_{He couldn’t what?}

_{Brent blinked twice before his body began to react, the two of them were back at his place on the sofa that didn’t match the rest of the furniture. The coffee table littered with syringes, pills, powders, and half empty cans of energy drinks, tools of the trade, the way it always was when it was just the two of them on another binge.}

_{Maybe they were just having too much fun at this point. There were enough signs that they should’ve stopped, the Russian roulette they played with doses they knew their bodies probably couldn’t handle, that maybe they’d end up overdosing, the looming thought that maybe this’ll be the last time I do this. Hopefully not, but at this point there wasn’t anything else to lose.}

_{But it was supposed to be a game. It was supposed to be fun, nothing serious.}

_{Immobile. Frozen in space, his body unresponsive to any kind of stimulus. He’s trying but his hardest isn’t hard enough, the words don’t form, his voice stays silent just waiting until he could respond. It felt like a million years before his attention was on his best friend.}

_{That’s right.}

_{He can’t breathe, can he?}

_{“Dude, just try.” Brent wasn’t an EMT, he wasn’t anybody that could help. All he knew was through experience, the moments he had already lived through but nothing was coming up. Drawing blank, after blank, after blank. In the self induced haze he grabbed Delsin’s hand as he tried to recollect every sober bit of himself but the man was too far gone to have anything sober left in his body.}

_{“I got you.“ The words repeated over and over again, more of a reminder to Brent than it was to his friend. The words were all but useless as he tried to keep his friend from holding onto consciousness while he was losing his grip on his own. Every ounce in his body was working to hold his friend, to console him.}

_{Muttering that everything was going to be alright.}

_{Nothing was going to be okay.}

_{And Brent knew how this was going to end, he just knew it but he couldn’t bring himself to do anything but lie to Delsin and pretend that yeah, it’ll pass. The conduit’s voice was raspy and nearly gone but he was locked, holding his best friend and cursing. It was his fault that he was like this.}

_{Without Brent, Delsin might have been fine.}

_{He could’ve been happy.}

                                                                                _{He was too late.}

                    _{He wouldn’t be dying.}

_{It just didn’t make sense why it had to be this way. Why it had to be like t h i s.}

_{Brent woke up with his heart thumping loudly in his chest, eyes glancing over to the empty spot on the couch.}

_{That’s right.}

_{He was alone now.}