rise 'til we fall

Parker didn’t want to take too much of the words. He was saying what anyone would. He just didn’t know what else to do for the boy; not only was there the loss of so many other families that everyone was going through and to throw on a death… it was for lack of better terms… shitty timing. “No problem.” He finally muffled out.  “It could happen again. That’s what we have to prepare for. I don’t want to sound like an asshole but we are a bunch of dumb ass kids running around thinking we know what the hell we can handle and some are smarter than others. The ones who want to party all night…” Parker cut himself off. “Like I was… we all were.” He said. “We just have to try to work together or at least work around each other.” 

parker’s sympathy wasn’t especially remarkable - it was common decency, really. but with so many ignoring george’s death, or worse, treating it as a joke, it was nice to have someone respond in a way that was rational and kind.

“no, it’s the truth,” jake assured him, nodding earnestly. there were still people running around, robbing the liquor stores and throwing parties, acting like nothing had even happened. and honestly, a horrible part of jake knew that if georgie hadn’t died...he would probably be one of those kids. “i’m not sure people will work together though. no one really seems to be stepping up and taking charge, or whatever.” lane was, to an extent. but her work was also sort of behind the scenes. she wasn’t calling meetings or assigning work or anything...yet.

                       –        she  stands  a  ways  away  from  jake  ,  but  her  knuckles  are  just  as  white.  she’s  found  a  clipboard  in  the  manager’s  back  office  ,  which  was  left  unlocked  and  un-ransacked.  the  clipboard  has  the  inventory  sheet  ,  half  filled  out  with  a  lewd  comment  written  over  some  items  in  childish  handwriting.  she  came  with  the  intent  on  stocking  and  counting  ,  but  stands  at  the  end  of  an  aisle  wondering  if  she  should  take  what  she  needs  now  before  it’s  too  late.  seeing  a  familiar  face  ,  she  lets  out  a  relieved  sigh  and  approaches  him  just  as  he  speaks.          “  well  ,  seeing  as  the  only  things  taken  so  far  are  mostly  chips  and  beer  –  probably  a  while.  ”  she  places  the  clipboard  on  a  shelf.              “  you  here  to  get  some  treats  or  some  reasonable  food  ?  ”

glancing over at lane, he takes note of her clipboard. good. someone should take inventory, just to be sure they didn’t run out of food. in case no one did come get them for awhile. “that’s good,” he says, nodding absentmindedly. “um,” he glances back towards the shelves. “probably reasonable stuff. but, i’m not really good at cooking, or whatever.” it’s true. as archaic as it might be, his mom always handled that. she always made sure they had a home cooked meal at night. “something i can microwave, maybe,” he shrugs. “need some help with that?” he asks, nodding towards the clipboard.

Parker instantly flinched to hear that the boy was in fact close with the other who past. It made all of this harder to go around now without sounding overly sympathetic. “Oh…” Parker said with a heavy sigh. “I’m really sorry, that this had to happen to him.” Parker looked at the ground and shrugged. 

“Well…” How was he going to explain how he thought how this would go? To someone who was already so sad and upset. “Think about it, after this it is going to cause shock and fear. People are already not used to having things running and working around them and to add the weight of a death… It’s just going to be hard. I don’t know, I can’t just say I’m right but none of this seem like it could ever go right. People don’t know what to do and his death just is going to spark something bad. I can feel it.” Parker wasn’t being optimistic but he wasn’t going to think for the best and just hope that something will happen.

jake nodded, glancing up at the other. “thank you,” he said quietly. he appreciated it, honestly. at least someone else was acknowledging just how much this sucked. it affected jake, nat and santi more than just about anyone else - it meant a lot that parker offered his sympathy. 

listening intently, jake took in his words. if what he said was true, then george’s death was just the beginning. hopefully it would be the only death, but it wouldn’t be the only drastic action to occur in the near future, more than likely. “that makes sense,” he acknowledged, biting his lower lip. “the fight was fucking crazy, but it might happen again. people are crazy,” he shook his head, hating that more bad things could happen. 

          content warning: death mention, blood mention, inability to eat, grieving a loss.

he hasn’t eaten. the one thing santiago can bring himself to focus on right now is the way his stomach is constricting itself, growling angrily every now and then to remind him of the fact that he hasn’t eaten. not since he left for the trip, anyways – and he doesn’t know how long it’s been since then ( he hasn’t been keeping track of time, not since… ), but it’s been long enough that he can’t ignore it anymore. the thing is, he knows for a fact that if he tries to eat, he won’t be able to keep it down. so he just thinks about it – thinks about how he hasn’t eaten, repeats the words over and over in his head, because if he lets his mind wander for even a fraction of a second, he’ll start thinking about georgie, and georgie’s eyes, and his smile, and his voice, and the weight of his body in his lap, the warmth of blood on his hands, and if he had just thought about helping others before he thought about protecting himself, if he hadn’t been so SELFISH, maybe he would have been there, maybe he would’ve been able to ——– 

