L'APPEL DU VIDE.

C. ESSEX:

[[ Something in Charlie tightens with a genuine pang of irritation: he’s toed such a careful line with Ricky since they started… whatever it was someone could call this. He tries to be affectionate with him, tries to reach for him when he knows that often Ricky will pull away. Of course he wants him. He wants nothing but Ricky — which is exactly why he’s done his damnedest to respect Ricky’s boundaries, for better or worse.

Maybe for worse, if this is the impression Ricky’s got. But now could literally not be a more inopportune time. So, as he often does, Charlie pushes down what he wants and what he wants to say to shake his head faintly. ]]

Not like this. [[ Maybe it’s too blunt, Charlie not softening his words like he normally would, but it’s the truth. His hand drifts from Ricky’s cheek, thumb brushing gently over his lips as he does, to settle it against Ricky’s chest again, broad and flat and, hopefully, grounding. ]] Not when you’re upset. Not when you’re hurting. Not when I think… you’d regret it. [[ Who would want their first time with someone to remind them of this? Of agony and grief, tasting of salt. ]]

Wouldn’t you? [[ he asks quietly, uncharacteristically present as he searches Ricky’s face, not so much daring him to disagree as wanting to catch every tic, every nuance of his answer. He thinks he already knows the answer, but he wants Ricky to try and tell him anyway. ]]

[[ Not like this. He doesn’t want him...like this. The thumb over his lip tells him that one day, when it’s right he will want him.  Ricky just has to finally give in, let go of the shame he carries. There’s no-one left alive to judge him. No-one that he actually cares about, at least.

‘You’d regret it.’ Ricky drops his gaze, unfocused and looking at the corner of Charlie’s jaw. After a moment he asks so quietly, yet firm in a way that Ricky knows he has to answer. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

It feels like being scolded, even though he knows it’s because Charlie cares. He still winces, slightly. Sucks in his lower lip because he has, once again, the overwhelming urge to cry. ]]

I would. [[ He answers meekly. Ricky crumbles, realises what he just asked of him. Shaking his head, wanting to pull away, curl up and be alone. ]] I’m sorry. That—fuck. What the fuck is wrong with me? [[ A rhetorical question. ]] I’m sorry. You can— [[ he can’t. Ricky nearly wants to say he can leave but Ricky can’t do that. Not to himself. He’s selfish. He wants, but Charlie won’t give him what he wants. He knows better. ]]

B. LINDQVIST:

[Bode didn’t want to agree with him but being a reformist didn’t exactly win anyone any points. Dead father or not. Bode himself was cracking jokes at Ricky’s expense with Isha. He wasn’t a revered figure the way Kaiser was to the infected and radicals. Looking at him now, a wash of cigarette smoke and sleepless eyes burned red from tears, Bode could do nothing but pity him. He looked like Bode did when Peter died; hollow, restless, completely and utterly exhausted with the weight of having survived where others did not.

‘I tried, I fucking tried to leave him.’

Without meaning to, he thought of his own father, the heavy disappointment that hung on his mouth every time he looked at Bode. Despite hating his father and everything he stood for, a small part of him always wondered what it would feel like to not be despised by the person who made him. It couldn’t be all that, could it? People with perfectly stable families still ended up awful human beings or worse, boring. Bode closed his eyes momentarily, a hand coming up to drag through his hair. He could feel his fingers shaking with his shortly fused temper.

He might have left Ricky alone to freeze in the rain if he hadn’t kept running his mouth. That seems to be a running issue with the civilians of 22. They never knew when to fucking quit. His hands are on him, fists curling the fabric of Ricky’s shirt in tight circles before pressing him hard against the wall of the chapel. He might have scraped the back of Ricky’s head along the way, something warm and gleeful rejoices somewhere in the back of Bode’s mind. The senseless rage bit. Maybe he’s in denial but as long as these words aren’t coming out of Espen’s mouth he can continue to deny it. His brother was smarter than this. Wasn’t he?] I understand your father’s a piece of shit, Ricky, and I feel bad for you. I do but it’s within your best interest to stop talking. [His words should be dripping with venom but instead they come out calm, concise, perfectly and beautifully enunciated.]

