"What if I'm standing in your closet trying to talk to you?
What if I kept the hand-me-downs you won't grow into?
And what if I really thought some miracle would see us through?
What if the miracle was even getting one moment with you?"

..

It was at eleven that Sam had decided.

Cancer was a bitch.

He knew he shouldn't be saying that word, and that he shouldn't just walk outside and scream it in the middle of the night, but what else could he do when he found out his brother was diagnosed with that bitch. Maybe, Sam had thought, cancer wasn't just a bitch because it existed, it was a bitch also because out of anyone it could choose to have affected, it chose Eric. And maybe if they weren't twins, Sam wouldn't have been as mad, a little less, he guessed, but they were twins, and twins had that weird connection between them that made them feel things together, and, sometimes, Sam swore he could feel the needles that poked into his brother's frail arm, even if they were miles apart.

If they weren't twins, Sam thought, at least he wouldn't have felt the same pain running through his brother the day they found out about the tumor.

It hurt. God-fucking-damn did it hurt.

And that was why, out of all seven billion people in this world, Sam was the most common visitor and the one who always stayed the longest in Eric's room at the hospital.

Now, they were thirteen, it was snowing outside, and Sam was sitting on the chair next to his brother's bed. Eric couldn't go to school anymore, not after the discovery of his cancer. Sam would sneak out of school to visit him on certain days, and it was one of those days.

Eric was on the bed, wearing one of Sam's hand-me-downs shirts, since he said he wasn't exactly comfortable in the green patients' clothes. It wasn't really normal of him to nag at the nurses and practically beg to wear that shirt. He told them it was a one-time thing, and that he wouldn't repeat it, he just particularly liked the shirt, and wanted to wear it. It was impulsive, he explained to them, "plus, the hospital gots to ensure that dying patients feel the most comfortable, right?" That, he stated with a smile.

To Sam, though, it was like a sign of something.

This visit was especially quiet, with Sam just staring at his brother in the over-sized hand-me-down shirt. The snow outside made it seem like night, and the dim orange-like light from the nearby heater was the only light source in the entire room. It was not that they didn't want to turn the lights on, just that Eric had asked for it to be like this, because it made the room look "cozier". The faint sound of Eric humming to a tune he had just thought up was the only thing disrupting the silence. Sam was holding his brother's pale left hand, stroking and playing with it gently while staring off into space, not focusing in anything in particular.

"Sam?" Eric spoke up, startling his brother a little.

"Hm?"

"Nothing. It's just that you've been staring into space for a long time."

Sam looked up at his brother. Silent.

The snowing outside seemed to be turning into a blizzard. The noise of the wind slamming on the window turned into the only sound between the twins. Sam went back to stroking his brother's hand. He did it so gently, it was as if the small veins would actually break if he just stroked a little harder.

If only the person on the bed right now was him, not his brother.

No, then Eric would have to see him die, and it hurt that way, too, and then Eric would have to swallow his tears inside and sob in secret, and he would have no one for him because he had to be strong, and he would have to hide it from Sam for the sake of being positive, and at night, he would cry alone in their bed, asking himself countless times about the vacant space beside him, and Sam didn't want that to happen to Eric, because it had happened to him before and now and probably forever.

Because he knew cancer wasn't going to leave his brother alone.

Tears brimmed Sam's eyes as he unconsciously squeezed Eric's fragile hand. God hated them, he thought, biting his lip begrudgingly. God had seen them happy and he was jealous because he didn't have a twin brother and had let cancer take over Eric so that he could see them suffer. Maybe that was what happened. Or maybe God was just being fair. He let them be twins, and in return, he made them suffer. Or maybe God was plain cruel, sadistic, and he wanted to see them in pain.

"Sam." Eric's voice distracted him from his thoughts again, and until then did Sam took notice of the tears running down his cheeks.

"Huh?"

"Just checking to see if you're there."

A few moments later, Eric spoke again.

"Am I gonna be okay?"

Sam froze in his place, but kept stroking the pale hand.

"I mean, it's just so uncertain. It's like one day, you wake up and suddenly find out that you now have this big tumor in your brain, and you have to live with it, and if you die, you die because of it, and everyday, you see people, your family and friends sad because you're dying but you can't so anything about it. And–" He stopped to wipe the water from his eyes. "–and you just slowly accept the fact that one day, you will just disappear from life. But that's not what hurts the most. What hurts the most– what hurts the most is knowing the one you love the most cry, alone, at night, in his sleep, and not being able to do anything about it."

Sam knew, by now, that his brother was addressing him.

"And it hurts even more than the tumor. It's like a million spears all impaling you at once. Because you feel his pain, and he feels your pain, and you feel the sobs that shake him to sleep, and he feels the tumor that throbs inside your head, and the worst part is that you don't even have to be close to feel it. What do I do, Sam? I hate it. Am I gonna be okay? Tell me I'm gonna be okay. I'm gonna be okay, right?"

The frail boy on the patient bed was sobbing uncontrollably now. Tears rolled rapidly down from his eyes to the thick white blanket draping over his legs. Sam bit his lip again. He had to be the strong one right now. He climbed on the patient bed, leaving his shoes on the ground, and pulled the trembling brother into a tight embrace. He let his forehead touch Eric's lightly and closed his eyes.

"You're gonna be okay." He murmured.

"Are you gonna be okay?"

"Yes. I'm gonna be okay. And mom's gonna be okay, and dad's gonna be okay, and Ralph, and Simon, and Piggy, and Jack, and Roger are gonna be okay. And everyone's gonna be okay. Okay?"

Eric nodded weakly.

"Okay."

It wasn't The Fault in Our Stars. They weren't the star-crossed lovers. But their "okay", right now, meant "always" too.

Then, a headache took over Eric.

He foresaw it.

That was why he wanted to wear the hand-me-down shirt, despite it being almost double his size.

Because when he wore it, he looked like Sam, and they looked like twins again.

That was why he only wanted the heater on, so he could feel warm, even if he died in a hospital, where there were only the cold white light.

He was going to be okay.

Right?

..

Sam was silent.

He thought he had screamed himself hoarse.

He felt that headache, too.

God-fucking-damn did it hurt.

God-fucking-damn did it hurt.