Ordinary, chapter 15
summary: Ian is diagnosed with cancer. In this chapter, Ian and Anthony celebrate April Fool's Day.
warnings: sadness and foul language.
rating: pg-13
Ordinary, chapter fifteen
Ian was already awake at two in the morning, just falling violently ill in the bathroom. Shuddering, he crawled back into his bed, tucking himself under the thick sheets that he would soon no longer need. It was the first of April, now, meaning a beautiful Spring, with Easter only a week away. It would be a lovely time for everyone else, reminding everyone of life, of beginnings, except Ian, who would only think of endings.
His cell phone rang, interrupting his thoughts. He sighed and lifted it from the pillow next to him, seeing it was Anthony. He almost didn't pick it up, but figured it had to be important if he was calling this early.
"Ant, what's up?" His voice was hoarse after the acidic vomit forced itself up his throat, but it sounded as though he was just tired.
"Ian." Anthony began with a sense of urgency. "Is your refrigerator running?"
"What?" Ian asked, perplexed.
"Is it?"
"Yeah..." Ian answered hesitantly.
"Well then, you better go get it!" Anthony laughed maniacally and hung up. Ian shook his head and decided not to think of it, just wanting to go to sleep.
But at three, his phone rang again. Ian answered groggily.
"Hello?"
"Is your muffin buttered?" Ian stared at the caller ID. It was Anthony.
"What?"
"Would you like someone to butter your muffin?" Anthony giggled and hung up.
The same happened at four.
"Dude, stop c-"
"I'm looking for Jim?" It was a gruff voice, and Ian looked again at the caller ID: withheld.
"Oh, sorry, you have the wrong number." He hung up, shaking his head. Who the hell called their friends this early in the morning? Besides Anthony, whom he inferred to be merely restless.
He found himself kneeling in front of the toilet again at five, when the phone rang yet again, still from a withheld number.
"Hello?" He cleared his throat, sounding raspy again.
"Is Jim there?" He heard a man with a country drawl. Who was Jim?
"No, you have the wrong number."
And it rang yet again at six, as he climbed out of the shower.
"Hi, can I talk to Jim?" Now it was a girl? Ian paused and looked at the withheld number, thinking about her oddly familiar voice. In fact, the other voices sounded familiar, too.
"You have the wrong number." Ian said, hanging up. He looked at his screen, time and date glowing, and realized what was happening. It was April Fool's Day, and every year he and Anthony had to get each other somehow. Anthony must've resorted to prank calls, and gotten Kalel in on it, too. Well, he couldn't let him win.
His hands were shaking as he pushed the cart down the aisle at the local supermarket. He was in a lot of pain already, and the Demerol didn't seem to help. He wondered why things were hurting so much today, but tried instead to focus on his task.
It was now around nine, and Anthony and Kalel had called at least thirty more times, and he had received calls from many other people as well. He recognized Ray William Johnson's voice, and his mother laughed half way through her prank call, in which he commended her for her efforts. But now he was buying all he would need to pull off the greatest prank ever.
He wheeled the cart into the candy aisle, adorned with bunnies and extra sweets since Easter was so close. The sight of it made Ian's mouth water, but his stomach flipped in pain and he immediately lost his appetite. He stopped when he got to the large bags of jelly beans, and started tossing them into his cart. By the time he was finished, he had bought all the candy beans in the store, and thousands were sitting in his cart. He wheeled over to a register, where a nice looking guy, probably younger than him, stood to scan the items.
"Hey, what's your name?" Ian asked him as the teen scanned the candy, eying it suspiciously.
"Jim." He answered.
"Perfect." Ian smiled. "When do you go on break?"
"Ten. Why?" Jim looked even more suspicious, but Ian could tell he was mischievous, by that mad little sparkle in his eye.
"Listen, my friend's been prank calling me all day, so I thought of a way to get revenge. But I have a bad back, and need an accomplice." Ian, of course, didn't really have a bad back, he just felt way too sick to do the work needed on his own.
Jim gave him a devilish grin. "What do you need me to do?"
Ian returned the grin, a sense of pride towards the unknown boy growing in his chest. "If I give you an address, can you meet me there at ten thirty?" He gave him the address, paid, and went home, stomach in pain, but actually having to force down an evil laugh. It would be such a great prank.
