Author's Note: Between two jobs and school and a place-to-place living situation, my time is not as manageable as it used to be. But I have crap in my docs here that I'd like to finish at some point. And like, although I haven't had the chance to play myself, I've been told what happens in episode thirty. So this happened. Ugly, awkward brain puke crap. Gross, useless, weak, and shallow crap. Disjointed. Awful style. Wayward format and punctuation. Warning for nominal blood and mild, non-graphic sexual content, alcohol and whatnot.
Merging Manga!Candy and Game!Reality because I'm a piece of shit who does things like that to make everything unnecessarily muddy and pointlessly puzzling in the contextual department. Liberties taken even along that route. Only part of that can be blamed on me not having played, most of that can be blamed on me for my intrinsic uselessness and crap.
The sound that splits the air when he hits the concrete makes your lunch lurch up your throat.
That sound tells you he's not going to get back up more than anything, more than the blood that crawls down his face, even.
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Lysander's funeral is a quaint thing and it's not your first funeral, but never have you gone to one where you looked into the casket and saw someone your own age. Never have you looked into the dead face of someone you really, truly, sweetly loved.
It's chilling how beautiful his corpse is. You've heard the traditional 'they look like they're sleeping' line and he doesn't, not really. He's still beautiful though. Too real to look like a porcelain doll, too eerily still to look like a person in natural slumber. Auntie Agatha took you too see a Romeo & Juliet play once. You think he looks like that actor, glamorously fixed in faux death.
He would've hated to hear that. You always thought Shakespeare was deep, that it meant something when all the teachers told you how classic and groundbreaking his works were. Lysander didn't share the sentiment, no, he was above that. Above that particular play especially, never fond of it in the first place, turned off all the more when everyone who read it (you included) apparently missed the point.
But of course, he's not here to hear that. The mortician prepared him well. That's all. Yeah, you were told he's been dressed in his father's suit by some blurry face or another and this is a detail that struck you for some reason.
Once this unsettling impression fades you hear the echo of that ghastly, ungodly sound and you're choking on last week's lunch all over again. Your eyes burn and you quickly shuffle out the back door. Castiel's still there, smoking on the steps.
Ashes and butts litter around his freshly shined shoes. It ruins him, you think, that smell, that burn. He copes destructively, this is not the first time you've seen it and you're keeping an eye on it, eye on him. He loved him too, loved him more probably, just in a different way.
You wonder if Castiel knows you loved Lysander with the same love that prompts you to take his hand so banged up and scabbed from punching things, slipping your smaller fingers through and holding tenderly. Truth be told?
You have an affinity for all of them, Castiel, Nathaniel, Lysander, Armin, Kentin, Viktor. Oh yeah, you love them all. You're so needy, so greedy. In a perfect world you could have them all. But the world isn't perfect and you've made your choice. You lay your head against his shoulder even though he reeks of tobacco.
"You okay?" You ask him even though you're the one crying all over again. The tears seep right through your quivering tone.
Castiel takes a long drag you swear you feel burrow into the tissue of his lungs when he holds it in. He does that. Holds it in, just holds so much more in than you would think until it bursts fourth with a surge of yelling, a flurry of fists, a song so strong it cuts his fingertips.
He exhales steadily and looks to you with eyes as red as his pulled back hair. He wets his lips with his tongue and looks away again.
"I can't look at him like that, Lynn," he croaks.
You bob your head. A sob squeaks out. You shut your eyes and you see the blood in the street, hear the sound that is the most horrible thing you have ever heard, the worst thing there is.
Castiel holds you, cries in your hair while you cry on his chest. He's quiet. You only know because you feel the dampness.
At some point you both go back in.
You sit between him and Rosalya. Her mourning skirt wraps around her legs like a black tulip. Her collar is high, shirt pressed, hair in a bun. She is more conscious with makeup know-how than you, whatever she put on doesn't run while your mascara dries tacky on your cheeks.
The service drags on and it's like you're not really here. You just keep hearing the accident. Keep seeing it. You wonder how you could have prevented it. You invent ways it didn't happen. You look at Rosalya. You admire her in many ways, you suppose it's only natural you look to her when you're weak and can't stomach your own thoughts.
You think she's what's holding Leigh up. He doesn't talk. At all. Doesn't go up and talk about Lysander like person after person does, expressing their sorrow, sharing their stories of him, smiling with sentiment or stoic with pain.
Rosalya talks about him. Rosalya talks about his quirks. Cries with her spine straight. Tells everyone how he turned her onto bands she never would've heard of otherwise.
You think if Castiel wasn't cradling you to him you might go up and try to talk about Lysander too. Maybe you wouldn't though.
Maybe it's better for everyone that you don't.
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You go home with Castiel to keep an eye on him. Your mother knows, your father does not.
Your mother is accepting of this at face value. She isn't as strict and she's been giving you space to process things. But even she would disapprove if she knew that he was smoking all these cigarettes, that he kicked the coffee table over at some point when you weren't here, that he takes you to right to his room because he doesn't want to talk.
