entrancelogs | [Open] All that matters lost

[Open] All that matters lost

Who: Seth, anyone that finds him about
Where: The beach. His room. Around the hallways.
When: Days 2 and 4
Rating: PG-13 for mention of drug use and possible drug use.
Summary: Seth faces two different AUs, both causing him to lose someone he loves.
The Story:

Day Two: On the Beach

Seth is out for his daily run when he sees an odd shimmer just hovering there along the water’s edge. It is like a mirage, a light that was odd to the world yet it takes him a minute to realize it is less oddity of the light and more as if he is looking at the area backstage through a small tear in the movie screen.

None of it was clear though he can barely make out movement. There’s too much movement, too much noise on this side of the “screen”, and Seth pauses only long enough to slip the small knife he carries at his waistband while he’s out running, not trusting Wonderland enough to trust whatever this is.

Moving closer, leaning slightly to one side so that he isn’t offering himself up fully to the tear. Not making himself a target.

At first all he can hear is the ocean, the breaking of the waves at his feet. Then there’s laughter. A high, childish sound. The padding of feet come towards him, bare and wet sounding on what might have been hardwood floors. Peering through the tear, squinting, Seth can not make out much more than movement, small and childlike to go with the sound of the laughter. Then there’s a voice.

He doesn’t have to see her to know how it is as she calls out after the child.

“Get back here! Come on, Kiddo, you need clothes for church!”

Despite calling after the child, there’s laughter to her voice. Kate’s voice. Kate chasing after a child, getting her ready for church. His mind is racing, trying to understand this. Swallowing hard against a lump in his throat, eyes closing, just listening. He didn’t want to see more, even if he could make out more than hazy shapes beyond the tear.

More laughter, shuffling around with the squeak of springs on a bed that led to more laughter. Then another voice. Male. Unknown to Seth.

“You two ready yet? I’ve got the heater on in the car already. We’re going to be late if we don’t get going.”

“Pancakes!”

She sounds like Seth imagines that Kate probably did at that age.

“After church,” the male voice says. “Now, car!”

“Caaaaaaaaaaar.” The voice goes on, trailing off with the pounding of feet that sound as if they have shoes now.

Kate laughs. There’s the sound of a kiss. “Now, car,” Kate said, mimicking the same way the man had sounded. The man who was likely the father of the child. Kate’s child. Kate’s husband.

Whatever it is, Seth wanted away from it now, glad the steps are walking away, leaving the scene, whatever it is. Something fucking with his head. Something that knows their lives, how Kate came to be in theirs, maybe. And knows how Seth thinks sometimes about what her life would be like without them, if she’d gone to Mexico with her family without being dragged along to the Titty Twister.

Day Four: A hallway

After hearing Kate with her family, Seth has been drinking a lot more than he should. It’s been a day, but he’s been through at least a bottle, and he has thankfully avoiding much of the madness going on in Wonderland with invisible who the fuck even knows what. At least though the alcohol means he doesn’t think about the leather kit tucked into the bottom drawer of his dresser.

Heading out for the dining room, figuring he still needs food. Instead he finds another one of those damn shimmering spaces. Except this one is brighter, bigger than before, and he can clearly see the scene beyond.

Even if it wasn’t for Santanico, he would know the room by the background. Somewhere in the Titty Twister, and Seth knew the exact moment it was.

Because Richie is laying there, bleeding out from the gunshot wound inflicted on him to “entice” him to accept what he is being offered. And he is refusing.

He is refusing Santanico, and she is angry and pacing the room but she hasn’t turned him. He’s dying, and she hasn’t turned him.

Seth doesn’t realize he’s breathing quick and shallow, nearly panting, shaking his head. “No. No. Come on, Richie, this isn’t how it ends.”

Because for as much shit as Seth has given his brother since this very day, since the chance took place, the idea of watching his brother die, of letting him die, it’s impossible. It was then it hit Seth that it was impossible. No matter what Richie was, Seth couldn’t see him die.

“Richie!”

He sees his brother in this tear turn his head, realizing he was conscious of Seth standing there, conscious of him being there. He isn’t thinking when he rushes in, pushing past the opening and into the world of the tear.

“Do it! Fucking do it!”

Not thinking about where he is now, what this is. Just that she can’t fucking let Richie die.