Ian spent the next hour at home, in pain. At first he was thankful the pain didn't cause any vomiting or bowl movements, but when all he could do was sit in pain, he felt he would rather just cringe on the toilet, defecation at least easing it momentarily. He took another Demerol (four hours after he took his first of the day, he followed his doctor's instructions), and drove over to Anthony's, parking behind a silver car at the sidewalk that he assumed to be Jim's.
"Hey!" Jim called out to him, stepping out of his car. "No one's home."
"Good." Ian responded. He knew every Sunday Kalel drove out to Mac, and Anthony visited his brother. He and Jim took the jelly beans from the trunk and examined the house. It was little and white, with two stories and a quaint porch, a cute pathway leading up to it. It was really picture-perfect, or it would be until Ian did his work. He handed a bag to Jim.
"We're going to need a ladder." He said, trembling with both pain and excitement. "He has one in the garage, I have a key. Start spreading these out on the porch." He fetched the ladder, with the emergency key Anthony had given him when he and Kalel first moved in. Leaning it against the house, he instructed Jim to start climbing.
By the time they were finished, Anthony's house looked like it came from a fairy tale. It was covered in jelly beans; the porch, the roof, the grass, the pathway, even the mailbox. Only a few birds and squirrels had ventured over to eat the candy, but Ian knew when he and his partner left, the place would be covered in animals.
"Thanks, man." He said to the teen, who was shaking with laughter.
"Dude, can I tweet a picture of this?" Jim asked him, pride lighting up his eyes. "Wait, let me mention you. What's your username?"
"SmoshIan." He responded, and laughed at the gleeful shock on his partner's face.
"Dude, you're like huge on Youtube! This is so fucking cool!" The teen yelled as he took a picture of the house.
Anthony called yet again, and this time Ian heard his friend's brother's voice before hanging up. He had called twice while they were candy coating the home, and Ian had only feigned annoyance, hiding his laughter. He said goodbye to Jim, and the pair separated, but only one drove home caught in a sick feeling of pure joy, and maddening pain.
***
He knew Anthony would probably get home first, because Kalel had to drive all the way out to Los Angeles to visit Mac, and had spent much of his afternoon in anticipation. He had found Jim's tweet, because everyone was retweeting and laughing, and someone had screen-capped it and put it on Tumblr. Oh, Tumblr, land of the crazy. He ended up retweeting it, but when Anthony called five minutes later to prank him for roughly the fiftieth time that day, it was clear he was in his car on the way home, and hadn't seen it yet. When he did, though, the reaction was priceless.
"Hello?" Ian was literally holding back an explosion of laughter.
"What the hell did you do?" Anthony screamed from the other end of the line, but he was laughing so hard, one could barely understand him.
"April Fool's!" Ian shouted, and there was a very long time of only laughter between the pair. As Anthony went on to congratulate him, discuss the greatness of the prank, and project upon how furious Kalel would be, Ian couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of pride, and true friendship, with only the smallest amount of pain stirring in his stomach.
***
The next day, Ian took the first few minutes of therapy to tell Kris of his prank, and they both sat together, roaring with laughter. In the morning, Anthony had tweeted a picture of his house, now only half covered in candy, but wholly covered in small animals eating it, making the prank even funnier.
Kris smiled at Ian, gradually controlling himself. "So, my boy, you and Anthony prank each other every year?"
"Yeah." Ian nodded, wiping away a tear of laughter. He wasn't laughing that hard, because his stomach was still hurting, but the situation was just that great. "Since sixth grade. He took all the dirty clothes from the lost and found and put them in my locker, and I bought all the school's yogurt and stuffed it in his."
"Well, well, you both seem quite adept at it!" Kris beamed. "Is this what lead you two to begin making Smosh?"
"Partly." Ian answered with a smile. "We also just loved making people laugh. So we started making a few videos, and from there, we sort of just picked a name and ran with it."
"And, may I ask how you came up with the term 'Smosh?'" Kris asked, curiosity shining through his blue eyes.
"Everyone thinks it stands for something, or it comes from a great story." Ian said, and thought back to the crumpled piece of paper he had found the other month in his desk. They almost named themselves after their Mormon friend Brian, but they were thankful now of their choice. "The truth is, I was making fun of some guy's dancing, and Anthony said it looked like I was in a really shitty- sorry- mosh pit, and the word just formed from that. I don't even remember which of us said it first."
