46. Room With A View
“No.”
Nick frowned, not sure if he’d heard it right. No?
“Brian…”
“I’m not doing it.” It had to be a joke, he couldn’t be serious. He sounded serious, but he could deliver jokes like a professional. Was he indeed crazy? Wasn’t this what they had been waiting for for a whole year?
“Why not?” he asked astonished.
“I don’t want it!” Brian suddenly exclaimed.
“Don’t be so stubborn! This is your chance!” Nick felt like he needed to knock some sense into his brother. The doctor thought so too.
“Mr Littrell, you have to understand that when we do this, there might be a significant chance of remission.”
“Might, Henry, might,” Brian muttered and Nick sighed. So that was it. He’d watched Brian’s face intently when the doctor was talking and had seen the same joyous expression on Brian as there must have been on his own face, but half way through the story, the look in Brian’s eyes had darkened and now he was shaking his head disapprovingly.
“Doc?” Nick turned to the elderly doctor with glasses, that looked so much like a doctor, he could have played it on a children show. “Would you be able to excuse us for a second, I need to knock some sense in the knucklehead over here.”
The doctor nodded understanding, and left the room. Spinning on his heels, Nick turned to Brian, who was staring dejectedly out of the window. Cautiously he walked towards his friend, studying him for a moment, not knowing what to say.
“Can you take me home now?” Brian suddenly asked after a while, keeping his eyes fixed on the window. Sighing discontent, Nick sat down, ignoring Brian’s question.
“Do you know what we did those months after you left?” he began and when Brian refused to answer, he continued, knowing his friend had no choice but to listen, “Nothing!” Frustrated when Brian still didn’t react, he got up and walked up to the window and closed the blinds, not caring about his friend’s angry stare.
“For seven months we just hung around, lost. And you know why?” he called rather loudly, this time finally catching the older man’s attention. “Because we were worried… about you!” he said, “I know forcing you out of the group was the right thing to do,” Another vicious glare came his way, “but we hadn’t thought of the consequences, we hadn’t expected your reaction. Or maybe we had, but tried to ignore it ever happened. Truth is, we were scared out of our minds, scared that… maybe, just maybe you died… and we wouldn’t even know about it.” Nick admitted and he noticed Brian looking down. It needed to be done, but admitting to the fear he’d felt for those seven months wasn’t Nick’s favourite thing to do, and Brian knew that. “But you know what? I take not knowing, over knowing what you are about to do, anytime,” Nick concluded sternly.
“I can’t do it, it’s too much,” Brian finally replied brokenly.
“I know we’re asking an awful lot of you, but please, just please give it a try, Frick,” Nick begged desperately.
“We don’t even know it it’ll work this time, Nick.”
“But what if it will? Look at it this way, you’ve been given a chance to beat this thing, and you’re about to turn it down.”
“It’s just…” Brian began, but trailed off, his gaze fixed on the window again. Nick wondered what had happened to the hope Leighanne had mentioned. Sure, he could vaguely understand why Brian was refusing the new treatment, but that didn’t mean he had to agree with it.
“Remember what you promised your family when the tumour returned?” He was playing the guilt card, but he didn’t know what else to do, “You said you wouldn’t give up! You said you were gonna fight! You have to do this, Brian, for them!”
“I know, I know,” Brian admitted softly, “I just… I mean. You saw what happened last time they did that… I don’t think if I can go through that every three weeks. It’ll kill me…”
“Last time was a mistake, they’ll take precautions now. Did you even listen to dr. Quinn?” Nick asked, knowing that if the hospital hadn’t made the mistake of increasing the dosage last time, they would have never figured out how to force the tumour to shrink. And now it finally had shrunken, weren’t they supposed to be happy about that? But Nick suspected what the main problem was here, because of Brian’s bad reaction to the treatment last time, the hospital would have to watch his condition constantly, which meant that he wouldn’t be allowed to go home between the chemo’s anymore. Nick couldn’t help but be a little sceptic himself as well, because he had witnessed what had happened last time, and it hadn’t been very pretty, it had even gotten to a point where he’d thought he’d killed Brian because the meds were too late. Thinking about how bad his friend had looked then, and seeing that he didn’t look much better now, made him wonder whether Brian would have the strength at all to go through it again.
“I don’t want it,” Brian stated determined. Helpless, Nick let himself fall back in the chair, not knowing what to do to get through to his brother.
“It’s your last chance, Bri,” Nick warned softly. The doctor had made that very clear. If his friend didn’t want to take the treatment, there wasn’t much they could do for him anymore.