“It’s too late.”

Even as she says it, Seth hears it. A wheezing breath, exhaling something, a word Seth can’t understand.

“No, it’s fucking not!”

Dropping down next to his brother, reaching for him even as he realizes Richie’s hand has gone slack over the gunshot wound, eyes open and not seeing.

“No. No, it’s not. It can’t fucking be too late.”

Grabbing Richie by the shoulders, shaking him as if that would wake him up even as the world around him waivers, the tear closing though Seth isn’t aware of it.

“He said no,” she says, voice judgmental, angry, accusatory. “Because of you. He said he wouldn’t do it because of you.”

The world is vanishing and the last thing Seth hears is Santanico’s voice once more.

“It’s your fault, Seth. You killed him.”

He came to in his own room, in his bed, grasping for a body that was no longer there, shaking his head once more.

“No. No I didn’t. I fucking didn’t. I fucking couldn't.”

Nearly tumbling out of the bed, desperate to understand where he is, what’s going on. His bed. His room. Grabbing the kit from the dresser, he headed out of the room, not caring that he’s wearing slacks and a white undershirt, no shoes, not even sure where he was going, but trying to get the words out of his head, Santanico’s voice echoing in his ear.

You killed him.

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Richie nearly physically ran into him as he and his brother both turn the corner, Seth running to who knows where, and Richard heading back towards their communal room to be around when Kate and his brother are about to wake up.

It didn't take a fucking genius for him to figure out that something fucked up was going on between the lack of shirt and shoes combined with the messy bedhead.

"Dude, what the hell?" Richard's brow furrowed, looking at Seth almost as if he were crazy. No doubt it was an expression that mirrored one that his brother had worn in the past when Richie had been losing it himself. "Something chasing you? I thought those invisible assholes were gone now..."

Edited 2017-04-24 19:25 (UTC)

Barely stumbling back a step, catching himself. Seth's chest is heaving, eyes wide, showing much too much white and his nostrils flaring. His mouth opened, nothing coming out but a rush, panting breath. Lips closing with a snap of teeth.

"Richie."

Managing his brother's name before he practically lunging at him. One hand, holding a flat leather case, slapped against his shoulder, fingers curling into his shirt even as the other hand clapped against the side of his brother's neck.

"Show me. Fucking show me you're alive, Richie. Show me she turned you."

He had to be alive. This was real, their life, and Richie had to be alive. It couldn't be a vision of a future yet to happen, but something else. Something he'd never face, right?

All the talk in Wonderland about memories and stolen thoughts and this place running on memories, and in that moment, in his panic, he had to know what here and now was and that he wasn't going to live to see his brother die. Again.

Richie might have been able to fight back or something if he'd had any clue what was coming, but as it stood, Seth was practically on top of him before he even had a chance to react. Even so, his brother seemed so desperate and out of it that Richard wouldn't have lifted a hand against him anyway.

He knew what it was like to teeter on that edge.

"Of course, I'm alive."

His brows furrowed further, drawing together above his glasses, wondering why the hell showing him that he'd been turned would fix anything, but it's an easy enough request. He doesn't bother with his fangs, instead simply staring him down with slit eyes instead of his normal blue ones, before the flick back.

He stands there patiently, held solidly in Seth's grip, waiting for him to calm the fuck down.

"Is that what you wanted?"

Maybe if Seth had stepped out of the tear himself he might have handle this better. Except he'd been inside of it as the whole tear closed and waking up not knowing what was going on is definitely taking its toll. Mentally and emotionally.

Then his eyes change, shifting away from the eyes he's stared into since they were trapped in a house with a man who treated them worse than scum and into the desperate confirmation Seth needs.

His shoulders slump, huffing out a sigh as his brow came to rest against Richie's brow. "Oh fuck. Fucking hell. I thought you hadn't... that she hadn't..." That Richie had died. Because of Seth.

Had he died though and this was, what? Some Wonderland trick? Was that why Richie was there waiting when Seth arrived?

"Fuck. I saw you die," he manages to whisper, hating how it even sounds in that soft, low voice.

Richard leans into it, their foreheads pressing together the way the used to when they were kids. They didn't do it so often now, only when one of them was really having a hard time, kind of like some weird way of reconnecting when shit got too real.

"Dude, I'm fine. Seriously."

