#mads writes

Boy’s working on empty,

Is that the kinda way to face the burning heat?

Eugene Roe had been working to the bone. His fingers smeared with a mixture of blood and dirt. He wasn’t sure where his own blood had mingled with the other men’s.

He hadn’t slept in 16 hours. Or perhaps it was closer to 20. He wasn’t sure. The sun had started to peak over the treetops. The snow a gray sludge littered with shrapnel and splintered wood. He couldn’t stop, darting between foxholes, checking on the men. He couldn’t rest, not yet.

I just think about my baby

When the bombs started dropping at around 3am, and Gene scrambled to his foxhole all he could do was pray. He pleaded with God and Saint Francis. Lord, grant that I shall never seek as much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, or to be loved as to love with all my heart. With all my heart.

Her picture lay in his breast pocket, Tucked between a carton of cigarettes and his scissors. The edges torn and frail. As the bombs splinter the trees and chunks of mud splatter over his body, her eyes burn into his mind like precious jewels. As he curled into the foxhole, he could so vividly see her hair glistening in the Louisiana sun. He’d take her there, after the war. She would meet his maman, and he’d take her out on the bayou.

I’m so full of love I could barley eat

It was her birthday today, Eugene thought as he sat with his cooling cup of beans. He wasn’t hungry. Just thinking about her, was enough to keep him going. The thought of her soft hands, unstained, her clothes not covered in blood. That was enough for him.

His heart quickened when he thought of her. When the world is free from war, i’ll follow you wherever you go, cherie he had promised her the last time he saw her. He meant it. Every word. He’d follow her to the ends of the earth, the thought alone was enough to keep him moving.

I’d never want once from the Cherry tree

When they moved from the Bois Jacques and into Germany all Gene could think about was how he wanted to whisk her away to a chateau in the mountains. He couldn’t imagine how a man like Hitler could live in such a place when his cherie wasn’t.

He didn’t indulge himself like the rest of the men. The wine was too sweet. Something she would have loved. no. He didn’t need any of it, the war would soon be over and that was enough for him.

‘Cause my baby’s sweet as can be,

She gives me toothaches just from kissing me

Before he left, Gene would routinely walk to the house she was staying in. Knocking on the front door and greeting the kind elderly couple she stayed with, and every time her sweet summer dresses would knock the wind out of his chest. The smile she gave him was kind, it was good. She was always the sweetest, a hand holding his as they walked through the streets, tucked under his arm as she softly rattled on about her garden.

When my time comes around, Lay me gently in the cold dark earth

The bombing of the Bois Jacques forest kept Eugene busy. He was always running between breaks of shellfire, making sure the men weren’t hit, and fixing them up when they were. He couldn’t stop, not when they needed him. His fingers were numb, pink and stiff from where they held the back of his head. He had no time to think about anything but surviving and making sure the men survived.

When the shelling would stop, and the men were accounted for, he looked through the splintered branches of the tress, dirt for a bed. Exhausted wasn’t a strong enough word for what he felt. He ached in his bones, so tired he thought he may not even get out of the foxhole come first light. If he didn’t, the last thing he’d think about was her

No grave can hold my body down, I’ll crawl home to her

When the war ended and Eugene dressed in his best formal greens. He was a shell of the man he was before the war. The English winter did little to aid the persistent ache in his bones. He stood out the front of her house, the door still painted blue. He made a promise, and dammit he was going to fulfil it.

When the door swung open and her arms hugged him tighter than he felt he deserved, all he could do was sigh at the smell of her shampoo, and cling to her tighter.

Battered and bruised both mentally and physically, nothing would have stopped him from coming back to her, to his home.

——

A/N: wanted to try something a little different, never written a single fic before!

TAGS:

The school had been closed for who knew how years, the sun-bleached sign still bolted to the chain-link fence out front. The mascot was a faded cartoon bobcat missing half of its face due weathering and time. Somebody had left the flagpole up, a torn and discolored flag waving in the soft wind, the rope ticking softly against metal.

"Wonder if we can get an education here." Mo joked. this time Brooke didn't tell him to stop.