My brother is a decent kid. Better than you, better than me and significantly better than Kaiser Fucking Bahr.

[[ A fight at his funeral would probably make Kaiser happy. That thought alone is nearly enough to make him go limp in Bode’s grip. He did scrape the back of his head against the wall and... Ricky simply doesn’t care. He wonders if he’ll get a broken nose. He’d enjoy that. Something besides his heart that could ache. Oh, he hates it, the melodrama Kaiser’s passing inspires in him. ]]

Don’t think it’s a good look to break the grieving son’s nose. [[ Maybe Bode won’t care. Maybe Ricky should simply carry on. Say more vile things till he won’t care what’s happening with his father. ]] Even if he is a dickhead.  [[ Even if he wants it.

Ricky keeps his head tipped back, looking up at Bode. Ricky probably enjoys being manhandled a little too much. It feels good to simply feel something. Anything. Then Bode says he feels sorry for him and Ricky can’t help the deranged laughter that falls from his lips. ]] That makes you the only one. Don’t want your fucking sympathy and being better than my dad? Not a fucking achievement.

Lyssa — Primordial god of blind rage and rabies.

R. STEIN:

tuesday. april 11, 2163. lounge @diederick-dmornay​

[ This isn’t the man she’s here for, if she could even say she was here for a man. But she’s seen enough pictures of Kaiser Bahr to see hints of his features in profile of the guy she’s been told was his son. As she sits, curling into an armchair under some pretense of relaxing, she chances a sidelong glance at him before settling her gaze on the foosball game happening across the room. The room hums lowly with the chatter of people, but even Rosalind, new as she is, can feel a solemness in the air. It’s so familiar, it’s almost comforting. And if that ain’t depressing. ]

Something about all this grief is refreshing.

[ Spoken quietly into the air. A thought given voice without thought to begin with. Rose winces as it hits her ears. It’s probably inappropriate to say to a stranger, let alone this one. It’s probably even worse that she hasn’t even been here for a week. Has she even been here for forty eight hours? 

But she knows it well enough herself. She lost two mom. She lost three sisters. Her fingers pressed their faces into papers left halfway across the world when all she had room for was grief. And those very same fingers took other people’s grief and pressed them into papers, and into notebooks, sometimes into skin with paint or ink or henna. They painted the eyes of a man’s dead wife onto the side of what was left of his bedroom wall. They rendered a sketch of how a grandmother imagined her baby granddaughter would look in one year, in five years, in ten.

And so maybe she’s lost track of the way it’s not normal to have a running commentary on the losses of others. Maybe she’s forgotten that sometimes loss likes to go unobserved. All she remembers is that it’s the one thing they’ve all got. The one wretched, human thing that everybody knows. It’d be beautiful if it wasn’t so fucked up. Only took a fully realized doomsday scenario to bring all of humanity together under a common experience: dying. ]

Like, the world ended years ago, but people are still being people. Feeling people things. Sometimes I’m surprised that we didn’t just forget it all, or get so used to it that we stopped caring. That we’re not more…different. Humanity is still the same, even after everything.

[[ It’s the first time Ricky ventured out of his room without Charlie glued to his side. Sitting there, watching people go about their day as he sits with an untouched book in his lap. He’d showered. He feels fresh and clean and raw in a way he hates. Hood up, scowling, like it’s wrong for anyone to be enjoying themselves.

‘Something about all this grief is refreshing.‘

This is why he didn’t want to crawl out of his cave. But Charlie was worried. So was Dante. Ricky turns to look at the women who said it, shooting her a dark glare that is somewhat marred by his tired eyes and drawn expression.

The stranger keeps talking. Since his father’s death, Ricky’s been understandably out of the loop. He hasn’t paid attention to any new arrivals, hasn’t read up about them on the echo. Out of the loop for the first time in months, he’s even more peeved at this stranger waxing poetic about death and grief.

