til_it_aint | (no subject)

(no subject)

[[There will be CANON here]]

Thunder rolls overhead, lightnin' flashin' bright, shines over what's left of th'cornfield. Ben's sprawled in the mud and it hurts, oh God oh fuck but it hurts like he'd never believed it could. Slittin' his own throat didn't even feel like this - this is a forever pain, a burnin' pain, it eats away at him and makes him wiggle like a worm on a goddamn hook in the middle of th'mud and th'rain and that's not even what hurts so bad, that's not even what eats away at him, it's th'fact that Justin's above him and he's won, he's raisin' the sickle high and it's already killed him, Ben thinks dizzily, bitin' into his shoulder and openin' his belly up to spill blue blood onto th'ground but Justin just wants t'make sure.

He's got both hands on the sickle. Raises it high.

Lightnin' flashes. Ben c'n see the tree tattoo, spreading branches.

A voice in his mind. A vision.

A dark heart dwells where twisted branches meet.

How many goddamn times? How many times had he seen it? Heard it? And only now, seein' what he never seen before, does Ben know what it means. His hands fumble for th'dagger, only one hand workin', really, but it's enough and it grabs, it holds, and th'dagger almost leaps in his hand 'cause it knows where it's goin' and Ben's up, lunging, and it's hilt-deep in Justin's chest before th'preacher-man can even blink.

A dark heart dwells where twisted branches meet. "Anointed...dagger..." he grits out, teeth clenched hard, hurts more'n anythin' he's fuckin felt in his life and he's fuckin' died, but this is it. He's winning. "Plunge...thee...deep!"

They fall together. Ben twists the knife as he falls, slams hard into th'ground with Justin underneath him and he's still twistin', even though the blood's pumpin' out like nothing livin' and Justin's face is surprised, waxy, still.

Dead.

Ben gets maybe three feet away, crawlin' on hands and knees, dagger wrapped in bloody fingers, before it's all just too damn much. He's leavin' a trail behind him, blue blood still pourin' from belly'n'shoulder and he thinks, maybe, this is really how it ends. Them killin' each other (grass changes under him but he doesn't notice, can't see much of anythin', now) and he don't know if it's that thought or the hurtin' or what but he's fallin', suddenly, fetchin' up against a tree (was there a tree there before?) and when he hits the ground it's just so fuckin' bad that he pukes, blood'n'bile spillin' down his front, makin' his head spin even more so that he thinks

oh

I'm fuckin' dying

and ain't that just one

big

fucking

joke

(were there always lights in the distance?)

(sounds like laughter, spilling from a bar?)

Not that it matters.

Not that much matters, anymore.

Ben thinks, with the last shreds of consciousness available to him, that he wouldn't so much mind dying, if only it didn't hurt so much.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A storm's rolling over the property out back. The light finally tucks tail and runs from the late evening sky, leaving nothing but bruised darkness and the occasional crack of lightning in its wake. It's so easy to take the nice days for granted, but Bar has seasons like the rest of the wide worlds, and the warming weather calls for the brooding malaise of one season relinquishing its crown to another.

It reminds Kate of Texas, and distracts her from her chores. She'd usually be back in the bar by this hour, but constantly she stops and watches the clouds roll in, and the wind cut through the grass like invisible predators giving chase. She thinks about home -- not the sad little room she's currently staying in, and not even her old house in Green Lake, but her home, her daddy's ranch just outside of Heyser. She can almost remember the lace curtains against her forearms as she'd sit in her window, watching storms roll over the desert like dirty cotton blankets, the smell of the desert and the livestock and the rain breezing by her face, catching in her hair. There'd be a ruckus downstairs, the boys gathered in the parlor after a day working the fields, drinking brandy and playing cards.

She snaps herself from her reverie and turns at last, locking up the stables and battening down the hatches so the stock will stay warm and dry. She shoves her hat down on her head and plows through the wind, her footsteps sure and purposeful, arrogant, challenging -- as though she's daring the storm to hold her back.

She's not even past the forge when she thinks she hears a sound and turns, eyes scanning the darkness, making out the blue-edged shape of a body against a tree. She frowns.

Footfalls are lost to the sound of thunder, even when recognition dawns with horrifying surety and her cautious steps break into a panicked run.

He's still conscious. That's gotta be - some kind of a fuckin' joke, Ben thinks, his mind confused, scrambled inside of itself, slippin' between cornfields and tree. He's half-sittin' half-lyin' against th'bark but there shouldn't be bark there, shouldn't be - shouldn't be a fuckin' tree in th'middle of a field. He thinks lightning but can't move, can't fuckin' move anymore, can't do a thing but lie here and hopepray that th'wetness on his cheeks is rain and not tears.

It hurts.

