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Whizzer thought that if he said it enough, the words ‘I’m dying’ would stop catching in his throat. He thought eventually it would become– perhaps not easy– but manageable or possible, even, to handle without choking on the words like a stray fishbone.
He tried his best to just accept it, to take the threat of his inevitable death with grace and dignity, both for the sake of himself and for the mess of a family he’d somehow found himself a part of. He wanted– no, he needed to be okay with it. He wasn’t.
Whizzer couldn’t be sure what was worse: the desperate, nagging itch in the back of his head crying out for more time, or the knowledge that the people he’d somehow come to love had that same damn itch. He could see it in their eyes, every time they came to visit him, how being in that hospital room was killing them just as much as it was killing him. All of their reactions to him were different, but they were all the same. They all hurt like hell.
“I’m dying,” Whizzer told Marvin. Marvin’s back was turned to him, and he sat on the edge of the bed. Whizzer wished he’d turn around. He wanted to see his face.
“You’ll be okay,” Marvin said, but his refusal to so much as face his lover told a different story.
“Marvin, please,” Whizzer said, somewhere between exasperated and defeated.
“No,” Marvin insisted, his face stubbornly angled to the wall. “I won’t hear it, Whizzer. You’re not going to die like this. You’re going to get better.”
Slowly, Whizzer pulled himself up and scooted over to sit leaning against Marvin’s back. He wrapped his arms around his boyfriend, nestling his face in the crook of his neck.
“I’m not,” he said quietly. “Don’t lie to me, Marv.”
Marvin didn’t speak for a long while. He just sighed and leaned his head against Whizzer’s, almost giving in to the tender affection for the moment.
“I’m not letting you give up,” Marvin asserted after a while. “I… we’ll find out what’s wrong, Whizzer, I swear it.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“I’m not. I mean it. We’ll get you better. You’ll be okay.”
“Marvin, please- ”
“Whizzer.” Marvin finally turned his head to look into Whizzer’s eyes. His pale blue eyes were exhausted and full of some foreign emotion Whizzer couldn’t begin to place. “Don’t fight.”
Whizzer just sighed in response, pressing a soft kiss to Marvin’s shoulder. It was just like him. It was the most Marvin thing in the world to want to play pretend, even now. It was so horribly, endearingly, agonizingly predictable. Whizzer wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. He wanted to hold Marvin close and then rip him apart. He settled for tenderly kissing his shoulder again instead.
“Just be with me, right here, right now,” Marvin murmured. “Everything will be alright.”
Whizzer closed his eyes and nodded half-heartedly. “Everything will be alright,” he echoed. The words sounded just as empty on his tongue as they did on Marvin’s.
Whizzer wondered bitterly how he was supposed to handle passing away with dignity and grace if his lover wouldn’t even allow him to acknowledge it. How could he cope with it, how could he possibly accept it all, if he couldn’t so much as talk about it?
Maybe it was all too much. Maybe Marvin couldn’t take it. Maybe Marvin was just as scared as he was, but if not now, then when would he be allowed to hurt? When would it be okay for him to come to terms with his death and how much it hurt and how terrifying it was? Would it ever be okay? Or would he just have to keep living in Marvin’s sweet little play-pretend world until it came crashing and burning down around them?
Maybe Whizzer was being selfish. Maybe Marvin was just trying to protect them both. Maybe he thought he was helping, assuring Whizzer everything would be okay. Maybe Whizzer had no right to be angry. He was angry anyway. Angry because how could Marvin’s shallow reassurances mean anything when he could feel in every bleeding, broken, tissue in his body that he was nearly out of time?
Maybe it wasn’t admitting that he was dying that pricked at his throat like a sharp spine, but rather the response he earned each time he did. Maybe that was the real irritant. Maybe Whizzer was ready to accept it, and Marvin was holding him back. Pinning him in place, pins and needles in his throat and mouth and eyes.
It hurt. Whizzer was angry. Marvin was afraid. Whizzer was afraid.
“I love you,” Marvin murmured, gently pulling Whizzer in closer to himself, and Whizzer felt his anger melt. How could he blame this boy for being afraid?
“I love you,” he said in return, and he meant it more than he ever thought he could.
___
“I’m dying,” Whizzer told Jason, one arm wrapped around the kid as they sat side by side on Whizzer’s bed. It was the last sort of conversation he wanted to have with a child, with this child, but he couldn’t lie to him. He deserved to know what was happening.
Jason nodded slowly, not meeting Whizzer’s eyes. “I know,” he said, and it was obvious to Whizzer just how hard the kid was trying to hold himself together. It was endearing, he thought, in the most heartbreaking sort of way.
“But not yet,” Whizzer added on, trying to soften the blow however he could. “I’ve still got some time, so while I’m here, you and I are going to play a lot of chess, okay? And we’ll play jokes on your father and have tea with your mother and Mendel, and we’ll pretend to love your neighbor’s cooking when Cordelia and Charlotte come by, right? We still have lots of good times in us, kid.” Whizzer pulled Jason in closer, gently kissing the top of his head. Jason was quiet for a while.
“How long?” He asked after a while. Whizzer grimaced.
“We don’t know,” he admitted. “This is all very… new.”
Jason frowned. “So… we won’t know when-”
“Hey,” Whizzer cut him off softly. “Don’t focus on that. I know, I know it’s scary. I’m scared too, but what do you say we try to have some fun while we can, okay?”
Jason still didn’t smile or seem to react positively to that, so Whizzer tried again.
