InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "You're beautiful, Laura."

Will Stutely (sly_stutely) wrote in nevermore_logs,
@ 2021-01-22 16:43:00

Entry tags:

friar tuck, will scarlet, will stutely

WHO Will Stutely, open to Merry Men
WHEN Friday 22 January, evening
WHERE The Sly Fox
WHAT Guys, I know this will come as a shock, but it turns out it's actually not fine
WARNINGS TBA, prolly lots of yelling

Afterwards, Will couldn’t bring himself to go back home to Clio’s. Not covered in bruises, not again, his battered state more damning evidence of the thug he was.

He couldn’t bring himself to go back home to Tuck’s, either, where the bruises were like to provoke a different kind of horror, and questions he didn’t trust himself to answer. Where, if any one of them were to look him in the face, right now, he didn’t know what he might be tempted to say.

That left only the Sly Fox, and since the Sly Fox was full of hard liquor, it seemed like a reasonable enough compromise.

And, thank Christ for small mercies, the pub was in darkness when he arrived. Lights switched off, not a soul in sight. Will slouched over to the bar, snatched up the first couple of bottles in reach. Vodka, why not. Whiskey, absolutely. He found a glass, piled in some ice, unscrewed the cap on the whiskey, then changed his mind and took a long draw straight from the bottle. It burned a raw path down his throat, but it wasn’t enough to scour away the afternoon.

He pulled up a stool and slumped over the bar. The right side of his face ached with a sharp pain where it had struck the subway pole. He pressed the glass of ice to his forehead, only to jerk it back with a hiss when it elicited a sting. The glass came away with the condensation stained a watery red. He hadn’t realised he’d been cut. Split lip, too. And god knows how badly he’d fucked up his back.

Fuck. Fuck. Deal with it all later. He took another swig from the bottle, to forestall himself from thinking. It didn’t work.

When he’d returned, none of the others had asked him where he’d been, and he’d been grateful, because it made it easier to hide his shame.

When he’d returned, none of the others had apologised, and he’d been grateful, because they would only have been words of pity, and pity was not a thing he could bear. After all, they had nothing to apologise for: he was the one who’d failed. Who could blame them for going on living their lives after he’d gone and blown his up?

Later, he had learned about the welcome Scarlet had gotten when he’d been let out of the clink in May. Scarlet had fucked up on a job, too, served two and a bit years for it, and they’d been ready to celebrate his homecoming with ale and song.

But that was different.

And it was different when Much had stopped answering his calls and they’d all gone straight to panic stations. And it was different when Tuck hadn’t replied to a couple of measly texts and Scarlet had broken a window trying to find him. And he was a low piece of shit for so much as thinking otherwise, even in he quiet of his own head.

(Eddie’s voice, hard as the edge of a gravedigger’s shovel: Stewart, you piece of shit!)

Would they have come running as fast if he hadn’t made it through those doors?

Another traitor thought, and he took another drink to silence it.

Weak. Stupid. Coward.

He was nothing. What the fuck right did he have to think he was deserving of a rescue?

(When had they decided he wasn’t?)

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sly_stutely
2021-01-23 11:45 am UTC (link)

"Nowt productive in talking," Will muttered. Talking only made a bloody mess of everything. He wouldn't be in this godawful conversation right now if people didn't insist on telling him to talk about shit. "An' I don't need a bloody shrink, Christ. I know my head might be fuckin' broke, but I'm not mad."

It was the kind of thing he'd never have said sober, certainly not to Tuck, and certainly not in the face of a genuinely caring suggestion. Sober, he'd had said thanks and he'd think about it, because of course Tuck was right and a man couldn't go around bottling everything up, and then he'd have lost the number because just watch him. With a stomach sloshing with whiskey, all he heard was, that's right, Stutely, you're a proper headcase.

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friartuck
2021-01-23 11:52 am UTC (link)

Stutely wasn't mad, but he was? Tuck breathed in raggedly and he nodded, his jaw clenched tightly shut. He held up his hands then, sick to the back teeth of this. "Alright. You sleep it off, Stutely. I'll go take my madness somewhere else." Stutely's words were crushing, but he had already been screamed at by the man, and he refused to break down over it.

To Scarlet, he said, "you want to go back to yours, Sweetheart?"

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rouge_rogue
2021-01-23 12:04 pm UTC (link)

"Yeah." Scarlet nodded to Tuck. "One sec."

He leaned on the bar, folding his arms and bending his head close to Stutely's. "We're all mad here," he said into his ear, and slapped him on the shoulder. "Whatever triggered this today, you're being a bit of a cock, and I know, it takes one to know one. Come talk to me when you're sober. I want to make a wager that I can draw a longbow again before you can. Drink water, yeah? Don't forget to turn the lights off before you go to sleep." He moved away to collect Tuck and call the Uber.

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