It fuckin' hurts and his body won't let go. He just fuckin' wants t'die, he's done what's gotta be done and he just wants to go. His breathing comes ragged, desperate, tears itself outta him. He chokes, coughs on blood. His hands scramble at th'tree bark and it just hurts so fuckin' bad and he can't take it anymore so he digs his fingernails in and just

opens

himself up. Life comes coursin' in, from th'tree hell he c'n feel it dyin' under him but it don't help th'pain, it don't help nothin except that he has his voice back and he screams. He can't help it, hates himself for it but the cry comes tearin' all ragged'n'raw outta his throat as he slides closer t'th'ground, eyes wide, head rockin' back to hit the hard wood behind him because it ain't fair it just ain't fuckin' fair he don't want this, he just wants to die...

Lightnin' flashes. A figure, coming towards him, runnin' hard. A cowboy hat. Blonde hair.

Oh no.

Oh no, no, no, no, but he can't do anythin', what he took outta th'tree used up in th'scream and all he c'n do is try t'turn his head from her 'cause he knows, now, those'r tears creepin' down his cheeks.

She can feel it when he screams, like she's trapped in a belfry and the sound is shaking inside of her, rocking her like an earthquake down to her trembling core, her knees almost break, her feet almost come out from under her, and the sound is ringing in her ears, ringing like a gun blast, like a nightmare, turning her inside out.

"Ben?!"

He's covered in blood. He's covered in blood and she would think to herself that she's never seen anything like it but she has, and each memory is striking at her like the blows of an enemy until she can't hardly see straight.

She throws a wake of dirt and rock into the air as she skids to a sudden stop beside him, hands on his shoulders and stronger than she honestly feels. Her throat closes.

"Jesus, Joseph, an' Mary, Ben Hawkins, you look at me!"

"No," he says, or thinks he says, but he ain't too sure if th'words actually make it out of his mouth or if they stick there, chokin' him, makin' him gasp for air. He tries for her name but this time it ain't even close t'bein' out loud and he's tryin' to turn his face away from her, don't want to see the look on her face, don't want her t'see him. She can't see this. She shouldn't fuckin' have t'see this.

But she's touchin' him, hands on his shoulders on th'wound where th'sickle bit deep, and her fingers are slippin' in his blood and holdin' too tight and he cries out again, softer, sharper, an' his own hands come up to grapple at hers. Frantic, he ain't even sure if he's tryin' t'force her away or hold her closer.

Moments later it don't matter 'cause she ain't goin', he can't make her go, and his hands slip away from hers as he finally fixes his eyes on her own, wise'n'scared blue locked onto blue. "Please, Kate," he says, chokes, muscles standin' like cordwood in his neck, head back, fingers slippin' tryin' t'hold onto her.

He don't even know what he's tryin' t'ask but he's askin' all th'same, "Please, Kate, please!"

She uses his name like an incantation, trying to get him to stop fighting her. Stop struggling.

Let me help you!

Now that she's closer, she can see it's no trick of the storm or the light; what she thought was blood is genuinely blue and for a second she's confused, startled, praying for one fleeting moment that it's only paint. But she knows better. It squelches between her fingers, warm and sappy, it's leaking from his shoulder and his belly, and those screams aren't no trick of anything.

(For a moment she sees him pale and motionless like a gnarled limb, grown over in bluebells.)

"I'm here."

Her eyes are burning. Suddenly, she's looking through a prism. He's not fighting no more but she's still covered in him, in blue, in warm sticky life, and he's looking at her wild-like, the way a felled stag rolls his eyes in his death throes. She reaches out again, this time for his face. She colors his dirty hair with his own soul, dragging trembling fingers through, trying to soothe, trying to comfort.

"I'm here. I'm here."

He c'n feel her, hands in his hair, holdin' onto his face and fingers smearin' blood over his skin, rough'n'gentle all at th'same time but he's scared, he can't help it. He's fuckin' terrified 'cause it won't stop hurtin', 'cause th'pain won't stop burnin' through him and it ain't supposed t'do that he's either alive and healin' or he's dead, and this in-between, it ain't even close t'right. He can't focus, eyes wide but not seein', Kate's just a blur of blonde hair'n'blue eyes, talkin' to him but it don't matter 'cause he can't understand her anyway.

But it's stoppin', now, th'pain is - it's still there but it's far away, somewhere else, an' Kate's face is dissolvin' in front of him into another face one he knows well, too damn well, seen it in his dreams and floatin' in th'water after th'sickle went through his throat.

Hack Scudder smiles at him, for a moment, and Kate's hands aren't on him no more they're big, work-rough, his father's hands as his father smiles at him and says in a way that Ben's gotta obey 'cause he's fallin' too fast to do anythin' else...

Sleep.

And he does. He falls into unconsciousness like a pool, a still blue pool like eyes, like blood, a pool that opens up and welcomes him in even as his body goes limp and his breathing evens out, still too shallow, too hesitant, but where he's gone there's nothing that hurts and maybe there's a smile just touching his split and bleeding lips.