You don't want to talk much either, do you? What is there left to say? It's all the same words spit up again, sometimes in different order. This wasn't supposed to happen. Lysander shouldn't be dead. You can't believe he's gone. Neither of you could have changed the day without the clarity of hindsight and yet guilt worms through your insides. You both replay the day at different morbid angles, the impact of vivid memory silently strangling.
No. There is nothing left to say.
You spend awhile looking at each other. Then he unzips your death dark dress. You feel better as the bulky garment falls off you. You unknot his tie and slip it free. You unbutton his shirt, so stiff with extra starch.
This is not your very first time. No, that was with Viktor. In the hot tub before he went to Belize.
This is your first time with Castiel however and it's far, far from how you pictured it. It wasn't supposed to be for desperate comfort. It wasn't supposed to be burying yourselves into each other in this clumsy, sad scramble of skin against skin to put away this miserable day that shouldn't have come at all. It was supposed to be romantic. Nothing storybook, people tell you you're silly and they're right, but you aren't so silly you fantasized the flower metaphors in cheap erotica. Nice though, you did want it to be nice.
It's not nice. But it's something.
Afterwards you clutch him and let him cry again in the dark, face pressed between your breasts. You don't feel any soothed but you do feel tired and you think maybe you'll be able to sleep through the night.
You haven't had a full night's sleep since you heard that sound. You run your fingers through Castiel's hair and suddenly you're crying too.
Your eyes throb. You've cried more in the past week than you have all your life.
You know it's worse for Castiel though. Castiel watched him die. You saw the accident but you didn't watch him die. They only took one tagalong in the ambulance and it was Castiel. He watched the resuscitation fail. He smelled the stench of the end when his best friend's bowels gave way. He held his slack hand the rest of the trip anyway. He was the first receiver of the many apologies to come from third parties who didn't know Lysander at all.
You're worried about him for this. You're not going to leave him alone for awhile.
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Rosalya puts Leigh first but you know she's hurting more than she lets on. She's strong in many ways and you think sometimes this blinds you to when she's straining.
You should notice when you go out after school and she takes you shopping for calendars at the mall. You don't expect her to set foot in any clothing stores, but calendars is a little (or a lot) perplexing and it's then that you should realize she's not alright. But you don't. You mess up again. You don't notice like you should, you don't pick up on it fast enough. You don't say a word.
You browse through a multitude of calendars. There are so many calendars. Calendars with baby animals, humorous calendars, calendars with rubber duckies, calendars with cleaning tips, calendars with dragons. There are calendars so small they fit in the palm of your hand and calendars so large they rival posters. Rosalya purchases several.
She buys a calendar with kittens, a calendar with fruit, and a calendar with vampires, a calendar with cartoon princesses, and a magnetized pink calendar for the fridge. You don't question this assortment. You should but you don't. You find it a little odd but you don't say anything because you're thinking the last thing she needs is someone riding her about her choice of calendars. You buy yourself a calendar too, one with flowers.
On the way out of the store, she stops dead and in another moment you realize why.
There's Nina. Nina walks right past with a shopping bag on her arm.
You freeze, a gasp jumping between your teeth as your chest pinches tight. You haven't seen Nina since Lysander ran after her and...
Rosalya trembles furiously beside you. You could stop her. You could stop her like Armin did before she could fling herself at Debrah all that time ago.
You could and you know you're wrong, but you don't. You simply take the bag Rosalya thrusts into your hands and watch. She makes a spectacle of herself in the middle of the mall, violently attacking a middle schooler.
Even now you should stop her. You don't.
Rosalya yanks Nina back by her pigtails so hard she yelps. She keeps her grip on them even as Nina paws back at her, scratching her wrists helplessly. Rosalya whips her full force, so fast the smaller girl spills and smacks the tile. You see the recognition spark on her cherubic features when Rosalya pounces on her like a wild animal.
Someone is calling for security and you just stare mutely as Rosalya wraps her fingers around Nina's thin throat and throttles her viciously. There's this noise Nina makes when Rosalya chokes off her scream that stirs warm bubbles in your chest like a kiss on the cheek. It's a noise that satisfies you and you don't care how wrong that is, how ugly that satisfaction might make you on the inside.
"You little bitch!" Rosalya shrieks in the octaves of a wounded demon. "You stupid little bitch!"
Shoppers are staring. Some have their phones out. Nina's turning purple. A security guard jogs up the escalator, skipping two or three moving steps at a time. He seizes Rosalya around the waist and picks her up off of her, flailing and kicking. She's wearing a skirt and you catch a glimpse of her panties. Even though it only lasts a moment, you can tell they put yours to shame and it's this thought absently running through your mind as you hurry over.
The guard is still hanging onto Rosa. Nina sits up, panting for breath and saucer-eyed. You just sort of stand at the perimeter, trying to think of something to say to get her out of this and regretting that you didn't hold her back like a good friend would.
"Are you alright?" The guard asks Nina.
Nina looks at Rosalya, then you. She hiccups twice and then bawls like an infant.
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Nina declined when asked if she wanted to the police involved, but Rosalya is still banned from the mall.
