Mobius disappears. Hugh is the better brother, checking on Eliot. Eliot is doing his best to bury his emotions and keep them from rising like the living dead surrounding him. Tragically, his flask doesn't magically
refill itself.
⚠zombies are mentioned, but no violence!
Hugh was well aware that it wouldn't have made any difference if he was trying to watch out for Zombies this week or not, but that didn't mean that when the disappearance notification came through he didn't wish he was with everyone else - again. Not that he thought it would be a great thing, or that he probably wouldn't get caught - he was distinctly not made to survive a zombie apocalypse in all actuality - but still, Eliot wasn't here, he was there and now Mobius wasn't.
He pulled open the network, pulled open his direct messages and shot one off to Eliot, not really sure what to say because it sucked. There wasn't any way that it didn't. Mobius had always been so accepting, and it was something Hugh really hadn't had much of from his own father, and he knew Eliot hadn't either. But in an AU world, there had been acceptance, and that had come from Mobius.
💬 Eliot?
Eliot broke so many horror movie conventions, it was a little impressive he hadn’t become some undead creature’s lunch.
He was alone.
He was drunk.
He was more concerned with the vanishing weight of his flask than he was with the world around him.
Eliot found a dormitory on the edge of campus with small balconies that faced the town of Dunwich. Below him was a zombie that shambled about and had taken notice of the living being above. On the sixth floor, Eliot was too high up to hear it, or consider how he was planning on walking back to the rest of campus.
There were plenty of people he could have turned to. Hugh was the obvious one. They’d both lost a father. A real father. A father that didn’t hate every cell and fiber of what they were. A father that didn’t occasionally show up in nightmares to haunt them long after they’d moved out. Mobius loved his sons. And now Mobius no longer existed, or rather, the concept of a caring father no longer existed.
Memory was not enough for Eliot.
Eliot could have gone to Margo, but given how other Margos had responded to Mobius, Eliot was afraid to admit how much the relationship meant to him. How important it had been.
Loki? God. Eliot couldn’t imagine a worse person to go to. Whatever cruel barbs Loki had for Eliot, he wasn’t in a place to hear them, particularly if they were true.
He looked at his phone, stared at Hugh’s message, and then put the phone down and took another swig from his not so enchanted flask.
Below him the zombie continued to moan with hunger pains. A second shambling corpse joined it.
When there was no response, it wasn't as if Hugh had an absence of imagination. He knew Eliot, and he knew himself, and he knew there were some slight differences in preferred ways to deal with bad news, there were enough similarities too. If he'd had the option, Hugh would have gone out, drank enough, hooked up with someone entirely random, and then waded through a hangover the next day. This wasn't an option in the Void, and it certainly wouldn't have been an option if he'd been with Eliot in whatever god-forsaken world he was currently in. But Eliot also tended to do the drinking thing, although Hugh felt that Eliot was as likely - maybe more likely - to drink alone and that seemed like a decidedly bad idea.
Hugh stared at his phone, the lack of response, swore several times about the fact that he was tuck in the void and he couldn't go out and go hunting for Eliot, even though that would have been a bad idea and he knew it.
💬 Eliot? 💬 Answer me ffs or I'm going to message Yelena and make her go look for you
He contemplated the idea of threatening a public message to the whole network, but he held off.
💬 Zombies, Eliot. There are zombies, and if you don't answer me I'm going to get really worried. Dad would want us to take care of each other
Okay, the guilt was maybe a low blow, but Hugh also knew it was true.
Eliot was not a nice person. Sometimes he even failed to be a good person. This might have been one of those times.
When he should have sought comfort, he instead tried to bury his feelings. When he should have offered comfort, he tried to alienate himself. Eliot thought if he meditated on alcohol, his trusted standby, maybe it would work.
Dad Mobius was gone, and Eliot could pretend he never cared. He just had to pretend long and hard enough, and it might even be true.
The notifications went off. Eliot wondered how many people might be reaching out to him in that moment. In his head he built it up, obviously half the campus, right? He lost his father. But when he bothered to look at his phone, it was just Hugh. No one else. Because it hadn’t really been real, right?
Dad would want us to take care of each other.
“Dad doesn’t exist,” Eliot spoke unhelpfully to his phone.
Technically Hugh had already messaged Yelena, because truthfully, being stuck in the void away from everyone not really being able to do much of anything to help sucked. And while he wasn't exactly complaining about electricity, running water, and food, at the same time, he felt a little guilty about the fact that the most he could do is watch television and try to warn people. And at least messaging Yelena was one way to not feel like he was so far away.
The question, of course, was whether or not he was going to have to make her go hunt Eliot down - something he didn't really have any doubt she could do.
He frowned at the lack of messages, sent another off to Yelena about nothing at all, and then pulled Eliot's back open and he started to type: If you get yourself drunk and then zombied, I will
Hugh stopped. He had no idea what to even threaten on that one. Never forgive you? Probably not really the most useful, because Hugh tended to suspect that Eliot had enough voices in his head telling him he was sucky (maybe because Hugh had enough of those too). It also felt over-wrought and dramatic, because there was the reset. Eliot would be fine, regardless of what happened this week. Smacking him was equally unhelpful, technically Eliot probably had the upper hand in any fight because of the whole magic thing. Take away his flask… Well. That might be a better threat, but he couldn't do it until next week. Although, he could probably have Yelena go and find Eliot and take it away this week.
With a determined set to his jaw, he deleted and started again.
💬 If you're drinking yourself into a fix because Dad left, I'm going to find out about it and I'm going to send Yelena to find you and take your flask away. 💬 If you want to keep the drink, you'd better fucking answer me Eliot. 💬 I will be as annoying a little brother as you've ever had in your entire life I've had so much practice so ANSWER me.
