❝ don't you cry for me — oneshot . ❞

[EDMUND.]

[align=center][div style="width: 430px; text-align: justify; font-family: verdana; font-size: 6pt; letter-spacing: 2.5px; word-spacing: 0px; line-height: 12px; color: #000"]tw. alcohol use (inc. underage drinking), mention of drug use, depictions of mental illness and suicidal thoughts, suicide attempt, gore, blood, mention of past murder.

---

---- He was so doomed, so young, only fifteen when he started drinking. It’d been inevitable whilst living alongside four older brothers and a father who was the proud possessor of one of the most successful whiskey distilleries in all of Boston. There was a high demand for single malt Irish whiskey and so Alfred took it upon himself to meet that high demand. Fueling into the long established independent Stirling distillery, with a little help from contacts across the cosmopolitan city, it had only taken a couple of years for the legitimate business to skyrocket.

It was a perfect ploy to keep his illegitimate business under lock and key. How did the Stirlings become so powerful so quickly? Their influence reigned over not only the state but the majority of the East Coast. For those who were aware of the Stirling family knew to beware. Soon the law was close on their heels. What was their business along the Boston Harbor? How were so many deaths connected to them somehow? How did they become so affluent so quickly? Why could the law never catch up to them?

That made Edmund Stirling-Moray a very, very important man.

The hustle and bustle of party goers felt crowded in the large mansion, but Eddie enjoyed his week-long trips to New York. He kicked back his shoes onto some glass coffee table, leaning back on the sofa with a confused grin on his face. ❝ Take this, Baby Face- you’ll hate it. ❞ Jackson said as he thrust a glass of some pale colored liquid towards Eddie. Ed frowned but took the glass from him without questioning it, waiting for Jackson to drink his own before Eddie knocked it back himself. Head was spinning, already having had too much to drink for the average sixteen year old, and he was pretty certain he was going to regret this the next morning.

The taste was burning against his tongue, Eddie grimacing as he swallowed before hissing softly. ❝ Hey, what did I tell you? ❞

❝ That was fuckin’ awful. ❞

❝ Well a drink ain’t there to enjoy, it’s there to get you drunk. ❞

Eddie raised his brows, humming thoughtfully. ❝ Wise words, Jackson. ❞

Jackson shook his head slowly, pulling a face before announcing loudly over the music, ❝ Damn right they are! ❞

Eddie lifted his head, blinking unsteadily as he looked across to where a crowd had formed outside. Alfonso stood there beside Franklin, two brothers shoving each other back and forth. Alfie raised his hand to flip Frank the bird before a wicked grin sprawled across Frank’s features. Turning to focus on the table in front of him, Alfie seemed to stare at a handful of tequila shots, shaking his head to himself before downing them one by one. ❝ He don’t still got snow on him, does he? ❞ Jackson asked. Eddie shrugged; it wasn’t his job to keep an eye out on what illicit substances his older brother was messing around him. ❝ Tequila ‘n’ snow - he’s gonna be off the walls in a minute. ❞

❝ Uh huh. ❞ Ed agreed slowly, observing as Alfie finally finished the line of shots before the crowd cheered as he stuck his tongue out and shook his head wildly. ❝ I’ll let him have his fun. It’s not everyday we’re in New York. ❞

❝ Well have fun tryna carry him back to the hotel tonight ‘cause I sure ain’t gonna help- ❞

❝ Grateful for that, Jackson- ❞ Eddie huffed a short breath of laughter before he rocked up onto his feet, patting Jackson’s shoulder. ❝ Gonna find someone to dance with. Don’t go missin' me too much. ❞

He left, not without giving Jackson a impudent wink before beginning to slip into the crowd, ignoring the sound of Jackson calling playfully, ❝ Oh fuck off, Moray! ❞

---

---- Nowadays, he drank alone.

Oftentimes it was by choice. Even at parties, he chose to drink alone. Avoid all dancing, withdraw from all festivities. After all, otherwise he’d be sat among a group of people, chugging down drinks until he could barely even stagger home. No one would even think to realize how empty Eddie had to be to do such a thing.

The hollowness in his soul echoed every time his heart slammed against his chest. Void of all emotion, void of all joy. Life was like a carving knife, etching itself into him until that beautiful exterior of his became flayed and ugly. What would become of the man who’d once only been a charming boy with the lust for the thrill seeker's life? He had been ruined by guilt. Left vacant with nothing more but grief. A sort of grief that would never die.

Oh, he didn’t feel safe in his own head.

He was violent and bitter, ugly inside and out. No wonder he was so unloved that even his own body would sabotage his own happiness. He was supposed to be the king, the ruler of everything and it was supposed to make him feel on top of the world. It was supposed to make him feel like Alfred Stirling did. So, why did he feel inadequate instead?