Any other day, any other person he may actually want to engage in this sort of conversation. People have always died, when it happens in vast amounts it’s just... it doesn’t change. Any event with a large body count is traumatic, every death is felt as much as the first, isn’t it? He should think so. Even if he’d only ever lost people after D-Day it didn’t make it any easier. ]]

C. LUPEI​:

[Constantin isn’t usually oversensitive, but the one thing that’s liable to piss him off is off-colour comments about his speech. As if he isn’t fucking self conscious enough about it. He could shrug off the comments about how he doesn’t ask for hep in training – because it’s true – but he’s not going to stand here and get criticised for fucking up when he’s speaking in his third language. He’s not against being corrected, and in fact he wishes people would do it more so that he could learn, but Ricky’s tone just rubs him up the wrong way.] 

Oh, fuck you. You have to be a dick? If I want your advice on speaking this pigshit of a language then I ask you for it. I really don’t give fucks if it sound ‘good’.

[He’s not got the energy for a fucking argument today, but he’s also not got the energy to take criticism on something he’s working goddamn hard on. If Ricky wants to get smug because English isn’t his first language either and he’s better at it than Constantin, then fuck him and fuck his mother and fuck his grave.]

I’m not being a dick, [[ — he is — ]] you’re a dick! [[ — he’s not. ]] It was a good fucking line! ‘No virtue in suffering alone.’ Sounds poetic as hell! [[ He’s animated as he says it. ]] See! You don’t even like getting help. Feels fucking shit, doesn’t it? Getting help you don’t want, help you don’t want to need.

D. CARRINGTON:

[Ricky isn’t a rational person at the best of times, and particularly now, in the wake of the death of his father, Dante isn’t expecting him to respond to reason. Grief doesn’t respond to reason. All he can really do is keep himself calm and let Ricky get it all off his chest. At some point Dante would like to broach the topic of Ricky’s health, but he’ll have to approach that tactfully.]

Unfortunately we don’t get to choose whether or not we grieve. Perhaps you could take all this energy you’re feeling with regards to Kaiser, and funnel it into allowing yourself to grieve your mother instead? Kaiser isn’t here to stop you now. Go to the memorial, talk to her, write a eulogy, read a poem out loud for her… I can’t tell you how to process your grief, but do whatever feels right. These bad feelings aren’t going to go anywhere fast but you can still choose how to act on them.

[Sitting in your room, unwashed, smoking cigarette after cigarette, is not a good way to act on them as far as Dante is concerned, But maybe he’s just feeling tetchy because he wants a bloody cigarette so badly.]

[[ Ricky stays on his back looking at the ceiling, the light that streams in from the window and Dante’s stretched out silhouette amongst it. Looming over him. How dramatic of him to think that when the man is simply standing there, airing out Ricky’s depression den. So Ricky rolls his head to the side, watches Dante as he says he can’t tell Ricky how to ‘process’ his grief. Like putting the emotion through a machine only Ricky has to figure out how to handle it. ]]

I can’t go talk to her at the memorial. Kaiser’s there. [[ It’d feel wrong, wouldn’t it? ]] I don’t want to talk to her! We never spoke when she was alive, why start? [[ He truly doesn’t, there’s nothing to say. He wants to simply be angry at Kaiser. Not solve anything. Ricky stares at the ceiling once more. ]] She was pregnant. Sometimes I think they were lucky, not seeing the state of the world. Not adding to the fuckin’ family. We never needed any more of us.

C. ESSEX & C. WILLIAMS​:

You’ll do wha– [ The answer comes before she finishes her sentence. Ricky, seemingly with all the gumption that she’d been lacking, opens the door and walks through before they could discuss a plan any further. Not that there’s much to discuss. It’s one of those ‘do or do not, there is no try’ situations– and in a very unlike herself kind of way, Charlotte had balked instead of jumped. And Ricky knew they needed to jump.

Charlotte follows him into the room, still slightly annoyed at the lack of a real plan, but does as he asks and softly shuts the door behind her. 

‘Ethan?’

She doesn’t speak, only watches the scene before her. Watches as that confused look washes over her brother. For a moment, she thinks that he’s going to speak, and judging by the way his face twists, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be something encouraging. But he doesn’t complete the thought. He doesn’t outright shun or question the name. 

