"LARRIKIN!"
That word was more of a prayer on Shudder's lips.
Hand outstretched.
Heart pounding.
World crumbling.
In the few seconds between Larrikin being hit and Shudder realising what had happened, he experienced all of that.
Shudder had never been the one to get emotional on missions; missing a family he didn't have, a bed that wasn't his, and a friend that was now gone.
Friend. What an understatement for what Larrikin was. He brought the smile to his face, the meaning to these missions – to protect and save those who were close. Who were family. Anton Shudder didn't really know what it was to love, his parents died when he was young and he jumped from bench to bench every night – until he found the Dead Men.
This group of 'assholes' (as Hopeless liked to put it) were his family. He would do anything for them, they each would sacrifice themselves for another in a heartbeat.
And that's exactly what Larrikin had done.
It was foolish and naïve to love someone who would undoubtedly die. But Shudder loved Larrikin. Although he hated the teasing and the hugs and the pure closeness of Larrikin, he knew that if he was having a bad day then Larrikin would do something ridiculous that would bring a ghost of a smile to his mouth.
And now he wouldn't.
They had finally tracked down where Serpine was hiding: some rundown warehouse in the middle of bloody nowhere. They were poised and ready to strike, like a snake slowly coiling itself round a doe. However, this doe was a buck, and it would not go down lightly.
Serpine had pointed his infamous red hand at Dexter Vex, and Larrikin shoved him out the way.
His scream was the only thing audible in that millisecond. Deaths by Serpine's hand weren't pretty, they weren't comfortable and they certainly weren't painless or quick. Anton had to move he had to do something to break Serpines concentration, although Larrikin wasn't his intended target he wasn't one to complain. Not when he was harming a member of the Dead Men.
As Larrikin writhed around on the floor, Shudder just watched. Transfixed in his position, unable to even breathe. He didn't know what had come over him. Was it grief? Rage? Calm before the storm?
Everyone was silent…
Serpine, seizing his opportunity and ran. Shudder ran as well. Just not after Serpine.
No. Shudder ran to Larrikin.
He wasn't breathing, his heart wasn't beating. He wasn't alive.
He frantically rubbed his eyes, tears falling to Larrikins face as the light of the room cast shadows across his face which dance and taunted Shudder. They were alive and he was dead.
There were people on Shudder. Ghastly gently but strongly gripping his shoulder to get him to move. Repeating the words that he didn't want to hear, let alone believe. He didn't want the conformation that Larrikin was dead, that he light had finally winked out of his life. He didn't want to know that he would never genuinely smile again, never be happy.
Shudder's screams filled the room, a cry of the broken, of the lost and grieving. It was a sound which everyone knew, and everyone understood exactly what Larrikin had meant to Shudder. Although they would never really know. This sound erupted out of him as Ghastly hooked his arms under Shudder's armpits, Shudder's arms helplessly moving to where Larrikin lay. As if somehow he was able to bring him back.
They would never know how Larrikin would always give him a squished birthday cake with a broken candle in for his birthday; they would never know that Larrikin was a sheet hogger; they would never know what it felt like to hold Larrikin, to have this strong man be weak in his arms. They would never know what it was like to love Larrikin.
But he did.
In the coming weeks and months, Dexter tried to apologise. Shudder would brush them off with a stone hard face and an even harder heart. No one really knew the extent of Shudder and Larrikin's relationship. They knew they were close, that Shudder was comfortable and cracked jokes when he was with Larrikin. Dexter somehow knew, he probably heard Shudder's cry and felt obliged to say something.
"It's not your fault" would always be Shudder's response. He snapped or snarled or whispered it whenever he had Dexter on his back. He knew that if he let Dexter take the blame then he would be letting Larrikin's actions hurt another soul, and he would never wish that sort of pain on his worst enemy.
The empty pain, the pain that wasn't there. The numbness, the nauseating feeling of loss and absence of something essential in his life. It followed him around, the places where the Midnight Hotel took him couldn't lose this pain. Couldn't lose the memories.
Sometimes, Shudder wakes up and could have sworn he heard Larrikins pitter-patter footsteps on the floor, heard the small groan that would emerge from his mouth after a particularly good back-stretch. When he awoke to that, a smile would grace its way onto his mouth and her would wander downstairs for their coffee and pancake breakfast. Other times he hears Larrikins screams bounce off the wall, ricocheting into his head. On days when that happened, Shudder would find himself crying – not just crying; sobbing. Gasping for air that wouldn't get into his lungs, gasping for Larrikin to show himself to calm him down. Gasping for the need to be whole again.
Through his broken sobs, he would whisper "I love you" and never get a reply.