"Hmm." Kris hummed and rubbed his chin. "So what were the early days of Smosh like?"
"Well, we were like fourteen, so we were just goofing off, doing whatever, it wasn't really a big thing until about half a year after we named it. It would've been fun, it should've been more fun for me, but I was torn up over Anthony." Ian's smile had faded, and he resumed a face of neutrality, and a tone of haunting nostalgia. "I moved on, though, and Smosh helped us bond as friends. So it's been pretty great."
Kris only nodded, looking over the young man as though memorizing every detail about him. Finally, he opened his mouth to speak. "While I find it unfortunate, my boy, that you spent the beginnings of Smosh in such a sad state, I am so thankful you moved passed it, found joy in life, made it here to me today. Knowing you is a privilege."
Ian nodded, and the smile returned to his face. He didn't have to say a word- the old man knew his importance in Ian's unfortunately short life.
***
"So today on Ian is bored, we're gonna do something a little familiar." Anthony was winking at the camera, pointing down at the papers in front of them, as they sat at the table, divider between them.
"You guys suggested to us some characters from a movie or T.V. show to draw, and the most popular suggestion was Spongebob!" Ian was considerably lively and cheerful, because of his bittersweet nostalgia a few hours previous.
"Yeah, so, I haven't watched this show in like, four years-"
"I didn't watch this show until Mel told me to."
"You never watched Spongebob?"
"I've seen, like, three of them, and I didn't think they were that great."
"Well, prepare for some hate comments." They both laughed. They were used to shrugging off stupid comments, anyway.
Ian is Bored went off without a hitch, and predictably, Anthony drew the characters better. The pain in Ian's midsection did not return until he was alone, editing, but he did his best to ignore the stabbing feeling until taking his sleep medicine and falling into another long, deep, relieving rest.
***
The first few times Ian had gone to the organic food store, it had started as a grand adventure, and quickly moved into a pathetic scene of a grown man not knowing the difference between green beans and peas. Ian had mastered the place, now, however, and was in again after filming Wednesday in order to buy more oatmeal, and get more healthy snacks.
He began in the produce section, where most of what he bought was fresh, green vegetables, which he ate as either a salad or cooked with rice for dinner almost daily. He also bought fruit for when he became bored of just the greens, and would usually reward himself with half an apple after yoga, sealing the remaining portion in his fridge for the next day.
He ventured to the meat, where he only selected lean chicken breast (the organic labels bragging of it being locally raised and not given chemicals and steroids). He had stopped eating all other meats, expect the rare burger during Lunchtime, and usually he only pan-seared the chicken and ate it with rice.
He skipped the dairy aisle, because he now only drank water, and cheese was already having adverse affects on his body. He had some yogurt left in his fridge, but decided not to get more when he was done with it, because he knew his body would soon reject all forms of dairy.
He bought some organic soup for when his stomach wasn't in the mood for solids, and more rice, because it was calming for the stomach, healthy, and cleaned out his body. He didn't buy any salty snack foods, he found they made him feel very nauseous, and skipped anything else he felt would cause vomiting. After finding his oatmeal, Ian paid and left, thinking silently in his car.
He never would have thought he would be the guy shopping at an organic supermarket, but now that he had cancer, almost his whole life had changed. And his stomach was hurting even more than usual, too, so it paid now more than ever to keep healthy.
Ian ended up spending his spare time doing as he usually did, drinking water and doing yoga, even with the intense pain in his stomach, only halting his yoga for a moment on Easter to call his mom, then losing himself in the reverence of health once again.
***
"Ian, I feel as though you're not really paying attention today." Kris was staring at him, as they sat together in therapy, and Ian shook his head.
"Sorry, my stomach's just hurting. I'm fine. What were you saying?"
Kris continued his intense stare, and Ian squirmed uncomfortably. "Are you sure you're alright, Ian?"
"No, but I really don't want to think about it. Can we just talk about whatever you were talking about?" Ian just wanted a distraction from his aching stomach.
"Okay..." Kris said, concerned, but moving on. "I wanted to talk about your fans."
Ian smiled. "I love my fans. Crazy bastards." He said fondly with a sigh.
