the boy with the wheat colored hair { a mavin soulmate oneshot }

Michael’s day started with a quick glance at the ticking clock on the inside of his right wrist. The timer read 00:00:00:08:52:15, the fifteen ticking down second by second. He checked the time on his alarm. 8:23 AM. He had till almost 3 o’clock in the afternoon to finally meet his soulmate. His stomach was flipping, nearly wanting to make him throw up. Looking at the mirror (and the blood that crusted his nostrils from constant nose bleeds) he smiled and decided that today he didn’t look so much like death and decided to go take a shower.

Exiting the shower, he dried off and made extra careful with his nose as to not cause another nose bleed. When he finally finished showering and dressing he decided to make his way to the kitchen. Hopefully, he would be able to swallow his food properly because he couldn’t stand to miss another meal because his throat was being a spastic asshole. Luckily, eating and drinking came smoothly and he was pretty sure that how things were looking, today was going to be a very good day.

Around 12 o’clock in the afternoon, he called his friend Ray over to play some video games. Sitting around the house and doing pretty much nothing wasn’t fun and he needed to blow time before he met his soulmate (God the word felt heavy on his tongue. Like it was weighing down his throat and making it harder to breathe). Hearing the doorbell ring and knowing it was Ray, he got up off of the couch and opened the door. Before he said anything, he showed Ray the inside of his right wrist, ticking down from 00:00:00:03:32:09.

“Holy shit dude! Today?” He exclaimed, barreling into the house and shutting the door. Michael could barely keep the smile off of his face.

“Yep. At three fifty-two,” he replied and Ray yelled a joyous ‘dude!’ once more, pulling Michael into a crushing hug. Michael didn’t even complain like he used to, he hugged back and the pair - after breaking apart - headed into the living room to play some games.

“So, has your nose been bleeding lately?” Ray asked as Michael turned on the Xbox. Michael shrugged. “Not today,” he replied. Ray nodded and smiled. “And I got to eat breakfast without my throat fucking anything up, so that’s a plus.” 

“Damn dude, your body’s finally got itself under control and you’re gonna meet your soulmate. Today must be a great day for you,” Ray said, genuineness permeating his tone. Michael plopped down next to him on the couch and tossed him a controller.

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

—

Midway in to a game of Halo 4, Ray got an impressive series of kills. With a proud as fuck whooping noise, he threw his arms outward, the hand holding his controller whacking across Michael’s nose with a crack. Immediately blood began pouring from Michael’s nostrils at an alarming rate. Ray looked over at Michael, whose hands were covering his rapidly bleeding nose, red seeping through the cracks in his fingers. Ray freaked out and pulled his phone out, running to turn off the Xbox before hauling his friend up and leading him to the bathroom. He was nearly about to dial 911 until Michael’s hand shot out and stopped him.

“Ray it’s fine, these have been happening for over a month now, it’s not a big deal,” Michael said, his tone clogged due to his hands covering his still gushing nose.

“Well not this much and not this long. Michael, I’m calling 911 and you don’t have a say in it,” Ray hissed, pulling his arm away from Michael’s grasp. His bloody hand print stayed right on Ray’s wrist and a few stray drops splashed onto the screen of Ray’s phone.

Smudged in red, Michael’s right wrist read 00:00:00:02:00:35.

—

Michael’s nose had stopped bleeding only a little bit before the paramedics arrived at his house. He was sufficiently worried on his own but Ray was worried enough for him and the rest of the whole neighborhood. When the paramedics arrived, they looked at Michael, pale and covered in blood from his nose to his neck, and hoisted him onto a stretcher. Ray asked if he could ride and they oblige him.

The ride to the hospital is silent and Michael feels like he might throw up again.

—

When Michael arrived at the hospital, they immediately took him into a room. He waited on the bed a bit and a nurse, who happened to be male, walked in, needle and tubes in hand and a table in the other. Michael checks the timer on his wrist and it’s gone. He looks at the clock. It’s 3:52. The second hand has even hit three on the clock. He looks at the nurse. The nurse checks his wrist too. They look at each other with a small smile.

“So…” Michael draws out, the small smile still in place.

“Michael Jones?” The nurse asks. Michael nods.

“I’m Gavin. Gavin Free. I’m here to draw your blood for testing,” he explains and Michael extends his bare right wrist. Gavin drags the table with him. It’s gray and plastic and he places a medical sheet on top of it. Snapping on a pair of gloves, Gavin ties a tourniquet around Michael’s forearm and taps for the vein.

“It feels like you’re about to shoot me up with heroin,” Michael says and Gavin gives a small laugh. He pulls a needle attached to a tube with a plastic blue space at the end. When the needle enters, Michael gives a little hiss. Gavin looks at him and laughs.

“Who knew my soulmate was gonna be such a little minge about needles?” He questions and Michael feels something bubble in the back of his throat. He rolls his eyes and watches as a test tube connects to the end of the blue plastic and fills it. Gavin pulls another tube and sticks it onto the end of the blue plastic. He does the same with a third tube and then pulls the needle from Michael’s vein and covers it with gauze and a Band-aid. 