He's not used to being the one that had to hold Seth together. Usually, Richie was the one that would sometimes come apart at the seams, and his big brother would have to hold him up. This role reversal felt odd, but he could deal.

He gently smacks an open hand against Seth's shoulder, as if that will help snap him out of it.

"I don't know what you saw, man, but it wasn't real. Probably just Wonderland fucking with you."

It reminds Seth of so much, of so many things they've been through. More importantly, of all the things they've gotten through. Together. Like they were now. They were together, and he was glad for that even if he didn't always find the words for it.

"It was in this room. I guess wherever she took you," he says, knowing he could just let it go and not say another word about it. Yet he can't stop himself. He has to get it out, and the words need to be said. At least in his mind. "You died there on the floor. You died from that gunshot wound."

He'd died, and Seth is still fighting to get his brain to accept that this was reality and not that.

Sniffing at the clap on his shoulder, straightening and giving a nod.

"And you're sure of that? Sure that was Wonderland fucking with me?" Not that he is sure he can believe what is said. Not in that moment, not when he is still trying to get his head to wrap around everything that was in stark relief in his head.

There's a shit ton they've gone through together, but it's the things they didn't do together that seems to drag the most weight, because they probably should have been together instead.

They were both trying to make up for their mistakes.

"She sure cut it fucking close, but that's not what happened, Seth."

She's twisted his words around, manipulated his weaknesses. She'd wanted him to submit to her before she'd do it. Still, Richie hadn't agreed for her sake, but for Seth's.

"Of course I'm sure. I told her I couldn't die on you, that you'd be lost without me. Next thing I know there's a ton of crazy shit going on in my head, I basically finish dying or whatever, and I snap out of it complete with fangs and 20/20 vision." Richie raises a brow at his brother. "Do I have to pinch you?"

Those moments apart, they weighed more heavily on Seth than every punch, every fight, even facing the knowledge about the fire, none of it had tore at Seth's mind and heart as much as those moments apart.

It is why this place isn't the prison so many demand it be. Imprisoned? Sure. He accepts that. It isn't a prison to him though, not when all of that shit is supposed to be behind them.

Until crap like this.

Seth ran his hand over his mouth, knowing he was acting like a fucking psycho, but waking up moments after being in the middle of all that had really done a number on his brain.

"She fucking told me it was my fault," he admits, shaking his head, shifting almost like pacing but not quite moving. "That you wouldn't fucking do it because of me."

Saying the words is almost harder than hearing them. Especially when they mirrored too close. Selfishness on both sides had put Richie between a rock and a hard place, and it hadn't gotten better once she'd done it.

"Well don't be so fucking hardheaded if there's a next time," he says. "Don't fucking die," he says, shaking his head.

Except dying was the choice Seth is making every time he says he'd rather die than be turned. That is what is niggling at the back of his mind in that very moment, almost like he is finally catching on despite how hard he has fought this since that very day he'd just witnessed in the tear.

"And pinch me and see if I don't punch you."

Because changing the subject and violence is always the right answer.

"It wasn't your fault. We were set up. By Santanico, by Carlos. You know that."

Richie's muscles tense as Seth tells him not to die. Dying is not something he particularly wants to do, under any circumstances, but it had been pretty close there for awhile. Santanico told him he was dying, and his response had been 'so what?'

"I'm not saying I didn't think about not letting her do it, but it didn't have anything to do with you. It's not like I wanted to get cursed like her."

Richard is all too aware what Seth's choice would be. Kate made the same choice, so did Uncle Eddie. Everyone would rather die than be like him, to make the choice he did, the one he changed his mind about because of Seth. Sure, that all had gotten fucking twisted into a bow, she'd played his weaknesses to get him to leave his brother behind, but that was in the past, and it had fucked up everything, no matter how much he didn't admit it aloud.

"I'm the one that's hard to kill, remember?"

"I know that. I mean, I do fucking know that."

But remembering it right in that moment? That was nearly impossible. Not when he was still watching his brother's skin seem to go ashy, just before his eyes. Not when he was still remembering the light in the Titty Twister.

Seth's brow drew in suddenly, his expression darkening. "Don't fucking say that. You are not fucking cursed, Richie." Because he's never said just that before. Or insinuated it numerous times.

