[It's hard to climb on more than Paul's boots, being that the statue's twenty feet high on a six foot pedestal, but kids do it all the time anyway. Can't keep them off, really, and that includes Bax. Sometimes kids play apple jacks on the square around him, sometimes they read comics or eat sweets in his shade.
It doesn't seem to be the case today. The only kids there are one he knows from school — Bill Denbrough, a friends of Ben and Beverly's — and Mike Hanlon, who he knows from plain sight. Even if he attended the same piddling school as Yves, there was no flying under the radar when you were the only black kid in town.
They're walking their bikes down the lane, but both slow when they catch sight of Del's face.]
Whoa, whoa, where's the fire? [Mike asks, holding up a peaceable hand to slow Del's rush.]
Del, w-w-what's w-wrong? [Bill's stutter gets in his way all the time, but he stands steadier than most kids. Meets Del's eyes with a surety that makes you feel seen.
He'd know this panic, after all. His brother was the first to die.
[ he comes to a stop, reluctantly, and struggles to catch his breath. ]
It's...
[ he looks at bill and the words catch in his throat. running into him feels like it's an omen, almost, like he's looking in a mirror at who he's about to become, who he'd give anything not to be. ]
Bax is— I'm lookin' for him. [ he can't bring himself to say he's missing, even though it's written all over his face. ] Y-you haven't seen him, have you?
[What an omen, indeed. At least it's an empathetic one. His eyes go steely at once, and he casts a look around them. Gauging the situation. Mike's face falls, though he tries his best to hide it.]
Oh, fudge... [Mike says faintly.] Do you think he could be in town, or outside?
...C-c-ould've gone anywhere. You up to ch-check N-Neibolt Street? K-K-Kid could have g-gone to s-s-see the train t-tracks.
[Mike looks unsettled, but he nods all right.] And if we find him, we'll bring him back up here. To the soda shop, they're open late, there's always kids in there.
[Both of them look back to Del, and Bill's eyes flick between the other boy's. Bill's tall for his age while Del may be quite short, but somehow locking eyes now feels like an even match. For better or for worse. Deciding something very serious, he gives only one piece of advice. It doesn't make much sense.]
I-if you s-see something strange out there, you g-g-gotta run, or you g-g-gotta use y-your imagination. [His jaw sets and his shoulders square.] Th-that's the only w-w-way kids can g-g-get out of a mess.
[ use your imagination? he's not even sure what that means in this context, but he's also afraid to ask, because that means acknowledging the something strange that he desperately wants to pretend none of them will encounter.
[Understandable. It's so hard to brush up against, much less come out and name. Bill and Mike nod and bid Del goodbye, mounting their bikes and sailing away.
The three of your regroup soon after. Individually, you've had no luck, but once you're together you get a lead. Another kid says he saw Bax running down into the Barrens. A young girl says she saw him near the sewer pipes, while taking a walk on the overpass with her big sister.
No one's seen him after that.
With no other choice, the three of you race down into the green, down near the stink of the Kenduskeag river, where the city sewage dilutes and sails out to parts unknown. It's a hard run, even for the most active kids, and you are panting and wheezing by the time you come to one of those foreboding metal mushrooms, jutting up from packed earth and entangled in weeds. One already had the massive lid hauled off, leaning against the side. It would take about four or five kids to both unscrew and lift it.
There's an abandoned sneaker in front of it, just Bax's size.]
[ he doesn't understand. why the fuck would bax have come here? he saw that monster in the pipes before too, he knows about the kids who've disappeared, it's a fucking sewer on top of everything else. he knows nothing good can possibly come out of playing somewhere like this, so why...
as winded as he is, the moment he convinces his weak limbs to unfreeze, he goes dashing for the sewer pipe.
he doesn't look too hard at the sneaker because he doesn't want to recognize it. ]
I met Richie and Eddie, they said to stay away from the water.
[she says this grimly when they see the sneaker, because it's not really a warning. she knows they can't ignore finding bax's sneaker. they aren't going to go back to the diner and wait. she just feels she should say it now, so they're all aware.]
The three scale the ladder, one at a time, into musky, repugnant stink. The grey water is up to their knees and the squish under foot is a promise of worse unseen below, should they happen to stumble. Ahead there's a broad, dark pipe, large enough for a man to crouch and walk. Kids can do it standing, and so you do.
It's forbiddingly dark down here. Noises echo. No light. Maybe one of you has a match? Maybe you trace a hand along the wall to find your way. It may not do you much good. As the warnings say, the Derry sewage system is a maze, and people do get lost.
Not the sort of thing you want to think about, but it's impossible not to.
Rats squeak, skitter. Probably crawling on higher piles of waste along the walls. There's running water somewhere distant, and then somewhere quite close. How can you know? It's hard to see.
Easy to imagine, isn't it? Easy to imagine anything down here. Bill said to use your imaginations, but it's easy enough for an imagination to use you. This is a place for nightmares. Not little kids.
Or maybe today is an exception. There's a muffled sound. An echo from somewhere much further down.
On your next step there's a drop off, and you fall three feet into a different pipe system. There's no dodging the muck now.
The sound rises again. You think it sounds like a sob.]
[ somewhere in the back of his mind del really appreciates that andy and jen came along with him despite every one of them knowing it was an awful fucking idea. it's very far in the back right now, though, and he doesn't say a word the whole time they push forward.
he hears that sound from below. he falls. he's disgusting. it's fine. then he hears it again. it's a horribly unnerving sound to hear, echoing down in these dark pipes, and it sends a shiver through him... but at the same time, it fills him with enough hope to keep pushing on with all his strength in its direction, the hope that maybe they're at least not too late. maybe he won't be the next bill. ]
[she wouldn't have even considered not coming along. she's oddly not afraid right now, if only because they're facing it. they're walking directly into the place that's the source of all of the terror they've been feeling for so long. and, well, either they'll die or they won't. there's some sort of relief in no longer hiding and avoiding and trying to confront it.
they just have to get bax back. he's not her brother, but by this point she's spent enough time around him and del that she cares, too. if they lost him, it would break something forever, and that's something she values too much.
unfortunately, it is disgusting down here. she has not experienced act 3 which is at least half sewer levels yet so she is unprepared for the muck. but the nasty crawling creatures, rats, all the waste - well, she finds herself oddly calm about it. the water is another story. it's fine now, but if it starts getting deeper, she'll start feeling more afraid.
she'll follow after, towards that sound, and tries to imagine that maybe it will be bax, safe and sound.]
