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His first memory upon waking, legs still in the water, was the fear.
He had drowned. He knew it was going to happen eventually. An accident, a martyrdom, a suicide - he had spent so much of his life near the water, unable to live in it, that it seemed only natural that it would be his ending. The screaming, the silt, and then silence.
But there was more than a fear of drowning in him. That was accepted easily. There was a greater, stronger fear, something that had left him screaming until his head went under and his lungs filled up, a weight he had carried with him to the other side.
Her back. Her leaving him behind.
And it was that memory - not the salt-shredded lungs, but the cry that did not receive its twin response - that left him sobbing on the shore.
But this was a place of moving on, wasn’t it? Of warmth, of final rest? The Garden, his favorite fantasy, a house with Dad, and Eddie, and Charlie, and her-
Well, not yet. She could come when she was ready. When it was her time. He could settle, now, for three of his four there. He could more than settle. He was already smiling, tugging that heavy, loathsome cloak off of him, and throwing it on the shore. The tides could take it in. He didn’t care. He didn’t need it anymore.
He had turned with the force of that tug, whipping his head around, and so when the cloak hit the ground, already being licked by the hungry waves, he was facing the hill behind him. He was facing the cabin. He was facing home.
He ran. The sadness, the pain, the fear, it was all swept away. It was fine now. Everything was going to be fine. No more pain, no more hurt, he’d apologize, he’d be forgiven, and then they’d all come together, they’d eat dinner, they’d go to bed, and they’d wake together, ready to spend the rest of forever laughing and joking and growing something beautiful and perfect and good-
And then she’d come home and he’d introduce them and they’d love her like he loved her, though not as much - no one could, and it’d be the perfect ending, something fit for a Verse or maybe just for him, a soft voice at the end saying “and they lived happily ever after, forever and ever into eternity”, because he had suffered enough, this was his final resting place, he’d just have to knock on the door and it’d be there, just waiting for him, he just had to reach out and knock-
He let his knuckles tap the wood twice, the simple, practiced pattern. He found himself shaking a little, moving from one foot to the other. They wouldn’t open the door right away, of course. They had to be busy catching up, doing things families did. He could picture them perfectly in his mind, sitting around the living room, looking up at the door. Someone walking over to open it wide, open their mouth and say-
-but the door did not open, and so, he knocked again. Perhaps they were in the kitchen, cooking a meal together. Something nice, anything but crab. It would take a little longer for them to come, but any moment now, someone would come to the door and smile and say-
But the door did not open.
He grabbed the knob and turned.
The house was empty. No one was waiting for him. He walked inside, not bothering to close the door behind him. The house was warmly lit by nothing but the sun’s rays. No lamps, no lights. Not even an electrical clock.
There was nothing there. There was nothing to do.
He laid down on the living room floor.
No one was here. And why would they have been? They weren’t the river’s people, they had never belonged to it. They were off in a different afterlife, something they had believed in enough to bring into being, something tailor-made for them. Even Charlie, who had heard the music in the end, belonged somewhere else.
And his sister, his miracle, the one who had turned her back, the one who belonged to a different god, she was never going to come.
He had died alone. He had woken up alone. He was going to be alone forever.
He screamed. There was nothing else to do. Begging, pleading, then rolling over into curses, spitting bitter hate to every god that ever crawled the earth and would ever crawl the earth, to sniffling quietly, sobbing like a baby, then pulling back into delusion, only for reality to break through the surface and leave him begging again -- all at the loudest peak he could make, so something, anything out there could hear.
He spun through the cycle for hours. He did not move from the floor. Sometimes he would slam his fists down, arching his back with the force of a heavy wail, or maybe he’d find himself kicking and flailing like a child having a tantrum, but he never stood. He didn’t have the strength within him.
And eventually, he gave out. His muscles had begun to ache. There was no point in yelling. There were no gods that would hear him. He was well and truly alone. The only company left for him was his thoughts.
Death brought clarity. He knew, now, replaying that final scene over and over for hours or years or maybe just seconds, that she would have gone ahead. What he had seen was the last hope of a dying man - or maybe that of a man who had been dead for just over a year, and had finally compelled his body to catch up.
