omari sads

Death comes for us all eventually. If you're lucky, it'll be fast. Painless. Maybe even soft - gentle. Not everyone gets that luxury, though.

For Sunny it was fast. During his funeral, Hero tries to remind himself of this.

Hero's hands are tired. Have been tired for so long. Mari, next to him, is silent, the dark curtain of her hair falling over her face. Her knuckles are still cracked, dotted with soil. The bags under her eyes say more than she could ever hope to express.

Sunny's wan face stares up at them from his bed of orchids, eyes shut tight. If Hero squints, he can almost pretend he's sleeping. Almost. Behind him, Aubrey tugs ineffectually at Mari's skirt - looking for consolation, maybe, or solace. Without a word, Mari bats her away. A sharp flash of hurt dances across Aubrey's round face, before she jerks her quivering chin to the side.

Kel's the only one who dares to make any noises.

Quivering, desperate vocalizations rise up from Kel's throat like waterlogged butterflies. Hero can't help the wordless rage that pulses through him at Kel's crying - the idea that Kel could even begin to understand the breadth of Mari's grief, endless and unmoving. Or Hero's own, for that matter. Has Kel even noticed the hours Hero's spent pacing like a madman in the backyard, biting his nails until only blood came away with his teeth? Does Kel even care?

Another, better part of Hero hates himself even more than he hates his brother. What right does Hero have to mourn, when he's the reason that delicate pink rope burn fans out garishly across Sunny's neck in the first place?

---

When they get home, the first sign that something is wrong is the way Kel immediately sprints up to his - their - room and locks the door.

Even during these past few weeks, Kel's opened himself up to the kindness and cruelty of others alike. Hero didn't think the idea of locking their door could even occur to him. He stares blankly at the cold gold line of the doorknob, and thinks to himself -

I fear I may have broken you.

Hero knocks once, twice, and then a third time with greater urgency. There's a wet sort of sound from behind the door, and slowly, slowly, it peels open. Hero can feel his heart hiccup as he does.

Kel stares up at him, eyes red-rimmed, utterly ruined, face completely expressionless. Beetle-bright streaks of dried tears still cling to the roundness of his face. Shame and fear spill up, up, up, until Hero thinks he can hardly hold it in anymore, that Kel is going to open his eyes, really open them, and see, with perfectly clarity, exactly what Hero's done, the horrible, horrible person he is -

And Kel falls into his arms instead, tiny hands beating ineffectually at Hero's shirt. "I hate this," Kel gasps, and for a second Hero's heart plummets, thinks, delusional, that somehow Kel /has/ figured it out - but then Kel says "I hate this, that Sunny would do this - I never thought - I don't understand -"

The two of them sink to the hallway floor, arms wrapped vicelike around each other, as Hero's guilt patters desperately against his ribcage. Kel is so small, so fragile (for once), like a baby bird, and all Hero can think is how Sunny was even thinner, even weaker, and look what Hero did to him.

As Kel babbles in his arms, about anger and uselessness and grief and how he'll never have the warm feeling in his stomach he got when Sunny was around again, Hero wonders.

Hero wonders what it would be like, if he spun the rope around his brother's soft and agile neck, instead of Sunny's.