[Lucy... "Yes I lied, cos I love you! I'd be twice the wife she was!" What have I done?
Despite the comforting presence of Farrah tucked close against him in the bed arguably too small for both, Benjamin does not rest easily. But there comes a point-
"That's the old woman. You've hurt her too, have you? You shouldn't, you know. You shouldn't hurt nobody."
-where he no longer rests at all. He tenses- seizes, with a gurgle, a death rattle in the back of his throat, and then wakes.
Alive, and safe in his bed in Ambassador, with Farrah and Milky White curled on top of one of his arms.
Even though he's awake, he just lies there for a while, until Farrah has flown the metaphorical nest for the day.
He doesn't follow any of the rituals he'd started, even at his lowest moments up until now.
Instead, he goes down to the garden, first thing in the morning, bracing himself to have to dig again (his back is still sore, his cut hand is aching, every other wound is gone, healed-
He sees Antonio and Discord's shrouded bodies, laid out in too-perfect holes, with too-perfect mounds of dirt next to them, and... Well, nothing would have been adequate enough to prepare him for this. He knows Antonio's shroud is the same as the one he'd wrapped him in, knows it by the dried stain of blood where blood had seeped out of his fatal wound without the dagger there to block it.
The stain stares back at him now, like a withered boutonniere, and the sight of the blood nearly turns his stomach.
He drops to his hands and knees at the foot of Antonio's grave, his hands clenched in the grass, his voice a desperate, keening wail.]
Oh my friends, my friends, I'm asking How can I live, yet you are gone There's a grief that can't be spoken, There's a pain, goes on and on...
All these faces in my memory And her bloodstains on my hands How can I get up each morning, When I know my soul is damned?
Oh my friends, my friends, please answer! I don't know which way to go It should be me beneath the flowers, I cannot bear this pain... alone...
cw: slight mention of blood
"Yes I lied, cos I love you! I'd be twice the wife she was!"
What have I done?
Despite the comforting presence of Farrah tucked close against him in the bed arguably too small for both, Benjamin does not rest easily. But there comes a point-
"That's the old woman. You've hurt her too, have you? You shouldn't, you know. You shouldn't hurt nobody."
-where he no longer rests at all. He tenses- seizes, with a gurgle, a death rattle in the back of his throat, and then wakes.
Alive, and safe in his bed in Ambassador, with Farrah and Milky White curled on top of one of his arms.
Even though he's awake, he just lies there for a while, until Farrah has flown the metaphorical nest for the day.
He doesn't follow any of the rituals he'd started, even at his lowest moments up until now.
Instead, he goes down to the garden, first thing in the morning, bracing himself to have to dig again (his back is still sore, his cut hand is aching, every other wound is gone, healed-
He sees Antonio and Discord's shrouded bodies, laid out in too-perfect holes, with too-perfect mounds of dirt next to them, and... Well, nothing would have been adequate enough to prepare him for this. He knows Antonio's shroud is the same as the one he'd wrapped him in, knows it by the dried stain of blood where blood had seeped out of his fatal wound without the dagger there to block it.
The stain stares back at him now, like a withered boutonniere, and the sight of the blood nearly turns his stomach.
He drops to his hands and knees at the foot of Antonio's grave, his hands clenched in the grass, his voice a desperate, keening wail.]
Oh my friends, my friends, I'm asking
How can I live, yet you are gone
There's a grief that can't be spoken,
There's a pain, goes on and on...
All these faces in my memory
And her bloodstains on my hands
How can I get up each morning,
When I know my soul is damned?
Oh my friends, my friends, please answer!
I don't know which way to go
It should be me beneath the flowers,
I cannot bear this pain... alone...