She shifts uneasily, looking away for only a moment -- just a moment -- searching the darkness for anyone who could help. And when she turns back, he's gone.

"No."

'Please. Please. I'll do whatever you want, just don't hurt him.'

His voice is as soft as summer wind in her ear, murmuring her name so only she can hear. Whether or not it carries across the water doesn't matter.

'No! Trout!'

Her ears are ringing, a smell like chalk and burnt paper curling in her nostrils. But they're just footnotes to the feeling. Like rain on her neck, droplets pattering against her closed eyelids and into her mouth, leaving the taste of iron on her tongue. He slouches against her, and she screams.

"Ben!"

She pulls him into her arms.

'Not cold no more. You're here.'

Fingers rough from iron and leather catch on her skin. It almost hurts, tears and blood forming like glue on her face, but it's the last time he touched her, and it's a memory she'll never shake.

'Please don't leave me!'

There's so much blood. More blood than she's ever seen. Pools of it, lakes of it, rivers, streams. He's wearing it, leaking it, vomiting it. It's in her hair, on her tongue, in her eyes. Everything stinks with the acerbic tang of iron. But she doesn't let him go. He's in her arms, now. Finally. He's right where he should be. He's in her arms, and he's safe, and she's not letting him go.

He's a grown boy; it takes everything she has to lever him from the tree. But she can't carry him to the bar on her own. She needs help.

"I need help!"

Her voice echoes from bough and branch, slapping back in her face, mocking her. He's heavy, and his blood is soaking through her clothes.

She's not going to do this again.

She is not

going

to hold another man

while he dies.

"Ben Hawkins, you open your eyes!" she growls, voice thick with tears and anger.

Her boots scuffle in the dirt, mouth to his temple and tears in his hair.

She won't let him go.

Ben doesn't move.

His body is limp in her arms, finally spent. His head lolls, lips slightly parted. Air hisses softly between them, seems like barely enough to keep him alive. Blood flows silently from shoulder and belly, smudging like ink, like paint, like blue sky falling away piece by piece but he doesn't feel it. He doesn't hear Kate's voice, raw with desperation or feel her hands on his face, tangling through his hair all wet with rain, tears. The blessing of unconciousness takes him somewhere far away.

Safe inside his head, Ben Hawkins dreams.

There's a tree. It's huge, with gnarled, spreading branches. Ben is leaning against it, his forehead pressed into the bark. His hands spread over knots and lumps. When he turns his head away from the tree he can see that it stands on a hill overlooking a field of corn.

His hands are wrapped around the blade of a dagger. The hilt is nowhere to be seen. The blade is buried deep in the tree, and turquoise drops of blood patter down to the green grass below.

The tree bursts into flames.

It burns. Thunder rolls and lightning opens the night sky to send rain like tears coursing down but the tree still burns. Ben backs away from it, stumbling and falling, lying in the grass as it sends sparks into the night sky. The tree is screaming.

Or is that him?

Its branches crack and groan. The heat blisters his face. He scrambles back to his feet and now he is running, running faster than he ever has before, through the maze of corn. Familiar. He's been here before. His breath tears at his chest, his heart pumping a thousand beats a minute until out of nowhere his feet tangle and he falls.

Justin is below him. Justin lies in the mud, his jacket open to show the twisting lines of a tree, inked deeply into his flesh. The dagger-blade gleams from deep in his ribcage. Ben rolls off him and lies in the mud, gasping for air. That's it. He's done. Justin's dead. He lies there and breathes. In the distance, the tree burns. Ben's heart slows. He's tired. He's fucking sick of running. But it's over.

Brother Justin sits up.

His lips twist into a sneer. His mouth opens. His voice, when it comes, is Samson's voice, familiar as ever.
You think the Lord had to die to make his point? Dumbest thing is dyin' when you ain't gotta.

Ben's heart seizes in his chest. Pain runs in burning lines down his chest, sudden, unexpected, making him writhe in the dirt. His shoulder and belly are on fire the same way the tree is on fire. He clenches his teeth until he can't anymore but when he goes to cry out there's no voice there. There's nothing. He's falling hard, the world spinning around him, and inside he can feel his heart slowing like a badly wound clock.

Justin stands over him. The sickle drips onto Ben's face, but he can't raise a hand to brush the stickiness away.
Tell you somethin' else - when it comes to livin'?
Dyin' is the easy part.

On the hill the tree flickers once, and the flames are gone. It stands whole and hearty while all around Ben the corn bends down, turns brown and fades as the wound in Justin's chest closes up. The preacher-man smiles.

Ben's heart

stops.

Dyin' just 'cause you're piss-poor at living.

no.
no no no no NO NO NO

Rita Sue kneels in the mud
bends down to touch his shoulders
his face
and he doesn't flinch away
or can't--

you're a good boy Ben Hawkins

kisses his cheek so that strands
of her cornsilk hair tickle his lips

He knows that hair.
But forgets.

