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Evander Darrow · November 7, 2019 – 9:39 PM

1879 — Just After The Funeral

Barclay Darrow was dead.

Their father was dead, and it had taken until today for the truth of it to really sink in. The coffin had been lodged on his shoulder as they walked up the lane with it, and now it had been lowered into the ground, where it would stay. Evander would feign otherwise if asked, but he hadn’t heard a word of the whole service, had only been mouthing the words to the hymns, instead stuck on an ungodly thought seeing the coffin had lodged into his brain.

Eaten by a dragon, it had been, the moment they’d heard the news. The horror had come on at once, the sorrow crashing over, the despair - their father had died, and that was all that had mattered. But: eaten by a dragon. Evander could hardly fathom it. His brain had fogged over the facts, he supposed, for his own sake, until ambushed by the thought here and now today. But he couldn’t move on from it now. Barclay Darrow had been eaten by a bloody great monstrous dragon, chewed up and rent limb from limb - so what was left in the coffin? What had been salvaged of him, in the end? He hadn’t asked, and the coffin was solidly shut. He could picture the lining of it inside, a flat headcushion, everything about it suggesting a body in its tapered shape. And he could picture his father as he might have looked, eyes closed and pallid with illness or gone in his sleep... But that would not be the true picture, would it? What would it be, in there? A few scattered teeth the creature had spat back out, a bone or two with the meat all gnawed off? Just a leg? An arm? His decapitated head?

(Forget being food for the worms, then. The dragon had gotten there first. The worms would get nothing of him.)

He’d had to find something to get his mind out of this rut. Shared memories of his father’s exploits and character couldn’t scour away the gruesome vision, and nor could any talk about God or heaven. Mechanically, methodically, his gaze had sought out the figures around the graveside, flitting across the family members, one by one. Evelina was at their mother’s side, gripping tight at her hand like she had when she was a girl.

Evander felt a little like a boy again, standing here. Perhaps that was only natural, when one lost one’s father - feeling lost oneself. Perhaps that was how everyone felt when they lost anyone. He ought to be glad, really, that he had gotten so far in life without experiencing the feeling before. He’d just turned thirty, after all, and this was the first true crippling blow that had been struck him... maybe that was almost enough to count oneself lucky.

It might have been enough, if his father’s foolishness was something Evander could forgive.

Still, he had family left, and he could be grateful for that.

He’d glanced across at Johnny to see how his younger brother was coping - and that was when he had noticed the missing button. On the bright side, he had forgotten what he’d been thinking about before.

On the not so bright side, he hadn’t been able to un-notice that godawful yawning gap on his brother’s coat since. It was driving him mad. It had been pulled loose and fallen off, perhaps, during the day, or maybe John hadn’t even noticed when he’d put it on in the first place. That’d be just like him, wouldn’t it? Evander would bet anything that he’d be dressed good and proper on duty in front of his Captain Peppermith, wouldn’t he? Wouldn’t have a toe out of line, socks all a-darned. And today? Everyone in their most sombre mourning clothes, on the most sombre occasion of their lives, and Johnny didn’t care to have his own bloody buttons in place?

His mouth had been pulled into a tight line from looking at it so long, his brow furrowed so intently at that particular pronounced place where there was no button, that Evander had not realised, immediately, that the service had drawn to a close, and the attendees, his family included, were making their way slowly down the hill.

Evander hurried after them, pacing up to his brother and grasping briefly at his arm to get his attention without alerting anyone else to the button fiasco. “What happened to your button?” He hissed in Johnny’s ear.

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J. Alfred Darrow · November 10, 2019 – 7:29 PM

To say that this was a surreal experience would have been an understatement. Three days ago, he'd been onboard his ship, with hardly a care in the world that extended beyond the wooden walls of the hull. Two days ago, he'd been pulling into port and looking forward to a nice reprieve, a few days away from work to just relax and walk around open-air markets, trying new types of food he couldn't pronounce and maybe buying a trinket or two for his mother or Evelina. Except when he'd disembarked the ship, he'd been greeted by a relative — one he nearly hadn't recognized at first, given that he was so entirely out of context in a foreign port — with a portkey to England and a dour bit of news. Looking back, he supposed this particular relative had been chosen because he was distant enough that he wasn't really needed for the planning of all of this — he had no direct connection to John's father. Go fetch Johnny was probably the task that he'd been given; important in its own right but by no means necessary for the funeral to progress. It was strange to hear it from him. Not from his mother, or Uncle H, or Evander or Evelina — not even from a letter. Just a uncomfortable and out-of-place cousin who had, apparently, drawn the short stick in the funeral preparations.

