FIC: Parameters (10/13)
Title: Parameters
Fandom: Queer As Folk
Rating: R/M for language -- if you’ve seen the series, you’re fine.
Category: Angst, drama, romance, friendship, hurt/comfort
Disclaimer: I do not own, nor am I any way affiliated with the characters, actors, or production company that were part of Queer As Folk. I am however the owner of the characters and places you do not recognize.
Warnings: Cancer!fic (NOT a death!fic)
Dedicated: For gundamnook who asked for this fic as the winning bidder from help_haiti!
Summary: Justin Taylor ignored the symptoms. Ignored the nausea, the headaches, the nosebleeds. But he couldn’t ignore the colorblindness. With a dire diagnosis, he’s making his way back to Pittsburgh for the first time in two and a half years to face the music of his mortality once again.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.
RAE’S POV
It’s really surreal to be sitting in a waiting room, waiting for my best friend to come out of brain surgery, where doctors are doing a biopsy on a tumor to find out if it’s cancerous.
A waiting room where I only actually know one person.
Eli, Fi, Sean and Max were supposed to be here four hours ago, before Justin went into surgery. They’d had to call in instead because of car trouble. They were taking Sean’s clunker, ‘cause it was really the only car within our little group. Eli barely drove his car around the block, let alone on a five hour car trip.
And shit it was awkward as hell in here. The atmosphere was tense, but I kept getting stares. Curious ones. They all wanted to know what Justin was up to the last two years in New York.
Well, when we’d met, I was working at Sphinx and he was looking for a roommate. So was I. It was a match of convenience that turned into an insta-best-friendship. Both of us were in the city without family, with very little contact with other human beings given our professions keeping us up late and sleeping most of the day away (he paints best at night off complimentary booze and cheap weed).
He’d been in the city about four months before we met. Possibly longer, it’s hard to tell. I’d been clean for awhile. No meth or coke in my system for awhile. But about six months after living together, it got… bad. My brother died trying to be a hero in a pointless war that was doing more good at killing our people than protecting them, and crystal and cocaine seemed like a good idea at the time.
Only, I’d already had a long-standing problem with it since I was nineteen. I hadn’t been clean long when I fell off so I still remembered vividly the escape it provided. The alluring escape from pain and responsibility and grief. And it took three months of Justin begging and pleading with me to get help after OD’ing twice, before he and Blake forcibly admitted me to a rehab facility.
But during that time, we met Sean. Sean’s a student nurse and was working at the hospital at that time. He was in charge of menial things like keeping the shit in my room stocked and cleaning up my vomit after the stomach pump left my stomach in shambles and my throat raw. But he was nice. Talked to me like a person instead of a lowly addict.
And then I found out that he was a former trick of Justin’s, from just a few weeks prior. Amazing how small the world is, yeah?
When I was clean and released from rehab, I was all about fixing everyone else’s problems with my new found “wisdom” from rehab, so I helped Justin get a job at an art gallery, which is where we met Fiona. She’s a photographer and fucking brilliant with a camera. She’s the person that’ll lay on the ground and take pictures from a point of view. Not just take a picture of a couple snuggling in a fucking gondola or snap a picture of a weird, artistic desk corner.
Her first solo show was deemed ‘poetry in motion’ by some art magazine because all the subjects had a motion blur to them. It was beautiful. I bought one of a lonely girl standing in front of a subway, hair whipping every which way as it flew by in a blaze of metal and lights. It was perfect, symbolic. Not necessarily worth half a paycheck, but you know. Support the arts, your friends, whatever.
It wasn’t long after that, that we found Maxxie. Literally, found. He was new to New York and his first few months weren’t kind to him. But he seemed infallible. Even the way we found him, laying bloodied in an alley after Justin and I left the club. He never let it waver his optimism, his hope of being in New York.
“Rae!”
Every head in the waiting room, most of them here for Justin, snap up to the sound of heavy footsteps as four people bear down.
Fiona’s the first one to reach me, grabbing me in a tight embrace that is slightly awkward as she’s a good five inches taller than me. She plants a kiss to my cheek before Maxxie swoops in behind her.
Maxxie was worrying his lip with his teeth as he grabbed me. “It’s only been a bloody year, Rae. I don’t understand it. How can all this happen so fast?” I knew this might affect Max worst of us, because he’s been part of our group the shortest, and he’s also the youngest.