Rita Sue is touching his cheek.
Or someone
is.

The corn dies.
Brother Justin lives.

Ben dies.

NO.

Ben lives.

(what dies?)

There's no one

no one

no one but you, Kate.

'Why are y'always surroundin' yourself with the dead?'

Everything you love dies.

and you are such a stupid girl.

(You couldn't save a one of them.)

Fool!

She rocks his spiritless shell, aware that she's crying only when she tastes saltwater on her tongue. There's a moment when you just know. Palpable and sobering. A silence falls between friends unbidden when there's an angel flying overhead. That kind of creeping, out-of-body place, the kind of place you only half-remember, like dreams that crumble through your fingers. It's the same kind of place, that moment, when a heart stops beating.

And then.

She gasps for air, rain sucking down her lungs and turning to mud beneath her. The mud reaches up, sticky tendrils, crawling, squirming, slithering around her body, tying her like rope, squeezing her like a vice, trapped, chained, pain like she's never known and

Animal instincts lash out -- survival -- she pushes Ben's body away and flies backwards and breathes. Air has never tasted so sweet, so fresh, so cold. Walleyed, she lies in the mud and stares -- but it wasn't the mud at all that squeezed at her insides.

It was...

It was

It was.

Her eyes are fixed on the puddles of dirty blue water beneath him. Grass recedes, like tall men drowning in shallow water. A bird falls from a nest, dead. She can hear leaves shaking, everywhere a cacophony, a deafening roar like she's never heard before, and the words he'd spoken to her that day before he left hit her like cannon fire.

Avatar

She's scared.

She's more terrified than she's felt before.

And she is completely resigned.

She crawls on hands and knees and gathers him back up in her arms, pressing her supple body against his, wrapping him up tight. She buries her face in his shoulder, and holds her breath.

Take it.

Take it all.

The graves are decorated with candles, with ropes of orange and yellow flowers, with grinning skulls. The grass is wet underneath his knees. From the village far away the sound of twanging guitars and small drums reverberate. There's a flip-knife in his hand, his old one that Jonesy slipped him one day so he could cut loose snarled knots of rope tangling the tents together. It's open.

The voice is familiar. It echoes in his ears. It sounds dead, dry and crackling, like wind in the leaves

leaves falling around him
tumbling from trees grass dry and dead

or fire licking through old bones. It weaves in and out of the music.
Your life for another's. It is the only way.

is that right? that's not the way
that he remembers it
something is
different

The knife is covered in blood and the blood is red. Red like sunsets and red like velvet hangings on tarot card tables and in front of him blood spurts from a pale neck onto the ground. A women lies in front of him, crumpled on the ground. Her eyes are wide and blue like still water. Her hair is cornsilk and stained crimson. The stain widens, pumping from the ragged cut in her neck. He does not know her.

he knows her
he does know her
he knows that face and that hair
and he knows
those blue blue eyes

He does not know her. He stretches out his arm and covers her forehead with one work-roughened hand. It's stained blue. Like her eyes. She lies on the ground and her life pumps messily onto the damp grass. He wonders if he did this but his clothes are spattered in turquoise not scarlet and the flip-knife is in her fingers, not his. She's smiling. Just a little. It's a sad smile. The voice wraps around him in the feeling of the breeze at his back, stirring her hair.
You are meant for greater things
the voice says
this is who you are

I'm sorry.

He knows who's lying there
it's Kate
(Mizz Barlow)
and she's dying
she's dying for him
life flowing into him
as fast as blood flows out

he's taking it all

I'm sorry.

And that's not the way it's supposed to go.

Ben kneels in the grass, wet and cold. The tattered scarecrow-coat gapes open over his ripped cotton shirt. Under it the wounds are fresh and raw, aching in slow bursts. of pain. They still bleed. But there's strength in his body. He breathes easy. His heart pumps. In front of him, Kate's last twitches send rivulets of rose-red onto the earth.

Ben leans forward, and puts a hand over her neck, to the wound he recognizes so well because last time it was him twitching there, and his father's hand on him. His fingers play over the wound as he bends forwards, and presses a kiss to her forehead.

His voice is a whisper.

"I'm sorry."

He's in her arms, he thinks, c'n feel her holdin' him close. She's cold'n'wet and she's shakin' like a leaf but she's alive, he thinks, in a spreadin' circle of things dyin'. He opens his eyes, slow-like, and th'world's blurry and misted through in rain but he c'n see her face up above his, all cornsilk hair and blue blue eyes.

Ben Hawkins squeezes his own eyes shut. It hurts, and that's why maybe tears come spillin' out from from under the lids, only 'cause of th'pain and that's why he's holdin' onto her too, tight as can be, and it's only th'pain got him mutterin' apologies soft into her shoulder where he's turned his face so she can't see.

Take it all.

The words barely have time to form in her mind before she feels the first pull, and it's unlike anything she's ever felt before. She could liken it to the tide, the powerful ebb of water returning to the sea -- or wherever the inlet empties -- only it wouldn't be enough. Not even half. Not even close.

