Vivamus, Moriendum est (Rorschach x oc)

30. Lay it on the Line

Mary's P.O.V. *MATURE CONTENT WARNING: DESCRIPTION OF WAR*

Roger had carried me into a bedroom in the house. It had an old western feel to it. A spacious room with rustic wooden interior. He gently placed me onto a bed with a wooden frame spread with white linen sheets decorated with a comforter patterned with beautiful geometric stitch work. 

A window was placed directly in front of the bed. Admittedly, the scene sprawling out beyond it was beautiful. The sky looked to be a clearer blue than I'd ever seen it and the picturesque ranch spread out before me with rolling hills spotted with green in the distance. 

Unsure what else to do with my head still pounding in my ears, I sat there staring off at the view. 

"I'll uh-I'll be back." Roger said quietly. I didn't acknowledge him.

Though sure enough, I had been left in the first peaceful silence I'd had in a while before he came back and ruined it. 

"I brought tea." He announced before coming to stand beside me.

"Tea fixes everything." His voice held a strange nostalgic sadness as he said this. He let out an odd little chuckle.

"My mum always used to say that. Tea fixes everything."

He went quiet a moment, holding the mug out to me. Without breaking my gaze out the window, I accepted it from him. I cradled the steaming mug it warmed my hands well, maybe even a little too much, but I kept it there. Not taking a sip but just holding it as if it were an old toy from childhood, something I'd lost once and determined to never do so again.

Roger sat on the edge of the bed behind me.

He laughed again, this time it came out darker than the last. 

"I don't think it actually does fix anything. I used to guzzle it down every night as my mum would give it me saying it fixed everything. Everything would be okay if I just drank my tea. I actually believed that. Because I'd just fall right asleep sometimes before I'd even finish the cup. But after a few mornings waking up and still seeing the craters in the ground from all the bombs. The buildings that fell during the night... I started to realize the bombs still fell I just couldn't hear 'em.

My mum was drugging me to sleep every night. So, I'd stop crying. I don' blame her. Must have been bloody annoying. And it probably wasn't good staying up nights on end while the raids happened. Then every morning my mum would put on me shoes and drag me out into the streets of London. We'd look through nearly every pile of rubble. It scared me so bad. Sometimes we'd find people. Their skin blackened by ash or fires I didn' really know, but they were blackened all the same. Clothes singed. She did it because she hoped to find my father out there in dust and chaos. It never really seemed to occur to her that having been drafted he'd be experiencing some other fresh hell of war out in another part of Europe. Still every morning she'd be out there after each bombing. 'Everette!' She'd scream till her voice went hoarse. I hated going out there through all the destruction. I think the time that did it for me was when we found an old man trapped beneath the bricks of his own house. His face was caved in. There was a kid younger than me even, I might've been four at the time so maybe two. Face covered in soot, knees bloody. The kid stood there crying his bloody lungs out. I thought the man was dead. My mum delusional as she was thought she saw me dad in him for a moment asked me to help clear the brick. I tried my best not to look at that face. As I shifted some rubble he reached up and grabbed my arm. I screamed and tried to pull away. He wouldn't let me. Finally, he went limp dropped his arm and I ran back nearly toppling the other poor kid.

That stuck with me forever. I can't see it as well anymore. I made sure I wouldn't be able to later on. Tea never helped me forget that. It never erased the images of a war-torn flaming city from my mind. And it never did a damn thing to find my father. Come to find after the war he had escaped the draft at home and ran away to America. The f-king twat managed to build the very ranch were on now. Married some American woman, had my sister Daphne and drank himself into the grave at the age of fifty-five. I really felt for my mum when she found that out. She wanted to fly over here but I guess could never decide what she'd do. She tried to go back to work after the war but quickly got fired. She was like a shell of a woman after that. I'd come home and she'd be sat on the sofa, not blinking, not moving, barely breathing, eyes glassed over. She'd gotten a hold of some nasty stuff from some nasty people. Never the same after that. People would talk about her. At school they taunted me about her. Yet, the few times she was sober after that she never seemed to remember the war or my bastard father who left us to face the war by ourselves. She didn't seem fully there, but she seemed oddly serene. 'Mummy drank her tea," she'd say, "mummy is fine because she drank her tea". I took care of her as long as I could then one afternoon in year ten, I came home and there she was leaning against the sofa cushions. An odd smell clouded the room. This time a needle stuck from her arm, and she wasn't breathing at all. 

After her funeral which was a quiet hushed thing mind you with lots of condescending pity, I decided to take up whatever it was she was on. I think in some vague sense I knew that what she had taken had killed her. But at the time I didn't care. It seemed to fix her. Better than the tea ever did. And well it turned out to be heroin and I was out of school within the next year."

He paused, "I've never told anyone this. Not even Ollie. I tried once but he told me to shut up and said I started to get daft if I talked too long. I met him a year into my stint on the streets. He approached me and told me he thought I had potential. He took me under his wing and let me live with him. He introduced me to music which was a huge catharsis for me. Told me he was starting his own band. Taught me to play drums. He could play anything, I thought he was a god for that. I begged him to teach me everything he knew. And he got me off heroin, said it made me too much like a slug. 'Coke is more fun anyway' he'd say. It's what you do if you want a good time. It was shocking how good it made me feel. Well, maybe it only felt good because after so long of being numb it was good to feel anything at all. And not only could I not remember the ravaged streets, but I could have fun as well."

He sighed.

"I'm telling you this one because it feels nice to tell someone. But also, I owe my life to Ollie. I-I know you've been hearing all sorts about him and you're probably suffering a bit right now but if he hadn't found me, I'd be like my mum right now. That's the thing about James Oliver, he finds you in your suffering but once you're with him he makes it better. It's always a little hard in the beginning, ya know because he hasn't had a chance to work his magic yet. Trust me, the longer you're with him the better it'll get. He's a bit of a wanker sometimes and he's got a temper, but he means well. And so do I."

He stood up from the bed, "I bet you're still in a lot of pain right now. I don't think the tea will help but it's a nice sense of security. Was for me anyway."

His footsteps padded across the floor as he moved to the door. "Tea can't fix your pain but James Oliver sure can. I'm living proof of that. Get some rest, Mary."

The door creaked open and shut softly.

I was alone once more. My hands had turned red, but the steam had slowed no longer steadily rising off of the surface. I stared into the dark opaque liquid. Not knowing what I expected to stare back I raised the cup to my lips and took a sip. The taste came more bitter than I thought tea should be. With a shrug I drained the mug. 

A fogginess came over me, my eyelids suddenly heavy. I only had a second to think of where all the clouds had suddenly come from before there were no clouds at all. Everything darkened until there was nothing and I fell backwards cushioned by soft linens.