Ian didn't actually notice when Mark Fischbach came back. Most of his time was spent concentrating on not thinking about the pure misery that radiated from his side as Anthony helped him back to his partly-crushed vehicle.
"I got your case back," Mark's voice said flatly from behind Ian and Anthony.
Anthony paused to let Ian unloop his arm from around Anthony's shoulders and lean against the car before turning to Mark.
Mark was holding the black case that was the whole reason they were there. It looked completely undamaged except a scratch along the corner. Ian suddenly had a hard time remembering why it was so important.
Anthony took the case without saying anything and he and Mark stood for a moment, maintaining an eye contact that Ian couldn't read. Then Mark looked down and turned away. Anthony put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Thank you. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all the shit that's happened today."
Mark just glanced at him, nodded, and brushed his hand away. He turned to Ian. "I—"
"No," Ian said immediately. "Whatever you're going to say, just—no. You have enough of your own problems to deal with. Don't think about me; I'll be fine."
"I'm sorry," Mark said anyway. "I don't have a way to express that enough."
Ian just shook his head and opened the car door to get in. "Mark, can you drive a stick-shift?"
The younger man frowned and nodded.
"Good, because Anthony sucks at it. We all have to pile in here anyway because I assume your car isn't in driving condition?"
Mark raised his eyebrows. "No. And it wasn't even my car."
Ian tried to sit down in the car as gently as possible, but the pain was excruciating and he was starting to feel dizzy and nauseous. As soon as he'd dropped into the passenger-side back seat, he almost lost consciousness. Any last attempts he could make at acting normal were erased. He sat almost doubled over on himself, since leaning over helped ease the pain slightly.
He wasn't sure exactly when the other two got in the car. But he heard the last door slam and Anthony's voice say from beside and above him, "We're good. Drive."
His mind stopped processing after that.
_v_
Ian and Anthony had been in the ER for around an hour now and Mark was still sitting in the waiting room. He figured the likelihood of him actually getting to go into the hospital room was pretty slim.
He didn't think this was a good thing, because it left him too much time to think.
Mark Fischbach had been without this feeling for a long time. It was the feeling of having no idea what to do with yourself; having no idea who you were or what you were doing with your life.
He'd felt it before, but it had been years. And he hadn't missed it.
One of the lesser things on his mind was his YouTube channel, but he hadn't failed to realize he'd only uploaded one video that day.
He knew that he'd never do this again. He may have been willing to help the duo formerly known as Smosh once, but while they'd had very limited interactions back when all three of them were YouTubers, they'd never been friends. He didn't owe them anything.
Mark felt terrible to know that what he'd done today was the sort of shit they had to go through all the time, but it wasn't enough motivation for him to help them by joining along. He'd shot someone. He'd killed someone today. And there was no way for him to cope with that, much less that on top of the fact that he'd let Ian get shot.
He had videos to make and an audience of 15 million people to guide in the right direction. That was what he knew how to do and it was what he wanted to devote his life to.
Not this.
"Mark?"
He looked up at Anthony, who must have approached without Mark noticing.
"You might as well stop waiting out here; they're not going to let you in."
Mark nodded. "That's fine. I'm…not sure I want to be in there, honestly. And I can't imagine why Ian would want to see me."
"He's not going to hold anything against you," Anthony told him, sitting down in the empty plastic chair beside him. "We still succeeded in our mission, and sometimes…." He sighed. "Sometimes that's what's most important to him." He looked at Mark. "We would have been fucked if it weren't for you."
Mark just shrugged. He understood the importance of the case he'd retrieved. If he hadn't gotten it, and instead it had fallen into the wrong hands, Ian, Anthony, and probably a lot of other people would have been killed.
But somehow he couldn't use that to justify the fact that he'd murdered someone.
He noticed Anthony cringe slightly about the last words he'd said. "Well…we might have been fucked."
Mark frowned. "What?"
Anthony winced again and looked at his hands, folded in his lap. "I, uh—remember when someone from the organization called while we were waiting to get Ian into a room?"
Mark nodded, still unsure of where this was going.
"I talked to her and she said….Okay, there was some really important information in that case and there is a possibility that if those people had taken it to wherever they were going to take it to, we would have all died. But the case was locked. Really, really well. She said the likelihood of anyone but the organization actually getting into it was very slim."
Mark stared at him for a moment. "Then why the hell did they want you to go after it?"
Anthony's hands clenched into fists. "Because that's what they do. They have us do useless things for no fucking reason." He shook his head and took a breath. "I shouldn't say that. Nothing we've ever done for them is useless. It's just—never what I wanted to do with my life."