Someone had remarked yesterday that it had been lucky that he'd been able to come back for the funeral, that the schedule had aligned and the portkey had worked properly. They didn't say whether it was lucky for John or for the family that he was here, but privately he had his doubts about both. He supposed he ought to be doing something for his mother or sister, offering them some kind of comfort, but he was hardly eloquent at the best of times, and now he had no idea what to say. And as for himself — was the funeral supposed to have helped him, somehow? Brought him some closure? He'd only heard the news two days ago — he was still in shock. Nothing could provide closure at this point, and by the time he was ready for it, he honestly didn't know where he was going to find it. Visiting a grave, maybe? That was a thing that people did when their loved ones died — did it help?

His mind was wandering in that direction as he followed the funeral crowd down the hill. He hadn't really even looked at the head of the grave — did it have a stone, or did that come later? What would it look like? Had someone designed it, and if so, who? Or was it something that had been sitting in a shop somewhere and merely needed to be engraved, and it would look just the same as any other. Merlin, what if he couldn't find it when he came back looking?

Distracted as he was by such morbid thoughts, Evander tugging his sleeve caught him totally off-guard, and his question even more so. John was convinced he'd misheard him — Evander couldn't possibly have just asked him about a button. "What?" he asked, blinking at his older brother in confusion.

MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Evander Darrow · November 13, 2019 – 11:50 PM

Even on the rare occasions when John was here these days, he was never really here, was he? He might as well be half a world away. It was like he had up and left England once, and had taken to leaving half of himself on his ships even when he came home, like he’d splinched himself.

Might’ve splinched that button off, Evander thought darkly. If one could splinch buttons, that was. He supposed it should have been only a small space, a discreet enough loss, nothing anyone would notice - but if Evander had noticed, he was sure someone else would. And Evander had noticed: the asymmetry of the lines of buttons now, that loose, frayed end thread trailing there pointlessly, and the idea that his brother apparently hadn’t noticed, or (worse, possibly) didn’t care, was driving him up the wall. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was aware, quietly, that the button issue was spinning out of proportion. He should have glanced at it, recognised that it irked him and moved on, but - back to what? That their father was dead? That who-knew-how-much of him was stuffed in that coffin under the dirt? That the world was not right and could never be right again and there was nothing he could do about it?

The missing button was not right, either. One might suppose it almost an affront, really, to their father’s memory. To anyone’s memory, to show up at a funeral in anything less than one’s best. Merlin, a housemaid would have shown up looking smarter; even a footman would have checked his jacket buttons.

It would not take a scene to fix this issue, of course. Certainly not. John hadn’t heard him, because of course he hadn’t, he was away with the fairies (naturally, the changeling child he was), but Evander found himself compelled not to simply let this slide without repetition. He slung his arm in front of his brother to slow his walk, so he wouldn’t amble off before fixing the glaring problem, and turned on his heel to face him. “I said,” Evander stressed, wanting to keep the conversation to a murmur but not about to let Johnny neglect to hear him twice in succession, even if he had to enunciate like he was speaking to a dunce of a child, “what did you do to that button?” He jabbed at the air at John’s front, where the button ought to be.

J. Alfred Darrow · December 14, 2019 – 7:54 PM

They apparently were talking about buttons. John was too bewildered to even have a proper reaction to his brother's statement; he just looked down, dumbly, and noticed that there was, in fact, a button missing from his coat. How had Evander even noticed it? It was a black coat, with black buttons — it was hardly a glaring mistake. If he'd been here in a uniform with dark blue cloth and shining, polished gold buttons, that would have been one thing. Anyone would have noticed that. But this seemed so minor — particularly compared to the events of the day, to the ceremony, to everything else.