Edmund was supposed to be the man who kept his family safe. Instead, he brought harm and fear upon them, he was too slow to save Dominik’s life, and he killed his own father. If it weren’t for the shared hatred for Alfred between the surviving brothers, Eddie should’ve been shot or exiled for what he had done in his lapse of judgement, mind fuelled with rage.

With a shakily exhalation, Eddie sat at his desk in his office, slowly taking a sip of his drink. The room was silent apart from the creaking of wood as the wind howled outside. Eddie lowered his gaze to look into the glass, liquid subtly sloshing side to side from a shaky hand. Was he strong enough to a leader?

Dammit, he so wished that Dominik was still alive. He would’ve known what to do.

---

---- ❝ Dominik, baby. Whilst you’re up, can you get us the chips and dip? ❞ Leonora hummed softly, cracking a smile over towards where Dominik stood. The eldest shifted his gaze over to where she sat, cuddling a fifteen year old Eddie in her arms.

❝ Where are they? ❞

❝ Just on the kitchen counter, baby. ❞ Said Leonora, Dominik nodding slowly before he left the room. She carded her fingers through Eddie’s hair before pressing her lips against his head. Eddie inhaled slowly, held his breath, and then eventually exhaled a fond breath. His mother’s embrace was always a comforting one and, resting his head against her chest, he was content in just laying against her warmth. Perhaps it was not common for a boy of his age to enjoy the gentleness of a mother’s caress, but Eddie and Leonora’s relationship was a strange one.

❝ For this being his first time, Eddie really pulled out all the stops. ❞ Frank pointed out, legs kicked up on the coffee table as he looked across towards his mother and youngest brother. Ed’s first score. His first heist. Being the smallest of the brothers, he was the best one to squeeze beneath the gap in the chain link fence in order to open the door for the rest of his brothers.

Alfie hummed dismissively, whooping as Dominik walked back in with the chips and dip. ❝ Fuck yeah! ❞

❝ Watch your fucking langauge! ❞ Tommy barked as he barged in behind Dominik, smirking towards Alfie as Alfie flipped him his middle finger in response. Tom crashed on the couch, barely missing Frank as he stretched his legs out.

❝ Is that so, Frank, baby? ❞

❝ I guess so. Hey, Nik - Ed only screwed up once, didn’t he? ❞ Frank looked up, running his fingers through his crew cut hair.

Dominik rolled his eyes, having placed the food on the table at this point, before he looked over at Frank. ❝ It doesn’t matter anymore. We got the gold bars in the end, and Alfred is dealing with the rest. ❞

Leonora watched Dominik for a moment before she looked down towards Eddie. Nik turned his head to frown at the affection between mother and son before sighing and sitting on the other side of the living room. As if he resented Eddie for stealing all of their mother's affection away from the other brothers. Ed lifted his head to look over at his mother, eyes hopeful. He looked at her as if she was the only woman he ever needed in his life.

❝ You are relentless, my beautiful baby. ❞ Softly, Leonora leaned in to press a long kiss at the corner of Ed’s lip, Eddie taking a slow deep breath with fluttering eyelids before he cracked a wavering smile as she pulled away.

❝ I’m just like you. ❞ He returned quietly, Leonora’s smile faltering as they exchanged fond glances.

❝ No, I think you're just like your father. ❞

---

---- What if he was someone that he didn’t even want around?

Alfred sacrificed that unity of a family which fell apart less than a year later. When Eddie had to stand and watch the execution of his very own mother, Eddie realized that this was far more than a betrayal committed by Leonora. Alfred had been an unfaithful man. When Eddie was fourteen years old, his half-brother was born in secret. He didn’t even know that the bastard baby existed. Three years later, his half-sister was born and Alfred and Christine rejoiced at the birth of their new pride and joy. Eddie had to sit back and watch as Christine took Leonora’s role with no objections from anybody.

Leonora had only been extra baggage in Alfred’s eyes. He had to dispose of her somehow.

He was a wicked man, but was Eddie any better? He lay in an empty bed, eyes shut and yet he was not asleep. His mind raced too fast for sleep nowadays. He’d been an unfaithful man, a serial cheater as if he had acted without any regard for Blake’s heart. Maybe he didn’t - he didn’t even know anymore.

Like Alfred, Eddie had an illegitimate child. Well, one on its way. Luckily for him, Cove was disinterested in the idea of him having anything to do with the future baby which felt safer for his own conscience. He couldn’t look in the mirror only to stare back at Alfred. In order to keep sane, Eddie had to break away from all of this stress.

