hadriel_logs | [closed] First one up was a preacher's son

Entry tags:

gren,
rhys

[closed] First one up was a preacher's son

Who: Gren (

hybridification)
What: The aftermath of the death of a murderpotato
Where: The Tell Tale Swag Pad
When: 6/21
Warnings: Contains Gren's potty mouth.

Gren woke up on Hope's altar with memories of Lily and water and crushing pressure around his throat clamoring in his head.

It had taken him a few minutes to get his bearings and sort out what had gone down in his head; waking up from being literally dead is a pretty weird fucking experience, and the last things that he remembers are pretty muddled from the whole strangulation thing. It's a bad time, getting strangled to death-- 0/10, he does not recommend.

Bigby wasn't wrong when he'd said that Gren should avoid the monster that looked like Lily. He'd wanted to make sure that she didn't hurt anyone, but he knew that he wouldn't have the heart or stomach to hurt her if push came to shove. Or if shove came to strangulation, apparently.

He'd gotten his recently-revived ass off of the altar, though, and left the temple and, for lack of any other thing to do, headed home.

Gren was only a short distance out of the temple when he remembered-- Rhys. The dumbass that he was supposed to be looking out for, instead of going and getting himself killed by monster doppelgangers, and what if he'd gotten himself into some shit while he'd been dead? Hopefully Rhys'd done the sensible thing and just stayed in a temple the whole time, where he'd be safe. And it's not like he would've gone out looking for Gren anyway, even if he had realized that he wasn't coming back; Rhys is more the type to hide out someplace secure during a crisis, not go on a search-and-rescue. Just like he had with the wendigo thing.

So... probably fine, either way. It's probably fine.

He opens the door to the house that's ended up shared with way more people than Gren ever anticipated, and nothing seems out of place at first glance. That's a good sign, things seem Situation Normal, or as normal as they get around here.

"Rhys? You around?"

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After the second day of Gren's disappearance, Rhys had gone to Nick. Surely, Nic would now what to do in a missing person's case, but the trail of clues just grew thinner and thinner. He hadn't thought that Gren had left the city for good, but the disappearance was alarming, especially after the warnings about Bigby. If anything could just flat-out rip one of Gren's arms off, then Rhys shudders to think of what might happen if Gren pissed it off again. Maybe he's out there somewhere, being armless and angry about it.

Worry eats at him for the next few days, and while he does spend time with Nick trying to find Gren, Rhys ultimately comes up empty-handed and too scared to keep going for much longer, with all the monsters and other horrors that seem to be out in full this week.

Officially his least favorite event so far, but Rhys manages to hide out and survive through the event, though Vaughn goes missing toward the end of it. More fruitless searching, more disappointment, and Rhys is starting to think that this is some kind of a conspiracy, where everyone he's close to goes missing around him until the forces of evil or whatever descend upon him as their true target.

He really hopes that isn't true.

But.

His fears are somewhat assuaged when he hears Gren's voice for the first time in days, and Rhys perks up instantly from where he'd been moping in his room and darts to stand, rushing out into the hallway and main entrance of their house.

"Gren!"

Rhys doesn't really know if they're quite on hugging terms yet, but he's tempted- he's just so damn relieved that he's not completely alone here again, could anyone really blame him? Still, he holds off for now, but moves closer, curious and excited at the same time.

"Holy crap, I thought you were gone! How are you, man?"

Gren can tell that it's Rhys before he gets to the door; by now, he knows what the kid's footsteps sound like, and it's kind of a relief to hear them again. At least he knows that he didn't do anything stupid or get himself shot in the face by an angry bitch or something.

And when Rhys does finally get to the front room, he looks... happy? Relieved? Whatever it is, it's probably the least hostile reaction that Gren's ever gotten from anyone by walking into a room after not being there for a while. Especially when he's walking in in his state-- his jacket all fucked up from Lily's nails and the rest of his clothes stained and muddy from the river and... well. And from probably being a bloated, waterlogged corpse in them for a while.

Gren doesn't want to think about that last part.