"I dunno," he responded with a shrug. He was vaguely aware that it was a lame answer, but it wasn't as though he had a better one. Who kept track of buttons that way? Evander couldn't possibly have been expecting a long and intricate tale surrounding the loss of the button. It had probably just gotten loose and eventually fallen off, before he'd noticed it. Maybe it had fallen off just that morning. He probably would have noticed if it had been missing when he'd gone to put it on, if only because it would have interrupted the mechanical motion of doing the buttons up one after another. Then again, this entire day had been so surreal and he had been so numb that he might not have noticed if he'd put his trousers on backwards.

"I s'pose I lost it," he mumbled. It was probably somewhere nearby, either on the way up to or down from the funeral site, but hell if he was going to go back and look for it. Someone could magic him a new button.

MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Evander Darrow · December 26, 2019 – 10:53 AM

John was slow to catch on, and slower still to recognise it as an issue. Even then, Evander wasn’t sure that he did - and that did nothing but swell his frustration at all of this. It was a sign of his brother’s carelessness, if nothing else: carelessness towards his familial duties, carelessness towards what the world might think of him; an omen, too, of a carelessness towards his own safety. He was their father all over, Evander could see it now.

“Well?” Evander prompted impatiently, hoping that John might prove him wrong, and begin to do something about it without waiting for Evander to chivvy him into rectifying the issue step by painful step. It was not an enormous ask, was it? Did Evander truly have to do everything himself in this family? As if to impress this upon him - subtly, and a little subconsciously - Evander stamped his foot on his brother’s toes as he had used to do when they were boys and he was bossing his siblings about. Not that John had ever bothered to listen to him then.

But if John wasn’t careful - didn’t start being more prudent - what good would that do him? A lost button today might be a lost limb tomorrow, for Merlin’s sake! Who else would he end up like but Barclay Darrow, a dragon’s dinner?

J. Alfred Darrow · December 29, 2019 – 11:51 PM

"Well what?" he responded, beginning to be annoyed by this whole thing now that he understood it had really all been over a button. Did his brother have better things to do than critique little bits of his coat? Didn't he have, like, mourning to accomplish, or something? What was he doing holding both of them back from the procession over something so utterly inconsequential, so stupid?

"Ow!" he said suddenly, as his thoughts were interrupted by Evander trampling on his toes. It wasn't that it really hurt, through the thick leather of his boot, but he could certainly feel it, and it was quite unexpected — who did that? Children — maybe sailors if they were misbehaving — but not supposedly stoic Ministry men. Certainly not at their father's funeral.

"Shove off," he said rudely, moving to put some space between the two of them so that he could protect his toes if Evander went a-stomping again. "Find something else to worry about, will you?"

MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Evander Darrow · January 30, 2020 – 12:42 AM

John’s indignation, familiar as it was from the years of their childhood, was not the comfort he wished it could have been. All it did was set Evander’s teeth more on edge, just as the whole funeral service had done, just as the missing button had done, until he almost felt he was buzzing out of his body in rage about it.

“Someone has to do it,” Evander retorted at his brother’s shoulder, still needling as he stumbled after him down the grassy incline, because clearly no one else in their family ever bothered to worry about anything, and like hell had Johnny probably understood the glaring message of their father’s downfall for what it was.

One small slip up, one miniscule mess, couldn’t anyone see? One tiny thing out of place, and it all fell to ruin in a heartbeat.

“You’re not going to fix it?” Evander blurted out next, not sure whether the bile rising up his throat was a surge of frustration or of blind panic. Nor could he explain why his reaction to one moment could be so viscerally felt when he had been so stoic all morning, hadn’t even shed a tear yet over their father. It crossed his mind, the thought what is wrong with me, but even the idea that something was abnormal in his brain was only making him more feverish. Another bitter thought: how on earth could Johnny possibly be handling this so well?

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J. Alfred Darrow · February 9, 2020 – 4:23 AM

"No," he replied, the word bursting out of him before he'd had a chance to temper any of the sudden anger he felt — at Evander, at this entire situation, at the fact that it was a damn button. He had plenty of things to deal with at the moment, and Evander was taking him away from his thoughts — from what might have been his grief. This was the first time anyone really close to him had died, so how was he supposed to know what it felt like to grieve? Maybe this abstract other-ness, this preoccupation with the idea that he might not have paid attention to the right details, that he might not be able to find his way back to the grave easily enough — maybe this was all a part of it, and maybe that was what he was supposed to be thinking and feeling, and instead, Evander was over here asking him about his wardrobe choices.

