Except it was Alex Kralie who found him, who dragged him from where his broken body laid, who took him out into that forest; to that hospital, to that room, to where Hoodie's body then slumped against a wall. Brian's body. Both, neither of which mattered any longer.
Mourning was brief. Violent. Then gone.
Flies came and went. The cycles of the sun and moon warming and cooling and warming his discoloring flesh again.
For just a moment, one afternoon, a fawn still with spots of white curiously regarded the hooded, bruisey-hued visage. It was a tender moment, perhaps less so for the deer, but nice enough for the unattended body.
No one came to find him.
No one visited but the occasional bird through the building's busted windows. In time moss prickled over the surface of decaying skin and exposed bone and rotting cloth. Sunlight played over the window's shattered glass, a pattern of light splaying across sunken half-gone cheeks. It lent a certain warmth, not palpable, but emotionally, though no one was around to feel it.
A crow found him good company once. If only it could have stayed.
Plants found their way into the room's decaying structure; the wall behind him blackened at one point, oozed at another, bits crumbling from the influence of the rotting form that leaned upon it. Grasses pushed up between him and the wall, as best they could. The moss continued to thrive, a fine patchy coat over whatever was not against wall nor floor.
A breeze blew fallen half-decayed leaves across the floor, across Brian's legs.
It was a shame nothing took root easily up through the man's half-bared ribs, but then, they were almost protected beneath the almost-death-resisting fabric of that awful hoodie and the thin grey tshirt beneath. Time wanted so badly to take them. They held their ground, if poorly, but certainly more than 'not at all.'
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Footsteps.
They were not familiar; they did not know what they were coming to.
But it was lucky, whoever they were, they saw what others may not have. The grasses intertwining up around his back, albeit sparsely; the fine hints of moss, the dark stains of rot and time's passage; his less-than-covered skull, all sweet toothed grin like it never could have looked in life, there was something dark in the eyes, the fine tatters of hair barely clinging onto what scalp remained.
He was beautiful.
Their gaze was soft; not that of one who wished harm. They understood. They saw the rot, the beauty; they felt the sorrow of an unvisited grave and scarcely-mourned death.
They understood.
They understood.
And they raised a camera without a sound, taking in the moment, keeping him on hold for just a moment longer.
And then, in they came.
They took great care in grasping gently at his skull, gingerly turning the rotted-away tendons, snapping them by no fault of their own and only out of love. Their eyes met where his once was and there was a deep, deep, soft sorrowful fondness and it virtually boiled over; the sun shone over them both and he had company, finally, truly, if only for now.
They did not ask what happened. They did not wish to know such a personal traumatic thing.
They released their grasp, so gentle, replacing him just so and keeping him from coming apart, and then they sat with their knees to their chest just beside his thinned and rotted legs and with an audible outward breath they spoke, so soft.
"You've been here so long."
Only months. Maybe a year. Does time really still pass for the departed?
"You must have had such a lovely smile when you were still here."
If one could only blush. If one could only brush it off with a flattered laugh and look away.
"It must get lonely."
Does it ever. Does it ever.
And they stood. And they looked around themselves, looking over the cracking concrete floor, searching. Searching.
"I'll be back."
They took their time, forced to piece him apart and take him to a small red wagon in trips. They pulled him along through the underbrush, oh so careful, never once letting a part escape their watchful eye.
To a clearing.
Something felt off in the wind, in the trees, in the noises of the birdsong. Distance, but not of a physical sort.
They pulled at the dirt with their hands, claylike and ashen in color, they dug silently and frowning. Brian stood silently with them, scattered, patient, uncertain, until a shallow hole just roughly his height stood against the barren dirt.
They placed him in carefully, arranging him in a pose of almost sleeping on his side. Pushed dirt back onto him, too little to cover him all, made do with some extra from the surrounding ground.
"It's safer here," they said, sitting back on their haunches, soft as ever, and he believed them. "I'll see you tomorrow."
They straightened, standing, brushing clay dirt from their hands. The birdsong had faded out, sometime.
"Maybe tomorrow you'll know my name."
Maybe tomorrow he would.
---------
Agony.
Something hurt. Everything hurt.
Searing pain, white-hot, blocking out any sign of sight or hearing or taste or touch. Like the blaring headlights of an oncoming semi truck.
A ragged breath choked out of him.
And he remembered, he remembered them, and his eyes tried to open in a panic only to be blinded by more searing white-hot agony.
He sat bolt upright, body wracked with a sob, pain invading every nerve like a virus. Another sob came, shuddering his frame and sending pain shooting outward across both shoulders.
After what felt like all too long, the whiteness subsided; he could hear the faint birdsongs, a sliver of late afternoon light cascading across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose from the gaps in the tree leaves.
His mind raced. He looked down at his hands, filthy, discolored by ashen dirt; his sleeves... his clothes were practically motheaten, stained, fuzzed-over by moss.
He remembered, more gently this time, a flicker of love in someone else's eyes; someone he'd never seen.
Who. Who.
He remembered a fragment of panic, the feeling of falling. Unsteady, he pushed his way slowly to his feet. He felt awful. Filthy. Wrong.
Deeply wrong.
Something was wrong. Something was so wrong.
"Oh friend, awake so soon? I'm sorry I'm late."
He nearly fell, turning all too fast to see the source of that voice; tried to reply only to emit a harsh rasping noise. More pain.
"Oh, don't talk. You've been through too much. You can't yet."
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ok thats it no i dont know who They are no i dont know Why i wrote this i was thinking abt a certain post on this site romanticizing like flowers growing in ribcages and sunlight warming cool bruised skin and this just kind of occurred. if youre a fan of marble hornets and dont know me personally i’m sorry for whatever fuckhell i just made u look at
also Yes, Yes I Was playing off a pet sematary type deal in that clay ashen dirt clearing so i guess make of that mild nod whatever you will make of it
and NO.. please god dont misconstrue the way They interacted with brian’s bones as n/e//cr/o thats NOT what that is thank u very much. and They aren’t really intended to be like.. any.. particular character from any canon i dont really know what went on there. i wasnt even going to write Them coming back and i’m not sure why i did when i think this would have worked better in a way at least for continuation if i had just.. kept Them missing after brian comes to in the dirt. but u know. i mayve been kind of weirdly out of it when i was writing this
