Brian is cold in his arms long before Alex can bring himself to let go. The Colonel is still standing nearby, has been since they walked out of the school for what Alex vaguely registers as likely the last time. Alex isn't sure whether he's under arrest or not- he can feel the eyes on him, Kerby and a rotation of other soldiers, but Alex's eyes are fixed on Brian.
Brian, whose eyes aren't fixed on anything, and never will be again. Alex had closed the lids himself, gently, hoping against reason that his friend would wake to complain anyway.
Everyone always says the dead look like they're sleeping. Extends the metaphor until it's become eternal rest, something peaceful. Alex has seen what Brian looks like when he's asleep, and he can say with absolute certainty that Brian doesn't look like he's sleeping.
Brian looks bloody, and broken, and exactly how you'd expect someone to look after being shot more times than Alex wants to count. There's nothing peaceful about it.
Even through the blood, Alex can see the bruise that he put on Brian's face. He's not sure whether to regret doing it, or regret not doing more. Brian couldn't have jumped into a hail of gunfire if he'd been unconscious. Brian would still be alive if Alex had put him in the hospital.
Brian might have hated him, but Alex wouldn't be clinging to his cold body while under armed watch.
Every so often Colonel Kerby makes a face like he's about to say something, but he never does. Kerby stays as silent as the circumstances allow, which Alex is grateful for. He's not sure he'd be able to speak right now if he wanted to.
There's others around as well, a whole commotion going on that Alex pays no mind to. Knealt on the road outside the school gates, pavement digging into his knees, boots digging into his legs, it's easy to ignore everything but the weight in his arms.
Alex's muscles are burning- as thin as Brian may be, he's tall enough to be fairly heavy anyway- but he can't, won't, put Brian down.
Someone had offered a stretcher when they'd reached the gate. Alex had kept walking. And he'd kept walking, not sure where he was even heading, until Kerby had stopped him by laying a hand on his shoulder.
The weight of it had made things feel far too real, and he'd sunk down onto his knees, Brian still cradled against his chest, into the position they've been in ever since.
Brian's father is around somewhere. Alex had heard his voice over the crowd, corralling the other parents and barking out orders for crowd control. Nowhere near Alex, or Brian. Nowhere near his own son's body.
For a fleeting moment he thinks of General Bache, who Brian seemed to think of as more a father than the man who's currently off in the distance, yelling about something Alex can't bring himself to care about.
Alex was never much for religion, but he knows Brian believed, more than Alex at least. Alex knows Brian had kept his mother's golden cross necklace in a drawer in their room. Keeps. It would still be there, fourth drawer down on the right and tucked behind a copy of the school handbook, if someone were to look. He wonders if anyone will before the school is torn down.
Then he wonders if Brian was right, if right now Brian is getting his reunion with his mother and General Bache in some afterlife while Alex cries over his body in this life.
One of Brian's eyelids twitches, and for the briefest moment Alex actually feels hope for the first time in days. Except Alex knows all too well that it's only the onset of rigor mortis. That no amount of regret or hope can change what's happened.
He almost wishes Shawn was still alive so he could shoot him himself.
But that wouldn't bring Brian back, because nothing would bring Brian back.
His best friend was gone, nothing left behind but the body resting in his arms.
Resting.
Alex wishes it was just resting, but the impossible stillness and sickening pallor spoke otherwise. No blood pooling from lack of circulation, though, at least that Alex could see.
Brian had bled out too much for that to happen.
Alex stares down at his friend, and tries not to think about the dried blood making his skin itch, or the smoke of the battle slowly drifting by, or anything at all that isn't how his friend had looked just days ago, happy and alive at the news of making Cadet Major.
It doesn't work, but for a while he can almost pretend, until Kerby moves again at the edges of Alex's vision. There's more stretcher-bearers standing not too far away, clearly being kept away only by the look being given to them by Kerby.
Alex isn't sure how long they've been there.
Alex isn't sure how long he's been here. He glances up at the sun. It's definitely not dawn anymore.
It's time.
After another moment, Alex catches Kerby's gaze, and stands up, careful not to jostle Brian as he does.
Kerby watches him as he walks past Kerby, towards the stretcher. For the second time that day, no one stops him as he carries his friend.
No one says a word as he silently lays Brian onto the stretcher, or as he straightens Brian's disheveled uniform shirt as he does. Brian cared deeply about keeping to the uniform regulations. Brian wouldn't have wanted people to see him with his shirt untucked or out of place.
There's nothing Alex can do for the blood stains.
And no one says anything when, after Alex finishes neatening Brian's uniform, he puts both of his hands around one of Brian's, and holds on instead of stepping back.
The stretcher-bearers glance at each other, and then at Colonel Kerby, and start walking, without even trying to remove Alex.
Not that they would have been able to if they had.
He's not sure where they're walking to, and he doesn't care. At this point, there's a lot of things he doesn't care about any more.
He doesn't care where they're going, or what's going to happen to him after they get there, or what's going on in the chaos still unfolding around him.
The only thing he cared about is gone, trapped in a past that can't be undone, lying dead in front of him on an olive stretcher.
Alex never wants to see that color again.