She'd changed before they left the house, of the jeans and sweatshirt she'd worn all day, into her velvet cloak. It was nothing like the plain black ones Mo had already seen. She'd done it in front of the mirror without a word of explanation, and Mo hadn't asked, because some part of him understood already that this wasn't out of vanity. He knew it was to seem as if she was falling back into line, as if she was being obedient and submissive.

"Do you really gotta wear that?" he asked, quietly, standing in the doorway watching her.

"I do." She responded, jumping slightly. His voice startled her but she hadn't turned around. "If I walk in there without making an effort to make it look like I’ll listen and obey, it makes both of us a target before we're through the door."

Now, standing at the edge of the parking lot with the building in front of them, she looked exactly what she needed to look like. Untouchable, composed. She belonged to the Family, but was walking in of her own free will. At some point during the ride, she’d reached over to grab his hand. He hadn’t said anything about it, didn’t want to bring it up or make it known he could tell she didn’t want to do this. Instead he just held onto her hand and drove, quietly.

"Last chance." she mumbled, not looking at him, eyes on the double doors propped open at the end of the sidewalk, light seeping out from somewhere deep inside. "You can still stay in the car, I won’t be offended."

"No, I can't." Mo responded, following her gaze towards the metal doors.

"No," she agreed, softer. "I don’t think you can, just thought I'd offer."

The gym still had the painted bobcat on the far wall, partially covered now by black cloth that hung from floor to ceiling. It looked more tacky than if they had just attempted to paint over it. Overhead, the old fluorescent panels buzzed and flickered, one of them flickering in a broken rhythm that made the whole room feel like it was breathing. There were no candles, no warmth to the light at all, just that flat institutional glare, and thirty-some people in plain black cloaks sitting beneath it.

At the center of it all, on what had probably once been a stage for elementary school assemblies, stood Sean. He didn't look like a monster. That was the first thing Mo noticed, and it landed like a blow anyway. However, up close under the buzzing lights, something was wrong with him that hadn't come through on the phone. His hands wouldn't stay still, his eyes moved a half-second too fast, tracking things that weren't there, and there was a sheen of sweat at his hairline despite the cold in the room. He looked like a man running a fever, or coming off one.

"Brooklyn." His voice carried easily across the gym, warm in a way that made Mo's skin crawl. "You made it, and so did our guest."

"I brought him because you asked me to," Brooke said. Her voice didn't shake at all, not once despite the situation. Mo had no idea how she managed it. They had no idea what they were walking into here. "Let's get this over with, please, Sean."

"So eager." Sean muttered as eyes shifted to Mo, and something in them sharpened, curious and calculating, though his fingers kept moving against his own sleeve. "That phone call took nerve." He stepped down from the stage, making his way towards the two. "I want to talk to my sister, alone. You'll wait here."

"Uhh. . yeah, not happening." Mo said, moving to step in front of Brooke.

"That wasn't a request." Sean's tone didn't change. Two of the cloaked figures nearest Mo shifted, and he understood very quickly exactly how little say he had in the matter. "Brooke. Five minutes." Brooke's eyes found Mo's, and for just a second, her perfectly held together composure cracked.

"It's fine, I’ll be okay." she said, though it clearly wasn't. "I'll be right back."

"Brooke."

"Five minutes, Mo." Her voice hardened, yet her gaze stayed soft on him. "Let me handle this." He watched her follow her brother through a side door into what had probably once been an office. The moment it shut behind them, the two cloaked figures closed in on either side of Mo, hands firm on his arms. He understood that whatever was about to happen, it hadn't been waiting on Sean's permission at all. They were just waiting for Brooke to be out of the room.

The office still had its old fluorescent panel overhead, one bulb dead, another buzzing into the silence of the office. Sean shut the door behind them and, for a moment, just looked at his sister, the warmth from the gym draining slowly out of his face.

Up close, without a crowd to perform for, he looked worse. Younger, somehow, and unraveled at the edges. Brooke noticed everything; his restless hands, the way his weight shifted from foot to foot like standing was tiring for him. Brooke's jaw tightened at the sight of it, and a familiar grief moved across her face before she could stop it.

"How long has it been since you stepped away?" she asked quietly, stepping towards her brother.

