mitsubishievo | [for Lee; Mar 11]

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[for Lee; Mar 11]

Though the forest hadn't given them what they wanted, it had been a good starting point, a good rubric, for how to work on the problem, and Kavinsky had been glad for that. When they'd left, he'd dreamt Lee a bottle of paramorphine cut with antiemetic; something to get him through until they figured something out. It would be stronger and more effective than anything the doctors would give him was for sure.

So he and Ronan had worked. They dreamed. They were working on something of a deadline, though the difficulties of that were that neither of them really knew what that deadline was. Weeks at this point, months? Who knew. The best they could hope for, as far as Kavinsky knew, was easing suffering. He was alright with that, he supposed, as long as it did something this time, something more than they'd done in the forest.

The medicine he and Ronan dreamed together didn't look like anything special. Little pills that practically looked generic, when it came right down to it. They could have been something that Lee came from home with. Except these ones, hopefully, would do something for him. These ones, hopefully, would save his life.

After that, alone, Kavinsky could construct the elaboration of pharmaceuticals. Paramorphines, antiemetics, sedatives, orexigenics, everything else that Kavinsky could think of that someone going through cancer would need; everything he could think of to combat the symptoms and effects of the cancer itself, as well as the symptoms and effects of the chemotherapy, and any side effects of the drug that he and Ronan had dreamt up that they hadn't thought to dream out of the drug itself.

All told, the venture took longer than Kavinsky had meant it to. He chalked that up to jobs and boyfriends and Ronan having to dodge out on his crew, for fear of telling them he was consorting with the enemy. But when it was done, it was done. He collected all the little bottles and all the little cases together, and he headed over to Lee's apartment to deliver the, hopefully, good news.

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Lee felt a little like he had in college, waiting until Eric had gone off to work to head back to his apartment to meet Kavinsky. He hadn't been keeping his city assigned residence for nefarious reasons, more for a possible eventuality where his nausea or insomnia started to affect Eric's ability to get enough rest to do his job, or if being Lee's live-in nursemaid got to be too much. But he hadn't yet told Eric about his work with Kavinsky and Ronan, wanting to make sure there was some kind of real progress before he got Eric's hopes up. He was optimistic the medication Kavinsky was giving him today would be what he needed to finally let Eric in on what had been going on.

The painkillers Kavinsky had given him after their first time together in the forest had been working beautifully and, between that and the tonics he'd gotten from Molly, Lee had been feeling much closer to normal. He wasn't sure how the rest of the drugs would work, but he already had a good feeling about them.

Still, it felt a little like doing a drug deal. Lee had done them before, back when he first started smoking pot to help ease the symptoms of some of the treatments he'd gone through, before medical marijuana had become legal. Of course he wasn't paying Kavinksy for these drugs (though I had offered), and he doesn't think anyone would arrest him for having them, but he still found himself pacing around his apartment as he waited for Kavinsky to arrive, a little anxious.

Finally, the knock at the door came, and Lee checked to make sure it was in fact Kavinsky before he pulled open the door.

"Hi," he said, giving Kavinsky a soft smile. "Come in," he offered, standing back from the door to allow Kavinsky to step inside before Lee closed the door behind him. "Can I get you anything?" he asked, and he didn't have much in his cupboards anymore, but there was tea and a couple of bottles of beer, at least.

"Hey," Kavinsky said, smiling a little as well. He was worn on the edges, just a little. Who knew that working two jobs could take so much out of a guy? But things were coming along well, he thought, and he was practically effusive with pride for what he and Ronan had come up with, glad to bring Lee the results of their labors.

"Nah, I'm fine, thanks. Wouldn't mind sitting down for a minute? I've been on my feet since I got up yesterday morning, it feels like." Probably because, very nearly, he had been. Between the studio, a stint down at the warehouse, back to the studio this morning, and this, he didn't think he was going to get more than an hour or two of shut eye before he went to the club for work tonight.

"How are you feeling? You look a little less peaky and shit."

"Please, sit," Lee replied, gesturing to the couch. He waited until Kavinsky was seated and then he sat beside him, his weary body thankful for the rest.

"I feel a lot better than I did," Lee answered Kavinsky's question. "The medication you gave me is helping quite a bit. Mostly because I can eat," he added with a soft laugh. "That's always the tricky part. And I can't say I mind that the headache hasn't been back since I started taking it either."

He took a breath, still smiling softly. He was so grateful, but he knew Kavinsky wasn't much for Lee's enthusiastic gratitude, so he hoped the thankful look in his eyes was easy enough to read.

