"Sister, we're two of a kind."

[foreverfabulous]

Who: Paris and Gen Hart
What: Family
Where: Mount Sinai
When: Saturday

Normally, Paris would go straight home after his treatment, usually to bed. Today wasn't a normal situation, though. Far from it. He had been kept in the loop with what was going on, but as much as he normally would have rushed tot he hospital to help out if he could, he wasn't well enough to hit the ground running. It would only make things messier if he was getting in the way in the middle of the night when shit was hitting the fan and he could well end up wiped out way worse for days. He had to be at the hospital at six am anyway, today being one of his early morning starts. Instead of getting Mikey to take him straight home, he went up to the ICU where he knew Gen would be. Mikey went out to hit the shops to get a get well present for Justin. Uncle prerogative, especially when you felt helpless in any other way.

Getting there, he immediately spotted a maintenance crew working on fixing the smashed window, the area cordoned off with hazard tape. He enquired what room Justin was in now, only to be gestured to the room directly in front of the large circular nurses' station in the middle of the unit. Made sense. Gen was sitting with Justin and he already knew Mark was at a doctor's appointment of his own. That was one of the biggest swinging factors for Paris to make sure he got there that morning, so Gen didn't have to do it alone. "Hey, fancy seeing you here. I was just in the neighbourhood, thought I'd stop by," he said, taking the seat beside her and leaning over to kiss her cheek. "I'd offer to get you coffee, but if I don't sit, I'm going to puke. How you holding up, sis? Any news?"

Comments

[asskickingblahniks]

"Hey... what are you doing here? How are you feeling? You look like you should be in bed," Gen murmured, taking his hand once he was sitting. She knew now, in depth, how chemo made Paris feel. She had ditched the ostrich suit and its accompanying bucket of sand to bury her head in, and made sure she had her finger to the pulse with all her family. That meant facing a lot of tough reality but she felt more confident where she was now. It felt right, and not like everything was crashing and burning around her. Only, things had their way of crashing and burning anyway, and now she was here for it, and not somewhere else. Here was fucking painful. But so was life. It was one of those harsh reminders that she did have a son, and he was sick. When shit happened, it could inevitably happen more to him. She ached for him. She ached for Sasha. She ached for Mark see Justin like this again. She ached for Amarlie seeing it really for the first time. She ached for herself, because she could never believe things happened for a reason when shit like this was hurting her family.

There was an unopened bottle of water by Justin's bed that had been there prior to all this latest mess in case he woke up thirsty. She gave it to Paris and put her arm around him, softly, because she knew chemo gave him universal pain through his body. Instead of relaying the latest, she just opened the soundfile she now had on her phone, turned the volume down low and played it for Paris to hear.

[foreverfabulous]

"I'm being the world's coolest brother and uncle, bitch. Don't ruin my vibe." Truthfully, Paris had little vibe these days, but he still had his sarcastic humour and sass. No matter how sick he got, it hadn't changed him inside. It just meant he had less energy to uploaded being a sassy bitch. That part of him was in hibernation mode. He took the water gratefully so he could sip it. He had bags in his satchel in case the nausea turned into a demon, but at the same time, the nurse gave him a strong dose of something to help ease it. The exact same medication that had Justin here in the first place, so he had been nervy about accepting it, he couldn't deny that. Tara and Beau both came and explained the process of it as a drug and why it wouldn't do to him what it did to Justin. It did help, and he appreciated it. "I can be in bed any other day. Today, I'm here. I actually have a bit of good news..."

He was confused when she was switching something on her phone, until he heard Sasha's voice. He listened to the conversation Ari was having with Sasha, feeling a knot of sadness tangle in his gut. "Sounds like something Mikey would do," he admitted, feeling he could weigh-in on that. He was married to one of the world's most selfless guys too. "How do you feel about that? How does Mark feel about it?"

[asskickingblahniks]

They all knew now that Justin wouldn't be able to wake while he was being given sedation. This was the best plan of action - the only, really - until his body could be added to work the serotonin out of it. Mark and Gen had been up the hall having a coffee in the family conference room when it all went down. The hard part was that even though Mark had previously seen Justin in the grips of a psychotic episode, Gen hadn't. It was a shock to the system. Gen could still hear the distressed and terrified screams from Justin. How could medication that was designed to make him well make him so much sicker? They had been there during the crisis, but mostly, they had to stand back and let the professional do their job. There would just never be an easy way to see people forcing your kid down on a bed, restraining him, and then knocking him out. Then after all that, putting him in an ice cold bath, followed by pumping iced saline through his stomach so it would cool him inside and out. It was the only way, but it had been horrific. She was still feeling the aftermath shockwaves. "Good news? Actual good news? DOn't fuck with me right now, I can't take it."

