I wish I were stronger . finn one-shots

[cass]

"it is a lonely thing,
protecting a breakable heart"

- atticus

[cass]

F I N N

“Ma,” there were tears in your eyes as you pulled at her sleeve, brown eyes staring up at her as your lip wobbled. “It hurts, my leg,” you pulled at your pants, revealing a large bruise on your leg. But the pain felt deeper than the purple patch, it was pulsing throughout the bone. Your head hurt, heat radiating from red cheeks as your mother’s frown deepened with concern.

“Did you trip?” she asked, placing a hand against your head. There was a moment of shock on her face before she grabbed your hand and called your father’s name. She whispered something into his ear, mouth set in a hard line as he moved past her. Your sister’s head poked around the corner, pigtails swinging as she stumbled over to you. She’s only a year younger than you, but still, at the age of three, she was already talking as well as you did.

“You okay?” She reached for your other hand, pulling you to your shoes. You knelt down, teeth gritted as the pain moved throughout your body. You’d been feeling this way for a long time now, but had pushed it down, your parents always worrying about the current problems around them. Even at four, you knew there was something bad stirring in the air, it was hard to ignore the concerned looks your parents were always giving each other every time they turned on the news. “Just a lil’ sore,” you help her put on her own shoes, your father coming just as you reached her laces. You still hadn’t quite got the hang of tying them.

“Get your own shoes on, Finn, I can fix up Delilah’s.” You nodded, pulling your sneakers on and pulling the velcro into place as you all piled into the car and headed over to the hospital.

The doctors were gentle, but no matter how many times they promised you a lolly or a sticker, each of the needles really hurt. You held onto your mum, sitting in her lap as they poked and prodded, pushing on all the parts that hurt even when you yelled at them to stop. Her arms wrapped themselves more tightly around your body when you cried, a hand on your head telling you that I’d be okay, over and over again.

It was hard not to believe her, even when her voice was shaking, her warmth was comforting, and soon after the last needle, last blood sample, you fell asleep, curled against her chest.

You wake up to her crying, one, two, three tears falling onto your cheeks as she tries to fight back her sobs. You’re not quite sure how you ended up in a different room, a hospital bed in front of you. There’s a doctor, staring at you, his face grave, a look of empathetic understanding on his face as your mum holds you a little bit tighter.

“Ma, why are you crying?” It made your chest hurt, seeing her face look so red, you reached upwards, pulling at her shirt, but wincing as the sting of your battered body flared up. “Nothing, my dear,” she bit her lip, looking at the doctor, gaze shifting to your father as she swallowed. “We’ll be staying at the hospital for a little while, okay?”

You frowned, drawing away in confusion, “I don’t wanna, it smells.” You pull back further, ignoring the way everything hurts, the way your head burns, and how you feel dizzy. You wanted to go home, cuddle with Ginger, and listen to him purr against your chest. “I wanna go home, I want Ginger.”

You try and detach yourself, but your mum was holding onto you tightly, looking you in the eye with sad eyes. The look pierced into you, fearing crawling through your veins, mingling with the confusion as tears slipped down your cheeks. Why was she so sad? Why was she looking at me like that?

“What did I do wrong, Ma?” Why was she doing this? You hadn’t done anything wrong. You hit her against the chest, trying to get free, but it hurts, everything hurts and she pulled you in, wrapping her arms around you as she started crying.

“You’ve done nothing wrong, Finn,” she’s lying, she has to be, otherwise she wouldn’t be making you stay here. You twisted, trying to reach for your dad, but he’s looking at Delilah, eyes turned away from you as the Doctor remains.

“I wanna go home,” it broke, a whimper on shaking lips. Your fists curled against your mum’s shirt as she sobbed.

O L S E N

kaitlin

[cass]

F I N N

You’re seven, living in the hospital for almost three years now. Every time you think the doctor’s going to tell you that you can go home, they don’t. The look of sympathy in their eyes barely masks the pity, you’ve grown so used to seeing it that it makes you angry. The spark of hope that had burned within your chest had been smouldered, not even a single ember remained. Even your mother had stopped expecting some good news, the days where she would spend night after night in your bed beside you had long since ended.

