Halloween
It had been a shit day, which was a pretty fucking big understatement, but that didn't stop Joe from thinking it as he collected his bones, his ribs and his spine, bits and pieces of his body that were decomposed and destroyed. Between Aaron and Bucky and that version of Dale that hadn't been Dale at all, it was a shit day all around and this wasn't making it any better. His hands shook, but he wouldn't stop and he wouldn't accept the help that Dale had offered him only moments before. This was his burden and he needed to do it on his own. If he didn't, this shit would never go away, it would never end.
Bits of dirt and grass clung to a femur as Joe collected it, adding it to the gathering pile in his arms, cradling them gently and carefully, being sure not to break them further. The sternum was cracked, but he placed it carefully on top of the pile, refusing to look in the direction that Bucky had gone. The fight was over, it was done and he'd said all he could say. His body belonged to him again. Bucky didn't matter anymore; Joe could tell himself that, even though he didn't quite believe it. Not yet, anyway.
Briefly, he looked to Dale, then asked, "Can you help me?" He'd refused it earlier, but now he needed it. There was no way he could carry everything on his own and when Dale nodded, Joe began to place the bones in his arms. Although Bucky had had a bag to carry them in, Joe couldn't bring himself to put his own bones back into a bag, not now. Bit by bit, piece by piece, he collected everything from the ground where Bucky had left them when he'd thrown them at Joe. Bit by bit, he and Dale picked up the pieces of his body and Joe finally got unsteadily to his feet and glanced around briefly before he began to walk toward the edge of the Hamlet.
He had no destination in mind, but he knew Dale would follow him wherever he needed to go and so he walked, stepping over bushes and low rocks, walking until he abruptly decided he couldn't go any further. Unlike Bucky, Joe couldn't throw his body on the ground, so he knelt and unloaded the bones delicately, gesturing for Dale to do the same. It wasn't a skeleton, not any longer, all that was left after Bucky's abuse was pieces, a recognizable bone here and there. His spine curled around what looked like a tibia and he could see his skull under a few ribs, the cracked and shattered edges of the gunshot wound still visible.
There was no shovel, so Joe sat down on the ground and began to dig with his hands. A moment went by during which the only sound was the scrape of Joe's hands in the dirt, then Dale sat down across from him and began to dig as well. Joe said nothing, he didn't ask for the help, but he didn't refuse it either. Both of them dug in the dirt and Joe knew it wouldn't be a grave, it wouldn't be six feet deep, it wouldn't be wide enough for a casket, but he'd had a hole like that once and it had done nothing to protect his remains. Maybe the island would do for his corpse what it had done for him.
When the hole was deep enough, Joe reached for the piles of bones and began to place them in the dirt. Dale didn't offer his help with this part and Joe would have refused it even if he had. This was something he needed to do by himself or it would never really be over. Every bone went in carefully, although the mess no longer resembled a full skeleton in any way. One of his ribs was placed on top of an arm bone and he piled and arranged them in a way that probably looked meaningless. Maybe it was meaningless, maybe he was just piling them in a hole in the dirt just to escape, maybe all he wanted was to see it all gone.
Whatever the case, the skull went last. It was impossible to ignore the hole and Joe ran his fingers carefully over the jagged edge, touching the place where the bullet had entered. There was no scar, not on the island, but here was the only proof anyone ever needed of what he'd done to himself. If they'd chosen to ignore the film and the things he'd done, here it was. Joe Dick had put a fucking bullet in his fucking brain.
Laying the skull on top of the other bones, Joe looked at it one last time and then began to push the dirt back over his body. He didn't want a marker, he would know where it was, he just needed to bury it and he needed to do it in a place where he knew Bucky couldn't touch it again.
Dirt slid between the bones until the hole was filled again, a small mound in the middle of the jungle not far from the Hamlet. Not Mount Pleasant, not Vancouver, just the island. Joe's hands shook as he pressed them against the dirt, pushing it down on top of the bones and he stared down for a long time, because there was nothing he could say. Eventually, what he was going to do was get up and go home and live his life. Maybe it was a life he didn't deserve, but he had it anyway and Bucky Haight couldn't do a goddamn thing about that.
"This," he said when he finally looked at Dale again, "Has been a shit day."