“All done. Now all we’ve got to do is set you up on these machines to test your heart rate and what not and you’ll be set when the doctor’s ready to see you,” Gavin says and Michael nods. Gavin cleans up the area and throws all the garbage in the bio-hazard trash bin and drags the table away with him. But not before giving Michael a small wave. 

Michael can’t wait to get out of his hospital bed and meet his soulmate for real.

—

When the doctor comes into the room he looks forlorn. Gavin isn’t with him. Michael is kind of concerned.

“So… What is it? Can I go home now?” He asks. The doctor swallows thickly. He shakes his head a bit and signals for Michael to stay quiet so he can explain why before Michael has an outburst. He clears his throat before speaking up.

“We ran your blood and it seems as though you have a rare form of cancer called a soft tissue sarcoma. You see, this wouldn’t be such a problem had we treated it as soon as it had shown up but I’m afraid it’s spreading from your nose and throat to your ears and eyes. Since it’s a disease of the blood vessels, the cancer will travel much faster to other parts of the body. We have to run more tests to see where the problem areas are, but I’m requesting you be moved to the cancer ward to have chemotherapy started tomorrow,” the doctor says and Michael looks pale. He can’t speak. His throat is closing up on him and he can’t manage to form words properly. The only two that leave his mouth are ‘how long’.

“If we’re lucky… I’d say six months.”

Michael looks down at his empty right wrist and requests to see Nurse Free after he gets moved to the cancer ward.

—

Gavin is near heartbroken when he hears the news. His green eyes are wide and glassy as he looks down at his empty right wrist. He blinks back a few tears and plops himself down onto chair and grabs Michael’s chart.

“Rhabdomyosarcoma mainly affects children and there are only a few hundred cases a year, why is it affecting you? I just met you. I just fucking met you,” Gavin whispers to himself, staring at the diagnosis on the chart. Michael is sitting in his new room in a hospital gown and he’s looking at Gavin with sadness in his eyes.

“Hey. We’ve got six months-“

“If we’re lucky.”

“Shut the fuck up with that ‘if we’re lucky’ shit. We’ve got six months;let’s make the most of them.”

Gavin looks up from Michael’s chart with a smile and grabs onto his hand. 

They’ve got six months.

—

The first month is brutal. Michael is tired almost constantly. His body aches and his skin is pale. The chemotherapy is making the hairs on his body fall out slowly. Gavin wants to cry when he sees strands of hair falling through his fingers as he runs his hands through Michael’s curls on the nights where the pain makes it too hard to sleep. The cancer is getting worse before its getting better and Gavin wants to make himself disappear. He knows this is the only chance he’ll get at ever loving someone as a soulmate so he makes every opportunity golden.

In the morning he attempts to feed Michael his breakfast, but his throat closes up before the food is even swallowed. His frame is getting tiny and fragile so the doctors put him on a feeding tube through his wrist. His nose bleeds much more frequently now and Gavin’s always by his side to wipe the blood away.

The first month is brutal, but they find love in each other either way.

—

The second month makes things seem like they’re looking up. The chemo still has Michael drained, but he isn’t as pale as before. His hair isn’t falling away as much as it used to and the nose bleeds are becoming less frequent. He complains about his ears hurting more, but the doctors are sure that the chemo is going to take care of that completely.

Every night, Gavin stays with Michael until he drifts to sleep, the steady beeping of the heart monitor making his own heart drop a bit though. Every pump his heart makes sends poisoned blood throughout his body, increasing the risk for organ failure and speeding up the course of the cancer’s travel.

The second month makes things seem like they’re looking up but Gavin knows better.

—

The third month is where things take a turn for the worse. The pain in Michael’s ear becomes unbearable and the doctors realized that the cancer has reached his ear canal. The doctor tells him it’s a matter of time before he goes deaf. Michael asks if surgery is an option. The doctor tells him that he’s allergic to local anesthetics. Gavin wants to run to the bathroom and cry but he doesn’t. He stays strong for Michael. He stays strong because the cancer is spreading and he doesn’t have any choice but to hope that chemo will work.

Sometimes Michael has trouble understanding Gavin. His eyes hurt, his nose bleeds, his ears are slowly going deaf but Gavin doesn’t mind much anymore. Michael’s always tired but that’s fine. They spend time asking each other questions and learning more and more about each other. Attachment sews itself into them after every question and Gavin knows he’s falling farther in love with a man he knows will only be an empty shell by the time six months rolls around.

The third month is where things take a turn for the worst but Gavin and Michael don’t mind.

—

By the fourth month things seem nearly impossible. Michael is completely deaf in his left ear and the hearing is going in his right. His vision is getting worse and the chemo is making chunks of his hair fall from even simple contact. Gavin doesn’t talk with him much anymore because he spends a large part of his time sleeping or on pain medication. Whenever Ray comes to visit he and Gavin spend time chatting until Michael wakes up. He’s always agitated and it makes Gavin sad. But he knows that it’ll be alright and the last two months they spend together will be happy.

At least he wants to believe that.

