And I die just a little..
So the last fic I wrote, I was trying to find Ivy. Found her! Somewhere between Bones and a rock.
Now, I'm writing cause I got tha Fevah, and need to write my characters mourning Casey. First draft, obv, and the final will be posted on BS once we get to it.
For now, feel free to enjoy Frank and Bryna commiserating their loss. Seems sort of wrong to say that.
No rating; there's absolutely nothing graphic here.
Walking through the house was strange. From the front door (open wide, she was greeted by his parents with somber kisses and shaken hands, ushered inside to mingle with people she didn't want to mingle with) to the carefully straightened sheets on his bed, all of the familiarity of the Mulcahy house had been burned away in her numbness.
Distantly, she remembered being curled in those sheets, backed up against his solid form. She remembered laughing with him from across the room; laughing at him for keeping the ScoobyDoo sheets he'd had since they were six; arguing with him over secrets and whispers.
As Frank lay down with her face against Casey's pillow she remembered his smell - that strong scent of Boy that seemed to consist of soap and deodorant and toothpaste and day-old clothes, and the smell of sweat on his skin, hot and damp as she would bury her face in his neck.
She sat up, her plain black dress (serviceable and conservative and very un-Frank) restricting her uncomfortably. She shuffled around until she could fold her legs, creating a nest of thighs and knees and calfs for Casey's pillow cradled to her chest. Bent almost double with her face pressed into the cotton - she imagined she could still smell the last time she had seen him alive and well and happy, almost three months ago - Frank stared at nothing.
Maybe she was thinking, or watching the gradual change of the light from the window, moving across the room towards her at glacial pace. Maybe she was remembering, though she looked far too solemn for that with her smooth brow pulled taught by knitted brows, her wide, thin mouth creased into a melancholy frown.
It had become a permanent expression since September, briefly broken by fleeting smiles or twisted into anger, and always returning to the quiet sorrow attached to regret and to emptiness. Now the small blonde thought she might never smile again.
What reason did she have, when she had failed in her attempts to save her best friend? What right did she have, when Casey was dead and gone, and his family bereft, and it was her fault for never telling him the truth? What right did she have, that she had never shed a tear for his death?
Maybe she thought of this as she sat, clutching his pillow and gently rocking in her place with distant eyes. Bryna didn't know. Bryna knew that her brother was dead, and that Frank had done everything she could to try and reach him in time. Bryna knew that she was still the baby, and that the war had been brought to her doorstep. Bryna knew that Iona was heartbroken, but had forgiven Frank her transgressions (Bryna had long forgiven Frank, for the older girl was a confidante and surrogate sister, and Bryna loved her as such).
The youngest child of the extensive Mulcahy family had come to sit in peace, in the one place that she had felt safe over the years when life made her head spin. Casey's room was warm, and it had always had her brother with his strong arms and his smile and his lovely fresh-baked bread smell. Casey room had always welcomed the littlest redhead, whether the oldest child was home or not.
She had thought to sit on his bed, to remember him and to hold his vigil as the wake went on downstairs. Earlier, she and Iona had chosen poems to recite for a Eulogy. Later, they would read them. Bryna had brought hers, folded into the pocket of her pinafore, and considered that she might tell it to Casey's room and see if he liked it, before telling it to the world downstairs.
She hadn't imagined that the room may already be occupied - least of all by Frank, who had tried to hard to avoid everything that reminded her of Casey for so long - so when the door parted and she found Frank on Casey's bed, her skirt rucked up around her hips in a way that Bryna couldn't have found dirty if she tried, and Casey's pillow caught in her bird-bone arms.
Bryna was already holding Frank's hand by the time she thought that perhaps announcing herself would have been polite, her soft hand closing around Frank's bandaged one and her head against the narrow shoulder of her brother's best friend. They didn't say anything for a while (although Frank gave a lethargic jolt as Bryna settled beside her, before gently squeezing the girl's hand and resting her blonde head against Bryna's sorrel curls), because words weren't really necessary or useful in situations like this - where Frank blames herself and Bryna blames the pigheadedness of the pair of them.
