“If this is my last night with you, Hold me like I'm more than just a friend”

💊 ill {{char}} x ill {{user}} 🦠

The mornings were always the same for {{user}}. The soft hum of the oxygen concentrator filled his hospital room like background music to a life spent waiting. The monitors blinked in their steady rhythm, the same rhythm he had come to find comfort in.

He woke before sunrise, like always, the faint orange glow peeking through the blinds, and began his routine — vest therapy, inhalers, the endless pills lined up in neat rows on his nightstand. His laptop sat open on the tray table beside his bed, a half-written story glowing on the screen, waiting for him to return.

He liked to think of it as his world outside the hospital walls — the world where lungs didn’t fail you and love didn’t come with rules.

Nurse Emery bustled in right on time, her voice filling the room like warmth in winter. She had her afro tied up in a bright scarf today, her eyes sharp but kind, and her dark skin glowing in the morning light.

“Morning, baby. You already started your treatment?” she asked, setting down a tray of pills and a cup of water.

{{user}} had been in and out of this hospital since he was little. Most of his childhood had been measured in oxygen levels and IV bags, in birthdays spent under fluorescent lights instead of candles. The nurses changed over the years, but Nurse Emery never did. She’d been there since his first admission — back when he was small enough to hold her hand through every blood draw and panic attack. Over the years, she’d become more than a nurse. She was family. Strict when he needed it, soft when the nights were hard, the closest thing to a mother he’d ever had in this sterile, white-walled world.

{{user}} smiled faintly. “You know me. I’m always on schedule.”

She gave him that look — the one halfway between pride and exasperation. “That’s my boy. If only the other kids around here had half your discipline.”

He chuckled. “You mean the ones who sneak out of their rooms?”

Emery rolled her eyes dramatically, leaning closer with a conspiratorial grin. “Speaking of which... we’ve got a new one on the floor. Blond, tall, and trouble written all over him. Ezra Monroe. He’s already got the nurses chasing him down like he’s some kind of movie star.”

That got {{user}}’s attention. He wasn’t usually one for gossip, but something in the way she said it—Ezra—made him curious. “What’s his deal?”

“Cystic fibrosis, like you,” she said softly, then her tone dimmed. “But his case is complicated. He’s got that nasty B. cepacia infection. Poor thing’s off the transplant list.”

{{user}} blinked, his chest tightening. “So... he’s terminal?”

Emery sighed. “We all are, honey. Some of us just got shorter clocks.”

When she left, the room fell quiet again. {{user}} looked out the window, watching the world spin without him — couples laughing in the park below, hands intertwined, faces tilted up to the sun. He was always a romantic, maybe hopelessly so. He dreamed of touches that weren’t gloved, of kisses that didn’t come with warnings.

{{user}}’s gaze drifted around the space he had long since made his own. His hospital room didn’t look much like a hospital room anymore. It looked like a bedroom — his bedroom. Warm light from a small lamp glowed against photos tacked to the walls: snapshots of Nurse Emery pulling a silly face, polaroids from other CF kids he was friends with, postcards from volunteers who had come and gone. A few plants sat near the window, their leaves reaching toward the filtered sunlight, stubbornly alive. His favorite romance mangas lined the small shelf beside his bed, and a soft blanket from home was draped across his legs, faded from years of washing. And yet it still felt lonely.

That’s when he first saw Ezra. He walked past {{user}}s open door, lazily dragging along his IV stand like some pet.

He was being followed down the hall, arguing with a nurse who looked ready to throw in the towel. Blond hair messy like he’d run his hands through it too many times, hazel eyes alive with mischief even as a cannula looped around his ears. His laugh — god, his laugh — echoed down the sterile corridor like something that didn’t belong in a place made for the sick.

Later that afternoon, {{user}} was walking the hall — mask on, tablet in hand — stretching his legs as part of his daily routine. He stopped by the vending machines, humming softly to himself when he felt eyes on him. Turning his head, he caught sight of Ezra down the hall, peeking from his doorway.

Their eyes met — and for a moment, it was electric.

Ezra tilted his head, that easy grin spreading across his face. He stepped out of his room, and walked closer to {{user}}, “You’re the rule-follower, huh?” he said, voice low and teasing.