“You wouldn’t understand, Nick,” Brian looked at him, “and I don’t expect you to understand.”
“What do I not understand?” Nick challenged.
“It’s just… I’m tired, Nicky. I’m tired of being sick. Maybe… maybe I’m not supposed to do anything anymore. Maybe it’s just time to… you know…”
“No! Do not talk like that, you hear me? Don’t say that you’ve given up, I don’t wanna hear it! You said you’d fight!”
“Everyone dies, Nicky…” Brian muttered dejected.
“Not when they’re forty freaking years old!” Nick exclaimed incredulously. “Don’t you want to see Baylee grow up? Don’t you want to be there when he falls in love? Don’t you want to be able to disapprove of his girlfriends? Or of the career he’ll choose to have? Don’t you want to see him marrying some woman he loves? Don’t you wanna have grandchildren one day? Telling them stories about how their grandfather and his friends ruled the world once with their music? I would! You know I would do anything it takes to make sure I’d witness those kind of things!” Nick could barely get the words out through his clenched throat, his voice broken with tears and frustration. “You promised your son you’d be there to witness those kind of things! Remember? Remember that? How do you think he’s gonna react when you have to tell him you’re making the biggest mistake of your life?” There was nothing Brian could do but to listen to the unstoppable flood of words from Nick and flinch whenever the sentences hit home. When Nick was finally done talking, a heavy silence followed and he sank into his chair shakily, trying to get himself back under control.
“I know you’re right,” Brian finally whispered, “I just… I guess I’m just scared.”
Nick gave a sympathetic sigh, “I understand. You have every right to be.”
“No, I don’t think you do understand, Nicky. See, I’m not scared of pain, I’m not scared to die, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to think about death, more than enough. It’s just… I’m scared to die in here…”
“You’re not gonna die,” Nick stated determinedly.
“Says who?”
“Me.”
“Pfff.” Brian commented and looked away.
“Does that mean you’ll do it?” Nick asked hopefully. Brian sighed and let the silence linger in the room, sagging back against the soft pillows. After a while, he finally surrendered. “Fine.”
April 2001
“I thought you said you were good at skiing?” Brian questioned amused when he noticed Nick losing his balance for the umpteenth time. Nick gave him an irritated glare, because instead of helping him up, Brian seemed to prefer to just laugh at him. They’d been invited to go indoor-skiing, but Nick couldn’t remember by who. He regretted that now, cause he’d like to punch their face for making it sound so appealing. This was not appealing, and what was even worse, it had nothing of the charm it used to have when he was younger.
“I was!” he defended, “… ten years ago.”
The comment made Brian laugh even harder until Nick was afraid his friend was going to choke. Sulkily, he watched Howie sail off of the artificial snowy hill, casually waving at him, as if he did it every week. He probably did. Howie was a pro at skiing, he went at least once a year, so he knew his business. So did Kevin. Nick didn’t count on AJ, cause the boy never wanted to be near anything related to sports if it wasn’t in the form of bowling, darts, pool, or poker. So AJ was nowhere to be seen, which wasn’t such a surprised, seeing as he never seemed to want to do stuff with them anymore. He’d though he and Brian were in the same boat, because they both weren’t really used to skiing. But of course, because he was Brian, the boy had put on the ski’s and had sailed off like he’d never done anything else in his life. Sometimes, Nick felt envious for Brian’s athletic skills, and this was one of those times.
“Shut up, it’s not funny!” he shouted, offended. It was no use. The only thing it did was setting Brian off even more and this time Nick hoped his friend was going to choke. Shaking his head, he gave the older Backstreet Boy the finger and turned around. A few feet away from them, he could see Leighanne laughing too and it made his blood boil. Pissed off, he stuck out his tongue to her and she threw up her hands in a defensive manner.
“Hey, that’s my wife you’re insulting,” Brian commented with a smile.
“I’m just saying, she started it! She was laughing at me!” Nick pouted with a glare. He didn’t understand why Leighanne always needed to go with them wherever they went. Just because she was Brian’s girlfriend, oh excuse him, wife, didn’t mean she had suddenly acquired the right to laugh at him, did it? There was only one person who occasionally had the permission to laugh at him.
“Niiiiick!” His eyes grew wide when he saw his 14 year old brother gliding towards him at top speed. Apparently, bad skiing ran in the family and Nick couldn’t do anything but yell when Aaron collided with his chest and send them both falling to the snow covered ground.
“You… he… you’re… pffffft…” Brian snickered, doubled over in laughter, which caused him to ruin his own joke. This time, Nick would make sure his friend was going to choke.