Two babies on the way with two different mothers - oh shit, Eddie was a dumb bastard. He released a shaky breath, tossing and turning in bed until he finally sat up and roughly shoved the duvet away from him. There was something not quite right with him. Grief was mind numbing. The guilt, the near-acceptance that he was nothing more than a carbon copy of his father, the realization that he could never be the good man that he hoped to become.

He was a mobster. How fucking good could he ever be?

Eddie got out of bed, tugging on his clothes before shuffling through the dark and silent lodge. He left through the front door, taking a seat on the top step as he fumbled for a lighter. ❝ Can’t sleep, Captain? ❞ A night guard looked towards Eddie, the leader lifting his head to peer at the man with tired eyes.

He said nothing, instead allowing his gaze to search the man’s features observantly before he looked away again, lighting up a cigarette and taking a deep inhalation of smoke. The heat seared his lungs, but the pain felt good. It was a reminder that he was still here. Still alive. He exhaled a billow of smoke into the air, eyes shifting upwards to look at the starry night sky.

It didn’t matter how much Eddie struggled to avoid the inevitability of his father’s curse, he would always bear semblance to Alfred: bitter, violent and dead.

---

---- The work of Alfred was all that Eddie knew. Who could blame him for following so closely in his footsteps? After all, the apple never did fall too far from the tree. His hands were clasped behind his back, the seventeen year old’s eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly as he accompanied Alfred on another one of his meetings. The Van Dorens were close allies of theirs, a truce between one another based on the agreement of assistance and trade between each other.

❝ My brother informed me that the Mancini family has been acting awfully suspicious around the bars downtown. ❞ Alfred pointed out, leaning forward from where he sat at a table, intense eyes wandering across at the Van Doren’s boss. ❝ I fear that they may be onto us which is, of course, not ideal. It’ll fuck with our plans entirely. ❞

Eddie flitted his gaze up to across the room, eyes landing on a girl around her age. Her flaxen hair fell down to her shoulders, features unmoving apart from a simple quirk of her brow at Ed. Ed narrowed his eyes back at her slightly before a hint of a smile began to twitch at his lips.

At that moment, he wanted Maxine. For many moments after, he did all that he could to impress her. Suave and charming, although Eddie was quiet he was by no means shy. He was pretty sure that her brothers all hated Eddie by the time they started dating, but Eddie was never around for long enough to really cause too much grief in their lives.

To Maxine, perhaps, but she did swiftly dump Eddie not long afterwards.

She was always a smart girl.

❝ Well, it’s good to see you again, Alfred. ❞ The Van Doren Boss stood up, breaking Ed out of his brief reverie as the man held his hand out for Alfred to shake. Eddie nodded his head respectfully towards the Van Doren, gaze shifting over towards the girl one last time before following his father out of the room.

❝ You don’t think I didn’t see what you were doing there? ❞ Alfred asked firmly a minute or two after leaving, Eddie frowning as his gaze shifted up towards his father.

❝ Sorry, what? ❞ He questioned.

❝ You were smiling at the Van Doren girl. ❞

Ed looked ahead again, inhaling slowly. ❝ Come on, boy. Don’t let yourself be carried away; you need to act like a leader. ❞

Gritting his teeth together, Eddie remained silent as he exhaled through flared nostrils. What did Alfred know about leadership anyway? His father was silent for a while, until his suggestion had Ed look over towards him. ❝ Go for the girl. ❞

❝ What? ❞

❝ You stay in her good books, we stay in the Van Doren’s good books. Just stop smiling like some damn loverboy. Be a man. ❞

Was that all he was thinking about? Some bullshit ploy in order wrap another family around the Stirling’s finger? Ed shot Alfred a look, the older man dismissive of his son’s stare, before Ed lowered his gaze, wordlessly walking beside him.

The man was wicked. He didn’t care for the innocent. He was ruthless and cruel and he could never love anybody, not even his own family. All he craved was the sweet sensation of being in power. Cold, calm and calculative, Alfred didn't have to speak more than he needed to for his silence was what gave him his power. Unreadable features were what made him so feared. He was the shadow in the darkness; one could never guess what was going on in his mind, and that feeling of not knowing was what scared Eddie the most.

He could never become like his father, but what if it was already too late?

---

---- Eddie didn’t smile anymore. What was the use in smiling when he was surrounded by darkness? What was the use in smiling when nobody could see it? That damn darkness that took everything that he ever loved and cared for away from him so so harshly that it made him bitter. All that Eddie could think about was that anger. All that anger and hatred and revenge and nobody could ever talk him out of it now.