"I don’t get to step away." Sean's voice had an edge of defensiveness that came too fast, too raw. "The Speaker, it’s a part of me, I understand things, I can’t just st-" He stopped himself, pressed the heel of his hand briefly against one eye. "You wouldn't understand. You never let yourself go far enough in to understand."

"I understand just enough, Sean. I understand that my brother isn’t who he used to be." Her voice cracked on the words, more sorrow in it now than anger. "I understand that you look like you haven't slept in a week, and I know exactly why, and it terrifies me, it always has."

"You brought a stranger into our house." He said it like it hurt him to say, jabbing his finger at her. "After everything I've done to keep you safe, you let a stranger through the door like it was nothing, and now look where that's gotten you."

"He's not a stranger, Sean! You know who he is!" Brooke crossed her arms, fighting back tears. "And I didn't let him in because I was careless. I let him in because I'm tired, I am so tired of being the only one of us who still remembers what we were like before all this, what life was like before we were bowing to some eldritch being." Something flickered across Sean's face. It wasn’t quite anger, not right away, it was something closer to hurt.

"You think I don't remember?" Sean spat, glaring now at his sister, his little sister who he’d do anything for, the one he held up on a pedestal.

"I think you remember it the way you remember everything now, through whatever bits and pieces the Speaker doesn’t corrupt." Her voice dropped. "I followed you into this, Sean. You remember that part, right? I didn’t want anything, nothing else, I just wanted my brother. I followed you because I wasn't going to let you just disappear into this alone, and I have spent every year since then watching you disappear into it regardless." Sean flinched, like the words had physically landed a blow. For a moment the restlessness in him stilled, and he looked, briefly, like the brother she was still trying to hold onto; young, uncertain, scared of something bigger than himself.

"I never wanted you to follow me into this, but what could I do, huh?" he said, quiet now. "I wanted you safe. That's all I've ever wanted, and every year it gets harder to remember how to do that without the Speaker's help, and I hate that, Brooke, I hate what it's do-" He cut himself off, jaw tightening, and when he spoke again his voice had hardened back over, defensive. "It doesn't matter. None of it matters if you're going to keep bringing fucking strangers in without warning."

"He's not the threat here though, Sean." Brooke's eyes were wet now, but her voice held steady, as steady as it could that was. "You are. You’re the threat to yourself, and I don't know how to keep saving you from that. I can’t pick though, I cannot be forced to choose between helping my brother or helping Lee’s brother here."

"Then don't." Something desperate showed through in his voice. "Walk away from him tonight. Come home, let me protect you the way I'm supposed to as your big brother, the way I promised you I would, back before-" He stopped again, breathing hard. His eyes went distant, unfocused and chasing a thought that wasn't his own anymore. When he refocused on her, his voice had gone flat and cold. "Five minutes are up, Brooke."

"Sean." She caught his sleeve as he turned to walk away. For just a moment, the fury dropped out of her voice entirely, leaving something younger and more frightened underneath it. "Please. Don't hurt him tonight. Whatever you're planning in there, please. I am begging you." Sean looked down at her hand on his arm for a long moment, something almost like grief showing across his face.

"You still don't understand, do you?" he said softly. "I'm not the one you should be begging tonight. I stopped being the one in charge of what happens a long time ago." He gently pulled his sleeve free of her hand. "I just try to make sure it doesn't cost more than it has to."

By the time Brooke came back through the side door, something in the gymnasium had already shifted. Mo was on his knees near the center of the room, one of the cloaked figures gripping his hair, forcing his head up, and there was blood at his lip that hadn't been there five minutes before.

"Mo-" Brooke started forward, and a hand closed hard around her arm, holding her back. Carol’s hand, tight and firm.

"You'll watch." Carol said quietly, not unkindly, which was somehow worse than if she had been cruel about it. "That's the price of bringing him here, dear. You don't get to look away from what it costs." Sean crossed to stand in front of Mo, crouching slightly to bring them eye to eye. Up close, under the buzzing lights, his hands were shaking again, and his voice had gone almost soft, it almost had a tinge of pity.

"Where's Lee?" Mo spat out, blood in his teeth. He refused to look anywhere but straight ahead, right at Sean. "That's all I want. Tell me where he is and I'll walk out of here and you'll never hear from me again. Hell, I won’t even speak to Brooke."

