Chapter Text
Rain poured down from the cloudy night sky, thunder echoing through the wooded graveyard as droplets danced across the darkened stones.
A lone grave stood at the very back of the cemetery, sheltered from the rest of the graves by scraggly thorn bushes and low-hanging willow branches. It was fitting for whomst it stood for, a boy who had been shrouded in nothing but torment and despair, tucked away from the world and confined to a rotting hellhole where he would eventually meet an untimely end.
If one were to look into the grave owner’s history, they would find themselves questioning the cruelty of life and the twisted sense of fate’s humour. Fate likes to play games with people, it particularly finds the most fun in ones who have the biggest of hearts.
Oftentimes it is the sweetest of all people who draw the short straws of life. In this boy’s case, fate had handed him an agonizing cycle of never-ending abuse that it had masked as a childhood.
A figure kneeled before this grave, head hung low and stringy, unkempt black hair just brushing against the wetted pebbles. His hands trembled from where they rested in his lap, subconsciously digging his fingernails into the scarred palms of his hands as an attempt to ground himself in reality.
Rain was the perfect solution to his problem, the drops running down his face blended with the hot tears that streamed from his eyes to form a cascading waterfall of sorrow. He liked the rain, it let him cry without having to worry about others finding out, tears being concealed by the rainfall and just looking like the water falling from above. Not that people would make fun of him, people knew that doing so could end in fatality, but it made it so that he wasn’t forced to come up with some half-assed excuse as to why he was sobbing in the first place.
Lifting his head up ever so slightly, Jeff focused on the tombstone in front of him, pale grey eyes focused on the elegantly engraved name with a softened stare. His mind was an ever-growing cacophony of shrill voices, yelling at him for everything that he had the capacity to regret. Voices like these almost never went away, only able to be blocked out when the suffocating bloodlust that he had grown accustomed to consumed his mind.
“I was supposed to protect you.” He murmured, voice cracking painfully as he spoke to the weathered headstone.
His throat felt raw, almost as if someone had forced him to swallow a handful of razor blades. Tears began to well up faster than they could fall, blurring his already dreadful vision to the point where all he could see was dark and blurry splotches.
Hands flew behind his neck as he dropped his head, grabbing at his skin to try and calm himself down. Eyes screwed shut as the killer trembled from his sobs, not even able to bother biting the remains of his lip to avoid making noises or stumbling over words. For all he cared, the downpour would drown his pathetic wailing out.
Picturing that night wasn’t the hard part, in fact that night had burned itself into his memories and left a permanent scar behind.
No, the hard part was trying to forget what he had done.
The hard part was begging to forget how he had desperately tried to stop the bleeding only to have more of his brother’s blood pour out from beneath his fingers.
The hard part was wanting to forget how Liu’s last words had been faint enough that they could’ve been swept away by a gentle breeze. How he had mumbled to Jeff of how cold it was before his previously shaky hand had gone limp in his own as he passed out from blood loss.
The hard part was remembering how he had held Liu as the last of his energy drained away, attempting to comfort him as he shivered violently and kept coughing up blood.
Jeff didn’t understand how Liu didn’t hate him.
Liu was terrified that night, like any fifteen year old who just got stabbed would be, yet he still remained the sweetest soul even in his last breaths. Jeff could recall when Liu was passing out from blood loss how he had said “I don’t want to die with you thinking I hate you. You may hate me but I still love you.” as if Jeff hadn’t just murdered him out of cold blood. He could remember how his voice had trembled as he fought to stay conscious, somehow managing to stay alive around three minutes after the initial stab wound.
Was it selfish to wish that Liu had resented him, he wondered. Would it have been easier to process his actions knowing that he despised him rather than still somehow forgiving him?
Maybe it was, but it was the only option in which he could just live with the self loathing and know that Liu despised him for his actions rather than hear Liu’s reassurance ring through his head as he lay awake from yet another sleepless night.
He wasn’t able to tell how long he sat there, head buried in his knees as his hands rotated from digging into his skin and harshly grabbing at his hair, but he could assume it was for a while. Flashbacks were possibly one of the things he hated the most, rather it be from trauma caused by his parents or situations like this, the latter being the one he hated more.
