Chapter Text
When Lana was called out of an important presentation to answer a call from her dad, James, she knew something was wrong. He'd raised her as a single parent and they remained close, talking multiple times a week, but always late at night before he went to bed. Certainly never at 11 AM on a Wednesday when he knew she'd be busy at work.
Adult-onset Spinal Muscular Atrophy, he'd said. A rare genetic degenerative disease.
In the coming months, as she quit her job, sold her furniture, sublet her apartment, and said her goodbyes to the community she'd found in Greenwich Village, she got back her own test results. Luckily she wasn't a carrier for the gene. It was a good bit of news that she held onto so that she could share it with her dad when she made it back home.
They hugged, they cried a few quickly swiped away tears, and they silently agreed not to bring up his diagnosis that first night.
Lana had come prepared. She had wasted no time putting together lists of specialists, therapists, treatment plans, and endless pages of questions to consult the doctors on.
They spent the following year systematically running through her list and determining what, if anything, might be effective for him.
She had nearly reached her breaking point when someone in an online forum mentioned a new drug. The researchers had been having trouble getting funding because they couldn't mimic SMA in any animals for them to test the drug on prior to moving to human trials. Eventually the funding dwindled and the study came to a halt before it had really even started.
Somehow the formula wound up in the hands of a drug manufacturer out of Lithuania and illegal vials were hitting the black market.
The response online was almost unanimously positive from the SMA patients who had tried it. Lana and James talked about it and finally decided that it was worth the risk.
They spoke over the phone to a man with a thick accent, a Dr. Petrauskas, who requested her father's medical records and helped work out a prescription for him, then gave careful instructions on how to administer the shots.
He would need to take a shot every day for 6 weeks, then once a week for the next 6 months before switching to a daily pill form to keep him stable for the rest of his life.
Lana readied the syringe and locked eyes with her father. He had already swabbed the injection site on his stomach and pulled his shirt out of the way. His shirt wavered where his tremor-wracked hand held it up.
"You're sure that you want to try this? We can back out if you aren't. Or hold off for a little while longer." she made sure to keep her voice soft and steady, but she was terrified of losing the most important person in her life.
"It's going to be fine Lana. They read my records and said I'm an ideal candidate and no one online has had any major issues with the drug so far. You know I'm not going to give up without doing everything I possibly can." he reassured her.
Lana gave him the shot and James winced as he felt the burn of the chemicals under his flesh. They both watched, transfixed as his shirt stopped wavering. The tremor in his right hand that had plagued him for the last eight months finally ceased.
She was shocked to see her father lift his steady hand to her face and hold her jaw as he wiped away the tear that she didn't realize had fallen to her cheek.
They each broke out into wide grins before Lana remembered that she needed to record his vitals for the doctors. His heart rate was elevated, but they were both certain it was due to their shared jubilation rather than any adverse effects.
James tested his joints and took a few steps around the room without his cane. The 46 year old man suddenly felt like himself again; it was as though he'd stepped back in time to when his body was his own.
Lana got up to hug him tightly and whisper congratulations as he held her in his arms.
"This calls for a celebration, I'm going to the store to get ingredients for our favourite german chocolate cake. Will you be okay if I'm gone for half an hour?"
"Oh, you spoil me. I promise that I will call you the second that I suspect anything might be wrong. No need to worry about me" he was closing and opening his hand in front of him, testing the joints that had recently been aching but now showed no evidence of his earlier pain.
Lana practically sprinted through the store to gather up the few things that they were out of and made it back home in record time.
When she returned, her dad was in the bathroom, she knocked to let him know that she was back and to make sure he hadn't had any adverse reactions crop up. He responded very curtly saying that he was fine, urging her to let him go to the bathroom in peace, though his voice was unreassuringly gruff, but she trusted him. She went downstairs to get started on the cake batter.
The weight of the past year was slipping off of her shoulders with every moment as she thought about what this drug might mean for the two of them. She had been trying not to think about how he might deteriorate right before her eyes. She had already born witness to the number of ways that SMA stole pieces of his dignity in larger and larger chunks. He was a tough man, who hid it behind his sunny nature, but she could see the split second of embarrassment and frustration before he tucked those emotions away and tried his best to ease her worries before he'd ask her for help.
She was always happy to give it, never making him wait or giving him grief over his newfound shortcomings. Just quickly and efficiently helping him through each hurdle. Silently, she'd catalog the many varied tasks that moved from his list to her own so that she could manage them before he had to ask her for help.
As soon as the cake tins went into the oven Lana went back upstairs with a glass of cold water for her dad. She knocked on the bathroom door and heard him let out a startled grunt. "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you, I just wanted to bring you some water, I didn't realize you were still in here. Are you sure you're alright?"
"Thanks, sweetie. I'll-- I'll be fine."