"What's your connection with your fans? How close are you with the public?" As Kris asked, he reached over for his glasses, cleaning them with his little cloth, and giving Ian a small nod, urging him to answer.
"I don't really think they know how much they mean to me. Like, they're just so important to me. Making people happy, that's amazing, and it's amazing how much some of them love us. They have blogs dedicated to us, they send us mail, they write occasionally creepy stories about us, it's great." Ian knew he wasn't as creeped out by the stories as Anthony was, he found most of them interesting, entertaining, and a few just hot, but never admitted anything, only acting as appalled as his friend.
"That's great, Ian. And you love them so much, because of their affection for you?"
"Well, I couldn't exist without them, my whole job is to make them laugh, to entertain them, to make them happy. And I'm really glad I'm doing it." Ian could never express in words how truly happy it made him to have the fans he had. It didn't matter if he was making some twelve year old fan girl or twenty year old procrastinator laugh, he would work just as hard for either of them.
"And you don't regret not announcing you have cancer to the world? To your fans?" Kris raised his eyebrows, but looked as though he already knew the answer.
Ian did as Kris expected, losing the small amount of joy his face held when he was thinking of his small army of an audience, and lowering his head, knotting his hands in his lap. "I can't face that. I can't see them like that. I- it's just like with Mom and Ant and Mel. I'm not strong enough, I'm too selfish."
They sat in silence for a moment, Kris' perfectly predicted answer bouncing through each mind. When Kris was about to speak, Ian interrupted the silence.
"I think I'm going to delete my Facebook before I die." He looked focused. "And my Twitter, too. Not with a goodbye note or anything, just so no one has to deal with it for me. Not too far ahead, though, I don't want to freak out the fans. I...I love them very much." He said his last sentence softly, and the pair stared at the thick curtains, the seriousness of every other life, and every small decision, weighing down their tired shoulders.
***
Ian felt as though he was in a fog, all through filming. He was in so much pain, he couldn't move, couldn't breathe. It, to him, was a miracle no one noticed. Even Anthony hadn't mentioned how distracted he was on set, not noticing his friend's ailments. His midsection burned every minute, and he was starting to feel powerless, exhausted by the pain. While the unknown stabbing continued, all Ian could do was shake, shake and be reminded of the miserable times ahead of him.
warnings: sadness and foul language.
rating: pg-13
Ordinary, chapter fifteen
Ian was already awake at two in the morning, just falling violently ill in the bathroom. Shuddering, he crawled back into his bed, tucking himself under the thick sheets that he would soon no longer need. It was the first of April, now, meaning a beautiful Spring, with Easter only a week away. It would be a lovely time for everyone else, reminding everyone of life, of beginnings, except Ian, who would only think of endings.
His cell phone rang, interrupting his thoughts. He sighed and lifted it from the pillow next to him, seeing it was Anthony. He almost didn't pick it up, but figured it had to be important if he was calling this early.
"Ant, what's up?" His voice was hoarse after the acidic vomit forced itself up his throat, but it sounded as though he was just tired.
"Ian." Anthony began with a sense of urgency. "Is your refrigerator running?"
"What?" Ian asked, perplexed.
"Is it?"
"Yeah..." Ian answered hesitantly.
"Well then, you better go get it!" Anthony laughed maniacally and hung up. Ian shook his head and decided not to think of it, just wanting to go to sleep.
But at three, his phone rang again. Ian answered groggily.
"Hello?"
"Is your muffin buttered?" Ian stared at the caller ID. It was Anthony.
"What?"
"Would you like someone to butter your muffin?" Anthony giggled and hung up.
The same happened at four.
"Dude, stop c-"
"I'm looking for Jim?" It was a gruff voice, and Ian looked again at the caller ID: withheld.
"Oh, sorry, you have the wrong number." He hung up, shaking his head. Who the hell called their friends this early in the morning? Besides Anthony, whom he inferred to be merely restless.
He found himself kneeling in front of the toilet again at five, when the phone rang yet again, still from a withheld number.
"Hello?" He cleared his throat, sounding raspy again.
"Is Jim there?" He heard a man with a country drawl. Who was Jim?
"No, you have the wrong number."
And it rang yet again at six, as he climbed out of the shower.
"Hi, can I talk to Jim?" Now it was a girl? Ian paused and looked at the withheld number, thinking about her oddly familiar voice. In fact, the other voices sounded familiar, too.
