(Untitled)

[little_moons]

I'm sitting in the sand.

I don't know how long I've been here.

I didn't run away, this time. We went home, after the fired died down, a small, wooden box of ashes held in Tom's hands. We had dinner. We sat in heavy, aching silence in the living room, Mike's absence hanging thick and suffocating between us. This home that had been warm and happy

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[justsookie]

I hate funerals. I hated them when I was seven, when I had to watch my parents' caskets get lowered into the ground, heard everyone saying how sorry they were, how young Corbett and Michelle were, how unfortunate it was that they were leaving two kids behind in the world without parents to look after them. Even back then, people were already starting to wonder about Sookie, who was strange, who was weird, who knew things she shouldn't and didn't seem to have a filter on that damned tiny mouth of hers. I hated them even more after gran's funeral, all those fake condolences when some were saying that she had it coming to her, others blaming me, thinking my words insincere. I hate funerals, because... really, there isn't anything right to say, right to do, and there's always someone looking at the whole ordeal like a spectacle. And that's not what those who've passed deserve. That's not what whose who survive deserve

[little_moons]

I'm quiet for a long time after I realize she's there. I smoke my cigarette down to a nub and then toss the smoldering butt of it into the sea, hearing the faint sizzle of it hitting the water before it's washed out in the tide.

I glance over my shoulder, just to check, an awkward approximation of a smile tipping sideways across my lips.

"Hey, Sook," I murmur, clearing the roughness out of my throat, my arms wrapped around my torso against a chill that isn't really there.

[justsookie]

Did you know that people can sound blank? Like they're just empty inside, nothing more than a light buzz passing through every last cell. Maybe he's actually screaming inside, but somehow, I don't think so. I think that what I hear in him is an echo. Quiet, and not in the way that I've always known Neil to be. In a way, I hate it, because that's never how I've been and... right now, that means I don't know how to approach him or how to even start making it better. Doesn't mean that I won't try, though.

"Hey, Neil," I reply, voice cracking as I quickly splash through the water, his acknowledgment all that I need before I'm there and wrapping him so tight that I have to hope he doesn't forget to breathe. I don't know if it'll help, or if he'll even hug back at all, but I have to try.

Lord help me, I feel like crying now, but it just isn't my place.

[little_moons]

"Jesus, Sookie," I breathe, folding my arms around her and shamelessly burying my face in her neck, and for a moment, I think about Eostre. I wonder what it would've been like if she'd still been here. If we would've been able to comfort each other, or if after all this time, things would've still been strange between us.

I remember how she smelled. How it felt to have her arms around me. Selfishly, I wish I could have her here, because no matter what, I always felt a little better whenever she was around.

"We're gettin' wet," I mutter, like maybe I hadn't noticed before.

[teenagerenegade]

You're supposed to give people space when someone dies. That's what you do. Charlie had gone to the funeral, stood silently with his hand in Edmund's and, at the end, he'd turned away but now he stood on the beach, a little way away, and he watched Neil until he walked up behind him and wrapped both arms around him.

He didn't say anything, not really. Most of the things that people say when people die have always struck Charlie as bullshit, anyway; Neil knows that he's sorry...Neil knows that he's lost.

Charlie just stands there with his chin against Neil's shoulder.

"I love you," he says, quietly, not sure that he's ever said it before. That, maybe, is something Neil could stand to hear.

[little_moons]

Suddenly, there are a pair of skinny arms looped around me and with a shuddering sigh, I lean into him, cigarette dropping from my fingers and disappearing into the surge of the tide.

"Fuck," I whisper, my arms overlapping his, pulling them tighter around me with a sound that's too broken to be laughter.

[teenagerenegade]

What else can he do but hold on? Charlie stands there, both arms wrapped around Neil and he takes most of the weight for both of them, for a moment. He squeezes his eyes shut and breathes.

"I know," he says, quietly.
But how could he? All he knows is that Neil is hurting and he'd do anything...anything to fix it.

[little_moons]

You can't know, I wanna say to him. I want to be angry with him, I can feel it bubbling just under the surface, but for some reason, it's nearly impossible with him holding on to me so tight.

I'm quiet for a long time, then, when I finally speak, it's barely audible above the noise of the ocean. "It wasn't supposed to be this way."

