Simpsons - Habits - Ch. 04

The air was thick and heavy, settling into Smithers' lungs like bricks of concrete. He tried to breathe to no avail, only managing to sputter. His hands worked busily at his bowtie with no particular purpose other than to attempt calming his nerves.

Bespectacled eyes focused deadly upon the clipboard with the endless stack of information and then glanced to the envelope. Despite the numbness he felt in that moment, there was a storm brewing in the pit of his gut, emotions piling up just as high as that paper stack. He bit his tongue, adjusted his glasses when they slipped to the point of his nose, and once his lungs granted him access to oxygen again, he spoke.

"Did you, um," he fumbled as he felt a noose form around his throat, "did you find anything?"

Hibbert's typically happy-go-lucky attitude had transitioned into one that made Smithers feel utterly hopeless. The doctor placed a hand upon the other's shoulder and escorted him down the hall into a grimly cold room. The permanent chill in the air left behind stiffness, and the pain of every family to have ever faced that room oozed from the walls.

"Please," Hibbert began, hand outstretched in the direction of one of the only two chairs in the room, "have a seat."

A thousand denials pranced about Smithers' mind in a single instance, but none of them slipped into the room. Refusal was the only thing on his mind, yet compliance is what he gave, taking a seat in the painfully hard-cushioned chair. His body shifted this way and that against the cushion, no position any more comfortable than the last. After a few uncomfortable movements, Smithers settled with one leg thrown over the other and hands gripping against a knee. The spasms of his legs bouncing about revealed the fretfulness he tried to keep hidden.

He gulped dryly, "it's bad, isn't it?"

Hibbert's eyes moved to the floor and he drew in a cleansing breath. The doctor slid into the only free chair left in the room, which was conveniently placed opposite the other, and set the clipboard and envelope on a small, round table.

"Waylon, listen," he began in a professional tone, having learned to mask emotions in his years of training, and he withdrew a few papers from the clipboard, pointing to certain words with the tip of a pen, "we've found a few," a brief pause to connect thoughts to words, "masses."

"Masses?" Smithers questioned with an atypical numbness that surprised him; he thought his voice would have quaked and his heart would have raced, but instead the question came solid as a rock and his heart sailed into his stomach, dissolving in the acid.

"Yes," Hibbert confirmed with a sympathetic gaze. "One on the brain, one in the lung; we believe the one in the lung might just be a harmless polyp, but the one on his brain is rather large. Of course, we'll have to run more tests to determine if they're malignant or not."

"Malignant?" It hit Smithers then – cancer. "Wait, wait, wait," he sputtered, shutting his eyes as the room began to spin around him, "you mean Mr. Burns could have…" He couldn't say it.

"It's a possibility."

Hibbert's answer provided the assistant with little solace. If anything, it only produced terror and anguish. A possibility had never seemed so definite – one possibly could get a new car and it won't happen, one could possibly win a million dollars and it won't happen, one could possibly get cancer... one already had it. Just a possibility was suddenly the equal of a positive affirmation.

"Oh," Waylon retorted, eyes frozen on the paper as the words blurred through salty brine.

It was apparent the doctor had noticed the tears that Smithers hadn't, as Hibbert passed over a box of Kleenex. Smithers hesitated briefly before a trembling hand snatched a few tissues from the decorative box. Only when he pressed the aloe-infused paper to his face did he realize the tears in the corner of his eyes; he wiped them away and tightened his jaw, determined to stay collected despite collapsing within himself.

Hibbert offered a smile and patted Smithers' shoulder, "nothing's definite yet. If it comes back that they aren't cancerous, we can remove them easily. Even if they do come back cancerous, we can still remove them; it won't be as easy as if they weren't, but it'd still be doable."

The physician then took the envelope in his hands and pried open the silver clasp. Once opened, Hibbert removed multiple images that he'd gathered from the diagnostics, "now, here you can see images of Burns' brain. See that white lump? That's the mass we've got to watch for – see if it grows, spreads, or whatever it is it decides to do."

Waylon nodded in understanding, though he wasn't sure his mind was fully with him. He examined the large blotch of pure white that stood out among the surrounding blacks, blues, and purples. Something that seemed like nothing more than a mishap with white-out was suddenly something that was capable of tearing lives apart with no remorse. Smithers stared at that blotch, hating it and resenting it.

"So," he started through gritted teeth, "where do we go from here?"

"Typically, we'd do a biopsy," Hibbert explained, a glimmer of his jolly-self reentering his voice, as he trailed off into an almost suggestive tone, "if, of course, you could talk Burns into letting us do the surgery."

A sharp sigh from the ward, "I'm not sure even I could convince him. Mr. Burns isn't one to do things he doesn't want to. It was like pulling teeth just to get him here."

