The next couple days fell into a familiar rhythm for the two men. They woke together, ate together, watched TV together. In the afternoons Brian did his chemo, and then the rest of the afternoon was spent in the bathroom. By evening he usually managed to eat a little something, but he would be so exhausted that he was in bed by seven or eight.
It seemed to AJ that Brian lost a little bit of weight each day. The nurses noticed, and bumped his breakfast back from seven to six. It allowed it to stay in his system longer so that he got more nutrients out of it before his daily dose of chemo hit. AJ remembered it being the same way last time. He constantly had to remind himself that on the chemo break Brian would gain back some of the weight. He would fill back out a little.
The doctor restricted his visitors again as the first cycle of chemo ended. Yet again AJ was the only one that was allowed in there, and that was simply because he had all the present staff on his side. Only one nurse disliked them at all, Nurse Sara, and they found it easy to ignore her when she was around. She was prone to loud sniffs when she saw them interacting as a couple, and disapproving glares when she dropped their food off and they would be snuggled in bed together.
AJ could see that things were starting to get to Brian again. To make him depressed. So he thought long and hard about ways to perk his lover up, not sure what they could do.
Two days after they’d stopped the first round of chemo AJ was wandering down the hallway, no real goal in mind, just trying to think of what he could do to perk Brian up. His love was sleeping at the moment, which left AJ free to wander and think. They’d already had breakfast, but Brian hadn’t slept well through most of the night, so once they’d eaten he fell back asleep.
He needed something to perk Brian up. Something to make him feel more like himself, and less like a sick man lying around in bed. But what could they do here at the hospital that would remind Brian of who he was? Remind him that there were good things in life as well as the bad?
Without realizing it, AJ’s feet had carried him to the nurses’ station. Sara was the nurse in attendance for the moment, and her displeasure at seeing AJ showed in the small curl of her lip and the annoyance in her eyes. “Might I help you, Mr. Mclean?” she asked him in a falsely sweet voice. She never was anything but professional when she spoke, even if her tone was as fake as the nose on her face.
Startled, AJ shook his head and looked over at her. “What? Oh, no. Just wandering and thinking, that’s all.”
“Might I suggest you do your thinking back in the room, Mr. Mclean, so that you might not disturb other patients?”
That drew AJ out of his thoughts enough to have him really looking at her. Annoyance had his features tightening and his eyebrows drawing down. “Last I checked I wasn’t parading up and down the halls singing at the top of my lungs. I was quietly walking and thinking, which is allowed you know, my dear.” He took another step toward the desk, his frustration at everything happening coming out toward her. “I’d really like to know what the hell your problem is with Brian and me. We haven’t done a single thing that is disrespectful toward you.”
“I wouldn’t presume to have a problem with my patient, Mr. Mclean. I am just here to be a nurse, doing my shift.” She said primly.
AJ stepped up until he was at the desk, his hands resting on the countertop. He didn’t notice anyone else coming out from the back. His whole attention was focused on the woman who had been steadily irritating him for days. “Oh, you’ve been very slick about it, never coming right out and saying anything to us. But you have no problem giving your rude little sniffs, or talking in that snotty tone, or glaring any time I so much as touch him. Who do you think you are to sit and judge us for seeking comfort in one another? That man is going through his second round with this cancer, and if he wants to have me there for comfort, if he what helps make him feel better is a touch or a hug or a kiss, who the hell are you to judge him for it?”
Nurse Sara opened her mouth to speak, but AJ was on a roll. Most of his anger with her was genuine, but some of it came from built up stress. She just happened to be the one who finally pressed his last button.
“I love him with everything that I have inside of me, and he loves me back. Comforting one another is what two people in love do. You’re there for your partner when they needed you. Us being two men doesn’t change that basic fact. You can sniff and glare and get as angry or offended as you want but I will tell you right now that it will not change how I am around him one single iota. I’m not going anywhere, and you damn well better get used to that fact, or I will be speaking with your boss, and I will have you transferred out of here. Push me hard enough and I will have your job.”
