Sighs and Fire (Phan AU) (INCOMPLETE)

(1.18)

I'm not sure that's my brother laying on this bed.

I mean, it must be - the bracelet around the wrist of the boy say my brother's name and our mum's clutching his hand, crying over him.

It just doesn't look like it should be him - there are tubes to help him breathe, a drip going into his vein and white stickers across his body that I've been told I can't take off.

"Don't be afraid of him, Dan." Phil nudges me forward but to be honest I'm terrified and I grip onto Phil's arm because I can feel my legs beginning to give way and God forbid that I fall onto Joseph - would that kill him? Is it okay that our mum is holding onto his hand that hard? Wouldn't that stop his blood flow?

I move towards him so I'm by the top of the bed and I can't take my eyes away from his face. I thought we looked nothing alike but now I can see a lot of myself in him - we have the same facial structure and the same nose, his lips are as thin as mine but they've lost their colour as has his skin. He looks pasty white, a greyer version of himself. I always made fun of him in the summer for burning in the sun while I tanned, but now I would do anything to see him have some colour, some life, back into him.

"Joseph?"

My voice cracks and I get frustrated at myself for not being able to pronounce two syllables but no one seems to have noticed. They're all too busy looking at my brother who had dreams and aspirations and but now his own body was giving up on him.

Fatal.

Organ failure. Multiple organ failure. That's what they said, isn't it? I had Googled the term on my phone while we waited to see him because my mind kept spinning and couldn't make sense of what was happening to my brother. I had stupidly hoped it wasn't what it sounded, but it was exactly that - his organs were failing. One by one. They didn't think he'd be one of the lucky ones to make it out alive, to be able to tell the story of the time he nearly died.

I reach out and lay my fingers on his arm, half hoping he'd react to my touch. I saw the tiny scar on his forearm that was accidentally caused by me when we were younger and I remembered how happy we were to just spend time with each other before I grew up thinking I was better than spending my brother and in turn, fucking up my own life. I 'm trying telepathically to tell him I was sorry, that if he made it out of this I promised to be a better brother, a better protector.

"What happened?" I'm the first to speak up in a long time. That doesn't surprise me – what could possibly be said in this situation? There wasn't any reassurance we could give each other, but I don't want to give up on him just yet and start talking to him about all the times we shared as brothers, when we were younger.

It pained me to think we hadn't much together because I was so head-over-heels with Phil and thought Joseph and I had a lifetime ahead of us together, standing side by side, like brothers.

She looks a bit afraid to tell me, our mother. Her eyes are red and she's tired and I remember I forgot to ask her how long she's been here. Her story starts to last night: Joseph went a New Year's Eve party and she didn't need to tell me that it was it first one he had went to alone.

There were a couple of times before where I had taken Joseph with me to parties because I was demanded to, because he missed me, but he'd never leave my side the whole time and he was afraid was everyone and everything. He'd never accept a drink poured by someone else and he hated the smell of the cigarettes. He'd never done anything, never tried anything before, and that was probably because of how they left me – paranoid and panicky and I was the never one to deal with comedowns quietly.