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Every day began the same way. Benedikt opened his eyes, and stared at his bedroom walls. His limbs weighed him down too much to move, and his stomach ached. His throat was always raw, whether it be from shouting or crying or expelling what little he actually ate into whatever receptacle was nearest. He could hardly stomach anything anymore, a fairly recent development that made him want to dig his nails into his palms until they bled. He wasted many days away without even getting out of bed, because what would be the purpose in it? Why should he spend his days shooting and being shot at instead of simply lying in bed, drifting in and out of fitful sleep?
Well, he could think of one reason.
Overall, Benedikt Montagov’s life had become quite worthless. It was occurring to him slowly, and yet rather abruptly at the same time, just how many things he could no longer do. He hadn't realized how much of his life was Marshall until Marshall was gone. Where before he had an endless number of things to do each day, he now found himself at a complete loss. Everything hurt too much. Not a single room of the apartment was just him; it was all him and Marshall.
But it was not the presence of Marshall in the apartment that drove him mad — it was the absence. Everywhere Marshall should be, he was not. Every space Benedikt entered felt coated with dust, like if he breathed in deep enough the air would suffocate him. The blinds were closed, keeping the sunlight out. It was too quiet, too still. He had always liked the quiet, and yet now there was nothing he wanted more than to hear the clattering of pans in the kitchen, or Korean words shouted from down the hall, or even just another set of footsteps making the ancient floorboards creak.
One of the things Benedikt could no longer do was set foot into the kitchen. It hadn't been so bad for the first few days — he had been much more easily able to puppet himself around, mindlessly completing what minimal tasks he needed to do to keep himself alive. As the days passed, though, it had gotten progressively more difficult. Benedikt's mind had always run faster than he could keep up with. As quickly as flipping a switch, even just looking at the kitchen made his head start to spin. So, he had stopped. He had lost the ability to keep any food down at all soon after that, and he couldn't even find an explanation.
The one room in the entire apartment that he could almost stand to be in was his own bedroom. The kitchen brought up memories of sitting on the counter, keeping Marshall company by request while he made them both dinner. Benedikt had always been a pitiful cook, and Marshall loved to do it so much that he didn't mind cooking for two.
The living room made him feel the phantom sensation of Marshall sitting beside him, legs outstretched to rest his feet on Benedikt's lap despite how many times he had been shoved away. Benedikt would always end up sketching him, even when he didn't ask.
His painting studio had remained shut away for weeks — the room itself was fine, he supposed, but he just didn't have any need to be in it. He hadn't done any art since Marshall's death, and he didn't want to. There was nothing for him to draw or paint; all of his inspiration had left him.
Even the bathroom only made him think of all of the mornings that they had spent nudging past each other to get to the shower or use the sink and the mirror. They both distracted each other enough with comments and conversation that they were always in a rush to get ready.
Obviously he hadn't even tried to open the door to Marshall's room since his friend had been gone. Sometimes he stood just outside of it, though, simply staring at the smooth wooden surface. He didn't know what he was expecting to happen, but one day he had lost a whole hour just standing there.
His own bedroom wasn't as bad. It was liveable, anyway. His art supplies were abandoned, scattered around the apartment, but he had kept all of his drawings up on the walls of his bedroom. A few of them were torn in places. About a week or so before, he had had a particularly difficult night. He and Roma had been sent out on a simple errand, it shouldn't have been anything too strenuous.
But while they were out, Benedikt had seen someone who for a moment he could have sworn was Marshall. Not only in his face, but in his body, the way he carried himself. And a moment later, he was gone, as if he had caught Benedikt staring and darted away like a rabbit. It had felt like all of the air had been punched out of Benedikt's lungs. For the rest of their outing, his mind had been scattered. It had almost cost them the parcel that they had gone all that way to pick up in the first place.
