@spectrev said: “i feel like it was sort of meant to happen, you know? i mean—can’t really have two anomalies running around causing trouble, right?” there was something sad and bitter in the way that he spoke, yet, strangely enough, there remained a grim sort of optimism to ben. he turned to five with a smile, and, god, it didn’t feel right even to him, teetering on the edge of death for the second time. “it’ll be okay, though, i think. it’s gotta mean something that we can say goodbye this time.”
“Don’t be a little bitch,” Five snapped, but not sharp enough, not mean enough, because his throat felt too tight at the back and his voice sounded too high and thin in his ears, and his hands felt hot and wet and sticky with his brother’s blood. “You’re not going to die. You’ll be fine. It’s not as bad as it looks.”
Oh, God.
His brother’s blood was on his hands.
And it was so much.
It was so much, it was an endless river of red on red on red, and it dripped from his fingers and it smeared on his palms and it streaked down his wrists, it was so much, an endless river, red on red on red on red on red, it was too much, it was too much, it was too much for a man to lose and still live.
Ben was going to die.
And Five couldn’t save him.
(But goddamn it, Five would save him.)
“Okay, hold on, hold on,” he lifted his hands off (the ragged, bloodied, shapeless hole in) Ben’s stomach, and grabbed his brother’s fingers up in his own instead. “Hold onto me, okay, don’t let go for anything. I’m going to make this right. Just don’t let go of me.”