Kavinsky nodded and smiled gratefully, collapsing into the couch, rubbing his face tiredly for a moment. He let himself have the brief moment of relaxation, listening to Lee's little report on how he was feeling. Nodding a little, he shifted the bag he had with him, setting it on the coffee table, and started unloading it.

"I'm glad those were working for you. I was worried I wasn't gonna get the balance right on it, doing it on the fly like that. They're pretty heavy hitters, so, you know, try not to go too heavy. Based off hydros, so there's the chance of addiction there."

He felt a little silly, talking to a guy ten or fifteen years his elder about addiction while he was unpacking a bag of half-marked drugs onto his coffee table. But it was a thing he knew well about himself, and so it was a thing he could talk about with authority, the way that Lee could talk about wine.

"So, I've got a lovely little cocktail. Some of these are as needed, some of these are regimental, okay? Red lids are as needed--mostly painkillers, so they got the easy open tops. Blue lids are regimental, marked with time of day." He lifted up one of the bottles in one hand, marked with a little smiling sun, and another in the other, marked with a crescent moon. "Morning, appetite stimulant and anti-nausea. They can also be taken as needed as well. And evening, mild sedative and sleep aid. No more than one every twenty-four hours."

There was one bottle that did not have a colored lid.

Lee nodded, and though he'd been on all sorts of NSAIDs since he'd started aggressively treating his cancer, he didn't mind the addiction reminder, particularly with it being a medication he wasn't getting at a pharmacy. He listened closely as Kavinsky outlined the drugs he was getting today, the memorizing what the color coded lids meant. So far it all made sense, when what to take in the morning and what at night, what he could take more of if he needed the extra help.

Picking up one of the bottles with the red lids, Lee popped the top, shaking the pills around to get an idea of the supply he was dealing with. There was a few dozen tablets inside, proving Kavinsky was providing for him generously. If Kavinsky continued refuse monetary payment for his help, Lee was going to have to start working on some other way to repay his selfless kindness.

Snapping the cap back on the bottle of painkillers, Lee exchanged it for the unmarked bottle in the center of the bunch, remarkable in its insignificance.

"Are these them?" Lee asked, turning his eyes up to meet Kavinsky's, his expression hopeful.

Kavinsky sat back, letting Lee look over the bottles until he looked at the last little bottle, plain and ordinary looking. He nodded, rubbing his knuckles into his temple a little bit, trying to figure out if the bit of a headache he had was exhaustion or sobriety. He ignored it for now.

"That's them. All signs point to them doing...something, at least? Probably the right something. Hopefully the right something."

He laughed a little and picked up the bottle, tossing it into the air. The pills rattled carefully around as it arched up in the air, until coming back down into Kavinsky's hands. He opened the bottle and shook a few out onto his palm.

"Two of them, once a day. With food, so make sure that the food's stayed down--twenty minutes? Then take 'em. It's best if you schedule it for a regular time. Do you have anyone looking in on you regularly that you can set a schedule to?"

It seemed so innocuous, that unmarked bottle, the muted rattling sound of the few pills inside a bottle too big to contain them. Kavinsky knocked a few of the tablets into his hand and Lee stared at them, small and blue and so benign; it was almost hard to believe the power they held inside them, the difference between Lee living three months and Lee living for years all contained in something that looked less interesting than an aspirin.

The directions were similarly simple, just two a day every day like allergy pills, and Lee nodded, a lump forming in his throat. This was it; these pills could save him, could see him living into his forties, fifties, his hair shot with grey, deepening crows-feet around his eyes, things he hadn't considered for himself in years. He blinked as the threat of tears burned the back of his eyes.

"Yeah," he replied, nodding again as he met Kavinsky's eyes. "I, uh. My boyfriend," he started, then he laughed thickly. "My husband," he revised. "I actually live with him across town," he admitted. "He goes to work at the same time everyday. I can take these after breakfast, before he leaves if I need to make sure he's home when I take them."

"Husband, huh?" Kavinsky smiled a little and nodded. He hadn't known that Lee was dating anyone, honestly, but it was good that he had someone that close, especially. When he'd asked, he'd expected a close friend, maybe someone that checked on him once or twice a week. "Me and Newt and our other boyfriend just moved into a place recently. Congratulations, seriously. Breakfast sounds like a good plan, nice and regular."

Kavinsky thought back a bit, humming thoughtfully, scrubbing at his scalp a little. After a moment, he said, "And you said you know Molly Carpenter, too? She'd be good to have check on you too, if she's not already. Probably less regularly. Do a little witchy check up. I don't know if her mojo works quite like that, but she knows my signature at least. Might be good to have another set of non-medical eyes on it. But keep seeing your doctor. Keep up with that, all your regular visits and stuff."

