CW/TW: lung cancer + cancer treatment

CHAPTER NINETEEN AND A HALF
Twenty-six and a half 

Ares is on the phone when Felix comes home from work.

He unwraps his scarf and slides off his shoes before following the sound of Ares' voice into the living room where he's perched on the couch, computer open on the coffee table, phone pressed against his ear. When Felix catches his eye, he asks as quietly as he can, "Who is it?" and hopes that the answer will be Cass.

Ares mouths the word, "Papa."

Felix blinks at him. "Again?"

Ares makes a face that Felix can't decipher just as Felix hears Mr. Sanchez say something else, making Ares glance up at him. "Oh, it's Felix, he just—" but Felix shakes his head at him and Ares instead continues with, "went to take a shower. What did you say the name of your coworker's kid was again? Maybe I do know her."

Felix tries to hide the guilt when he mouths a "thank you" to Ares who merely shakes his head at him like it's nothing, like he understands, kissing the back of Felix's hand when he walks past him to escape into the bedroom. He leaves the door open.

"She's doing good, Papa," Felix hears Ares say after a while when he pulls out a pair of Ares' sweatpants. Felix doesn't miss the way his voice changes. "I visited her last weekend, she's been home almost all month. Mhm. I don't think she'd mind if you called her. Yeah. Okay." Felix can vaguely hear Mr. Sanchez speak and then Ares repeats, "Okay. Tell Mama I love her. And you too. He's still in the shower, but I'll tell him. Yes, I'll call if anything happens. Yes. Okay. Bye."

Felix has just taken off his shirt when Ares joins him in the bedroom.

"Your parents doing okay?" Felix asks, like he always does as he reaches for an old t-shirt in the closet and Ares replies, like he always does, "Yeah. Papa told me to tell you that he misses you."

Felix smiles, pulling the shirt over his head. Even though he already knows the answer, he still asks, "What did he call for?" 

This causes Ares to rub his face, making a sound between a sigh and a groan. "He just wanted to check in." When his face is visible, Ares makes a quiet sound, this time a dry laugh. "I almost felt bad for directing him to Cass, but god, it's the third time this week."

Felix understands. The past three months have been a series of phone calls all made by Ares' parents and Felix's dad to them both—Felix is afraid to ask how many times per week Cass is targeted. He is trying to feel grateful, but he knows why they're calling, even if they disguise it as nothing but a check up, and it is always a painful reminder of the obvious, of what Felix is already desperately trying to forget. At times, Felix finds it difficult not to resent them in some way or another.

So, Felix says, "It's okay," just to remind Ares that it is. 

He naturally follows him out into the kitchen when he gestures for them to get started on dinner. "He also conveniently wanted to remind us about next weekend," he tells him and Felix almost tells him how much he's dreading it with his back turned to him. 

"Like we're the ones who'll forget," Felix says and then immediately regrets it when he sees the look on Ares' face. Felix puts his arms across his chest. "I'm sorry," he quickly says. "They didn't mean to forget, I know."

"It's still shitty of them," is Ares' response, his face still pulled together like he's thinking about the last time they all agreed to go visit their parents. How Cass and Ashton had been hours late because Cass had gotten worse over night and they'd spent all morning and afternoon in the hospital. Having forgotten to call and tell them, Felix had almost had a panic attack when he'd tried to reach Cass' phone and she hadn't picked up.

"It'll be fine this time, though," Felix forces himself to say, watching Ares pull out milk and flour, chicken slices and asparagus. "Cass hasn't been in the hospital in weeks. I spoke to her last night and... I mean, she seems okay. These days."

And she did. There has been not only a significant increase in phone calls from their parents, but also from Cass—or maybe, in reality, Felix is the one to call her most of the time. He's not sure. All he knows is that almost every night when he's on his way home after work, Felix spends the time talking on the phone with either Cass or Ashton or both.

