Thank you so much, everyone, for the reviews! My goodness, I never expected such a response for all of 700 words! I'm especially grateful to those of you that brought up the point of view … that was something that slipped past myself and my beta. I agree there are some things I can do to change it and rest assured, whenever I get a good chunk of time (i.e. sometime in the next thousand years) I'll be sure to change that. Looking over the first little section it's blatantly obvious how quickly it was written. It had to come out, though!
I promised this will not be an entirely hurt Charlie story and I aim to please! The way I have it planned out right now, David will be playing a major part in later chapters. He only has a short blurb of a paragraph here, but keep an eye peeled for him later on!
The italicized quotes can be taken as thoughts or what have you. I took them straight from the episode so they should sound familiar.
CHAPTER TWO
In thirty freakish seconds Don Eppes was left in his own hellish world, one where his little brother, the one he was supposed to protect, bled profusely in his outstretched arms. Voices and motion fused together into nonsense, swirling away into the depths of his unconscious. Light and solid matter coalesced and became an opaque tunnel of black matter, engulfing him. He could see nothing but Charlie, head turned slightly to one side, eyes pinched shut in silent agony. He could hear nothing but his brother's occasional ragged breaths through his slightly parted lips, uneven and weak. He could feel nothing but his brother's gentle weight pressing hard against his legs and his heart.
Had he not been so focused on Charlie's every iota, Don would have doubted it to be physically possible for another human being to feel worse than how he did now.
"We've got an agent on him all the time."
Dozens of agents and not one of them could stop this. Don could barely comprehend David kneeling next to him, silent and staring. The other agent grappled with thick and ominous demons of his own that weighed heavy on his heart: disappointment, anger, regret. If only he had stayed that much closer. If only he had run that much faster. If only … his heart throbbed. Suddenly he couldn't stand to look at Don. At Charlie. And so David Sinclair, for the first time in an innumerable amount of years, turned his back on a crime scene and slowly walked away to the refuge of the police cars behind him.
Seven calls went in at once for a medical team but not even all the police power in the city could help them arrive faster. To Don, every second they were absent was another ounce of his brother's lifeblood rolling down his already saturated shirt to the cement below, another second of his life running short.
"I'm there for him."
But he wasn't. With a bitter gall rising in his throat Don admitted it wholeheartedly. It wasn't David's fault for bringing him here, or Edgerton's fault for his persuasive point of view. It was his and his alone. He had not run fast enough. Had not yelled loud enough. Had not warned him. Had not stopped him. Stopped him from wanting to shoot that rifle …
That rifle. Instantly Don realized his foolishness. Guns did not only shoot paper targets. It was different with a real person. Paper targets did not bleed like this…
"Damnit, Charlie."
Blood. There was so much of it. If a person lost too much it was instant death, that Don knew, and the amount pooling from his brother's body was downright horrifying. It stained Charlie both back and front, confirming Don's fear: a through-and-through. A gaping hole in his brother's body created by a screaming metal projectile most likely deep in the police car's upholstery by now. Two wounds, twice the blood. Screaming inside, Don commanded in vain for his body to do something. But he couldn't stop staring at Charlie, motionless and nearly silent, his skin deathly pale against the blood's bright vermillion coating. It seemed Don's arms were frozen, cemented tightly around his younger brother's shoulders in a protective embrace; though protecting him from what he did not know and, when asked three hours later, would not remember.
Damnit Don, he screamed inwardly. Pull yourself together. Stop the bleeding, Don. Charlie, don't you die on me …
"ETA on that ambulance is three minutes, Don," Terry offered from a few feet behind. But even if she had been using a bullhorn three inches from Don's ear he would not have heard her.
Suddenly an officer crouched close to Don, holding out a thick cotton sweatshirt.
"Here," he offered almost soundlessly, articulating in this one gesture all those Don could not bring himself to do. For a moment all Don could do was stare; his arms felt they weighed more than twenty tons. But a slight moan and writhe from the figure in his lap spurred him into action instantly. He snatched the sweatshirt away and, hesitating briefly, brought it down with shaking hands on the closest of Charlie's wounds.
This catapulted Charlie from his state of semi-consciousness into the grips of the hellish agony that had left him moments before. He turned away as if from a bright light, fighting madly against Don's grip, gasping for the breath his wound was denying him.
"D—Don't," the only syllable he could manage, barely audible. A pale hand ventured toward the offending object, the fingers prying at it weakly.
"Shhh… Charlie, C-Charlie, stop that."
Charlie turned his head toward the voice, forcing his eyes open a slit to examine his brother's face.
"D-Don?"
"Yeah, buddy," Don had to pause, swallowing deep to steady himself. "I'm here."
"…Hurts."
Don looked down; already the blood was seeping through the thick sweatshirt, inching toward his hand.
"I know. I'm sorry, Charlie."
"We're just gonna make sure he doesn't shoot anyone else, that's for sure."
Red and blue lights suddenly poured over Don's shoulder, illuminating the area with their frantic dance. Don did not even raise his eyes as paramedics surrounded him, gently lifting his burden away. Silently Don struggled to his feet to follow and instantly regretted it for the terrible sight that flooded his vision. It was something that would forever brand itself on his closed eyelids, haunting him. Pools. Not mere drops, but pools of blood, smooth as crimson glass. Charlie's blood. On the cement. Don't pants were heavily saturated with it. Everywhere. Wherever he looked it glared back at him, a scene from a horror movie gone terribly wrong. For the first time since his mother's death, Don felt his knees go completely weak.
"Easy, Don," Terry easily shouldered Don's weight as the elder Eppes brother all but collapsed into her.
"Terry." If all of a man's agony could be personified in one word, it was her name. The sound nearly made her recoil in a mix of terror and empathy.
"Don, I …" she stopped; her mind at a total loss.
Suddenly Don pushed away from her. His eyes sought the paramedics working furiously around his brother only a few yards away. Though his limbs felt a thousand pounds heavier from a strange mental torture he forced himself to run; every footfall felt as if it shattered his body in a thousand pieces. Without hesitation he climbed into the ambulance and slid to his brother's side. When one of the men inside questioned him in protest Don merely held up an arm, the other finding Charlie's hand and holding it tight.
"You really think I would put Charlie in danger?"
"Don't worry, Charlie. I'm here for you."
The EMT needed no other omission. Shutting the door tight, the ambulance took off in a fury, throwing its red and blue lights dancing against the sky.