That’s encouraging enough for Charlotte. 

Slowly, she moves out from her place at the door, until she’s standing in front of where he sits on his bed. There’s still a good foot or so of distance between them, but it’s close enough for her to be able to see the look in his eye as she speaks. She can’t help the hope that fills her own.] You’re not.. who? [ She asks gently.] Ethan? Ethan Williams?​

[[ He sets the plate aside when Charlotte approaches, managing to bring his attention back from wherever it’s gone to refocus on… her. The look in her eyes. The sound of her voice that pulls at some thin, stray thread at the edges of his consciousness.

‘Ethan?’ He shakes his head carefully, fingers curling tighter at the edge of the bed, grasping at the sheets — something to hold on to, something to ground him. It doesn’t work, or at least; he doesn’t think it does. He feels adrift and here at the same time. Uncomfortably, heavily here.

‘Ethan Williams?’ ]]

Don’t, [[ he finally says, closing his eyes and ignoring the way his head spins when he does. ]] Don’t. Please. [[ There’s little forcefulness behind his words, more soft and pleading than much else. He doesn’t want to confront this any more than he wants to confront how he felt during the parasite. He can’t talk about that. He can’t talk about this. He can’t look at her. ]]

@diederick-dmornay​

[[ Ricky’s withholding in a way Charlie doesn’t deserve. He shrinks when he’s hands on, when he wants even friendly touches or privately snatch a simple kiss. It’s shame, not of Charlie, never of Charlie, but of himself. It feels like some days, he’s simply ruining things. Making life more difficult for the man. Now, seeing Charlie turn so quiet, so desperate, it doesn’t matter that they have an audience

Don’t. Please.

That single word sends a sharp pain through his chest: he’s afraid. Charlie is scared and sad and Ethan is trapped. Ricky kneels at the man’s feet.

This isn’t his Charlie, not right now, but maybe he can help. Carefully, he tries to thread his fingers through one of his hands. He can’t think of him as Charlie, can’t think of him as Ethan either. ]]

Don’t worry, mon cher. [[ That feels safer. Mon cher. Mon cher. Mon cher. He’s already regretting every time he didn’t call him by a pet name, or wouldn’t hold his hand or wouldn’t kiss him. Is it too late? Has he lost him? ]]

I want to help. I—We. We want you to feel better, mon coeur.  [[ It slips out. Ricky holds his breath. Shit. It’s hopefully not too late to start using it, this hopefully won’t be the first and last time. ]] You can talk to us.

J. PARKER:

[The second time he says it, Jo’s pretty sure it’s meant as a compliment. ‘Optimistic’ definitely a compliment, and he doesn’t sound ill-intentioned when he calls her melodramatic. So she takes it in stride, filing this peculiar interaction away for later examination.]

[The question, on the other hand, is not something she can brush off. She eyes him closely. The fact that he’s a guard hasn’t been forgotten. He doesn’t seem like the interrogatory type, but he could just as easily be keeping tabs on her and reporting back. Then again, as the taste of cigarette fills her mouth and nose, she would already be in trouble if he truly cared about these things. And he seems genuine, which means he doesn’t know about her arrival in the Colony. All the more reason to lie– being brought in carries a certain weight to it. But he’ll find out soon enough, one way or another.] I was brought in. Almost two years ago, now. Probably for the best– I would’ve liked to continue traveling, but things aren’t the way they used to be. Lots of people following their own agendas, shooting first and asking questions later. And it’s good to be around people again.

