[Dated Mid-March]
Lloyd woke up with a groan, if it could be called waking up. It felt more like being born, labor pains included. Some bastard had gone and stuffed his head full of jagged rocks and probably shoved a couple of restless scorpions in there for kicks. Lloyd spent a couple of minutes squinting helplessly at the rising sun, wishing somebody merciful
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They walked for a few minutes, and Lloyd spent most of the time either looking at his boots or squinting at the horizon; the sun was coming up, but it looked closer to a Bloody Mary than a Tequila Sunrise. He kicked at a stray stone, trying to get his head in working order.
Better be good. Christ, that was a good one. Lloyd was hard-pressed to think of a worse topic for discussion. He took a long breath, letting it out through his teeth. He was already beginning to feel the frustration creeping on him, and he knew anger was right behind it. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe it could help him focus.
He put his hand on Sandor's shoulder, firm enough to let him know he wanted to stop. He wasn't going to walk and talk, not about this. "Did Bert ask you to kill him?" he asked, sounding calm, nearly casual, but there was a hard edge to it, too; he couldn't keep it out if he wanted, and he didn't want to. "If he fails that test of his?"
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He didn't answer at first. He was surprised at Lloyd's directness, if he were being totally honest, and was for a moment caught off-guard. A glib retort came to mind, but he didn't say it; he thought he understood where this chat was headed, and if he was right, he didn't want to start by pissing Lloyd off.
"Not in so many words," he said finally, crossing his arms over his chest. "Why d'you ask?"
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Had everybody gone completely fucking haywire when he wasn't looking? Lost their marbles and stuffed live dynamite in their place?
It sure felt that way.
Lloyd exhaled and hooked his thumbs in his belt, to keep his hands from clenching into fists. There was a tense, angry sort of energy balled up inside him, and combined with the insistent pounding inside his head, it was a real fine recipe for a disaster. But he didn't need to get his ass kicked. He needed to keep his cool.
As much as he could, anyhow.
"Why d'you think?" he asked sharply, glaring up at Sandor. "Because I'm his fuckin' friend. And you are too, case you forgot. I'm not going to let him kill himself, Sandor, not for some crazy tradition." And yes, Lloyd knew full fucking well that the crazy tradition was a huge part of Bert's life. It didn't change how he felt about it, or about this duel to the death business. He sighed, rubbing his eyes for a second before looking at Sandor again. "Are you?"
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He stared down at Lloyd for a lengthy, awkward moment, his eyes half-squinted and the burned side of his mouth slanted down. "I don't know what to say to you," he said, his voice quieter but no less troubled. "You want me to say I won't do it 'cause he's my friend... I hear you... but that's also the reason I told him yes when he asked." He wasn't good with words; he fell silent while he thought of how to say what he was thinking, as if there were anything he might say that would actually convince Lloyd that this made any sense.
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The wave of adrenaline had mostly washed away, lost somewhere in that odd silence, and now Lloyd just felt tired and hung over.
It didn't make him any less determined.
The thing was, he was going to stop this, one way or another. This meant that he was either going to convince Sandor that it was the wrong way of going about things, or just go and blow the whistle to the island police. And he hated himself for even thinking about the second option. He wasn't a fucking snitch, never had been. But he knew he would do it, if he had to.
He just hoped to God he wouldn't have to.
"You think you're doing him a favor?" he asked, not waiting for an answer. "He doesn't know what he's asking. He thinks he does, but he hasn't thought it through." He inhaled through his nose, exhaled through his teeth. "Because if he'd thought it through - really thought it through - he wouldn't have asked. He's not that fucking selfish."
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"I think he hasn't thought of much else for a long-ass time. He thinks--" he stopped short with his breath chopping off in a sigh, and threw up one hand in an uncharacteristic show of frustration. "He's not going to be happy til he's proven he's worthy of carrying that gun-- prove to himself, I'm sure you know, it doesn't make a damn difference if we think he's worthy. He's got to do this-- he won't feel he's a man otherwise."
He took another breath, off-balance and helpless to explain a feeling that was far bigger than his ability to describe. But where with most people he'd just have shrugged them off with a few harsh words, he found with Lloyd he couldn't do that-- wouldn't was more like it. They were friends in truth, along with all the messy murk that accompanied it; telling him to go to hell wasn't something Sandor was prepared to do, in case Lloyd took him at his word. So he stifled the churning feeling (when had he ever been this unsettled just talking to someone before? He thought he could remember, and didn't like connecting the two) and took some care when he spoke again.
"He's trained all his life for this-- I know you know that," he said quickly, glaring just in case Lloyd was thinking of interrupting. "But he didn't want to get out of it-- not like any of the shit you or I left behind. He wants this, whether he knows what it means or not-- maybe if he knew he wouldn't do it, but that doesn't make it wrong. All I know is if he calls for me, I'm going to answer, no matter what the reason. Besides, if I did say no he'd find someone else. And he's going to do it whether we want him to or not," he went on, his tired voice coming close to cracking. He cleared his throat, trying in vain to recapture the stern expression he'd started out with. "I don't know about you, but I'd rather it was me than a stranger."