💬 [...]
Eliot stared at his phone. He’d considered any number of witty responses including What?> or Go away. or even Please stop. None of those responses felt right. Either they lacked the shittiness Eliot knew he was capable of that would surely get him yelled at and make it easier to double down and harden his heart or …
💬 I don’t want to talk about it.
There was always honesty.
Sometimes honesty even worked.
Relief was stupidly instant. Even knowing that they would all reset at the end of the week, the idea of Eliot getting into a mess with zombies this early in the week, when he was almost certainly upset by Mobius' departure? Hugh was still relieved to get some sort of response. It meant that at least Eliot was maybe sort of paying attention. Maybe.
He stared at the words and nodded even though Eliot couldn't see him.
💬 Alright
That didn't feel like enough, but also Hugh got it. He'd messaged Yelena not so much because he wanted to talk about Mobius having left, as he wanted to know he wasn't alone, and he supposed he'd messaged Eliot for the same reason but the other side of it. For him to know he wasn't alone either.
💬 we don't have to I just wanted you to know you could talk to me 💬 what do you need?
Hugh didn't know if he would get an answer. It seemed equally likely that he wouldn't get one as he would. But he also didn't know what else to ask or say or do. He couldn't make it better.
Eliot closed his eyes as he heard the notifications of more texts. Really, he should have been thankful. He had someone who was going through maybe not the same thing, but could it be any closer? They’d both lost a father. Eliot should have been reaching out to Hugh. It should have been a two way street were they were there for one another.
But the idea of opening up? It should have gotten easier, right? Like after Quentin’s death or the first handful of times his friends showed up and disappeared. It was a little fucking unfair that it didn’t.
Eliot took a swig from his flask.
He finally looked at his phone. His expression soured.
💬 Do you need something?
It was an asshole thing to say. Or maybe it was because the tone Eliot imagined was not especially understanding or kind. It was easier to be an asshole than to grieve.
The words flashed up, and settled and left Hugh uncertain. He guessed that since he was asking what Eliot needed, maybe he was asking the same back? He didn't usually hate texting as a medium, but right now it sucked. Hugh was pretty certain if Eliot was in front of him, he wouldn't have known. The other man had too many tells not entirely dissimilar to his own, but they weren't the same, they approached things differently, and even in the world where they'd really been twin brothers, and Mobius had really been their father - even in that world they'd been different.
💬 No, I guess I just wanted to check in
Mobius would have. If Hugh had left, or one of Eliot's friends, and Mobius knew about it, Hugh was pretty sure that Mobius would have checked in even if there wasn't a single thing he could do to stop it. But Hugh felt as if he might be missing that particular way of making everything okay that Mobius had seemed to have automatically. Maybe he was too self-absorbed? Hugh didn't know. It felt like a character flaw that he didn't know the right words to say.
💬 We can talk later if you're alright
Hugh wasn't certain that Eliot was, and he supposed this meant he was going to send Yelena to check in on him. Eliot would love that, but Hugh couldn't, and he wasn't going to let Eliot drink himself into an oblivion where he was zombiefied. That wasn't allowed.
Eliot closed his flask and set it aside. The notifications kept coming in and he was sure Hugh wouldn’t stop unless he either gave in and named the feelings he was trying to suppress, or, opted to act unforgivably cruel.
💬 I emphatically do not want to any such thing 💬 You’ve checked in 💬 Thank you
Except he couldn’t bring himself to go that far. It was a half hearted attempt, really. More like begging to keep the emotional conversation at an arm's length.
There still was that kernel of guilt. After all, Eliot hadn’t asked how Hugh felt. Maybe he accomplished his goal of being an asshole after all.
He wanted so desperately to pretend he’d never cared about anything at all.
Eliot set down his phone, picked up his flask, and took another drink after opening it.
Hugh looked at the phone, read Eliot's response and rubbed his temples. He wished he could just go make them both a cup of coffee. He didn't really want to talk either, if he were being honest. He just didn't want Eliot to be alone, and during any normal Derleth week, this wouldn't have required them talking on the Network. But this week there weren't any other options. It wasn't an Empire City week where he could just take Eliot somewhere to get a coffee and a muffin, or even a normal void week where he could show up on Eliot's doorstep with such things. Or force him to come out to the theatre to help with stage stuff to keep him from thinking about it. Or turn on Dirty Dancing and let them both just sit and watch it, even if watching it in this particular scenario might mean half-drunk and not so much invested in it, as it was background comfort.
Hugh sighed, tried to think if he could come up with something different, but it wasn't working.
💬 Don't drink more than you can handle in a zombie apocalypse 💬 Cause. If my favorite brother gets zombied I'm going to be mad at you
Hugh didn't know if the tone was light enough in text. He hoped so. He swallowed the desire to actually go and sit somewhere with Eliot. It wasn't a thing he could do, so there was no point in wishing for it. He typed out half a sentence reminding Eliot that he was here and then he deleted it. Eliot knew. He had already said it.
Only brother. Eliot thought. He almost wrote that very response out and sent it. But Eliot paused. His mind wasn’t working as quickly or clearly thanks to the alcohol. Was he the only brother? Eliot felt like he should know this. He was fairly certain he did know this at one point.
Despite technically having brothers back home, Hugh was his only brother.
He looked at his phone frowning.
Eliot thought about saying something designed to piss Hugh off. He thought about saying something witty and apathetic. He thought about telling Hugh that he loved him, too.
Eliot put his phone away, and took another swig from his flask.