Casey felt strangely content, he felt one hand over his chest, and another hand lightly raking through the hair on the back of his head, under him he heard a slow, constant thump-thump-thump and he realized he was almost asleep.
"Tell me another one."
Matt's eyes popped open as he tried to figure out if he'd actually heard that, or if it'd been part of a dream. The voice sounded familiar, he realized it was Kelly's voice, he picked his head up and saw a mischievous smirk on the Squad lieutenant's face that told him he hadn't been dreaming. He was officially lost then, it'd make sense if it was a dream, the way Kelly said it, it sounded like a little kid asking for a bedtime story.
"Another one what?" Casey asked in total confusion.
"Tell me something else you always wanted to do," Kelly said.
Casey shook his head as he laid back down, "Forget it, I'm not getting into this."
"Why not?"
"Forget it."
"Oh come on, Matt."
"No."
"Why not?" Kelly wanted to know.
"You'll laugh."
"No I won't."
"Yes you will."
"I promise I won't."
"No, it's stupid."
"Come on, Casey."
"No."
"Just tell me," Kelly said, "I want to know."
Casey could see Severide wasn't going to let this drop. He sighed and pressed his weight harder against the mattress, wishing he was anywhere else, and reluctantly answered, "I always wanted to learn to play music."
Kelly shrugged his shoulders and Casey could feel the movement from it. "What's stupid about that?"
"Because it's something you learn when you're 5, or 10 maybe, not 40," Casey answered as he picked his head up to look at the Squad lieutenant.
"Who says?" Kelly wanted to know.
"Everyone."
"Who's everyone?" Kelly asked.
"Who do you ever see my age taking music lessons?" Casey asked him.
"Hey, it's not impossible," Kelly replied.
Casey grumbled and flopped his head back against Severide's chest, starting to regret he'd ever said anything.
"So what'd you want to learn to play?" Kelly persisted.
"I don't know," Casey grunted, wishing Severide would just shut up so he could try to sleep.
The two of them argued back and forth on the matter a few more times before Casey finally relented, "I don't know...several things I guess."
"Like what?"
Casey absently ran the tip of his tongue over the corner of his bottom lip and sighed as he answered, "Well, the piano for one."
"What else?"
Casey rolled his eyes, "Why do you want to know?"
"I'm curious," Kelly replied.
Matt sighed, "the violin, shut up."
Kelly busted out laughing, "I didn't say anything!" After a brief pause he asked, "why the violin?"
Casey shrugged, "Who grew up watching the 3 Stooges and didn't want to learn that?"
"Fair point," Kelly remarked. "So?"
"So what?"
"Why didn't you ever try it?"
Matt sighed again, "Who has the time?, for one thing. I'm on shift 3 days a week, you're supposed to practice every-single-day."
"So what's another reason?" Kelly asked.
"This isn't going to stop until one of us is dead, is it?" Casey asked cynically.
Kelly shook his head and answered without missing a beat, "No...what's another reason?"
Casey looked down towards the mattress, "Something I'm not real proud of."
"What's that?"
Matt finally looked up at him and said, "You might've noticed over the years I don't do anything half-assed."
"Oh trust me, I've noticed," Kelly answered with a chuckle.
"Usually anything I put my mind to, I do, I don't just do, I excel."
"You're a perfectionist," Kelly said.
"I haven't spent a lot of time in my life wasting my time on things I can't perfect," Casey pointed out. "So what if I tried it and I'm not any good at it?"
Kelly did a double take and said in an awed tone, "Matt Casey, fear of failure."
"Among other things."
"So what?" Kelly asked. "At least you'd know."
"And so would anybody else who listened to it. Besides, like I said, I'm too old to try," Casey told him.
"You don't know that," Kelly remarked. "Actually if you think about it, it'd be easier today than ever...I mean think about it, you can look up anything online, you can learn anything online, it would eliminate the need for a face-to-face lesson with someone."
Casey's eyebrows furrowed together as he replied, "I never thought about that."
"See? All hope's not lost yet," Kelly offered.
Casey looked at him with a somber look on his face as he responded, "Doesn't really matter, it's still too late to bother trying."
"What're you talking about?"
"What if I'm right?" Casey asked. "Have you actually thought about it? What if I have less than two months to live?"
"Casey, you're getting ahead of yourself," Kelly tried to brush it off. "Did you make the appointment for another physical?"
"Yes."
"And blood work?"
"Yes."
"And a stress test?"
"Yes."
