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latibvles · 1 year

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SAD, BEAUTIFUL, TRAGIC.

beautiful, tragic // sink or swim.

all you can do is try to know who your friends are, as you head off to the war.

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TAGLIST: @liebgotts-lovergirl , @softguarnere , @brassknucklespeirs , @monalisastwin , @mads-weasley , @eugene-emt-roe

SUMMARY: Daisy begins to sink — and she's decided to do so alone.

WARNINGS: heavy discussions of grief-induced depression & the intense emotions associated with grief.

To Mrs. Irene Clarke,

It is with a heavy heart and with deep regret that I must inform you that your son, Corporal James W. Clarke, has been killed in action while defending the good name and morals of the United States of America on February 19th, 1945.

Your family must be going through a range of emotions right now, from anger to devastation to pride. Knowing that your son passed while serving his country hopefully brings you a small piece of comfort in this difficult time. James was incredibly proud of his country, and he spoke highly of his work every day. He made many strong friendships during his service, and he will be remembered for his kindness and strength.

It is never easy losing a child, and we send our sincerest condolences.

She couldn’t finish reading it. She feels like she can’t breathe. Ron puts down the letter and looks at her.

He says nothing. His arms wrap around her and she clings onto him. It’s like her voice is shot. Daisy can’t scream, or cry out, not like she wants to. But she’s crying. She knows she’s crying because her cheeks are wet and her vision’s blurry and Ron’s shirt is wet with her tears. Her throat hurts, and every time she shuts her eyes she sees that cold, lifeless, typewriter print and its empty condolences. Her head is pounding.

It takes a moment for her to register the sound of a sniffle, the muttered swear, and the familiar tremble of Ron’s body — only slightly different from his drunken weeping the night before. His fingers are digging into her, like she might slip away from him otherwise.

Daisy just holds him tighter.

It doesn’t feel real. She can’t even… envision it. She’s seen so many soldiers die, so many be blown up by mortars or crushed by debris or shot full of holes. She’s watched her own friends get limbs blown off, succumbing in one way or another to bitter cold or bullets or some other unfortunate circumstance. But she can’t see it. She can’t see James among them. Maybe if she could, she would know how to deal with it. If she could, it wouldn’t be eating her alive, swallowing her whole, drowning her.

Her arms drop, she untangles herself from Ron, wipes her eyes.

“I need- I… I need…” she takes a measured breath and sniffles, pulling herself up to her feet and grabbing the letter. He rises, as she wipes her nose and her eyes. “I need to see Jane I didn’t- she doesn’t know I was… here… so-”

“Daisy-”

“Please, Ron.” She’s never felt this desperate before. I’m drowning. But we can’t both drown. Let me go. He reaches forward, cupping her cheek and wiping her tears with his thumb. She can hardly breathe under the weight of it. She might burst into tears and fall to her knees all over again.

He says nothing. He kisses her forehead. She chokes back another sob.

“Do you want me to walk you back?” And she shakes her head, and pulls away, walking towards the tent’s opening and trying to steel her features. For the first time in a long time, she isn’t even sure how effective her own attempts are.

“I’ll… see you, Ron,” she mutters meekly, scurrying out before he can make another attempt to stop her.

She keeps her head down in a way she isn’t used to. The sun is less welcome, now that it comes with the fact that anyone who passes can see her red eyes and her flushed face. She finds her tent, walks inside wordlessly. Jane isn’t there, which is fine. She falls onto the cot without another word, pulling her knees into her chest, staring at the wall. Her heart still pounds in her ears, her chest still aches, and everything just feels like too much. The fabric beneath her, the quiet, the light breaking in from outside. It’s too much. It isn’t enough. She wants to be alone but she wants to be held. She wants to eat but she wants to vomit.

Daisy just wants her brother, but that isn’t even an option anymore.

So she just cries, until the pillow’s wet with her tears and until she’s gasping for breath and lets herself succumb, lets her head sink under, until she’s so tired that all she can do is stare. She hears the flap of the tent open, doesn’t make a move to look and see who it is.

“Can you just give me a second? Christ. Be patient.” She recognizes Jane’s voice, and while the words don’t register, she knows the voice belongs to Talbert. There’s a pause, a heavy silence, and then some shuffling.

Jane lays a blanket over her, folding the sheet so it doesn’t cover her head, but covers the rest of her. A bit more shuffling, and then she leaves.

It’s harder to pull herself out of bed, in the later days.

Daisy doesn’t go out anymore. She heads straight to bed most nights, and on the ones where Jane is there before her, they don’t… talk. She wakes up some days with a wet pillowcase. If she’s sobbing in her sleep, Jane hasn’t said anything about it. On the nights where she dreams, James is there, smiling and whole and alive, with a familiar redhead on his arm. Sometimes she’s pregnant. Sometimes it’s a wedding. Everytime, she wakes up with wet cheeks and a stuffy nose. The letters remain folded on her pillow by her head. She can’t bring herself to read the second one.