“Look, I… You’re right. We don’t know how long it’ll be, or when… we won’t know until the time comes. I don’t want you to mistake this for me asking you to pretend everything is okay– I promise you that’s the last thing I want– just remember that as of right now, we’re all still here, okay? I am dying, and it sucks and it’s never going to be okay, but right now, I’m still here.”
Jason looked up at Whizzer with wide eyes for a moment. Then he turned and fixed his gaze on the wall. Whizzer had half a mind to laugh. Like father like son.
“I tried talking to god,” Jason said, and the confession caught Whizzer completely off guard. “I’ve never really prayed before. I just… I asked him if he could make you stop dying. I guess if he does exist he can’t really do that… huh?”
“Oh, Jason,” Whizzer murmured, squeezing the kid in his arms.
“Why did it have to be you?”
Whizzer paused. He didn’t have an answer for that. He’d been asking the same damn question over and over again, to himself, to the doctors, to a god he doesn’t really believe in, to the empty air in the stagnant room. Why him? Why now?
“Sometimes… things happen for no reason,” he said, and it wasn’t a good enough answer and he knew it. He knew it would never satisfy him, and it would never come close to satisfying Jason. Still, it was all he had. “It sucks. Life sucks, but we just have to keep going. Sometimes there’s nothing else we can do.”
Jason nodded absently, and Whizzer wished there was more he could do or say to make it all better. He never saw himself as a paternal man, never wanted kids, and never cared much for responsibility, but somehow, for some inexplicable reason, he cared for Jason like he was his own son. He wanted to watch this brilliant kid grow and come into himself more and more. Whizzer wanted to see where his life would take him, who he would become, and what he would do with himself as he grew into the glowing young man he was already becoming.
Whizzer bit his tongue at the thought that he’d never get to know. He’d never see Jason grow up. He’d never watch him walk at his graduation, never get to be there when he first brings a partner home, never tearfully wave goodbye to him when he leaves for college, never, never, never, never.
“I’m so proud of you,” Whizzer whispered. “You have no idea how much it’s meant to watch you grow up these last few years. You’re brilliant, Jason.”
Jason looked into Whizzer’s eyes. “Why does it sound like you’re saying goodbye?”
“I just want you to know,” Whizzer said, and it wasn’t an answer. “I love you, kid.”
Jason didn’t respond, at least, not verbally. Instead, he just wrapped his arms tightly around Whizzer, burying his face in his chest, as they both pretended not to notice how much the other was shaking.
___
It was funny, or maybe it was tragic, that when the time came, all that practice went to waste. Whizzer didn’t need to say it in the end. They saw the look in his eyes as he desperately reached out for Jason at his bar mitzvah, and they all just knew.
Marvin and Charlotte gently led Whizzer to bed as Trina, Mendel, and Cordelia stayed with Jason and put out the candles. Whizzer tried not to let his gaze linger on Jason’s terrified eyes as he was guided away. He couldn’t help it in the end. He hoped to memorize the boy’s face before he went.
Marvin and Charlotte carefully sat Whizzer down on his hospital bed and pulled the sheets over him as he slowly allowed himself to lie down. He kept his eyes firmly trained on Marvin all the while. He opened his mouth to speak, to tell Marvin, tell him it was really really over this time, and no he wasn’t being paranoid, and no he wasn’t willing to keep playing pretend, and no- but then-
“I know,” Marvin said quietly. “I know.”
Whizzer was glad he didn’t have to say it again. It always hurt. Always hurt so damn much to say it, to hear it, to listen to their responses to it. It hurt.
Whizzer reached out a shaky hand to Marvin. Marving clasped Whizzer’s hand in his own and gently guided it back down to Whizzer’s chest as he sat down beside him. Marvin put a hand on Whizzer’s back, gently stroking his spine up to his hair and lightly playing with his hair.
Whizzer let himself smile, just a little bit, as he felt his strength fade more and more and he couldn’t even arch up into Marvin’s soothing touch anymore. He coughed a few times and let his eyes flutter shut.
“Marvin?” He croaked out. It was almost impossible to manage the words.
“Hm?”
Whizzer paused. What could he say? He had so much to say and oh god, why did he let himself wait until now to say it all? What should he say? I’m scared. It’s okay. I love you. I can’t stand this. It hurts. I’m fine. I’m not ready. I am ready. Hold me. Go home. Stay with me until I’m gone. Forget I ever existed. Move on. Love me forever. Don’t go. Don’t go. Don’t go.
“I love you, Marvin,” Whizzer choked out. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough. But it was all he had in him.
Marvin kissed Whizzer’s forehead and ruffled his hair.
“I love you too,” he said. “I love you.”
Whizzer parted his lips. He had more to say. He had words on his tongue and in his mind and etched into his heart, but they didn’t come. Whizzer let his mouth fall shut.
He felt another soft kiss on his forehead, and heard another whispered ‘ I love you.’
It hurt. It was terrifying, and it was awful, and it was something that no amount of tender kisses and quiet ‘I love you’s could ever fix. Still, as the echo of Marvin’s loving words reverberated through Whizzer’s spinning head, his final fleeting thought was that maybe passing in the arms of a lover was the closest to ‘alright’ something like this could ever be. Maybe it could be enough. Maybe.
Whizzer drew in a shaky breath, the sort of breath you hear and just know there won’t be another to follow it.
With the last of his strength and air, Whizzer breathed out one final “thank you,”
and finally, he allowed himself to rest.