She had left him behind, but it was in a better way. She would have walked on to Paige, to the little place she had talked about so fondly, and she would have lived. She would have died younger than she’d have liked, for a body so worn at thirty-five could only live so long, but she would have died peacefully. There would have been someone out there that cared about her, though not as much as him - no one ever could, and she would have died happy.
Or maybe, and there was the wave of fear again, she’d walked on only to die soon anyway, lost to the winds or her wounds or some terrible beast just waiting for her to rest for just a second so she could be killed like she was nothing when it should have been someone else, it should have been anybody else, she was everything, she had to live, it wasn’t fair--
He could not collapse upon the floor because he was already there, so he settled for another screaming wail, holding the note of agony for as long as he could. He was dead, he shouldn’t need to breathe, and yet he found himself breathing fast and hard and ragged, almost hyperventilating as he paused to let out another scream, gripping nothing on the floor.
He breathed and screamed and wailed and cried, and when the tears and snot and spit became too much, he’d turn his head and howl the other way, blessed enough to not grow hungry or thirsty, but cursed enough to have his throat wear painfully and his eyes begin to ache.
It took a while, he found, to reach the quiet. Hours, of this he was certain, had been spent on the noise alone. Now, his throat could only produce whispers like old, worn-out currents. Any attempt at a scream came out in a crack. There was no more strength in him. His throat would repair itself, surely, after days or weeks or months. He knew what this was. He had figured it out.
This was purgatory. This was not the pain or the paradise, the teeth or the throat, the take or the give. There was no garden to hold him softly. There were no angels to flay him out. This was something in the middle. Something outside that great duality.
The final rejection. He wasn’t good enough for the garden. Even if he had been taken to the darkest, most wretched corner of the place, berated for eternity for his insolence and his sins, he would still find some comfort in it, because then it’d be Dad, or Eddie, or Charlie, or her, blessed her-
And he felt himself smile, lukewarm cheeks moving against the cold puddle of snot and spit and tears. Even if she called him by the most vile, horrid names, he could look past it all. Her hands, even if they were gripped around his throat, would be the sweetest touch of all.
He hoped he saw her soon.
No. No, that wasn’t right.
He hoped he didn’t see her for a long, long time.
—
He did not know how long it had been. The sun had refused to set. He had been tired, so tired. Raged and cried himself into exhaustion a dozen times over. He felt better now. Duller. Numb.
This was acceptance, then. He had accepted that he was dead, and that his punishment was to be alone. No bugs or birds had come in through the open door. He wasn’t even good enough for them, the corpse-peckers, the nibbling things.
And he had accepted it.
And yet, still, he could not get up from the floor. The sun had gradually removed the liquid from beneath his face, letting his hair dry in the light. He had gotten comfortable, down here. Perhaps there was a final step to all of this. Perhaps the final acceptance was standing up. Perhaps the final acceptance was accepting that he would never stand.
Just alone, hollow and tired, on the floor of his house, forever.
“...What are you doing?”
And any plan was instantly erased, any choice already chosen as he willed himself to stand, making a movement too quick, the muscles of unused legs spasming and giving out and he let out a little broken grunt and tried again-
-and there were footsteps coming up to him, and a hand, surely, and this time his feet found their footing, this time he stood, this time he was able to make himself turn and he did, reaching past the hand, reaching forward-
-and he wasn’t making any sound, his voice was still cracked and broken, mouthing the same two syllables over and over into rough fabric, fabric that felt like a calloused hand or a cracked lip, and every fiber of his soul, his mind, his everything was singing out, o radiant blessings, o joy of joys, the miracle of miracles, over and over and over-
“Sister,” he finally croaked, and there was nothing more to say for a while.
She had been crouching down to him, hoping to lift him up when he had turned, pressing into her breast, wrapping two arms around. She had landed sitting down. An arm quickly found his back, and a hand quickly found his head. He was hiding his face from the world in her jacket, and she was hiding equally into his side.
When he had ceased his gasping and whimpering, the loudest noises he could muster, he realized she was crying too. A softer, graceful thing.