Mostly they sat in silence, taking comfort in each others' presence until Bryna had a thought. It was quiet, unlike most of her thoughts which burst into her mind and paraded their excellence until she took note. This one insinuated its way to the forefront of her mind and stood in silence. It was a quiet thought, unassuming and sleek in its simplicity: She would give Casey's necklace to Frank.
He kept it on his dresser, and Bryna had found it when she was tidying earlier that morning - rearranging everything to make it look as if she'd tidied, and dropping the dirty laundry into the basket on her hip. Passed from father to son down the Mulcahy line for generations, the beige stone was cold as she lifted it, dangling it on its chain in front of Frank.
Bryna offered the trinket like a child, held at arms length and with a hopeful expression, the sort of expression that made adults lift small children and bestow proud kisses and praise. But Bryna was fifteen years old, and for all of her youthful advantage there was an age now in her eyes that had nothing to do with years and everything to do with worry.
She needed Frank to remained tied to this family, to stay with her and with Iona and with Noah and Kyna and Ahern. Frank was the closest thing that anyone had to Casey now, and if she disappeared again Bryna didn't know what she would do.
The blonde girl looked at her redheaded friend with grey eyes. Slowly, her fingers closed around the stone and Bryna let the silver chain drop to lay in an odd ticklish-itch against Frank's fingers. "I can't--"
"Please."
"Bry,"
Bryna shook her head, sat back down on Casey's bed and wrapped her hand into Frank's empty one. It was a little while before she realised that they were both crying. Bryna assumed that she had started it, shaking and sobbing in Frank's arms with Casey's pillow between them and their arms in a sisterly tangle.
Frank cried quietly. Tears rolled over her cheeks in great mascara-stained globs leaving trails of watery grey on her skin and smudges of black beneath her eyes.
I'm not entirely sure how to end it.. Hopefully it'll come to me later.
Now, I'm writing cause I got tha Fevah, and need to write my characters mourning Casey. First draft, obv, and the final will be posted on BS once we get to it.
For now, feel free to enjoy Frank and Bryna commiserating their loss. Seems sort of wrong to say that.
No rating; there's absolutely nothing graphic here.
Walking through the house was strange. From the front door (open wide, she was greeted by his parents with somber kisses and shaken hands, ushered inside to mingle with people she didn't want to mingle with) to the carefully straightened sheets on his bed, all of the familiarity of the Mulcahy house had been burned away in her numbness.
Distantly, she remembered being curled in those sheets, backed up against his solid form. She remembered laughing with him from across the room; laughing at him for keeping the ScoobyDoo sheets he'd had since they were six; arguing with him over secrets and whispers.
As Frank lay down with her face against Casey's pillow she remembered his smell - that strong scent of Boy that seemed to consist of soap and deodorant and toothpaste and day-old clothes, and the smell of sweat on his skin, hot and damp as she would bury her face in his neck.
She sat up, her plain black dress (serviceable and conservative and very un-Frank) restricting her uncomfortably. She shuffled around until she could fold her legs, creating a nest of thighs and knees and calfs for Casey's pillow cradled to her chest. Bent almost double with her face pressed into the cotton - she imagined she could still smell the last time she had seen him alive and well and happy, almost three months ago - Frank stared at nothing.
Maybe she was thinking, or watching the gradual change of the light from the window, moving across the room towards her at glacial pace. Maybe she was remembering, though she looked far too solemn for that with her smooth brow pulled taught by knitted brows, her wide, thin mouth creased into a melancholy frown.
It had become a permanent expression since September, briefly broken by fleeting smiles or twisted into anger, and always returning to the quiet sorrow attached to regret and to emptiness. Now the small blonde thought she might never smile again.