"You know what the hardest part is? It doesn't matter how we feel. Because we're going to feel scared and reluctant regardless of what decisions are made. I'm scared because keeping secrets from him can sometimes be the worst thing to do. But at the same time, what more could parents want for their beautiful boy who suffers so much pain than someone who wants to take some of that from him to protect him? It's been hard for us, but... we're leaving the ball in Sasha's court. I think Mark has realised that even though Justin and Sasha both need help in ways most teenagers sweethearts will never need, neither of them are stupid or too young to make their own choices. They're growing up, living together, proving they can handle a mature relationship. Mark thinks Sasha's call is the best, for now. I think about the only thing that will change that is if Justin wakes up remembering what happened," she explained.

[foreverfabulous]

"The tumour's reduce seventy percent in the size that it remained after the surgery. The chemo's working, and I'm on the home straight now. I know it's not remission yet, but it's working, Geni. I'm getting better. I just need to keep going. Tara wants to up the radiotherapy for a couple of rounds because she's confident that is what it responded to the best. It'll be hard going, but she thinks an aggressive home straight might push me over the finish line. The good finish line. Not the finish line where Mikey is choosing coffins." It was far from ideal circumstances to deliver the good news, Paris knew this. But any little light int he darkness you had to hold onto. He had been fighting for a long time, and this was the news they had all been waiting on. "The only thing is, it might completely incapacitate me in the meantime because it's targeting the area of the lesion in my brain."

He gazed at his nephew in the bed for a little while. Life seemed to forever put you at these crossroads where both routes were fucked and you couldn't see far enough ahead to figure out which one was the least fucked option of the two. "Justin needs all of you. But you don't generally pick your family. You do pick the person you love, though. They picked each other, the good and the bad. Sasha's far from a naive kid. He's survived experiences like this before. I don't think is keeping secrets from him, sis. I think it's just Sasha deciding to carry the load for both of them. In a world full of self-focused fucks, don't try to drown this out."

[asskickingblahniks]

Gen's mouth dropped open. She had really been expecting Paris to come out with some sort of joking good news that was fabricated to just try to throw some light on this whole thing, but he was delivering actual bad news. She promptly burst into tears. She was running on empty, but to hear Paris was getting better and there was proof he was beating cancer was such a flood of relief for her. "Oh my god, are you serious?" she sobbed and then pulled him into a hug, fighting the urge to squeeze him too tight. "Shit, I've been terrified it was going to end up like Mom. As soon as I saw how sick you were when I got back, I've been worried sick about you. Not that I wasn't before, but it was worse then. A fucking reality check. But what do you want to do? Are you going to go in aggressively, or do you not want to risk that? It's a huge call to make, buddy. What does she mean by completely incapacitate you? Like, bedridden? Wheelchair? What does that mean?" She was fussing over him, trying to smooth down his shirt, checking him over for any signs all this was fake or something.

"Look at him, darling. Just look at him, he looks so young and weak." Effectively, he just looked asleep at the moment. But the entwined network of medical wires and tubes holding him together made him look so broken. She sat forward, stroking her son's hair. He was motionless, no hint of movement beyond the rising and falling of his chest with the ventilator. Every system in his body was being medically slowed and controlled so he could fight this. It was the only way. "And Sash looks so young and innocent too. It doesn't seem right for him to have that weighing him down. He's got a fractured skull. It's not like it's just a bump that can be fixed with a band-aid."

[foreverfabulous]

Paris nodded, looking down at his hands. Words failed him briefly. He always choked up when he thought about their mom's death, caused by cancer. It had been the hardest part for him having to fight this, feeling like it was a losing battled because he watched his beautiful mother be destroyed by it. He understood now the chemo fight, why she had always been so weak and ill. He wished he didn't have first-hand knowledge, but the cancer gene was with them. It was what it was, and it had been the hardest thing he had to face. On top of that, a diagnosis of another illness the cancer had been masking. But he was still alive and breathing. There was never any guarantee of that. "I'm not sure yet. The hard part is that if they go in aggressively and the MS advances, I might never recover. Wheelchair, probably. Might lose my sight, ability to speak, use my hands, arms, feet, legs feed myself, continence. Might cause seizures or memory issues. I don't know if it's worth it, even if it prolongs the chemo. I have no fucking clue what I'm supposed to do. I don't want to die, but to be honest, who would want to live like that if it all happens?"

It was surreal to think that Gen was Justin's age when she fell pregnant with Amarlie. It felt like a lifetime ago. He really hoped she kept her promises there and continued to work on that. Their family was big and complex, but it was important. Right now, family was the most important thing in the world to him. It was all he had left to fight for... all that mattered anyway. "They are young. Too young. But the world deals young people bad hands too. It's probably the worst possible way Sasha could experience this severity of Justin's illness. He had to have been terrified. Is he going to be okay? What's the latest with both of them? Dad's going to come in a bit later."