Those calls—the ones he gets from her apartment which she has spent more and more time at these past weeks—are what keeps Felix upright, he's convinced. There are moments like those where he successfully imagines the past six months never having occurred—that it was all a simple nightmare and that he'll be able to bring it up and Cass will laugh at him, joking that he won't get rid off her that easily—but then she mentions chemotherapy, how much it sucks, how grateful she is that it is offered to her, and he will realize that she is still sick. That when he makes her laugh by complaining about Ares' lack of food-skills, her chest hurts because she is still sick. 

"Yeah," Ares agrees after a few second, pulling out a pot, but his nose is still wrinkled.

Felix wonders the week after if Ares knew something that Felix didn't when Ashton calls them Friday night and tells them that Cass has had another episode and that they'll have to cancel this weekend because she's not allowed to leave the hospital for a while.

Felix thinks to himself, as he watches Ares hold the phone against his ear, why Cass didn't call them herself and it seems like Ares thinks the same, his eyes flickering to Felix as he hesitates before asking into the phone, "Ash, do we need to come?" meaning is she going to die now? and Felix picks himself up from the couch, untangling himself from all the yarn, to go the bathroom because if this doesn't stop now he is going to cry.

After minutes that feel like forever, Ares knocks softly on the bathroom door and Felix holds his breath until he hears him say, "It's not serious, Lix. They say it's nothing serious," but Felix can only hear a repetition of Ares asking, do we need to come? and he wishes he could tell Ares to pull him apart so he can be stitched back together.

"Felix," he hears through the door, the doorknob moving slightly but not turning, "let's talk." Silence. "I think I need to talk about this."

Felix tightens his grip on the sink and whispers, "I can't."

He can't tell if Ares heard him or not when he repeats, "I need to talk about this. Please," but Felix won't, or maybe he can't. It doesn't feel like a possibility to get any coherent words out, to voice the feeling in his stomach, so he just shakes his head until he hears Ares walk away and the apartment turns silent.

Ares leaves to go home to his parents. Felix stays in their apartment and forgets to turn on the radiator. When Ares returns, the first thing he does is tell Felix he loves him and turn the radiator back on.

Over time, this is all that matters. Cass, hospital, treatment. It's making her laugh but not so much that it hurts her. It's visiting her in the hospital but not so often that all Felix sees when he thinks of her is one. It's asking about her treatment but not making it all they talk about. It's being with her but not suffocating her. There's a balance somewhere and Felix feels sick to his stomach when he realizes that he has mastered it to perfection.

Cass says treatment is going well. Ashton admits that he's not sure if she's lying. Ares says that she definitely is when he thinks Felix is out of earshot. And Felix, he decides to believe Cass because he is selfish, so when she tells him that all is good, he smiles at her and tells her that he's happy about this. He hopes it brings her some sort of peace and that she doesn't see through him. 

"You heard? Tom Holland and Zendaya started dating." 

Cass is knitting what she claims is a pair of socks for Ashton's birthday in July, but that Felix believes qualifies more as a sweater for their cats instead. 

Felix hums. "I did," he says, his eyes focused on Ares' blanket in his lap. He accidentally made an R instead of a P so now he has to undo it all and he's trying not to let it get to him. "They look great together."

"Of course, they look great together," Cass says, sounding so serious that Felix glances up at her, grinning, "they both look like they were crafted in stardust." Cass makes a sound of frustration. "And Zendaya is so pretty, I wanna worship her."

Felix sends her a look. "I didn't know you were such a dedicated fan."

"I just really like the idea of," she says, "people I'm in love with being in love with each other."

"Any comment from Ashton?"

"They called dibs on Tom." 

Felix snorts and laughs when Cass does. Her hands start to shake so much that she has to put down the socks-maybe-sweater for a moment. Felix stops knitting too in the time it takes for her to pick her own back up again.

Visiting Cass turns into another part of Felix's week and though he promised himself this would never be the case, it gets more common to see her in the hospital than in her own home and Felix has to remind himself that it might be the place she eats and sleeps, but it is not where she belongs.

It doesn't take him more than a couple of weeks to understand why Ashton doesn't believe the treatment is working like it should.