Delilah needed her, she’d say, fingers against the doorframe as you peered at her from your bed. Too tired to reach for her or call her name even as your heart ached for her company. You sank further into the bed, tugging at the blanket with the last bit of your strength, pushing aside the yearning you had for someone to sit beside you and hold your hand. You can’t remember what her hug feels like, but you think that it might help soothe the fire that burns all over your skin.

Ma, the word sat at the edge of your lips, but her hand fell from the frame. Instead, you watched as she turned her head, unable to look at you as she promised to stop by tomorrow.

She wouldn’t come.

Your fingers tighten around the edge of the toilet bowl. You think that maybe they might dig into the ceramic material, but the hallow look in your eyes would disagree. Heaving, you throw yourself forwards, chest pulling as you throw up. There are specks of blood in the mess before you and you wipe at your chin, leaning backward as you pant with exhaustion. Everything feels heavy, an arm slipping to your side as you turn your gaze to the ceiling of the hospital bathroom.

It’s one of those days, the creep of your own misery swallowing you as you feel the pain swirl within your stomach. The tracks on your arm are fresh, the round of chemo had hit you all in one go and you hadn’t been able to leave the bathroom for a few hours now. Tugging up your shirt, you run a pale hand over your chest. The rise and fall of each of your ribs feel strange, the coldness of your skin -layered with goosebumps- contrasts with the heat of your sweat covered hands. It's almost soothing.

How much longer until there was nothing left of you? Delilah had told you all about what she was doing in school. You wonder what you might be doing if you weren’t in the hospital. The few sheets of homework you’d been given lay forgotten, buried beneath dirty tissues, shirts speckled in vomit. Hidden beneath resentment that was building within your chest every time your father or mother decided that they had enough time to visit.

“If I die, do I get to try again? Come back and have another shot?” You asked the deafening silence, but as usual, there is no response. Your eyes flickered to the doorway, almost begging for the grim reaper to appear and save you from this suffering. You're not sure you want to come back, this experience was enough to destroy whatever desire you might have.

What was the point? The doctors kept saying that next time, over and over again, they'd get it all. But the agony in your body, the cracks in your mind, they don't agree.

The pain in your stomach increased, flaring as you hunched yourself over, fingers clawing at the toilet bowl. You let out a long wailing cry, tears springing to your eyes.

”Mum-“

There was no point in calling her name.

She wouldn’t come.

O L S E N

kaitlin

[cass]

F I N N

The buzz of the fluorescent lighting fills the night air, there’s a certain time at night where they turn the ones in the rooms off. But even when the curtains are pulled tightly shut the light in the hallway’s seeps into the room. You’d have thought one would get used to the hum of a hospital if they’d spent their entire life there. Well, most of it. Twisting, you face the window, a glimpse of moonlight shining through the blinds.

There’s an aching, swelling deep within your chest, and you pull the blanket off your legs-

Leg.

You stare, a sheen to your eyes that speaks to the drugs that flow through your veins. There’s pain there, you can sense it, pulsating beneath the skin. It’s blocked behind a wall in your mind, built by the medications they’d pumped into your body over the last few days. The bandages wrap the stump of your leg and a shaking hand reaches for the empty space where your leg had once filled.

It passes through, landing softly on the hospital blankets. They itch at your skin, they smell awful, like the stagnant, sterile air that fills your nostrils. You hate it here; you hate it here.

You hate it so much.

You used to have a leg there. It had been there at the start of the week, but the doctors had said it needed to go.

They said that if they left it, you’d die. They said that maybe that would get rid of most of the cancer. You’d need some more chemo and radiation treatment, though.

You stare, fists curling into tight balls by your sides as you push your knuckles into the bed. Teeth biting into your lip as you squeeze your eyes shut, anger rising in your chest and across your cheeks. There’s a lump sitting in your throat, and you pound the bed, fists hitting the blankets over and over again. A silent cry escapes your lips but after only a few seconds you're panting. Exhaustion crawling through your entire body as sweat beads across your forehead.

