MICHIGAN'S IN THE REAR VIEW NOW | OPEN

[body.]

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Elwin has killed a man.

His medical training is by no means extensive. Most of his knowledge was gleaned through experience. Like teaching someone to swim by throwing them head-first into a lake, Elwin had been thrown head-first into the infirmary. First it had been a punishment, then it had become routine. He was good at what he did, mostly because he didn’t give two shits if you were screaming your head off or not. The instructions were simple—keep ‘em still and push until something pops.

He’s still too proud to admit out loud he had no clue what he was doing. The other day had been a disaster. Luckily that man was his only casualty, but … wow, does he feel like a monster. He’s never known what it was like to hold someone’s life in his hands until then.

His body sits outside, blanketed in a thin layer of fresh snow from last night. The sun has barely risen over the horizon. Elwin stares it down, shovel in hand, lip quivering.

He killed someone.

Now, Elwin has done some awful things. He has hurt himself, his family, and everyone in between with his reckless behavior. However, he’s never had the joy of facing the consequences of his actions. He was young, they let him off the hook. He was not in the right state of mind, he was hurting, he was just careless. The village tried their best to raise him right, but the constant excuses for his actions did little to set him straight. No, he never learned his lesson.

Does this count?

He’s being forced to stare into the dead, frozen face of a man who would’ve been alive to see the dawn today had he not fucked up. He doesn’t know this man’s name, if he had a wife or kids or a family, or if there was somebody in the crowd of refugees that’s missing him. It’s too late to ask now, isn’t it?

He needs to bury him, or do something with the body, at least, so he isn’t all strewn out like this, but he can’t bring himself to touch the man. He feels like he’ll dirty the poor thing. How insulting it would be, to be shoved six feet underground by the very boy whose hands your blood is on! Elwin just drops to his knees. He doesn’t know what to do.

So, naturally, the first thing he does is cry.

[sorry this is so ... not good]

[freddie]

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— death to most was viewed as a tragedy. one minute someone was up and moving, chatting as if they didn’t have a care in the world. then, in the blink of an eye, they were just- gone. the light faded from their eyes. they ceased to exist. all they left behind were the memories people carried with them. people seemed to cling to those memories as if their lives depended on it.

freddie didn’t understand elwin’s grief. he doubted he ever could.

perhaps there was simply a part of freddie that lacked empathy at all, let alone empathy surrounding death. it was a common occurrence he witnessed growing up. who was he to know to look at it any differently than the way he’d learned to throughout his childhood? he had only been a child raised not to know any better. by the time he killed his first person, he hadn’t even flinched. did that make him the bad guy, to not even flinch at death, when that was all he knew?

he didn’t know.

stepping outside of the lodge, he squinted his eyes at the rising sun. scrunching his nose up slightly, he brought a hand up to shield his eyes-- only then noticing elwin out there. how long had he been out there? he paused. hesitated at the mere idea of going closer. he didn’t like the guy. frankly, he was just about up there with edmund on his chart of least favorites. whatever elwin was doing, grieving over this man he didn’t know -- it was simply unnatural and beyond him.

yet curious feet couldn’t help but carry him over, feet lightly crunching in the fresh snow. he slowed to a stop at elwin’s side, features unreadable as he glanced between the dead body and then elwin. was this what the guy had been up to after he - for lack of better words - cock blocked him? he pursed his lips slightly. elwin was crying. why? he turned his gaze back towards the dead body, with an almost morbid curiosity in those blue eyes. curious how the man died. curious how elwin was so strung up about it.

his brows furrowed only slightly, letting the silence linger for a bit before he spoke up. “here,” he held his hand out, gaze lingering on the body before he eventually turned his head towards elwin. “the shovel,” he felt the need to explain. as if the other male would try and take his hand or something else. the body wasn’t going to bury itself.

frederick stirling lacked empathy in every sense of the word. he struggled to put himself in someone else’s shoes, let alone in situations that left him unfazed. however, he did know how to lighten the load off of someone else’s back. let elwin stay there and cry for all he cared-- at least he could try and do the closest thing to “nice” he could manage at such a time.

//this post sucked wtf
but omg elwin the poor bby

[body.]

[align=center][div style="width: 450px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 9pt;"]For a minute there, in all his grief, Elwin considers hugging the legs of whoever stops beside him. That, of course, ends up being a stupid idea, especially once he looks up to see who has joined him in his sorrow.

Freddie’s hand sticks out expectantly. As much as he hates to see his smug face, his presence makes him feel somewhat better … if only by a miniscule, atomic amount. It’s just nice to have company, or at least the shame of another pair of eyes watching him, preventing him from doing anything stupid, either to this body or to himself. The urge to punish himself is bearing down.