He wants to believe a lot of things, actually. But Michael is dying and Gavin is in medicine so pessimism is the root of his knowledge and he knows that Michael won’t be functioning enough to love him if the cancer spreads to his brain. He knows that being with him will be painful and hard but Michael is Gavin’s soulmate and he will spend ten months crawling on broken glass if it means he gets to love Michael at the end of it.

By the fourth month things seem nearly impossible but Gavin is willing to work through it.

—

The fifth month hurts. Michael is deaf and partially blind. His brain his going as well and he doesn’t understand a lot of what’s going on. He is gaunt and pale, dark bags under his eyes. He wails about pain and he can’t see Gavin very well anymore. His writing is shaky and it scrawls but he writes about a British boy who used to come around a lot. He writes about how he loved him and how he wished they had more time together. Sometimes his writing is hard to understand but Gavin pours over it anyways. The tales he tells of the boy with the wheat colored hair and eyes like opals make his eyes water. 

He sleeps on the chair next to Michael’s bed, afraid of distressing him by lying beside him. Michael’s hand is bony in his but he makes due, tracing the knuckles with his finger tips. The doctor comes in sometimes and tells Gavin to make the most of the time that’s there because Michael isn’t going to be around much longer. The sound of that makes Gavin’s heart sink and the beeping of the heart monitor doesn’t make it any better.

The fifth month hurts and Gavin wishes he could swallow pills.

—

The sixth month is the worst by far. Michael is blind, deaf, and senile. He doesn’t remember much and he doesn’t speak at all. His world is nothing but darkness and pain and sometimes Gavin can hear soft, choked whimpers from his bed as he sleeps. He tries to ignore it but it hurts him too much. He strokes Michael’s hair and reads him back the stories of the boy with the wheat colored hair even though he can’t hear a word. Chunks and chunks come off as he strokes but it seems to calm Michael down. He then orders more morphine for Michael’s IV, continuing to read.

The tales tell of how the boy with the wheat colored hair would run through Michael’s mind without fail, without getting tired, and without ever stopping. His eyes reflect Michael’s soul back to him and sometimes he’s saddened by what he sees but the boy with the wheat colored hair makes it all better by holding him in the happiness they’ve made in their short time together. He describes their love as stardust, infinite in its simplicity but so easily blown into the wind. 

The sixth month is the worst by far but Gavin likes to think that he’s the boy with the wheat colored hair and that his heart is made of stardust and will soon blow away, infinite its simplicity.

—

The day the doctors proclaim Michael dead is the day Gavin decides that he is empty. He writes a few sentences on the back of one of the pages of the story of the boy with the wheat colored hair. He decides he’ll read it at Michael’s funeral. The doctor asks if he’s okay and he shrugs. The doctor claps him on the shoulder and Gavin looks at Michael’s chart once more. It was just recently updated and he reads the doctors chicken scratch with tears in his eyes and a clenching in heart that makes his hands shake and his lungs feel like they’re collapsing.

Cause of death: Rhabdomyosarcoma.

Gavin hates that word.

—

When Michael’s funeral rolls around his family and friends allow him to speak first. The sky is bright and blue, the clouds fluffy and white as the travel across the sky. A light breeze ruffles his hair as he stands on a podium where a microphone is set up in front of Michael’s casket. He pulls a stack of crumpled yellow papers from his pocket. He’s read them so often he has them memorized but he doesn’t want to make his time too long so he chooses his favorite story and places it on the front of the stack.

“Michael wrote this while in the hospital. He was sad and in pain but he had me and he had his words and by God were they beautiful. So I thought I’d read my favorite of his stories to you all. He never titled them, but I call this one The Boy with the Wheat Colored Hair. 

“The boy with the wheat colored hair was unlike anyone else I’d ever met. His hands were satin around my wrist and his voice was like molasses, slowly treading its way through my ears and into my mind, making a place there forever. His eyes were like the glass of the sea in the calm of a storm. They told so much and bared their soul in ways I never thought possible. I fell in love with the eyes of someone who was hiding a hurricane.

“Together we’d write the stars at night and plan the map for a new tomorrow, our hands architects of a joy only known to us. Sometimes, when the nights were cold, his arms would turn to blankets wrapping me in warmth as we both looked up at our penmanship in sky. Under the moon we’d rest drinking in starlight and meeting each other for the first time over and over in our dreams. 

“Sadly the boy with the wheat colored hair and I didn’t have much time together. Stardust fades and all things must come to an end. Our time was but limited and I understood.

“To the demon that drug its nails through my body and ripped me away from the boy who reflected my soul through his eyes, here is an envelope filled with all the butterflies I got when he and I first met. I think they’re still alive,” Gavin recites, his voice choking with tears. But before he finishes he flips the paper over.

“I thought I’d address Michael myself. I’m not as talented as he is, but I hope this makes up for it with heart.

“To the boy with the smile like diamonds and the heart of gold, I’ve had your envelope safely returned to me. Sadly enough, you weren’t around when I opened it but on the bright side those butterflies are still alive. They’ve found a nest in my soul and remind me of the times when we would paint the night and speak languages unheard of and turn the world into our canvas.

“Sincerely yours, the boy with the wheat colored hair.”