[ andy will dig around in his pockets - tidbits and bits of bob, bandaids and bobbypins, and-- matches. For no particular reason. Perhaps over the past summer there's been a few incidents, that no one ever really thought much of. small brush fires in the park, a dumpster or two that was set alight with no particular reason. maybe there just wasn't enough rain.
anyway, he'll pass a few of them out to the others, striking one on the side of the box and breathing a sigh of relief when it lights despite the damp.
but no. there was never a question they wouldn't follow in here. he doesn't have any siblings, never knew what it was like to have that feeling - of someone who would go to the ends of the earth to ensure you were safe. maybe it would be nice to feel that no matter what, someone is going to try and come for you. if it has to be him, it will be him.
he'll follow as well, a little light in the dark. ]
[On the other hand, would anyone notice if there weren't little fires being set around town anymore? Perhaps that's an easy thing to smooth over. A bonus, even.
Whenever you light a match, the sights are rarely pleasant. How could they be? But at least you don't see anything you don't expect to see. Sometimes there's a crunch underfoot, but that's below the water and beyond comprehension. You can't waste time. This isn't an exploration, it's a rescue mission.
But it takes turns like one. More than once you come to a split path, and choose on an instinct. Right or Left? Center? Should we double back? The air is so pungent down here that your nostrils sour. Your clothes are ruined and in spite of your best efforts, there's splashes of shit in your hair. Wiped at the edges of your neck, your jaw. And you can only strike so many matches, only keep them lit before they burn down to your finger tips or fall on accident, get splashed. It's better to hold on single file and move ahead until you hit a turn, and then light one to see your way.
The sounds have quieted.
But the next time you light a match — it's Jen's this time, she's down to two now — there is a small shape, very far ahead in a dizzying straight shot. It almost looks unnatural, how far this one barrels into the horizon.
Once more, you hear a sob. Still echoing, but closer now than ever. And then the very far thing shifts.]
[ the sound of that voice makes his heart jump into his throat, even if it's hard to discern with all the tinny echoing just whose it is.
in almost any other situation del would keep quiet until he was close enough to make a move, try to keep whatever else might be lurking down here from catching onto his presence too soon. as small as he is, passing by unseen is his greatest advantage and an absolute necessity when dealing with bigger threats.
but right now, as sinister and oppressive as the atmosphere is, even when they still have all the other kids' warnings playing through their heads and he knows for a fact that whatever nightmare exists down in the pipes knows how to imitate the voices of kids it's taken, he can't just not answer if his brother's waiting for him. he can't let him think he's not coming. ]
[no. sorry, something instantly seizes her heart with fear. maybe it's the length of the tunnel ahead, the way this almost feels surreal but it almost feels too perfect, too happy an ending.
that isn't going to be bax, safe and ready to bring home. but she doesn't think she can stop del, knows he wouldn't forgive her if he tried. just. she feels the hammering in her heart, that oppressive sense that something bad is going to happen, even if she doesn't know what.]
Del!
[she'll go after him, but won't grab him. she's just preparing to, to grab him and pull him back if she has to.]
[ the voice of fear is so impossible to hear over the noise of everything else happening in his head at this moment. but there's something about this place, the deep quiet broken only by a voice, that makes it worse than noise. that this is a place so filled with dread, so drenched with blood, so buried in a malevolent history that it can never be purged from the stone.
the enigma of ❚❚❚❚❚❚❚❚. except that's a place you've never been, and never heard of.
taking off after the both of them, if only so he's not left behind. ]
[The figure stands. It's still small, still only catching the barest traces of the light, but the misery painted in his voice and movements is clear. It's petrified.]
DEL!
[There's splashing. It's running towards them too, frantic and feeble footed. Slipping at once and landing with a wail on all fours.]
I'm sorry Del! I'm so sorry! I thought it was Dwight! [It scrambles to its feet. His feet, stumbling, trying to move fast in the muck and being too feeble and frantic to keep a steady gait, much less a run.] I thought he was c-coming to pick me up, but then he changed, and he ch-huh—
[The power of the sob overwhelms him and Bax staggers, trying to wipe at his face with filth-smeared hands.]
He changed! He chased me down here, and now I'm lost, and now you're lost too, and I'm sorry, I'm sorry Del! I'm so sorry!
[You're better on your feet than he is, even with the resistance of the water. You aren't half so exhausted as he is. You aren't so frightened, because you're focused. The fear is there but it hasn't made your body waver and fail, hunger and panic haven't blinded you. Bax stumbles at a slow wobble, arms reaching out to you.]
Del!
[It's all of a moment. The water behind him swells.
A limb snaps out and clamps down on Bax's shoulder. He screams in a piercing pitch, and none of you see the same thing.
To Andy, it's the fetid, thickly muscled reach of an undead warrior. Inhuman and legendary, straight from hell. The sewage drips off the armor and the low, thick-skulled brow, jagged teeth with no lips to corral them cut a savage grin across an inhuman face.
To Jen, it's a paw. Cresting up through the water is the hunched, matted back of an enormous charcoal wolf. Yellow eyes reflect the light as the bowed head rises and fangs are bared, and the thing keeps rising. Four, six, seven feet tall at the arch of its back. Unnatural and brushing the top of the pipe.
To Del, it's a gloved hand with an orange ruff around the wrist. He'd only seen it rendered in embroidery threads before. Now he sees a clown in truth, silver dollar eyes glinting in the flickering matchlight, the red greasepaint smile a dead ringer for fresh blood. It grins, eyes never leaving Del's.
When it speaks, none of you hear the same voice either.]
You come to play?
[Bax hasn't stopped screaming. He jerks to the side and scratches, hits, kicks.
The clown's wolf's darkspawn's face nearly cleaves in half it opens its mouth so wide. It snaps around Bax's neck and shoulder and severs the scream. Severs his flesh, wide eyes bulging in impossible agony and shock as the rest of him is ripped away.
Bax falls into the muck and sends up an arc of spitting blood. Flesh dangles from the things jaw before it snaps again, and all traces of the meat disappear. Vanish down an endless gullet.
The body that was Del's brother spurts and drools blood, twitches, splashing the water around him. Then it simmers down, and lays still.]
[ it's okay, it's okay, i'm not mad, here, i've got you, del's shouting back down the tunnel as bax keeps apologizing, and he moves as fast as he can through the sludge to meet him, reaching out to try to grab him and pull him over to them. but the tunnel is long and he never gets close enough.
it feels like slow motion, watching the water swell up and that terrifying monster emerge, knowing exactly what's going to happen but having no way of stopping it. his heart is pounding in his ears, but it's not nearly enough to drown out the screams that echo so impossibly loud.
he doesn't stop moving forward and trying to reach out even as he's watching his brother get torn apart in front of him, even when it's completely clear that nothing anyone could do would be enough. it's only when the body stops moving that he stops too. just freezes and stares for what feels like a long moment.
there are so many ways in which this was his fault. he shouldn't have left him at that party, he shouldn't have taken so long to think to come here, he shouldn't have shouted so early. would that have changed things? if he hadn't shouted out when he knew it was a bad idea, would he have been able to reach him before that thing realized?
the rational part of him knows that it wouldn't have. that monster's probably been watching them from the pipes in their house ever since that day. that was his real mistake. he should have just packed them both up and escaped this miserable deathtrap of a town the very next morning. and now bax has had to pay the price for it. and jen and andy are probably going to too, now that they're all in this thing's sights.
he turns his head slightly to address them behind him, and just says, weakly: ]
Sorry.