He could hurt himself for ever convincing his mind that this darkness was necessary in order to make him the man Alfred wanted him to be. Oh - fuck - it was so confusing trapped within this head of his; he didn’t want to bear any semblance to the man that turned this boy into a machine, but what if this was the inevitability of the Stirling curse?

He told himself that this darkness was the only way for him to survive, the only way for him to grow even stronger than that bastard of a man who hurt him. Edmund allowed for that pain and grief and suffering to consume his thoughts, plague his mind, riddle his body and soul until it was the only thing that he could think of.

He welcomed the darkness in as if his mind was its rightful home and it made him unclean. It made him cruel and unkind, selfish and so difficult to love.

But maybe Eddie enjoyed this darkness. Maybe he enjoyed that apprehension and fear in people's eyes as his stony-faced appearance grew cold and ominous. Maybe he enjoyed the way people stepped aside for him as if one wrong move would be their very last. When Edmund welcomed that darkness in, he’d be lying if he said that it didn’t feel so right to possess such power in his silence and unreadable eyes.

Maybe he'd be deceiving himself if he ever claimed that the darkness was not a good thing because it was that darkness which had him sit upon this liar’s throne. Eddie had welcomed this darkness in as if it’d been his plan all along. Was that not right? Because, if he was not like Alfred, then Edmund was no leader at all.

But that did not sound right. If he relied so much on a dead man’s legacy, then why did Eddie kill him again every night in his dreams? Why had he pulled the trigger and lodged a bullet in his hero’s skull? If he murdered his hero in cold blood, did that make Eddie the villain? Had he been the bad guy all along?

He lit a cigarette, stood among the conifers blanketed in a fresh layer of snow. In the early hours of the morning, Eddie moved his trembling hand to lodge the cigarette between chapped lips. Features were dead, his breath tasting like smoke and whiskey, and reddened, glazed over eyes tried to blink away the high. He could thank Elijah for his stash, perhaps the only thing that could bring Eddie to do this. He blew rings of smoke into the sky and wished for them to be nooses. Eyes blinked as he followed smoke ropes until they dissipated into the air.

His eyes - brimming with agony - began to fill with broken glass. The unfamiliar sensation of tears rising, the broken man slowly nodding his head before huffing a short breath of laughter to himself. A smile lingered within the silence, but there was no emotion there.

And, in that pressure, he snapped.

Tossing a half-finished cigarette, box of cigarettes and his lighter down into the snow, Eddie stamped it flat against the icy surface. Left alone in the early hours of the morning to do it, he began to walk far from the lodge, swallowing hard.

He was filled to the brim with anger and guilt. That fucking survivor’s guilt that taunted him every day and every night. So many people had died because of him, and for what? What made him any better than the whole lot of them combined?

Why could he have not died in January when he’d been tortured senselessly? When they held his head under the water for so long that he had stopped breathing? His heart had stopped, dammit - he should’ve died that day. Perhaps everyone would have been better off for it if Mickey had found him a couple minutes too late.

He was angry, and yet he’d do anything to prove that he was still in complete control. He’d lock himself away in the office and down all his whiskey until he’d puke it all back up. He’d slam his knuckles against his desk until his knuckles began to bleed. Hell, he’d even step outside into the freezing cold at four in the morning, high and drunk and dressed in nothing but a tee shirt, boxers and socks. His body trembled wildly, toes and fingertips aching from the numbing cold as he slipped on the ice through the forest.

And then, the world came plummeting around him, wet socks slipping as he fell onto his hands and knees. ❝ Fuck- ❞ He hissed before swatting at the snow. ❝ For fuck’s sake! ❞ He yelled, and the only sound was his words echoing back to him. And then, a gasped breath. God, the world was spinning around him, it made him feel sick.

He slowly leaned back onto his knees, holding up reddened palms to stare down at. These two guilty hands. Oh, Edmund was a ruined man - there was nobody else in this world to blame anymore apart from him.

Hands fumbling about wildly, he finally reached out to search for his pistol that he’d dropped in his fall. He clasped onto it, slowly pulling it closer to his body, until he released its safety catch.

This darkness would last forever.

He chewed down hard on his lip, trying to conceal the moment it wobbled with fear. His lungs heaved for breaths through flared nostrils, Eddie grimacing into the light of dawn. And then, he pressed the gun to his chin, gritting his teeth as an inhuman cry was trapped at the back of his throat and-

---

---- Blood and fragments of brain and skull splattered across grey slate tiles. Edmund refused to watch as Leonora’s body slumped to the ground. His face unmoving, unblinking, as if he felt nothing at all. But, at that very moment, he wanted to be sick. He wanted to cry out, instead wordlessly staring out into the estate’s perfectly manicured garden.

