Madara:

"What's happening!?" I screamed, feeling tears burning behind my eyes. Fuck, I hated being blind. Fuck fuck fuck fuck!

There had been a loud thump, followed by screams and a whirl of activity around me. Later, Izuna would tell me Eric had noticed and rushed to catch his fall, preventing him from hitting his head on the floorboards. During the entire seizure, he'd had Hashirama's head in his knees, stabilising his head with his hands, preventing him from hurting himself. But for now, I had no idea what was going on and it was freaking me out.

"Please", I begged. "What's happening?"

"It's Hashirama", Izuna whispered, squeezing my hand, sounding terrified. "He seems to have some sort of seizure."

At this, I'd sunken down on my hands and knees and started hyperventilating. The panic attack wasn't due to worry of Hashirama; it was frustration of not being able to see, to analyse, to help. I hated myself for it, hated that it led to the convergence of the attention, that should have been entirely focussed on Hashirama at this point. But I couldn't help it; I felt as if I was dying, and the panic it caused made me scream and scream and scream, digging my fingers into my hair, rocking back and forth, back and forth.

During all this time, Izuna had his arms around me.

During all this time, Eric had Hashirama's head in his knees, protecting him from hurting his head during his seizure.

Half an hour later, the paramedics rolled him away to the ambulance. I sat on the floor, exhausted, my back leaning against the wall, Izuna on one side of me holding my hand, Eric on the other with his arm slung around my shoulder. I could feel my cheeks were puffy from all the crying.

Hashirama's seizure had stopped after about one minute, and when he came back, he had made a bunch of incomprehensible sounds.

It had been awful.

When the paramedics rolled him away, he was calmer, but still not entirely himself. I had held his hand when he lay on his back on the stretcher.

"Hashi..."

"Madara..."

And they had taken him away.

They had taken him away from me.

Izuna accompanied me to the hospital. We sat in the waiting room of the ER, me bouncing my leg, Izuna sitting still next to me, radiating calm. God, what would I do without him.

After an hour of waiting, a nurse came out and called us. Izuna insisted he should stay behind, so I was led to a room in the emergency ward, where a middle-aged, slim doctor with large glasses and shoulder-length, brown hair was waiting.

"Hi..." Hashirama said, smiling warmly and apologetically at me.

"Hi", I answered shyly, turning away, feeling myself blush. It was strange how I still felt the need to turn away when shy, despite not seeing.

The doctor looked at me and got straight to the point. "Mr Senju had an epileptic seizure. That means your brain cells start firing electrical signals all at once. From the description the guests of your exhibition gave to the paramedics, he had what we call a focal-to-general seizure, which means it starts in one point in his brain and then spreads to the entire cortex. That's probably why your friend managed to catch him before he fell and hid his head; he saw something was happening a few seconds before he fell and reacted quickly. He saved Mr Senju a lot of damage."

Eric...

Hashirama smiled lopsidedly.

"Mr Uchiha... Are you familiar with the indication of an epileptic seizure?"

I was taken aback. I hadn't even thought about that.

I noticed Hashirama's smile had died and he was looking away.

No...

"Mr Uchiha..."

No no no no no no no.

"We performed a CT-scan on his brain."

The world opened its black maw and swallowed me whole.

"I'm sorry, but the cancer has spread there. His cancer is now at the terminal stage. I'm sorry.

It chewed me up but didn't spit me out but kept me, torturing me.

The kind doctor told me the practical measures she would take in relying the information to his oncologist so that appropriate measures could be taken, but I wasn't listening.

I was on my knees.

The doctor came to me, put an arm around my shoulder.

Dying. I'm dying. I can't breathe.

"Slow, deep breaths. There, there, dear. Slow, deep breaths."

Hashirama, save me!

Hashirama:

My Madara.

My beautiful, beautiful, dear Madara.

I love you so much.

I love you so, so much.

I held him close to my chest, let him cry it out. I needed to have a stern talking-to with him at home; he needed to seek treatment for his panic attacks.

But for now, I just wanted to hold him,

Hush, baby, hush. I'm here.

Until it died down.

I'm here, I will always be here.

"Is there anything more I can do for you, Mr Senju?"

I will always be with you.

"I want to take my boyfriend home."

I will always love you.