[ and then he's just taking that stupid bloodstained nail file out of his pocket — he should have stolen dwight's swiss army knife, another stupid fucking mistake to round out all the others — and rushing at the monster with it, knowing full well he's not going to make a damn bit of difference. ]
her plan was to grab del, whatever happened. reach out and put her arms around him and drag him back to safety. maybe he'd have bax with him, maybe not. move as quickly as possible, get out of here. get far away.
even in the horror of what's happening, she still reaches him, tries to grab him by the shirt or the side so he can't run at that thing, because that's not going to end well. it's up to eric whether or not she manages to hold him back at all, even just a little, because the moment this starts, she's frozen.
it might have been enough, just to see the small boy torn to pieces by a monster. but this...
she doesn't know why she's so afraid. there's no logic to it, no reason for her to be. some malevolent clown tearing his head open, some undead monster, those things should be more frightened. or maybe she should be frightened of a car, like the one that chased her down, like the accident that started all of this.
but there is something about watching this wolf devour a child that sickens her, seizes her with the kind of fear that goes beyond logic and conscious thought and awakens a pure animal panic of witnessing a predator about to strike. she can't move, she can't think. she sees its teeth stained with blood and the evil intent in its eyes, and she knows this is an image she has seen in her nightmares night after night.
if there's any part of her even thinking beyond the extent to which she's frozen in terror, it's the part that feels foolish. monsters are very real. that she felt she could assert some independence, that she felt she could find some way to protect herself, make her own choices is proven a lie. the only choice is the loveless cruelty of viconia's protection, safe, even if it destroys every part of her that makes her her, or these jaws. and she chose wrong, and now it's too late.
but del looks at them and says sorry, and she doesn't... she doesn't think he should be...]
it's the first and easiest voice to listen to in his head. run! maybe this time, you can make it far enough for it to matter. one day, you can run far enough away that nothing will ever be able to touch you again.
it's easy to be scared of a nightmare. this one is the echo of an echo of an echo - a nightmare that rattles through the body night after night, so often it becomes a familiar friend. a song you know all the lyrics to, a dance that strings you like a puppet across the stage. enough to imagine becoming one of them, forgotten in the dark and rotted beyond recognition. you can only be so terrified of your own face in the mirror. it should frighten you more, and that's what frightens you. so, run, goddammit.
he wishes he had fire, or lightning, or anything like the heroes in the stories. a bravery required to stand in front of a horde of enemies, a great evil, and say something meaningful enough to inspire a turnaround. No more compromises! or maybe `May the ❚❚❚❚❚ grant us victory, or everything else is meaningless!`
but he doesn't. he has himself, and a pair of soaked shoes with the sole falling off, and the great horde of a thrumming beast that moves as one, that swarms every place in the dark and deep and will always find him, and no words. run!
Bax's body stops moving, and Del throws himself against the tide like every brave warrior in the books. Like Boromir against the orcs - a fight he knows he will lose, but will die trying anyway. And Jen, following him, because she cares so much despite herself, because even after everything has taught her that she must care for herself and herself alone, she cannot quell a spirit that is kind beyond measure.
[There's very little you could have done that would have changed anything. That's the problem, isn't it? You're out of your depths here. This isn't your place.
In your lives, you are heroes. Not the slipshod facsimiles you've shrugged into here, of course, but the ones you really lived. In those you are brave, capable. Magical even. So dazzlingly impressive, even when you falter it's in the manner of legend. Your stories belong in books with countless pages, sagas of endless hours.
Here, you will be single sentence obituaries.
Del does try his best. He bypasses Jen's desperate reach and makes a charge with a weapon that barely did shit when It was only a tentacle in the sink. The clown is laughing high and loud, and he can get a shot into its gut. It works about as good as last time, stabbing through the silver suit with little leeway and little to-do. Bill told you to use your imagination, but you don't know the rules here so you never figured it out. Maybe you should have played pretend and believed you were Boromir. Maybe then that nail file would have extended, swung like a broadsword, dealt a better blow to a monster that lives and eats imagination.
Oh well. You aren't the Chosen Ones around this town, so it likely wouldn't work anyway. No local godly blessings for you.
The clown grabs at Del, catches him between two fingers by the ear and swinging him around with a peel of laughter. Playing with its food while the boy makes a vicious last stand. It rips the top half off and Del stumbles loose. When that doesn't stop the kid, It snatches him by the crown of his head and the base of his left shoulder. It lifts Del off the ground, numb to the kicks and screams and beating of little fists, the stab of the nail file into its false flesh. It pulls, and it pulls, and soon the neck gives way with a wet tear. Del's head is thrown to the side and the clown samples a bite from the elder brother, locking eyes with Jen as blood wells into the meat.
She's next. Whether she stands her ground or takes Andy's cue, it matters very little. Those stubby little girl's legs are no match for the loping bounds of a great wolf. It pursues, huffing and tongue lolling, jaw snapping and snarls beating against the metal walls of the pipe. It knocks her down with a paw as broad as a shovel. She might scramble to her hands and knees, but it lays into her legs first. A snap of the jaw severs flesh and shatters her shin bone on the left, the right gets bitten above the knee. It doesn't swallow just yet. It crunches around her middle and shakes her in the water like a rat, rattling until she quiets. Stills. Dies. In the dark, alone, without comfort, as Shar intended.
Poor Andy might have it the worst of all. He lives longer, but he's got that much longer to sweat about it. These pipes are as deadly a trap as Its jaws. It wouldn't be a problem for, say, Eddie Kaspbrak, who Bill once remarked as having a compass in his head. One of those funny little gifts given to the kids meant to come down here. Not to you, Andy.
Andy gets to run, and wade, and cry and moan and regret it all, to stink like piss and dodge rats for hours, to wonder if that sound is a pipe creaking, or if it's that thing gaining on him. He gets to feel his belly ache as the sun goes down in the lovely land above, and he gets to feeling dry in the mouth as midnight hits. As morning comes. He gets to feel his knees shake with the effort of standing up, bemoan wasting the last of his matches as he takes yet another fucking wrong turn. He gets to wonder if he'll ever see light again.
He does. Briefly. When he's collapsed in a heap against trash and feces, too tired and delirious and oh-so-ashamed of himself, he sees a twin reflections. Shining like silver dollars. Bending close.