"Thank you," Lee replied, smiling fondly at Kavinsky. They weren't really close, and though Lee would call Kavinsky a friend, he was relatively sure Kavinsky didn't return that exact sentiment. Still it was nice to tell someone he was married (and obviously quickly and recently) without getting an at least momentary shocked look of horror in response. If anything Kavinsky looked relieved to know Lee had someone to keep an eye on him, and happy that Lee had found someone who loved and cared about him, especially now. "Congratulations yourself," he added, smile widening. "On the house, and the continued happy relationship."

Someday, when Kavinsky wasn't so obviously worn out and Lee was feeling better, Lee would ask Kavinsky about how things were going, what being in a polyamorous relationship was like. Kavinsky and Newt weren't the first people Lee had met who were poly, but Kavinsky was the first Lee had ever been close enough with to feel like he wouldn't be out of line asking about it. He was more than happy with his own monogamous relationship, but assuming Kavinsky's pills worked, it might something worth knowing about for the future.

"I do know Molly, yes," Lee answered, blinking to meet Kavinsky's eyes. "She's been giving me some tonics to keep my strength up, but I can show her what you've given me, have her see if she can tell that things are working," he agreed with a nod. He did plan to keep seeing his doctor as well, but, with these pills, Lee felt a bit nervous. If they worked, if the scans came back showing his cancer gone, his native Darrow oncologist might get a little suspicious. With tensions running high after the explosion at the power station, Lee wasn't sure his doctor wouldn't suspect Lee possessed some kind of powers himself.

Lee cleared his throat. "So, trial run on these, yeah?" he asked, not bothering to hide his anxiety, both nervous and excited to try them. "Do you want me to let you know how it's going after a couple weeks, something like that?"

Kavinsky smiled and nodded, not so used to just a plain congratulations without a fair share of teasing to go along with it. It was nice, though, it put a little bubble of pleasant warmth right in his chest, and he harbored that comfortably.

"Yeah, she and I are familiar with each other's work, so she should be able to keep an eye on you if I can't get over to check on something. And you've got my number, so if you need anything different on anything but the blue pills, we'll fix that right quick."

Kavinsky looked over the various pill bottles and then nodded to himself. "Hopefully, remission should be in line with regular chemo or radiation, but faster. So, hopefully the docs just chalk it up to a regular ol' miracle, ya know?" He laughed, giving Lee a wink. "If they start asking questions, tell 'em you've got some cool holistic buddy."

He hummed a little. "Keep a log, first week, then check in with me. There's enough for a little over two weeks in here, so if anything needs to change, a week to ten days should be a good point to start doing an adjustment."

Lee smiled, and he was grateful that Kavinsky had been able to sense his trepidation regarding his doctor here in Darrow. He didn't know of any way to see if Kavinsky's pills were working beyond getting a scan, and he definitely wanted to find out if things were improving or not. "I'm sure they'll believe that," he said with a soft laugh. "They have my history, so they know about all the yoga and meditating and all of that."

He nodded when Kavinsky instructed him to keep the log, making a mental note to pick up a notebook on the way back home where he could track how he was feeling. "Okay, I can do that," he said, nodding again. "Do you know if there's a chance for any side effects?" he asked, though he wasn't sure Kavinsky would know, considering this was a first for him as well. "Is there anything specific I should watch for?"

"Shouldn't be from these ones," Kavinsky said, then shrugged because, if he was honest, he didn't really know. When he and Ronan had dreamed them, they had made what they thought they needed and hoped for the best. This was what they got. All they could do was hope at this point, really.

"There's always a chance, you know? If anything goes badly, stop taking them immediately. Anything that feels like you're getting worse, anything that looks like you're getting worse. But we went in knowing what we wanted these to do, what we wanted them to not do, I knew what I was going to be dreaming up for the pain killers and everything else--you'll probably have more reactions between those, honestly, like any time you're mixing meds like that." Kavinsky puffed out a sigh, scrubbing his forehead thoughtfully.

"I wish I could give you a more definitive answer than 'I dunno, trust me on this', but that's all I got. I'm sorry. I really hope--I'm, like, eighty percent." Kavinsky smiled. "And considering there's been no animal testing or placebo trials here, eighty percent 's pretty good."

Lee listened to Kavinsky's answer, and while it wasn't categorical reassurance that Lee would be fine, it was close enough that it made Lee relax. He'd been having a good feeling about it from the outset, and his positive energy hadn't diminished in the slightest.

"I can live with eighty percent," Lee replied with a smile. "I've had much worse odds before, believe me," he added, shaking his head with the less than fond memories of so many clinical trials with probabilities in the twenty percent range.