With it comes the most blinding, mind-numbing agony she's never felt before.

And there are no more words.

Her body curls around his like match-lit paper, crumpling in on itself and shivering. She can feel every vein, every vessel, shuddering and racing, her heartbeat is mourning bells in her ears, hands flat and stiff and trembling. She can't breathe.

If she could, she would be screaming.

She drifts, perhaps in and out of consciousness, she can't be sure. She sees barley fields and peach trees and two old hounds, crawling violets and morning glories plum and cotton candy pink and whitewashed walls, and sea blue eyes lit like the sun peeking out from behind black boughs and knotted twigs, he opens his mouth

Daddy?

and he's holding her, holding her tight, the way he always used to when she'd tussle or fall from her young mare, and his voice in her ear is like a salve, gentle like the purring of a kitten, like the whisper of reeds. He says he's sorry, he's sorry...

It's not him.

She's weeping. The pain subsides enough for her to realize that much. Enough for her to feel Ben's arms clamped around her, no longer lifeless but full of desperation, and his feeble voice bitter with remorse. It's over.

She blinks.

And again.

And now weak, now shaking, she pulls him even closer, and hushes him like a child.

He ain't sure how long they sit there, all wrapped into each other like they can't let go. Ben's got his head buried in her shoulder so she don't see his face, but his shoulders twitch and jerk as everythin' that's happened crashes down all at once. She's cryin' too, he knows, c'n feel it in her body and th'way she breathes. She's shakin' against him, tremblin' like a leaf in a storm.

He did that.

(you filth! don't touch me!)

He took it. How many time's he said it, that it ain't for him t'choose who lives and who dies? But it was there an' he took it, hurt her damn bad. It ain't right. It ain't a bit right, it's somethin' like Justin would'a done. If he hadn't stopped, if he hadn't ended it--

There's a sick taste at th'back of his throat, bitter, like puke and blood mixed together, like standin' at th'front of a courthouse in chains and hearin' what he did read out. Like watchin' his momma cough and choke on th'dust of th'farm, desperately reaching out Momma please and seein' her grab that cross like she's fightin' back a devil

(get away! you filth!)

so that he don't have no choice but to go from her and then Lodz had said, standin' in th'middle of th'black blizzard said that he'd let her die and that, that's what this tastes like. Like guilt.

(you're marked by the Beast, boy!)

Th'tears stop comin', eventually, don't have anythin' left to cry. Th'pain's still there, wrappin' around him but he don't care so much, 'cause it means he's still hurt deep and that means he didn't take it all outta Kate. He untangles himself from her, real slow-like, leaves patches of blood behind on her clothes - they're ruined, some little practical part of him thinks, he oughtta pay or somethin' - until he c'n sit on his own. He brings his knees up, hunches over them, coverin' his chest and what's there like a wounded dog, watchin' her close.

Sittin' in a dead circle, she don't look like she belongs there. Ain't his right t'go pullin' her into his world, into his business, t'go and take what weren't his and if he could give it all back right now, he thinks, with a sudden spasm that rocks him forward, not quite a sob 'cause it's swallowed too fast but somethin close, he thinks he would. Give it back in a heartbeat. She's got a life. He ain't got nothin', no more.

"You oughtta go in," he says finally, voice scrapin' raw over his throat, not quite meetin' her eyes. "Ain't no place - no place for you, out here."

So many things unspoken that even he don't know how many or what they all are, just know that they add up to a voice in his head still screaming

(you filth! don't touch me! don't touch me!)

and th'bitter knowledge that he's just done somethin' he ain't never gonna be able to atone for no matter how many times he confesses.

She feels like she's surfacing in an ocean of glue, arms weak and heavy, suspended in his wake. She's shaking on the inside, but on the outside she's still.

She sits, legs tucked to one side, hands limp in her lap. She watches him from eyes that are somehow both dull and glassy, like a gold-frosted La Llorona in a circle of death.

For a long time, she does not speak.

They watch each other, two half-spectres under roiling skies, as though infants borne along by this limbo in a world unfamiliar to them, without the wisdom to know what to do.

She seals her parted lips.

She slowly reaches out. Her fingers graze his cheek.

"Where else would I wanna be?"

He twitches his face away from her, startlin' away from her touch like a deer someone's flushed up out of a bush, standing still as a statue 'till there's a sound. His eyes won't meet hers, studyin' the feathers of a dead cock-robin fell next to him. They twitch in the wind, like he's still sleepin' and gonna wake up any time now.