❝ You boys go inside. I’ll deal with the body. ❞ Alfred was impassive as he returned his gun into its holster, only then Eddie daring to shift his eyes over towards his mother on the cold, hard ground. Her eyes, still open, were vacant and glazed, blood slowly beginning to frame her pale face. A bullet in the skull was a quick way to go, but what about the ones who had to live after her death?

Eddie turned to silently follow his brothers back into their home, waiting until he got back into his bedroom before he hunched over, puking into the bathroom sink. A pained cry was nearly silent as it passed wobbling lips, barely having time to suck in a deep breath before puking again, and again.

Alfred had made him with flesh of armor and bones of gunmetal. He was a soldier, a cog working within a machine that gave him power. But, not even armor made him invincible. Even gunmetal could warp, snap and break. He wasn’t the perfect son that Alfred wanted him to be because no one with enough humanity could ever be so unyielding.

He was no machine, but just a boy who broke at the sight of his dead mother. He was just a boy who’d just learned of the harsh reality of the world he was born into. He was welded into a weapon, yet destined to fall. He was bound to break someday, just as overused things would do. He could never be a martyr to a wicked man’s cause.

Maybe Eddie was the last to realize that the world still needed him. They needed his heart, and his mind, and that flesh of armor which should never be used in a futile battle but used to shield the ones that he adored. The world craved for his faith and his courage, his strength and those gunmetal bones which should’ve never been used to harm good people but should have been used as a pillar of strength to hold the weight of the world for the people in his life.

And fuck Alfred for ever asking too much from a man who never got the chance to be a boy, for taking and taking and taking from a soldier who never had the chance to view the world with innocence. For a man who never smiled or laughed anymore, who acted as if he despised the whole world and the people around him, Edmund knew that he would give them everything that he had until he was nothing more than ash and dust. He’d hold the world on his shoulders, bear the weight of everybody’s burdens if it meant that they could smile and laugh for another day, and he’d risk his back until his shoulders collapsed and his knees buckled beneath the weight of all the lives that he had to carry…

Because he cared.

So fuck Alfred for ever taking advantage of the man with a good heart.

Ed deserved this life of his, and he deserved to be happy. After all, maybe he was a hero in somebody’s story. His job here was not done yet.

---

---- He ought to keep his guilty hands off of his life because this life was not his own; He wouldn’t be alive to miss it once he was gone. Lowering the gun, his shoulders slumped, exhaling a shaky breath as he stared out across the snowy landscape. And then, an emotionless chuckle passed his lips through a straight face as he lowered his eyes. Mom would be so mad at him if she could see what he was doing.

Slowly, Eddie eventually stumbled back up onto his feet after a while of contemplation. He dusted melting snow off of his minimal clothing and switched the safety back onto his pistol before he slowly retraced his steps through the snow back to the lodge, picking up his cigarette box and lighter along the way.

By the time he returned to the lodge, climbing up the steps, a guard was by the door, frowning at the Captain. Before he could even open his mouth to comment on the sorry state of the leader, Eddie pointed a finger at him sternly. ❝ This never happened, a’right? ❞ He nodded his head slowly, the guard slowly shutting his lips before piping up softly, ❝ Do you want me to make you a coffee, Captain? ❞ Eddie stared impassively for a moment before he huffed softly, the corner of his lip twitching.

❝ That’d be nice. ❞

Throughout the course of that day, he spent most of it sleeping off a hangover. Eddie only reemerged that evening, sitting down in front of the crackling fire in the lounge with a pen and notebook in hand. Gently, he tapped the pen against the paper in thought.

He lived and breathed the Stirling name. If he were to continue to struggle against the will of his dead father, Eddie would forever be restrained in this life of darkness. He had to make the name clean again. Free the Stirlings of Alfred. And so, the Stirlings would never be what Alfred had made it ever again. He wanted to smirk with spite...

Today marked the day the Stirling enterprise would be reinvented.

---

[4656 words y i k e s]

This is not one of my best oneshots but y'know it's whatever. It's not too structured necessarily but it's more so Ed's slow spiral before the start of a new era for him. Ever since Dominik and Alfred died back in October last year, Eddie has very slowly and very subtly been spiraling downhill right up until this moment; it's just sad because it's not easy to spot in a man who's so quiet and guarded but when I look at how he used to be and how he is now it's pretty sad. But, let's hope this is the start of a healthier Eddie-

Petition to see current day Eddie start smiling more :eyes:

[freddie]

you write so well i'm
just damn
my heart hurts rn
got me in my feels

[blake k.]

Why must you do this
Make me feel...feelings
My heart