Title: It Ends With a Bang
Summary: He was dead. He was dead and he wasn't coming back. I promised we would go out together, but I lied. Please, forgive me, my brother.
Warnings: Cursing, Slightly Unhinged Characters, Character Death, Twists
Disclaimer: I do not own Cal Leandros or that world. That belongs to the mind of Rob Thurman. I bow before her.
Authors Note: Writer's block meet your maker! Okay, really random one-shot that took four hours, two tries, and a massive intake of Mountain Dew. This is the only thing my writer's block would let me write after I spent a week rereading the Cal Leandros series. God bless you Thurman! Slashback is epic, read it if you haven't. Sorry for those of you waiting for me to update my other stories. I haven't forgotten them. Maybe now I can continue! One can hope. Anyway, hope you like this, tell me what you think please, I really want to know. Thank you. Read and review please!
It was a nice day. Bright sunshine gleamed through the window. Birds chirped happily – or as happily as birds could – as they flew around in the warm weather. Outside, all was beautiful and alive.
Inside, not so much.
It almost seemed wrong, that everything should be so perfect outside when inside my world was falling apart. The world should be dark, gloomy, raining buckets of cats and dogs and it should be cold and horrible. But it wasn't and that was wrong.
The world was empty now. Had been empty for a while. Admittedly, though, it had only been a few days. But those days felt like years. Every minute a decade, every hour a century, every day a millennia. It was that kind of bad. That level of hopelessness.
Normally things were hard, life was tough and you had to deal with it. But how do you deal with this kind of loss? How can anything make this better?
I would close my eyes and see it replaying in my mind, over and over like a broken record. I could see it so clearly that it was almost like I could reach out and touch it. Grab a hold of it and fix everything. But I knew I couldn't. It didn't make it better. And every time I blinked I saw what could happen if I could change it. Twist this just a bit, alter that right there, change everything and hope it works out.
I lost hope the very same day my world ended.
They tell me it will be okay. They tell me it will get better. They tell me I will get over it in time.
They don't know the truth though, not like I do. They don't know how much you meant to me. Oh, sure, they would look at us and think they knew, but they didn't even touch the surface. They didn't know that I was always there. I was always there.
Except when I wasn't. Except when it mattered the most.
And do you know what hurts the most? When it ended I wasn't even there. They had convinced me that nothing would happen if I left long enough to get some rest. Three days, three days when nothing happened and then the one day, the one moment I turn my back, it all changes.
I know they blame themselves, but I blame myself more. I didn't have to listen to them. I could have stayed. But I didn't. I left.
I left you alone. Again.
I swore I wouldn't leave you alone.
If you could see me now you wouldn't recognize me, I don't think. This isn't the person you knew, the person you grew up with. It has been almost a week and I don't think in that time I have slept, or eaten, or showered, or even moved from the same spot. You would curse me, tell me to get up and do something.
But what can I do when nothing has meaning anymore?
I swore I wouldn't leave you alone and I lied. This isn't the first time I lost you. But it is the last. There is no miracle this time. Not second, or third, or forth chance. This is it. And I'm to much of a coward todo what I should.
To do what needs to be done.
After all the other times I lost you, and never once did I falter. Never once did I hesitate. I killed for you, I would have died for you. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. I was supposed to protect you. That was how it was, how it always had been. You were never to die first.
I told you time and time again that we would go out together. I guess I lied about that as well. Looking back now I lied about a lot of things. More than I should have. More than you knew about. And I hate myself. And maybe I hate you just a little bit.
For putting me through this time and time again. For me knowing that, somehow, it was always going to be this way. With you going first and me always trailing behind trying to pick up the pieces and put them back together.
All the king's horses, all the king's men. I could do what they couldn't, but now, now.
Now I hold your gun in my hand. They thought they kept all the weapons from me, but they missed this. Or maybe I took it from them when they weren't looking as closely as they tried. It's hard to tell, what with all I see is you.
