A/N: My 2nd Four Brothers fic. Another Jack-death scene. I like this one better.
Listen to "Breathe Me" by Sia, while you read. That's just going to be the theme song for any and all Four Brothers fics I write. (shrug)
Need I say no slash? Please read and review, thanks.
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He lay slowly freezing, searching up for a heaven that had never been there before. He could hear the rain of bullets everywhere, but he was untouchable now. His brother's faint reassurance left him quiet. Screaming never got anybody anywhere.
Noise slowly bled out into silence. He was alone in this obliteration. He was facing the white, the washed out sky by himself. He wanted to open his hands and welcome it. Maybe the pain would find an outlet.
He could feel all the layers of bullshit disintegrating in seconds, leaving his truth exposed at last. The only thing that had mattered in his life had been his family. He had spent all these years screwing around, never bothering to pursue something beyond basic survival. He had never found a worthwhile romance or fathered any children of his own, thank God. All he had – all that mattered – was the family he'd been delivered to as a child. All he had were the men trying to reach him now, through a colossal spray of bullet. His brothers.
He knew before they came that this was the close of his story. He felt the pain burning, the blood rising, the cold seeping in. But God gave one consolation. He always did.
Love knelt gently near him, smiling and patient. His brothers cried – because he had come to matter. And his own heart throbbed with love for them, a love that startled him. He hadn't known he was capable of feeling something so pure so intensely. He hadn't believed he was worthy of love.
He smiled at Bobby for the last time, lips stained red. He wanted to speak. He wanted to reach up and embrace. He wanted to die cradled.
But all he could manage was a smile. His eyes grew glassy with the reflection of a Paradise he hoped for.
He wanted to open up.
"I love," he wanted to whisper. "I love."
He lay preserved in dirty snow, instead. They were like pillars, hovering around him, forming a sanctuary – his brothers.
You can still stand as three, he wanted to say. You can hold up the roof with three.
But he knew what they would say. He could see it in Bobby's eyes, as his own vision failed.
We can stand. But we'll never be whole without you.
He choked, stopped, smiled inside. He opened to ending.