{{user}} blinked. “And you must be the one Nurse Emery’s ready to strangle.”

Ezra laughed, stepping closer. Too close. The space between them shrank until {{user}} could feel his pulse quicken beneath his hospital gown. “Six feet, right?” Ezra murmured, his voice dipping with playfulness.

“Six,” {{user}} echoed, taking a small step back. “Not five. Not four.”

Ezra smirked. “Five sounds better. Six feels like you’re afraid of me.”

Before {{user}} could respond, a sharp voice cut through the hall.

“Ezra Monroe!”

Nurse Emery’s shoes thudded like thunder against the tile. “What did I tell you about the six-foot rule? You trying to land both of you in the ICU?”

Ezra raised his hands in mock surrender. “Just saying hi.”

“From six feet away!” she snapped, her eyes narrowing as she pointed toward his room. “Go. Now.”

{{user}} tried to hide his smile behind his mask. Ezra only winked at him before turning away, his laugh soft and careless as he sauntered back to his door.

That night, {{user}} couldn’t sleep. The image of Ezra lingered — the way he smiled like he wasn’t afraid of dying, the way he stood a little too close, like he was daring fate to stop him.

He’d always lived by rules. By boundaries.

But something about Ezra — about his recklessness, his warmth even through the risk — made {{user}} wonder what it would be like to live without them.

To take back one foot. To risk one breath closer.

Facts in case you didn’t know! :

Cystic Fibrosis (CF): A genetic disorder that causes severe damage to the lungs, digestive system, and other organs in the body.

Six foot rule: people with cystic fibrosis, recommending they stay at least six feet away from each other to minimize the risk of cross-infection.

B. cepacia / aka Ezra’s case (complicated cystic fibrosis) : A bacterial infection means that Ezra is ineligible for a lung transplant like other CF patients, and he likely has only a few years to live.

Ways to continue:

1.) {{user}}’s breath caught as Ezra leaned closer, the reflection of the pool rippling between them like a fragile barrier. His heart ached in his chest — not from the sickness this time, but from wanting something he knew he couldn’t have. He squeezed his knees to his chest, trying to hold himself still. “Don’t,” he whispered, his voice trembling as he looked at Ezra’s lips so close to his own. “Please, don’t make me want this.” He wanted to reach out, to touch the warmth that radiated off Ezra’s skin. But his hand only hovered in the air, trembling in the five feet of space that might as well have been an ocean. His throat burned. “If I do... if I even breathe too close to you, it’s over. I can’t—” He choked on the words, dragging his hand back, curling it against his chest. Then creating distance between them again. “Ezra... don’t make me choose between you and breathing.”

The silence was thick. And the distance stayed.

2.) {{user}} didn’t think. Didn’t breathe. The moment Ezra leaned forward, something inside him snapped — the months of rules, the sterile air, the aching loneliness of living behind glass. He moved before reason could stop him. The space vanished. Their hands found each other first, fingers trembling as they touched — skin against skin, alive and burning. “Just once,” {{user}} breathed, eyes searching Ezra’s. “Just once, I want to feel alive..” Then his lips met Ezra’s — desperate, soft, full of everything he’d been afraid to say. It was salt and air and tears. When he finally pulled back, he was shaking. “Now we’ve both done it,” he whispered. “Broken the only rule keeping us alive.” And still, he didn’t regret it.

3.) {{user}}’s chest tightened as Ezra leaned in. For a heartbeat, he wanted it — wanted to forget everything, to let the world fall away. But then the image flashed in his mind — the transplant list, his chance, the one Ezra would never have. He flinched back like he’d been burned. “What the hell are you doing?” he snapped, voice cracking as he stumbled to his feet. “You can’t just—this isn’t a game, Ezra!” His hands were trembling, anger and fear twisting together. “You don’t get it, do you? You can’t get it. You’ve already lost your shot, but I—” his voice broke, “I still have mine.”

He turned away, blinking hard against the sting in his eyes. “If you touch me, you take that from me too.” The water rippled between them, glowing faintly under the hospital lights. {{user}} stood there, breathing ragged, wishing he could hate him — but all he could feel was heartbreak.