'The adrenaline surge was deliberate.' Virgil frowned, watching as his brother laid out what he already knew. Someone had tried to kill him, he knew this. He was hardly happy about it.
'Yes…'
'It was John.'
'What?' He blinked, watching his brother's expression sadden. Movements darkened as he formed the words, slow and careful for him.
'John. Johnny did it.' The words were pained and fractured, and he looked away, the unseeing eyes unable to face him.
He sat in silence, mind stalled as tried to work out the words he knew and understood but couldn't make fit. They didn't make sense.
It just didn't make sense.
He couldn't…
He was pulled from his musings as Scott pawed desperately as his bed. He'd probably been begging him to answer. He couldn't hear, though, trapped in this crushingly empty silence, this muted world.
He looked up, watching his brother's lips as his expression twisted in desperation.
'Virgie? Virgie, please. Say something.'
He sighed. 'I'm still here, Scooter.' He hoped his words were soft, that the sudden exhaustion wasn't in his tone. Scott nodded, his hands finally finding his shirt as he fingers twisted in the material.
They sat in silence for a moment as he turned the words over in his mind.
'John?' Scott nodded. It still made no sense to him, but he wasn't sure it ever would. And then something struck him hard in the chest, almost winding him. 'How much of this is John's fault?'
He watched his brother's face. Watched as the frown formed and he "looked" up at him.
'What?'
'How much of everything that has happened is John's fault?'
'I don't… I don't know.'