✑

[[ There’s the distrust. He looks away, focuses on the cigarette smoke curling away into nothing. Can’t have a simple conversation without something going awry can he? Listening to her speak, he scratches at his chin with his thumb, cigarette still held a loft. He should ask Charlie to buy him more smokes, he has the credits, never dips into his allowance of controlled good besides alcohol. ]]

C.ESSEX:

[[ Charlie blinks, surprised, because for some reason that’s not what he expected Ricky to get out of his refusal. ]] No! It’s that- [[ It doesn’t hurt me in the same way, he wants to say, but knows he can’t acknowledge the game like that. ]] You’re not an asshole because I asked for it, c’mon, [[ Charlie tries to reassure. There’s an imbalance there that he can’t explain, that Ricky isn’t allowed to know. ]]

B. LINDQVIST:

[‘he liked them young.’ Bode doesn’t hear much after that. The world’s on fire. It’s black. It’s devoid of color and sound and reason. The world is as it has always been. Empty and godless. The stone that’s been waiting to drop has finally found the bottom of Bode’s stomach. It felt a little like getting shot, not that Bode knows what that feels like but he imagines it feels a little like this.

He liked them young. He liked them young. He liked them young. He liked them young. He liked them young. HelikedthemyounghelikedthemyounghelikedthemYOUNG!

This entire time Bode had been terrified Kaiser was selling Espen radical propaganda, too busy being worried about his brother getting wrapped up in the wrong politics that he hadn’t even considered worse scenarios. Maybe he purposely avoided the obvious conclusion because he wanted to believe his brother wasn’t stupid enough to fall under the spell of a man so much like their father.

All that time spent keeping his brother safe from his father’s restless hands and he still manages to fall into the jaws of a wolf. He’d feel sick if he wasn’t so full of rancor. Whatever pity he had for Ricky was long gone. There was only the fire in his veins, blood gone acidic with venom.] A complicated man? [He bites each word with clenched teeth. Bode steps towards Ricky, bones stiff with rage.] You just implied he fucked my baby brother. Complicated doesn’t cover it, kid. Being a shit father doesn’t even scratch the surface. [He gives Ricky an incredulous look.]

But you’ve got one thing right. No one here is being honest about what kind of man Kaiser was. [He points at him.] Including you. You think you’re a better man because you’re willing to talk shit about him to a stranger? Why don’t you go in there and look everyone in the eye and tell them what kind of person he really is.

[[ Bode steps towards him. Ricky flinches, steps away from the wall, doesn’t care if he gets some rain on his back. Looking up at the man, one who’s clearly never been to a funeral before with a scowl. ]] I thought I was a self absorbed prick. [[ Ricky takes another drag of his smoke, is careless about keeping it out of Bode’s face, now. If he’s going to step into his space, Bode deserves a face full of it.

Even Ricky would assume he’d meet this attitude with anger: but there’s none to be found. Simply defeat. Exhaustion. ]] Look everyone in the eye? [[ The laugh is twisted, sudden. ]] No-one fucking likes me! They love Kaiser though! You think that man had any modesty? Wore his crimes like a bloody crown. Everyone in there who’s sad? Yell at them! They know exactly the kind of bastard he was and they still mourn him!

At least I have the excuse that he—he was my dad. I spent years with that... [[ That overwhelming, terrifying sort of love. Suffocating love: as suffocating as his hugs, as his large hands smoothing down his hair. Tears begin to well up once more, he furiously wipes at his eyes. ]] I tried, I fucking tried to leave him. To forget him. [[ Instead, he even won that unspoken battle. Kaiser left first, left Ricky with only the heavy weight of his disappointment to remember him by. ]]

C. LUPEI:

[Ricky describes his behaviour as pathetic; Constantin’s pretty sure that’s just his age talking. Ricky can’t be much more than mid twenties; it’s a prideful time, when you think the best thing you can be is independent. When you’re isolated for long enough you realise the beauty of being able to lean on people sometimes.] 

Why ‘pathetic’? Is not bad to ask for help sometimes. If I could have call for help from space I vould do – there is no virtue in to suffer alone.

.

Do you ask for help? I’ve seen you in training. I know you don’t. [[ Ricky shakes his head, knows that if he wasn’t pathetic before he is now, picking on a man who’s clearly seen better days. ]] Easy to say you want help.

F. TURNER:

[Felix is trying his best not to crumble in his uncertainty what to say. He’s a little uncomfortable, but not because he doesn’t want to be here, just because he wants to say the right thing, but he doesn’t know what the right thing is.