November 2015
The magazines were old, wrinkled and full of crap. Sighing, Nick turned another page with a cautious expression. The front page had claimed that it had found the missing Backstreet Boy and Nick didn’t like to admit it, but it had surely peaked his attention.
He gasped when recognized the picture and promptly put the magazine down, afraid he’d woken Brian up. After a few minutes, when he was sure his friend continued his sleep, he picked it up again and studied the photo intently. He’d recognize the mall anywhere, its surroundings burned in his memories from when Leighanne had lost Baylee there only three weeks ago. Astonished, he watched the date on the cover page. November 27th. That was two days ago. Shit. When did they get this picture? Nick was sure that most of the people wouldn’t recognize this kind of Brian, but the header was no mislead. He felt stupid, he’d known that taking Brian with them on that day hadn’t been the best of choices, but his friend had persisted and could be very convincing at points. So whatever this useless magazine had found out about him, was his own fault.
“How’d you know I said that?”
Startled, Nick threw the paper on the floor in a desperate attempt to get rid of it. Smiling uncomfortably, he looked up at his sick friend, who had apparently woken up from his restless slumber. “Wh-what?”
“How’d you know I promised them?” Brian wondered, his non-existing eyebrows raised.
“I… err… because… err… you told me, remember?” he tried to explain himself. Playing the memory card was low, but he needed a way out.
“No, I didn’t.” Brian didn’t buy it anyway.
“Y-Yes, you did. You know… when we were talking about… stuff,” Nick lied, but knew he was failing miserably. Telling instant lies wasn’t his specialty.
“No, I wouldn’t have told you,” Brian said, sure. “The question remains, how did you know I said it?” he insisted.
Nick sighed, realizing there was no way out. “Leighanne told me…” he admitted softly.
“She… why?” his friend questioned with a frown.
“Doesn’t matter,” Nick muttered back, turning his gaze away from Brian’s suspicious look. He’d thought Leighanne had gotten off lucky when they had found out that the chemo would only be three days after Baylee’s birthday. That way, there was no chance of telling her husband about her adultery without him forgetting about it. But today he’d witnessed just how unstable Brian really was in this state about his condition and he started to have doubts if forcing Leighanne to admit to her faults was really the best idea at all. Nick had only just managed to convince his friend to go through with the treatment and he was pretty sure that Leighanne’s confession would surely not make things easier in that department. He was more than afraid that Brian’s fragile admittance to the treatment would be brought down completely when he learnt about his wife’s escapades. Nick would have to make sure that that didn’t happen and he hoped he hadn’t pressured Leighanne too much in admitting to her faults.
“What are you and my wife up to?” Brian continued his interrogation. Nick watched him surprised. So Brian noticed that, and not what had been going on between Leighanne and Larry for a whole year? Unless… unless he chose not to…
“We… err… nothing!” He wished Brian would stop his questioning, cause he didn’t know if he could keep this up much longer.
“Come on! I know something’s going on between the two of you!” Brian paused for a moment, studying him sharply, his eyes narrowing, “are you having sex with her?” he blurted at once.
Nick’s mouth dropped open at that and his eyes widened, “No!” he exclaimed horrified and Brian smiled.
“See, I can tell you’re speaking the truth by the terrified expression in your eyes,” he laughed lightly, “but you two are surely being secretive about something! I’ll find out,” he stated determined.
“Good for you,” Nick muttered uneasy.
When the doctor entered a few minutes later, it seemed like Brian was overflowing with energy again. “Henry, if I promised to say yes to the chemo’s, can I go home now?” he asked innocently with a bright smile. Dr Quinn’s face lit up at those words and he winked at Nick.
“Err… sure, if you’re sure you’re feeling good enough, I don’t see why not,” he suggested with a smirk.
“Great,” Brian concluded, already getting up and swinging his legs over the bedside.
“But remember, I’ll see you in three weeks,” the doctor reminded him.
Brian rolled his eyes exasperated, “I’ll see you in hell then,” he muttered softly and turned to Nick, “Come on, let’s go home and make these last three weeks of freedom worthwhile.”
Author's Chapter Notes:
so actually the 'past part' does not have anything to do with this chapter, but it was just a lot of fun to write :) It took a while to finish the chapter in a whole, because I wasnt sure if I wanted Brian to go through with it and was wondering what I would have done in his position. I just hope he made the right decision...
Chapter End Notes:
what do you think: should Leighanne go through with it and tell her husband about her little adventures out of town, or not. Cause I'm kinda guessing that if she doesn't, this story would end in some sort of anti-climax, and we don't want that, do we?
Please, your advice would mean a lot to me :)