You, laying there, so small, so still. Grey eyes closed. Chest still.
I had been gone for only a short while. You died when I wasn't there. Did you look for me? Did you call for me in your last moments? Did you pass in your sleep thinking I was there? Or did you wake up long enough to see I was missing, and die in time to wonder if I was ever coming back?
I won't know until I see you again. And I will hold you, and beg for your forgiveness.
Because I was wrong. Because I lied. Because I couldn't protect you no matter how hard I tried to.
Because you believed in me, and I let you down.
And I look down at the gun in my hand, feel its weight and know that there is just one bullet in the chamber. One is all I need. I may not like guns, but that doesn't mean I don't know how to use them.
After all, someone had to teach you, didn't they?
And I'm good. I know just where to aim so that I do the job cleanly. It shouldn't have been this way. It shouldn't be so easy. I should suffer for failing you but this is all I have left. And I don't have long before someone notices, I don't think. Before they peek in on me like they do to make sure I'm still in the land of the living.
I won't be for much longer. It has already been days. Much to long and I can't keep you waiting anymore. So I raise the gun to my head and put my finger on the trigger. I sigh, and do what I told you never to do. I close my eyes before I pull the trigger.
And I see you, one more time. But you are alive and looking at me. Grey eyes gleaming and cocky grin on your face. You are looking at me and just as my finger squeezes on the trigger I hear you speak.
"Come on, Nik."
I failed you and you still want me. You are still waiting for me.
"Come on, Nik."
You, my little brother, are more incredible than I ever gave you credit for.
"Come on, Nik."
I am, Cal. I am.
"Don't keep me waiting."
No, little brother, not any more. Never again, if I have anything to say about it.
And then there is nothing but the blast of the gun, and silence.
There was nothing the doctors could do.
One minute everything was fine. We were at dinner, all of us, celebrating a successful job. Another day, another paycheck, one more time we made it through. One of the better ones, none of us were excessively injured. A couple of mishaps, sure, maybe once or twice we got thrown into a wall, but that always happened.
And then he just went down. Blink and collapse and he wasn't getting up. Why wasn't he getting up?
He was the strong one, the solid one. He always made it through, everything, every time. But he wasn't getting up and I was shaking him and I was yelling. He wasn't fine.
This wasn't fine.
It was a short ride to the nearby hospital. I waited while he was rushed to the ER. Of course, I had to be held back. I fought against Robin who was holding onto me. I'm sure if this was any other time he would be making some vulgar joke and I would be threatening him with my gun. But this wasn't any other time and I never thought I would miss him talking.
It was to quiet. I could hear myself thinking. I didn't want to be thinking. They assured me he would be okay. After all, the Auphe couldn't take him down. So whatever this was was just a small hiccup and it would be easily fixed and everything would be alright.
He would be fine, we would go home, and forget this had ever happened. He was just tired, or something. Something small, something fixable.
Oh, god, if only that had been the case.
But the doctors were throwing around the words brain aneurysm, and stroke, and they could say he didn't suffer as much as they want but that didn't change the fact that he was gone.
Niko was dead and he wasn't coming back.
It kept replaying in my head. Over and over and over again like a bad record. Niko was dead. My big brother was dead.
And just like that the world was ripped out from beneath my feet.
I lost it.
Robin was screaming at me but I didn't care. I reached out and ripped the doctor apart. I tore him to pieces. And everyone else that stood between me and my brother because they were lying. They were lying and he was really okay. This was one horrible, horrible waking nightmare and he was okay and I just needed to get to him.
And I torn, and I ripped, and I killed everything that tried to stop me. Robin went down hard, and he didn't get back up. Promise was there to, tears in her eyes as she grabbed my arm. I think I ripped her head off but can't really remember.
It was so red, that is really it. Before I saw him all I remember seeing is red. And then all I saw was grey.