And when he had gone home, exhausted and ready to collapse into bed, he had found himself faced with portrait after portrait of Marshall — all of them sketched by his own hand. How long had he spent doing each one? How many more would he have done, if Juliette Cai hadn't murdered his best friend? Though they didn't make up all of the drawings on his bedroom walls, they were enough. With shaking hands, he had torn the papers down, discarding them onto the floor without care for where they landed. When all that was left were the tacks and a few ripped corners, he had marched out to the living room to grab a lighter from the side table drawer. It was only when he was standing in his bedroom again, lighter in hand with the flame lit, that he froze. He had spent a long moment just staring at the fire. Then he'd flicked it off and thrown it across the room, hard enough that it scuffed the wall.
He'd lowered himself down slowly to sit on the floor in front of the pile of papers, his knees drawn up to his chest. His whole body trembled as he fought back the burning behind his eyes. When the tears started to track down his cheeks, he had tucked his chin down between his knees, arms folded over his head like he was bracing for a storm. His face twisted, jaw clenched. He choked back his sobs for as long as he could manage. Eventually he put every single drawing back into place, with more gentleness than he had shown himself in weeks.
That had been the worst singular incident as of late. Most days passed routinely — he had gotten better at going through the motions again. It was more manageable when he was alone. He had been avoiding the White Flower house like the plague, only going there when he absolutely needed to. Most of the White Flowers didn't know him or Marshall well enough for their words to matter to him. He could handle it, even if they still weren't pleasant company.
But it put the taste of bile into his mouth to see Roma dressed in white with his hair gelled back, becoming the perfect heir as if Marshall had not been his best friend too. And Alisa, always refusing to leave him be. She was too young, too naive to understand that this was not just something that would go away. Neither of his cousins did anything but make it all worse. This death had broken something that could not be fixed, and it was not ever going to end.
The first thing Benedikt noticed when he woke up one morning was that it was raining. The sound of the drops hitting his window drained a bit of the tension from his shoulders. It took him longer than usual to open his eyes, and when he did, a glance at the clock on the wall revealed that it was almost noon. He'd been sleeping late recently, and waking up later as a result. It made him sluggish, but it wasn't as though he had anything important to do. Nothing important to him, anyway. He closed his eyes again, wanting to listen to the rain for a moment more. When they were children, Marshall would almost always burst into his room when it was raining. He had far too much energy for his own good, putting his need to be entertained on Benedikt when they weren't able to find entertainment outdoors.
Just as the rain was about to lull Benedikt back to sleep, he was drawn out of it by the distant sound of a soft knocking at his front door.
He lifted his head, but didn't respond otherwise. What would be the point? He knew it wasn’t who he wanted it to be. Marshall never knocked, he just came in. Even before he’d lived in the apartment, he always just came in. Whoever this was, Benedikt didn’t want to talk to them. His head hit the pillow again.
He heard the door creak open, the whining of the floorboards under the feet of whoever had entered. It wasn't Marshall's gait, he knew that much. The sound of the floor was irritating, but neither of them had figured out a way to fix it in the few years they'd been living there. Not even Marshall, as handy as he was. Or had been. Benedikt hated this apartment.
A voice came from the hall. “Benedikt?”
Roma. Of course it was Roma. His cousin just didn’t know when to stop, did he?
“Benedikt, are you here?”
Still, Benedikt did not dignify him with a response. If Roma was really so insistent upon looking for him, then he would have no trouble doing that on his own. It wasn't exactly a large apartment, there were only so many places a person could be. And it wasn't as though Benedikt had been leaving the house much lately, not of his own accord. Roma may have been especially frustrating these days, but he wasn't stupid. He knew Benedikt's habits as well as anyone — save for Marshall, who arguably had known them better than even Benedikt himself did.
Surely enough, Benedikt's bedroom door pushed open a crack. He rolled onto his side as it did, so his back was facing the door.
“I know you aren't sleeping, Benedikt, I saw you move.” Roma’s tone wasn't accusatory, but there was something else in it that Benedikt didn't like. Something almost like pity. “Plus, your shoulders are raised to your ears. Sleeping people don't lie that way.”
“I hope you aren't trying to be funny,” Benedikt sighed, finally conceding and rolling onto his back again. He folded his arms over his stomach. “I'm not in the mood.”
