[[open] Said the more I sing this song, the more I feel your love is breaking me
Sonny is in the alley beside the Crowbar. It's late in the evening. He is wrestling a small, spiky object into a box while simultaneously drinking from a bottle of whiskey. He would do this inside but the thing has a tendency to drop its spikes, and it gets to be a real pain in the ass to sweep. The Crowbar is approaching a certain two year
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He leans against the brick wall at the end of the alley, watching Sonny as he struggles with the spiked object.
There isn't much curiosity as to what the object is. He's more interested in Sonny being okay, but hell if he knows how to navigate those waters anymore.
He's been gone too long. "Need some help there?"
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It makes a difference to have him here now. The difference makes it easier to deal with the impending day.
Sonny is wearing gloves, but he shakes his head at the question, finally managing to slam the damn thing into the box and shutting it behind the lid. "Don't know if it'll hold it or not but..."
He glances at John, with concern of his own. "You want a drink?" Yes, straight from the bottle, John.
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He has no reason to feel out of place in it.
Except it's been a year. He wasn't there to help them move past their grief. He wasn't there to deal with his own.
There was a ghost in his stead and he's not sure how to reconcile with that, at the same time he tries not to. It isn't just about him, in the end. His last concern is himself. "I could go for one," he says, taking steps toward him. "Mind if we drink 'em out back? Could use the fresh air."
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It's ridiculous, irrational, and paranoid, but he can't help it. He gets worried that the last time he saw him will be the last time he ever sees him.
There's so much shit that can go wrong, and John wen through hell. He went through hell.
"Don't mind at all," Sonny says as he lifts up the whiskey bottle beside him and starts toward the back with the thing in the box still under his other arm. "It's cold out but it's not easy being inside these days."
Not for any of them, but it's a comment more on John's absence, an are you okay without actually asking the question in case he doesn't want to answer it.
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The possibility of him finding another ward so soon is slim to none, despite the Rift's inverted sense of humor. And he still has a hard time looking people in the eye when he's met them, while the same stubbornness he's known for forces him to do so.
The Calling forces him to do so. Live long enough and it can't be helped. It'll make you want to look, want to see, want to find.
He resents that a lot more these days, for obvious reasons. He's never talked about that year with Sonny. He doubts that he ever will.
John follows him, plucking the cigarette that he'd been keeping over his ear. He rummages for the lighter in his pocket and easily lights it up. "It'll be colder for you," he remarks quietly. Demons have a rougher time of it, warding off the chill. John feels it, faintly so. He's wearing a thin jacket. It's mostly to wear it. Out of custom.
"... No, it's not easy. But it's not--I missed it."
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The worst ward that he could imagine for John is the exact one that he found, and he doesn't know how-- he doesn't know how he survived this past year without his brother.
Except he convinced himself that John was still alive and that he'd want to come back to them. Except he knew that the remaining family needed someone, something to be strong through it. To keep them going. To not crumble and lie down and die even if that may have been what he wanted ( ... )
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Sonny promised it would be and he never doubted him. Not once.
John's quiet at the admission, allowing the ache of it to settle into his chest, before he says quietly, "I missed you, too."
All of them. Every day of his life for the past year. Longer than that for some of the others.
"I can't believe it's been two years," he says finally. That was the giant fucking elephant in the room, wasn't it? Room, alley. They were both thinking it. John closes his eyes to shut back the stinging in them, taking the whiskey bottle when Sonny offers it.
It's a burn he can accept.
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They've seen a lot, those lawn chairs.
Sonny didn't take them out once in the year that John was gone. He nods at John's own admission though he's not looking at his brother, because he senses the depth of that statement.
All of them. They have a lot of people to miss. John has had even more people to miss.
The elephant in the room, and John is the one that first points it out. Sonny can't decide if it's surprising or if it isn't. He lets out the painful breath lodged up in his throat. "Yeah, feels... like yesterday sometimes," he says wearily, thinking of Tim, of Cody, of Mikey, of Elena... of all of them. "Fuck. Sometimes it still fuckin' hurts like it was ( ... )
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The reason he never did was just in case the hell would end.
Just in case it'd end and he could come back to Sonny. To Zoe. To the others that were left.
Sometimes it still fuckin' hurts like it was. John closes his eyes. He knows that feeling too well. "Think it'll always feel like that? It sneaks up on you, you know? You go on for the day, you--do the shit you gotta do, and suddenly it's like--I don't know. Someone's punched you in the throat ( ... )
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There was the slimmest chance in hell that it would happen, and for once, they actually got something good.
The Crowbar has gotten real fuckin' used to losing especially these last two years.
"Can't decide if I almost want it to always feel like that," Sonny admits, and he's quiet but he does look back at John. "Like if it doesn't always hurt like that, maybe I'm forgetting... I know they wouldn't have wanted us to feel that way. Stilllost and he regrets it.
Sonny looks at his brother, not thinking anything of the tears. His own eyes burn just a little, and he takes another drink of the whiskey, enough so that this time he feels it from his throat to the pit of his stomach. "Jesus," he ( ... )
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John can't imagine what it was like for Sonny and the others to rebuild this bar--another thing he wasn't here for when he should have been--and faced the loss day in and day out, while also worrying about him. And he knows they worried ( ... )
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It hurts. It hurts more to know that John had to put his grief on hold, that last year was spent grieving John along with the rest. Just in case. Just in case.
"They'd want better for us," he agrees, and his voice is quiet but rough. He looks over at John and nods, tightening his hold on the bottle, nearly feeling it give way under his hand. That's when he sets it down. "They'd want us to be happy."
But it's a lot easier to be dead than to be alive.
The thought almost hits him in his stomach, almost can't breathe, and Sonny shoves it away before he can ever think it again. It doesn't do him good to go down that road. He's not dead. He's alive, and he is wired to survive ( ... )
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It was only until he stepped foot back into the bar that it made sense again. That everything made sense again. He held on, just in case there would come a time where he could return. His brother has buried enough people, and John refused to be one in the list if he could help it, and lord knows a lot of the time he couldn't ( ... )
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If it wasn't for Lou and probably Zoe now that the narration is thinking about it and since she's alive this time, they never would have left the wreckage. They would have been lost to it. They would have died in the wreckage too. It was-- There were parts of it that were still burning when they got to it.
There was some part of him that felt like he could hear it. Their screaming, because he's sure they were alive when the building burned to the ground. There are nightmares that he has that they're there, not acting like themselves sometimes but yelling at him, blaming him for it. And sometimes in the nightmares, they're acting just like themselves, they're talking about what they went through in their last moments ( ... )
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John is here.
There's no one to punish for what John went through as much as Sonny would love to rip them to pieces, to bring him back to life to destroy him like-- do what he did to his brother.
Revenge wouldn't make the situation better, but it's what the demon wants, needs, it's what Sonny wants and can never have. It's his fucking brother. His younger brother, and he shouldn't ( ... )
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