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“Will he… Will he be able to hear me?” Kevin mumbled, not able to swallow the gigantic lump in his throat. It had been two hours. Two slow, torturous hours. He’d tried to sleep, and when that didn’t work, he’d tried to read a magazine. He’d even tried to solve the crossword puzzle in there, but nothing really worked. There was no possible way to keep his mind from wandering off to ponder over all that had happened.

“Probably not, dear, but don’t be afraid to talk to him, he might sense you’re there,” the nurse replied.

Kevin nodded, biting his bottom lip so hard he could taste blood. He stared through the glass, not really able to see much besides the gigantic pile of blankets and what seemed like thousands of tubes and wires. It was hard to believe there was actually a human being underneath all.

For some reason, he was the only one allowed into the room, possibly because he was Brian’s only real relative present at the time. AJ had shot him a murderous look when Dr. Ferris had announced he could go to see his cousin. Just another thing the others would soon hate him for.

They probably felt like they did not get a fair chance to say goodbye.

Kevin gasped when the word came to mind. It was almost impossible to think about it. He felt the stone in his stomach dropping another few inches. He felt sick.

Martha’s encouraging smile lead him forward automatically. He stepped into the room, immediately feeling the warmth enveloping him like a blanket. It was like stepping out of your car on a sunny day, after you spent a few hours on the road with air conditioning. Like a wall of heat suddenly slammed into your face. He felt oddly reluctant to take another step. While they had been waiting earlier, he would have given everything to be able to see his cousin. But this… this reminded him of another time of hospitals and dying relatives a little too much.

“Oh God,” he moaned softly. Come on, his mind screamed, don’t be a baby now. Taking a deep breath to steel himself, he quickly got closer, staring down as he held his breath. Then he frowned in confusion.

It was incredibly difficult to actually be able to find a person on the bed through all the blankets and machinery. Kevin felt his stomach doing somersaults when he could finally make out half of his cousin’s face beneath what looked like six feet of blankets. He stared, temporarily forgetting how to breathe. Although the bluish hue had disappeared somewhat, Brian’s face was practically the same color as the snow-white sheets surrounding him. There was no movement, at all. It was so uncharacteristic; Kevin actually gave a short, incredulous laugh. Years of watching his younger cousin bounce and jump and dance onstage, as well as offstage flashed through his mind and his face scrunched up in grief as he slowly lowered himself into a chair. He knew that even if Brian made it through, the bouncing, jumping and dancing would all but disappear. He also knew that he would partially, and maybe unfairly, be blamed for that. But God, he would take that blame gladly.

He’d told himself not to get too much hope, but couldn’t really help it in the end. He knew that the outcome would probably be terrible. He knew Brian was barely alive, no scratch that, he wasn’t even alive. He wasn’t breathing; he didn’t even have a heartbeat. The only thing that could distantly describe him as being alive were the mechanical hisses and beeps, regulating his life outside his own body.

It seemed inhuman.

He carefully laid his hand on top of Brian’s head, running his thumb across his brow. It was the only kind of physical contact he could offer, and for now, it would have to do.

He didn’t talk for a while. He just sat there and watched, trying to remind himself that he was there to say goodbye, but not able to get a word past the lump in his throat. He didn’t want to say goodbye to dying friends. He didn’t want to see how the last bits of life slowly faded away. He didn’t want to say goodbye, so he tried to think of something else to say.

“So, I called your wife,” he said after half an hour.

His voice sounded foreign, way too steady in comparison to how he felt. “She sounded pretty upset, but she should be here in about two hours. Don’t you try and do anything funny until then, alright? She’ll have our heads.”

He smiled sadly. Why was he even doing this? Brian couldn’t hear him. He wouldn’t understand what he was saying. Still, it felt right to talk to him, even if it felt like he was talking to a tree. “Oh and get this, Nick’s actually alive and well. Yeah. We ran into him while we were following the road. Most amazing thing. Turns out the moron wasn’t even on the bust in the first place. It’s… it’s kind of a long story. I bet you’ll enjoy it when you wake up.”

He sighed, looking aimlessly around the room, the one-way conversation playing on his nerves. “They covered you up pretty good, didn’t they?” he commented with a sorrowful smile, “Gonna get you warm again in no time, you’ll see. Just… keep fighting.”

Kevin nodded firmly, “You know, the doctor said that if they can get you off life-support and stable enough, they might start surgery on your legs. You’ll go back to jumping off the stage to break them again before you know it.”

He flinched at the obvious lie. There was probably no harm in not telling Brian about the amputation at this point, but it felt so wrong to promise things that couldn’t be. It wasn’t entirely a lie though. Ferris had said that if Brian could get through the process of rewarming and if they could start his heart and stabilize it enough, he could be taken of the bypass.

Those were big ifs, though. His heart was incredibly weak and there were signs of other organs that started to fail as well. But despite all that, Kevin tried to hold on to the last straw of hope he had left.

Brian had slipped through the cracks of nature’s rules once before, he may just as well do it again.

“I know what you would say,” Kevin muttered with a small smile, “’Don’t worry, Kev. You worry too much.’ You’d promise me you got this, and I would pretend I didn’t believe you. But… you’ve gotten so far, Bri. It’s so pointless to let one stupid tour bus get in the way of everything. And yeah, I know it’s my fault. I’m the one that made us ride that stupid bus together after all. And you will have all the time in the world to hate me for that if you just… don’t let it end like this, Brian. Don’t.”

Kevin didn’t say goodbye. Period.