The purple eyebags have started to worsen and when Felix finally gets the courage to ask her about it, she merely shakes her head and says, "I just had a bad night. I've been struggling with insomnia, but it'll probably pass. I've never been much of a sleeper anyway. Did you bring the yarn we bought last month?" But she keeps falling asleep unwarranted when he's around and Felix is afraid to wake her in case this is the only time she's actually sleeping.

Sometimes, he has to leave before he can say goodbye and he has a hard time staying still until the day he can see her again.

The weight she has lost is becoming more and more evident, the fat in her cheeks and arms so visibly shrinking that Felix is scared to see the rest of her and when she moves the slightest, it looks like she's in pain. A lot of it. One time, she asks Ares to help her sit up and when he does, she makes a sound that reminds Felix of a wounded animal, one that almost makes him call for a doctor, a nurse, anybody, before she lets out a short laugh, pinching her brother's arm.

"Dammit, Ares," she says, sounding out of breath, "you're tryna kill me or something? I'll pluck your eyes out," but Felix is looking at who Ares is so shocked by the sound, he doesn't react to her words other than a quiet apology which Felix can only imagine makes her feel guilty but if so, she doesn't show.

Felix thinks it is in June when he visits her after a work day and she tells him calmly, like he's speaking to a child, "It's not to make you worry or anything, manito, but... I've been...vomiting a lot these days. It's just...so you know. I don't want you to be too alarmed if it happens."

Felix grits his teeth for a few seconds. "Shit, okay, Cass." He pauses. "Just...tell me if you need anything."

"Just don't tell Ares, he won't let me live it down." She looks at him and smiles. "But thank you. I'll tell."

Felix can't tell what's different when he visits her early August, but he can tell that something is.

He has almost finished the blanket for Ares and he holds it up in front of him for Cass to see the results of many months worth of knitting. It's when she barely reacts—no joke about the clearly almost misspelled word, about how Ares will die of embarrassment, how she will make fun of him for it—that Felix puts it back down and waits. He waits and waits and waits while Cass is trying to find the words and Felix is trying to stop himself from running.

He holds his breath. He can't help it. He suddenly wishes Ares were there.

"I think—" Cass stops, closing her eyes for a moment before she looks at him, her face unwavering. "I decided to stop treatment."

Don't cry, he repeats silently. Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry—

Felix fists his hand in the blanket. Instead of asking her, how could you? he asks, "Does Ares know?" because oh, he will have to know and then he will have to carry that and Felix cannot imagine his surviving it.

Cass exhales, shakily. "He'll come later tonight. I'll tell him then. I just... wanted you to know first. He can't keep a secret for the life of him and I just...wanted you to hear it from me."

His grip on the blanket tightens. Afraid he'll accidentally make a hole in it, he forces his fingers off, gripping instead the edge of the hospital bed. 

Don't do it, he thinks. Change your mind. What are you doing? Change her mind. 

"Why?" he breathes. 

Felix watches her sigh, her eyes closed for a moment and when she finally looks at him, she looks sad. "I don't know," she says, but Felix knows that she does. "I'm just...tired. It's not helping and the treatment is just...it's making me feel worse." She hesitates. "The cancer has...it's reached stage four. It has for a long time and—the doctor said the treatment isn't going to work. Not anymore."

For a moment they sit in silence until she exhales, her brows pulled together as she turns her gaze on him and whispers, "I just wanna go home, manito."

In a horrible moment Felix believes that she's talking about heaven, but he hopes she's talking about Ashton who is waiting for her back home, instead. 

Felix turns his head, his eyes focused on the white floor because he is a coward and simply can't look at her, not like this, not now. 

When she speaks again, Felix presses his eyes closed like it'll keep her voice out. "I'm okay with it, Felix," she says and she sounds like she is, like this is what she has waited for, this moment. "It's okay. I've...had time to settle with it and be okay." 