A machine makes a beeping sound, and your eyes flicker towards the flashing light, the rise of your heartbeat setting an alarm off. Within moments a nurse is rushing into your room. The light that breaks into the safety of the darkness is unwelcome, it cuts like the scalpel that had been used to tear your leg from your body. It hits you the same way the pain bubbled beneath the wall of medication.

Nothing stops the anger and frustration. The hopelessness of a foe you cannot fight, tearing into your body over and over again. You wish it was something you could see, something you could hold onto with your own hands. But, you have no power. As much as you want to scream at it and tell it to leave you alone, you can't. This enemy has no face, it is just destructive chaos that continuously tears you apart.

The nurse makes her rounds, scolding you for being awake, gently pushing you down and pulling the blanket over your stomach and shoulders. You let her, feeling the way the material weighs on the cords coming from your hands and arms.

A hand brushes against your forehead and something stirs within your chest -your hand twitches, eyes scrunching up as you set your mouth in a hard line. When she moves her hand away you watch it leave, heart aching -wanting.

You wish she would hug you.

The door closes, clicking softly into place as darkness swallows you. You wonder when it became comfortable to be pushed aside and left alone. Maybe it was when your mother and father stopped visiting. Only stopping by here and there to ‘check in’ on you. There’s something wet on your face, it’s familiar, like the kiss of death brushing shoulders with you as you dance by its side.

You’re alone again surrounded by the hum of machinery that promised you life. Keeping you going, day after day, regardless of how much it hurts. They cannot stop, even if you want them to.

There’s a bitterness lining your tongue as you twist onto your side. The pull of the drip in your hand protesting against the movement, you ignore it; just as the world ignores you.

O L S E N

kaitlin

[cass]

F I N N

“Finn, stop looking so miserable,” she says. He looks up, gaze shifting from the window and to her glowing eyes. The IV machine sits a few centimetres behind her, a hand holding onto the pole for support. Before you can stop yourself there’s a smile on your lips. She has a way of making your day brighter, even if it’s just a wave from her bed as they roll her by in the morning.

You’re thankful she found her way into your room, peeking her head in to say hi on one of the many days you found yourself alone. Sometimes even her parents stop by, bringing you a few treats here and there. But, from what you’ve heard, the world outside is getting worse, tensions are at a boiling point and even Naya’s parents have stopped coming by as often.

“When I look my most miserable,” you say, shifting over in your bed to make room for Naya, “you always appear. It’s a new tactic of mine to make you pay attention to me.” She rolls her eyes, grinning as she climbs into the bed beside her. She hides her winces with the movement, but you’re so familiar with each of her facial expressions that you catch each of them. Concern knits your brows together, and you lean over, a hand brushing against the IV in her arm.

“Not working?” You ask, chest tightening almost instantly. You didn’t really want to know the answer, and the drop of her smile says it all. Naya looks away, leaning into the pillow as she closes her eyes. She doesn’t move, a long breath slipping past her dry lips as she thinks of the right words to say.

“Mum’s been avoiding saying it to me. We might only be twelve, but we’re not stupid,” she looks at you, and you find yourself lost in those green eyes. You think they look so pretty, contrasting against her darker skin and smattering of freckles. Even with her puffy cheeks, you think her smile is the cutest thing you’ve ever seen. “But yeah, not working.”

You lean back, head resting against the pillow, the two of you staring at the roof of the hospital room. “We already knew that it was only a matter of time,” there’s sadness reflected in her words as she speaks and you turn your head. Her chin is pointy, you’ve always been tempted by it, wanting to run a finger over the edge to feel just how pointy it was. You don’t, though, because that’s just rude. “That’s what terminal-“

“Hey, we’re not allowed to say that, Naya,” you nudge her, shoulder bumping against hers as you reach for her hand. Your fingers find hers, entwining together as the hum of the small world around you continues. You think that maybe she’s become your entire support network, the only face in this world that can make you smile. You can’t even remember the last time your mum and dad stopped by. You’re not sure how tall Delilah has grown, or what year she’s even in.