"If we don't perform the surgery, we won't be able to take a sample of the mass to test for cancer cells," the medic explained. "Well, there's always the lumbar puncture, but it's not as accurate as the biopsy."

Another hefty sigh, "I'll do what I can."

---

Burns was fascinated as he began fiddling with the IV in his hand and the electrodes stuck right beneath his clavicle when Smithers returned. The elder looked to the young with a far different attitude than when Smithers' had left.

"Ah, Smithers," Burns spoke with an almost cheerful slur, "the nicest young lady came and gave me some of the finest medicine through this little tube."

"That's good, sir," Smithers responded with a nod as he, to no avail, tried to sound optimistic. "Glad to see you're in a better mood than when I left."

"Well, Smithers, it's a wonderful life. Oh, yes, it is indeed a wonderful life."

"They gave you the good stuff, huh, sir?" The aide light-heartedly asked with a chuckle he hadn't expected from himself.

"Let me just say, I'd put great stock in it," Burns responded with a school-boy type of giddiness.

Just as quickly as the high had come, it subsided enough for the business powerhouse to sit up and snatch the envelope that Smithers held loosely in hand.

"Ooh, my results, no doubt!" The old man giggled, struggling against the metal clasp that sealed the confidential contents. "Come now, don't be shy," he spoke to the clasp as though it were a young fawn, "I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to take a teensy, little peek."

Smithers had seen enough of those claw-like fingers fighting a losing battle, which prompted him to gently snatch back the envelope.

"Allow me," he added to his actions to excuse the rudeness. "Um, you know, we really aren't supposed to discuss the results until Dr. Hibbert comes back."

Burns cocked a brow as the edge of his mouth twisted into a cheeky smirk, "come now, Waylon, don't be such a spoiled sport. What that old quack doesn't know won't hurt him! Open it."

Smithers' hands trembled with hesitation, fingers hovering just above the clasp. He sighed as his arms lowered and shoulders drooped, his body going limp in defeat, "I can't do that, sir. You'll just have to wait for -,"

As if on cue, Dr. Hibbert entered the room with a friendly smile. He rubbed his hands together for no actual purpose as he approached the bedside, placing one of his masculine hands on his patient's fragile shoulder.

"Alright-y," he boomed with that signature snicker following suit, "I think we've made you wait in suspense long enough. Let's get to those results, shall we?"

---

Burns and Smithers sat in deathly silence for a while after Dr. Hibbert had left. The clock's ticks were suddenly overwhelming, clicking at an ear-splitting volume despite never having changed. The ticks were accompanied by heavy thuds from both hearts of the two men with Smithers' seemingly lodged in his gullet.

"I'll do it," the silver-haired man uttered, shattering the silence and muting those damned ticks of the clock.

"Huh?"

"Pay attention, Smithers," he scolded before retracting the hastiness of his words. "I, um, I said I'll do it. I'll allow the biopsy -," the stars that lit up in his assistant's eyes soon dimmed when he tacked on an extra bit of information, "on one condition, and one condition alone."

Smithers feverishly nodded his head, "of course, sir! Anything you want."

"Anything?" He hissed in his usual way, drumming a finger on his chin to contemplate all the things his heart desired. "No, Sheldon wouldn't take too kindly to a new animal about the house. No, what I need is, should something happen to me-,"

"Don't talk like that-,"

"Let me finish," Burns scolded once more, raising a gesturing palm to Smithers. "Where was I? Right! Should something happen to me, I'd like for you to see to it that nothing changes. Just because old Monty isn't around doesn't mean those nincompoops can slack off."

Smithers scoffed in an awkward sort of chortle, "you mean more than usual?"

"Precisely."

"Well, I can assure you that you'll be just fine," Smithers stated, more for his own sake than for Burns', as he nodded in affirmation, "but, if that's what you want, then I'll see to it that everything runs like clockwork."

Burns tapped the tips of his fingers together, forming a miniature Eiffel tower atop his chest, "excellent."

---

Night had silently crept over Springfield, leaving Burns asleep in the hospital's cot and Smithers to sit deep in thought in a nearby chair.

Smithers ran a hand through his spiked locks before sliding his palm beneath his chin. He drew in a cleansing breath, but it did little to alleviate the worry that had a vice-grip on his lungs. His mind continued to replay the day, lingering on those images of a massive white mass. He felt condemned to his thoughts as they mercilessly tortured him through the night.

He glanced to his boss, curled up like an infant with an almost eerie look of peace, and grabbed the limp hand that dangled off the bed. He ran his thumb over the prominent knuckles that felt as though they could carve skin, and sat in the silence and the dark.

---