"Nah. . . I don't think that's true." Sean tilted his head, studying him with an unsteady kind of focus, like he had to work to keep Mo in it. "I think you'll keep looking no matter what I tell you tonight. I think that's just simply who you are." He nodded, almost to himself, and straightened, swaying slightly on the way up. "Which is a problem I intend to solve permanently. But,” he glanced past Mo, to Brooke, to the fury and terror openly showing on her face now that the mask had finally slipped. "Not tonight. Tonight, I just wanted you to understand something."

He crouched again, closer this time, voice dropping low enough that only Mo could hear it.

"My sister followed me into this," Sean said, grabbing Mo’s face to make sure he looked at him. "Not the other way around. Everyone thinks I built this for her, I didn't. She chose this, chose to follow me. But now I don't know how to be worth what that cost her, so I keep her close instead, because it's the only way I know how to try." Something desperate flickered in his eyes, gone as quickly as it came. "You should have asked her what that costs before you dragged her into your search too." He straightened, nodded once to the man holding Mo's hair, and stepped back. "Let him go," Sean muttered. "He's seen enough tonight."

Sean turned now, fully facing toward his sister. He could feel the lecture rising in him, his shoulders tense now, as he made his way towards her.

"You want to be angry with me?" he said. "Fine, be fucking angry. But understand what you're asking for when you beg me to let this go." He gestured toward Mo without quite looking at him. "Lee was my best friend, Brooke. Before all of this, before any of this happened. He was my friend, and I’m sorry for what I’ve had to do." His voice cracked, thin and raw under the lecture's surface. "I don't get to have friends anymore. I traded that a long time ago for something that actually keeps its promises. And if I don't get to have that, then you don't either. That's not cruelty, it’s just how it is now."

"How it is now?" Brooke's voice broke entirely as she questioned her brother, all the composure she'd carried earlier finally giving out all at once. "Sean, are you hearing yourself? You're describing a punishment and calling it fairness."

"I'm describing balance."

"You're describing loneliness, and you're trying to force it onto me as well!" Tears were running now, she didn't bother wiping them away. "I don't want balance. I don't want the Speaker, I don't want this building, I don't want any of it. I want my brother back, the real one. The one who used to sneak me dessert at night when we were little, the one who-" Her voice gave out completely. She pressed a hand over her mouth as if she could physically hold the rest of it in. "I just want you back, Sean. That's all I have ever wanted. I didn't follow you here for the Speaker, I followed you here because I was scared of losing you, but I’m losing you anyway." It all spilled out anyways.

For a moment, something in Sean's face disappeared, the anger and lecturing gone out of his voice entirely. He opened his mouth like he might say something to meet her there. Then his eyes unfocused again, chasing something only he could see, and whatever had almost surfaced sank back under.

"He's seen enough tonight," Sean said instead, quieter now, and it wasn't clear anymore whether he meant Mo or himself. The grip released. Mo swayed, caught himself on his hands against the gym floor, and Brooke didn't wait for permission this time. She wrenched free of Carol’s hold and was already moving, dropping to her knees beside him before anyone could think to stop her.

"Hey, look at me, Mo. . Are you okay?" She asked, her hands hovering over him, shaking and unsure where it was safe to touch. Blood was still beading at his split lip. There was a darker bruise already rising along his jaw. "Can you stand? We need to get you up, we need to-" Her voice caught, and for a second the fear underneath the urgency came out. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I never should have let them do this. .”

"I'm fine." Mo's voice came out thick, unconvincing, but he got a hand around her arm anyway, grounding himself against her. "I'm okay, Brooke."

Across the gym, Sean stood apart from everyone, arms wrapped tight around himself, his hands still shaking. There was something unreadable and unraveling moving behind his eyes as he watched his sister kneel on the floor, holding together a man he'd just made very sure they both understood he could hurt whenever the Speaker decided he should.

"We're leaving," Brooke said, low, urgent, already angling them both toward the doors. "Right now, Mo, come on. ."