For a long time he just stares at his brother, hating to hear Richie say that. Even if he's said it. Even if in ways it is true. Yet his brother isn't cursed, and he's not listening to that shit. Even as he rolls his eyes.

"And don't think I didn't catch that for the weakness joke that it was," he says, even if it wasn't. It was easier making dumb comments than dealing with the thoughts going through his head. The ones where he was facing what it was like to realize that maybe he really is being a selfish bitch to fight so hard never to end up like Richie.

"You're saying that because you've thought it and the whole thing bothers you. It doesn't bother me."

That was the main crux of the problem. They both tried to ignore the realities of Richie being what he was now, but Seth was by far the worse offender. If things stood this way, someday he was gonna be straight up alone, and the only way to avoid that was something the people he gave a fuck about didn't want.

He got it, but it ate at him at the same time.

"It's not a joke if it's true." They were both selfish bitches and they knew it. It didn't matter so much when what they wanted aligned with each other.

"It bothers me because you and I had a plan and a life and this wasn't it," he says. Not meaning Wonderland, because in some ways, it was the ending they spoke of. Beach and all.

"But how the hell am I just supposed to say sure, do it? How am I supposed to assume... fuck that it would even work. Maybe it worked because she was in your head and that whole connection shit and I just end up stupid and blood thirsty and dumb enough to jump a guy with a stake and a fucking gun?"

Because he's seen enough of them do it that he knows that sanity isn't something granted to all of them.

"And what happens if we lose it all if I do it? Like totally fucking flip like some of them?" The voice of reasons he wasn't. Humanity though, in a way? Maybe that was how he saw it. "I need you, Richie. Okay? I don't care what the fuck you are, but that doesn't mean I can just..."

His hand started to life, as if moving to his neck, but then he let it fall back to his side. "I just can't."

Especially not with Kate around. Not in this place where how long would it take before his temper turned to feeding in a small space where others knew the ways to kill them?

"But I never think you're fucking cursed, or crazy, or anything but my brother." He has. He might again. Yet things are clicking in his head. Answers he hasn't put together before now, instead just fighting against everything, Richie and the nature of the culebra as he imagines it included.

"You were the one that obsessed with the beach, Seth. I wanted more than that."

His brother had always had the reins, had just assumed that he and Richard were always on the same page. Richie had gone along with it for so long, had lived in his brother's shadow for so long, that when the opportunity for something else came, he took it.

There had been fucking consequences, but he couldn't take that shit back.

"If I didn't flip the fuck out, do you really think you would? That's just stupid man. If you don't want it, you don't want it, but don't give me shitty excuses."

But maybe because there had always been something 'wrong' with him, becoming this hadn't been that much of a change for him. He'd been crazier human in those last couple of years. Maybe she'd prepared him. Who the fuck knew, really?

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm not fucking going anywhere. And I'm not gonna be that dick that just does it because I feel like it. You'll either come around or you won't."

And then he'll be the one that ends up alone. Whatever, he'll deal when the time comes. ~~He won't have a choice.~~

He always assumed he and Richie would be together, and that Richie wanted the same. It never occurred to Seth he wanted something else, anything else, everything else. It still doesn't, though he's not honest enough with himself to think about that.

Except Seth isn't sure he won't. He isn't sure he'll wake up. He isn't sure of a lot of shit, and he hates that uncertainty. It was all weighing on him, all of the time. Enough that he had no idea how to handle it, now more than ever.

A shame that Seth isn't strong enough to admit that, holding onto thing with a sharp tongue and glib comments, and fighting his brother to avoid talking about all they fought over.

"I don't want to fucking die," he spits out, rolling his eyes. For all he dives in and faces it, knows that he is going to die because he won't make this choice. It's more deflection, some bits of lies, and a lot of nerves that he won't admit to.

"And I haven't worried since like day fucking one that you might even think to do it if I don't want to." Maybe at first but that felt like a long time ago, even if it was hardly any time at all. He definitely hadn't considered it at all since coming to Wonderland.

He had too, for a really long time, because Seth called the shots and for the longest time, Richie never spoke up.

Then he'd gotten his ass thrown in jail and Richard had been on his own. Going back to being told what to do? Not feeling like an equal from the moment he'd gotten his brother back? It had been a fucking spiral that Santanico had easily taken advantage of.