I tried to smile, but ended up sighing, affectionately running a hand over Maxxie’s messy hair and planting a kiss on his cheek.
Sean’s right behind him, smiling softly as he held me gently. He was the self-proclaimed sensitive gay of the group, and did everything with a gentle hand. Well… not everything according to Justin, but that’s a TMI sort of situation right there.
And then there was Eli. Forgot about him, didn’t I? That’s ‘cause Elijah’s sort of like a mirage. It’s hard to pick up on what’s real and what’s not at a distance. Up close is even worse. He’s closed off, careful. We don’t know much about him aside from the fact that he’s Irish, the only straight male in the group and is one of the best friends we could ever have in any sort of situation. He’s the tall, dark, brooding type, but looks entirely too vulnerable for my liking as he smiles down at me and wraps me in his arms for a long moment and it feels fucking good.
To have everyone here, to finally have my family here. I love Justin, but the past week have been fucking hell.
“C’mon, there’s some people you should meet.” I tell them as I step back from Eli.
---------------------------
BRIAN’S POV
It’s a waiting game. It’s all it fucking is and I hate the silence that’s descended.
All I can see in my head is Justin laying on cement, covered in fucking blood. But this time he’s in a hospital gown instead of a tux and instead of me weeping openly over his unconscious body, there’s a team of wise-cracking surgeons half-assing his brain surgery.
My head won’t shut off. Hasn’t since he told me that he gave me permission to pull the plug on him.
The mother-fucking twat!
I’m still infuriated over that conversation, and I will be for a long time… especially if the surgeons make me think of it as a choice. I will own this hospital, if they make me.
But at least there’s a distraction now. Justin’s friends have finally arrived. I remember clearly the completely disappointed look on his face when he found out they weren’t gonna make it in time before he had to go into surgery, and there was no way to postpone it any longer.
The was a tall redhead that bombarded Rae first, followed by a young blond, an innocent looking brunette and then finally a taller brunette in desperate need of a haircut and styling products other than mousse.
I could peg the first two guys as gay, the chick probably licked twat, but the last guy I couldn’t really tell. I would think straight from the way he hugged Rae like a lover would, but then he wrapped an arm around the blond’s shoulders and pulled him against his side. Peculiar. Probably one of those dumbasses that labeled themselves as ‘bi’ because they couldn’t just completely come out of the closet and suck cock.
“We’re Justin’s friends,” Rae started as she stood in front of the group, addressing all of the Pitts gang. “Fiona,” she pointed out the redheaded woman, “Maxxie,” the blond, “Sean,” the shorter brunette, “And Elijah.” They all said hi awkwardly, and I picked up on British from ‘Maxxie’ and Irish from ‘Elijah’.
I didn’t like them. It reminded me too much that Justin had his own life, his own friends, outside of us. Outside of me. All in New York.
And so the round of twenty questions started from Debbie and Jennifer. They all wanted to know what precious Sunshine was up to in New York. How they’d all met, what they all did, what were their social security numbers. Christ! Who gave a fuck?
I need fucking nicotine.
I’d been trying to wean myself off it the last few days that Justin had been staying with me, considering the first three times I lit up or came back around after smoking on the roof, he’d thrown up from the headache the smell caused. It was a little price to pay, but it still made me feel better.
Last time I was on this roof, I was prepared to jump off the night my son was born and the night Justin came into my life.
I wonder what would’ve happened if I’d went splat on the cement. Would Justin have? Would he have had the confidence to jack Hobbs off, and then go to the prom with a lover? Would he have had his head bashed in? Would he have gone to PIFA? Would he and Ethan fucking Gold be playing happy homes? Would he have cancer?
Would he have died in this alternate universe without me to call out his name the last split second?
Is there a heaven?
A hell?
Which do we go to?
Would we meet there, again?
Would we have met and unlived happily ever afterlife?
“What is it with you and this roof?”
Mikey. Probably should’ve expected this, but fuck I just wanted to be alone for a few minutes.
“It’s just somewhere quiet.”
He makes a thoughtful sound, and I know that I just tipped off my mood. Normally, I’d be expected to make some biting, sarcastic remark but I can’t be fucked when the only man I’ve ever let love me and love in return is laying somewhere underneath my feet, in God knows what state.
“I’d ask if you were okay, but that’s a stupid question even for me.”
I smile a little bit, wrapping my hand around the back of Mikey’s neck and dragging him against my side, fitting him there awkwardly. He doesn’t fit perfectly like a certain blond.