"Wait." Mo planted his feet, swaying but upright, and looked past her to where Sean still stood apart from the crowd, arms wrapped around himself, staring at the floor now like he'd forgotten anyone else was in the room. Something reckless was flowing through Mo’s mind, the adrenaline and pain mixing into one. "No. He doesn't get to just stand there."

"Mo, not right now. . ." But he was already moving. Three unsteady steps put him closer to Sean than any of the cloaked figures seemed prepared for. Before anyone could grab him again he swung. There was more weight behind it than skill, all fueled by anger. It caught Sean across the jaw and sent him stumbling back a step, more from surprise than force, and for one suspended second the entire gymnasium held its breath.

Then hands were on Mo from every direction, hauling him back, and Sean straightened slowly, touching his jaw. He didn't give the order Mo braced for. He just laughed, short and startled. It almost sounded delighted.

"There he is," Sean muttered. "There's the brother Lee talked about."

"Let him go." Brooke demanded sharply, trying to pull the hands off of Mo. "He's hurt, he's not thinking straight, and you got what you wanted tonight already. Let. Him. Go." Sean studied his sister for a long moment, the manic edge in him falling as quickly as it had risen. He nodded once, and the hands released Mo again.

"Everyone go." Sean said, waving his hand. "Give us the gym." They filed out slowly, figures moving toward the doors. Carol hesitated before she followed, casting one unreadable glance back before the doors swung shut behind the last of them. Then it was just the three of them under the buzzing lights, and the bobcat watching from behind its shroud. Brooke rounded on her brother, some of the fury from the office bleeding back into her voice.

"Was that supposed to prove something? Letting him hit you?" Brooke quietly sneered, staring at her brother.

"No." Sean rubbed his jaw, and when he looked at her, something had flickered in his face. It wasn't softness, just a crack too tired to be held shut. "I deserved it."

"Sean. ." Brooke’s voice softened.

"Don't." The crack sealed back over fast, his voice going hard again. "I said I deserved it. That's all you’re getting out of me."

"That's not enough anymore." Brooke's voice cracked, pleading now. "Let Lee go, this can stop tonight." The temperature in the gym dropped so fast Mo felt it in his teeth before he understood why. Sean's whole body went rigid, head snapping toward the dark hallway out past the doors, and whatever control he'd been holding onto broke apart all at once. His hands began shaking again, worse than before. His breathing had gone quick and ragged, eyes darting with a jittery energy that had nothing sane left in it.

"No. . . no, it’s not supposed to-" He didn't finish. He grabbed Brooke's wrist hard, too hard, and hauled her toward the side door, moving fast and wrong, more animal than brother. "We're leaving, we're leaving now."

"Sean, you're hurting me!" Brooke cried, twisting against his grip, trying to plant her feet and look back at Mo. Sean didn't slow, he didn’t seem to hear her at all, muttering something low and frantic under his breath that might have been an apology or maybe a prayer.

The fluorescent panels overhead popped, one by one, plunging the room into a darkness broken only by the faint glow from the parking lot through the propped doors. And in that darkness, low and wet and vibrating in the base of Mo's skull, came the sound he'd hoped never to hear again.

It didn't crawl through the doorway this time. It was simply there, already among them, folded into the shadows. Sean yanked Brooke sideways, cutting close to the stage in his panic to reach the side door, and the Speaker's head turned, fast, tracking the sudden motion the way a predator tracks its prey. A claw lashed out, not deliberate, not aimed, just reflexive, like the way a dog snaps at something too close. It caught Brooke across the shoulder and upper arm as Sean dragged her past.

She screamed, short and sharp, and went down hard on the gym floor, blood already dark against the black velvet and pooling on the hardwood floor.

"Brooke!" Mo ran towards her, ignoring the ache in his ribs. Sean had frozen completely, staring down at his sister on the floor like the sight had short circuited whatever panic had been driving him, hands raised and shaking, uselessly, in the air. "Come on, dude, get her up!" Mo snarled, shouldering past him without waiting for permission, dropping to his knees beside her. Brooke's face was white, her hand clamped over the gash in her shoulder, blood seeping dark between her fingers, Her eyes were open, darting around the room She was horrified.

"I'm okay, I’m okay." she gasped, obviously a lie. "I'm okay, just get me up, we nee-"