“You aren’t the hospital administrator, to have such power over my job.” Nurse Sara snapped. Her fake smile had dropped and her glare came out. “Despite my opinions I have done nothing that could get me fired. I haven’t said one single derogatory towards your wrongness or your sinning. You’re simply a patients visitor who seems to have swayed everyone else and is enjoying the extra privileges because of it.”
Temper had AJ’s eyes flashing bright. The hand in the cast curled into a fist over the top of the cast, and his other one planted flat on the countertop, enabling him to lean in slightly toward her. “For one thing, Nurse, I am a patient here as much as him. They haven’t discharged me yet because my weight isn’t what they want. For another, I know my partners rights. I also happen to know that it is hot publicity to discuss sexual discrimination. I will not hesitate to use the press to crucify you for your prejudices. We have the right, the same as any heterosexual man, to get service from a hospital without dealing with other peoples gay bashing.”
There was quite a crowd drawn around them by then, but neither really seemed to notice. AJ didn’t even notice that Brian had come out and was walking down the hall. Brian was content to watch and wait. He, too, had noticed Sara’s demeanor and had been growing pissed off with it. So he watched the proceedings with a smile.
Sara looked indignant. “The press? Who do you think you are to threaten me? The local papers won’t care about your stupid little story. I have done nothing that they can use against me. I have a right to not like what you two do. I have a right to my opinion.”
The smile that curved AJ’s lips was sharp and furious. “You have no idea who I am, do you?” he hissed at her.
“You’re Mr. Mclean, a patient here, and a homosexual. What more would I need to know?”
He laughed, the sound hard. “Darling, I’m AJ Mclean of the Backstreet Boys. My name and my group and our music is known worldwide. You think I’d go to the local papers? I’ll go to the national papers and smear your name through the press until everyone knows the discrimination that you’ve done. Then I’ll pay my lawyers their fee to file a suit for discrimination and harassment and anything else they can think of. It’ll be one of the most publicized cases of the year, and I guarantee you, I’ll win.”
“You have no proof of me doing anything!”
That was when Nurse Joyce stepped forward. Her face was set in hard lines of disapproval. “Every member of the staff will testify to the way you’ve been treating the two of them. All of us had already noticed it and taken our complaints to the administrator. We do not tolerate discrimination around here, nor do we tolerate rudeness to our patients.”
Joyce stepped around the desk, placing a hand on AJ’s shoulder, drawing his attention away from Sara, who was gaping like a fish. “Mr. AJ, if you’ll just come with me, I was on my way to fetch you two. The doctor wishes to speak with you.”
For the first time AJ noticed that Brian was there. He saw the way his love was casually leaning against the wall, a small smile on his lips, and AJ couldn’t help but grin in response. He held his hand out, waiting from Brian to step toward him and take it.
Brian was in the mood to make a point, though, so he looked over to Sara, who was openly glaring at them, and gave her a wide grin before walking toward AJ. Instead of simply taking his hand, Brian walked up and cupped AJ’s face before giving him a huge kiss. When he pulled back everyone was smiling, AJ was wearing a goofy grin, and Sara was glaring harder.
Together the two walked off, hand in hand, to speak with the doctor.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Brian stared at one of his new oncologists, a Dr. Reece. He was a friendly man, maybe in his mid-forties, with lines that showed he was a man who had smiled plenty over the years. What worried Brian was that the man wasn’t smiling now.
“I won’t sugar coat things, Brian.” Dr. Reece said. He sat forward in his chair, his arms coming to rest on the desk. In response to the tension in the room the young couple clasped hands, sitting closer together. They knew that what was coming wasn’t going to be good, yet there was no way to stop it.
Dr. Reese took a deep breath. “We want to do another bone marrow biopsy, Brian. Some of your tests make us think that this is progressing too far into your marrow. If this test comes back in the way we think it will, we’ll need to start a new round of chemo and start looking for a donor to do a bone marrow biopsy.” He delivered the new bluntly.
Brian and AJ looked to one another, their eyes wide. They knew the dangers that came from a bone marrow biopsy. The dangers that came from all of this. For the cancer to have progressed like that meant that the current round of chemo wasn’t working. They clung tighter to one another. What was going to happen now?