"Clear!"

Ross watched as Max's body jumped as the doctors pumped him with electricity. He was paralyzed, all his focus on the red-head dying in front of him.

"Clear!"

"Hey, Ross, you can't just—oh." Adam came up behind him, stopping dead once he saw the scene in front of him. "Oh my God."

"He's dying."

"Clear!"

The flat-line jumped jumped back into a shaky beat as the doctors finally restarted Max's heart, o chorus of relieved sighs following. They filed out of the room, except for one, who stopped by the two men. "is one of you Ross?"

Ross raised a shaking hand. "M-me."

"That was the second time this week we had to do that. He was mumbling your time just before the line went dead this time. We thought he was gonna wake up. Obviously not."

The brunette stumbled back in shock, running straight into Adam, who caught him before he could fall. "Hey, take it easy, Ross."

The doctor patted him on the shoulder. "Don't hurt yourself. I'd say 'see you later', but I don't think you would like to, considering." They left, and Ross spun around to face Adam.

"I'm not leaving him again, Adam."

"Ross—"

"Nothing you can say will convince me to do otherwise. He—" His throat closed up. "He flat-lined twice. He died. I'm not leaving him." He choked back a sob. "I don't think I could live without him."

Adam's eyes widened widened, and he gave a tiny smile. "Fine. Just promise you'll take care of yourself. Like actually do. Otherwise I won't hesitate to drag you out again."

"Promise. I'm gonna do an update video. Wanna stick around?"

"Sure."

Ross dug out his phone, opening the camera app and pressing record. "Hey guys, it's Ross here. So this is a little update. I'm back at the hospital, as you can see. Also I'm recording this off my phone so if the quality's bad that's why. But um, Max was flat-lining when I got here." This time he didn't stop the tears. He drew in a shaky breath. "He's...he's fine now, they revived him, but...that is not something I ever want to see again. Apparently that's the second time this week, too, and I just..." He sniffed, rubbing his eyes. "Anyway, here he is."

He flipped the camera view around, careful not to get the scars in sight. Max looked even paler on camera, and more sickly. Ross quickly turned it to Adam. "And there's Adam. Say 'hi', Adam."

"Sup."

He panned the camera back to himself. "So yeah. There's your little update. I hope you enjoyed the video, I guess. Bye."

He ended the recording, wiping away his tears. He looked up at Adam. The older man enveloped him in a hug, and Ross promptly broke down, sobbing into his shirt.

"Shhh, Ross, it's gonna be okay." Adam rubbed his back. Ross' voice was slightly muffled.

"What if he never wakes up? What if they can't revive him? What if he doesn't want to wake up, Adam? What then? What then?"

"Hey, of course he wants to wake up!" Ross shoved him away.

"How do you know, Adam?! I mean, he did this to himself, didn't he? What's to stop him from just refusing?" He gripped his hair in his fists. "I can't take it, Adam! This waiting! I'm just...I'm so afraid I'll be waiting forever! I couldn't live myself if he died, knowing that it's my fault and I just..." He collapsed into a chair, staring up at his friend. "I don't want him to die, Adam. I...He just can't." He put his face in his hands, body shuddering with sobs.

Adam kneeled down in front of him. "Ross. He'll wake up. And if he doesn't...well we'll cross tat bridge when we get there. Either way, we'll get through it. I promise. Okay?"

Ross nodded slowly, not looking up. He felt a hand on his knee, then Adam spoke again. "Get some sleep, Ross. I'll wake you if anything changes with Max." Again Ross nodded, eyelids drooping, emotionally drained.

"Sleep, Ross."

His head dropped, and his world faded to black.

There is actually a really cool story as to why this didn't go up yesterday when it was supposed to, um. Here we go then.

Le me, texting le fwend: Shit I should really post a chapter shouldn't I.

Le her: YES GODDAMMIT

Le me, after writing literally two words: Nah, I can do this later. I'm gonna go build a MOTHERFUCKING CASTLE in Minecraft instead

LE Time skip to like 11:30pm

Le me actually sitting down and beginning to write.

Le mother walks in.

LE her: It's late go to sleep.

Le me: Dammit I'm gonna die.

And that's how that went down. At least it's up, right! I hope you enjoyed, buh-bye!