"No, I'm not going to fix it, because no one cares except you — and I don't know why you care," he continued angrily. He wasn't sure how far away the rest of the crowd had gotten from them at this point, but had the presence of mind to hope vaguely that Evelina and their mother, at least, were far enough out of earshot that they hadn't heard his momentary outburst. In any case, he lowered his voice slightly as he continued sarcastically, "Did someone at the Ministry die, and consequently you've been promoted to bloody Button Baron?"

MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Evander Darrow · March 15, 2020 – 9:15 PM

If it was supposedly such a small thing, it would be a small thing to fix discreetly - so John’s outright refusal to was sheer insolence. His brother was angry, then, if he had taken to mocking Evander for the Ministry - imagine that! As if there was the slightest thing to mock about Evander’s life choices, especially with who was talking - and rage seared up in him too now, his ears burning at the stupidity of button baron. He reached out to as if to clutch at John’s shirt and give him a shove, but he too had enough presence of mind to control himself, and so curled his fingers into a reluctant fist and resisted the urge to kick some sense into his brother.

“Just because I’m the only one who bothers to tell you -” Evander muttered fiercely, furiously - it didn’t mean no one else had noticed. “Do you not care how it looks?” He said furiously, keeping the sentiment under his breath lest anyone from the funeral happened to look back and see them still in the graveyard in this heated debate (it would not look much better). “Do you even care?! It’s our father’s funeral and -” His churning stomach couldn’t take it. Saying it aloud had made the bile surge up blindly again; so with that, Evander suddenly had to retch.

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J. Alfred Darrow · March 17, 2020 – 12:01 AM

"No, I don't care how it looks," he snapped back. He had more important things to worry about than his appearance, at the moment, and Evander did too. This preoccupation with the button was unhealthy, he was certain of that, and he wasn't going to let himself get caught up in it just because Evander was insisting they both go crazy together. At this point, he didn't even care whether they were going to be noticed for hanging back, or even if they made a scene. He was in the right here, and Evander was being insane, and if he wanted to put that on display for everyone who had attended the funeral, so fucking be it.

"And I don't think Dad noticed, did he?" John continued hotly. Evander was getting so caught up in all of this that he had completely lost sight of what they were actually doing here, and what the point of this entire event was. Their father was dead — how could anyone, even Evander, anal-retentive as he could be, care about the goddamn button on his coat?

MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Evander Darrow · March 22, 2020 – 10:43 PM

“Shut up!” He hissed, his head throbbing. By now Evander knew the missing button issue was mildly ludicrous, but Alfred hadn’t needed to make such an argument about it - but then what had he expected of his useless brother? He’d never make things easier on Evander, would he? Never spare a single thought for him. And ne’d not do anything he was told. He’d not listened to Evander a day in his life. (And now they had no father to tell them anything -)

But there Alfred had gone mentioning Dad, and wrenched Evander’s focus well and truly off the button. No sooner than that fixation had fled, back flooded in what he’d had in his head for the whole blasted funeral before: still more gruesome pictures of their father’s mangled, half dragon-eaten corpse in that coffin, chewed up and legless or armless or headless or.... And the coffin was in the ground just a few yards away, but he could almost smell the rotting stench of it in his mind, and - his dry-heaving had abruptly become more than that, and all the self-control in the universe couldn’t help Evander control his stomach. Merlin let everyone else have left so no one sees this, Evander pleaded silently as he turned away and ducked over, angling towards the graveyard grass to vomit up the meagre breakfast he’d managed to keep down. (Well - no longer.)

J. Alfred Darrow · March 26, 2020 – 7:16 PM

Evander had been showing signs of mental stress for several minutes now, or possibly the entire conversation so far, but John had been too focused on his own thoughts and feelings to take notice, or to care. (And Lynn had been too, hence her mortifying oversight last post) It was impossible to ignore this latest display, though, as his brother emptied his stomach all over the manicured lawn of the cemetery. He'd just left quite a mess on someone's grave, John thought, and since it was mingled with the grass it would be difficult to vanish with the wave of a wand. Hopefully that dear departed soul, whoever they were, didn't have any family planning to visit today.

