Work Text:
Wash gripped the steering wheel, knuckles white. He didn't know what to say. Everything felt empty, including his chest. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Maine shrugged. He was staring out the window of the car. Wash tried not to think about what he must be thinking. Maine never talked enough, but this was something that needed to be talked about.
"Maine, can we please talk about it?"
Maine shrugged again. "'M gonna die. Not much to talk about."
"Can we please talk about it for me, then?" Wash didn't know what else to say. Maine's silence just upset him further. He knew he had very little right to be the one upset right then, specifically when Maine was the one who had received the devastating news. Wash hadn't even been in the room. "How long?"
"Six months."
Wash swallowed the lump in his throat and tried to focus on the road. It was sunny, and that felt wrong. How could it be sunny when he had just been told his boyfriend was going to die in six months?
Wash looked down, seeing Maine's hand engulfing his own.
"It's going to be alright."
Wash felt like he should be the one saying that. He heaved a long sigh, resisting the tears that curled behind his eyelids. There would be plenty of time to cry when he returned home.
"No it's not."
Maine went about business as usual. Wash felt like that was wrong. He had cried his heart out against Maine's chest, and the only thing his boyfriend had done was rub his back and nod along with his blubbering concerns.
"Are you going to do chemo?"
Maine just looked at him. There was no discernable emotion in the stare, he just… looked. It made Wash antsy. It was a few moments before Wash held his head in his hands and heaved a sigh. "Please talk to me."
"No point in it. Gonna die anyway."
"Are you just- just giving up?"
"Not givin' up, Wash. Accepting."
Wash wished he could be as calm as Maine was about this.
Wash had tried not to be sad about it. He had swore he would be strong with Maine. He would make the best of their short time. Two months ago six months had seemed like a lot of time, now it felt like there wasn't enough.
But he still worried. Maine's headaches (the headaches, how could he not have seen?) seemed a lot more common, seemed a lot more prevalent, and those days when Maine never wanted to get out of bed because of the light and the fatigue seemed so much more.
"How are you feeling today?" Wash felt like a broken record. He kept saying that every morning, kept asking, kept needing to know.
Maine shrugged. Such a common transition of language now. Maine didn't speak as often. Not that he had been particularly talkative before, but at least then he had communicated. Wash felt shut off. Maine's habit of communicating in grunts and growls was becoming more commonplace than before the diagnosis.
Though Wash could understand every nonspoken word, everything Maine needed or wanted or didn't want, it was still heartbreaking.
Wash didn't realize that Maine's selective muteness hadn't become selective. He kept trying to pry answers out of Maine, and sometimes he just couldn't, despite how Maine looked like he wanted to speak.
"Are you hiding something?" Wash asked, his voice quiet as they sat on the couch, watching one of Maine's favorite movies. He was worried. He wanted Maine to talk to him like he had before.
Maine huffed out a long sigh and shifted until his head was laying in Wash's lap. "Sometimes can't make the words come out." He pressed his nose into Wash's stomach, chest falling dramatically as he exhaled. "I wanna. But it just can't come out."
Wash nodded, brow furrowed and eyes slipping closed. He slowly curled in on Maine, holding him with his entire body. All he wanted was to hold that moment for the next five months. He wanted Maine to last forever.
He had never thought, before all this, that there would be a countdown on their relationship.
"I want to do chemo."
Wash looked up from the bills. Not that he was stressing over them. They were more of a distraction than anything else. He had taken up doing most of the tedious tasks around the house, since Maine often had to stop because of a headache or fatigue. "Why the change of heart?"
"'M tired of seein' you so sad."
Wash felt guilty. He didn't want Maine to have to go through rigorous medical procedures just for him. "You don't have to, I mean… Only if you want to. Of course I want you to, but…" But he didn't want Maine to lose out on living just because Wash wanted him to live a little longer.
Maine sat in the chair beside Wash and leaned over, resting his head on Wash's shoulder. A deep shudder ran through him as he wheezed out a sigh. Wash wrapped his arms around his boyfriend, a few tears escaping him.
"I don't wanna die, Wash."
Chemo just made Maine sick and tired all the time. The doctors told them it was just slowing the progress of the tumor, rather than shrinking it. It broke Wash's heart to have to watch Maine choke down several pills in the morning just to keep from vomiting after breakfast.