"I ain't. Ain't funnin', Mizz Barlow." Called her Kate a minute ago but it's hard to know if he remembers, if he knows, can't rightly tell himself what's real and what's been happenin' in th'dreamworld of his head. "Y'gotta go." His eyes meet hers for just a moment, pleadin' for her t'understand. "Already took what ain't mine, I can't-"

Can't finish the sentence neither but she knows, he thinks, she knows damn well what he means. Can't risk takin' it again, hurtin' her more than he already has. His breath catches in his throat for a moment and he crushes his eyelids shut, hates how he feels like he just got off a three-day bender and don't know nothin', not where his feet is under him, not what's happenin', nothin'.

He starts t'stand, usin' th'tree mostly t'pull himself up, stayin' hunched as much as he can over th'wounds. Ain't for her t'see, not now. She ain't got no cause t'have t'see somethin' like that.

"Go on up t'your room." It's not quite an order, but it's close. He's gotten older, maybe, since he's gone away. "See someone. Y'tell 'em - tell 'em what happened."

He closes his eyes again, white-knuckled on the tree. His voice is low when he speaks again, and th'words scrape painfully deep inside of him. "Figure they might - wanna get a lawman."

He took somethin' weren't his. Coulda killed her. That's business for th'law, right there, and he ain't gonna run from it this time.

"I ain't scared of you, Ben Hawkins."

She knows. She knows just what he's getting at, even before he stands, even before he tells her to go fetch a lawman. Her stomach twists when he tries to lift himself, hands going out on instinct because he shouldn't be standing; he shouldn't be moving at all.

But she doesn't touch him.

She knows what he wants. Knows it's important to him, someplace deep she can't reason on. But she sees this boy -- no matter how much growing he's done since he went away, that's what he is -- giving her an order after everything that's happened. Anger boils in her gut.

Her legs don't want to work, otherwise she'd be climbing to her feet.

"Y'think you can come back here an' tell me what t'do? Give me instructions, like suddenly I ain't older'n you?"

Her blue eyes burn with concern.

"Sit your ass down, before you fall down."

Ben sits his ass down.

Well, not at first - he holds onto th'tree and this time he does lock eyes with her, like he's darin' her t'say something but that's maybe a few seconds and then yeah, he figures, it's easier t'just sit down. It ain't graceful, more a controlled fall, but he's sittin' upright against dead dry bark by th'end of it and that's alright with him.

He studies her, for a moment, and there's a trace of somethin' in his eyes like he's relaxin', like he's rememberin' what this place is and Mizz Barlow, how she ain't somethin' or someone he's gotta be runnin' from. It's been a while, back in his world. Been a good long while.

His voice is softer, when it comes.

"Oughta get yourself checked out, anyway," he mutters, restin' his head in his hands. It don't sound like an order though, not this time. "Or go somewhere y'can sleep ain't out in th'rain and th'cold."

"If y'think I'm leavin' y'out here, you're shit outta luck."

Her voice is too fragile to spout such profanity with any semblance of force. But here's Ben Hawkins, all youth and dirt and starved belly, hurt like she's never seen before, covered in God only knows what, and she's keenly aware of one fact and one fact only: that she's come damn close to losing him, and maybe it ain't over yet. If he thinks she'll be leaving him out in the cold, or throwing him in some prison cell, then he must be plumb out of his senses.

(She's terrified and hurting, yes. She's lost something — she don't know what, but something — and all her body wants to do is curl in on itself and go black, maybe forever. But he needs her right now, and she needs to be strong, and this scary, horrifying, nightmare terror needs to be over before she'll think about leaving his side. And then she'll fall to pieces.)

"Did you take enough?"

She shifts toward him

I ain't scared of you

trying to see the holes he's hiding.

"Seems so," he mutters under his breath, tired, weary, figures he's been shit outta luck for one helluva long time and it ain't like this is gonna be any different, here. He keeps one eye on her, watchin' real close-like, and there's somethin' hidden under those eyes that's some wild fear, waitin' for her t'bow down her head like th'green grass, turn brown, and wither away in front'a his very eyes.

And then she asks him.

She asks him like it ain't nothin', just throws it out there and he can't stop th'reflex, jerkin' back hard as she shifts forwards (don't touch me!), scramblin' back 'cept he ain't got no place t'go, tree at his back, so all it does is make him wince and hiss in pain, eyes too big, too bright.

His voice, when it comes, shakes. It ain't strong but he throws th'words at her with desperate force 'cause it's like she don't understand, it's like she goddamn wants t'die, like that mother all broken on th'ground and her son next to her broken past anythin' that would ever heal again and her whispered plea (take me) as she reached out for his small cold hand.

It shakes and it ain't strong but there's a core of somethin' like steel, twisted too far, bending, just behind the ragged cry. "Don't touch me, God--" and then it breaks and he bends his head down and can't look at her for a moment, strugglin' for breath, for somethin' even he don't know.

"Don't you ever. I ain't takin' no more, shoulda never. Never took it." Somethin' in his eyes, like he's pleadin' with her t'understand. "Ain't for me, y'know that, y'know I can't take." Th'words, they won't come right. He don't know what he wants to say. Took enough life t'keep him goin' for a while but that don't mean it don't still feel like he been carved up like a turkey.

