“Ow!”
Screwball stopped. Ditz was heavy as fuck, and carrying him by dragging him backwards with two arms under his armpits was hurting them both, but he had to. “I’m sorry, man, I’m sorry.” He sniffed hard, trying not to lose it. “But I got to get you out of here. We’ll get to the doc’s, I promise.”
“Shit,” Ditz said softly. His limp weight hung from Screwball’s hands, and his own hands were clenched over his belly where that fucking idiot Carter had shot him. They’d gotten away through the fight – Feeney’s crew had come down on the bay just as they were fleeing. They’d lost Raj in the confusion, but they’d also lost Mary, and he didn’t know if she was even alive, and–
He gritted his teeth. He was not going to lose it. And he was not going to lose his buddy.
“I know it hurts, but we got to get out of here. It’s not far,” he lied. They’d only come up half a flight of stairs, passed by a bunch of fleeing assholes who hadn’t helped, and his arms and legs burned with the effort.
“Let me down,” Ditz said, his voice terrible and calm. “I’m dying, man.”
“You’re not dying, you’ll be fine.”
“It’s cool, man. It’s my time.” His face looked waxy. “I fucked it all up anyway. I let them take Nuke away and probably kill him. Raj hates me. Sparks hates me too, now.”
“No.” Screwball shook his head. “No way.”
“It fucking hurts when you carry me, and the doctor’s higher than I am, so I can either die here or there.”
He peeled a blood-covered hand from his wound, winced, and reached for the thigh pockets on his pants. Failing twice to get the flap open, he closed his eyes and said, “Dude. Dying guy trying to get his drugs here. Lend a hand?”
Screwball hesitated, then dove into the flap. He pulled out a crumpled little package, which Ditz took from him. Scrabbling at the paper with blood-slick fingers, he dry-swallowed all three tablets. Then he closed his eyes, resting against Screwball’s legs.
“There we go,” he mumbled. “If I gotta leave this world, man, then tripping balls through a nuclear blast is the way to do it. That’s style, yeah?”
Screwball sniffed. “I’m sorry, man.”
“De nada. Get out of here, all right? If I’m worried about you I won’t enjoy the ride.”
“I don’t even know your real name, man.”
“George.”
Screwball blinked. “George?”
“My parents were assholes, all right? Steven?” He chuckled. “Goodbye, dude. Stay alive.”
“I’ll...” He coughed to clear the lump in his throat. “I’ll miss you, man.”
“You too, buddy. Now fuck off.”
Screwball tried to gently rest Ditz’s heavy form against the stairwell wall, but he was really limp already and thumped his head. The beatific look on his stoned face barely flinched. Screwball bit his lip and tried to think of something to say, and when he couldn’t, he fled up the stairs.
He took them two at a time, scrabbling and stumbling and slipping sometimes and banging his shins hard. He kept running all the way to the top, where the toffs lived and where Feeney always said McMasters’ goons would beat him to a pulp, but he didn’t care. He stood at the top landing and panted.
Screwball felt it in his knees and his guts before he heard it: an all-shaking bass thump like God’s foot up his ass. He stood numb as the floor rumbled, as the roar echoed in the stairwell around him, and then as it subsided he sank to his knees and cried.