He pauses a short moment after Ricky’s ‘likeable’ comment. Though he knows it wasn’t really asking for reply and Ricky was mostly talking to himself, Felix answers anyway.] I like you, [he stresses. It’s quiet too—not quite a whisper, but still on a breath. People have told him he’s not very likeable in the past, and a part of him thinks maybe it’d be a helpful thing to say here, if he could say something like that out loud without it hurting his pride. He doesn’t believe it—he doesn’t want to believe it—and he’s afraid that if he says it out loud, it’ll make it more real. It’ll give it power. So instead, he leaves it at that: he likes Ricky. And maybe it’s not enough, but it’s true. 

Then he thinks of something else.] Charlie likes you, too, I know. There are people who don’t like me for whatever reason, but that doesn’t mean they’re right. [Kip certainly isn’t right.] Some people just can’t… stomach strong personalities. People are threatened by people who are confident, or who speak their mind or challenge them to be better. Not everyone can be, like, all sugar and spice and everything nice, you know? 

[ ‘He only spoke to me once. Wasn’t happy to see me.’ Felix swallows. Watches Ricky run his hand through his hair, the way his eyes blur, and he ducks his chin, turns his face. Felix reaches out to take his hand—threads his fingers through Ricky’s and grips it tight before Ricky can pull away. He doesn’t know what to say, so he just listens for a while, thumb stroking over the back of Ricky’s hand.

‘Maybe you’re lucky you never knew her. She gets to stay perfect.‘ He’d never really thought about it that way. And in his head, his mother is perfect. Though, that’s probably why his father got so much of his resentment. There was nowhere else for it to go. Nothing could touch the fabricated memories of his mother, she could do no wrong. But his father—his father could.] 

Maybe… [he echoes gently, nodding. Buying time, filling the silence.] And maybe… maybe that’s part of why you came here. You didn’t know he was going to pass but he… but you got to be here, to see him one last time. Maybe it would have been worse if you didn’t. You might have always wondered. I know… silver linings aren’t really helpful in, um, a time like this. But it does sound a little like it was… fate. That you were here. 

[[ ‘I like you.’ Ricky simply looks at Felix. Watches as he keeps talking mentions Charlie (it makes his chest tighten, Charlie hasn’t even messaged him yet). As he talks, though, Ricky thinks that Fee is talking to himself. He has too, doesn’t he? Barely knows Ricky well enough to say anything of value. Says Ricky has a strong personality ,is confident. That is the first thing to pull a more genuine smile from Ricky. Where is this so called confidence?

It’s not with him whenever he’s alone with Charlie. When he was alone with Kaiser. ]] Oh, mon cher, you barely know me. I’m easy to like, at first.

[[ Fingers curling tight into his own are the first thing to truly give him pause. It’s a friendly, kind gesture. The younger man was right to tighten his grip: his impulse was to pull away.

Got to see him one last time.                                 Silver linings.                                                 Fate.

He’s right about one thing: silver linings aren’t helpful. Ricky scoffs, rips his hand away. ]] It’s not fucking fate. If it is, she is cruel! Be kinder if I fucking died with asteroids! Skipped out on this whole bullshit attempt at ‘living’! Went with ma mère!

C. ESSEX:

I’m still standing, [[ Charlie counters, glancing up at Ricky with a slow grin again as he does carefully pinch the prongs close to the fabric of his jeans, pulling them cleanly out. It wasn’t enough to make him bleed, or if so, not enough to show through his pants.

He straightens up and seems to shake it off, pushing his shoulders back to broaden and stretch his chest before rolling his limbs. At Ricky’s request, though, he scoffs a little and shakes his head. ]] What? No. I’m not gonna tase you. [[ Charlie couldn’t care less what happens to him, but he doesn’t want to hurt Ricky. ]]

D. CARRINGTON:

[Ricky inhales; Dante pretends not to feel the wave of want and envy in him at the cloud of smoke that is exhaled. A cigarette really would relax him so much, and his gaze lingers for a moment on the stick between Ricky’s fingers before he drags his gaze away to the window. He wants to open and let in a little fresh air, but it’s not particularly warm outside and Dante gets cold easily. Well, and he doesn’t really want to air the smell of smoke out. It’s comforting.

