[closed] secrets don't want to be kept

[girl_at_the_window]

Who: Susan and Eddie
Where: The dungeons.
When: Backdated to August 8, after this thread.
What: Missed connections coming to light
Warnings: TBD

[It's not Eddie's fault. Obviously it's not Eddie's fault that he didn't tell her. She didn't tell him, either. Neither of them knew there was aught to tell, and by all right and reason, Susan knows she's got no right to be in a mood over it.]

[And yet, there it is. All this time she's been wondering if Roland had even lived through the day she died, and if he'd just mentioned who his dinh was...]

[She doesn't linger long after parting ways (somewhat reluctantly) with Roland. By the late afternoon, she's storming down into the dungeons, visibly agitated, her colour high and her whole body taut with nervous energy. She doesn't wait to see whether Eddie notices her arrival, either - she bangs the flat of her hand on the bars of his cell to make damned sure she has his attention, whatever he was doing.]

Eddie! We need to talk!

Comments

[girl_at_the_window]

What happened?

[The question, simple though it is, knocks some of the wind out of her. It's hard to keep up that angry momentum, when he's looking so much the picture of confusion, when he's got his hands up and open that way, surrendering.]

[She huffs, and one hand comes up to scrub at her face, rubbing at eyes that definitely aren't trying to sting again.]

Ye knew, didn't ye? [Somehow, less accusing than it should be.] I saw it, first time 'ee heard my accent. Ye looked at me queer, like ye'd heard it before. [She hadn't quite put two and two together at the time. Now, in hindsight, with the benefit of this new context, it suddenly falls into place.]

'Cause ye had. Ain't that right? Ye've been in my world, with him? Hells, he doesn't sound a thing like me, but still it's closer'n than the folken here.

How long have 'ee known him? Did he look like that when ye met? So... [She flounders for a moment, looking for a word that covers it.] So old?

[opioid]

[ It's a lot at once, and Eddie doesn't know what to tackle first. The way her hand scrubs at her face makes him nervous, not that she's going to cry but that if she does he won't be able to do anything about it, not really, not with bars between him and her. He moves a little closer again, pressing his forehead right against the metal, like if he can push hard enough he'll just squeeze right through. ]

Yeah. I thought maybe you were from somewhere similar. But I... [ A sigh, and Eddie curls a hand around the bar next to him, squeezing until his knuckles go white before he relaxes his grip. ] Shit, I just thought you were from the same world. I never would've guessed you knew him. I mean, what're the fuckin' chances of that?

[ That's that. Onto the next topic. ]

I've known him a while. Hard to measure exactly how long, but a while. But if anything I think he looked older the first time I saw him. I thought I was looking at a corpse. [ A pause, as he cycles back through a few thoughts. ] How old was he when you knew him?

[girl_at_the_window]

[She's quiet for a moment. Something's shifted in her posture: less aggressive, more defensive, her arms wrapping around herself as she worries at her lip.]

...Fourteen.

[It's strange to think of it. Strange to try and find that sameness between the haggard and weather-beaten man upstairs, and the boy she fell in love with. Stranger to think that she and Eddie have only ever known one of those people each, and that there's no tie between them.]

[Strange to think of his life going on, complete, after she was gone. Strange to think of all the other people in it.]

[Three months. Strange to think of how long three months were to her, and how short they must seem to Roland now, in all that wide passage of his life. She swallows, clearing her throat.]

He was...

...He didn't tell 'ee of me? Nothing? [Yep, there are the tears, whether she will or no, pushing at the corners of her eyes. It's not fair, she reminds herself, to be bitter. Three months, and him now older than her da lived to. No doubt he'd put her from his mind. She wants him to have put her, put all that grief, from his mind; wants his tears today to be the first he's shed for her since she died. But it still stings to think of it.] I killed for him. I died for him. Ye'd think he'd say summat.

...What's he like, now? Who is he? 'Cause he sure as fuck ain't the kid I met on the Seafront Road.

[opioid]

Holy shit.

[ Fourteen. Pardon his fucking French, but Eddie can barely even imagine what Roland would have looked like as a fourteen-year-old, never mind conceptualise the fact that Susan had known him then. He gapes at her for a moment, frowning as he turns it over in his mind, but he has to put it all aside before he can really spend any time digging into that – reedy, he has to imagine, tall and slim but well-built, straight-backed and serious – there are tears spilling over, and Eddie squeezes an arm between the bars so he can reach for her.

His hand lands a little awkwardly on her upper arm. He's wanted to get out from behind these bars ever since he was first locked up in here, but it's never felt like a keener, more desperate need. There's very little he hates more than watching someone upset and knowing there's very little or nothing he can do about it. ]

He's... old. [ Eddie doesn't want to badmouth Roland behind his back; badmouthing him to his face is fine, but not here, not now. It'd be a cowardly thing to do. But there's a difference between talking shit and warning, he thinks. ] Older than he looks. And sometimes I hate him. But only sometimes.

[ There's a lot more he'd say if he had the luxury. Maybe he'll tell her later. ] He did talk about you. I mean, not really. He said your name, back when I first met him. We were both sick, I don't think either of us was really awake. I thought I was gonna fuckin' die right there on the beach and I think he was thinking the same goddamn thing, but he was mumbling to himself a lot. I don't remember a lot of what he said but I remember your name.

[girl_at_the_window]

[She looks down at his hand on her arm like she's never seen it before, and then her wide, too-bright eyes flick back up to his face, and she smiles a thin and wistful little smile.]

He was too old for himself then, too. I guess that's why I fell for him. 'Cause he was only a kid, really, but he seemed...

[She trails off, yet again. More grown-up than anyone else in that godsdamned town, she was going to say, but it seems wrong to keep talking like that. It seems wrong to keep talking at all, like she's trying to overwrite the man she just met with the boy she loved. Like she's maybe sharing more of him than he wants shared. She sighs, swallowing, and puts her hand over Eddie's, squeezing lightly, a silent thank-you.]

Guess there's even more Susans than Eddies. Guess it ain't that surprising you'd not think we were the same.

Guess, really, it ain't that surprising we were.

[She lets out a sharp, slightly gurgling laugh.]

Man Jesus, though, fuck ka.

[opioid]

[ Eddie can't help laughing. It's stupid, really, a little bit crazy, to laugh at a time like this. Every time he almost forgets where he is, every time something in his brain turns loose and he forgets that he's locked up against his will, he has the same feeling – he's getting too comfortable, too settled. If he doesn't get out soon he's probably gonna end up with Stockholm Syndrome for these fucking bars. ]

Ka-ka, more like.

[ He wants to ask her more. He doesn't even know what, really, it just seems suddenly imperative that he ask, but the way she'd trailed off makes him hold his tongue. He supposes he'll just have to ask Roland, when the time's right. ]

Must be weird as all fuckin' get-out, though, seeing him like he is now. You holding up okay?

[girl_at_the_window]

I mean...

[She lets out another shaky little laugh, waving a hand as if to indicate herself, him, this whole situation. Pulling a face, she wipes her eyes briskly on her sleeve.]

Weird. Aye. Weird seems just about right.

[She clears her throat, straightens her back a little, a very physical pulling herself together.]

He's old, but he's alive. We're... we're both alive, somehow. Guess that's more'n I figured we'd ever get again. So I guess it'll be okay.

Sorry I snapped at 'ee. I just... I've been wonderin' all this time if he lived through it. Knowing ye could've said, if I'd just asked...

[A wry little half-smile.]

That's weird, too.