"I'm fine."

This is good (and also a lie); that means Rhys never knew that he'd died. No one needs him coming across Gren all cadaveriffic, it would not be a pretty sight and the kid's already squeamish around blood. Actual corpses are a lot harder to deal with.

"You okay? Nobody gave you any shit, right?"

Rhys hadn't quite taken in the rest of his appearance quite yet, but when he does, he goes from 'considering a hug' to 'considering a bath in disinfectant'. And also, of course, concern. Gren's clothes are dried, but they seem crusty, and after Rhys gets a good look at him up and down he starts suspecting pretty quickly that some foul play has been involved.

No reason to be blunt about it though. Whatever had happened was probably bad enough and Gren doesn't need Rhys to be prying the moment he walks in the door. So instead, Rhys shakes his head at the question, oddly pleased that Gren had actually given enough of a shit to ask, before he reaches out to clap a hand on the other man's shoulder.

"I'm fine. Hired a detective to find out where the heck you ran off to, though."

There's a pause, and he offers Gren just a hair of scrutiny, squinting slightly down toward him as if he could figure out what happened just by looking. It's not that hard to piece the event and Gren's disheveled state together- what's difficult is figuring out exactly how far Gren's torture had gone.

"...you sure you're okay, buddy?"

What's he supposed to do, say 'no, I'm really not okay because I just came back from being killed by my best friend's sister, who I wasn't able to save from being horribly murdered'? Well... yeah, he probably could say that, but it would require him to be a lot more emotionally competent than he ever has been or will be. And even if he did, what the fuck would he expect Rhys to be able to do with that kind of shit? It would just make him upset, so the net value of people who are not okay would only go up.

He's not sure how he feels about Rhys getting someone to look for him, though. Him, dead in a river with a purple ribbon, and a detective looking for him. The things he said to Bigby come back-- do I have to show up in the fuckin' river glamoured up like Snow fuckin' White before shit'll get done?-- and with all new horribly ironic meaning now that it's actually happened.

"I'll be fuckin' better after I wash off."

He lets Rhys' hand stay on his shoulder for a moment or two longer, then walks further into the house so that he can toss his jacket over the back of a chair. All of his clothes keep getting ruined; if this keeps up, he won't have anything left to wear.

"Hope you didn't shell out much for that detective. You should get your fuckin' money back."

Or whatever counts as currency around here.

"I don't think money as a concept exists in this place."

But Rhys trails after him anyway, wrinkling his nice a little at Gren's jacket being tossed aside- it's still stiff and dried, as if it had been submerged in water for awhile and then tried improperly, and Rhys doesn't really use his incredible powers of reasoning often, but sometimes he gets the little things.

He hasn't asked Gren what happened to him yet, and Rhys hesitates with the question in his throat because, all of a sudden, he's not sure if he wants to know. But they're friends, aren't they? He can handle Gren's weird late night swimming escapades or- whatever else that this throws at him. Maybe.

"Hey, buddy?"

Rhys asks it quietly, just before Gren leaves the room for good, so he can grab his attention there and fidget around a little awkwardly before continuing.

"What, uh- what happened to you?"

Gren stops when Rhys calls after him, because he does a lot of things when Rhys asks, apparently. Or when Rhys doesn't ask; it's like 'doing shit for Rhys' has become a habit that he can't quite break. He has a reputation, you know, for being a shitty asshole, and he's kind of starting to think that he might be going a little toothless in his advanced age or something.

The kid asked him a question, though, and it's one that he's pretty sure that he doesn't want the whole truth for. Rhys is kind of sensitive, and for fuck's sake, Gren wants to be able to protect someone around here, since he clearly can't protect Lily or Holly or his own goddamn self. He can at least keep Rhys from the nasty, gruesome details.

"You know about the kind of shit that's been going on," he says. "The fuck do you think happened?"

It's not really an answer, and Rhys opens his mouth to point that out before actually thinking on it for a moment and hesitating, letting himself falter. There's a weird, dumb, not-connected-to-hyperion part of him that kind of cares about Gren in the same dumb way he kind of cares about Fiona, except with a little less exasperation and a little more healthy concern. This is the guy who almost happy'd himself into a coma with magic fireflies, after all.