He settles for "Please." and maybe she'll understand and maybe she won't but he's afraid if she comes t'him again and lays hands on he won't be able t'stop himself.

He cries out, sharp and desperate, and she jumps so far out of her skin she gets motion sickness trying to find her way back in. Black spots fizzle in her vision, heart racing — there ain't nothing she can compare this to, no steady ground, no reassuring memory; just the terror of the unknown, reaching out with no clue what will happen, scared witless but she can't, she can't, she can't back away — eyes fixed on his eyes through his whole speech.

"Ben."

Please, he says.

Please.

She swallows, thick, voice coming out small.

"Don't be stupid."

She doesn't touch him. She wants to, she aches to, needing to gather him up the way a hen gathers her chicks, needing to tell him it's all right — and, in so doing, convince herself it will be all right — but she doesn't touch him.

Please.

"You didn't take. I gave it t'you."

Doesn't he understand?
Doesn't he get it?

"I gave it t'you."

He doesn't, though.

He doesn't understand, can't understand, not now and maybe not even in th'best of times, when he’s thinkin’ clear and not clouded with pain, blood, bein’ somewhere he weren’t just a minute ago, when his head ain’t spinnin’ from dead and then not. He stares at her with eyes wide’n’confused, nothin’ makin’ sense quite the way it should ‘cause why th’hell should she give life t’him? He didn’t ask for it, an’ even if he had...

He shakes his head once, slowly, makes a try like he’s gonna reach out an’ touch her, hand coming forwards and not quite makin’ it, fallin’ t’the ground so that his fingers pick at dried dead grass soaked in blue blood. It ain’t quite an invitation but it’ll do, maybe. Tellin’ her like it’s okay, like maybe he needs th’touch of a hand on his, own fingers still cold and stiff and dirty. Ain’t sure entirely what to say so maybe he’s silent a beat too long, just thinkin’, but soon enough he speaks.

Any anger that was there, or fear, it’s all but gone now. He’s just tired, just so fuckin’ tired. Of everythin’. “Didn’t have to, Mizz Barlow.” He blinks slowly, eyes stayin’ shut for just a beat longer than they really gotta. “I didn’t - didn’t ask you for nothin’. Thank you, but.” His lips twist. He looks down, back up, and maybe it’s exhaustion that’s t’blame for why there’s nothin’ hidden, now, emotions out an’ plain to read in his face.

Softly, “But y’shoulda just let it go.”

“Shoulda let me die.”

They’re child’s eyes, open and honest, been away a long while and grown up some but he’s just a boy inside, a boy who grew up too early and too fast and can’t even begin to understand this new and alien idea that somewhere, somehow, someone might care if he lives or dies.

Kate don't require much. His hand's barely slipped away when she's reaching for him again, trembling because she's not quite right. Whole, but not quite right. Her insides feel like they've been through a butter churn.

Still, she reaches for him. Her hand closes around his, squeezing tight, body shifting ever-so-slowly to come up next to him. She leans against the tree, her shoulder to his.

"I know I didn't have to," she says, her tone not so far off from scolding, if she had the strength for it. "You ain't always gotta ask, Ben Hawkins. Sometimes there are gonna be people out there, people who care 'bout you, who'll move the sun an' moon t'keep you safe."

She groans, tipping her head back against the tree. She's more angry than in pain, because she doesn't have the luxury to feel knocked off her feet. Ben needs minding from a bona fide doctor. And she's the one who's got to get him there.

"Wasn't ready t'let go of you yet."

She squeezes his hand.

"I still need you around."

His fingers tighten around her own, just for a second, quick squeeze'n'give that may be all he's got left right now, been runnin' on fumes for too long even before this whole thing got started. But there's no tension in th'air around him, nothin' bad between them and there's even somethin' like a little smile, hoverin' around his lips.

"Yeah," he says finally, "okay," squeezes her hand (don't touch me!) one more time. Rolls his head back against th'tree, mirrors her position easy and his shoulder digs into hers, maybe, just for a moment all friendly-like. "Guess I won't leave you just yet." It is a smile, tired'n'shaky but it's there, and that's gotta be somethin'. He knocks his fingers against her own. "Need someone t'take care'a you, I guess."

Or maybe that's more him needin' her, but he sure as hell ain't gonna admit it no matter what she says or does. As it is, he's content to sit for a moment, let th'pain fade back into somethin' far away t'be considered later, and just pretend that this is all he's got, right here. One little world, a tree, some grass, and Kate sittin' next t'him like she's got his back no matter what.

His eyes slip shut.

She rocks sideways, fingers reaching out for his as he moves them away again. There's something quiet falling from her lips, not quite laughter but she's smiling, sleepy and broad.

"I surely do."

They take care of each other. It's the way it's always been — the way it should be — no matter the why or the when. No matter the what; no matter the how. They take care of each other, and that's just the way it is. End of.