“He’s gonna be okay, Brian. He’s too fucking stubborn not to be.”
“He told me that if he comes out of it… different… not there… that he wants me to turn him off.”
“Wow, that’s gotta be a shocker. Usually the guys all want you to turn them on.”
I know he’s trying to make light, trying to take my mind off of it, but strike me dead if I didn’t wanna throw him off the roof. Do I really do that all the time? Look for outs so that I don’t have to do emotional. I mean, I know I do. But the only person I’ve ever acknowledged as a partner is having brain surgery. Can’t I be emotional without people expecting me to want an out from the conversation? One that I initiated?
“I wouldn’t be able to do it.” I’m quiet, letting the words ride the misting air around my mouth, “I’d rather watch him sleep for the next 40, 50 years that I’m alive, than kill him. I’d… never be able to do that. I’d never survive doing that. I’d never be able to bury him and have his legacy be resorted to a fucking grave marker.” The thought alone makes me want to throw up. “He’s younger, he’s supposed to fucking outlive me.”
“I didn’t realize how much you still love him.” Michael seems accepting of it. Like he should’ve known the whole time.
“No, he’s just going to go off to New York and I’m gonna forget that I spent five years off and on with him, proposed, bought him a house, rings, told him I loved him. That was all just a hallucination from some shit Anita gave me.” I regard him as I would the village idiot, or Ted, “Of course I still love him, Michael. He’s… fucking everything.”
“And if he dies, you lose everything.”
My silence is enough confirmation for that.
Because if Justin ceases to exist…
So do I.
-----------------
Author Note: Just a quick one... as you can see, I've added yet another chapter. Seriously, I will most likely end up doing a sequel to this where Justin relapses or something just because I don't want to end this, lmao! I'm so awful xD Technically what'll be '13' though is actually an epilogue, so it's not really another chapter, but still. :) Also, not overly happy with Rae's portion of this story. I couldn't really climb into her head with this for some reason. Sorry! I do rather like Brian's though. I hope he's not too OOC. I really try not to make him OOC, but I need emotional stuff from him right now.
Next update will be Tuesdayish, I think. Wednesday at the latest.
♥ Ashley
Fandom: Queer As Folk
Rating: R/M for language -- if you’ve seen the series, you’re fine.
Category: Angst, drama, romance, friendship, hurt/comfort
Disclaimer: I do not own, nor am I any way affiliated with the characters, actors, or production company that were part of Queer As Folk. I am however the owner of the characters and places you do not recognize.
Warnings: Cancer!fic (NOT a death!fic)
Dedicated: For gundamnook who asked for this fic as the winning bidder from help_haiti!
Summary: Justin Taylor ignored the symptoms. Ignored the nausea, the headaches, the nosebleeds. But he couldn’t ignore the colorblindness. With a dire diagnosis, he’s making his way back to Pittsburgh for the first time in two and a half years to face the music of his mortality once again.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.
RAE’S POV
It’s really surreal to be sitting in a waiting room, waiting for my best friend to come out of brain surgery, where doctors are doing a biopsy on a tumor to find out if it’s cancerous.
A waiting room where I only actually know one person.
Eli, Fi, Sean and Max were supposed to be here four hours ago, before Justin went into surgery. They’d had to call in instead because of car trouble. They were taking Sean’s clunker, ‘cause it was really the only car within our little group. Eli barely drove his car around the block, let alone on a five hour car trip.
And shit it was awkward as hell in here. The atmosphere was tense, but I kept getting stares. Curious ones. They all wanted to know what Justin was up to the last two years in New York.
Well, when we’d met, I was working at Sphinx and he was looking for a roommate. So was I. It was a match of convenience that turned into an insta-best-friendship. Both of us were in the city without family, with very little contact with other human beings given our professions keeping us up late and sleeping most of the day away (he paints best at night off complimentary booze and cheap weed).
He’d been in the city about four months before we met. Possibly longer, it’s hard to tell. I’d been clean for awhile. No meth or coke in my system for awhile. But about six months after living together, it got… bad. My brother died trying to be a hero in a pointless war that was doing more good at killing our people than protecting them, and crystal and cocaine seemed like a good idea at the time.