“I know,” Roma nodded. Benedikt heard the silent addition at the end of his sentence: you never are. In his periphery, Roma shifted awkwardly in place, like he was fighting the natural reflex to sit down. That gave Benedikt a little bit of satisfaction, at least. He didn't want his cousin to be comfortable here. He wanted Roma to look at every room of the apartment, every door and window and wall and piece of furniture, and see the distinct absence of Marshall Seo. Just the way Benedikt did.
“Why are you here?” Benedikt murmured, glancing over at Roma. His cousin looked as well put together as he always did recently. Benedikt himself had been wearing the same wrinkled shirt for a few days at that point, and hadn't properly brushed his hair in just as long. “There is a reason, is there not?”
“There is,” Roma confirmed. That was no surprise. Roma at least respected Benedikt enough to leave him to himself most days, so any visit he did make wasn't just because he wanted to drop in. “I was out with Alisa this morning. I decided to bring her by that new bakery that opened up down the street a few weeks ago, because I know she's been feeling down lately.” Benedikt looked back up at the ceiling. “She’s walking the rest of the way home now, but she insisted that we pick something up for you as well while we were there. I left the bag in the kitchen, I just… wanted to let you know it was there.”
Benedikt couldn't help wondering why Alisa hadn't come in herself, if she had been so set on bringing him something. But he didn't care enough to question it. “Alright. Is that all?”
“Yes. Yes, it is.” But Roma still stood there, unmoving. Benedikt waited for him to continue, but he didn't. There was only silence.
Benedikt sat up, looking fully over at Roma. “Well, clearly it is not, otherwise you would be leaving my apartment.”
Roma bristled, adjusting the sleeve of his crisp white shirt. Benedikt didn't say any more, determined to wait until Roma either kept speaking or turned and left.
“It's only that…” Roma paused again, and Benedikt watched him attempt to sort his thoughts into place. He took a step closer when he started again. “Benedikt, I think that you should make time to come by the house soon. Alisa has been worrying for you very much, and I think that it is becoming a detriment to her health. Or her happiness, at least. She only wants to see you, if you would just let her try to help—”
“Why should I?” Benedikt countered. “There is nothing she can do, she is a child. She hardly understands this feeling at all, let alone how to fix it. This is a poison, Roma. She needs no part in it.”
“You're killing yourself.” Roma took another step closer. “You can claim all you want that you don't want to hurt her, but she sees you wasting away in this apartment day after day and refusing help. That hurts her more than anything, I know that it does. Because it hurts me, too.”
Benedikt shifted to sit on the edge of his bed. “Stop looking, then. If I am so horrible to look at, stop looking. I have no need for your pity. Just let me be, Roma, I beg you.”
“I will not,” Roma shook his head. “You can scratch and bite and kick as much as you please, but I will drag you from this hell you've built yourself. Because as long as you’re in it, you refuse to stop trying to make everyone around you as miserable as you are. You hold a grudge against the world for continuing to spin. It’s selfish, Benedikt.”
Benedikt scoffed. “Selfish?” He stood, putting him on equal footing with his cousin, and stepped up to him. “You have the gall to call me selfish, when you have done nothing since Marshall's death but forget about him? I have not heard you speak his name once since that night! It's as if you never knew him at all. I carry that weight for the both of us.”
Roma entered Benedikt's space, prodding at his chest with his finger. “The only reason you have been allowed to destroy yourself in this way is because you have the privilege of not holding my position,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Well I am sorry that your life is so difficult, then.”
“I have a job to do,” Roma continued as if Benedikt had not spoken. “If I do not do that job, then it falls to Dimitri Voronin, and Shanghai will be worse for it. I cannot become this,” he gestured to Benedikt, “because I need to keep the White Flowers from massacring every Scarlet Gang member and then each other.”
“Why do you care what becomes of the Scarlet Gang?” Benedikt countered. “I would paint these streets with Scarlet blood before I would allow Marshall Seo’s death to be forgotten. Anything less is cowardice.” He gave Roma a shove backwards, needing to put more distance between them again.
