slowly, slowly, he's dying (again)
Señor Scratchy squirms in his arms as he and Kate follow Rio into the backyard, the darkening sky making the place seem eerie as the sun starts to dip below the suburban houses surrounding them.
“Will you tell us what’s going on now?” he asks awkwardly, hugging Señor Scratchy tighter to his chest.
Rio huffs, cloak billowing around her as she halts before a patch of flowers. “No.”
“Rio,” he snaps, and she glances at him, her dark eyes dead. He stares back at her, waiting, and something in her gaze flickers.
She looks away first, at the dirt. “It’s a summoning spell, little abomination.”
Kate squeezes his shoulder, her other hand on the bow she’d grabbed from her car. “Summoning spell?”
“Old magic,” Rio says flippantly. “It connects the caster to who they’re seeking, drawing them together through space.”
He digs his teeth into his lip, running his fingers through Señor Scratchy’s fur. “And who is it that we’re seeking?”
“Agatha.” Rio crouches, burying her fingers in the dirt. “I doubt it would work too well on your brother. He’s being hidden from me, either by Agatha or through his own magic, and if a witch that powerful doesn’t want to be found...”
“That powerful?” he asks, voice unsteady, and Rio laughs sharply.
“You really have no idea what he is, do you?” She looks up at him with a sadistic grin. “Yet you’re looking for him all the same. What sweet, misplaced devotion.” Her smile slips, and she stares back at the dirt. “Here’s a little lesson, abomination. It doens’t matter how devoted you are. Witches always leave.”
He flinches- it’s like he’s suffocating, he can’t breathe right past her words. He’s drowning in Billy’s absence, dying without him. He can’t keep doing this. He needs Billy. “Stop putting your issues on me. All I want is my brother.”
Her nails tear through the roots, dirt speckling her skin. “He can’t cheat forever. One day you will die and leave him.”
Billy, Billy, Billy-
“Just do the spell,” he spits, feeling Kate press her hand against his, weaving their fingers together.
Rio stands, pushing her hood back. “Don’t be mad at me, Tommy Shepherd. I’m just the natural order of things.”
“Do the spell.”
She scowls at him, reaching out to take Señor Scratchy from his arms. She cradles the rabbit, then sets him down on the flowers. “Summoning spells require a connection to the subject,” she explains stiffly, waving a hand for them to move back. “Since our subject is dead-”
“She’s what?”
“-a living connection might be enough to form the bond regardless.” Rio rolls her shoulders, twisting her hands through the air, green sparks flickering across her fingers. “I can’t promise this will work.”
He grits his teeth together, squeezing Kate’s hand tightly. “Then you’ll come up with a different way to find him, won’t you?”
She glances at him with those dead, dead eyes. “Relax. I keep my promises.”
“Cast the spell,” he demands.
She closes her eyes, lips moving soundlessly as runes glow through the vegetation surrounding Señor Scratchy. The spell flares bright, then-
Señor Scratchy hops toward Rio, nibbling at her skirt. The woman doesn’t react, staring at the flowers with a blank expression.
“Rio?” he asks, taking a hesitant step toward her. “Did it...?”
“She cut me out,” Rio murmurs, disbelief coating her voice. “She- Agatha fucking Harkness!” she screams out, the grass beneath her feet withering and turning lifeless brown. Kate pulls him back, out of range of the dying blast, as Rio lets out a deathly wail, the flowers turning black and rotting before her. “You don’t get to do this to me, Agatha! You do not get to hurt me like this! IT WAS NEVER MY FAULT, AGATHA!”
The silence that follows is deafening.
And then, quietly, the defeated sound of someone sobbing.
He can heart his heartbeat, loud in his ears. “...Rio?”
“We should leave, Tommy,” Kate hisses in his ear. “Tommy, please. Let’s just wait inside-”
“Rio?” he repeats again, ignoring her.
“You look like him.”
He closes his mouth, waiting for Rio to continue. She lifts her head, looking at him after a long second. Her eyes are hollow, empty.
“More than your brother ever did. I didn’t know how Agatha saw him in your brother. But you...” She laughs. A dying, dead sound. She laughs until she cries again, in the dirt surrounded by rotting death.
“Tommy,” Kate insists, her nails digging into his arm as she drags him back. “Tommy, we need to go inside now. Please.”
He watches Rio, the time seeming to stretch on forever.
One day you will die and leave him.
When he does, one day, is this what Billy’s sobs will sound like?
Is this what his mom had sounded like, shutting down her spell? Losing everything she’d tried to build to hide all her pain, only to make it so much worse?
His heartbeat- it doesn’t sound right in his ears. It’s too slow- everything is too slow.
Everything is too slow.
Even his thoughts are too slow.
One day you will die and leave him.
One day you will die and leave him .
One day you will die and leave him .
“Tommy.”
He drags his gaze to Kate’s pale face, her eyes wide and worried.
“Okay,” he manages. The word isn’t... right. His voice isn’t right. Why- what is he feeling? Why is everything so slow? It’s like he’s watching himself move, the footage slowed and stretched out and he can’t move.
Why can’t he move?
Kate’s hand is on his arm, and they are inside and he is on the couch, and everything too slow. Why is it too slow?
“Tommy?” Kate asks.
He takes a too-slow breath. Then another. “I want my brother back.”
“We’ll find him,” Kate promises, but all he can think about is the way Rio had screamed when she hadn’t.
He doesn’t know what he’ll do if he cannot find Billy.
It will not be good.
There are tears on his cheeks. Tears that are too slow.
It’s all too slow.
Billy...