Doesn’t do much for his focus though. His patients have probably noticed he’s been distracted lately, more terse than usual. He wants to focus on work and take his mind off things – it’s why he’s here now. Sense of duty. Desire to help. It’s all from a place of selfishness though.] 

There’s not really any ‘shoulds’ or ‘shouldn’ts’ when it comes to grief. When my grandmother died, my mother was the chief mourner and she was so busy bossing everyone about that she didn’t stop to feel sad. She didn’t cry for months, actually, and that was a death she ‘should’ have been sad about. Kaiser was still your father, even if he wasn’t a good one; it’s okay to grieve in whatever way comes to you. It can often feel worse after the funeral, because you’re not waiting for something, you’re just getting on with life – I hope you know my door’s always open if you want to talk about it.

[He considers specifying ‘office’ door, because he doesn’t want to encourage Ricky to turn up at his bedroom at all hours – but in this situation, he’s willing to make an exception. Boundaries shift when someone’s father dies, and Ricky was vulnerable even before.]

[[ Dante is fortunate that his distraction isn’t noticed by Ricky. Naturally self obsessed, selfish, and other such inward pointed descriptors: he doesn’t realise Dante is distracted. The therapist always had a detached air to him. It’s no different to Ricky.

Even talking about his grandmother dying, his mother not dealing with it—none of it lands. It’s different, for him. The D’Mornay-Bähr family is not and never was like any other family. They’re all fucked and wrong, just how they were born. ]]

C. ESSEX:

[[ Ricky’s wrong about one thing; even in his anguish, even tasting of salt and smelling of smoke, Charlie still thinks he’s beautiful. The arms around his neck draw him in closer, and Charlie loops his own arms around Ricky’s waist without even thinking.

Ricky is right, unfortunately, in thinking it’s not the right time. Thankfully, Charlie is neither too stupid nor too oblivious — two of his frequent defining character traits — to realize it. He accepts this one kiss because for a split-second he wants to be selfish, when sometimes Ricky’s affection is kept close to his chest and carefully guarded. But that doesn’t change the fact that he can feel the wetness of Ricky’s cheeks and that edge of desperation and, despite everything, Charlie lets the kiss linger but keeps it carefully chaste. ]]

Ricky… [[ he says quietly and with furrowed brows as he pulls away, not admonishing or encouraging, simply… saying his name. Neutral. Trying to ground him. One arm says looped around Ricky to keep him close but his other hand comes to settle its palm against Ricky’s chest — again, not pushing him away, just a gesture for Ricky to focus on. Ideally, a distraction, but he’s starting to think it’s not that kind of distraction that Ricky wants. But the distraction Ricky wants isn’t one Charlie is going to offer, not when he’s the one who can tell with all due clarity that they’d both end up regretting it. It’d do more damage than good. ]]

Have you eaten? [[ he murmurs instead, hand moving to brush a stray tear from Ricky’s sharp jawline with his thumb. ]] I can get you something. [[ Charlie’s love language: let me do something, let me help. ]]

[[ For one maddening, perfect second, Charlie accepts the kiss. Then he doesn’t. Then Ricky’s feeling the sharp sting of rejection no matter how hard Charlie tries to temper that. His name isn’t said how he wanted it to be. It’s—it’s simple. A palm on his chest to ground him, make him take a second.

The palm settling on his chest feels like a subtle push backwards, yet an arm stays looped around him. Charlie’s keeping a distance but keeping him close. Ricky has no say in this. Charlie even admonishes him for trying.

The neutral tone twisting, Ricky putting too much stock in the change. Why’s Charlie so quiet? Why’s he acting so serious? As though the answer wasn’t obvious.

Ricky bites his lip, looking away from Charlie but not moving away : embarrassment is the only real feeling or thought. It’s better than crying, at least. Feeling stupid and small in Charlie’s lap doesn’t hurt as much. ]] Why does everyone want to feed me? [[ Ricky mumbles against Charlie’s hand. He’s selfish. He’s selfish and he turns his lips into Charlie’s palm, speaks into it and kisses it. ]]