Plus, he has one arm. Who picks on a guy with one arm?

Rhys doesn't want to ask by this point, but he kind of has to because imagining a murdercave where even someone as no-nonsense and badass as Gren can be killed makes it kind of a more fucked up place than Rhys had initially thought, but if that's the reality of their situation then he needs to know.

"You, uh- " Think positive- "-you went for a swim and then just kind of rolled around in some seaweed and fell asleep in the dirt for like, sixteen hours?"

It could have gone differently, if he'd had the heart or the stomach or the whatever was necessary to hurt Lily to save himself; he doesn't, though, because he's got issues or whatever. And it's not like he doesn't know it, he knows he's got ninety-nine problems and he's most of them, so it's really no wonder that Rhys has recognized it, too.

But who the fuck could blame him, anyway, for happying himself into a coma? It was the first time he'd felt that not-shitty in centuries.

And not shitty is pretty much the exact opposite of how he feels right now. He feels shitty and tired and probably other things that he doesn't have proper words for and Rhys is not making this easy on him by being deliberately obtuse while he's trying to not say the d-word.

"Don't be fuckin' stupid," he says instead. "There was nasty shit out there and some of it found me."

There. That's true, technically, so at least he can be honest about something right now, even if it's only technically. Gren scrubs his hand over his face, like that'll do something to alleviate the absolute shit that is his general state of existence right now.

"I need a fuckin' drink."

Priorities. First shower, then slug Jack until he can't remember his shitty life.

Rhys goes quiet at the affirmation- it was what he'd thought, but he'd tried to deflect and give Gren an out. It's clear though, that they won't be dancing around the subject or using any cute metaphors here, and so Rhys tries to adjust to the tone of the current situation, straightening out his shoulders and nodding, even if Gren can't actually see him right now.

He had never thought Gren invincible. Hell, his friend was already missing an arm and had a weird eye, and contrary to popular belief, Rhys wasn't entirely stupid. But something about Gren meeting his fate here, in Hadriel, where everything had been terrifying, sure, but survivable... well, the idea of death actually happening to someone he knows removes the casual humor he'd had for the whole situation and dips it in something darker.

He doesn't like it. Rhys suspects that Gren likes it even less.

"I'm sorry."

He finally says it quietly, like it's supposed to change anything. And he is: sorry that he hadn't looked harder, sorry that Gren had to meet whatever fate he met alone. Sorry that it even happened to Gren in the first place. Rhys sighs and turns back to the kitchen, trying to think of what he can do to make it better.

"I'll pour us some drinks."

There's a lot of shit in Gren's life that he doesn't like, this one of them, but he's long since learned by now to put up or shut up. Since he can't do anything about it at this point, he just wants to stop talking about it and get on with his life.

He's about to do just that-- go take a shower and get on with his shitty life-- when Rhys stops him for the second time in five minutes.

For a few long, probably uncomfortable moments, Gren stares at Rhys and tries to figure out why the fuck he's getting an apology. An apology, and a sincere one, like he actually means it. Holly's pretty much his only reference for how kindness goes, and even she would've just told him that he reeked and needed to go shower and then would've had whiskey waiting for him when he was done-- because they're both tough and he doesn't like being coddled or pitied or any of that shit. He can handle it.

He doesn't think Rhys is pitying him right now, either, so all of this shit just makes even less sense.

"It don't really matter," he says, because it doesn't. He died, he's back, it's all a moot point.

Then Rhys goes to get drinks, and Gren swings by his room to get a change of clothes and heads for the shower. The biggest relief after seeing Rhys fully intact is being able to strip out of those admittedly rank clothes and scrub the river scum off of his skin and out of his hair. It takes longer than he expects, and he scrubs until it stings.

