"So tired of the straight line
And everywhere you turn
There's vultures and thieves at your back
And the storm keeps on twisting
You keep on building the lies
That you make up for all that you lack
It don't make no difference
Escaping one last time
It's easier to believe
In this sweet madness
Oh this glorious sadness
That brings me to my knees"

- Angel by Sarah McLachlan

Stephen Fuller was more tired than ever.

He watched the rail pass slowly by as his boots crunched into the dirt. He hoped a train didn't come, but only sort of. It wouldn't be so bad to just lay down on the tracks and wait. He could only imagine what it would feel like.

He thought of the gun on his belt. What that would feel like. Rubbed the lingering rope burn around his throat. His voice was still mostly unusable, but he hadn't really given the hospital a choice with their discharge.

He thought about sliding the gun out of the leather of the holster. Cocking the hammer and putting it to his head.

He didn't, only because of Boyd.

Boyd liked to say Stephen would be the death of him. If that were true, then Boyd was the life of him.

Only he hadn't been. Heart disease was the death of Boyd Haskell. He was gone now, but the latter philosophy had held true for Stephen.

He thought of that last night. Boyd had died right beside him, as they lay in a hospital bed, the both of them. It was the middle of the night. Stephen had worn out his voice speaking to Anna Tolan those few minutes, so he hadn't said much, but Boyd had talked.

"Come over here," he said softly from the bed beside Stephen's.

Stephen looked over at his friend's dark form, then at the light on in the little office at the end of the ward.

"Fee...ling... alright?" he rasped, the words barely making it out of his swollen throat.

He could hardly make out Boyd's figure in the darkness, but he thought that he shook his head.

"Don't get the nurse, just come over here."

Stephen obeyed, sliding out of his covers and crossing the small space on stockinged feet. He stood beside the bed, twisting his hands as he stared down at the frail form of his friend. His paleness was emphasized in the low light, his skin nearly glowing regardless.

Stephen swallowed.

Boyd moved to the side, his breath audible as he pushed back the blankets. He patted the mattress with his hand, and Stephen got in the bed without question.

Boyd was warm beside him, and Stephen laid his head on the pillow, his eyes inches from Boyd's dark hair, just like it had always been when they were kids sharing a bed in the over-packed orphanage. Boyd's hand was on his own chest, just to the right of his heart. Stephen put his beside it, where he could feel his heart beat irregular and unsteady.

Stephen swallowed again.

He flinched when he felt Boyd's fingers on his throat. But his touch was soft, only the very end tracing the bruises gently. Stephen tilted his head back for him to see.

Boyd's fingers trailed across his whole neck, on the rope-burned line, angry and red, to the purple-black-blue bruises surrounding it.

He looked up and met Stephen's eyes.

The eyes of a dying man to the eyes of his best friend who had just tried to kill himself.

Both sets were filled with tears.

Boyd's heartbeat was all wrong.

"Why'd you do it, Stephen?"

Stephen closed his eyes. He opened his mouth, but all that came out was a sort of choked rasp. He opened his eyes again and tapped Boyd's chest.

"Because of me?" Boyd asked, voice pained and tight. Stephen didn't know if the pain was from his metaphorical heart or his physical one. "Because I'm dying?"

Stephen struggled against the hurt in his heart - his metaphorical one - and the pain in Boyd's voice. His eyes burned.

Boyd stared at him in the darkness. When it became apparent that no answer was coming, he continued.

"Because of that business with the phony minister, and that Eyles guy? Because they locked you up? Don't tell me you ain't been locked up before. Is it 'cause of that girl? Anna-?"

Stephen clamped his hand over Boyd's mouth, the one not on his heart. He shook his head.

It wasn't that he was wrong - because he wasn't. He was too right. Too damn right, and it hurt too much.

Boyd took his wrist as gently as he had touched his neck, and moved his hand away from his mouth. His tears were running down his cheeks now, and now Stephen couldn't stop his own, a strangled sound that was meant to be a sob twisting out of his throat. He pressed his palm into Boyd's chest so hard that it must have hurt, but he didn't say anything.

Stephen shook his head again, over and over, until Boyd reached out and touched his face.

"Stephen, stop, it's okay." Boyd's eyes were hard, despite the tears. "You'll be alright."

This was not how it was supposed to go. Boyd was going to die. Boyd was dying, and here he was comforting Stephen.

Stephen tried to say as much, but his damn throat was closed up with tears and bruises.

Boyd met his eyes like he knew anyway. His friend took a deep breath, grounding himself with his hand on Stephen's face. He kept breathing as he traced his features, like he wanted to memorize him, to carry into death. His fingers skated over Stephen's cheeks, his eyelids, his brows, his forehead, his hair, his lips, his jaw.

After a full minute, Boyd spoke.

"You look a hell of a lot different than when we were eight," he said with a smile on his voice, his breath becoming labored.

Stephen struggled to smile back. It wasn't as if Boyd could see it, anyway.

There was silence. Silence in which Stephen counted Boyd's heartbeats, irregular as they were. His breathing was getting to be as bad as Stephen's sounded, rattling all through him.

"Stephen," Boyd said, and in an instant his eyes were on his face. "I want you to stop, when I'm gone. For real. You know what I mean."

Stephen nodded. He would do anything.

"Stop drinking. Stop tellin'-" he laughed, turning it into a cough "-stop tellin' all those stories. Those're what got you in this whole mess."

Stephen nodded again. Absolutely anything.

"And..." he trailed off for a moment, starting at Stephen before going on. "Stick around. After. Not the town, God knows you can't stand this town," he laughed, carefully this time. "Stick around, Stephen."

Stephen hesitated, and Boyd grabbed his hand, the one on his chest.

Stephen nodded.

Boyd smiled. He fell asleep, Stephen counting his heartbeats.

Stephen had screamed when the heartbeats stopped. The heartbeats had stopped and the breathing had rattled, and Stephen was sobbing against the body of his best friend, had him locked in a grip so tight that the nurses couldn't pull him off.

It should have been enough. He should have held him tight enough to make him stay.

Instead, he was left with his promises, and a warm body.

No heartbeats left.

He had hardly stopped crying the next few days. When they finally got Boyd away from him, when they informed him that they would be burying him in the city cemetery, beside his wife and son. Stephen insisted on digging the grave himself, then stood, silent with tears still pouring down his face, at the back of the small, honorary gathering. He didn't even know anybody there, except for one boy who used to live with them at the orphanage. Stephen almost got sick when he saw him.

He still had terrible marks on his neck then, anyway, so he couldn't talk to anyone.

He found suddenly that the railroad ties were swimming before his eyes, and realized that he was crying all over again. Oh well.

Really, he should stop this. He would become dehydrated at this rate. Maybe then he would start hallucinating, and he could talk to Boyd again.

He took a drink from his canteen, out of spite.

He had thrown away his little calendar, with all the little x's. Put that XX mark and then thrown it all away.

He didn't need it anymore. He would walk on these railroad tracks until he didn't need it anymore, or a train came along. Whichever was first.

For Boyd, he took out his gun.

For Boyd, he pulled back the hammer.

For Boyd, he broke the action, dumping the unspent slugs into the weeds by the railroad tracks.

This was it.

He looked up, all the way down the tracks, right into the setting sun, his tears making the light waver. Nothing but hills. Maybe something was out there. Maybe he would spend the rest of his life on these tracks.

Stephen smiled at the sun through his tears. Maybe he could make it.

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Thanks for reading! I haven't posted here forever lmao.

- Brightside