"You have the wrong number." Ian said, hanging up. He looked at his screen, time and date glowing, and realized what was happening. It was April Fool's Day, and every year he and Anthony had to get each other somehow. Anthony must've resorted to prank calls, and gotten Kalel in on it, too. Well, he couldn't let him win.
His hands were shaking as he pushed the cart down the aisle at the local supermarket. He was in a lot of pain already, and the Demerol didn't seem to help. He wondered why things were hurting so much today, but tried instead to focus on his task.
It was now around nine, and Anthony and Kalel had called at least thirty more times, and he had received calls from many other people as well. He recognized Ray William Johnson's voice, and his mother laughed half way through her prank call, in which he commended her for her efforts. But now he was buying all he would need to pull off the greatest prank ever.
He wheeled the cart into the candy aisle, adorned with bunnies and extra sweets since Easter was so close. The sight of it made Ian's mouth water, but his stomach flipped in pain and he immediately lost his appetite. He stopped when he got to the large bags of jelly beans, and started tossing them into his cart. By the time he was finished, he had bought all the candy beans in the store, and thousands were sitting in his cart. He wheeled over to a register, where a nice looking guy, probably younger than him, stood to scan the items.
"Hey, what's your name?" Ian asked him as the teen scanned the candy, eying it suspiciously.
"Jim." He answered.
"Perfect." Ian smiled. "When do you go on break?"
"Ten. Why?" Jim looked even more suspicious, but Ian could tell he was mischievous, by that mad little sparkle in his eye.
"Listen, my friend's been prank calling me all day, so I thought of a way to get revenge. But I have a bad back, and need an accomplice." Ian, of course, didn't really have a bad back, he just felt way too sick to do the work needed on his own.
Jim gave him a devilish grin. "What do you need me to do?"
Ian returned the grin, a sense of pride towards the unknown boy growing in his chest. "If I give you an address, can you meet me there at ten thirty?" He gave him the address, paid, and went home, stomach in pain, but actually having to force down an evil laugh. It would be such a great prank.
Ian spent the next hour at home, in pain. At first he was thankful the pain didn't cause any vomiting or bowl movements, but when all he could do was sit in pain, he felt he would rather just cringe on the toilet, defecation at least easing it momentarily. He took another Demerol (four hours after he took his first of the day, he followed his doctor's instructions), and drove over to Anthony's, parking behind a silver car at the sidewalk that he assumed to be Jim's.
"Hey!" Jim called out to him, stepping out of his car. "No one's home."
"Good." Ian responded. He knew every Sunday Kalel drove out to Mac, and Anthony visited his brother. He and Jim took the jelly beans from the trunk and examined the house. It was little and white, with two stories and a quaint porch, a cute pathway leading up to it. It was really picture-perfect, or it would be until Ian did his work. He handed a bag to Jim.
"We're going to need a ladder." He said, trembling with both pain and excitement. "He has one in the garage, I have a key. Start spreading these out on the porch." He fetched the ladder, with the emergency key Anthony had given him when he and Kalel first moved in. Leaning it against the house, he instructed Jim to start climbing.
By the time they were finished, Anthony's house looked like it came from a fairy tale. It was covered in jelly beans; the porch, the roof, the grass, the pathway, even the mailbox. Only a few birds and squirrels had ventured over to eat the candy, but Ian knew when he and his partner left, the place would be covered in animals.
"Thanks, man." He said to the teen, who was shaking with laughter.
"Dude, can I tweet a picture of this?" Jim asked him, pride lighting up his eyes. "Wait, let me mention you. What's your username?"
"SmoshIan." He responded, and laughed at the gleeful shock on his partner's face.
"Dude, you're like huge on Youtube! This is so fucking cool!" The teen yelled as he took a picture of the house.
Anthony called yet again, and this time Ian heard his friend's brother's voice before hanging up. He had called twice while they were candy coating the home, and Ian had only feigned annoyance, hiding his laughter. He said goodbye to Jim, and the pair separated, but only one drove home caught in a sick feeling of pure joy, and maddening pain.
