Chapter Text
Louis’s terrified, but he’s also never been so relieved. It’s January eighth, just fifteen days past his twenty-fourth birthday; his time is up. His body has taken more time than it had any right to; he’s lived eleven months past his expiration date, and he’s getting a bit bored of waiting around.
His family understands. They understand he wants to get a move on, to quit feeling so bloody horrible, to quit feeling that constant burn in his middle, crawling up his limbs and to his heart. They understand he’s got someone waiting for him on the other side.
Still, Lottie never misses an opportunity to tell him how much she loves him. The twins bring him cards and clumsily cut school crafts every day, their names scribed in messy letters and green hearts scratched over greener construction paper. To match his beanie, they tell him, because they love Louis’s green beanie. Louis loves it too. Felicite isn’t quite sure what to make of everything; she’s older than the twins and just now understanding that once Louis leaves, he’s not coming back. She spends a lot of time cuddling Louis in the hospital, watching television with wide eyes and a silent mouth. Jay just cries.
She’s been awfully kind about everything, making sure he’s sleeping when she clutches his hands, making sure she’s hidden in the bathroom when she wipes her eyes. It’s her boy, though; her only son, her first borne, and any moment now there won’t be any boy to speak of.
Anne and Gemma come by often as well. Anne has never forgotten how he’s taken care of her own son, and Gemma’s never forgotten how he loved her baby brother. They’ve become good friends over the past several years. Anne is important, too, to Jay; she knows what Jay is going through all too well.
When it happens, there’s no touching scene of soft, tired smiles and tearful gazes, no farewell hugs and kisses. Louis’s dying, nearly dead, and he can’t move in his bed. It isn’t exactly unexpected; when Louis’s deadline came and went and he was still breathing, no one had ever been so frightened – they’d had a timeline, a day to point to, and now they don’t know when or how it will happen. There’s nothing quite as scary to a mother as looking at her son’s doctor and asking when, how long, only to be answered by a shrug and a helpless, He should have already died by now.
There’s something about today, though, that is drenched heavy with the understanding that there won’t be a tomorrow for Louis, and though no one has said so, they all know, and they’re all aware of it.
Louis can barely keep his eyes open; he’s gone into septic shock and he’s only vaguely aware of his own surroundings. There’s a foggy, runny pain pulsing sluggishly through every inch of his body, pale yellow and thin, but behind the blurred lenses of his eyes he can make out the bobbing heads of the twins, the ponytail of his mother, the silhouette of Gemma.
It’s a Tuesday, and Lottie and Felicite are at school. Anne has work. When Louis’s blood pressure began to drop Jay was called by his doctor, and Gemma, who had been babysitting the twins, had driven them over as quickly as she could.
“He’s just in pain, now, Johanna,” he could hear his doctor saying quietly, his words sounding like puddles as they melted behind Louis’s ears. His brain was turning fuzzy. “You know his kidneys have failed. We could go into emergency surgery and give him a transplant, but his chances of surviving at this point are less than ten percent., and it will only prolong his suffering.” Jay simply sobs.
“It’s been eleven months, Jay,” Louis hears Gemma murmur, her own voice cracking. “He’s been on borrowed time, you know that.” Louis would sigh with relief if he could. He wants to go, doesn’t want to live in this infected shell anymore. He wants to see him again.
“My baby,” Jay can only weep, and he hears the mosh of clothing as Gemma holds her. The twins are hovering quietly beside Louis’s bed.
“Mumma, is Louis dying?” one of them, Phoebe – no, Daisy – asks, and Louis doesn’t hear a reply. He feels tiny fingers wrap around his own, those of his baby sisters, and if could squeeze, he would. He closes his eyes.
❡❡❡
In the beginning, all he feels is like a train slowing down, wheels chugging endlessly along tracks, the engine decelerating, and a sharp, strong pain accompanies this, greater than anything he’s felt thus far. He wants to scream but he waits, knows it will go away soon. This pain is the down side of dying, the shutting down of his body won’t be anything but painful.
Then, he feels it slowly begin to ebb, like stepping out of a pool and feeling water slide off of limbs. If he still had a mouth, he’d sigh, smile. He only sees again when there is no more pain to speak of, when the last of the being, of the existing, drips from him and he realises he’s floating.
Stars. All he sees is stars.
He looks down, but remembers that he has nothing to look with nor anything to look at; he’s simply disembodied nothingness now, just hope in the cosmos, and he searches.
Something about one of the stars very far off catches his attention, and as he focuses particularly on that little star, he just knows, and if he still had a heart it’d be rocketing in his chest, because oh God, he’s there.
“Hi,” he hears, shy and low and slow, and suddenly Louis sees nothing but black again, and then a vision, and hallucination seems to form, like an invisible hand sketching across empty pages. He’s dreaming, dreaming of having arms and legs and eyes, and his eyes are the most important things because they blink, startled, and then they look up to see green.
“Hi,” he whispers, and Harry takes his hand. “It’s good to see you again.”
“I’ve always been here,” Harry murmurs, presses his lips to Louis’s dreamt forehead, and Louis closes his eyes, whispers that he knows. “Look,” Harry whispers, takes his own blue beanie off to reveal a full, healthy head of curls, unburdened by chemotherapy, looking as lush as anyone’s. “I’m not sick, Lou.”
Louis can only smile; he doesn’t know what would happen if he let himself cry, if he can cry in this permanent ether.
“Come on,” he says, takes Harry’s hand. “Let’s go watch the stars.”
They close their eyes and disappear.