rightreaction:
BUDDY’S DELUSION seemed like a promise. the warm invitation of a bath as opposed to the cold, sleek reality of the bathroom tile. finn hadn’t seen such illusion shaking buddy like a passing storm rattling their creaky gates in such a long time, but it was the very face at the forefront of his longing those five brutal years. buddy’s caricature was a violent, trembling cloud of black. and there he was, raining upon the dead like some twisted coincidence. at first, though, it’s like the simple, comforting bliss of denial that only began to trickle to the depths of delusion. what a slippery slope, he thought; how will buddy brace himself for this loss? finn would be the anchor if he could, to pull buddy back to earth.
i never meant to hurt her. “i know. it, uh, shit. it .. it fucking happens.” to the worst of us, sure, but that remains unsaid. scooting closer, finn tries to take the burden, this breathless thing, this harmless thing. bones cracked even under the pressure of buddy’s softened, gentled jaw. he had tried so hard, was doing so well. he was a haloed hope emerging from the carcass of his drooling chaos. when finn holds the animal, stolen from life, in his arms, god it’s weight feels like the first time he held his fucking nephew. buddy had killed this thing, but he tries not to think about it. he didn’t mean it. finn didn’t expect this to hurt as fiercely as it did, like knives to flesh.
he stands, “she’s dead, buddy.” but it’s not said like a cruel reality. it’s an offer, really, some kind of middle ground in the middle of buddy’s efforts to clean his bloody slate. he takes a step, but it’s moot, and it’s then when he almost wishes there was someone else to take it away from him. no one anchors for the anchor, and that had to be okay. “come on. we can, uh, there’s — would you get my shovel from the shed?” maybe a task would swat those shivers. god, he hopes so. mum must’ve cleaned the oven and stove sixty times over when his brother passed. finn had to practically pry bleach soaked sponges from her hands to stop them from burning. “we can bury it and, uh,” he glances towards the swinging barn door. fuck, if he cries it’ll be over. pull it together.
it takes so much effort to look back at buddy. when he does, it falters, though he wishes it hadn’t. finn’s got an exhausted look in his eyes already. “..yeah. proper burial. then we can talk about what — just. talk. doesn’t have to be about.. this,”
faltered exhaustion, a man resigned. buddy knew that look too well, from their final months, from dreams in which he’d wake in a cold sweat again and again and again, to find finn about to slam that door, looking through him. tired. somebody had once told him that to spend ten minutes with him was to suffer a lifetime, but he’d been working on giving, instead of the take, take, take that defined his twenties. but he’d taken again, snatched the lamb’s life and now it hung limp pinned to the back of his brain, an unwilling trophy, alongside momentary hope and finn’s smile. he would have hope again, finn would smile in pride again, even if not for him, but the rational part of his brain had retreated. for now, he was sure that the shaking would never ever stop.
without the heavy dull weight of a body in his arms, he felt as though he was floating. and though finn may have been his anchor, he was tied on loosely, had tugged the rope to it’s extreme and now was drifting, so far he could barely make out finn’s features through the deep blue melancholy. it felt like going blind again, so he reached out an arm, tried to swim forward, and it was a slow crawl, but it was something. he rose to his feet, unsteady, nodded his head. the swirling slept-on curl that hung across his eyes was dipped in crimson, congealed at the very tip; he let it hang. “ shovel. “ a few wobbly steps, closer to the door, closer to finn and the body. “ she don’t sleep good if you don’t hold her real tight, like. ” then he was off to the shed.
it didn’t need to make sense, he could believe she was just catching forty winks and dig her grave all at once, he could make peace with finn’s disappointment and grieve violently for it all the same, he could catch sight of his reflection in the ramshackle greenhouse and stare, yet still be convinced he was a figment of his own imagination. the shed smelt like woodshavings and finn, muddy boots, thyme, freshly mowed grass. the shovel lay beside the little radio he worked to the tune of, and buddy wanted to crush it, for how it grinned and winked up at him with all the insolence of an inanimate object that could never know his pain. he didn’t. he picked up the shovel and wandered back out into the morning.