***
He knew Anthony would probably get home first, because Kalel had to drive all the way out to Los Angeles to visit Mac, and had spent much of his afternoon in anticipation. He had found Jim's tweet, because everyone was retweeting and laughing, and someone had screen-capped it and put it on Tumblr. Oh, Tumblr, land of the crazy. He ended up retweeting it, but when Anthony called five minutes later to prank him for roughly the fiftieth time that day, it was clear he was in his car on the way home, and hadn't seen it yet. When he did, though, the reaction was priceless.
"Hello?" Ian was literally holding back an explosion of laughter.
"What the hell did you do?" Anthony screamed from the other end of the line, but he was laughing so hard, one could barely understand him.
"April Fool's!" Ian shouted, and there was a very long time of only laughter between the pair. As Anthony went on to congratulate him, discuss the greatness of the prank, and project upon how furious Kalel would be, Ian couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of pride, and true friendship, with only the smallest amount of pain stirring in his stomach.
***
The next day, Ian took the first few minutes of therapy to tell Kris of his prank, and they both sat together, roaring with laughter. In the morning, Anthony had tweeted a picture of his house, now only half covered in candy, but wholly covered in small animals eating it, making the prank even funnier.
Kris smiled at Ian, gradually controlling himself. "So, my boy, you and Anthony prank each other every year?"
"Yeah." Ian nodded, wiping away a tear of laughter. He wasn't laughing that hard, because his stomach was still hurting, but the situation was just that great. "Since sixth grade. He took all the dirty clothes from the lost and found and put them in my locker, and I bought all the school's yogurt and stuffed it in his."
"Well, well, you both seem quite adept at it!" Kris beamed. "Is this what lead you two to begin making Smosh?"
"Partly." Ian answered with a smile. "We also just loved making people laugh. So we started making a few videos, and from there, we sort of just picked a name and ran with it."
"And, may I ask how you came up with the term 'Smosh?'" Kris asked, curiosity shining through his blue eyes.
"Everyone thinks it stands for something, or it comes from a great story." Ian said, and thought back to the crumpled piece of paper he had found the other month in his desk. They almost named themselves after their Mormon friend Brian, but they were thankful now of their choice. "The truth is, I was making fun of some guy's dancing, and Anthony said it looked like I was in a really shitty- sorry- mosh pit, and the word just formed from that. I don't even remember which of us said it first."
"Hmm." Kris hummed and rubbed his chin. "So what were the early days of Smosh like?"
"Well, we were like fourteen, so we were just goofing off, doing whatever, it wasn't really a big thing until about half a year after we named it. It would've been fun, it should've been more fun for me, but I was torn up over Anthony." Ian's smile had faded, and he resumed a face of neutrality, and a tone of haunting nostalgia. "I moved on, though, and Smosh helped us bond as friends. So it's been pretty great."
Kris only nodded, looking over the young man as though memorizing every detail about him. Finally, he opened his mouth to speak. "While I find it unfortunate, my boy, that you spent the beginnings of Smosh in such a sad state, I am so thankful you moved passed it, found joy in life, made it here to me today. Knowing you is a privilege."
Ian nodded, and the smile returned to his face. He didn't have to say a word- the old man knew his importance in Ian's unfortunately short life.
***
"So today on Ian is bored, we're gonna do something a little familiar." Anthony was winking at the camera, pointing down at the papers in front of them, as they sat at the table, divider between them.
"You guys suggested to us some characters from a movie or T.V. show to draw, and the most popular suggestion was Spongebob!" Ian was considerably lively and cheerful, because of his bittersweet nostalgia a few hours previous.
"Yeah, so, I haven't watched this show in like, four years-"
"I didn't watch this show until Mel told me to."
"You never watched Spongebob?"
"I've seen, like, three of them, and I didn't think they were that great."
"Well, prepare for some hate comments." They both laughed. They were used to shrugging off stupid comments, anyway.
Ian is Bored went off without a hitch, and predictably, Anthony drew the characters better. The pain in Ian's midsection did not return until he was alone, editing, but he did his best to ignore the stabbing feeling until taking his sleep medicine and falling into another long, deep, relieving rest.
***
The first few times Ian had gone to the organic food store, it had started as a grand adventure, and quickly moved into a pathetic scene of a grown man not knowing the difference between green beans and peas. Ian had mastered the place, now, however, and was in again after filming Wednesday in order to buy more oatmeal, and get more healthy snacks.