She knows it has to be from her mother. She knows the handwriting well.

And she can envision it clearly. Her mother, begging her to come home. How they need her there, how they can’t lose both a daughter and a son in the same year. Come home, we need you. Come home, we miss you. Come home, I’m scared. And it isn’t even that she doesn’t want to come home. She knows that if she reads it, if she’s granted that permission — she’d beg on her hands and knees. Put her down as combat fatigue, pregnancy, a casualty, it didn’t matter. Just get her home.

It’s all just too much. She’s never flinched away from touch before, never failed to return a smile. Hands feel too heavy on her shoulders and smiling feels like lifting a weight she doesn’t know how to carry quite yet.

She needs someone older, wiser, who can show her how to carry it.

When was the last time she’d lost someone in her family? It had to have been Grandma Beth. She wasn’t very old at the time. She was four, James was five, they held hands because her mother’s were occupied with tissues, holding them to her nose. They were too little to understand, so they giggled at the honking noise her nose made. They played tag with their cousins outside the funeral home. They went back to the old house for lunch. She slept on her brother’s shoulder in the car on the way home.

“Daisy? Daisy!” she’s pulled from her thoughts by Ginny staring at her across the table. She blinks, staring at Ginny blankly. The latter frowns, reaching for her hand. She retracts her hand in response, and the blonde frowns. “You didn’t hear a word I just said, did you?” She can’t deny it, so she says nothing, looking around the empty mess. When was it empty? Ginny sighs. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’m just tired.” she offers, in lieu of unpacking everything right here. My brother died weeks ago, and I’m only learning about it now. My brother’s been dead for weeks and I still can’t wrap my head around it. My brother died weeks ago and I’m not sure how I’m supposed to grieve this or where to start and part of me just wants to go home. Ginny narrows her eyes at him.

“You know, your business is your business. But it’s really hard for me to mind my own when everyone that matters is worrying about you,” she looks past Daisy, towards the door, before back to her. “You think I don’t notice these things, Dais? You barely eat, you’re not… around and when you are you’re hardly there. Ron says you haven’t even talked to him in days,” Daisy reaches up to rub her mouth, eyes downcast. Ginny leans forward a bit towards her. “I don’t care what you say to anybody else but that isn’t gonna work with me.”

“Can we walk and talk, please?”

Ginny frowns, but stands, offering a hand to her that she doesn’t take, and they walk out the door. Daisy picks at her nails, it feels like someone’s pulled out her tongue and rendered her mute.

“Well, we’re walking.” Ginny remarks, and there’s no venom to it, but there is a tentative concern. No matter how many times she says it, or thinks it, it doesn’t feel real. She breathes slowly, swallows and runs her tongue over the back of her teeth as though to ensure her mouth still works like it's supposed to. She can’t look her in the eye like she should.

“I…” This should be easy. It’s Ginny, for Christ’s sake. But saying it is still so hard. She wants to deny it, vehemently, everytime she says it. Like his letter will come in the mail boasting about his achievements and complaining about the little things — like the taste of the food or the all-consuming heat.

She feels Ginny reach out to take her hand, squeeze it and hold onto it.

“Talk to me.” Daisy swallows the lump forming in her throat, forcing herself to look away.

“What if I got sent home?” she asks, feeling Ginny’s hand tighten in hers as they stop walking.

“Daisy, are you…” Ginny leans forward, to keep her voice down. “Are you pregnant? Are you scared to tell him? Is that it?” In another situation Daisy might’ve laughed at that, or even blushed at the very idea. But she’s too tired for that, so she just shakes her head, biting the inside of her cheek for a moment and hoping she doesn’t spill out onto the beaten path.

“No, I’m not,” Daisy refutes. “It’s… my brother, he…” And again, Ginny squeezes her hand, tightening. Daisy knows she’s likely connecting the dots. “I found out four days ago.”

“Christ Daisy I’m so sorry I—”

“Don’t apologize,” Daisy turns her head to look at her now. “Ron’s the only one who knows, I didn’t- I didn’t say anything I just-,” she reaches up to rub at her face again, blinking away tears before they can fall down her cheeks again. “I’m so tired, Ginny. And I- I know I should be talking about it and dealing with it but it’s… talking and dealing are too much and I just want to sink but I can’t let you, or Ron or anybody do that with me.” There’s a part of her that wants to reach out and fall into Ginny’s embrace like they’ve done for one another so many times before — and a part of her that knows that even that is too much for her to handle.