When he comes back out, he's clean and in clean clothes and feels... well, not almost human again, but closer to normal, at least. He didn't bother with fixing his hair; Rhys can have the unique privilege of seeing it a half-towel dried mess instead of slicked back with probably prodigious amounts of pomade. The towel's slung over his shoulder and he's actively looking for that drink he'd been promised.

Rhys watches Gren leave the room before sighing and moving back into the kitchen to pour a few fingers of whiskey. He has to ignore the idle whispers in the back of his mind, things that are both unkind and mocking as he sips at his own glass, grimacing before forcing it down.

His gaze lifts when Gren moves back into the room, and Rhys slides the other glass over, leaning against the counter as he does so. Gren looks remarkably less like shit now, even if his skin is red and raw from all the scrubbing- Rhys can't really blame him, though, he'd probably do the same if he'd died.

It sucks and they both know it, and Rhys swirls the liquor in his glass for another moment or two in silence before sighing.

"Do you- I dunno, want anything? Need anything?"

He takes the glass of whiskey when it's offered and knocks it all back with the smooth, practiced motion of a man who does this shit regularly. The liquor is a comforting, familiar burn in his throat and chest, and he appreciates the silence that follows after.

Even if that silence only lasts for a couple of seconds.

He considers Rhys for a few more long moments after he asks that question; he doesn't really have an answer. What does he need? Nothing, he supposed. He's alive, what more's to it? Or to build a fucking bridge and get over it, probably.

What he wants is even less of a known quantity. He could probably use getting cut a fucking break for once in his life, but he doesn't think Rhys can actually give that one to him. He'll go with something that's not helpful, but feasible. Gren tips his empty glass in Rhys' direction.

"'Could use another drink."

Rhys can't help but to look a little impressed when Gren knocks it all back, though he knows logically that Gren is a hell of an alcoholic and could probably slam twice that amount with no problem. Rhys' own light coughing as he sips at his whiskey is a little embarrassing in comparison, but Gren is too distracted in his own crap right now to say much about it.

So he sighs and pours another drink, a little more this time, though he's still working on his own glass.

"What killed you?" he finally asks, after wondering the question since Gren had walked in the door. If anything could take Gren down, then Rhys knows to be scared of it.

"Was it that Bigby guy?"

He nurses this one a little more-- or nurses it, anyway, by Gren's standards, which is probably just regular drinking for everyone else. In any case, the alcohol hangs around for a little bit longer, and if he notices that Rhys doesn't handle his well, he doesn't bring it up. It's not like he isn't aware of the fact that he's an alcoholic, so, really, the fact that Rhys drinks like a normal person isn't a bad thing, not even in Gren's books.

The question, though, is blunt as fuck. What killed you? Hell, he's not even entirely sure what the answer is to that question, just like so many others today, because he doesn't have a name for the thing-that-looked-like-Lily. It was a nightmare, maybe. Or the manifestation of his own goddamn guilty conscience. Maybe it was karmic, because he's a shitty fucking person who can't save the people he cares about.

Well, whatever the reason, he probably deserved it.

"No," is what he says. "It wasn't fuckin' Bigby. It was somebody else. Or something that looked like her, anyway."

He's not sure if it's worse or better for the fact that it wasn't really Lily.

Edited (i can type really) 2016-08-05 09:02 (UTC)

Well, Rhys was sort of aware of the sensitivity of the subject, the response hammers in just how upsetting this whole thing had been. Gren is usually abrasive and harsh, but this feels like something else- an actual sore spot, or something that genuinely bothered him, not just something that pissed him off.

Which, Rhys supposes, makes sense, since Gren did die. Still, he has little to no control over his own mouth or his brain-to-tongue filter, because the answer only serves to make him more curious and he frowns.

"A friend of yours?"

It's about as sensitive as any subject can get with him; he'd never really figured his shit out after Lily died, he'd just been more concerned with what Holly needed. She was her sister, after all, he was just a friend, so what right did he have to make her deal with his shit? And, anyway, what Holly needs has always been more important than what he does.