"You will someday. And you may not wanna accept that, but I have to if this is the way it's gonna be." Otherwise, he'll be the one a fucking wreck on the other side. "It's not like I'm not in the same situation with Kate, okay?"

"I'll deal with it." Because unlike them, he didn't have a choice. He never did.

Except Seth knew that he is the one that Richie could convince. Eventually. Maybe. Kate though? Never. He knew that. She wouldn't make that choice, and being around them meant her death could come a whole fucking lot sooner than it should. Not that either of them was likely to push her away even knowing that.

Except Seth had in their own world, and for all he knows he'll never see her again. Here, that's all changed.

"We're in Wonderland, Richie. Does it fucking matter here? Everyone tells me that it's all a moot point," he pointed out, smirking as if that was the be all, end all of it. "We just keep on here, and we never have to worry about it."

Well...Seth had a point there. And Richie didn't particularly have a problem with staying here, despite all the shit.

He just couldn't really admit why that was.

"Nah, we gotta worry about losing our memories instead. At least I hear that takes awhile. We'll just have to figure the place out before that happens."

And not get sent home against their will.

In Seth's mind, he has all he needs in Wonderland, and the longing for a job he gets can be fixed. Somehow, but that can be figured out later.

"We got time, right? And we can, I don't know. Write all the shit down, and do videos on here to remember it all. We can find a way around that, Richie. We're good at finding a way around."

And that be did believe they could. In the end, they always did. Though he's ignoring the horrible that could happen.

"Like I said, we'll figure it out."

He really did believe that. They'd figured almost everything else out, and Richie wasn't gonna go out without a bang. Shit was gonna get real before he lost all his memories, he'd see to that. His brother wasn't gonna go down easy, either.

He wants to believe that. He really wants to believe they can. Even if he hears Kate's laughter in his head, loving life with someone else. Even if he can still see Richie before him, dying because of Seth. Not still standing there before him, no matter what he was, because maybe that shit didn't matter as long as he was alive.

"You think those things? Are they just nightmares, or do you think they're like, I don't even know. Other worlds? Like in the movies? Alternative timelines?"

A timeline where Richie died, and he was alone.

"Who the fuck knows?"

Not him, that was for sure. There was no real way to know.

"For all we know, it's just Wonderland fucking with us, trying to break us down. Even if it was an alternate timeline or some bullshit, it isn't real. Besides, we have fucking mirrors already. It's just more of that shit."

"Yeah well they're doing a damn good job," he mutters, knowing how weak and pathetic he sounds. He can't help it through. Not with all he's dealt with, culminating in seeing his brother die. Yet there were other things, and one of them - Kate - he's not mentioning. The other though...

"You ever dealt with something here that looks like some faceless freak that stands like seven foot tall with limbs to match?"

Flinching as he thinks about it, the memory of the headache in the back of his mind and hoping that mentioning it isn't going to bring it back.

Richie just about looks at him like he's grown a second AND a third head.

"No. Are you sure you haven't just totally lost it because that sounds like something out of a bad horror movie."

Then again, so did a lot of things about Wonderland sometimes, but forget that.

"Why don't we just go back to our place and drink til we pass out or something? 'Cause you're kind of freaking me out, man."

Seth snorts, rolling his eyes. "I'm not saying you don't have room to talk but..." He nearly smirks then, making the world's worst fucking joke and yet amusing himself at the same time in making it.

"Yeah, you know, that works." Anything that wasn't thinking about all of it, especially the part where after the encounter with that shit from Tim's world, he's wondering if he's losing his damn mind. Just in how much he's fighting not to think about what he can't stop thinking about.

"Drinks are on you, much as they can be." Bad jokes were better than honesty sometimes. That started long before this place.

"I'm supposed to be the crazy brother. Not you." It's less of a joke coming from him. Seth was the one who helped him keep his shit together. If his brother ended up with a couple of screws loose, they might really end up fucked.

"Sure, I'll keep 'em coming. Watch me drink you under the table, though."

"Oh now he admits it," he mutters, though Seth's recovered enough that he nearly smiles then. Also has the sense to step back a step.

Later maybe he'd broach it again. After he hasn't been freaking out over losing Kate and Richie in different ways.

"Well yeah, because you're cheating." Culebra metabolism was entierly cheating.

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[Open] All that matters lost

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