There’s a heavy silence between then for a moment — thick enough to cut through. Ginny sighs, then gives her that furrowed brow look again. She feels like she’s being analyzed, watching as Ginny’s eyes flit over her face.

“Do you want to be sent home?” She almost wants to laugh at how they’re talking about it, like it’s as simple as just packing a bag and going.

“I don’t know, I just… I don’t know what to do with all this and I know my parents want me home too.”

“Did they say that?”

“I think anyone who loses a kid would want the other kid home for the goddamn funeral.” It comes out sharp and clipped — bordering on a snap. No, she almost immediately corrects herself, it is a snap. Daisy regrets the way she says it the moment it leaves her mouth. Ginny presses her lips into a line. For a second, Daisy thinks she might snap back at her. She doesn’t.

“I think it’s something you think about,” Ginny releases her hand, reaching up to tuck a piece of hair behind her own ear. “And if you think about it and it’s what you want then maybe we can work something out. But I can’t promise anything.” Ginny looks over her one last time, reaching over to give her shoulder a gentle squeeze. There’s more that she wants to say — Daisy can tell, but she’s biting her tongue, leaving her with that nonverbal goodbye.

She wants to apologize, but Ginny’s too quick and the words don’t form fast enough.

#fic // sad beautiful tragic #ronald speirs x oc #ronald speirs x ofc #band of brothers oc #band of brothers fic #hbo war fic #hbo war oc #hbo war ofc #listen as someone who had three deaths in the family spanning from 2020 - 2022 #this chapter was ... very personal to write #sometimes grief makes us do things we shouldn't and fall back into old habits

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gaymaramada · 2 years

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Christmas w/ the Wachowskis

If there’s one thing the Wachowski family is passionate about, it’s Christmas. I’m talking decorations, presents, movies, the whole shebang. Maddie and Tom always loved celebrating the holiday together, but this year? This year they’ve got not one, but three new additions to the family, two of which have never heard of the holiday and one who had only seen it from an outside view. Needless to say, this year was going to be interesting.

Christmas morning begins early. Tom gets up to get a glass of water when he sees the lights on the tree had been turned on. Stepping into the living room, he sees Tails sitting by the tree with a content smile on his face, his namesakes wagging behind him steadily.

“What are you doing up so late, bud?” Tom would ask, to which Tails would reply happily (and quietly as to not wake the others), “It’s Christmas morning!”

“It’s 4am.”

“I couldn’t sleep! I’m just so excited!”

Tom would unsuccessfully try to coax him back to bed, telling him that it would be a few hours before anyone else woke up. Tails continuously tells him he doesn’t mind waiting, and eventually, the sheriff is forced to cave and let the kid wait, but not without requesting he at least try to get some extra sleep on the couch while he did.

Sonic wakes up around 8, which is outrageously early for the hedgehog, but he’s got twice as much energy as usual when he zips down to Tom and Maddie’s bedroom to jump on their bed repeatedly in excitement. Tom playfully hits him with his pillow while Maddie slips out of bed with surprising grace. They all go down to meet with Tails, who had apparently gotten himself something to drink while he waited, and the two brothers immediately begin to beg to open their presents before Maddie reminds them that they’ve got one more coming.

Knuckles is the last to rise, having to be gently brought out of sleep by Maddie. He’s still rubbing his eyes as he joins the crew in the living room, his second-younger brother’s chides of taking too long falling on uncaring ears. It’s only then that the kids finally get to open their presents.

Sonic gets a new baseball mitt, custom made to match his red and white shoes. Tails gets a tinkering kit (an adult one, Tom and Maddie know how smart their little fox is) and a toolbox. Knuckles’ gift is in the garage: a hanging punching bag for him to let loose on (but not too loose, Tom warns, as that bag isn’t really built to handle galaxy-renowned trained-to-kill warriors).

After presents, the family spends the holiday together. They all pitch in with breakfast, seeing just how far they can go with the sugar before the food becomes pure candy. Sonic has a piece of mistletoe that he rushes to teasingly hang over his parents whenever they’re next to each other. Tails is quick to take to his kit, merging some of the materials from it with his own things to create something even better. Knuckles challenges Sonic to a smash bros match, to which the younger eagerly obliges. For movie night, they binge a few Christmas classics, mocking the cheesy jokes and questioning the dated references. Halfway through their third movie, all three boys are fast asleep. Tom and Maddie follow close behind, and the whole family sleeps on the couch together. A few of them wake up with cricks in their necks, but all in all, it’s worth it.

They can’t wait for next year.

#i love this family to death #sonic #sth #sonic the hedgehog #sonic 2020 #sonic 2022 #sonic movie #scu #sonic wachowski #miles tails prower #miles tails wachowski #knuckles the echidna #knuckles wachowski #tom wachowski #maddie wachowski

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