"Forgive the fixation on semantics, but 'I'll be fine' doesn't sound a great deal like 'everything is presently fine.' You know it's okay to tell me if something is wrong. I promise I won't make a big deal if you're having bathroom problems, but I can get you something for it if you tell me."
"No, smartass, it's nothing you need to help me with. I just need privacy, honey." he chuffed a laugh somewhere in there. Yet, his voice still sounded more strained than usual though.
"Okay well, if you open this door in two minutes and find a basket filled with pepto bismol, miralax, some extra toilet paper, and other little goodies, then blame the house elves, I had nothing to do with it!"
She went over to his bed to put the water on his nightstand then made a quick trip to the linen closet which had begun to double as a medicine closet since the spillover of medical supplies in the bathroom had become so unmanageable. She gathered up a few items, put them in an empty organizer box and set them outside of her father's bathroom.
Back downstairs she got started on making a coconut milk-based caramel for the cake filling. It was their favourite trick for a really rich coconut flavor. She'd made this cake at least a dozen times in her life. The measurements were hardwired into her memory by now and she continued the process on autopilot. She would usually put on some music or a show to keep her entertained while she cooked, but she was afraid that her dad might call for her and be drowned out by the sound. So instead, her mind wandered, looping around the burgeoning hopes that this new development brought about.
In the city, she had been working as a junior agent for a PR firm writing copy, managing social media accounts, running odd errands, soothing egos, and bolstering her fellow employees with caffeine and ideas that they would run off and sell as their own.
Lana didn't exactly miss her job, which is why it felt so seamless to leave it in order to support her dad. She had anticipated getting him resettled, working out a treatment plan for him and then reassessing what sort of job would work with their new setup. Something in remote personal assistant work, or social media management would probably be adaptable enough.
Though, with how well her dad was taking to the drug, it felt like he'd earned his miracle. If a little bit of trouble in the bathroom was the trade-off then she knew her father would pay that due a million times over to regain his independence. Selfishly though, she didn't want to leave. She liked being back with her dad and she couldn't bear the idea of going back to the city to work a remote job in an absurdly expensive micro studio apartment.
That was no life. She'd cave and backslide into another soul-sucking, demoralizing corporate office job eventually. So what was the alternative? Try to find a new place to move to where she, again, wouldn't know anyone? The prospect of having infinite choices at her fingertips was mildly terrifying after she had already pictured what the next five or more years of her life would look like here taking care of her father in the place where she felt the most like herself.
It's not as though she anticipated that he'd kick her out as soon as he was well again, but she was an adult and if he didn't need her there, then she'd just be moving back home to live with her dad and stay in her childhood bedroom. That felt like a regression and everyone she knew in town would think that she was a failure who had nowhere else to go even if that wasn't the truth of the matter. It just wasn't a permanent solution.
The buzzer on the stove went off, launching her back into her present task. She quickly tested the cakes, then pulled them from the oven. They would need to cool for a few minutes before she moved them to a wire rack. It was just enough time to finish the caramel and add in the shredded coconut.
She had been home for nearly an hour by now, and yet her dad still hadn't come back downstairs. She went up once more to check on him. The basket was still outside of the door; he had never opened it. Suddenly she was afraid that he was far worse off than he had admitted. Maybe he was passed out on the toilet and she'd just been downstairs baking a cake while her dad had a medical emergency.
With that thought, her rising panic had her yelling out for her dad before she'd even reached the bathroom door at the end of the hallway. Since he hadn't responded in the 0.3 seconds it took for her to cross that distance she felt no qualms about bursting through the door to get to him before it was too late.
That's where she found him, head tilted back, eyes shut, slumped on the toilet with his pants still down around his ankles. She had tunnel vision for a moment, taking in his recumbent state, and rushing to kneel at his side.
That was when his eyes opened, filled with horror and shock at her presence. She had the briefest moment of relief realizing that he wasn't in the midst of a critical medical episode before something hot and wet hit her face. Then she noticed it. The grip he had around his engorged cock as it stood as stiff as concrete, pointed in her direction and spewing the second spray of cum towards her face.
In her shock, she was about to let out a small surprised scream, but the fresh load of cum landed right in her mouth, directly against the back of her throat. She folded in half, coughing her father's spunk up from her esophagus where she had been inhaling a deep breath before her outcry.
James looked at his daughter, unexpectedly present at truly the worst possible moment. Unlike Lana, who had been asphyxiated by his splooge into silence, he had been startled into a disbelieving silence of his own. Until, finally, the rush of panicked thoughts spilled free. "Oh, fuck, Lana--" he tried to apologize or tell her to get out, but the orgasm he was in the throes of was genuinely one of the most intense experiences of his life. He was cut off mid-sentence with another groan and he continued to rocket cum towards his daughter's prone body with her name still resonating from his lips.