It’s become too exhausting to hate them for it. It’s been too many years, you’re easy to forget. Perhaps, it was easier for them to pretend that you didn’t exist. You could understand that, wanting to ignore your dying child, trying to save your heart from that suffering. It didn’t seem fair from where you sat. You didn’t choose to live like this, to be born and suffer every day since the moment you could put pain into words.

No one would choose this life, and your parents got to choose to leave it.

“Stop thinking about them,” she says, squeezing your hand gently. “They’ve got no idea what they’re missing out on, and it means I get you all to myself.”

She means well, but it hurts. Biting into flesh with blunt knives and pulling away each and every time you think about it. You wish they knew what you were like, what your favourite colour was. Did they know your favourite food? Would they question why it was toast? Did they know that it was because most foods made you feel nauseous and sick? Did they know that sometimes your nails ache and bleed? Or, did they know that the stump of your leg had grown infected after the surgery and you had been placed in the ICU for two weeks?

They don’t. They don’t know that you hurt every day, that you cry most nights, and beg for the devil to call you name. They don’t know that your fingers shake when you try and eat, or that you can’t even write your own name. They don’t know who you are because they’ve never tried to.

Will they cry when you finally die? Will they call your name with tender fondness and love?

It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

Why does everything hurt?

“You’ll come to my funeral, right, Naya?”

“Only if you’ll come to mine.”

“Deal.”

O L S E N

kaitlin

[cass]

F I N N

“Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday dear Finnnnnnn
Happy Birthday to you!”

Naya claps her hands, the look of complete and utter delight on her face makes your smile grow wider. Teeth flashing in the dull light of the room as your eyes switch to the candles on the little cupcake, she’d given you. It was a simple vanilla cupcake, with a light icing that wouldn’t make you feel sick. Perks, you think, of your best friend also going through exactly what you are, they know what you can and can’t eat.

You blow, the single candle going out with that one movement. The smile stays on your lips, cheeks aching as you feel the weight of the cupcake in your hands. It’s been this way for the past three years, birthdays spent with Naya and no one else. The last time your parents had come for your birthday had been when you turned eight. Sometimes they called the hospital, but most of the time they forgot.

“Well,” she says, raising her eyebrow as she leans over, plucking the candle out of the cupcake, “what did you wish for?” She grins, cheeks rosy, from the heat or her fever, you’re not too sure. She looks cute, and you reach forwards, brushing a hand against her forehead. You feel her freeze under the touch, but you ignore the way it makes your own heart flutter, lips pursed in thought as you frown.

“I wished for your fever to go away,” there’s concern in your words, tucked away like always, trying your best to not let it rule the waves of your heart. “It’s been going for a while now.”

Naya pulls back, pouting as she looks away, a cheeky sparkle in her eyes. “Well, now that you’ve told me, Finn,” she reaches forwards, poking you in the chest, “it won’t come true!”

She wail’s throwing herself onto the bed, arms over her face as she acts out her dramatic scene. You laugh, flopping down onto the bed beside her, cupcake lost from the moment, taken entirely by her presence.

“The fever is never going to leave! You’ve gone and done it now, Finn!” She twists, her IV stand moving closer to the bed as she turns to face you. “

Thirteen, huh?” She grabs your arm, fingers wrapping around your hand as you lay there, gaze focused on her movements.

“Thirteen,” you agree, a grave smile on your lips. “We’re getting so old now,” you say softly. You wonder when you’ll see more than just the inside of a hospital. You’ve heard the worrisome whispers in the halls that the hospital was struggling. There was fear, buried within their glances, their hurried movements. You’ve heard a little about the trouble brewing in the world beyond the walls that cage you, but you’re not so sure what that might mean for you.

“What do you think it’s like?” You stare at the ceiling, “the ocean? Or going to a school? Or,” a smile finds its way to your lips, “those places filled with books, or a café.”