            ‘how could this happen?’ 

jake’s voice pulls him out of the headspace he’s in, eases the vice grip he has on his own hair where his head is bowed to stare into his lap. he realizes that he’s crying again, tears wetting the fabric of his sweatpants ( the ones his friends had so graciously helped him to change into while he’d been in a semi-catatonic state for a while ). rather than gripping his hair hard enough to make his scalp hurt, he rests his hand on the back of his neck, inhaling slowly, shakily. ( keep breathing, he reminds himself. ) 

“———i told him to have fun,” he croaks, voice gravelly, wracked by hours of tears, by fits of screaming protests when people tried to move him away from george’s body the previous night. “———i-i-i — i told him – that we were never gonna get — a-another chance to —– to party like that.” he sniffles, moving his hand to wipe his nose. “——-i SAID that, jake, i —- can – can you believe i SAID that?”

heart constricting at the sight of santi, jake felt tears welling in his own eyes all over again. it’s killing him, seeing the other boy like this, knowing that jake can’t do a single thing about it. jake was close to george, but santi was always his best friend. what right did jake have to grieve when he had played a part in georgie’s death, anyway? if he had stopped the fight, then george would still be here and nat, santi and jake wouldn’t be broken. 

without thinking, jake moved to sit beside santi, closer than he ever normally would have. “you didn’t know,” he reminded the boy, knowing it would do little to ease his guilt. hell, at this point, jake isn’t sure anything will ease his own. “you couldn’t have known that was going to happen, santi. you couldn’t.” maybe the words were hypocritical coming from jake, but they were true. santi wasn’t at fault in anyway here. “you didn’t do anything wrong.”

Parker had very few people he trusted now. People after this fight looked like strangers to him. The party got out of hand and now the whole town was dealing with a loss and as Parker knew very little about handling bodies as he started his EMT training it was the help he put in with a few others to make sure things were handled properly but that was all. He didn’t like the way this whole town was turning and he knew he needed to take a step back eventually or he’d get wrapped up in something he didn’t want. But as he entered a room only to find himself walking in on the boy breaking down he cleared his throat. “It was… people being careless.” He said in a low tone. Not sure how to comfort someone after something like this he sighed and moved to the boys side. 

 “This is one of those eye opening moments. It’s a shame.” He said shaking his head. “And it’s only going to get worse from here.” Parker felt guilty for being apart of that stupid party. Especially now. “Did… you know him well?” 

one thing was for sure; this was an eye opening moment. no one seemed to care about the tragedy they had all just witnessed; outside of a handful of people, it seemed like everyone was more than happy to continue on their merry way. jake had no idea how so many people could be so heartless; even if george hadn’t been hugely popular, he was still a person. his death mattered. 

jake gave a quick nod, eyes falling back to the floor. “he was one of my best friends. we’d known each other since we were kids,” jake admitted, rubbing at his eyes again. “what do you mean it’s going to get worse?”

“it just did. no point CRYING over it.” arturo said, tossing a few peanuts into his mouth nonchalantly before looking at the male who looked like he’d cried RIVERS. jesus christ. this entire thing was ridiculous. people died everyday. what was the big deal about this george guy? arturo had only spoken to him a couple of times before, and he’d seemed pretty EXPENDABLE, but now everyone and their son was crying over him. “let me guess.. he leant you a pen once in biology class. and it just so happened to be your favourite pen. and now he’s…” art clenched a hand, dramatically, to his chest. “.. he’s DEAD before you can give him that DAMN $2 pen back. tragic. honestly.”

he felt frozen. arturo was right; there was no reason for jake to cry. men weren’t supposed to; they had to be the strong ones. roughly wiping his eyes, jake tried to force himself to calm down. but then, arturo continued to talk, and jake felt - well, he felt angry. how dare he assume jake and george barely knew each other? how dare he think that jake was crying for no reason? what right did he have to make fun of him? “fuck you. he was one of my best friends,” jake frowned, brow creasing. “we had been friends since we were kids. so maybe stop being an asshole for a few minutes, yeah? at least wait until his body’s cold.”