She opens her eyes, seeing that his are shut.

"Ben?"

They can't stay out here all night. Her boots slip beneath her, looking for traction in the mud.

"Ben, wake up."

He makes a soft noise, maybe a yes but he don't open his eyes, fingers all slack, loose'n'cold in her hand all sticky-coated in turquoise like sky or eyes. Th'wounds slicin' his belly open like a fish and markin' his shoulder still ooze sluggishly but nothin' like the pouring waterfall of life they were. He breathes easier.

Th'pain is still there but it feels strange, far away, in a way makes Ben think about frogs hidin' under winter ice in a word he never learned. It lurks, threatens, but it don't come out and he c'n push it away to a place where it don't matter anymore. Or, he thinks dizzily, let th'pain stay here and go himself to a place where there's nothin' that matters and hell if he ain't already halfway there 'cause there ain't a person can touch him here and he's got Kate at his back anyhow, and Justin's--

--dead, he's gotta be, he ain't gonna think on the visions now. He thinks about curlin' his fingers into hers but they don't move so good and anyhow, she'll want him t'move and he don't want to. Don't want t'let th'pain back in, t'open his eyes and face th'world th'way he knows she'll make him.

Somethin' like a smile, so small maybe she can't hardly see it in the dusk, touches his lips for a moment.

Just a moment longer, he thinks.

Just a moment more, here where nothin' matters and he don't have t'be avatar and there's just hands, twined into each other.

He can have his moment.

He can have twenty, a thousand, because she sure as hell isn't going to let him slip away from her now. Not that easily, stealing a moment, resigning himself to the fading bliss of one last comforting dream. He has his whole life ahead of him, so young, and she's determined he'll see it — with her hand in his, supporting him every step of the way.

"Ben," she calls, gripping his hand firmly. "C'mon. Jus' a lil' further now. Please. For me."

She gets to her knees not knowing how, some strength she didn't think she had pulling her up, telling her to move. In the dark, in the muck, where her strongest compulsion is to cry for help, to search for aid, some quiet voice echoing in the catacombs of her mind whispers no. No. He doesn't need a hero, Kate; he's got you.

"C'mon now."

Even if she has to drag him the whole way.

"Up, boy."

Even if she has to bleed.

"Get up."

Even if she gets left behind.

She'll fight the darkness every step of the way, she'll fight her own self, and if she buckles it sure as hell won't be until after he's safe.

She's on her feet now, hands in his, pulling him up.

And she isn't going to let go.

He's limp. Not fightin' her, exactly, but not goin' with her, near deadweight against her hands. He makes a choked noise when she pulls hard, bad shoulder sendin' a sudden spike of wakeful pain through him and his eyes open, focusin' on her and whatever little smile was there is now a crumpled frown, confusion painted in th'lines of his face. "Kate," he says, name fallin' from his lips in a soft whine. So confused, he don't understand why she's makin' him move, why she's makin' it so it hurts again.

But she's still holdin' him, she's still bringin' him to his feet and th'words on her lips are orders and his feet move under him without any real input from his brain, staggerin' upright, leanin' too hard on her tiny frame 'n he feels bad on it, he does, but everything's white'n'shaky right now and he figures she wants him up she's just gonna have t'be able t'handle it.

Ben fixes tired eyes on his feet and wills them forward, carryin' him in stumbling and awkward steps away from the dead tree and wide circle of bent-down grass all brown and dry, flowers fallin' from their stalks, everythin' painted in shades of blood and death settlin' over th'soil as th'life flowed hard into him. He lets her guide him even as exhaustion settles back and pain comes forward once more, blurrin' his sight -- and he don't trust no one t'lead him blind but she's given him every damn thing and more besides and he don't think he's got a choice.

Maybe, somewhere deep inside where there's avatars long past, Russian letters and circus tricks and trains fallin' from bridges and fiery trees as far back as time itself he hates her a little for bringin' him back, for not lettin' him slip down into th'black but for now -- for now he feels her hands on his, holdin' him steady, pullin' him back to th'light and he can't quite bring himself t'feel anythin' but a strange and aching kind of love.

She gathers him up in her arms, stumbling with the weight of him — but she doesn't fall. She holds him tight, giving them both time to adjust, to realize the fact of the earth beneath their feet, the cold reality of the air around their heads. Breathing in, out, clinging to each other, heaviness on their backs, feet feeling dumb.

They start moving together, her arms wrapped tight around him, holding him snug. Shuffling steps that don't seem quite right but they're moving, slow and steady, little by little. And that's good enough for her.

She's covered in him. Inside and out, coated in his warmth, in the trembling skins of him. She can feel his labored breaths on her flesh, the pinch of her hair caught under his arm, the way her fingers stick to everything they touch. She has him, she is him, he is her, and in this moment they can't move but with each other, missing legs that carry her home.

They carry him home.

They carry them home.

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