It lights a match in front of his bleary, blinking eyes, and he sees the cracking greasepaint of a clown. Maybe by then it's a relief. The jaws open wide, and they sink through the flesh of his chest, crunch past the ribs and close around his coward's heart.
It is something of a tragedy. But no one's going to hear about it anyway.]
[she watches del die while still frozen in place, but she'll never known if her failure to turn tail and run was out of some sense of courage and loyalty to her friend, or if the form her terror takes is just this, if she lacks even the meaner courage of andy's sense of self preservation.
she is trying to fight the fear. maybe she doesn't know the rules, but that's what this thing wants, doesn't it?
the wolf isn't the thing to be afraid of. someone had told her that, a long time ago. there are some creatures you ought to be wary of, that you ought to be careful of, but to know that they are only animals trying to survive, same as you but without even the knowledge you have of the many ways you are protected.
in the nightmare, the wolf never actually bites her, never manages to devour her. it's simply there, large and deadly, close, and in contrast to that lesson someone had once taught her, there is a glint of intent in its eye, a sense of threat, a desire to hurt. logically, wolves aren't like that about their prey - maybe if you threaten their pack, but there's no malice in hunger. but it didn't feel that way to her at the time and it doesn't feel that way now.
in the nightmare, someone saves her before anything truly bad can happen. but there's a voice in her head reminding her - that part is the nightmare. that's the thing she should have been afraid of. compared to that, compared to her, there was never any danger in the animal. maybe in life, if she had stood her ground, if she hadn't simply backed away and clung to the first person she found, it never would have bitten her, either.
but she doesn't know why she's thinking these thoughts, why they even matter. even if she could defang this particular shape of nightmare, talk herself out of this specific trauma, it only leads deeper into a nightmare where the thing that wants to hurt her isn't a hungry animal, but something darker and crueler, something that only wants to inflict pain, feeds off what it can do to her, and if she remembers it than it happened and there's nothing she can do to change that it happened. so it probably doesn't matter, but -
It matters because I could help Andy and Del.
if only she could stop seeing a wolf, and was able to will herself to confront what she's really seeing, no matter how much worse it really is, maybe she will know what to do. maybe she will see something familiar, something she can confront.
she's wrong, though. she watches the thing toy with del, she watches the thing bite into him. and she can't, she can't look at it after all, she doesn't want to see what's there after all. she doesn't want to know about these things, she doesn't want to have to face trauma, she wants to be that child who only knew to fear fangs and teeth, and to think that maybe, even though she's terrified, the nightmare won't last so long that she will actually feel its bite.
she'll never know if she would have moved to help fight the thing if she'd managed to steel herself in time, if she was even close. but del is dead, isn't he? he must be dead, the thing locks eyes with her, and she doesn't recognize that expression. she understands, instantly, something that eluded her before, that the wolf in her nightmares wasn't hungry, not at all. but it is hungry this time, and that brings all of her terror to the forefront, and she learns that she was right to be afraid as the wolf's jaws finally after all of these years do close around her.
her legs at first, so she can try desperately to crawl away, the self-preservation instinct suddenly hitting her once it is far too late. and it toys with her like it wants to hurt her, and she screams and screams until her throat threatens to tear, a scream she had to swallow many times. there's no one to punish her, to force her to be harder and stronger, so she lets it out, a scream for all of the times someone has hurt her for no reason other than that they wanted to hurt her.
she lies there, dying, and realizes she can't hear andy, hasn't for a while.
good.
there's no bitterness to him fleeing. she fought so hard for them, for bax, for del, for andy too, because she knew that's how it works. even if there's nothing else about her she has to give, maybe her brittle edges are enough. enough to attach herself to people, for them to want her around. but there's nothing about her that someone would love, that someone would throw themselves into the maws of a monster for like del did for bax.
it's the one happy thought. the worst would be if he had loved her enough to stay, had been dragged into this nightmare with her, suffered for her sake. but she didn't hold onto him so tightly, and he got away.
she has nothing, is nothing, and dies alone, but that's good.]
[ the pounding of his own blood in his ears as he takes off - run run run! - is enough to drown out the first sounds of the consuming, but it's impossible not to hear as he starts to escape, as his body starts to think maybe he can survive this. he doesn't know if they screamed at all, but he hears the sounds of tearing and splashing and somehow that's worse. shouldn't it be louder, when someone dies?
if there were such a thing as true virtue in the world - if things like compassion and faith and justice and love really haunted this earth - there'd be more examples wouldn't there? someone who cares enough to take a stand, a reason to believe that this place is worth saving. but every vision, every dream, every moment walking the waking world has been filled with scenes of violence and hatred. burning bodies and vultures who pick at the remains. maybe there are good people somewhere, but those people are born luckier, with the world on their side. they have beauty and bravery and friendships worth dying for. they have compasses in their heads and the power to inspire others to follow, they remembered to bring the right weapons, they cared enough to be saved.
but at least in derry there are only the baser values. greed and rage and sloth and gluttony. adults who are supposed to care who only see what they care to, which is nothing. that every child in derry is an acceptable sacrifice to a miserable life. he is an acceptable sacrifice on the altar of derry. easy to forget, a nail hammered down. sent here to wither and die and be forgotten in some basement. and he is not above the rest of the sinners. miserable and cowardly and envious. if he was a better person, maybe they all could have deserved to survive.
he's never been one to have regrets. regrets are for when the world slows to a crawl, when the fizzle and spark of constant motion fades and leaves you an empty thing, the great heavy pendulum swinging to the other side of his mind. when the great dark beast comes to press its paw against his chest and force him to the ground. but it's difficult not to regret this. he wishes he had stayed. if only because then it would be over, then he wouldn't be hearing the splash and tear in his mind, and thinking of the sun. of rain. of storms. of laughter and freedom and justice. of twin moons. a spark of flame.
he doesn't fight, or even try and escape again at the end.
sorry, del.
sorry, jen.
but the last thought is anger. rage.
he should have burned the whole place to the ground while he had the chance. a blaze bright and loud enough that no one could ignore it ever again. the match goes out. ]
[ all of del's fear was extinguished along with the light in his brother's eyes.
he'd never been afraid of most things other kids were afraid of anyway — scary movies, the dark, rattlesnakes, bullies, getting in trouble — because he could never afford to be when he had someone else he had to be strong for. getting passed around from one house to the next where they'd always been treated like someone's obligation, never like family, he'd learned early on that they could only really rely on themselves; if they didn't want to be crushed by the world's indifference toward them, he would have to be the unshakable pillar supporting them both.