Only, I’d already had a long-standing problem with it since I was nineteen. I hadn’t been clean long when I fell off so I still remembered vividly the escape it provided. The alluring escape from pain and responsibility and grief. And it took three months of Justin begging and pleading with me to get help after OD’ing twice, before he and Blake forcibly admitted me to a rehab facility.
But during that time, we met Sean. Sean’s a student nurse and was working at the hospital at that time. He was in charge of menial things like keeping the shit in my room stocked and cleaning up my vomit after the stomach pump left my stomach in shambles and my throat raw. But he was nice. Talked to me like a person instead of a lowly addict.
And then I found out that he was a former trick of Justin’s, from just a few weeks prior. Amazing how small the world is, yeah?
When I was clean and released from rehab, I was all about fixing everyone else’s problems with my new found “wisdom” from rehab, so I helped Justin get a job at an art gallery, which is where we met Fiona. She’s a photographer and fucking brilliant with a camera. She’s the person that’ll lay on the ground and take pictures from a point of view. Not just take a picture of a couple snuggling in a fucking gondola or snap a picture of a weird, artistic desk corner.
Her first solo show was deemed ‘poetry in motion’ by some art magazine because all the subjects had a motion blur to them. It was beautiful. I bought one of a lonely girl standing in front of a subway, hair whipping every which way as it flew by in a blaze of metal and lights. It was perfect, symbolic. Not necessarily worth half a paycheck, but you know. Support the arts, your friends, whatever.
It wasn’t long after that, that we found Maxxie. Literally, found. He was new to New York and his first few months weren’t kind to him. But he seemed infallible. Even the way we found him, laying bloodied in an alley after Justin and I left the club. He never let it waver his optimism, his hope of being in New York.
“Rae!”
Every head in the waiting room, most of them here for Justin, snap up to the sound of heavy footsteps as four people bear down.
Fiona’s the first one to reach me, grabbing me in a tight embrace that is slightly awkward as she’s a good five inches taller than me. She plants a kiss to my cheek before Maxxie swoops in behind her.
Maxxie was worrying his lip with his teeth as he grabbed me. “It’s only been a bloody year, Rae. I don’t understand it. How can all this happen so fast?” I knew this might affect Max worst of us, because he’s been part of our group the shortest, and he’s also the youngest.
I tried to smile, but ended up sighing, affectionately running a hand over Maxxie’s messy hair and planting a kiss on his cheek.
Sean’s right behind him, smiling softly as he held me gently. He was the self-proclaimed sensitive gay of the group, and did everything with a gentle hand. Well… not everything according to Justin, but that’s a TMI sort of situation right there.
And then there was Eli. Forgot about him, didn’t I? That’s ‘cause Elijah’s sort of like a mirage. It’s hard to pick up on what’s real and what’s not at a distance. Up close is even worse. He’s closed off, careful. We don’t know much about him aside from the fact that he’s Irish, the only straight male in the group and is one of the best friends we could ever have in any sort of situation. He’s the tall, dark, brooding type, but looks entirely too vulnerable for my liking as he smiles down at me and wraps me in his arms for a long moment and it feels fucking good.
To have everyone here, to finally have my family here. I love Justin, but the past week have been fucking hell.
“C’mon, there’s some people you should meet.” I tell them as I step back from Eli.
---------------------------
BRIAN’S POV
It’s a waiting game. It’s all it fucking is and I hate the silence that’s descended.
All I can see in my head is Justin laying on cement, covered in fucking blood. But this time he’s in a hospital gown instead of a tux and instead of me weeping openly over his unconscious body, there’s a team of wise-cracking surgeons half-assing his brain surgery.
My head won’t shut off. Hasn’t since he told me that he gave me permission to pull the plug on him.
The mother-fucking twat!
I’m still infuriated over that conversation, and I will be for a long time… especially if the surgeons make me think of it as a choice. I will own this hospital, if they make me.
But at least there’s a distraction now. Justin’s friends have finally arrived. I remember clearly the completely disappointed look on his face when he found out they weren’t gonna make it in time before he had to go into surgery, and there was no way to postpone it any longer.
The was a tall redhead that bombarded Rae first, followed by a young blond, an innocent looking brunette and then finally a taller brunette in desperate need of a haircut and styling products other than mousse.
I could peg the first two guys as gay, the chick probably licked twat, but the last guy I couldn’t really tell. I would think straight from the way he hugged Rae like a lover would, but then he wrapped an arm around the blond’s shoulders and pulled him against his side. Peculiar. Probably one of those dumbasses that labeled themselves as ‘bi’ because they couldn’t just completely come out of the closet and suck cock.