Roma's eyes narrowed. “I will not be called a coward for thinking of people other than myself.”
“There is only one person you think of, and it is not yourself, or me, or even Alisa. And it certainly isn't Marshall.” Benedikt kept his gaze locked to Roma's. “You only think of her.”
He didn't need to say her name aloud. There was only one person in the entire city — the entire world — who Benedikt could be talking about. He watched Roma's spine straighten, almost like he was trying to seem bigger, but Benedikt saw through that in an instant. This was the most powerful card he had to play. The silence in the room weighed heavy as Roma thought out his response.
“I don't intend to let Juliette take any more from me than she already has. She does not dictate my actions,” Roma gestured out into the room, as if Juliette was standing there with them. Benedikt almost wished she was. “But you don't either. The way you are living will not fix anything. It will not bring him back. And you need to wrap your head around the fact that other people living their lives is not a direct affront to you. It doesn't mean that we don't care. I loved him just as much as you did — he was like a brother to me, too.”
A few seconds passed. Benedikt just stared. His chest hollowed. He felt something — something inside him that was pulled taut and strained — snap.
“Get out,” he spat. He wasn't sure why that was what had done it, but that last sentence was a resonating gunshot in his mind. It had taken a spark to his dry, withered insides and lit them on fire. He was finished with this. It had to be over. “Get out of my apartment.”
Roma sighed, closing his eyes. When he opened them again, Benedikt was surprised to find that all of the anger that had been in his expression a moment ago was gone. All that remained was something downcast, and mournful. “I'm very sorry that this is happening to you, Benedikt. Really.” Where Benedikt's previous apology had been sharp and full of bite, this one was so raw that it stung. Roma lingered where he stood for only a fleeting moment more before he turned to leave, shutting the door behind him.
Benedikt was frozen in place for what felt like hours. In truth, it was probably just a few seconds. His fingernails scraped at his palms until they burned. Then he sat down heavily on the edge of his bed, resting his elbows on his knees and pressing his palms into his eyes hard enough that he started to see spots. His conversations with Roma, rare as they were, almost always went that way. They managed to be civil when they were sent out on missions together, but that was mainly because they didn't speak much. Whenever they did, it always escalated.
The thing that he hated the most about it was that, in many ways, Roma was right. This was not how things were supposed to happen. It was the nature of White Flowers and Scarlets alike to let mourning periods pass quickly and without incident. There was hardly time to mourn one death before another was taking its place. The feud made coffins pile high enough to desensitize people to the bodies inside of them.
But every night, Benedikt closed his eyes and saw Marshall bleeding out on the hospital room floor, two bullets lodged in his stomach. He saw his own hand, already stained red, hovering shakily over Marshall's throat. Marshall. His skin had still been warm. He had been pale, without a pulse, but still warm. Benedikt wished all of those Scarlets with their guns had just shot him, too. He wished Juliette Cai had pressed the barrel of her gun right to his temple and blown his brains onto the wall then and there, leaving his body to cool on the floor alongside his best friend. But the moment for that had passed. As it stood, not even death would be a mercy. He would never be able to let this pass, not the way everyone else did. And eventually it would kill him anyway.
Benedikt curled in on himself further, trying to push back the thoughts that spread through his mind like a sickness. His efforts were fruitless. Horrible things had a habit of digging their roots into his brain, however he tried to stop them. He thumped the heel of his hand rhythmically against his brow, as if it would shake something loose.
He probably would have stayed that way for at least another ten minutes if his bedroom door hadn't opened again. He snapped to attention instantly, his head lifting but his hands hovering where they had been. It took his eyes a moment to readjust, but the first thing he saw was a head of long blond hair peeking through the cracked door.
“Alisa?” he prompted, his confusion only growing. “...Roma said that you had gone back to the house.”
“I told him I was going there so he wouldn't be looking for me,” she admitted, pushing the door open further and shuffling a bit guiltily into the room. “He said I should stay outside, because he didn't want to overwhelm you. But… I still wanted to see you.”