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"I'm sure he's thought about it plenty," he conceded. "That don't mean he's thought it through. Not all the way. I bet he hasn't thought about all the shit he'll be missing. Bet he hasn't thought about everybody he'll be leaving behind." He shook his head, mostly just to release some of the stiffness in his neck. "What's he even gonna do with that gun when he wins it, huh? He's no more gunslinger here than those vintage soldiers are fighting a war. Everybody here's just people. Fuck, maybe it's better that way."
He knew Bert hadn't chosen to come to the island, that he missed home. But that one foot in, one foot out routine? It could only lead to heartaches, headaches and sprained muscles.
But that wasn't the big issue just then, not by a long shot, and he didn't want to get off topic or argue about it. "Look, I'm not saying he shouldn't do it at all, and 'course it should be you who tests him." Lloyd didn't trust anybody else with it, and he doubted Bert did, either. "But he doesn't need to die if it doesn't work out way he wants it to. You know how it is, world's sharper and brighter when you're that young." Then it got more faded as you grew older, the lines blurring, becoming gray and washed out. Things looked different in perspective. Sometimes 180 degrees different. "You can live with a hell lot worse than not being worthy. And he's gonna become a man whether he wants to or not, okay? It's called growing up. Dying isn't something you can live to regret." With a wry quirk of his lips that wasn't all that good-humored, he amended, "Usually."
He stopped to breathe, to think. He felt like he was caught in a rope-pulling contest with a mammoth here, and it wasn't Sandor playing the furry elephant's part. Looking at him, Lloyd wondered if he felt the same way.
"If you kill him, then what?" he asked, wondering, needling. "What are you gonna do after, Sandor? Business as usual, just one less Sai Featherbrain in the world?" Lloyd had seen people dropping like flies all around him, the reek of the corpses lingering even now, sometimes so overwhelming he could barely breathe -- and he'd lived through it. He'd lived through Vegas getting wiped out, with nothing left of the people but dust and shadows. Not even stories. But he didn't know what he would do if Bert died. He didn't want to think what he would do. "He's your friend," he repeated, sounding raw and tired, eyes stinging in the hot sun. "Maybe you can kill him, but it can't--" the words got caught in his throat, clawing at him and for a moment he wanted to scream. But when he spoke, his voice was sad and quiet, almost resigned, "It won't ever be all right."
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"I don't know," he growled, his voice quiet but full of anguish. "I don't know if I can do it, and of course it wouldn't ever be all right. He's... he's my fucking family, I don't know what I'd-- or if I'd be able--" he stopped abruptly, his breath shortening, his eyes half-wild and wide. He pressed his lips together, looking everywhere but at Lloyd's face.
"In Westeros I worked for a family... powerful people... I did all the shit they wouldn't dirty their hands with. At some point I'd even gotten myself convinced I liked it." Clear as day he remembered telling Sansa killing is the sweetest thing there is; he remembered he'd believed it. He'd thought he liked who and what he was, but he'd realized somewhere around the Hollow Hill that all he'd liked was having a reputation monstrous enough to keep people from fucking with him. And when Bert had looked at him with wild, tipsy eyes and said I need a monster to fight, though it had been three years and more since he'd lifted a weapon against another person in anger, Sandor felt with dreadful clarity how familiar it would be to summon that part of himself to the surface again. He didn't think he'd ever escape it, and he wasn't proud of that. If not testing would leave Bert walking around with the same weight of scars and shame on his soul, then the last thing Sandor would do would be to stand in the way of his test.
He didn't know how to say any of that to Lloyd, not so it made sense anyway. But he was starting to think nothing he was saying was making much sense to Lloyd, so he wasn't going to overthink it. "Point is, he's wanted to do this-- to be this-- his entire life, and you can say he'll get over it if he doesn't do it, and maybe you're right. But I never tried to be anything other than what I was till I came here, and he's trying even though it's not like home and it's not ever going to be like home, but it's all he knows how to do. And I'm not getting in the way of that."
Sandor's words had just about deserted him, and he shoved his hands back into his pockets, his eyes on Lloyd's, his voice quiet again. "If there were a way it would mean the same thing to him without it being life-or-death, don't you think I'd take it?"
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It wasn't happening, not on Lloyd's watch.
Lloyd had done his share of dirty work, and unlike Sandor, he'd never managed to convince himself that he enjoyed it. He just hadn't had the backbone to do something about it before. And now he had to try. He had to do his damned best to fix a stupid, terrible mistake before it was too late.
"And I want to be Superman, but I'm not going about jumping off fuckin' rooftops to prove it," he retorted, his tone clipped, sharp at the edges, but not flippant. "That's a flying dude. In tights."
It was a metaphor, anyway. Lloyd had no aspirations to fight crime or wear his underwear outside his pants. At the moment, what he wanted most of all was to be like Glen, who would have no problem getting his thoughts across and then some. Maybe then he'd have an easier time with this. But Lloyd's thoughts were knotted up as usual, and all he could be was himself.