“We’re Justin’s friends,” Rae started as she stood in front of the group, addressing all of the Pitts gang. “Fiona,” she pointed out the redheaded woman, “Maxxie,” the blond, “Sean,” the shorter brunette, “And Elijah.” They all said hi awkwardly, and I picked up on British from ‘Maxxie’ and Irish from ‘Elijah’.
I didn’t like them. It reminded me too much that Justin had his own life, his own friends, outside of us. Outside of me. All in New York.
And so the round of twenty questions started from Debbie and Jennifer. They all wanted to know what precious Sunshine was up to in New York. How they’d all met, what they all did, what were their social security numbers. Christ! Who gave a fuck?
I need fucking nicotine.
I’d been trying to wean myself off it the last few days that Justin had been staying with me, considering the first three times I lit up or came back around after smoking on the roof, he’d thrown up from the headache the smell caused. It was a little price to pay, but it still made me feel better.
Last time I was on this roof, I was prepared to jump off the night my son was born and the night Justin came into my life.
I wonder what would’ve happened if I’d went splat on the cement. Would Justin have? Would he have had the confidence to jack Hobbs off, and then go to the prom with a lover? Would he have had his head bashed in? Would he have gone to PIFA? Would he and Ethan fucking Gold be playing happy homes? Would he have cancer?
Would he have died in this alternate universe without me to call out his name the last split second?
Is there a heaven?
A hell?
Which do we go to?
Would we meet there, again?
Would we have met and unlived happily ever afterlife?
“What is it with you and this roof?”
Mikey. Probably should’ve expected this, but fuck I just wanted to be alone for a few minutes.
“It’s just somewhere quiet.”
He makes a thoughtful sound, and I know that I just tipped off my mood. Normally, I’d be expected to make some biting, sarcastic remark but I can’t be fucked when the only man I’ve ever let love me and love in return is laying somewhere underneath my feet, in God knows what state.
“I’d ask if you were okay, but that’s a stupid question even for me.”
I smile a little bit, wrapping my hand around the back of Mikey’s neck and dragging him against my side, fitting him there awkwardly. He doesn’t fit perfectly like a certain blond.
“He’s gonna be okay, Brian. He’s too fucking stubborn not to be.”
“He told me that if he comes out of it… different… not there… that he wants me to turn him off.”
“Wow, that’s gotta be a shocker. Usually the guys all want you to turn them on.”
I know he’s trying to make light, trying to take my mind off of it, but strike me dead if I didn’t wanna throw him off the roof. Do I really do that all the time? Look for outs so that I don’t have to do emotional. I mean, I know I do. But the only person I’ve ever acknowledged as a partner is having brain surgery. Can’t I be emotional without people expecting me to want an out from the conversation? One that I initiated?
“I wouldn’t be able to do it.” I’m quiet, letting the words ride the misting air around my mouth, “I’d rather watch him sleep for the next 40, 50 years that I’m alive, than kill him. I’d… never be able to do that. I’d never survive doing that. I’d never be able to bury him and have his legacy be resorted to a fucking grave marker.” The thought alone makes me want to throw up. “He’s younger, he’s supposed to fucking outlive me.”
“I didn’t realize how much you still love him.” Michael seems accepting of it. Like he should’ve known the whole time.
“No, he’s just going to go off to New York and I’m gonna forget that I spent five years off and on with him, proposed, bought him a house, rings, told him I loved him. That was all just a hallucination from some shit Anita gave me.” I regard him as I would the village idiot, or Ted, “Of course I still love him, Michael. He’s… fucking everything.”
“And if he dies, you lose everything.”
My silence is enough confirmation for that.
Because if Justin ceases to exist…
So do I.
-----------------
Author Note: Just a quick one... as you can see, I've added yet another chapter. Seriously, I will most likely end up doing a sequel to this where Justin relapses or something just because I don't want to end this, lmao! I'm so awful xD Technically what'll be '13' though is actually an epilogue, so it's not really another chapter, but still. :) Also, not overly happy with Rae's portion of this story. I couldn't really climb into her head with this for some reason. Sorry! I do rather like Brian's though. I hope he's not too OOC. I really try not to make him OOC, but I need emotional stuff from him right now.
Next update will be Tuesdayish, I think. Wednesday at the latest.
♥ Ashley