Normally, Benedikt might have turned her away. He might have yelled, to scare her off like a frightened deer. But he couldn't bring himself to do even that. He was just tired. Alisa was already there, anyway. She shifted on her feet like Roma had been, echoing her brother's hesitant body language. The way she kept her gaze turned to the floor to avoid looking Benedikt in the eye made his heart twist. Who had caused her to feel this way? He knew the answer, but he didn't want to.
Against his better judgement, he reached over wordlessly to pat the empty spot next to him. He could swear that he almost saw Alisa smile as she came to sit beside him. He regretted it almost instantly — he didn’t want her to get used to this, to think that the eye of this storm was actually the end of it.
“Were you waiting outside all of that time?” Benedikt asked, his voice croaking slightly when he spoke. He rubbed at his eyes, wiping away the tears that had come to them before Alisa’s appearance.
“No,” Alisa shook her head. She was gracious enough to not mention the state Benedikt was in. “It's too cold out for that. I came in while you and Roma were talking, and hid in the bathroom until I heard him leave.”
In spite of himself, that made Benedikt chuckle. Leave it to Alisa to sneak past the rusty hinges and creaky floorboards to get inside unnoticed. She hadn’t changed much at all, not that he didn’t already know that. But if she had come inside while he and Roma were arguing, then… “How much did you hear?”
“Most of it. But I tried not to listen. It sounded… private.”
He was glad she had at least tried to tune out their conversation. He didn't want her listening to any of that; it wasn’t her place. If she wanted to remain blissfully unaware of the depth of his troubles, so be it, but she couldn’t go digging into things she didn’t understand. She had a good heart, and Benedikt didn’t doubt that she wanted to help him as Roma had said, but this was just something she couldn’t handle. She was only a child. In spite of everything she had been through, she still somehow believed that people were good. Benedikt knew better.
“Do you hate him?” Alisa's sudden question dragged Benedikt back out of his head. His eyebrows shot up, then furrowed deeply when he realized who she was referring to.
“...I don’t know,” he told her honestly. “We aren’t the same people we once were. None of us.” Roma was his family; he was the last real family Benedikt had left, aside from Alisa. He didn't think he could truly hate Roma if he tried. But the divide between them was rapidly becoming too great to cross, and it was full of terrible, raging fire. His cousin had become someone he hardly recognized.
Alisa’s expression grew pensive, but Benedikt couldn’t be sure she understood what he was saying. Even when she was younger, she had always been very smart, in much the same way that Benedikt had been as a child. Knowing things beyond their years, not by choice but by necessity. Alisa’s biggest weakness, though — the thing that had made Benedikt start dreading her company — was that she seemed to believe every problem had a solution. She believed that anything could be fixed, no matter how broken. The optimism of childhood still clung to her. How simple she tried to make everything — it was unbearable. There were just too many things she didn’t know.
“A lot of things feel that way lately.” Alisa folded her hands in her lap. “Everything is… different, now.” She glanced over at Benedikt. “I'm worried that it will never go back to the way that it was.”
“It won't,” Benedikt replied instantly. “It will never be just the same as it was. With Marshall gone, it…” He couldn't finish the sentence. He shook his head, abandoning it. “It isn’t worth clinging to old memories. The past is dead.”
They sat in silence for a while after that. Benedikt was grateful for it. Right now, he could do without all of her questioning. He could live with one less hard conversation. He only hoped that he was getting through to her — there was no use in trying to reach him. No light could get in. Her attempts did nothing but frustrate him further.
When Alisa finally did speak again, Benedikt could not say it was about anything he had expected.
“...My birthday is coming up soon, you know,” she noted softly. “Next week. I'll be—”
“Thirteen,” Benedikt nodded. “I know.” He had forgotten, though. If Alisa were not here, right now, speaking to him, he wouldn't have remembered her birthday at all. He wasn’t thinking about celebrating much of anything these days.
