#thomas 1

Trying to stay as quiet as he could he slowly got up from the bed, his legs feeling a bit shaky. He'd seen a nightmare again. Adorellan was going to have a morning shift, and Thomas didn't want to wake him up.

Glancing at the clock he saw that it was barely four in the morning that night. Feeling like he was unable to sleep anymore despite the fatigue that stress had brought upon him, he slowly made his way to the kitchen, trying to be careful with the creaking door hinges.

The back of his t-shirt that he had worn to bed felt soaked, and as he made it to the kitchen, he pulled the t-shirt off, dropping it on the back of the chair by the table.

"Gross", he groaned quietly, keeping his voice down. He felt the cool air of the kitchen hitting his skin and he shivered. Nothing was good right now, was it? He was sweating like fuck and still he felt cold all of the sudden.

He turned on his heels, making his way to the living room and grasped the felt from the back of it, shaking it unfolded before wrapped it around himself, huffing quietly. He didn't feel like coffee anymore. He sat down on the couch, pulling his legs up against his chest and staid curled up there with the felt. His body ached and he laid down, wondering if he'd caught a flu, because he felt like shit.

-

Two months later the nosebleeds started, and Thomas freaked out a bit. He hadn't really gotten them before in his life. Time by time at work he had to dash to the backroom and hold his head back, squeezing his nose, trying not to get blood on his shirt. As if his days at work weren't bad enough. He was always tired and after few hours he had to sit down for a while.

First now and then, and then even the slightest bump on his nose made him bleed.

Adorellan told him that he'd gotten more slender, and asked if he'd been working out more. He hadn't, but with a smile he asked if Dore was liking what he was seeing and took him to the bedroom, bending over for him and having sex with him, falling asleep soon after it every time.

Next morning he would find bruises on his skin, as if their sex had been much rougher than the slow love making that they'd had, both being exhausted and tired but needing the touch. He could even see Adorellan's fingerprints on his hip.

-

After he'd gotten a bad fever and had to stay in the bed for nearly five days, trembling in cold and curled up under the blankets, he figured out that he should see the doctor.

Despite his state he took the car and drove to the ER himself, sitting in the waiting room for a good hour, face pale and skin sweating, his jaws clacking together.

The doctor finally took him in, and at the first look it seemed like he had caught some sort of infection which had made him this ill. Doctor prescribed him with antibiotics, and his fever went down. For a while it seemed like he was going to be alright again.

-

In the May, after four months of his symptoms starting, he collapsed at work. He blamed it on the heat, the stress, the busy day as they carried him to the ambulance. They took him to the hospital and did him some tests on him. He staid in the hospital bed until late in the evening, and soon his phone started ringing in the pocket of his jeans. He knew he couldn't use his phone in the hospital so he just let all the calls to go to voice-mail, and his text messages went unread.

The doctor was vague with his words as he came to see him later. He told him that it would be good for him to come and see the doctor for further tests in few days, and now he'd have to rest. Thomas wanted to argue about it - he had shifts tomorrow and day after -, but the doctor assigned him some sick leave anyway.

It wasn't like Adorellan wouldn't be able to pay for them both, but Thomas felt like he had to do his own part to make their relationship work. Adorellan had already been worried enough about turning into his sugar daddy at one point, and Thomas had worked hard to prove him wrong.

He came home not until eleven in the evening, and Adorellan was there right away, by the door, giving him loads of questions. Thomas explained to him softly that he'd fainted at work - it had been hot and busy and he hadn't drank enough - and that he'd been in ER where he couldn't have answered his phone. He apologized and told him not to worry, continuing that he'd gotten some sick leave from work. Adorellan didn't have to worry for him.

Thomas couldn't shake off the sick feeling in his gut, the worry of the fact that the doctor had told him to come back, but he didn't tell Adorellan. He didn't want to worry him.

-

In Sunday, his free day after the sick leave had ended, he went back to the hospital. He knew that Adorellan would have to be at work until late in the night - some big project was going on - so he'd have the time to be at the hospital without letting Adorellan to know and worry over nothing.

It was just probably the same flu from the winter.

The doctor, man in his middle fifties, began with some questions. Fatigue? Check. Nosebleeds and bruises? Check. The further the doctor spoke, more and more nervous Thomas became. His tone turned from joking and casual to formal and worried.

They took few bottles of blood from his elbow, and then he had been taken to have CT scans and other stuff like that done. With every passing by moment Thomas felt his hands sweating more and more and the cold, sick feeling wouldn't leave his gut anymore.

Despite the fact that some of the tests hurt like hell, his biggest worry was how the hell he'd tell Adorellan that something was probably wrong with him.

-

After five excruciating days the doctor called, telling him to stop by his office again. His results had came.

Just a hour later Thomas was there again, covered in hoodie. He'd lost even more weight now, and he tried to hide that from Adorellan as well. And he was feeling cold as hell all the time.

The news were desolating.

ACM. Acute Myeloid Leukemia. He had cancer.

"Five-year survival varies from 15–70%, relapse rate varies from 33–78%", told the doctor but Thomas was barely listening. He had cancer.

He buried his face in his hands and just sat quietly for a while as the doctor told him about his options. How the hell would he ever have the money to pay for all this?

And how he'd tell Adorellan?

-

He didn't cry until he got home. The old doctor, clearly uninterested in how he was doing, didn't deserve his tears.

