin’s room in the wee hours of the night, researching Alzheimer’s and telling him that apple juice can help with memory loss and saying that maybe Tohaku would share.
“No, no, you just-” Jin begins, but Kame’s raised eyebrow changes his mind. “I mean… sure, okay. Why not.”
“Good. Now come sit here, since you’re up,” Kame orders, patting the wood next to him. “I’ve found out lots of useful stuff.”
Jin blinks at Kame, and stands there quietly in the doorway, dumbfounded. But since when has Kame ever been normal and thought normal things? He is wild, he is crazy, he is unpredictable, and yet has this maturity about him that reassures Jin, that tells him Kame always knows what he’s doing, and always does things for a purpose. Jin has always trusted Kame to never lead him astray.
So maybe being up like this, with the laptop and the research and the everything, is okay. Jin sighs and accepts it as best he can, and moves to the spot Kame has pointed out for him. When he slides down the wall and settles himself, Kame flashes him a bright and real smile.
And then when he grabs Jin’s hand and squeezes, Kame’s fingers burn as they touch skin. Jin thankfully holds back his gasp, but Kame absently squeezes his hand again, and the feeling seems to be everywhere; constricting around his lungs, his body, his heart. When the grasp moves momentarily to Jin’s wrist, Jin is so sure that Kame feels his rapidly throbbing pulse he almost snatches his arm back. But the hand disappears as suddenly as it came, and Kame focuses on the laptop once again. He points to the screen and says something, but Jin can barely hear, barely comprehend. Jin only nods and says nothing, hoping it will be enough to avoid suspicion.
Because if there’s one thing he doesn’t want, especially now with Tohaku and with the Alzheimer’s and with everything, Jin doesn’t want Kame to know he still loves him.
* * *
Jin’s worst episode happens a week after that night.
He is alone in the house when it occurs, as Kame and Tohaku had left for an appointment with the doctors. Jin had wanted to go but the meeting, as Kame had said, was to be with family members only.
He had sent them away with a smile, but it was only a mask to hide a desperation he felt but didn’t recognize. When he settles down in the living room with a book later, that desperation makes him immediately forget that Kame and Tohaku are gone.
“Kame?” he calls out, before realizing the house is empty.
He feels a sudden upwelling of loneliness, because he has always hated being alone, has always needed human companionship to feel sane. He has stayed in this house alone for a long time, ever since Alex- his caregiver turned boyfriend- had left, and has become accustomed to the feeling of being on his own. But with Kame and Tohaku filling in the spaces of his life, the feelings of missing human companionship grows tenfold.
And even though Kame has only been gone for not even an hour, that panic of being left to himself overrides his common sense. He feels desperate to do something to mask the silence, so he switches on the TV in the living room, adds the sounds of the stereo to that noise, scrounges through the kitchen and relishes in the clamor produced from the clanging of pots and dishes.
He suddenly feels hungry, so removes the loaf of multigrain bread from its place next to the bowl of fruit placed near the sink, and selects a slice from the bag. Taking the bag with him, he crosses his large kitchen to the toaster.
But suddenly, the now familiar haziness descends upon him, and the veil is placed in front of his eyes, the wall built instantly in his mind and he can’t understand anything anymore. The toaster becomes foreign, and he can’t seem to remember how it works. The slots; they are for what again? And the knob, with the numbers; that controls something, right? Can the black plastic whatchamacallit move down, is that what it does?
He knows he should be able to work it or sort it out, but how is another story and he hates himself for not knowing. The anger and the shame come up like a tidal wave; unstoppable, terrible and swift.
Almost unaware of his actions, Jin takes the bag of bread, and with a passion that scares him even as he revels in it, tears the bread from the plastic, ripping it while screaming out his frustration, teeth bared in his rage. The pieces scatter across the kitchen, land upon the table and the counter and the floor, torn and shredded pieces looking hideously brown upon the white tile, gruesomely clashing with the color of the cherry-wood table.
He stands there breathing hard after his outburst, chest heaving as he brings himself down from that high, that fury. His breath catches when he can finally take in the destruction, and he holds back a sob as the shame comes back full force. Jin stumbles to the table, and sinks into a chair, draping himself across the wood with a great heaving sigh. He struggles to hold back his tears.
He’s had it with the Alzheimer’s; he just can’t do it anymore. He thinks about all the trouble, the suffering its caused, will cause, and how it’s just getting worse and worse; never stopping, never slowing down. That panic he feels, always feels now when he remembers its steady advancement, grabs him with a strong, unrelenting grip, shaking him and bruising him and corrupting him. His head hurts, throbs, and he’s desperate to erase his humiliation, to release himself from the panic.
Then he remembers the apple juice cans, the ones he’d bought for Tohaku, remembers Kame’s indifferent comment, that ‘hey, the Health and Age Association says apple juice may help protect against memory loss, did you know?’, and he staggers towards the cabinet near the oven. The huge pack of those small, green cans is there, and he drags the huge thing out, slams it down carelessly on the table.
He plops back down in the chair, reaches for a can, pops the lid, and swigs. The can, meant as a drink for a small child and not a grown man like Jin, is empty far too quickly. He grabs another and downs it as quickly as the first can. He’s got all day. He’ll drink them all.
Part Two