So now you're on the bus and it stinks like hot oil and old gum. Rosalya is subdued beside you. The fight must've knocked out what was left of her energy because her face is drawn and she's limp as a noodle.
"Don't tell anyone about that," she requests of you flatly.
You swallow, nodding. "It's not like I didn't want to do that too."
"I'm surprised you didn't. You're usually the dramatic one, Lynn." She winks at you even though she's tired. She's pale under her concealer, you think. She's too skilled at blending to make it easy to tell.
You lean your head back on the uncomfortable seat and study her face. It's not Nina's fault. You know it's not Nina's fault. You blame Nina anyway. It's easier to blame Nina than it is to perpetually wonder if there was any way you could've prevented the whole damn thing. It's easier to blame Nina than Lysander himself for chasing her. It's easier to blame Nina than a faceless driver who just kept going and can't even be a person to you.
"I shouldn't have ignored you for so long," you murmur. Because Rosalya is so strong you don't realize when she needs you. Because your attention is focused primarily on Castiel. Because you're usually the one who needs her, after all, you're the dramatic one who gets lost and dives headfirst into situations even stickier than these nasty bus seats.
Rosalya shrugs her shoulders. "It's fine. I've been busy."
"What are you going to do with those calendars?"
"That's a good question," she admits.
"Do you want to get something to eat?" You ask as you put your arm around her shoulders.
"Rain check," she sighs. "I don't like leaving Leigh alone for very long."
You chew your lip as you think of Castiel's bandaged knuckles and overflowing ashtrays. You blink slowly around the knowledge that the last you'd heard, the condition of Leigh's father was akin to an egg rolling down a steep hill. You look at Rosalya just softly, your jaw tense with questions you're not sure she's up to answering.
You're nosy, you've been told. You talk when you shouldn't. You poke when you shouldn't. You even spy when you shouldn't. You've seen how dangerous a situation all of the above can frame under the right circumstances. You're trying to watch yourself.
Rosalya looks back at you with a face threaded by frayed ends and picks a puff of lint out of your hair.
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You visit Lysander for the first time since his burial in an outfit you hope he'd like. The sleeves of the royal blue fabric are long and slightly puffed. A cyan brooch glints on your collar. There are several layers of lace under this skirt that goes down to your knees. You've got on white tights and some strange-ish heels that you got out of your aunt's closet because none of your shoes looked remotely okay with the ensemble.
You hope you look right. You're moderately confident that you do. You probably should've asked Rosalya for help. On a better day you would have. Castiel says you look fine, flicks you lightly in the forehead. He's hungover again but he's put himself together nicely. He even ironed his outfit. You didn't know he could iron.
You don't know how to iron properly. On a better day you'll ask him to show you. Today you cup his cheek, brush your thumb softly over the sleepless circle beneath his eye.
"You okay?"
"Yeah." Castiel's somber, gaze steady.
"You need some painkillers?" It's that time of the month and you have a bottle in your purse.
"Nah. I'm alright."
You nod, press a kiss to lips. He's been quieter since the outcome of that horrifying sound that still haunts you even in moments you don't expect it to. Withdrawn. His feelings express themselves in action far more than in words. You stay as close as you can. You watch him. You're not worried, exactly. Concerned though. It's starting to bother you that he lives alone.
But then, he's dealing. You're dealing. People deal differently. It's...
There's no textbook for this. Well actually there is but it's not one you've read and it's not one you want to read. You don't want to thumb through the index of the stages of grief. You don't want to look at impersonal descriptions of pain in print. You don't want to skim the insensitive explanations that don't mean to be but still rub you the wrong way, like the abrasion of a cat's tongue.
You like cats but you don't like those rough tongues. Nathaniel does. You can't fathom why.
"I wasn't sure what kind of flowers to get. I got chrysanthemums. Are chrysanthemums okay?" You sheepishly pick up the bouquet from the table.
"He'd like them," hums Castiel.
"They had purple and white or yellow and red." You bought the former. You thought the red and yellow bouquet was too loud.
"You got the right ones," he assures you.
"Good." You nod, inhale the scent of the petals.
Today is not a good day but you both try anyway. You go to the cemetery. Castiel brings his guitar. You set the flowers delicately before Lysander's polished headstone. You say hi because you're not sure what else to say to someone who isn't there. The weather isn't the best and you come prepared with an umbrella.
The gray sky never unleashes the rain it taunts but the wind is nippy. You nestle close to Castiel as he strums some song you know you heard them play before even though you don't remember the title. You're not sure if it's one Lysander wrote himself but you're inclined to believe it is. No, you decide after a minute, there's no question, the notes are too much like him to be by anyone else.
You even remember the lyrics along the tune. It's the bee string and the drop of honey at the same time, wrapping the grave up in requiem. You could cry again. No, today is not a good day, but at least the song keeps that sound away from you for a little while.
Typos central, ooh la la. Bleh. I don't know. I'll fix them. At some point. I have unfinished documents on here that I haven't touched in like a year. Or possibly longer. Seriously. It'd probably be better if I didn't finish them but I don't like not finishing things.
To all a roasted duck and to all a good night.