Wash stood over Maine, rubbing his shoulders as he emptied the contents of his stomach. "You don't have to keep doing this," he mumbled. He was tired of seeing Maine cringe away from the prospect of heading to the hospital. "I know you hate it."
Maine groped for Wash's hand, giving it a squeeze. He groaned and shook his head. Wash didn't press for words. The moments where Maine couldn't get the words out, couldn't speak, like his head wouldn't let him, were becoming more and more frequent.
"Please don't do this for me," Wash insisted, kneeling beside his boyfriend and wrapping his arms around him. "Don't live like this just for me."
Maine's shoulders shook and he nodded, turning to rest his head against Wash's temple. His voice was cracked and hoarse, "Call the doctor."
After only one week off of chemo Maine looked better. It made Wash's heart ache, but he was happy to see Maine look so… calm. It felt like too long since that look had been there. "Sausage for breakfast?" When given the grunt of approval Wash rolled out of bed to get it started, only to be grabbed and stopped. "What is it?"
"Let me cook."
Wash sat at the table, watching Maine fry up sausage and eggs and serve them both with big cups of coffee. Wash held his hand as they ate. It felt more peaceful than anything they'd had in the past three months.
Maine looked over his massive coffee mug and Wash watched him crack a smile. It felt like too long since he had seen Maine smile.
"Can you do that more often?"
"Breakfast?"
"Smile."
Maine couldn't help but smile in response and nodded. He leaned in to kiss Wash, and then got up to gather the dishes.
Halfway to the sink they dropped out of his grasp like he hadn't even been holding them.
The doctors told them the chemo had bought them time, but it was impossible to know how much. They told them they may as well operate under the same circumstances: that six months was still the end game.
Wash had tried not to cry, but he ended up crying anyway. His eyes felt flaky and dry and he rested against Maine's chest for support. Maine had lost weight, and for some reason that was more upsetting than the news about how the chemo hadn't done much.
Maine groaned as the sun shone in on their bedroom from the open shades. He turned his head away and buried himself into the pillows.
"Headache?" When he received a grunt in response Wash got up to get the pain medication. There wasn't a lot they could do for the headache, just give Maine an ibuprofen and move on with life. Wash handed Maine three pills and went to get him water.
He returned to find Maine, frustratedly, attempting to put the pills in his mouth. Wash swallowed the lump in his throat as he had to help him move his arm.
"'S gettin' worse," Maine muttered, not even attempting to grip the water. Wash helped him drink and curled an arm around him. Maine's motor functions had been slowly deteriorating, just like his speech.
"It's okay," Wash assured him. He wanted to try and pull Maine back up, tried to make it better. Everything would be okay. Everything was okay. "It's going to be alright."
"No it's not."
"Is there anything you want to do? Something big?" Wash asked. They had had party after party for Maine with their friends, and there had been a lot of crying. Several people had helped them with money and gifts, let them know that Maine was cared about, and he wasn't alone. It just seemed to make Maine exhausted.
Maine shrugged. He was talking less. Less than even before. It was getting harder for Wash to tell when Maine couldn't talk versus when he just wouldn't.
"We don't have a lot of time left. We-"
"I."
"What?"
"I don't have a lot of time left." Maine's words were slurred together and they sounded broken. It broke Wash's heart. "You have plenty."
There was no bitterness in his words, but Wash felt as if he'd been stabbed through the chest. He tried to pull through it. Maine had been so much stronger than him through this entire journey, and he had been agonizing about how he would be losing his best friend and boyfriend. He wanted so badly to enjoy the time they had together, and there were moments where he could absolutely forget about the diagnosis, but there was always a looming cloud over his head. A looming cloud with a time limit.
"Do you want to do something big?" Wash persisted, his voice soft and quiet.
Maine stared at the television. He looked tired. Wash knew he felt tired. They were both tired. "I just want to spend as much time with you as possible."
Wash stared at the calendar. Exactly a month from right then was when Maine's six months would be "up."
Of course, that didn't mean that it would necessarily be six months, even. It could be seven. It could be five. Wash was hoping for seven.
"'D rather it be six."
"Why?"
"Time after that's just waiting to die."
Wash nodded. Any time after six months would just be waiting. Waiting for Maine to get worse, waiting for the first signs of deterioration past the point he could function. Already he had given up on full sentences half the time, he didn't hold anything, sometimes he fell down. The doctors told them the tumor was pressing on the spot that controlled his motor functions and speech. Knowing the reason didn't make it any better to deal with.