"I'm pretty tuned in to my body these days too," he went on. "I should be able to tell if anything's going wrong relatively quickly. I've got a scan scheduled for next Friday, so that will be a good litmus test for us too." He stopped, taking a breath.

"I know you don't want me to go on about this, but thank you, Kavinsky," he said, his eyes conveying his gratitude even more deeply than his words. "Thank you."

"I don't doubt it," Kavinsky said with a shrug. He'd seen reports on clinical trials before, read about them in psychology before. Early trials tended to be forty percent on a good trial.

Kavinsky tried to figure out what day of the week it was, what day of the month, and he sort of laughed internally. Things were sort of blending together. It's what he got, he supposed for endless days and nights all smashed together like this. But as long as Lee had his schedule figured out, that was all that mattered.

"Hey, man. It's seriously no big thing." He shrugged. What karmic balance was he working through here? Did it matter? In the end, if this all worked, Lee got to be alive, and Kavinsky got to say he helped in that. It was more than enough, as far as he was concerned. Maybe it balanced some things out from his past.

A silence dropped over them then, Lee trying not to be more adamant about how grateful he was and Kavinsky had seeming turning his attention inward. Lee could tell Kavinsky was exhausted, and he hoped what he was doing for Lee wasn't causing him to be even more taxed. Lee was willing to sacrifice anything to extend his life, but he didn't expect anyone else to do the same for him.

"Do you want some coffee?" Lee asked, standing up and going into the kitchen preemptively. "Water? Tea? Shot of tequila?" he joked, pulling out a mug to make himself a cup of tea.

Kavinsky could see Lee's stubborn expression, and he smiled, a bit of a laugh pushing out. He didn't think it was funny, specifically--not the situation, or how much Lee wanted to thank him for it, because he understood that; more that Lee kept thanking him rather than simply letting it rest.

In honesty, Kavinsky was glad to help. It was a puzzle, and he loved those, even when they were frustrating. Working with Ronan was a puzzle too, and something he figured he maybe ought to be able to do at some point if he was going to be stuck in this city with him for a long term--he had to get over him at some point. But all of this was, fundamentally, about Lee. At the end of the day, Kavinsky just thought he should do something if he could.

There was no reason to thank him because he was doing this as much for himself as he was for Lee. Maybe if he were a good person, he'd have accepted more than one round of thanks, but anything but that just felt like they were both lying.

"Coffee sounds good, yeah," Kavinsky said, looking at the time on his phone. "If it's not gonna take up too much of your time. I've just been up for a couple days here, it's whatever."

"I have all day," Lee said, pulling down his French press and a canister of coffee. He didn't drink it often himself, but Susan liked it, so he tended to have it around in case she was in the mood for it.

"I had my last chemotherapy session this morning," he said almost offhandedly as he filled his electric kettle and switched it on, moving then to scoop coffee into the press. "I don't have any plans besides walking back home and taking a long nap," he added with a laugh.

They were quiet again as the water boiled, and Lee tried not to stare at Kavinsky as he waited. He didn't really know all that much about the man who was, for all intents and purposes, saving his life. He knew Kavinsky had two boyfriends, and that they were living together in a house now, and he knew (very basically) about Kavinsky's magical abilities, but that was really about it.

Once the water was heated, Lee poured a measure of it over the coffee grounds in the French press to steep, then he did the same over the tea infuser in his own mug. "Have you been really busy lately?" Lee asked mildly, trying not to pry but wanting to see if Kavinsky was interested in talking about whatever was causing him to burn the candle at both ends.

"God, a long nap sounds fabulous right now," Kavinsky said with an honest sort of laugh. Now that the delivery was made, he seemed even more relaxed than normal, like a great weight had been lifted. They weren't out of the woods yet, but a great deal of the hardest part had been dealt with, as far as Kavinsky was concerned.

The question made Kavinsky hum, though. Lee knew bits and pieces of Kavinsky's situations--his boys, the house, the things that were surface deep or otherwise immediately relevant to this situation. But other things were not so apparent, and Kavinsky wondered how much of it really mattered.

"I started a new job, a few weeks back," he said with a shrug. "It's weekend nights, but getting that rhythm down's been weird. And then getting the house finished up, this, have some street sales I'm planning tonight that mean I won't sleep until after work on the twelfth, I think?"

He shrugged again. It was what it was. But the second job meant car maintenance and groceries and the street sales meant paying off the house quickly, and everything meant Newt could focus on school instead of work while Al kept looking for a job. Kavinsky had never had to work a day in his life back home, but he knew all about the application of hard work. Especially when it meant keeping his boys well.

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[for Lee; Mar 11]

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