The fact that he died was... well, it was shitty, yeah. It had hurt, and probably hurt worse because it was Lily doing it, and he hadn't really done much to stop it. He'd told her that he wanted to help her, but maybe she didn't understand. Maybe she hated him enough that the only help she could take from him was killing him. Maybe it was just a shitty monster that didn't reflect anything on how Lily would've felt towards him.

Build a bridge, Gren. Get the fuck over it.

"Yeah," he says, and he's just... tired. He's not sure if it's the normal kind of tired that he always feels, or if it's like a particular kind of 'I'm dead on the inside' tired that happens when his life takes an unexpected turn towards Shit Central and he doesn't have enough anger to carry him through it. Sometimes he even gets tired of being angry, and that's its own spectacular black hole of fuckery. He can't be, like, actually tired though, right? He was dead for a while, doesn't that count as rest or something?

"Yeah, she was."

Gren has never really been like this before. Usually, he's his regular crass, aggressive self, but now it's something different. Even when he was talking about losing his arm, he was a little mad. Now he just seems... exhausted. Rhys supposes that coming back from the dead will do that to you, but he's also never really been there himself.

Maybe this is something else.

Rhys broods into his liquor for a moment, before reaching out for the bottle, pouring them both a little more to replace the dregs in their glasses. It's not much, but it's the least he could do, considering that he's still not sure how to act when Gren isn't mad about something.

"...sorry. At least- whatever it was, it's gone now."

Rhys tops up what's left in both their glasses, and the motion-- playing bartender for him-- is something that reminds him of so sharply of Holly that something twists hard in his chest, like cardiac whiplash. Things keep reminding him of her lately, and God does he miss her. He misses her getting pissy at him, and bitching at him about one thing or another, and the way she'd look at him that meant more than words. It had been okay when he'd been able to just not think about the fact that he missed her, but with all the shit with Lily going on...

Well, when it rains, it pours, or some shit like that.

Gren doesn't touch the fresh drink, just lets it sit in his hand while he tries-- and fails-- to not be homesick for a city he doesn't even like. He doesn't even like New York, except for the small part of it that has the Trip Trap on it. Gren's too old to be homesick, isn't he? He's certainly too old for this maudlin bullshit, this is the part where Holly would tell him to quit moping around because he's a fuckin' eyesore.

Yeah. He misses Holly.

"It ain't your fuckin' fault," he says distantly when Rhys talks to him. Still thinking of other things.

Rhys can clearly see that Gren's mind is on other things. He wishes he could say or maybe do something, but without enough knowledge of the situation or what, exactly, Gren is going through, he just feels useless. He's never particularly liked feeling helpless, especially in situations like this where someone has helped him so much.

But that's the long and short of it, he reasons. Rhys sighs and pulls back a little, wiping down the counter before sipping at his glass again.

"I think I'm gonna turn in. Let me know if you need anything, okay?"

Gren's bad at talking, and it's not something that he's unaware of. Or, rather, he's bad at talking about personal shit, the shit that matters to him specifically; he could talk your ear off about other shit, just ask Bigby. He's done it plenty of times. Get Gren going on the right topic and he'll talk whether you want him to or not, for longer than anybody gives a shit to listen. But Holly's the only one who's ever been able to make him actually say what's going on in the mess that is his head, and even she'd say that he's 'poorly socialized' or some shit. Whatever the fuck that means.

"Yeah, sure." That's what comes out of his mouth.

In his head, there's a voice that sounds like Holly, and it says Say something. What are you gonna do, stand here and look fuckin' miserable at him? Holly's usually right about things, when it comes down to it, and it sounds like something she'd say. She'd kick him in the ass and tell him to stop being such a sadsack. Open your stupid fuckin' mouth, Gren, say something that actually means shit.

"Do you--"

False start. Talking's hard, when he doesn't have the sheer force of anger propelling him forward, like his mouth's a wind-up toy that only works right when it's cranked up by enough pissiness.

"You remember when I told you about Bigby? Tearin' off my fuckin' arm and shit?"