Grey eyes looking at me in death. And even then he seemed to be silently scolding me. I should have controlled my temper, his dead eyes seemed to be saying. Honestly, little brother, I could almost hear the words sighed through the air.
I reached out for him, laying ther so silent and so still. I grabbed him, and I shook him. I was screaming at him to get up, wake up, come on, Nik!
Hours passed that way, I'm sure, before I let him go and stepped back. I stood there, looking down at him. Waiting, hoping, desperate and defeated in equal turns.
There is a saying. The world will end, not in a bang, but a whisper. Or something like that. Niko, he ended in a whisper. It was wrong, so wrong.
He was the strong one. He wasn't supposed to die first. He wasn't supposed to die like this. He wasn't supposed to die at all. But we were supposed to go out together, when it happened. Together, and fighting for all we were worth, which together, is a lot.
It was supposed to be together.
He was dead, and my world was over. He was the only thing holding me together. The only thing keeping me as a half monster, instead of a whole one. But he wasn't there anymore and I could feel myself slipping again. I was lost, or I was losing it.
He didn't suffer, they said. But he didn't go quickly either. He woke up before he died. And I wasn't here for him when he needed me most. I was waiting in the hall. Useless.
They kept me from him. They kept me from my brother, from my world.
I would end them. all of them. they deserved it, and so much more. And then I would end myself. We were to go together but I couldn't go yet. They didn't deserve to live. Nobody deserved to live, now that you are gone.
If you were here you would smack the back of my head and tell me to snap out of it. But you aren't. You aren't.
You aren't here when I need you the most. You aren't here to hold me back. To keep me from losing myself. I didn't give you enough credit, I don't think. I always looked up to you and you never let me down. But now I'm letting you down in a big way. The biggest way.
If there was still anything human in me I think I would care. But I lost that with you. Now there is nothing.
Time passes, and I'm sitting back and watching the world burn. Down in smoke, up in flames, and the world stopped turning a long time ago.
I did what the Auphe wanted me too. What the Auphe couldn't do.
And I kept you waiting. Waiting too long. But don't worry Nik, you won't have to wait any longer.
But I wonder, do you still want me? Would you recognize me underneath the creature I have become?
I looked at myself a long time ago, I one of those rare moments when I surfaced above the red and the rage. Covered in blood, eyes like lava. I look like my father. I look like a monster. So fitting. Do you care that I failed Niko? I destroyed everything.
And I didn't care. Why should i? you weren't here. You aren't here. My light, my sanity. My brother. You were always there. Always there, but you aren't here now.
Sometimes I think I hate you. After all, you lied to me. You said you would never leave me. But you did. You did and it hurts and I lose more of myself each day. The time between awakenings is longer and longer. I think years have passed, but it could have been days. It doesn't matter, really.
Not anymore, anyway.
But it took me a long time to keep my promise. But I'm going to now. I kept you waiting even when I told you I wouldn't. So I guess that makes me a liar as well. But I'm sitting here now, where it all started, where it all ended. Gun in hand and this is where it will stop. The red, the rage. Everything. Because it is clear now, and I'm going to take advantage of that before it comes back, before I lose myself again.
Before I keep you waiting even more.
I raise the gun, finger on the trigger and ready to shoot. But before I do, I do what you told me to never do. I close my eyes. And I see you, sitting there, looking at me. Alive and well. You raise your eyebrow at me. I have kept you waiting, but you are still so patient. Buddha envies you. But before I pull the trigger you speak.
"Come, little brother. I'm waiting."
But not anymore Niko. I smile at nothing, you, maybe, and squeeze the trigger.
I made the world end with a bang.
Chapter Length: 2540 words
Another Note: Three in the morning. So, any mistakes, yeah, tell me please. Posting this and going to sleep. Hope you guys liked it! Drop a review and tell me what you think. Hopefully I'll update one of my other stories soon. Just need to edit them, but dang. Taking longer than I thought. Anyway, thanks for reading.