A/N: I'M SO SORRY I'VE BEEN GONE! I'M BACK NOW! I'LL FINISH! Also: someone from a college with an e-mail that began with "R" sent me an e-mail, but I was unable to reply to it. Whoever you are, please e-mail me again!

Joe sighed and hung up the phone, suddenly aware of the scent of cigarette smoke from the windowsill.

"You haven't eaten today."

The younger Hardy spun around; Frank had surprised him, as usual. This time he was perched on the window ledge, half shadowed by the now dark room, half illuminated from the lights lined along the brick path several stories below.

"What were you thinking, disappearing while I was on the phone like that? One minute you're there…the next, not."

"I saw you about to talk to me, so I had to go."

"I needed to ask you about Mom and Dad."

Frank inhaled from a cigarette that seemed to materialize in his hands, turning the tip bright red, violent in the dark.

Blood red…

"No you didn't. You're having problems making decisions because you're so depressed, not because you need me for everything. And you can't go around talking to me; people will think you're crazy."

"I am crazy."

"No you're not, you're just guilt-tripping yourself."

"Then why am I talking to you?"

"You think I'm not real?"

Joe swallowed and sat slowly down on his dorm bed.

"I don't know," he sighed.

Frank raised his eyebrows. "Is it so hard to believe that I'd hang around to keep an eye on you? Why would I let you ruin your life over something as stupid as your big brother?"

The older Hardy ground out his cigarette in the nearly full ashtray.

"Since when do you smoke?" Joe asked.

"Since I don't have to worry about lung cancer, or emphysema, or blood pressure or heart disease and you do."

"You smoked all my cigarettes?"

"You shouldn't be smoking. Or drinking. You should be eating and studying and socializing."

Joe just swallowed and looked away. Frank hopped off the windowsill without a sound and crossed the room.

"Come with me."

"What? Where? I don't want to go out now, it's late!"

"You should have thought of that before you started starving yourself. We're going to eat."

"I don't want to."

"I know. But you're hungry."

Joe didn't answer.

"Get up. Come with me."

Joe rose slowly, as if entranced by his brother's orders.

"Get your coat."

"I want to be cold."

"You will be. Inside. Until you eat and talk again. You shouldn't hurt yourself by being cold on the outside too."

"I should be…" Joe didn't know how to put it into words, the fierce desire he had to punish himself, to inflict the cold of the grave his brother dwelled in on his own living body.

"No, you shouldn't. Look at yourself. Look at how thin you are. Look at how much you shiver."

Joe stared at his shoes There was a hole in the toe; he could see his bare feet. He'd stopped wearing shoes."

"Put my coat on."

Joe looked up sharply. "What?"

Frank pointed to the full size black coat Joe had brought from home but never touched. "My coat. Put it on. It'll keep you warm."

"That's pretty morbid, Frank."

"How so? You always hid behind me. Now you can't. So hide behind my things. It'll keep you warm. It'll make you feel less afraid." He met his brother's frown the a gaze so sympathetic Joe wanted to bawl. "I know you're afraid," Frank murmured.

Slowly, the younger Hardy moved toward the jacket, running his fingers over the rough material before taking it off the hook. The coat had never fit him right before; he'd been husker than Frank, with broader shoulders and thicker arms, but those days were long gone, and the fabric fell loosely around him, away from his body. Joe felt like there was a cage around him, protecting his straight, pale body. He buttoned it slowly, his shivering stopping for the first time in weeks.

Frank smiled, then reached out and took his hand.

"Come with me. You don't have to be afraid."

Starting into those brown eyes, so much darker and wiser than his own, wrapped in the warming fabric holding his own heat against him, Joe almost believed.