Rhys starts to walk away at the dismissal, reaching the hallway before Gren's voice echoes through the room. He cuts himself off, but that's already enough for Rhys to stop and turn in his place, curious and foreboding all at once. Whatever Gren is about to say isn't going to be happy, and as much as Rhys doesn't enjoy dealing with unpleasantness, Gren is his friend and part of him genuinely wants to know what happened.

So he stills and he listens, nodding at the question, unable to stop himself from looking up toward Gren's stump of a missing arm. He remembers that story quite well, as well as the warning to not fuck with Bigby, which he's obeyed so far.

"...yeah. I mean- what a dick, right?"

It's a lighthearted comment, but it's weaker than it should be. Rhys understands the gravity of the situation- he's just trying to make it less difficult to communicate.

Gren snorts. It's not really funny, what Bigby did to him really isn't funny at all, but everything about this situation sucks so he might as well laugh at something, right? Might as well laugh at the fact that Bigby's an asshole.

"Yeah, he's a fuckin' prick. But the girls who ended up dead? One of 'em..."

It's hard to think of a good way to end that sentence.

"Her name was Lily." He hasn't really talked about Lily since she died. Not in any way that wasn't yelling at Bigby or trying to help Holly with the mess afterward or punching Woody in the face for fucking her and hiding it from Holly. Woody-- what a fucking lowlife, how did he never notice that before? "She was my friend's sister, and I knew both of 'em for a pretty long fuckin' time."

Centuries. He knew them both for centuries, even knew their Ma back when she was running the Trip Trap, before Holly took it. Good people, all of them. None of them deserved the shit they got.

"She went missing and I tried lookin' for her, but... they found her head on the Woodlands' front porch and the rest of her in the fuckin' river," he says, and it never gets less fucked up the more he tells it. "I found her in the river here, too."

He takes a breath and he hates that it's shaky, hates that his voice isn't quite as steady as he'd want it to be when he keeps talking.

"I was just tryin' to help her. I just... I wanted to help her, this time."

Since he'd fucked up helping her the last time.

There's a long pause as the story unfolds- the whole story, and Rhys knew it was a bad one, but he didn't know it was this bad. That Gren would have a friend who'd be killed in such a brutal way, that she'd resurface here and drag him down with her... Rhys almost doesn't have the words for it.

He keeps himself quiet then, not wanting to be disrespectful but not really knowing how else to address this fucked up thing that happened, so he simply stands there, leaning back against one of the walls. It explains a lot, he thinks- why Gren is so defensive sometimes, why he seems different during this event. Rhys can't imagine something like that happening to him- if it was Vaughn or Yvette, or hell, even Sasha.

Finally, he sighs, rubbing over the back of his neck with his robot hand, the coolness of it helping him focus.

"...I'm sorry."

He's said it before already. It doesn't feel like enough.

"Do you want to go back?" A stupid question maybe, after Gren had just died, but Rhys would understand if he did. And then, steeling himself, he offers- "I'll go with you this time. Watch your back."

It's supposed to be good to talk about these kind of things, Gren thinks, or at least that's what shrinks say. Not that he would really know, he'd never actually been to one, but it sounds like the things shrinks would say on TV. Talking about the awful shit that happens to you is supposed to make it better or something? He doesn't know.

Good of Rhys to listen to his shit, though; Rhys has been kind to him for a while. Kinder, anyway, than most anyone ever is, and he... appreciates it, or something. It's sort of nice that somebody seems to give like half a shit about him. He gets that it's probably because he's pretty much agreed to be Rhys' unofficial bodyguard against the weirdos that might want to kill him, but still, it's something.

And he's offered to go with him back to the river where the murderous probably-a-monster is, despite knowing that the thing had just offed Gren and therefore Gren is not real good protection against it.

"Don't know if she'd even fuckin' be there," he says. "And even if she is, she sometimes goes after other people. You could get hurt or some shit."

The whole point is keeping Rhys out of danger, not having him walk right up to it.

"The fuck would I do about her, anyway? I can't fuckin' hurt her even when she's killin' me."

If he can't bring himself to hurt not-Lily when she's literally strangling him to death, there's probably no time that he can.