that was the one fear he'd never been able to escape — that he'd fuck up and bax would get hurt or lost or worse. that he would buckle under all the weight that never should have been put on the shoulders of a single kid. and that fear was so constant and pervasive that it ate away at him a little more every day; no matter how hard he tried to steel himself, he'd only ever be able to last so long with a slowly eroding foundation. jen and andy had helped fill some of the cracks, but there was only so much they ever could have done. this wasn't their house to fix anyway.
bax is gone, and it no longer matters if the pillar comes crashing down. it's... freeing, even if it's a freedom he never, ever wanted. freedom from the single fear that's worn on him all his life, the freedom to break and let loose with everything he has.
it's not much. he's under no illusion otherwise. he vaguely remembers bill's advice in that moment as he rushes the monster, about using his imagination to fight this thing. maybe this useless nail file could have been a legendary sword fit for the steward of gondor if he'd been able to believe. but boromir was never supposed to outlive faramir. it's better this way.
in a hopeless fight against a monster that must represent fear itself, he feels none; not as it picks him up and toys with him, not as it rips out little pieces of him, not as it slowly and unrelentingly pulls on his hair and he feels every fiber in his neck straining and ready to snap.
in the end, this was where they'd ended up. down in the sewers with the rest of the refuse. with the decaying goldfish people had brought into their homes with fanfare only to give them the bare minimum of what they needed to continue existing until they could dump them out and move on with their lives, free from the burden of being obligated to care. the world always puts you in your proper place one way or another.
that's all right. this world never wanted them, but he doesn't want this world either. his neck finally gives way, and the final thought he has is that at least he won't be another bill. ]
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holyspirits) wrote2025-03-09 04:46 pm
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It doesn't seem to be the case today. The only kids there are one he knows from school — Bill Denbrough, a friends of Ben and Beverly's — and Mike Hanlon, who he knows from plain sight. Even if he attended the same piddling school as Yves, there was no flying under the radar when you were the only black kid in town.
They're walking their bikes down the lane, but both slow when they catch sight of Del's face.]
Whoa, whoa, where's the fire? [Mike asks, holding up a peaceable hand to slow Del's rush.]
Del, w-w-what's w-wrong? [Bill's stutter gets in his way all the time, but he stands steadier than most kids. Meets Del's eyes with a surety that makes you feel seen.
He'd know this panic, after all. His brother was the first to die.
Do you tell them about Bax?]
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It's...
[ he looks at bill and the words catch in his throat. running into him feels like it's an omen, almost, like he's looking in a mirror at who he's about to become, who he'd give anything not to be. ]
Bax is— I'm lookin' for him. [ he can't bring himself to say he's missing, even though it's written all over his face. ] Y-you haven't seen him, have you?
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Oh, fudge... [Mike says faintly.] Do you think he could be in town, or outside?
...C-c-ould've gone anywhere. You up to ch-check N-Neibolt Street? K-K-Kid could have g-gone to s-s-see the train t-tracks.
[Mike looks unsettled, but he nods all right.] And if we find him, we'll bring him back up here. To the soda shop, they're open late, there's always kids in there.
[Both of them look back to Del, and Bill's eyes flick between the other boy's. Bill's tall for his age while Del may be quite short, but somehow locking eyes now feels like an even match. For better or for worse. Deciding something very serious, he gives only one piece of advice. It doesn't make much sense.]
I-if you s-see something strange out there, you g-g-gotta run, or you g-g-gotta use y-your imagination. [His jaw sets and his shoulders square.] Th-that's the only w-w-way kids can g-g-get out of a mess.
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he nods and swallows. ]
...Right. Thanks.
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The three of your regroup soon after. Individually, you've had no luck, but once you're together you get a lead. Another kid says he saw Bax running down into the Barrens. A young girl says she saw him near the sewer pipes, while taking a walk on the overpass with her big sister.
No one's seen him after that.
With no other choice, the three of you race down into the green, down near the stink of the Kenduskeag river, where the city sewage dilutes and sails out to parts unknown. It's a hard run, even for the most active kids, and you are panting and wheezing by the time you come to one of those foreboding metal mushrooms, jutting up from packed earth and entangled in weeds. One already had the massive lid hauled off, leaning against the side. It would take about four or five kids to both unscrew and lift it.
There's an abandoned sneaker in front of it, just Bax's size.]
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[ he doesn't understand. why the fuck would bax have come here? he saw that monster in the pipes before too, he knows about the kids who've disappeared, it's a fucking sewer on top of everything else. he knows nothing good can possibly come out of playing somewhere like this, so why...
as winded as he is, the moment he convinces his weak limbs to unfreeze, he goes dashing for the sewer pipe.
he doesn't look too hard at the sneaker because he doesn't want to recognize it. ]
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[she says this grimly when they see the sneaker, because it's not really a warning. she knows they can't ignore finding bax's sneaker. they aren't going to go back to the diner and wait. she just feels she should say it now, so they're all aware.]
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I think we're going in the water anyway.
[ he'll follow the other two just as quickly. No point in waiting now. ]
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The three scale the ladder, one at a time, into musky, repugnant stink. The grey water is up to their knees and the squish under foot is a promise of worse unseen below, should they happen to stumble. Ahead there's a broad, dark pipe, large enough for a man to crouch and walk. Kids can do it standing, and so you do.
It's forbiddingly dark down here. Noises echo. No light. Maybe one of you has a match? Maybe you trace a hand along the wall to find your way. It may not do you much good. As the warnings say, the Derry sewage system is a maze, and people do get lost.
Not the sort of thing you want to think about, but it's impossible not to.
Rats squeak, skitter. Probably crawling on higher piles of waste along the walls. There's running water somewhere distant, and then somewhere quite close. How can you know? It's hard to see.
Easy to imagine, isn't it? Easy to imagine anything down here. Bill said to use your imaginations, but it's easy enough for an imagination to use you. This is a place for nightmares. Not little kids.
Or maybe today is an exception. There's a muffled sound. An echo from somewhere much further down.
On your next step there's a drop off, and you fall three feet into a different pipe system. There's no dodging the muck now.
The sound rises again. You think it sounds like a sob.]
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he hears that sound from below. he falls. he's disgusting. it's fine. then he hears it again. it's a horribly unnerving sound to hear, echoing down in these dark pipes, and it sends a shiver through him... but at the same time, it fills him with enough hope to keep pushing on with all his strength in its direction, the hope that maybe they're at least not too late. maybe he won't be the next bill. ]
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they just have to get bax back. he's not her brother, but by this point she's spent enough time around him and del that she cares, too. if they lost him, it would break something forever, and that's something she values too much.
unfortunately, it is disgusting down here. she has not experienced act 3 which is at least half sewer levels yet so she is unprepared for the muck. but the nasty crawling creatures, rats, all the waste - well, she finds herself oddly calm about it. the water is another story. it's fine now, but if it starts getting deeper, she'll start feeling more afraid.
she'll follow after, towards that sound, and tries to imagine that maybe it will be bax, safe and sound.]