Felix can't help it: He sobs into his hand when he feels Cass' fingers on his shoulder and, still with his eyes closed, he feels her arms reach for him as he turns around and buries his face in her shoulder as he wails like a child, like the child he was, the one that sobbed into Ares' shoulder when he learned that no one stays forever. 

In between sobs, he thinks he might be telling her not to do it. Maybe he's telling her that he loves her, that he hates this, that he wants her to stay forever and watch him get old and gray and get married and have kids and die. Maybe he tells her that he never thought she'd go first. Maybe he tells her that he wishes it was him instead and maybe he means it.

He's not sure. All he knows is that he is wailing the rest of the time he is with her. Maybe she is too. He can't tell and he doesn't check to find out.

Felix leaves before Ares arrives. Selfishly, he doesn't want to be there when she tells him and he doesn't think Cass wants him to be there either. He will be home, waiting for him instead.

On his way out, he realizes that he has forgotten Ares' blanket and when he walks back to get it, Ashton is inside, sitting on the chair Felix sat on merely ten minutes ago. 

For a moment, Felix wonders if they know, but then he hears Cass say, "I know, querido, I know," and he watches through the window in the door as Ashton curls up against her, his shoulders shaking as he sobs into the space between her shoulder and neck and Felix knows the answer. He leaves without the blanket. 

When Felix returns home, he wanders back and forth through the apartment. He doesn't know what to do with his body and before he can force himself to sit, to cook, to do anything, he hears the front door open and, after a second, close. 

He finds Ares standing in front of the door and Felix suddenly has a feeling of deja vu, a feeling that Ares is about to declare, once again, that his sister is going to die. He has seen it before. They have been here before.

This time, Felix waits.

"Do you know?" Ares asks. He stares at something on the floor, his face pulled together like he is somewhere else. Felix wants him back.

Quietly, he admits, "She told me before you came."

"Why didn't you tell me?" 

He sounds angry and Felix stares for a moment before he says, his voice gentle, "It's not my place to. She wanted to tell you herself."

Felix braces himself when he sees Ares' hands clench around thin air by his sides. "And you're just okay with this?"

Felix frowns as Ares stares at him. "Ares."

"You just let her decide this?" His teeth are gritted when he says, "You probably didn't even fight her on it."

"Fight her on it?" Felix means for it to sound gentle, but instead he sounds angry, sounds like he blames Ares like Ares blames Felix. "What do you want me to say, Ares?" he asks. "What did you want me to tell her? That she couldn't? That she's not allowed to?"

"You could have," Ares spits back, "at least done that."

"Sure," Felix continues, his voice poisonous. "I'll go back, right now. What do you want me to say? Do you want me to tell her that she's fucking selfish? Tell her to go screw herself for it? For choosing to die, is that it? Should I go back and do that? She has no fucking time left and you wanna spend it hating her?"

Felix wants to leave. He can feel it itch in his body to leave this, to leave this anger between them behind, but he feels his lips curl like they do when he's about to cry and he knows Ares sees it too when his face loosens and the anger is replaced with despair. For a moment they stare at each other and Felix hears his words echo in both their heads.

Then, Ares turns his head and presses a palm against his face. 

"Fuck," Felix hears him say and he can already feel the sobs easily come through, the anger gone as fast as it arrived and it scares Felix how fast they lost themselves, how fast they came back. "I can't believe this is happening—fuck!" Ares presses both palms against his eyes and then, like he just remembered, he looks at Felix and repeats, "I can't believe this is happening. Fuck—I'm sorry. Fuck."

Felix wraps his arms around himself as he takes a step forward, but Ares is faster and with two steps he has wrapped his arms around Felix, his fingers buried in his hair and clenched around his shirt as their sobs blend. He thinks, do they sound the same when they cry? Maybe they do. Maybe that's what happens when you spend this much time crying together.

He digs his fingers into Ares' back and closes his eyes. 

This time, Ares does not tell him that it's going to be okay. Felix thinks it's almost worse.

A/N

me, at home, realizing i should've brought my pride flag to ateez concert