Jeff was more than capable of fending for himself, hell he’d been born and raised in an abusive home and lived in the goddamn woods for the past few years. It was the knowledge that he had failed to protect the one person in his life he cared about that ate at his brain and made him feel incompetent.
Liu was strong, hell he was a lot stronger than most give him credit for, but he wasn’t physically strong enough to fend for himself in their hellhole of a home. It wasn’t possible, even Jeff hadn’t been able to fight against their parents for most of his life. They had both been severely malnourished from their parent’s neglect which made it impossible to fight back against two grown adults.
And so they had protected each other. If you asked him, Jeff wouldn’t be able to tell you how many times he had thrown himself in front of Liu to get in the way of a plate flying at his head or a hand attempting to strike down at him. It had become second nature almost to worry and protect him, and yet he had somehow betrayed the trust of who he cared for and killed him.
His head felt heavy as he tilted his gaze upwards. Jeff gazed ahead at the headstone before him yet again, letting out a shaky breath as he feebly attempted to calm himself down.
“You don’t know how much I’d give to just see you again, but I’d do anything, even if it meant turning myself in.” Jeff’s words came out as a hoarse whisper, his voice too fragile to raise any higher.
“I love you,” He stated, his head dipping as he shook it. “I love you so fucking much Liu, I really hope you know that.”
His words were backed with a sigh that almost seemed like a laugh, a slight smile crossed his face despite the tears that somehow continued to flow.
Jeff really did hope that Liu knew he never hated him, even though he knew that it was impossible for Liu to hear him from beyond the grave. He didn’t know if Liu fully believed him when he had told him that he could never hate him, and Jeff knew that the truth was that Liu probably didn’t completely believe him.
Looking at the pine forest in the distance, he found himself remembering one specific point in time.
“Shh, it’s gonna be okay, you’re going to be okay Liu I promise.”
Jeff leaned against the bed frame, desperately trying to keep his own voice calm as he comforted the fragile boy cradled in his arms.
Liu was only half-conscious at that moment, his life only slipping further and further away.
“I don’t wanna die…” Liu’s voice hardly made it above a whisper, tone laced with a type of fear that could shatter the heart of even the most stone-hearted individual.
“I know, I know.” A scarred hand ran through bloody brown curls, knowing that the action had always helped to calm Liu down. “It’s gonna be alright bud, I promise.”
Another violent shiver wracked Liu’s body, causing the dying boy to cough up more of the blood that covered the bed. Jeff’s hold on Liu tightened ever so slightly to make sure that he wouldn’t fall over.
“I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry Liu. You don’t deserve this, you shouldn’t have to die this way.” Jeff’s voice cracked as he spoke, wishing that he could reverse his actions.
A shaking hand brushed against his own, prying his fingers open to hold it. Jeff immediately took Liu’s hand in his own, feeling Liu grip onto it with all of his remaining strength.
“Jeff?”
“I’m so cold, could you leave my body with a blanket?”
The nearly inaudible words Liu had murmured before he fell unconscious haunted Jeff, often echoing through his head late at night or when a flashback pops up.
Lost in thought, he found himself studying the area around his brother’s grave. Even in early November when almost everything was in some stage of dying, the land in the corner of the graveyard somehow maintained a green hue.
Green, his grave was surrounded in green. Contrasting the rows of headstones who stood barren and beaten in the rotting ground, Liu’s was tucked away in a far corner and seemingly sprinkled with little dots of colour, the source of which being slight flowers growing in clumps. It was fitting how his grave was the only one that grew small ferns and flowers.
“You would’ve loved how the plants grow around your grave bud, there’s even marigolds.”
Liu adored flowers, a fact that had formed many memories that had grown bittersweet to look back upon. Jeff recalled how Liu was extremely fond of flower symbolism in specific, having endured his younger brother’s late-night rambles when neither of them could sleep, beit from insomnia or their parents having yet another hours long yelling match.
‘How fitting that marigolds grow around him.’ He couldn’t tell if he thought of that bitterly or somberly, knowing himself it was probably a combination of the two.