“I thought perhaps you could… come to the house?” she suggested hesitantly, picking at the skin around her fingernails. “Then maybe the three of us can do something together. You, Roma, and I.”
Benedikt thinned his lips. “I… am not sure that’s such a good idea, Alisa.”
“It is,” she insisted, turning to look at him. “It will be fun, and I think that walking around and getting some sun might help you feel better. Maybe you won’t feel so… sick, anymore.”
“You aren't my caretaker, Alisa,” he reminded her. “You barely know what is good for you, let alone for me.”
Alisa crossed her arms, her posture slumping a bit. “I don't think it's wrong for me to be worried.”
“There is a difference between being worried and being intrusive. I haven't asked for your help once, and yet you still try to tell me that I need it.”
“I only thought it might cheer you u—”
“Would you stop with that?” Benedikt snapped. He watched her face fall. “You cannot just say some magic word and stop me from feeling this way. It isn’t that easy.”
“I… I know,” she acknowledged. “But Roma told me that—”
“I don’t care what Roma has to say. This is not something you can fix, especially not with something so- so trivial. You and your brother can do whatever you want to, but don’t involve me in it.”
Alisa let out a soft breath. She tucked her chin down, her hair curtaining her face. “...Okay.”
Benedikt looked down at the floor. “Go home, Alisa. Roma is going to start worrying about you.”
“Benedikt—”
“Alisa, please.” He held up a hand to stop her speaking. He stood, crossing the room to open the door into the hall. “Go back to your brother.”
Alisa’s lip trembled, but Benedikt watched as her efforts to formulate a protest broke down. If he really wanted her out, she didn't have much of a choice, and Benedikt felt it would be best for him to be alone for a while. Alisa got up to leave.
As she was on her way out, though, she stopped right in front of him. She threw her arms around Benedikt and pulled him in tight, clinging to him like she might never see him again. He was stunned by it for a moment, freezing in place. He had been so wicked to her, and this was how he was repaid? With this warmth, this gentleness? He had gone so still that he wasn’t even breathing anymore.
When Alisa started to pull away, she only stepped back far enough to look Benedikt in the eyes. She looked younger this way, somehow. Her dark eyes were a bit too large for her face, and her cheeks still retained their childish softness. He remembered when she had just been born. He could recall sitting beside Roma on the sofa in the White Flower house while his cousin held her, because Benedikt had been too nervous to try holding a baby himself. He hadn't wanted to accidentally hurt her.
“...I just don’t want you to die, Benedikt,” she admitted, tears welling into her eyes. He knew he should have reassured her. He should have told her something kind, even if it wasn’t something true. But that simply wasn’t what he felt.
“We can’t control those things,” he shook his head. “Believe me.”
Alisa just looked at him for a few more seconds, boring into him with her stare. A tear fell from her eye and rolled down her cheek. Then, without another word, she left. He closed the door gently behind her, and heard as she went outside. Finally, the apartment was silent again.
Benedikt knew that the best thing for all of them, and him in particular, would be time apart. All the three of them did was cyclically upset each other. Losing Marshall had created an irreparable hole in their family, and now everything was out of balance. Benedikt didn't know how much longer he could bear the pressure from his cousins to pick himself up and carry on, and surely they were getting tired of consoling him — especially since nothing they did ever accomplished anything. The one thing Benedikt needed, the one single thing that would fix all of this, was the only thing that no one alive could offer him.
He curled his hand around the doorknob to the hall, just looking for a moment at the way his knuckles protruded. They had always been that way, but never quite so pronounced. He pulled his door open, giving it a gentle push inwards so it swung towards his bedroom wall. Standing in the empty doorway, he rested his hand lightly on the frame, staring across the hall at the closed door on the other side.
He was starting to get lightheaded, but he couldn't place the reason. Perhaps his head was still spinning from speaking to Roma and Alisa, or maybe he was stuck this way from his lack of nourishment for the past few months. He couldn't help feeling, though, that his dizziness was caused by something else. Because when he looked at that door, unopened for almost two months, and thought of the undisturbed bedroom behind it, his vision went spotty.
