Disclaimer: I do not own the characters. I am not affiliated in any way, shape or form with anyone who does.
It was heart-breaking seeing him lying there. It stripped away all of Charlie's old beliefs. The beliefs he had clung desperately to as a child; Liam was wonderful, Liam was indestructible, Liam was going to get him away from Manchester and out into the big wide world.
But now Liam was lying in a hospital bed, dark circles under his eyes and a sedated smile plastered onto his face, he opened his eyes as Charlie approached and chuckled, "you come to visit me baby brother?"
"Yeah, I come to visit you."
Liam groaned lightly and he moved in the bed, "good, you can get me out of here."
"You need to be in…"
"I need to be out there!" He lowered his voice, looking around shiftily, "I need to get a fix Charlie."
The use of his own name stung Charlie. Behind the desperation in Liam's voice there was a cold detachment that Charlie recognised as the failings of their relationship. The pain caused his voice to rise, gaining a higher pitch in anger, one that he was getting used to hearing.
"Don't you realise that is why you're in here? You've got to stop using Liam!"
Liam scoffed, "it isn't my fault," he gained eye contact with Charlie, who instantly became frozen to the spot, "it's yours. You took away all my heroin."
"That doesn't mean that you go out and overdose on cocaine." Charlie wanted to scream, wanted to tell Liam that he hadn't caused this. But he couldn't say that because, he was blaming himself. He had always blamed himself, always believed that he should have seen what was happening sooner and then he may have stood a chance in stopping it. "I'm going out for a walk."
He turned and left the room, hearing Liam call after him, "get them to let me out of here."
Charlie felt tears pricking at the corners of his eyes and roughly wiped them away with his hand. He continued walking, and found himself in a reception area. He tried to get a chocolate bar from a snack machine when his gaze settled onto a man and a woman. He felt drawn to them, and settled himself in a seat nearest them, trying to look as though he wasn't watching.
He stole a quick glance towards the man again, his silver hair was thinning at the front and he was dressed in a white lab coat with embroidery on the chest. Charlie read it Christian Shepard and went back to staring at the wall, listening to the conversation.
"I'm sorry; there was nothing that we could do. George passed away soon after being admitted. The levels of cocaine were too high for his body to handle."
The woman began to sob, the tears trickling down to her cheeks, and she made no effort to remove them, "but I don't understand… he is only seventeen... I didn't even know he was…"
"Many parents aren't aware when their children develop drug dependencies. You shouldn't blame yourself too much."
Charlie's mind picked up the end of the sentence and he stood up. He manoeuvred past the people around him and walked back to Liam's room. On the trek back he had been imaging a doctor talking to him, telling him that Liam hadn't survived, that he shouldn't blame himself too much.
He entered the room and marched over to the bed, scooping his arms around Liam's shoulders in a hug. He felt Liam tugging away and he released, stepping back from the bed.
"Are you going to get me out of here then?"
Charlie shook his head, "not yet. Soon though."
Taking away Liam's heroin had been his grand plan, the way he was going to banish Liam and bring back the brother he missed every day. But he knew that he could not risk it, knew that Liam knew how to handle heroin, knew the amounts he needed to take and how to take it so that he wouldn't end up dead.
Charlie sighed lightly to himself; he hated what Liam had become, but he needed to believe that his brother was still alive in there somewhere. And the new Liam was preferable to not having one at all.
"But I'm going to give you your heroin back."