He pulled back slowly, reluctantly, leaving a long, disgusting rope of snot connecting the two of them. He grimaced, and wiped his nose, leaving a streak of shine across his bumpy arms.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “S'gross.”
The sentiment hung in the air for a second, and then the absurdity of it came crashing down in giggles and laughs, pulling them closer again as they leaned forward.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s get you off this nasty floor.”
“Where…?”
She looked four inches to the left.
“The couch, I hope.”
He laughed quietly and wobbled upward. There were rough hands on him, keeping him upright. They did their little walk to the couch and sat. Lounging contentedly, Faulkner sat on her lap and leaned against her shoulder. He let one arm cross his body, and the other hand loose. Without asking, there was a hand in one of his.
It was bliss. He rested there with her, feeling her body move in and out as she breathed. He began to time his breaths to hers, concave to concave, convex to convex. Eventually, enough time passed, and he found his voice again.
“Will you be staying for very long?”
She tilted her head to the side, just slightly, as she looked around.
“I don’t think this is the place for me.”
“Yeah,” and he laughed, half through a sob, “I don’t think it’s the place for me either!! Oh-,” and he looked up at her, tilting his head back, “where are you going? Can I follow you there?”
She smiled down. “I’m not certain where I’m going. Lots of walking in my future, though. I’m not sure if you’d be up for it, and I don’t think I could carry you all the way.”
“I can walk.” He shifted his posture, sitting up. “I wouldn’t… be weight. I could help.”
“Would you be happy?”
He looked up at her with all the dumbfoundedness he could muster.
“Of course I’d be happy. You’d be there.”
She did not say anything, so he kept talking.
“You’re my… place, Carpenter. I don’t want to be somewhere you’re not. I can’t rest like that.” He let out a small, sad chuckle. “However long I’ve been here, I haven’t slept a day. But I could if it was next to you, I think.”
She smiled softly. “Alright. You can come with me.”
“R-really?”
“You’re still my brother, Faulkner.”
Those words paired with that name made something in him twist, and he fidgeted. “I, um-” He looked down. “Could you… call me by a different name?”
“Mm?”
“Before… before I went wrong, I was Richard. And I’d like to be Richard again.” He began to tug at his shirt. “Faulkner only ever hurt people. And I’d like to leave him behind here.”
He looked up, and his sister was smiling down at him. She reached down and ruffled his hair.
“Finally figured it out, did you?”
He beamed. “Yeah. Yeah, I finally did.”
“Good. I’m glad you did.” She stood from the couch. “Should we go now, or do you need time?”
He looked around the familiar walls. Leaving like this did feel wrong, somehow.
“…I need a little time.”
“Alright,” she nodded. “Do what you need to do here, and then we’ll leave, yeah? I’ll be waiting outside.”
He nodded, and watched her go. There was a jolt of anxiety from seeing her turn, but he was able to keep it down. He wouldn’t need long.
He took one last walk around the house, looking through all the rooms. This had been his home. But it wasn’t anymore. There was nothing left for him here but the memory.
He found a corner in the room that used to hold him and his brothers, crawled low, and kissed the wood where the wall met the floor.
“Thank you,” he whispered, and then he was gone.
Carpenter was waiting for him on the steps, and turned when he approached.
“All done?”
He nodded.
“Alright.” She slapped the wood twice and stood. “One more road trip, yeah?”
“Yeah.” He smiled. “Carpenter?”
“Mm?”
“I love you.”
She sighed, and there was a rolling of the eyes, but it was paired with a satisfied smile.
“I love you too, Richard.”
“And, I’m- I’m sorry. For all of it.”
“I know. But we have time to talk it out on the road ahead.” She extended a hand. “Now, let’s go.”
He nodded, smiling wide, and took it.
They made their way down the hill to the water’s edge. The sun had remained poised just so over the water, letting them know which way was which. Carpenter turned south, and Richard followed.
There was no cloak to be found amongst the waves as they walked along the length of the river. It was just the two of them and time.
And from a distance, they were two specks of black, close enough to be one, walking out along the winding strip of brown and blue, fading, eventually, into the endless horizon.