I woke the next morning not sure what to expect when I eventually faced him again.
'Stephen' one of the nurses sang, 'oh Stephen' I swear to God if she does that one more time, 'STEPHEN....' before I got a chance to respond and mentally kick her face in a gruff voice barked at me, 'Stephen for God's sake, wake your ass up and talk to the bloody woman'
'Hm, Thank you Gerard' the nurse said bitterly, her good mood obviously killed by his tone. I rolled over and saw him burying further under his pillow, her false cheery smile was looming over my bed, as she stood with meds in one hand and a glass of water in the other.
'Here you go sweety' her voice rang as she thrust me the tablets and forced the water down my tightening throat. I spluttered trying to keep the water from going down into my already wet lungs. Groaning, Gerard peeked out from under his pillow, watching me as I wrestled with my meds. 'I wonder if he is thinking about what he said last night, I know I am' - my thought was cut off by the annoying nurse and her shrill voice 'Ready to go to your therapy, Stephen?' She asked, 'therapy?' I stared blankly at her, by now Gerard had removed his pillow and was staring intently at me, waiting for me to respond to the nurse 'come one sweetie the chemo therapy that was booked for today' she said it quietly to give me some dignity, but he still heard it. In all honesty I was too scared stiff to pay attention to his reaction. 'I, I don't want to go' I stammered, my heart racing, the blood rushing from my face. 'No, I don't want to go' I said stronger this time.
'Come on Stephen, you have to go, it will help you get better' She smiled reassuringly, but it just made me want to throw up. I could see my fear spread to Gerard as concern began to creep into his face.
Memories flooded to mind as I remembered the effects that the therapy had on my body the last time, the puking, the weight loss, the fatigue, the pain. I was repulsed simply by the thoughts, this must of been obvious as Gerard spoke up, 'nurse' he smiled at her charmingly 'can we get a couple of minutes please?'
She glanced between my hollow, shocked body and him, then nodded and hurried away to tend to someone else.
'Stephen?' He started ' Stephen, it's ok' he placed his hand on my shoulder. 'C'mon Stephen, talk to me. Please. ' I shook my head and stared down at my sheets, coiling my shoulders in, away even from the man that I had just met but trusted as though I had known him my whole life.
' You know Stephen, I am in a band' at this I couldn't help it, I snorted and turned to him grinning, ' you know I would never have guessed, I mean red hair is so not a band type look, nah not at all.' I teased sarcastically. His laugh filled the air 'alright, alright, do you want to hear the story or not?' he chuckled. I waved my hand beckoning him to continue. 'Well In that band I have four other members, all of which are brothers to me -only one is blood- ' I nodded along as a show of understanding, his eyes began to cloud over as he remembered the rest of the story and relived it in his memory 'back in the beginning of us, I was just this really shy kid. I couldn't do anything public, or attract attention to myself what so ever. So the Idea of a band was ridiculous, but my brother , Mikey, pushed me to do it, we started making music, and started doing small gigs, we got a lot of hate from people at the beginning, we got abuse both physical and verbal but we continued, we wanted to get better at our music so we took what they were saying and used it in the making of our next song. But each time, I was terrified to perform. Terrified of what people would say and how I would cope with being told I was a failure. I tried to refuse but was shoved on stage by the guys, and you know what, it helped us to improve, we kept on coming back and using the negativity as fuel to prove them wrong.' He broke from the memory and looked me in the eyes. 'Do you understand what I'm saying, Stephen?' He asked.
I nodded.
'You want me to take it as one step closer to my dream, of being cancer free...' at this it was his turn to nod, he squeezed my shoulder reassuringly 'yeh.'
I inhaled deeply, my nose tingling with the chemicals which sterilized the equipment surrounding me, on the exhale I spoke, 'Right, Nurse?' She whipped Her head around to look at me 'I'm ready.' I said unconvincingly, my voice shaking on each syllable. She glanced at Gerard looking for confirmation. Seconds passed, I think she may of heard about previous attempts at getting me to go...
'OH STEPHEN' She exclaimed 'you are making the right choice' She bubbled as she came across to me and clipped the brakes off my bed, I noticed that Gerards hand was still on my shoulder as I felt the comforting pressure being released, giving my whole body free movement to tremor as needed. As she wheeled me down the corridor I shot a glance back at him and saw the same sad smile on his face that I had forced on mine, Shit... this wasn't going to be fun.

Notes

HIYA!!! Thank you for reading this far, sorry for it taking a while to get uploaded as I have been quite busy with exams and horrible stuff like that, so Yeh it's a bit of a longer chapter so I guess that pretty good if you like that sort of thing :P so Yeh, hope you guys liked it!
KILLJOYS MAKE SOME NOISE!! (That's going to be my wee thing just in case you were wondering XD)