Make Me (Remdy)

We All Want To Be Okay

Trigger warnings: Mentions of depression, death.

Shy has breakfast with Remington in his house. She asks how his week was, if his new job, if it could be called such a thing, is okay. Remington tells her it's fine, that he's fine, and eats quietly because he isn't in the mood for chit-chat, and definitely not about Andy, the fucking dickhead.

Afterwards, they hang up a 'happy birthday!' banner and balloons and try not to let the blinding fact that the one who's supposed to see them never will. Then Remington leaves for a rehearsal with Andy's band and is treated like he isn't there at all, though not by Andy himself, who shoots him concerned glances because of what he saw in the graveyard yesterday.

He wants to confront Remington, to check he's alright since he was clearly upset last night, but isn't sure how, and knows it wouldn't go very smoothly considering their track record of ridiculous catfights.

The party is as hard as Remington, Shy, and Larisa had expected, maybe even harder than what they had mentally prepared themselves for. By the fourth, "sorry for your loss," Remington swears he's losing his mind, so he snatches the envelope from the woman who he knows was a frequent go-er to Emerson's small art gallery. The young man had great potential. He was selling prints and originals left right and centre for hundreds each, stacking up a good chunk of cash in his early twenties and setting himself up for a remarkable career in art before even turning twenty-five.

But then he was hit by that fucking lorry and now it's all for nothing.

"You don't need to remind me," Remington snaps at her as he takes the envelope. "Don't get any food on the couch, it was expensive."

She resists from sending him a dirty look and steps passed him without another word. Remington puts the card with the others, unopened, on the mantlepiece. Opening them would feel wrong, intrusive. They aren't his to open, they're Emerson's.

"He's in a better place," someone says to him now, and Remington tightens his jaw.

"He's rotting in a box underground, so I doubt that very much. Piss off out of my way."

"Rem, hey, calm down," Shy says from behind him, putting a hand on his shoulder. She smiles at the couple and takes the card. "Thank you, we appreciate it."

"Speak for yourself," Remington mumbles, turning and walking away with anger in his step. Then he turns back around and adds, aimed at Shy, "don't you fucking follow me, I don't need to be treated like a charity."

"Rem-"

"No," he spits.

They watch him walk away with sympathetic, worried eyes. "Sorry about that," Shy apologises, "it's difficult for him, I'm sure you understand. Thank you for coming, it means a lot to him, even if he won't admit it. Help yourself to food and drink."

"Where's he gone?" Asks Larisa once the couple have gone through, having just come from the living room where she was putting a few cards she was handed, wondering why Remington won't open them.

Shy sighs. "I don't know. Poor thing. I feel awful for him."

"I know, I couldn't deal with losing two people on the same day. And his brothers, no less. They were his only source of happiness."

"Yeah, at least we still have our parents and everything, he has no one now. I mean, he has of, of course, but it must sting to see us."

"How could it not? We're basically walking reminders of his dead brothers. God, this is terrible."

"I'll find him," Shy decides, "he told me not to, but I will anyway, in case he's having some sort of a panic attack. He gets them now, you know? He didn't used to before. Or if he did, it wasn't anywhere as often as it is now. Sometimes I think he can see them."

Larisa smiles when someone walks past. "Yeah, good idea. You don't know why he isn't opening the cards, do you?"

"No, he won't tell me. Don't open any, though, it'll only upset him. I'll have a look for him now. Thanks for coming. I know you've never been that keen on him."

"He's family, of course I came. I'll put those with the others." She takes the cards from Shy and the two split ways.

Shy finds Remington arguing with someone in the kitchen over him not being 'in the mood for this bullshit.' She pulls him out of the backdoor and into the garden. "You need to calm down," she then says quietly, pushing the door closed. He's looking at her as though she's the one who killed them. "Look, I know you're hurting and I get, I do. I'm hurting, too. But Emerson's birthday needs to be something positive, Rem, or you're always gonna remember today as being awful and that's not what we planned it to be."

"Something positive?" He laughs. "Shy, he's dead! How is that meant to be something positive? He's dead!"

"Remington, hey, listen to me." The woman steps away from the door and encourages him to sit on one of the garden chairs. "You don't want to spend the rest of your life remembering him as just a dead person. You loved him and you miss him and you deserve to remember all the nice things you did with him."

"Love," the elder corrects, "I love him."

"I know. I know you do."

"So what? You're over it just like that? A few months go by and suddenly it's all okay? Shy, he was with you for fucking years and you're fine with him rotting away in a cheap box under a pile of mud? Charming."

"No, I'm not fine with it at all. I miss him constantly just like you do, of course I miss him. But it's not gonna help to just think of him as a dead body in a box."

"Why not? That's what he is!" Remington shakes his head. "He and Sebastian, they were all I had. We always said that if any of us were to die, we'd be screwed. And guess what, we were right! I am screwed! I don't have shit to look forward to anymore. I don't have weekends planned with them and I can't spend hours with Emerson talking about art or philosophy or fucking anything and that was all I had, Shy. That was it! You're fine, you've got family and friends and parents and all I have is myself! That's-" He breaks the sentence with a sob that he tries to conceal. "That's all that I have."

"You have me, Remington."

"What, you? A walking talking memorial of my dead brother? Fantastic."

"It's okay to ask for help."

"I don't want help," he mutters, wiping his eyes obsessively and standing up. "I want you to leave me alone."

With a heavy heart, Shy lets him return to the rather sad excuse of a party, going back in soon after and putting on a smile because somebody has to be nice to the guests and it clearly isn't going to be Remington.

Remington spends the rest of the evening sulking about with a drink in hand, snatching cards from people he doesn't care to recognise and mumbling under his breath if someone says something he isn't happy with. Once everyone has gone – all except for Shy and Larisa, who tidy his house without asking him to do any of it – he retreats back to the graveyard and sits there in what he would call 'pathetic' tears, picking at the grass beside him and looking up in surprise when someone in a leather jacket with blue eyes sits beside him.