He grabs the shovel and thrusts it into Freddie’s hand, eyes still fixed on the man’s body. He hasn’t stopped crying throughout any of this, merely reduced his pathetic wailing to even more pathetic sniveling. He’s sure he doesn’t look good, with wild, red eyes and snot dripping from his nose, so he doesn’t want to face the man and give him any more fuel. Right now, he just wants someone to pat him on the back and tell him it’s okay. There’s no one to do that, however, so this is the next best thing, right?

Freddie doesn’t ask what he did. Freddie doesn’t ask why, and in that moment, he appreciates him for that. Had anyone else found him first, he’s sure the ensuing interrogation would have only made things worse. He just needs to take care of the body, calm down, and hide for a few hours, before he goes to check on all the people he managed not to kill.

Even if Freddie didn’t ask, even if he doesn’t want to know, Elwin has to confess his sins to somebody. Well, it comes out in a string of slurred, rushed words as soon as he looks up, eyes brimming with tears once again as he now clutches at his broken, throbbing wrist.

“His lung collapsed,” he admits, “I killed him.”

And then he starts to sob all over again, forced to look away to spare Freddie’s poor eyes. He thinks he should be apologizing, either to the body or all the people he’s woken up with his cries, but he can’t get any more words out. Anything following that is just a sputtering, garbled mess of words, a pitiful attempt at explaining himself. He gives up, thinking he’ll be granted immunity for the five or fifty minutes he needs to collect himself before he admits to his crimes.

By this point, he’s run out of tears, which have dried in the frigid cold, so now all he can do is whimper and whine. Elwin rocks back and forth on his knees, looking erratic. He might as well get up and do something, if he’s done throwing a fit.

So he gets to his feet, dusts snow off the body, and finds himself staring straight at his mistake. The dressing, taped down in all four corners, stained with dry blood, is taunting him. When the man’s lung had collapsed, there wasn’t anywhere for the excess air to go. Not only did he have no idea what was going on inside his chest, he had no idea how to deal with it in the first place.

“You don’t have to do that,” he says quietly, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “It’s—it’s okay, I can bury him.” He just doesn’t want to be any more of a nuisance, even if it means giving an ounce of kindness to Freddie. Despite his offer, he makes no attempt to take the shovel back, or even move from his spot.

“... thanks.” Let this be the only time Freddie ever hears that word come from Elwin’s mouth.

[STIRLING.]

[align=center][div style="width: 430px; text-align: justify; font-family: verdana; font-size: 6pt; letter-spacing: 1.5px; word-spacing: 0px; line-height: 12px; color: #000"]How does one continue going on when the worst had already happened to them?

William wasn’t sure how he could sympathise with Elwin for he’d never experienced such sorrow in response to a death. Whilst the death was accidental, Elwin hadn’t been the one to shoot the guy, so what could he do about it? Elwin tried his best and that was more than William could say about himself when assisting the injured newcomers into the Lodge. All he had done was stand back and watch the carnage unfold, curious eyes examining gory wounds and injuries and all that blood.

Perhaps he was too insensitive, but was there really such a thing as too insensitive in the world nowadays? People died all the time, some too by his own hand, but it did not mean that the world should lament over each loss else they’d never stop grieving. He’d been confirmed this very fact when he was only a child; when it came to death, William felt absolutely nothing.

It wasn’t even a numbness,  veil to cover the emotion hidden within. No, it was purely a void. An emptiness. His soul was absent of sympathy for the dead, but he could acknowledge that his own views were not the norm.

William gazed out of the window of the Lodge carefully, bright eyes observing discussion between Elwin and Freddie, and in that moment William could tell that Freddie was making an effort to console Elwin. Or, whatever it was that he was trying to do. William blinked, straight-faced, before he eventually stalked silently out of the Lodge to join the two men.

❝ His lung collapsed, ❞ Elwin’s voice grew louder as William neared the two men, arms comfortably folded across his chest as his hollow gaze lingered on the corpse strewn across the ground. Elwin believed that he killed the man. Sure, perhaps the medical mistake did not help his prognosis, but it appeared that he was already in a rough condition to begin with.  ❝ Don’t be so hard on yourself, kid- ❞ William began, leaning down slightly to grab onto Elwin’s shoulder, squeezing gently.

❝ You did all that you could. We can’t save everybody. ❞ He tipped his head to peer up towards his younger brother as Elwin stood up again. Freddie held onto the shovel, and William assumed this only meant that he’d offered to help. That was thoughtful of Fred, William squinted; what was he getting out of burying a dead man?

❝ You start digging, ❞ William nodded his head towards Fred before looking over at Elwin, ❝ Don’t you worry; let us deal with the body. You’ve had enough grief for one day, I think. ❞