"Hey, uh —" he began, trying to switch to some sort of comforting brother persona but finding the transition rather awkward. It would be easier, probably, if the two of them had ever tried to comfort one another in the past, but that was a foreign concept in and of itself. Having to try and figure out what it felt like mere seconds after having argued with him, and in the wake of their father's funeral, was... challenging, to say the least. "Do you need to go home or something? I can... make up something to tell Mum and Evelina," he offered vaguely, at a loss as to what that something would be.

MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Evander Darrow · April 19, 2020 – 12:10 AM

Evander wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, trying not to notice that he’d got a bit of sick on his sleeve. He stumbled backwards a pace or two, limbs unsteady and his face ashen, trying not to meet his younger brother’s gaze.

“No,” he snapped, more out of panic than anything else. Of course he would like to go, but he couldn’t just disappear to hide right after his own father’s funeral! That would be more mortifying than a missing button on a coat. (As would vomiting on a stranger’s grave, quite possibly, but - he hated to even think the words - hopefully no one would notice.) “No!” His face creased up at the awful thought that he was now somehow being the embarrassment of a brother, and at the fact that John was suddenly being nice to him. Or - trying to be nice. Evander didn’t know whether it had worked. It felt pretty terrible. At least when John was getting all waspish with him it was a familiar sensation, and allowed him to be angry back. Now the anger had been... thoroughly expelled, and what did that leave? A tense knot of worry buried in the pit of his stomach (no more dislodged by the throwing-up), and a gaping hollowness in his chest.

“Just -” Evander buried his head in his hands for a moment, his temples aching, trying not to wish that he could go and redo the day - because even with the added disaster he didn’t think he had enough resolution to go through the funeral service again. When he looked up, it was with a glance of entreaty to his brother. “Just - tell them I’ll be there in a minute, if they ask,” (who knew, maybe they wouldn’t, and perhaps John would do him a favour and not tell them the truth about the rest) “- and -” he gave a weak sort of handwave in something like apology “- you know, forget it.” Forget this, forget whatever he’d said about the stupid button, forget the juvenile moments following it. And... forgive him too, maybe. But that sounded like a little much to ask for.

J. Alfred Darrow · April 24, 2020 – 3:04 AM

John shifted his weight from one foot to the other awkwardly. A part of him wanted to just go, because watching this was — well, weird, to say the least. Evander was having a moment, and sharing moments was not something the two of them did, particularly. They'd never talked about their feelings or even really shared thoughts before; why would their father's death have changed anything?

Leaving would have been easier than staying, that was certain. Evander's words could very easily have been construed as a dismissal. He didn't have to say anything else, and the benefit of saying nothing was that it was certain not to be the wrong thing. Given how generally out of his depth he was at the moment, that was appealing: the safety of saying nothing. He felt like he should say something, though — that it was the brotherly thing to do, or maybe just the human thing to do — but what if whatever he landed on made Evander angry again? Or worse, what if it brought up some other emotion, and John had to deal with that? He might vomit again, or — or cry, or something, and what would he say then?

"Yeah," he said eventually, after having decided that leaving without trying to come up with some sort of word of comfort was the least of all possible evils. Evander was an adult, after all; presumably he could look after himself. He could certainly look after himself better than John could, given that he hadn't even finished sorting through his own emotions in the wake of their father's funeral. "Will do. See you in a few minutes, then."

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Evander Darrow · April 27, 2020 – 12:17 AM

It looked like his brother felt at least a fraction as uncomfortable as he did, and although that did precisely nothing, rationally, it somehow did even things out a little.

Although now that he had unravelled at the sight of a button and emptied the lining of his stomach in quick succession, he was feeling curiously empty. It was calming, for a moment. Then it was just - tiring, and he was half-caught on John’s idea of going home, and half-ready to slump against one of the headstones here and sit awhile, and even had a fleeting desperation that he’d rather his brother stayed just a bit longer, just so he wasn’t alone with his thoughts -

But none of that would do any good. “Mmhm,” Evander merely said, nodding fractionally at John in some kind of thanks. He would take three minutes to properly compose himself, and then catch up with the others. Three minutes and not a second more.