i'm soggy from the chemo..counting down the days to go.

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We returned home in the spring, the last one he'd live through, the doctor estimated.

Three months. He'd be gone before the sunflowers were in full bloom. His favorite flowers. He wouldn't get to brush the tips of his fingers against their soft golden petals.

The funeral has been planned. His mother calls me daily, frantic with details. She says if all she can do for him is make his departure lovely, then she'd be grateful.

She also calls to see his face everyday, caressing her wrinkled fingers and light pink nails against the screen of her phone, as if reaching her soul through to Lance's hollow cheeks.

Lance can't walk on his own any longer- so I make sure the bed is always comfortable, his stick on stars illuminating his cold body, the windows open to the emerald green leaves and pearly white dogwood trees of our countryside home.

I read to him everyday- classic periods, because he loves Jane Austen. We watch reruns of his favorite shows and movies, The Princess Bride, The Golden Girls, and Snow White on dvd.

Oddly, I feel as if I've learned more about him in these silent days as his physicality withers away than I have in our entire relationship. Things that are raw, and unspoken- things he'd never show me if he was his healthy self. The pain, true feelings and extricable love he had for me. I felt these things every time I held his bony hands, and every night he whispered me goodnight.

He's come to like raspberries- a fruit he'd always despised, and I make him a bowl of them every morning. He whistles with the bluejays and robins as the sun rises, awaking to their blue and red calls of joy as the morning sun glints against his irises.

I began playing the guitar again. I haven't since Shiro and Adam left for their new life in Japan, my longtime band members now married and happy. But Lance wanted to hear.

No matter how rusty I was, it always brought a smile to his face. Every evening I'd sit at his lap, and play quiet lullabies on rusted strings, strings I couldn't pay to be replaced. Chemo bills on the dresser next to vanilla candles as he smiled at me. 

He hums along to the tune, the only sound he can create as his voice fails him when he tries to do more. I kiss his hands and forehead, and rub the freckle on his right knuckle- the only one left, as his skin slips away like dust beneath mine. 

...

Today, I've gone grocery shopping. I wanted to get out before he woke- he was out of raspberries. Low hanging honeysuckle trees kissed my cheeks as I pulled into our driveway on my motorcycle, the sky a deep gray. It would rain today.

I opened the door, the quiet unsettling. Something was wrong.

I dropped the groceries at the kitchen island, before stepping down the hall to our room.

Lance was gone.

The bed was empty, blue comforters unraveled to leave a thin crease where his body should lay.

"...Lance?" I entered the room, searching. Under the bed, the closet, the bathroom. "Lance?!"

"..Ke-i.."

"Lance." Keith turned, following the broken voice out of the room and down the hallway.

"Kei..th.."

Keith rushed into his office down the hall, where he sorted bills, and struggled to find work, papers and empty coffee cups strewn across his desk and floor. Lance lay on the carpet, sprawled in the papers and shaking, heaving for breathe.

"Lance!" Keith panicked, kneeling down. "Are you hurt? What happened?"

"I'm sorry.." He was crying. "I just wanted to help...help clean up.." He said slowly, his voice dry.

Keith wiped Lance's tears, holding him in his lap and checking for bruises and scratches. "But are you hurt??"

"You always take care...of me. I don't do anything anymore..I'm..a burden. What kind of husband.."

"Lance, did you hurt yourself? Answer me." Keith's eyes were serious, with fear.

Lance's eyes quivered with the tears in his eyes. He shook his head.

"Good." Keith said, kissing his forehead and pulling him close. "You're not a burden to me Lance, you never have been. You're a blessing, and my everything. I'll work however hard I have to." He smiled at Lance. "I don't mind. I'd do it a million times over."

He meant every word.

Lance continued to cry. "But why stay...I- I can't even stand to look at myself in the mirror when you bathe me.." He grasped Keith's shirt weakly, sorrow in his eyes. "I'm disgusting, Keith. An ugly waste of space, and you- you're wasting your youth to keep me alive...why?"

Keith frowned. "You can't even kiss me anymore. You can't touch me." Lance continued.

A tear fell down Keith's cheeks, a single drop. He wasn't going to fall apart. He had to stay strong. For Lance.

"You're right, I can't." He lifted Lance's eyes to his. "But I promise if I could I would, if it didn't hurt you I would every chance I got. I would waste my last breathe on your lips, Lance."

Lance stared at him, eyes wide. Listening.

"You are not disgusting. Or ugly. The mirror shows you what you hate to see, your incisions, your bones, your blemishes. But I love these parts of you. I love you just because your heart is still beating." He placed a hand against his chest. "And I see much more, I see when you whistle with the songbirds, and I see when you chuckle at your favorite line in a movie. I see when you try to help me, like you're doing right now."

"You're vulnerable. Sure. But so am I, and I see that too. I wouldn't trade you for the world. A day with you is never a waste of my time. I wouldn't want to spend it any other way."

Lance was silent, no longer grasping Keith's shirt.

"I want to kiss you." He finally said. He lifted a weak hand to Keith's chin.

Keith smiled sadly, "I know, my love."

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finally updated less goo

gonna try and just churn out the last few chapters this is a short story so lemme try hehe.

sorry for the angst :( but ilu guys hope everyone is doing well.