they  removed  george’s  body  from  the  church  by  now,  but  she  can’t  help  lingering,  still  trying  to  wrap  her  head  around  the  last  few  hours.  nothing  is  going  right;  first  their  parents  are  nowhere  to  be  found,  no  one  can  contact  anyone  outside  of  town,  and  now  all  of  this.  if  she’s  honest,  as  much  as  she  misses  her  parents,  the  pain  of  missing  georgie  is  worse.  at  least  with  her  parents,  maybe  they’ll  come  back  soon.  it’s  a  terrifying,  gut-wrenching  idea  now,  because  she  doesn’t  want  to  explain  what’s  happened.  but  with  george,  he’s  never  coming  back  and  that’s  —  that’s  one  of  the  worst  things.  he’s  gone  and  they’re  all  still  here.  he’s  gone  and  what  happens  when  his  family  comes  back?  natalia  shuts  her  eyes,  trying  to  will  that  particular  thought  away.

as  she  finally  walks  away  from  the  once  gruesome  scene,  she  notices  she’s  still  bleeding  from  where  she  tore  open  her  bottom  lip.  the  notion  of  cleaning  it  up  passes  her  mind,  eventually,  while  she  continues  to  venture  within  the  church.  when  she  hears  jake’s  voice  however,  she  stops.  the  blood  in  her  mouth  can  wait  —  as  her  eyes  land  on  his  figure,  her  heart  aches  more,  if  possible.  she  doesn’t  know  what  to  say  in  response.  she  doesn’t  know,  and  she  hates  it.  with  a  bloodied  smile,  weak  and  hardly  even  there  and  most  definitely  about  to  break  under  the  weight  of  their  circumstance,  natalia  slowly  extends  an  arm  towards  her  ex  —  one  of  her  best  friends  since  childhood.

“come  here,”  she  speaks  softly,  her  own  voice  cracking.  what  she  wants  to  say  is  it’s  okay  to  cry.  it’s  okay  to  be  sad,  or  angry,  or  outright  devastated  by  their  friend’s  unjust  death.  they  have  the  right  to  be.  but,  she  also  knows  it  isn’t  that  simple.  “it…”  although  nat  could  have  easily  said  what  practically  everyone  else  is  thinking,  she  opts  not  to.  instead,  she  lets  her  forced  smile  drop  as  her  gaze  never  leaves  jake.  like  some  newly  developed  habit  of  stress,  once  more  she  bites  her  bloody  lip.  it  burns  in  a  numbing  sort  of  way,  though  natalia  prefers  it  to  the  pain  of  losing  someone  so  important  to  her.  “i’m  still  trying  to  process  it.”

she’s one of the only people in the world who can understand him right now. the four of them - nat, santi, jake and george - had been their own tight-knit little group for so long. losing a member of their group - well, to jake, it felt like losing part of himself. and how do you bounce back from that? how do you pick up the pieces after losing a best friend?

at her request, jake reached out to wrap her up in a tight hug. it helps, just a tiny bit, but the ache is still there. “are you okay?” he asked, his voice still sounding watery and broken. maybe soon he would stop, maybe soon he would toughen up. but for now, his tears wouldn’t stop. “you’re bleeding.”

“Not even a little,” Lily said as she pulled him in for a hug. She may not have many words right now, but she still wanted to help the boy. And honestly? She wouldn’t turn down a hug right now either. Lily couldn’t read minds, and she didn’t have all the information, but Jake was clearly a lot more upset than a lot of people. And it seemed personally painful to him. “I’m so sorry, Jake. I’m really sorry,” she said quietly into his shoulder. She was determined to be there for the boy as well as she could.

before he could talk himself out of it, she was hugging him. hesitantly, his arms raised to hug her back, giving in and resting his head on her shoulder before he could stop himself. it had been a rough day, and the thought of moving past this overwhelmed jake. his grief felt like it would swallow him, honestly. “thank you,” he mumbled quietly, face still pressed against her shoulder. “he was...we were close, you know? and now he’s gone.”

Lily hadn’t expected to see anyone else in the kitchen. She was on her way out to the green and needed water before she left the church. She stopped when Jake started talking. “I don’t know. I mean. Philosophically speaking,” she paused and decided against psychology talk right now. “I don’t know.” She approached the boy further and tried to get a better look at his face. “Uh, do you need a hug?” she had forgotten everything she studied in college, all she could offer now was this.

philosophically speaking, she began. as if aristotle or plato might have some sort of explanation for why one of the people jake loved most in the world was just suddenly gone. they couldn’t possibly be able to justify why george, who was kind and good, had died trying to stop a fight. “i don’t know either,” he said quietly, voice sad and small. looking at lily as she approached, he stopped trying so hard to wipe his tears away. “do you...do you mind?” jake asked, worried that it was weak or embarrassing to want comfort from someone else right now.