"Need anything while I'm up?"
"I'll do it." Maine shifted up off the couch, following Wash to the kitchen. He stumped and fell, landing against the doorframe.
Wash felt like he was watching his life crumple in front of his eyes. "Do you-"
"No." Maine slowly rose to his feet on his own. "I'm fine."
"If you need help-"
"Don't need help."
"Maine-"
"Get off me."
Wash let Maine push him away, watching him as he shuffled into the kitchen. "It's okay to ask for help. It's okay to need help."
Maine looked at him and opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He promptly shut his mouth again and turned away. Wash's chest ached as Maine turned away from him. He circled his arms around Maine from behind.
"I love you."
He received only a grunt in response.
Wash was counting down the days. It felt like Maine's death sentence had become his own.
Maine had stopped talking altogether. Whether it was because he couldn't or he just didn't was up for speculation. Wash just wanted to spend time with him, he didn't have much left. All that mattered was that Maine was comfortable for his remaining days.
"Do you want to stay here, or- or the hospital? When it happens?" Wash tried not to get misty eyed as he thought about it. The date was rapidly approaching, and he knew he shouldn't find it so absolute, so confined. It could happen three days from then, it could happen two weeks after the date.
Wash kept clinging to the date like it was a life line. He found that ironic, since it's was nearly the opposite.
Maine looked at him and didn't say anything. He reached over and gave Wash's hand a squeeze. He made a small grunt and looked back to the television. It was on mute. Maine's headaches were so constant the TV was never unmuted anymore.
"The hospital then. Alright." Wash had almost hoped Maine would just stay home, where he could be surrounded by friends, but-
He tried not to think about it too hard.
Wash was going through a mental checklist as Maine rolled to his feet and patted his head; a small, comforting gesture. He normally would have offered to get whatever it was Maine wanted, but he had a feeling Maine wanted to do it himself.
Halfway through the checklist he heard a crash in the kitchen and jumped up to help. The worst scenarios were running through his head, and the only thing he could think was, 'Oh god, please be okay.'
Maine wasn't okay. Wash shook him and tried to get him to open his eyes. He checked his breathing and his pulse and he called an ambulance, because that was the only thing he could do.
All he could think was, 'But it's not time yet.'
"Do you want to talk about it?" North whispered, hands gripping the steering wheel tight. They were on their way home from the hospital. Three days of hovering around Maine's bed in shifts and Wash hadn't slept a wink.
"Maine's dead. Not much to talk about."
North turned his head while they were at a stoplight. Wash was a wreck. "Come on. Let's go get you something to eat and we'll talk about it."
Wash wiped at his red eyes and shook his head. "I don't want to talk about it."
"It's going to be alright."
"No it's not."
North pulled the car over so he could properly turn and talk with Wash. "I know it hurts. I went through the same thing with Theta, but-" He sucked in a deep breath. "But you're still alive, Wash. You're still here. You may have to plan a funeral, and you may have to go to a cemetary to see him again, but… You're still alive. Never forget that."
A shaky breath escaped him and Wash nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right." It hurt. His chest felt like a gaping wound- but North was right. He was still alive. "Do you think Maine was ever really afraid of it?"
North looked at him, pondering the question. "You would know better than me. But I would say yeah. We're all afraid to die, Wash. Maine is no exception."
Wash could only think about how Maine had held him tight that one time at the dinner table, professed how he didn't want to die. After that moment Maine hadn't seemed weaker, or afraid, even. After that moment Maine had seemed stronger than ever.
"I don't think he was afraid to die," Wash mumbled as he turned his head to look out the window, stomach rolling.
"I think he didn't want to leave you," North told him, curling a hand around Wash's and giving it a squeeze. "But you were there for him. You didn't leave once. You were always there whenever he woke up."
"Except he didn't wake up."
"You were still there for him, and that's what matters. You didn't leave him alone."
"But now I'm alone." Wash turned to meet North's gaze, slowly curling in on himself. "But…" He was slow to unfurl and take a soft breath, "But you're right. I'm alive, even if Maine isn't. And I'm going to make it count. Because he did."
North nodded and started the car again. "I'm glad to hear." The car roared to life, and Wash thought about how everything felt new. Everything felt new, and although he felt alone, he knew he wasn't.