He took a measured step, then another. That was all it took to bring him close enough to let his forehead fall against the cold surface of the door with a soft thunk. His expression pinched, eyes squeezing shut. His palm pressed flat to the space next to his head. He felt over the grain of the wood with the pads of his fingers, scraping his nails against it. His teeth gritted together.
He closed his hand into a fist and slammed it against the door. He did it again. And again, and again, and raised his other fist to do the same. He had no care for the noise he was making. His mind was quiet at last. His arms were sore, his hands stung, but he didn't stop. He couldn't stop.
It was only when he heard a splintering sound that his violence came to an abrupt halt. His eyes flew open. He searched frantically for any damage he may have done to the brittle wood, but there was none, not that he could see. Not even a crack. The air in his lungs left him in a slow wheeze, making his chest ache. His head knocked against the door again, a bit harder than he'd done the first time. He slumped against the solid surface, leaning heavily against it with his shoulder as he slid down to the floor.
He became aware of the tears tracked down his cheeks once they started to cool. New ones continued to replace them as they dried. His breath came back to him in stilted gasps. He pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead, trying to stop his head from spinning. He kept the side of his head resting against the door. The knuckles of his other hand rapped on his knee.
He was back in that hospital room again. He could still feel the cold barrel of that Scarlet’s gun jammed into his temple. There had to be something he could have done. Marshall had shot first, but if Benedikt had only been fast enough—
He had been at gunpoint, but if he had only been able to disarm his attacker—
Juliette had delivered the killing blow, but if he had only been able to stop her—
He had sat there like a fool, but if he had only done something—
The pile of delusions grew higher and higher until the pyramid collapsed. This was too big, too impossible. Nothing Benedikt could do had saved Marshall, just as nothing he could do had saved his father, or his mother. It was never enough. He could work his fingers to the bone and his paintings would never be perfect. He could throw himself from the fourth floor stairwell and he would never reach the front door in time. He could leave every light in the apartment on, and every door unlocked, and Marshall would never come home. And worst of all: he could know all of those things, and he would still never be able to stop.
A horrible wail tore its way from his throat. His head fell forward into his hands, and he stamped his foot on the hardwood floor as his body shriveled into a ball against Marshall's door. His fingernails dug into his forehead. He was awful. He had become cruel and bitter and he couldn't even stop himself. All of the good in him had been Marshall's and now it was gone.
“What has happened to us, Mars?” he choked out between gasping breaths, wiping at his tear-streaked cheeks. “How could I have let this happen?”
The empty room behind the door gave no reply.
– – –
A flare of light caught in Benedikt’s eyes as it came in through the window. The sun was setting. How long had he been sitting there? He sniffled and dabbed the back of his hand against his face, his skin tacky with dried tears. Bracing himself against the doorframe, he stood on shaky legs. His left foot had fallen asleep, leaving him with an unsteady gait as he wandered towards the light.
He couldn't recall opening the blinds. But there they were, opened so crookedly that they almost looked broken. He was sure Roma wouldn't have left them in this state. More likely, it had been Alisa, opening the blinds in a rush on her way out as a final attempt to brighten up the place. He ran his finger along one of the wooden slats, revealing a thin layer of dust that coated it. Maybe this apartment really was suffocating him.
Benedikt's eyes caught on something then, in his periphery, that he had completely glazed over before. Sitting on the kitchen counter, there was a paper-wrapped parcel tied with string. Roma had mentioned that, hadn't he — it must have been whatever Alisa had gotten him from the bakery. It was almost ironic. Alisa had picked it out, Roma had probably paid for it, and now Benedikt wouldn't be able to eat it. Not even if he wanted to. And on top of that, it was sitting neatly in a room that he couldn't enter. What a gift.
Benedikt tore his eyes away from the package, leaving it on the counter where it sat. He'd figure out what to do with it later. For the time being, he was exhausted. His head, chest, and stomach ached in equal measure. His eyes were irritated from all of the crying he'd done, and his throat was sore from all of the yelling. Just as he had started the day, he was ending it. Which wasn't especially unusual those past few months.