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anyway, he'll pass a few of them out to the others, striking one on the side of the box and breathing a sigh of relief when it lights despite the damp.
but no. there was never a question they wouldn't follow in here. he doesn't have any siblings, never knew what it was like to have that feeling - of someone who would go to the ends of the earth to ensure you were safe. maybe it would be nice to feel that no matter what, someone is going to try and come for you. if it has to be him, it will be him.
he'll follow as well, a little light in the dark. ]
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Whenever you light a match, the sights are rarely pleasant. How could they be? But at least you don't see anything you don't expect to see. Sometimes there's a crunch underfoot, but that's below the water and beyond comprehension. You can't waste time. This isn't an exploration, it's a rescue mission.
But it takes turns like one. More than once you come to a split path, and choose on an instinct. Right or Left? Center? Should we double back? The air is so pungent down here that your nostrils sour. Your clothes are ruined and in spite of your best efforts, there's splashes of shit in your hair. Wiped at the edges of your neck, your jaw. And you can only strike so many matches, only keep them lit before they burn down to your finger tips or fall on accident, get splashed. It's better to hold on single file and move ahead until you hit a turn, and then light one to see your way.
The sounds have quieted.
But the next time you light a match — it's Jen's this time, she's down to two now — there is a small shape, very far ahead in a dizzying straight shot. It almost looks unnatural, how far this one barrels into the horizon.
Once more, you hear a sob. Still echoing, but closer now than ever. And then the very far thing shifts.]
...H-hullo?
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in almost any other situation del would keep quiet until he was close enough to make a move, try to keep whatever else might be lurking down here from catching onto his presence too soon. as small as he is, passing by unseen is his greatest advantage and an absolute necessity when dealing with bigger threats.
but right now, as sinister and oppressive as the atmosphere is, even when they still have all the other kids' warnings playing through their heads and he knows for a fact that whatever nightmare exists down in the pipes knows how to imitate the voices of kids it's taken, he can't just not answer if his brother's waiting for him. he can't let him think he's not coming. ]
Bax! Is that you?!
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that isn't going to be bax, safe and ready to bring home. but she doesn't think she can stop del, knows he wouldn't forgive her if he tried. just. she feels the hammering in her heart, that oppressive sense that something bad is going to happen, even if she doesn't know what.]
Del!
[she'll go after him, but won't grab him. she's just preparing to, to grab him and pull him back if she has to.]
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the enigma of ❚❚❚❚❚❚❚❚. except that's a place you've never been, and never heard of.
taking off after the both of them, if only so he's not left behind. ]
Jen!
CW: Child murder, cannibalism
DEL!
[There's splashing. It's running towards them too, frantic and feeble footed. Slipping at once and landing with a wail on all fours.]
I'm sorry Del! I'm so sorry! I thought it was Dwight! [It scrambles to its feet. His feet, stumbling, trying to move fast in the muck and being too feeble and frantic to keep a steady gait, much less a run.] I thought he was c-coming to pick me up, but then he changed, and he ch-huh—
[The power of the sob overwhelms him and Bax staggers, trying to wipe at his face with filth-smeared hands.]
He changed! He chased me down here, and now I'm lost, and now you're lost too, and I'm sorry, I'm sorry Del! I'm so sorry!
[You're better on your feet than he is, even with the resistance of the water. You aren't half so exhausted as he is. You aren't so frightened, because you're focused. The fear is there but it hasn't made your body waver and fail, hunger and panic haven't blinded you. Bax stumbles at a slow wobble, arms reaching out to you.]
Del!
[It's all of a moment. The water behind him swells.
A limb snaps out and clamps down on Bax's shoulder. He screams in a piercing pitch, and none of you see the same thing.
To Andy, it's the fetid, thickly muscled reach of an undead warrior. Inhuman and legendary, straight from hell. The sewage drips off the armor and the low, thick-skulled brow, jagged teeth with no lips to corral them cut a savage grin across an inhuman face.
To Jen, it's a paw. Cresting up through the water is the hunched, matted back of an enormous charcoal wolf. Yellow eyes reflect the light as the bowed head rises and fangs are bared, and the thing keeps rising. Four, six, seven feet tall at the arch of its back. Unnatural and brushing the top of the pipe.
To Del, it's a gloved hand with an orange ruff around the wrist. He'd only seen it rendered in embroidery threads before. Now he sees a clown in truth, silver dollar eyes glinting in the flickering matchlight, the red greasepaint smile a dead ringer for fresh blood. It grins, eyes never leaving Del's.
When it speaks, none of you hear the same voice either.]
You come to play?
[Bax hasn't stopped screaming. He jerks to the side and scratches, hits, kicks.
The clown's wolf's darkspawn's face nearly cleaves in half it opens its mouth so wide. It snaps around Bax's neck and shoulder and severs the scream. Severs his flesh, wide eyes bulging in impossible agony and shock as the rest of him is ripped away.
Bax falls into the muck and sends up an arc of spitting blood. Flesh dangles from the things jaw before it snaps again, and all traces of the meat disappear. Vanish down an endless gullet.
The body that was Del's brother spurts and drools blood, twitches, splashing the water around him. Then it simmers down, and lays still.]
no subject
it feels like slow motion, watching the water swell up and that terrifying monster emerge, knowing exactly what's going to happen but having no way of stopping it. his heart is pounding in his ears, but it's not nearly enough to drown out the screams that echo so impossibly loud.
he doesn't stop moving forward and trying to reach out even as he's watching his brother get torn apart in front of him, even when it's completely clear that nothing anyone could do would be enough. it's only when the body stops moving that he stops too. just freezes and stares for what feels like a long moment.
there are so many ways in which this was his fault. he shouldn't have left him at that party, he shouldn't have taken so long to think to come here, he shouldn't have shouted so early. would that have changed things? if he hadn't shouted out when he knew it was a bad idea, would he have been able to reach him before that thing realized?
the rational part of him knows that it wouldn't have. that monster's probably been watching them from the pipes in their house ever since that day. that was his real mistake. he should have just packed them both up and escaped this miserable deathtrap of a town the very next morning. and now bax has had to pay the price for it. and jen and andy are probably going to too, now that they're all in this thing's sights.
he turns his head slightly to address them behind him, and just says, weakly: ]
Sorry.