"Bert knows a hell lot more than how to be a gunslinger," Lloyd said. "He's got friends and a life here, and that's more than what a lot of people got, Sandor. He doesn't need roll over and die when something doesn't go his way. Christ, he's stronger than that." He breathed in and shut up, just standing there and feeling every muscle in his body whine at him, composing a melody that was, quite frankly, annoying as fuck. He wasn't arguing, not anymore. "You ever had a time when you thought you was done? That maybe it'd be better to just lie back, let go and just... stop? Fuck everything?" He looked at Sandor, searching for some flicker of recognition, because this wasn't just talk. This was real. He swallowed, and kept going, "Well, I did, and I died, and I wish I coulda done something different. I can't take any of that shit back now."
Maybe Sandor would understand. Maybe not. Lloyd's gaze dropped to the ground - gravity had finally caught up with it - and it stayed there for a while. A fat beetle crawled over his boot. He didn't know what else to say. He wasn't going to fold, though, and he knew he was right. It wasn't often that Lloyd knew that, and it was his only advantage. He looked up, trying to ignore the stabbing pain behind his eyes.
"We can't let him do it, Sandor. It's not right. And you don't owe him that. There's got to be another way," he said, with a quiet finality to his words. "And if we can't figure it out, I will get in his way."
Maybe it would piss Bert off. Maybe Bert would hate his guts for a good long while. But he'd grow up, and he'd come to see things differently. He'd understand living was more important than honor, even if it wasn't exactly a western fairy tale. And if he didn't... well, then Lloyd was fucked.
But he could live with that.
"Let's talk to him, all right?" he urged. Sandor needed a way out as much as Lloyd did, and this was the best he had. "The two of us. We can talk some sense into him together." Or knock it into him, if they had to.
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"Yeah," said Sandor quietly, "I've been done. I... yeah, I think I died back there too... or would've. I asked for mercy," he muttered, more to himself than to Lloyd, "and I didn't get it. Or maybe coming here was it." That thought had crossed his mind many times in the years he'd been here; he wasn't any more comfortable with the concept now than he had been when he'd first woken up in the infirmary with Cameron standing over him.
He looked up at Lloyd and saw the conviction in his face, saw the stubbornness in every part of his posture, and maybe for the first time in his life he relented and gave in to something bigger and more inevitable than his own forceful will. He didn't want to lose Bert, and Lloyd's impassioned words had brought him to the point of realizing that maybe being a little selfish didn't mean he was still the scourge of Westeros; that maybe admitting to caring too much for someone to chance losing him meant exactly the opposite.
His shoulders sagged a little and he let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Fuck," he muttered, running a hand over his brow. "Fuck. You... seven hells, Henreid, you're a goddamn persuasive bastard when you want to be." He drew a breath that shook; he didn't like that, so he took another, and when he felt steady, he spoke again.
"Okay. You... yeah, alright, we'll talk to him." He met Lloyd's eyes and they shared the thought without speaking it; Bert would probably argue, and when he found them in solidarity against him he would probably not talk to them for a long damn time. But Sandor found he was strangely comfortable with that; in his heart he found he did, actually, feel it was preferable for Bert to be alive and hating him than the alternative.
"And if he doesn't listen... I'll stand with you." It was a clumsy way of saying no matter what Lloyd did, Sandor would back him up, but any more words than that and he ran the risk of getting overwhelmed.
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"All right," he said, putting the conversation to rest, albeit on a hoarse note. He had clear his throat, realizing that his eyes stung. Maybe it was just exhaustion and the hangover doing their job, but he doubted it.
"Thanks, Sandor, I..." he wanted to say something, but it occurred to him this wasn't the sort of thing he knew how to say; it was stupid, to be at a loss for words now, but there he was. Sandor had said something the night before, Lloyd dimly recalled, about being alone his whole life, before finding friends here. Lloyd hadn't been alone, exactly, but he knew what he meant. He'd never had friends like this. He was fighting the ridiculous urge to pull the scarred son of a bitch into a fucking bear hug (well, Sandor would probably be the bear in that equation, and Lloyd some kind of skinny ferret at best). It ended up being a companionable slap on the shoulder, and Lloyd hoped Sandor would get it anyway.
Someday, maybe they would get to talk about their respective shitty pasts. Someday when they weren't both halfway to having their brains leak out through their eyeballs.
"Some mercy this place is, huh? Feels more like one big motherfucking headache to me," Lloyd muttered with a skewed grin, tapping his temple in emphasis. The last fifteen minutes had felt like drilling a hole from the inside of his skull. He sincerely hoped he could go the entire day without another thought. "Come on, let's go hit the kitchen, okay?"
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How had he managed to come by such friends? It seemed beyond his capacity to understand, whether from combined fatigue and hangover or simply because he was not a thinking man to begin with; but he didn't have to understand a thing to be thankful for it, and he was smart enough to see what Lloyd had just bullied him into avoiding. Sandor had never known anyone full of enough foolish bravery to do a thing like that, and never in a thousand years would he have guessed that care for someone else's opinion of him would succeed in convincing him to change his mind.
"If he's still asleep when we get back, we're getting a bucket of cold water and dumping it on him," he said darkly as he and Lloyd fell into step and headed toward the Compound. "Little bastard shouldn't get to sleep if we're awake and suffering."
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