What reason did she have, when she had failed in her attempts to save her best friend? What right did she have, when Casey was dead and gone, and his family bereft, and it was her fault for never telling him the truth? What right did she have, that she had never shed a tear for his death?
Maybe she thought of this as she sat, clutching his pillow and gently rocking in her place with distant eyes. Bryna didn't know. Bryna knew that her brother was dead, and that Frank had done everything she could to try and reach him in time. Bryna knew that she was still the baby, and that the war had been brought to her doorstep. Bryna knew that Iona was heartbroken, but had forgiven Frank her transgressions (Bryna had long forgiven Frank, for the older girl was a confidante and surrogate sister, and Bryna loved her as such).
The youngest child of the extensive Mulcahy family had come to sit in peace, in the one place that she had felt safe over the years when life made her head spin. Casey's room was warm, and it had always had her brother with his strong arms and his smile and his lovely fresh-baked bread smell. Casey room had always welcomed the littlest redhead, whether the oldest child was home or not.
She had thought to sit on his bed, to remember him and to hold his vigil as the wake went on downstairs. Earlier, she and Iona had chosen poems to recite for a Eulogy. Later, they would read them. Bryna had brought hers, folded into the pocket of her pinafore, and considered that she might tell it to Casey's room and see if he liked it, before telling it to the world downstairs.
She hadn't imagined that the room may already be occupied - least of all by Frank, who had tried to hard to avoid everything that reminded her of Casey for so long - so when the door parted and she found Frank on Casey's bed, her skirt rucked up around her hips in a way that Bryna couldn't have found dirty if she tried, and Casey's pillow caught in her bird-bone arms.
Bryna was already holding Frank's hand by the time she thought that perhaps announcing herself would have been polite, her soft hand closing around Frank's bandaged one and her head against the narrow shoulder of her brother's best friend. They didn't say anything for a while (although Frank gave a lethargic jolt as Bryna settled beside her, before gently squeezing the girl's hand and resting her blonde head against Bryna's sorrel curls), because words weren't really necessary or useful in situations like this - where Frank blames herself and Bryna blames the pigheadedness of the pair of them.
Mostly they sat in silence, taking comfort in each others' presence until Bryna had a thought. It was quiet, unlike most of her thoughts which burst into her mind and paraded their excellence until she took note. This one insinuated its way to the forefront of her mind and stood in silence. It was a quiet thought, unassuming and sleek in its simplicity: She would give Casey's necklace to Frank.
He kept it on his dresser, and Bryna had found it when she was tidying earlier that morning - rearranging everything to make it look as if she'd tidied, and dropping the dirty laundry into the basket on her hip. Passed from father to son down the Mulcahy line for generations, the beige stone was cold as she lifted it, dangling it on its chain in front of Frank.
Bryna offered the trinket like a child, held at arms length and with a hopeful expression, the sort of expression that made adults lift small children and bestow proud kisses and praise. But Bryna was fifteen years old, and for all of her youthful advantage there was an age now in her eyes that had nothing to do with years and everything to do with worry.
She needed Frank to remained tied to this family, to stay with her and with Iona and with Noah and Kyna and Ahern. Frank was the closest thing that anyone had to Casey now, and if she disappeared again Bryna didn't know what she would do.
The blonde girl looked at her redheaded friend with grey eyes. Slowly, her fingers closed around the stone and Bryna let the silver chain drop to lay in an odd ticklish-itch against Frank's fingers. "I can't--"
"Please."
"Bry,"
Bryna shook her head, sat back down on Casey's bed and wrapped her hand into Frank's empty one. It was a little while before she realised that they were both crying. Bryna assumed that she had started it, shaking and sobbing in Frank's arms with Casey's pillow between them and their arms in a sisterly tangle.
Frank cried quietly. Tears rolled over her cheeks in great mascara-stained globs leaving trails of watery grey on her skin and smudges of black beneath her eyes.
I'm not entirely sure how to end it.. Hopefully it'll come to me later.