[echolls_cursed]

He hadn't been at the funeral, partly because he hadn't been sure he'd be wanted there, but mostly because funerals were something Logan had never been good with. He never knew what to say or do, so he'd either stand there looking blank- or end up getting so nervous and awkward that he fucked the whole thing up

[little_moons]

At first, I don't hear him. I don't hear much of anything at all. The rush of the tide and the equally loud rush of my own pulse thundering in my ears. This white-noise crackle that the world's faded into over the last few days.

But it cuts through, somehow, and I turn toward the voice, and then blink dumbly for a moment or two, like I don't recognize him. Or maybe that I just didn't expect him to be standing there.

"Hi," I echo, voice rusty with smoke and tears that dried up hours ago. Stepping a little of the way out of the water, I drop into a crouch and scratch behind Linus' ears, lips turning up faintly when he slobbers on my cheek.

[echolls_cursed]

Linus could always sense when someone needed him, it was a trate that Logan couldn't help but envy. He never knew what to say or do- But Linus always did. He knew when someone needed something soft to touch, or a light and loving lick.

There were plenty of things Logan knew people said in these situations, but he couldn't bring himself to say any of them. All he could think about was how angry it had made him after his mother's death when people had come up to him spewing bullshit about how it got better, or how she was in a better place.

It had made him want to scream- and he didn't want Neil to feel that way.

So instead he did what he wished someone had done for him. He dug in his pocket and pulled out his last joint. It was a little sandy, maybe a bit more sparse than the others had been. It was the best he could do though, and he silently held it out in offering, along with his lighter.

[little_moons]

I stare at it for a long moment. His hand outstretched, the joint and the familiarly tarnished metal of his lighter, then finally, I reach out to take it, murmuring a hoarse, "Thanks," and putting the joint between my lips.

"Nobody's tried to get me drunk, yet," I mutter, joint bobbing between my lips, something almost like amusement tinging my voice. "Aren't I supposed to be fuckin' medicated by now?"

[jdick]

A lot of people in Joe's life had died before the island -- a lot of death had followed him around for a long time and he knew he was at least partly the cause of some of it. But here things had been different. Here almost no one died, they disappeared and it was the first time Joe was really reminded that things could still happen this way.

Frowning, he was walking down the beach when he saw Neil and he wasn't sure if he'd be welcome, wasn't sure if Neil wanted to be left alone right now, but he still walked toward him. He couldn't just walk past him, not now. Not with things like this.

"Hey," he said, coming to stand near Neil, back from the water, but still close enough.

[little_moons]

"Hey, Joe," I murmur without turning to look, my eyes on some point on the horizon, watching the moonlight glittering off the waves.

"'s late," I say, like I've just now realized it, or maybe I'm just surprised that I'm not the only one out here. Even with only a couple hundred of us, it's hard to find a place to be truly alone.

I'm not real sure I wanted to be.

[jdick]

"Yeah," Joe agreed, looking out at the moon for a moment before he looked back to Neil. He took a few steps back and kicked off his boots, then walked out into the shallow waves to stand beside Neil, his arm slung over Neil's shoulders. He was fucking shit at this, but he thought maybe everyone was. Maybe no one was ever really good at trying to help.

[little_moons]

"Fuck, Joe. I must really look like shit if you're huggin' me, now," I try and joke, but it doesn't quite work, what, with the way my voice cracks and my body sorta involuntarily leans into him.

[off_the_ceiling]

Jess did what she could. She helped make sure the Winchester didn't fall apart and she helped make sure her family didn't fall apart, but it all felt so small when she saw Neil in the water and thought about what he'd been going through and what was still to come. But here, too, she would do what she could

[little_moons]

Coughing out a dry laugh, the sound of it brittle from more than just smoke, I say, "Don't think I've had it before." I know that it's a pastry, and that it's Greek or Italian or fucking Jewish or whatever, but I didn't even really know you could make phyllo dough. Far as I knew, it comes from a box in the freezer section.

"Didn't fuck up my kitchen too much, right?"

[off_the_ceiling]

"Nah," said Jess, as a little wave kicked up over her ankles and tickled her calves. "And I promise I didn't use it to drive anyone away either, not even the people I don't like. I made some pie after, to make up for it, and hid one away in the back. In case you wanted to take it for the girls."

[little_moons]

"Thanks," I murmur, and I mean it, no matter how distant it might sound, "They'll like that."

I'm quiet for a moment, chewing on a hangnail and tossing the butt of my cigarette into the water. When I do open my mouth, it's to admit, "I haven't been there since yesterday mornin'." There's something about the place... Too many fuckin' memories. It's hard enough just to go home, the thought of walking into that kitchen... I just can't.