Making his way to his and Adorellan's apartment, he swayed to the living room, slumping sitting on the couch. Few slow, shaky breaths. He slid lower, slowly bringing his hands up on his face, exhaling from between them.

There was a 15 to 70 percent chance he'd survive through next five years. He could die. He couldn't do this to Adorellan.

-

A panic hit him a hour later, and as he was crying, panting for air, he made his way to the bedroom, starting to shove things in his gym bag. Clothes, his belongings. He couldn't be here. He couldn't let Adorellan see him like this.

He managed to knock stuff down from the shelf over the bathroom sink and he soon sunk sitting on the lid of the toilet seat, his face in his hands again as he only cried harder, his fingers curled in his long, honey locks.

He'd broken a bottle of Adorellan's Chanel  N°5 and the whole bathroom was reeking.

-

Adorellan came home earlier than he'd planned to, The meeting had gone more than well, and he was excited to tell Thomas everything. He wanted to celebrate.

It was already too late to take Thomas out for a dinner, but he'd stopped by in the corner shop and bought Thomas a bouquet of various flowers. He was holding it a bit too tightly as he arrived home, full of energy and joy from the successful deal.

The lights were still on, but Thomas wasn't sitting in the living room watching the TV like he usually was when he came home.

"Thomas?" he called out softly.

"I'm home, are you asleep?" he continued, settling the bouquet down on the small lobby's desk as he took off his coat and toed off his shoes. He shrugged off his suit jacket and tossed it on the couch, not bothering to care now.

Loosening his tie he grasped the bouquet again. It smell delicious, even though the flowers had started to wither a bit already.

"Thomas?" he called out again, heading to the bedroom.

-

Thomas had sat in the silence in the bathroom, at some point having moved to sit on the floor against the wall instead of the toilet seat. He had his long legs sprawled out, his hands crossed on his lap. His hair was a mess and his face felt rigid from dried tears. The redness hadn't left his eyes yet, even though they had turned all puffy.

He heard the door, and he tensed a bit, but didn't have enough energy to sit up. He wasn't ready yet, and the ache in his heart, the dwelling sadness and fright made his face twist in a terrible frown and he closed his eyes tightly, feeling them watering again. He made a choked noise and pulled his legs up against his chest, leaning his arms on them, winding his hands on the back of his head.

He wasn't ready.

"Thomas?" he heard Adorellan calling out for him again, searching for him. It hurt him how happy the man sounded like.

The silence fell in the apartment again as he heard someone pushing the door open to the bedroom, and the hinges cried. Then, complete silence for a time that felt like eternity.

The steps moved through the bedroom, and stopped right behind the bathroom's door.

Adorellan hesitated, brought his hand up, hesitated again. Curled his fingers and then, finally, knocked his knuckles against the door once, twice, and a quiet 'Thomas?' was being breathed out.

Thomas let out a mix of hiccup and a sob and pressed his hands against his mouth. Adorellan tried the door knob, finding the door to be locked. Man's stomach clenched a bit and he clenched his jaws.

"Thomas? What's wrong?"

The quiet sobs turned into louder ones and then Thomas was crying again. Adorellan had never heard the man crying like this, not even when his parents had practically inherited him when he had told them that he was moving together with Adorellan.

-

Silence was long and painful between them, but finally Thomas moved just a bit, reaching his hand out to unlock the door.

Adorellan opened the door carefully, peeking in. The reek in the room was familiar, but terrible in such amounts. He wrinkled his nose a bit, but ignored the reek as he looked down at Thomas hunching on the floor on a small bundle, trembling and crying.

"Thomas", he whispered, voice wavering a bit. He didn't understand what was going on. He had abandoned the bouquet on the bed. "Thomas", he called out again, sitting on the floor next to him and draped his arm around him. "Come here. Shh... It's okay", he continued, some sort of a shock settling in him. The packed gym bag told a story, which he probably didn't want to know of. Was Thomas leaving him?

Thomas hid his face in his hands and curled up against Dore's side, feeling small.

"I've got cancer", he blurted, forgetting all about carefully telling to other man. Adorellan tensed next to him, fell silent. "I've got cancer", Thomas repeated, his voice thick from crying and muffled by his hands.

"I'm sorry I broke your bottle. I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to."

The doctors promised him much, telling that the survival rate for his type of leukemia was rather high. He'd survive. That's what they said.

Two and a half years later Thomas died. 

Thomas was alone when his heart stopped beating. It was night. Visiting hours had ended ages ago and Adorellan wasn't allowed to stay since they weren't family. 

First trouble of breathing. Then cold. Thomas was trembling in ague. Cold sweat. It was all over soon. 

Adorellan wasn't informed until the next day when he arrived to the hospital to meet Thomas.

When Adorellan stood by Thomas' corpse in the morgue the following day, given a permission to meet him for the last time, he remembered the words that Thomas had told him more than once, more often the closer his death had came.

Don't.

Thomas mustn't had understood what he had asked of him. It was just plain cruel. Adorellan wanted to hate Thomas that moment, but he couldn't. He couldn't. 

Thomas was as beautiful as he always was. They had done him autopsy the last day and the morbid scar told another story on Thomas' chest, peeking from under the white cloak that had been pulled away from his face.

Adorellan hovered his fingers over Thomas' face, wanting, needing to touch.