raybill wip for a fic i wanna crank out sometime before the end of the week:
“I'm real fucking proud of you, son,” Stebbins listens to his father rasp, the large burly man stood behind his shoulders, strong hand laid across the planes. “You've got no flesh. No blood pumping. The rest of them — the boys I sired all that while? Well, they succumbed to fatalities like flies. But not you, boy. You brandished your sloping guts to the world without even a twitch of an eye. So now you're the king of the castle — sat nicely wherever you'd like. Tell me, what's your wish?” In the moment, Stebbins expects himself to ask his father to live with him. Not the tea — that blessing was surefire the moment he crossed the invisible finish line. Garraty and McVries, the sacrificial motherfuckers; had sat down hand in hand and knee-to-knee to let him be the success of them. To show the world that the mechanical rabbit never stops running. Alice never quite catches up, nor does time allow for her full stay in Wonderland. He changes his wish in the moment. The importance of the notion, the finality within it. Desperately, he asks to bring back Garraty.