There are so many things you want to do, so many places you’re desperate to see. The few times you’ve tried to venture outside of the hospital hasn’t gone well. By the time you make it through the front doors, you’re too tired to continue, already reaching for the oxygen mask that the nurse has by her side. Your body can’t keep up with your mind, and you hate how weak it is, how broken it feels.

“I saw the ocean once,” Naya says, and your head snaps, moving to look at her with a shocked expression. Her lips curl it a fond smile, pulling on the memory within her mind. “You’d have loved it, Finn, we should go there one day.”

One day.

The words are heavy, filled with promises neither of you could keep. And yet, there’s a tug in your heart, a sad desire to try and reach for it, even if it hurts to dream about it.

“Let’s go next year for my fourteenth birthday, Naya.”

“Promise?”

You hesitate, the grim reaper’s hand gripping your shoulder, a constant and threatening presence.

You swallow stiffly, pushing his hand away.

“Promise.”

O L S E N

kaitlin

[cass]

F I N N

There’s a moment, clasped between the dead and dying where you see the point of no return. You’d been there, felt the rush of absolute calmness and peace that had washed over you as you dipped your toe into those waters. You had been unable to go further and wash away the rest of the suffering that clung so desperately to your body.

Something had pulled you back, tugging you towards the side of the death where the world opened once more. How many times had you found your world sinking back into view with the rapid fire of a hundred beeps echoing in your ears? The thump of a rapidly beating heart, the painful ache of broken ribs as the hands that had been performing CPR are finally pulled away.

You’d survived, over and over and over again even when you had wanted it to all stop. Even when you had begged to die and let it all be over. It doesn’t make sense, nothing makes sense. There’s an ache, spreading through your entire body and the world is spinning, the thump of your heart filling your ears. The yelling around you fading, black dots dancing across your vision as your legs shake.

The world demanded that you survive, that you carry on and suffer and suffer. You want it to stop, you want it to end, you want this pain in your heart to leave you alone. It hurts more than anything you’ve ever felt before, you think it might be breaking and you hope it stops, dies right here and now.

Please, someone make it end.

Why?

Why were you staring at Naya’s dead body?

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why-

A choked sob falls from your dry lips, fingers scrambling against the doorframe as you slip to the tiles. The cupcake in your hand falls, icing landing in the tile. Your gaze flickers down for a moment, a seed of disappointment, knowing that Naya would scold you for dropping her Birthday gift-

She’s dead.

Your mouth slips open, knees pressed into the cold hard ground as you stare.

It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real. She can’t be-

There’s someone beside you, a hand on your shoulder, pulling you to your feet. You don’t know them, you don’t want them touching you, but you’re so weak, so broken and battered that you don’t even have the strength to try and pull your arm free. But you feel your body slip again, legs unwilling to hold you up, the cupcake, smeared into tiles in front of you.

Your eyes are blurry, fingers clawing at the ground as you try and shrug the hand free. You had to see her, call her name-

“Nay-“

It’s broken, cracked and shattered before it can even leave your lips. That part of you, that you didn’t think existed has been destroyed in one moment. How? You knew- you both knew that you were both going to die. It was the promise of your illness. A fate that neither of you could escape.

You were supposed to go first- no, you wanted to go first. Selfishly, you wanted to let yourself fall and wait at the bottom ready to catch her.

“Naya-“

Why won’t it stop hurting?

It hurts. It hurts so much.

You cry, the ground in front of you wet with your tears as you crawl forwards. Her bed only a few meters away, but you’re so tired. Too tired. Another hand grabs you, picking you up as if you weigh nothing. Ignoring the anguished cries that come from your mouth as they carry you away. One step and another, further away from her.

“No, please-“ they don’t stop, and you reach, hands scraping against the air. Her eyes staring lifelessly at the hospital roof. She hates that roof, she’d hate seeing that, they need to close them. And her hands, her gloves are missing, and her hands get so cold-

She’s dead.

O L S E N

kaitlin

[cass]

"life went on,
but it was
never the
same
again"

- d.j