"Why are you still doing it, then?"
Anthony sighed. "Everyone asks that. It's because we don't really have a choice. Even if the organization let us leave, they'd have almost no one else to do this shit, and sometimes what we do actually saves lives."
Mark looked at him for moment. "I'm not going to preach to you. But you do have control over your own life. If you want to get away from that organization, you can do it."
Anthony glanced away, fidgeting slightly, before regaining composure and standing up. He said, "I know. Sorry, Mark, this is stupid. You shouldn't be here trying to make me feel better about something when you've been through more shit today than I have and I know you must feel terrible."
All of Mark's anguish came flooding back and he involuntarily started to run a hand through his hair, something he often did when he was stressed or upset. "I was…doing fine with a distraction, actually, but—thank you for thinking of me. I've got to home now. I—I have a life to get back to, I guess."
Anthony nodded, then frowned. "Are you sure you don't want to try to get into a room here? All I did was touch you up with a first-aid kit. You probably need medical attention, dude."
Mark nodded. "I know. And I'll get some. But I'll do that when I get back to LA. Hey," he said, standing to pull a folded piece of paper from his pocket and hold it out to Anthony, "will you give this to Ian? I won't get to see him again, so I wrote some shit down because I—I couldn't have said what I needed to to his face anyway. I feel—I feel so horrible about my lack of action and I realize this only temporary and he's going to live, but…." He shook his head, combing his fingers through his hair one more time before dropping his hand to his side. "I just had some things to say and nothing to do while I was out here, so I wrote it down."
Anthony nodded and took the paper, slipping it into his back pocket. "I'll give it to him. Thanks for your help, Mark, and I'm sorry again."
_v_
Anthony got to see Ian one more time before nightfall. His best friend was groggy and slightly disoriented from being drugged, and he was asleep at first when Anthony entered.
While he waited for Ian to come around, Anthony unfolded the paper Mark had given him and skimmed through it, not really sure if it was an intrusion of privacy or if Mark hadn't really cared, since he'd given it to Anthony in the first place. It wasn't a particularly long letter, but as Anthony read it, he knew it wasn't going to make Ian feel any better. Mark's words were kind, but they were full of repent and guilt and Anthony figured that Ian would feel bad and want to talk to Mark about it, which of course, he couldn't do, since Mark was probably already a few miles away.
Ian stirred on the bed and opened his gunmetal blue eyes. He noticed immediately that Anthony was sitting a few feet away and looked over at him.
"Hey, Ian."
"Hey." Ian repositioned so he could see Anthony better. "Wow, I—I actually don't feel that much pain right now."
Anthony smiled. "Well, you've gotta be on at least a dozen drugs right now."
"Really? Yeah, I guess I feel it. Goddamn, I'm kind of lightheaded."
"I've got a lot I need to tell you, Ian, but….I think I'm going to save most of it until you're out of here. You'll know why when I tell you."
Anthony figured that under normal circumstances, Ian would demand to know what he wasn't telling him, but this time, he just nodded.
"How long have I been here?" Ian asked, catching sight of the sunset-painted sky from through the blinds.
"A few hours. You probably don't remember much in the waiting room, either. You kept coming in and out of consciousness. So we've been in the hospital for about three hours."
"Where's Mark, then?"
Anthony glanced down at the paper in his hand and then back to Ian. "He left twenty minutes or so ago. Headed back to LA."
"Oh. I guess that makes sense."
Silence slithered between them, twisting back and forth until Anthony finally spoke. "You really scared me on the way here, Ian. You looked like shit."
Ian attempted a vague smile, saying, "I bet I still do."
"But I thought you were actually going to die on me." Anthony started to speak without thinking. "I held your head on my lap in the car, and you almost heaved a couple times and you kept moaning and having troubles breathing…. It was—just one of the most terrifying things I've ever been through." He felt embarrassed, suddenly, to have said all that, and he hoped Ian was too drugged to remember it in the morning.
Ian didn't look at him. "Yeah. I'd…say sorry, but it wasn't my fault, so that wouldn't do anything."
"You don't have to say anything. I'm just glad you're okay now. Or at least that you're going to be okay soon."
Ian smiled wearily and closed his eyes. "I wish I could have gotten to talk to Mark. This really probably isn't as bad as he thought it was."
Anthony looked at the paper again and considered handing it to Ian. Instead, he said, "Visiting hours are almost over. I should leave."
"Thanks for everything, Anthony," Ian said, quite casually, his eyes still closed.
Anthony smiled. "Any time."
As he left the room, he discreetly dropped the paper into the trash can. Never to be seen by whom it was written for.
