Words-
John watches Chas, right? As he's dying, and he can see that the blood that's flowing from his nose and mouth contrasts, in a sense, nicely with the blue color of his lips. John knows that after this, he won't ever get to tell Chas how he really feels, how this was the number one reason why he didn't want Chas to tag along.
A kiss can't heal this, he thinks stupidly from where he's kneeling, watching Chas choke on his own blood, his eyes glassy with death, and maybe tears-oh, yes, there goes one now. His brows furrow in concern as he watches Chas struggle.
He remembers, from what seems so long ago, how he used to pad quietly down the hall to the living room, and look down at a sleeping Chas. He never bought a couch, only an extra mattress for the kid to sleep on in the times he didn't want to go home to his family-if you could call the Kramers a family.
He'd just stare at Chas, and for seconds on end, would think that Chas was dead-until the boy turned over in his sleep, mumbling something, causing John to jerk out of his state of being.
Chas is now trying to speak, and John is suddenly grasping his hands, anything of the boy so he wouldn't have to let go. But Chas is smiling all of a sudden, and John, he's watching the boy as if he's lost his mind. And maybe he has, but that won't be the only thing he'll lose in a few seconds.
Chas is opening and closing his mouth, his skin is as plae as John's is, and John knows, any second now, he'll die.
"It's not like the books, John," Chas chokes, and the shaking kind of dies down, and John, he just stares and finally remembers what he told Chas the first time he kid asked to come along.
John sheds one tear before ksiing the lips of the boy he once loved, the kid who was now dead.