"When?" Kelly asked.
"Friday after next shift," Casey answered. "Will you come with me?"
"You know I will," Kelly replied.
Casey was quiet for a few seconds, then asked in a low, and terrified voice, "What if they find something?"
"You're still getting ahead of yourself," Kelly told him. "First you'll have the tests done, and we'll wait and see what the doctor says. If they do find something, we'll deal with it then."
Matt didn't seem to hear him, or ignored his comment completely, a few seconds passed and he asked again, quieter, and even more terrified, "What if they do?"
"Buddy, look at me," Kelly grabbed Casey's forearm to get the blonde man's attention. Matt looked at him and Kelly told him, "No matter what happens, I'm right here, okay?"
Matt didn't say anything at first. After a few seconds he said in almost a whisper, "I'm really scared, Kelly."
"I know, buddy," Severide nodded slowly, "I know...it's going to be alright." One hand found its way to Casey's back and slowly rubbed it in circles as Kelly told him, "Now come on, buddy, try and go to sleep. I'm right here, I won't let anything happen to you."
Matt closed his eyes, almost completely, but still tiredly murmured as he rested his head against Kelly's chest, "I wish you could actually promise that."
Kelly didn't know what happened but he was jerked awake long before he was ready to, by a sudden weight crushing against him, including a knee pressing in a very inconvenient spot.
"Wha-wha-what is it? What's going on?" he demanded to know as his eyes opened and he found himself in the dark.
"Sorry," he heard Casey's voice over him, "Sorry to wake you."
"What happened?" he asked as he felt the weight suddenly off of him.
"Sorry," Casey whispered, "I had to get up."
"What's wrong?" Kelly asked with a small grunt and groan.
"One of the joys of getting older," Casey dryly remarked as he headed out to the bathroom.
Kelly was still awake when Matt returned a couple minutes later.
"Sorry about that," he said as he crawled back into the bed alongside Severide.
"No problem, just give me a warning next time," Kelly replied.
Casey pulled the covers up and settled himself against the pillows and sighed, "Getting old sucks."
"We're not getting old," Kelly pointed out, "Just old-er."
"It still sucks," Casey said.
"Well yeah, no argument there," Kelly said.
"Getting old sucks," Casey said as he rolled over on his side to look at Severide, "Getting old-er sucks...dying really sucks...there's no good answer."
"Well, we'd definitely take getting old out of all of them," Kelly said.
Casey nodded once, "True."
"But yeah...there's a lot of stuff involved nobody ever told us about," Kelly said. "About every time I enter a room now I can't remember why I came in it."
"You ever stop and think about...someday we're actually going to retire from CFD?" Casey asked.
Kelly snorted, "As little as possible."
"But the day's coming."
"Not for a long time," Kelly shook his head.
"Not that long," Casey returned, "We've already put in nearly 20 years on this job...it won't be that long before we're Boden's age, Herrmann's age..."
"Well now I'm getting depressed," Kelly commented.
"It's not fair, Kelly."
"Somebody said life was fair?"
"You know what I mean."
"I know," Kelly reached over and pulled Matt over towards him. "I know...life's short, that's why we're supposed to make the most of it we can while we can."
"I just thought I had more time, Kelly."
"Everybody does, Matt."
Casey shook his head, "I'm never going to find someone, I'm never getting married, I'm never going to have kids."
"You don't know that," Kelly said.
"It's too late for me, Kelly," Casey said in a tone that hit Kelly like somebody punched him in the gut. "Everything's just too late for me."
Kelly reached over and slid an arm under Casey's back and rolled the blonde man over towards him and held him tight.
"Buddy...you don't know that."
"I can feel it, Kelly...and it scares me."
Kelly was willing to admit, to himself anyway, that maybe Boden was right and Casey needed professional help. Unfortunately he didn't have any idea what kind of professional this situation warranted. He had a feeling even if Casey aced all his tests at the doctor's, and he didn't see any reason why Matt wouldn't, that he still wouldn't be convinced he wasn't about to die soon. The only thing Kelly could think of that would convince him, was actually making it to his birthday, but that was almost two months off, and Kelly honestly couldn't imagine two more months of both of them living like this.
A sudden noise jolted Kelly out of his thoughts and he about fell out of the bed entirely, before he realized it was Casey breathing deeply in his sleep. He was actually asleep. Kelly sighed in relief as he waited for his heart to stop racing. He sure hoped Friday got there soon. Then he hoped the actual results would be in quickly.