All That I've Got

"I could've done something!" Bert slammed his ninth beer bottle on the glass-covered coffee table and let his head hang for a moment. Warm tears flowed from the corners of his icy blue eyes and ran down to the tip of his nose, dripping steadily onto the cream carpet below. His body quavered over and over in silent sobs. His best friend had died two days earlier in a car pile-up on the highway only a few miles from his home, and he blamed himself. He knew he should've picked Quinn up against his will, he had a feeling, but he somehow got around it. He never took the highway, he always took the back roads - and that could've saved three lives. He ran a hand over his thick black hair and closed his eyes tight, hot tears sealing his eyelids. "I wish.." he let out a long, severely unstable sigh. "I wish I would've trusted myself." he glanced outside at the pink sky and his vision was blinded with tears again as he listened to himself screaming in his head. He tugged on his sleeve, ripping the seam to reveal pale skin that he avoided looking at. He maliciously threw his arm across the coffee table, throwing shards of glass, empty bottles, and soiled tissues onto the floor. He screamed with pain at the injuries the split containers had caused and watched with drowning eyes as deep red blood seeped down his arm, forming a maroon pool next to his tears.

"Oh Bert..." Quinn was watching sympathetically from a seat high above, arms crossed on the fluffy, weightless pillow. He frowned a little, smoothing his bleach blonde bangs and thinking. He observed as his lonely friend began crying again, more loudly this time, and sighed to himself. He'd left his brother in spirit, now he joined passed beings in a far away place, with years before they'd be reunited. "You gotta stop." he said softly and Bert paused, tears the only thing moving on him.

"Who said that?" he stood up abruptly, glass from his lap falling to the rug. "Hello?" he walked to the sliding glass door, pressing his palms to the solid material and gazing outside. He took a few deep breathes and swallowed, eyes darting hungrily for the source of the voice, or was it only in his head? "Hello? Hello?!" he sunk to his knees, drops reforming along his eyelids as he stared at the deepening sky.

"I wish I could tell you," Quinn whispered to himself, waving his hand in a swift motion to grant his friend something, anything.

Bert snapped out of the fit as the sun reappeared from behind a deep gray cloud, light shining with an orange tint on his broken face. He gulped a few times, staring at the large, warm ball that was swaying along the horizon with reverence. "I don't understand." he said with a battered voice, tears cooling on his cheeks. "Tell me what's going on."

"I can't tell you," Quinn answered, resting his head on his hand as he observed from above the sun. "You'll understand."

"How?" Bert asked frantically, still not knowing who was talking to him, but putting all his trust in what he thought he heard. "Who are you?"

Quinn let out another long sigh and waved his fingers, the sun sinking under the next hill as quickly as it had appeared from the clouds.

"No," his friend shook his head rapidly, pounding his fists against the glass so it rattled noisily as he began crying again, knowing he was alone. "Hello?! Hello?!" he shouted anyway, hating to be alone after he had a sense of company. "Why the hell didn't I just drive?!" he screamed, falling onto the carpet and closing his eyes tight.

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The next morning he woke up in the same spot he'd cried himself to sleep in, rug fibers stiff with his tears. He carefully got up and ignored the bright sunlight, walking to the door and pulling his hoody on, he didn't care about getting dressed or anything, he was just dying to get out. He walked down the sidewalk with his head lowered, dark clouds forming above his head. Someone rammed his shoulder and he fell into the curb as rain began to fall, soaking his clothes and bare skin. He angrily sloshed the gutter water, shouting out of frustration and getting gawked at by passing people who saw the rain as rain. Bert saw it as punishment. "I didn't mean to!" he screeched, chilly, wet bangs sticking to his forehead and cheeks. "I'm sorry!"

Quinn glanced over his shoulder and saw his best friend way below, lying in the street, soaking wet. "Oh Bert..." he wiped his hair from his vision and watched guiltily as his brother in spirit flailed in the sewer stream, refusing to get over what he thought was happening. "Bert." he said sternly.

"Wai-" Bert stopped, looking around frantically for the source of the voice yet again. "What? What?!" people were staring again.

"Stop hurting yourself," Quinn demanded in an assuring tone, weaving his fingers through his own strands of blonde and brown. "Get up."

"I c-can't," he whimpered, falling against the concrete in self-failure as he went to grab the light post. "You have to help me."

Quinn rolled his eyes, but nodded, waving his hand as he had done the night before.

Bert looked up, sun shining on his face and drying the water that stained his cheeks. "What?" he asked blankly, taking steps to stand, then running blindly down the street towards the cemetery on Northern Street. His lungs ached painfully, knives stabbing the insides of all of his organs as he collapsed just inside the gates. "I don't understand!" he yelled as he pulled himself up and continued pushing on until he reached a vaguely familiar area. He fell to his knees in front of a gray marble gravestone. 'Quinn Allman' it read. He'd been in such pain for three days, it felt more like three years and he found it hard to remember the place where his best friend had been buried. "I don't want to be here." he said sullenly. "I can't.."

"Come on," Quinn sort of groaned, resting his chin on a cloud-like pillow. "You know who this is."

Bert's eyes darted back and forth between the stone and the sky, still twisted up in a mess of thoughts. "I don't believe in.."

"God?" his friend questioned almost snobbishly, wrapping mist around his finger. "Heaven? You didn't think you'd hear from me again, did you?"

"Well... no..." Bert gulped loudly, slipping his hood from over his hair and letting the sun warm it. "I've been so loaded lately.. I thought it was in my head, you know.. I don't even think this is happening, there's no way you can-"

"I'm right here," Quinn responded reassuringly, smiling down on the young man. "Right above you."

"But I can't see you," his brother stated with another wave of frustration. "Quinn - I can't see you - how-"

"Shhh.." he stretched a wing, clearing clouds from the sky so there was only blue. "Close your eyes."

Bert did as he was told, lifting his head so the red filtered through his eyelids. "I...." he choked, seeing the vision he'd only held in his mind.

"Hi," Quinn snickered a little as the picture in Bert's thoughts waved and smiled, making his friend return the gesture. "Not so bad, huh?"

"No, not at all," Bert laid down on his back, hugging his elbows as he continued to have his vision sealed tight. "..Did you make it rain?"

"No, that was The Big Man," Quinn explained with a smirk, winking warmly. "You freaked out, Berto. It was okay, I was watching you."

"Do you watch me a lot?" he inquired curiously, watching his best friend prance around in his vision joyously.

"Well as much as I can.. I watch the family too," Quinn pointed out quietly, talking like old times, only a few days ago.

The two were quiet for a moment, in two different worlds, but still together. They always acted like they could never be split, that they'd stay together until one moved away or got married or something, but that was only a joke.

Bert giggled with amusion at the site of his best friend playing catch with his old dog, Gordon. "Oh.." he said softly, Quinn perking up and glancing down at his friend. "Quinn.. I miss you."

"I miss you too, Bert," he answered, sad suddenly, something he hadn't fully felt yet. "It's kind of weird, huh? Lying in a graveyard?"

"No," Bert shook his head, smiling now. "It's comforting. Here with you." he opened his eyes, now alone. "You were all that I've got."