Rhys knows it's a bad idea, but he'd thought to offer it all the same, just to see if it might help. He'd be willing to do it, dangerous or not, because part of him understands Gren's need to at least try to make things okay, even if he's never experienced something quite so visceral before.

He can try to take care of himself. He still has his stun rod, and Jack could maybe help him with some tactical advice if he needs it- ha- but it's a start. He could maybe come out of it alive, if this creature did happen to attack.

But Gren shoots that idea down, for good reason, and Rhys nods slightly before sighing and trying to think of anything else that might help. Here in this murdercave, it's- well, unlikely- but it sucks seeing Gren like this.

"I just thought- if you wanted another chance to try and talk to her..." he trails off with a sigh, rubbing at his eyes. "It's a stupid idea. Maybe you should try to sleep it off a little instead."

The only thing that Rhys would have going for him if he went with Gren to find Lily is that she always goes after Gren; once she knows he's there, she'd ignore Rhys for the most part and just try to murder his ass again. It's actually a kind of impressive bloody-minded determination.

He snorts, like there's something funny about all this, but really it's just that he's kind of reached this event horizon of fucked-up. It's like someone looked as his life and said 'well, that's pretty shitty, but what if...' and then found another way to send him even further down the crapper. Whenever he thinks he's hit the bottom, when he's finally at rock-bottom in terms of life-fuckery, someone throws him a shovel and tells him to start digging.

"I dunno if she can even hear me," he says. "Or if she can even fuckin' see me. She ain't got no head."

He wasn't just murdered by his dead friend-- he was murdered by the decapitated, mutilated corpse of his friend. Because the 'dead friend' part wasn't fucked up enough, apparently.

Then he takes that glass of whiskey that he hadn't been touching and knocks it all back at once. See, Rhys? Shit like this is why he drinks. Or part of it, anyway, the other part is poor coping mechanisms or some shit.

"...oh."

That was a piece of information that Rhys probably could have lived his life without having. Gren's drinking prowess is impressive though, and after what he just said, Rhys can hardly blame him. Being chased by the dead is one thing, but being chased by the dead who are actually dead and all garish and mutilated- well.

Rhys isn't sure if he'd want to live through that. He'd have nightmares for weeks- hell, he probably will anyway, just knowing that this is a thing.

"Then just- stay here instead." He offers, shaking his head. "You shouldn't go back out there while this is going on."

Gren'll probably have nightmares about it, too, but he has nightmares about other shit anyway, so at least his brain will have some new material. The only thing worse than waking up in a cold sweat is waking up in a cold sweat from a nightmare you've had too many damn times before. Even nightmares get boring if you've seen them enough.

Rhys is right, though-- he should stay here. It feels like it might be cowardly or something, holing up when there's a problem that he should be dealing with, but there's nothing all that brave about getting strangled to death, either. At least if he stays home, his clothes won't get ruined and he can keep an eye on Rhys. Kind of an excuse at this point, since Rhys was able to keep himself out of trouble for the past few days, but at least Gren won't feel completely useless.

"Yeah," he says, and sets the empty glass down. Probably had enough whiskey for right now, he should like... go lay face-down and smother himself in his pillow or something. Actual sleep will probably be tricky, but maybe the combination of alcohol and being horizontal will be enough. "Besides, these are the last set of clean clothes I got. She drags my ass into the river again, I don't got shit to wear."

He really needs to do laundry, if there's any detergent in any world that can get river scum and corpsiness out of clothes.

"Yeah, the lack of clothing options here is the real killer," Rhys comments idly, before realizing the unintended pun and cringing, his gaze flickering up toward Gren as if worried that his friend would be offended, having- you know, actually died recently.

"I didn't mean it like that!"

It really is an issue though- most of the things here won't fit his robot arm without looking like a tent on him, to say the least of any actual fashion in this place- of which there is, of course, none. Rhys misses his wardrobe back on Helios something fierce.

"...anyway, let me know if I can entertain or whatever. Take your mind off of it."

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[closed] First one up was a preacher's son

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