[ and then he's just taking that stupid bloodstained nail file out of his pocket — he should have stolen dwight's swiss army knife, another stupid fucking mistake to round out all the others — and rushing at the monster with it, knowing full well he's not going to make a damn bit of difference. ]
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her plan was to grab del, whatever happened. reach out and put her arms around him and drag him back to safety. maybe he'd have bax with him, maybe not. move as quickly as possible, get out of here. get far away.
even in the horror of what's happening, she still reaches him, tries to grab him by the shirt or the side so he can't run at that thing, because that's not going to end well. it's up to eric whether or not she manages to hold him back at all, even just a little, because the moment this starts, she's frozen.
it might have been enough, just to see the small boy torn to pieces by a monster. but this...
she doesn't know why she's so afraid. there's no logic to it, no reason for her to be. some malevolent clown tearing his head open, some undead monster, those things should be more frightened. or maybe she should be frightened of a car, like the one that chased her down, like the accident that started all of this.
but there is something about watching this wolf devour a child that sickens her, seizes her with the kind of fear that goes beyond logic and conscious thought and awakens a pure animal panic of witnessing a predator about to strike. she can't move, she can't think. she sees its teeth stained with blood and the evil intent in its eyes, and she knows this is an image she has seen in her nightmares night after night.
if there's any part of her even thinking beyond the extent to which she's frozen in terror, it's the part that feels foolish. monsters are very real. that she felt she could assert some independence, that she felt she could find some way to protect herself, make her own choices is proven a lie. the only choice is the loveless cruelty of viconia's protection, safe, even if it destroys every part of her that makes her her, or these jaws. and she chose wrong, and now it's too late.
but del looks at them and says sorry, and she doesn't... she doesn't think he should be...]
no subject
it's the first and easiest voice to listen to in his head. run! maybe this time, you can make it far enough for it to matter. one day, you can run far enough away that nothing will ever be able to touch you again.
it's easy to be scared of a nightmare. this one is the echo of an echo of an echo - a nightmare that rattles through the body night after night, so often it becomes a familiar friend. a song you know all the lyrics to, a dance that strings you like a puppet across the stage. enough to imagine becoming one of them, forgotten in the dark and rotted beyond recognition. you can only be so terrified of your own face in the mirror. it should frighten you more, and that's what frightens you. so, run, goddammit.
he wishes he had fire, or lightning, or anything like the heroes in the stories. a bravery required to stand in front of a horde of enemies, a great evil, and say something meaningful enough to inspire a turnaround. No more compromises! or maybe `May the ❚❚❚❚❚ grant us victory, or everything else is meaningless!`
but he doesn't. he has himself, and a pair of soaked shoes with the sole falling off, and the great horde of a thrumming beast that moves as one, that swarms every place in the dark and deep and will always find him, and no words. run!
Bax's body stops moving, and Del throws himself against the tide like every brave warrior in the books. Like Boromir against the orcs - a fight he knows he will lose, but will die trying anyway. And Jen, following him, because she cares so much despite herself, because even after everything has taught her that she must care for herself and herself alone, she cannot quell a spirit that is kind beyond measure.
run.
he turns tail and bolts the other direction. ]
CW: Child murder, cannibalism, gore, animal attack
In your lives, you are heroes. Not the slipshod facsimiles you've shrugged into here, of course, but the ones you really lived. In those you are brave, capable. Magical even. So dazzlingly impressive, even when you falter it's in the manner of legend. Your stories belong in books with countless pages, sagas of endless hours.
Here, you will be single sentence obituaries.
Del does try his best. He bypasses Jen's desperate reach and makes a charge with a weapon that barely did shit when It was only a tentacle in the sink. The clown is laughing high and loud, and he can get a shot into its gut. It works about as good as last time, stabbing through the silver suit with little leeway and little to-do. Bill told you to use your imagination, but you don't know the rules here so you never figured it out. Maybe you should have played pretend and believed you were Boromir. Maybe then that nail file would have extended, swung like a broadsword, dealt a better blow to a monster that lives and eats imagination.
Oh well. You aren't the Chosen Ones around this town, so it likely wouldn't work anyway. No local godly blessings for you.
The clown grabs at Del, catches him between two fingers by the ear and swinging him around with a peel of laughter. Playing with its food while the boy makes a vicious last stand. It rips the top half off and Del stumbles loose. When that doesn't stop the kid, It snatches him by the crown of his head and the base of his left shoulder. It lifts Del off the ground, numb to the kicks and screams and beating of little fists, the stab of the nail file into its false flesh. It pulls, and it pulls, and soon the neck gives way with a wet tear. Del's head is thrown to the side and the clown samples a bite from the elder brother, locking eyes with Jen as blood wells into the meat.
She's next. Whether she stands her ground or takes Andy's cue, it matters very little. Those stubby little girl's legs are no match for the loping bounds of a great wolf. It pursues, huffing and tongue lolling, jaw snapping and snarls beating against the metal walls of the pipe. It knocks her down with a paw as broad as a shovel. She might scramble to her hands and knees, but it lays into her legs first. A snap of the jaw severs flesh and shatters her shin bone on the left, the right gets bitten above the knee. It doesn't swallow just yet. It crunches around her middle and shakes her in the water like a rat, rattling until she quiets. Stills. Dies. In the dark, alone, without comfort, as Shar intended.
Poor Andy might have it the worst of all. He lives longer, but he's got that much longer to sweat about it. These pipes are as deadly a trap as Its jaws. It wouldn't be a problem for, say, Eddie Kaspbrak, who Bill once remarked as having a compass in his head. One of those funny little gifts given to the kids meant to come down here. Not to you, Andy.
Andy gets to run, and wade, and cry and moan and regret it all, to stink like piss and dodge rats for hours, to wonder if that sound is a pipe creaking, or if it's that thing gaining on him. He gets to feel his belly ache as the sun goes down in the lovely land above, and he gets to feeling dry in the mouth as midnight hits. As morning comes. He gets to feel his knees shake with the effort of standing up, bemoan wasting the last of his matches as he takes yet another fucking wrong turn. He gets to wonder if he'll ever see light again.
He does. Briefly. When he's collapsed in a heap against trash and feces, too tired and delirious and oh-so-ashamed of himself, he sees a twin reflections. Shining like silver dollars. Bending close.
It lights a match in front of his bleary, blinking eyes, and he sees the cracking greasepaint of a clown. Maybe by then it's a relief. The jaws open wide, and they sink through the flesh of his chest, crunch past the ribs and close around his coward's heart.