[asskickingblahniks]

Gen put her hand first on Paris' shoulder, but it soon moved to the nape of his neck to pull him close enough to kiss his forehead. Her lips lingered there, eyes squeezed shut. This was killing her. It was making her feel like she couldn't breathe because he was her baby brother and she was powerless against this awful thing. She couldn't take away the pain she now knew he was experiencing. She couldn't take away the tumor or the sickness. She couldn't do anything to stop it or slow it down, and now Paris had a difficult decision upon his shoulders and she couldn't even help with that. "Think like Mom, sweetie. Just think like Mom and I know you'll find the answer. Because you're so much like her. You're strong like her, way more strong than I ever could be. Tough as fucking balls and more badass than most people in this world. I know she's watching over you. Because if she wasn't, you wouldn't still be with us. Justin wouldn't still be with us. I know she's watching over us. Some days, I feel her there, like she's trying to steer me right. She's not going to let you leave here too soon, I know it."

"He was terrified, but trying so hard to cope. Not because he's deluding himself, but because he wants to care for Justin. He's a nurturer and a caregiver. But no one knows the fucking answers to any of this. We all want to take the pain away but we can't, and that's the hardest fucking thing of all. Not just Justin, but you. If I could swap places with you, baby bro, I would. I deserve all this way more than you do. I need you to keep fighting, because I want you to see my son grow up and get married. I can't do this life shit without you," she told him, clinging to him. Fuck, as hard as this was, she still needed her baby brother. They had always been a team. She wasn't going to screw that up ever again.

[foreverfabulous]

With that one snippet of advice, Paris veered close to tears and he didn't have the strength to hold it back. He kept as much composure as he could, but they welled up and spilled over when he nodded. "I told myself from day one with this fucking shit not to think about her, but it's like my fuckstick brain decided that day was Opposites Day. I told myself I would get too sick, I told myself chemo would be fine, I told myself I would keep working, I told myself I wouldn't need surgery, I told myself it'd be over in a few months. You know something Mom said one day? That she would never wish cancer on us. You, Dad, me. I overheard her saying it. Because she said it makes you feel like you want to give up on life, and it does. Some days, I don't even know how I keep fucking going. She fought as hard and fucking fast as she needed, and she still didn't win. Is it worth the fight, or am I going to die anyway? But maybe she is watching, and maybe I just need to grab my balls and keep fucking going. Somehow. I don't even have the strength to dress myself."

"Poor kid. I want to give him a hug. Mom would've loved Sash too. To the next universe and back. And I k now you think she would've been ashamed of you for everything, but you need to quit thinking like that. You got your shit together, you came back, you're fixing your family, and you have an amazing grandkid. Can you imagine how she would have been seeing him perform? You don't deserve any of this. Fuck. Don't say shit like that either. None of us deserve horrible shit like this, but shit happens. We're all still alive. I think that's the best we can do right now..." He just wasn't sure if that was a guarantee for him, like it wasn't for Justin. "We're going to get there. Somehow."

[asskickingblahniks]

No matter how many years passed, it never got easy for Gen to see her baby brother's tears. Paris had never been the sort to let his ego get in the way of crying. If he needed to, he did. Their parents had always taught them that showing emotion was okay. Their dad refused to let them be forced into bullshit ideas that they had to conceal their emotions. But after the bullying in high school and Paris' subsequent suicide attempt, she learned he had been shielding his emotions a lot. He seemed, on some level, to be doing that a little with the cancer. Pain seemed to make him cry, but it was like he was blocking himself from grieving over it. You didn't have to face a death to grieve. Grief could happen for many things, it only had to result from a loss. Paris was facing loss of dignity and independence. She knew, perhaps better than most else (save for Mikey) that that would be the hardest thing for Paris to be facing... not the possibility of death. He was usually so strong and self-assured. It was hard to see him broken. "Okay, but none of that was ever going to work, darling," she told him, wiping away some of his tears with her thumb, much reminiscent of how their mom did all those years ago. "Even if you don't know how, you will. You will keep fighting, because you've always been a fighter. People don't need strength to be a fighter, they just need to not want to give up."

She smiled through her own tears and nodded. "Oh, she would. She would have loved being a grandma. I know I would never have given Amarlie up if she had still been there, but I couldn't face doing it without her. I never would have had a stupid Vegas wedding and believed it had meaning. But then, I guess if she had been here and all that back then was different, I wouldn't have met Mark. He's the love of my life. I catch myself watching him just be a dad, and I feel this mindblowing pride inside. How much he keeps it together to keep going for Justin. For Sunshine. I'm really looking forward to the wedding. Not even just the wedding, but planning it. As a family. Something nice to look forward to through all this horrible shit."