He began in the produce section, where most of what he bought was fresh, green vegetables, which he ate as either a salad or cooked with rice for dinner almost daily. He also bought fruit for when he became bored of just the greens, and would usually reward himself with half an apple after yoga, sealing the remaining portion in his fridge for the next day.
He ventured to the meat, where he only selected lean chicken breast (the organic labels bragging of it being locally raised and not given chemicals and steroids). He had stopped eating all other meats, expect the rare burger during Lunchtime, and usually he only pan-seared the chicken and ate it with rice.
He skipped the dairy aisle, because he now only drank water, and cheese was already having adverse affects on his body. He had some yogurt left in his fridge, but decided not to get more when he was done with it, because he knew his body would soon reject all forms of dairy.
He bought some organic soup for when his stomach wasn't in the mood for solids, and more rice, because it was calming for the stomach, healthy, and cleaned out his body. He didn't buy any salty snack foods, he found they made him feel very nauseous, and skipped anything else he felt would cause vomiting. After finding his oatmeal, Ian paid and left, thinking silently in his car.
He never would have thought he would be the guy shopping at an organic supermarket, but now that he had cancer, almost his whole life had changed. And his stomach was hurting even more than usual, too, so it paid now more than ever to keep healthy.
Ian ended up spending his spare time doing as he usually did, drinking water and doing yoga, even with the intense pain in his stomach, only halting his yoga for a moment on Easter to call his mom, then losing himself in the reverence of health once again.
***
"Ian, I feel as though you're not really paying attention today." Kris was staring at him, as they sat together in therapy, and Ian shook his head.
"Sorry, my stomach's just hurting. I'm fine. What were you saying?"
Kris continued his intense stare, and Ian squirmed uncomfortably. "Are you sure you're alright, Ian?"
"No, but I really don't want to think about it. Can we just talk about whatever you were talking about?" Ian just wanted a distraction from his aching stomach.
"Okay..." Kris said, concerned, but moving on. "I wanted to talk about your fans."
Ian smiled. "I love my fans. Crazy bastards." He said fondly with a sigh.
"What's your connection with your fans? How close are you with the public?" As Kris asked, he reached over for his glasses, cleaning them with his little cloth, and giving Ian a small nod, urging him to answer.
"I don't really think they know how much they mean to me. Like, they're just so important to me. Making people happy, that's amazing, and it's amazing how much some of them love us. They have blogs dedicated to us, they send us mail, they write occasionally creepy stories about us, it's great." Ian knew he wasn't as creeped out by the stories as Anthony was, he found most of them interesting, entertaining, and a few just hot, but never admitted anything, only acting as appalled as his friend.
"That's great, Ian. And you love them so much, because of their affection for you?"
"Well, I couldn't exist without them, my whole job is to make them laugh, to entertain them, to make them happy. And I'm really glad I'm doing it." Ian could never express in words how truly happy it made him to have the fans he had. It didn't matter if he was making some twelve year old fan girl or twenty year old procrastinator laugh, he would work just as hard for either of them.
"And you don't regret not announcing you have cancer to the world? To your fans?" Kris raised his eyebrows, but looked as though he already knew the answer.
Ian did as Kris expected, losing the small amount of joy his face held when he was thinking of his small army of an audience, and lowering his head, knotting his hands in his lap. "I can't face that. I can't see them like that. I- it's just like with Mom and Ant and Mel. I'm not strong enough, I'm too selfish."
They sat in silence for a moment, Kris' perfectly predicted answer bouncing through each mind. When Kris was about to speak, Ian interrupted the silence.
"I think I'm going to delete my Facebook before I die." He looked focused. "And my Twitter, too. Not with a goodbye note or anything, just so no one has to deal with it for me. Not too far ahead, though, I don't want to freak out the fans. I...I love them very much." He said his last sentence softly, and the pair stared at the thick curtains, the seriousness of every other life, and every small decision, weighing down their tired shoulders.
***
Ian felt as though he was in a fog, all through filming. He was in so much pain, he couldn't move, couldn't breathe. It, to him, was a miracle no one noticed. Even Anthony hadn't mentioned how distracted he was on set, not noticing his friend's ailments. His midsection burned every minute, and he was starting to feel powerless, exhausted by the pain. While the unknown stabbing continued, all Ian could do was shake, shake and be reminded of the miserable times ahead of him.