It is something of a tragedy. But no one's going to hear about it anyway.]
no subject
she is trying to fight the fear. maybe she doesn't know the rules, but that's what this thing wants, doesn't it?
the wolf isn't the thing to be afraid of. someone had told her that, a long time ago. there are some creatures you ought to be wary of, that you ought to be careful of, but to know that they are only animals trying to survive, same as you but without even the knowledge you have of the many ways you are protected.
in the nightmare, the wolf never actually bites her, never manages to devour her. it's simply there, large and deadly, close, and in contrast to that lesson someone had once taught her, there is a glint of intent in its eye, a sense of threat, a desire to hurt. logically, wolves aren't like that about their prey - maybe if you threaten their pack, but there's no malice in hunger. but it didn't feel that way to her at the time and it doesn't feel that way now.
in the nightmare, someone saves her before anything truly bad can happen. but there's a voice in her head reminding her - that part is the nightmare. that's the thing she should have been afraid of. compared to that, compared to her, there was never any danger in the animal. maybe in life, if she had stood her ground, if she hadn't simply backed away and clung to the first person she found, it never would have bitten her, either.
but she doesn't know why she's thinking these thoughts, why they even matter. even if she could defang this particular shape of nightmare, talk herself out of this specific trauma, it only leads deeper into a nightmare where the thing that wants to hurt her isn't a hungry animal, but something darker and crueler, something that only wants to inflict pain, feeds off what it can do to her, and if she remembers it than it happened and there's nothing she can do to change that it happened. so it probably doesn't matter, but -
It matters because I could help Andy and Del.
if only she could stop seeing a wolf, and was able to will herself to confront what she's really seeing, no matter how much worse it really is, maybe she will know what to do. maybe she will see something familiar, something she can confront.
she's wrong, though. she watches the thing toy with del, she watches the thing bite into him. and she can't, she can't look at it after all, she doesn't want to see what's there after all. she doesn't want to know about these things, she doesn't want to have to face trauma, she wants to be that child who only knew to fear fangs and teeth, and to think that maybe, even though she's terrified, the nightmare won't last so long that she will actually feel its bite.
she'll never know if she would have moved to help fight the thing if she'd managed to steel herself in time, if she was even close. but del is dead, isn't he? he must be dead, the thing locks eyes with her, and she doesn't recognize that expression. she understands, instantly, something that eluded her before, that the wolf in her nightmares wasn't hungry, not at all. but it is hungry this time, and that brings all of her terror to the forefront, and she learns that she was right to be afraid as the wolf's jaws finally after all of these years do close around her.
her legs at first, so she can try desperately to crawl away, the self-preservation instinct suddenly hitting her once it is far too late. and it toys with her like it wants to hurt her, and she screams and screams until her throat threatens to tear, a scream she had to swallow many times. there's no one to punish her, to force her to be harder and stronger, so she lets it out, a scream for all of the times someone has hurt her for no reason other than that they wanted to hurt her.
she lies there, dying, and realizes she can't hear andy, hasn't for a while.
good.
there's no bitterness to him fleeing. she fought so hard for them, for bax, for del, for andy too, because she knew that's how it works. even if there's nothing else about her she has to give, maybe her brittle edges are enough. enough to attach herself to people, for them to want her around. but there's nothing about her that someone would love, that someone would throw themselves into the maws of a monster for like del did for bax.
it's the one happy thought. the worst would be if he had loved her enough to stay, had been dragged into this nightmare with her, suffered for her sake. but she didn't hold onto him so tightly, and he got away.
she has nothing, is nothing, and dies alone, but that's good.]
no subject
if there were such a thing as true virtue in the world - if things like compassion and faith and justice and love really haunted this earth - there'd be more examples wouldn't there? someone who cares enough to take a stand, a reason to believe that this place is worth saving. but every vision, every dream, every moment walking the waking world has been filled with scenes of violence and hatred. burning bodies and vultures who pick at the remains. maybe there are good people somewhere, but those people are born luckier, with the world on their side. they have beauty and bravery and friendships worth dying for. they have compasses in their heads and the power to inspire others to follow, they remembered to bring the right weapons, they cared enough to be saved.
but at least in derry there are only the baser values. greed and rage and sloth and gluttony. adults who are supposed to care who only see what they care to, which is nothing. that every child in derry is an acceptable sacrifice to a miserable life. he is an acceptable sacrifice on the altar of derry. easy to forget, a nail hammered down. sent here to wither and die and be forgotten in some basement. and he is not above the rest of the sinners. miserable and cowardly and envious. if he was a better person, maybe they all could have deserved to survive.
he's never been one to have regrets. regrets are for when the world slows to a crawl, when the fizzle and spark of constant motion fades and leaves you an empty thing, the great heavy pendulum swinging to the other side of his mind. when the great dark beast comes to press its paw against his chest and force him to the ground. but it's difficult not to regret this. he wishes he had stayed. if only because then it would be over, then he wouldn't be hearing the splash and tear in his mind, and thinking of the sun. of rain. of storms. of laughter and freedom and justice. of twin moons. a spark of flame.
he doesn't fight, or even try and escape again at the end.
sorry, del.
sorry, jen.
but the last thought is anger. rage.
he should have burned the whole place to the ground while he had the chance. a blaze bright and loud enough that no one could ignore it ever again. the match goes out. ]
no subject
he'd never been afraid of most things other kids were afraid of anyway — scary movies, the dark, rattlesnakes, bullies, getting in trouble — because he could never afford to be when he had someone else he had to be strong for. getting passed around from one house to the next where they'd always been treated like someone's obligation, never like family, he'd learned early on that they could only really rely on themselves; if they didn't want to be crushed by the world's indifference toward them, he would have to be the unshakable pillar supporting them both.
that was the one fear he'd never been able to escape — that he'd fuck up and bax would get hurt or lost or worse. that he would buckle under all the weight that never should have been put on the shoulders of a single kid. and that fear was so constant and pervasive that it ate away at him a little more every day; no matter how hard he tried to steel himself, he'd only ever be able to last so long with a slowly eroding foundation. jen and andy had helped fill some of the cracks, but there was only so much they ever could have done. this wasn't their house to fix anyway.
bax is gone, and it no longer matters if the pillar comes crashing down. it's... freeing, even if it's a freedom he never, ever wanted. freedom from the single fear that's worn on him all his life, the freedom to break and let loose with everything he has.
it's not much. he's under no illusion otherwise. he vaguely remembers bill's advice in that moment as he rushes the monster, about using his imagination to fight this thing. maybe this useless nail file could have been a legendary sword fit for the steward of gondor if he'd been able to believe. but boromir was never supposed to outlive faramir. it's better this way.
in a hopeless fight against a monster that must represent fear itself, he feels none; not as it picks him up and toys with him, not as it rips out little pieces of him, not as it slowly and unrelentingly pulls on his hair and he feels every fiber in his neck straining and ready to snap.
in the end, this was where they'd ended up. down in the sewers with the rest of the refuse. with the decaying goldfish people had brought into their homes with fanfare only to give them the bare minimum of what they needed to continue existing until they could dump them out and move on with their lives, free from the burden of being obligated to care. the world always puts you in your proper place one way or another.
that's all right. this world never wanted them, but he doesn't want this world either. his neck finally gives way, and the final thought he has is that at least he won't be another bill. ]