He did go take a shower, though. He didn't have the energy for it very often, but the realization of how dusty the apartment was getting had given him the urge to make just one thing clean. He wasn't sure how soon he'd get around to actually cleaning the house, it was a much larger undertaking, but cleaning himself was at least a step in the right direction.
He toweled off his hair on the way to his bedroom, the damp curls sticking up in every direction once he was finished. He couldn't be bothered to comb it — he had already done enough. He found something clean to wear and sat down on his bed, looking over the wall behind his headboard. It was difficult to see through the darkness that had fallen while he'd been in the shower, but as his eyes adjusted, he took in the details of the drawings he had tacked up. The ones he had torn down so violently the week before, and had thought about tearing down again in the time since. They really were nice drawings. He only put his favorites up on the walls — the rest stayed tucked away in his many overfilled sketchbooks. It was no coincidence that so many of his favorites were portraits of Marshall. That was all there was in the whole apartment, after all: him and Marshall.
“I am trying, you know,” he muttered, his focus landing on one particular sketch he had done of his best friend. Marshall gazed back at him from the page, his eyes somehow still so full of life. Benedikt couldn't attribute that to himself; it was all Marshall. “I'm trying not to let things be so terrible forever. I know that you wouldn't want this for me.” He sighed. “You would probably scold me for my sleeping habits. You would definitely scold me for my eating habits, although that part isn't entirely my fault. And you were always reminding me to lock the doors, which I never did. I imagine you'd have words for me about that as well.”
Benedikt knew that nothing he said would garner a response, and yet he was waiting for them anyway. But the only voice that filled the room now was his. After years of having Marshall by his side to speak loudly and draw attention when he couldn't, his own voice was all that remained. There was nothing he could do but continue.
“I know that I used to lecture you about a lot of things, Mars, but God. You have no idea what I wouldn't give to see those annoying habits of yours just one more time.” He chuckled tearfully, using his thumb to flick the new moisture from his eyes. “What I wouldn’t give to have you lay into me about mine. All I want is to hear your voice again, is that too much to ask?” He thinned his lips, his brow furrowing. “Wherever you are, I hope that somehow you can hear me. Otherwise I would feel silly. You’d probably get a good laugh out of all of this.”
Benedikt ran out of thoughts to voice, and grew quiet. Marshall's face stayed perfectly still in front of him. If Benedikt was just a bit more delirious, perhaps he could have managed to hallucinate a response. But as it stood, he'd be a fool to expect anything.
A rustling from outside nearly made him jump out of his skin. He quickly slid off of his bed to go to the window, squinting out into the darkness, but he saw nothing. It wasn't like sounds from the alleyways were uncommon — there were plenty of things that made noises in the dark. But for some reason, this one was making the hairs on his neck stand on end. There was nothing there, and yet he still had his hackles raised. He turned back towards the drawing on the wall.
“Good lord, I really am losing my mind,” he murmured to himself.
He trudged back to bed and slipped under the sheets, pulling them up to his chin. He was just coming off of a bad day, that was all. It had been worse than most. Tomorrow, there would be no unexpected visits, and no breakdowns, and no startling over perfectly normal sounds outside. He would do whatever he could to make sure of that.
But if he had gotten nothing else out of that day, there was one thing he had learned: he had very little control over anything anymore. Marshall had always embraced spontaneity much more than Benedikt ever had. He seemed to have this innate ability to adapt, which Benedikt did not. And it wasn't as though Benedikt could just learn how to do it. He wasn't good at adjusting when something didn't go to plan. The unexpected always had a way of punching him in the gut.
None of this grief was something he could have planned for. He couldn't have predicted it when it happened, and he could no longer predict what was going to come next either. Trying to do so would get him nowhere, that much was clear. All he could do was have hope.
Hope that someday, Roma and Alisa would be able to understand the things he tried to tell them.
Hope that he could find a way to let things get better without letting Marshall be forgotten.
Hope that every night would end better than the last.
And hope that every day would begin the same way.