Marigolds had been Liu’s favourite for possibly longer than Jeff could remember. He thought back on how Liu would always ramble about them holding two meanings, how the golden flowers could either represent love, or symbolize death and despair. Jeff was almost certain Liu had said something along the lines of “It’s fascinating really, how something can hold two meanings that may seem polar opposites. When you think about it though, love and death can be quite similar at times if they please.”
It must’ve been some sort of coincidence that the flowers that symbolized both love and death grew by him. The idea that Liu could rest in peace with even something as simple as a favourite flower growing by him was almost comforting, although if you asked Jeff why he could not give you an answer.
He didn’t even realise that he had been playing with the blue cording around his wrist, he had been too deep in his thought staring at the yellow flowers to notice.
He just couldn’t avoid making himself cry tonight, could he.
The bracelet around his wrist had originally been a deep blue, but had faded overtime to a dirty navy due to how worn it had gotten over the years. It was some sort of intricate braided design that made Jeff slightly less confused as to how it had managed to survive years on end. Blue had always been his favourite colour, albeit it never held much importance in his life other than the bracelet.
He could remember the exact moment in time when Liu had given it to him. It was a few days after he had finally gotten the go-ahead to get his bandages off from his skin grafts, and Liu had seemingly slipped it onto his wrist when he had been asleep. Jeff remembered how when he asked Liu about why exactly he had given him a bracelet, he had just responded with a smile and a “Because I love you dumbass.”.
As he twisted the braided cord around his wrist, he thought on how thankful he was that the bracelet Liu had made him was still intact four years later. It was a miracle of sorts that the thing could hold up after even a single year, let alone four, two of which were spent on the run. It was one of the only things he had left of him, and the only one he could have on himself at all times.
“You know, life’d be a lot easier if you were still around buddy.” His voice faltered as he spoke,
hand reaching up to wipe away tears despite already being washed away by rain.
Life felt off without Liu. Even after it had been two years, Jeff still hadn’t grown accustomed to being without him, nor did he think he ever would be. Sure he had Toby and Eyeless, but they were their own people and people are impossible to replace.
There wasn’t a knock on his bedroom door in the middle of the night from a spooked Liu who had been shaken awake from one of his nightmares. Nobody would drag him outside and attempt to make him smile after he locked himself in a closet from a panic attack or flashback. There was no lanky child constantly bouncing around and providing rambling that was nearly impossible for Jeff to keep up with.
As much as Jeff had teased Liu for being a jumpy ball of energy, well, when he wasn’t shaking from being around their parents, he’d do anything to see him again.
It was odd to say the least, the absence of his brother was almost disorienting some days. He often found himself forgetting his actions for a brief moment and calling out to Liu, only to be met with silence before reality hit him. Those were possibly the worst times, the times when he managed to forget what he had done to the boy he promised to protect only to have everything come reeling back to him, vivid flashbacks often haunting him for days on end and only causing his insomnia to worsen.
Jeff reached into his pocket, pulling out a green bracelet before placing it against Liu’s headstone. It resembled the one he wore around his wrist, a loop of braided green and yellow cording and an adjustable knot to change the size, but knowing how awful his eyesight is, the quality was probably ten times worse than his bracelet.
Retracting his hand, he rests his head in his hands. Voice heavy with anguish as he speaks.
“I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry Liu.”
“It’s okay, there’s nothing that can be done to change the past. Time has marked it as permanent, you cannot unravel strings that have already been woven into a tapestry. Life is
strange, but it’s rules have been laid in stone for as long as life itself has existed.”
And for a moment Jeff swore that someone had laid their hand on his shoulder as the wind distorted into what almost sounded like words.
— — — —
The world is cruel. That was the one thing life had told him if nothing else. It loves to beat people down until they’re on the verge of breaking being the returning point.
And the cruelty of the world holds an iron grip on us all as we try to break free. Our tears of desperation hit the soils of the earth, planting seeds of pain as we can only watch seeing the ones we love most being torn apart from the inside.
These thorns of life hold us all captive, even the most twisted harbingers of torment bleed from its punctures.
After all, a killer may still feel pain over the ones whom they have caused to fall. Their tears may just water the flowers that blossom by their body as they fall.