32. Stand Down, Scooby Gang #2
‘Next week?’ Bastian says, his eyes wide. The window is open; a warm breeze filters in through the gap, lifting the papers on his desk, the loose hair hanging over his face.
‘Is that why you’ve been doing all of this?’ Briar says, realisation tightening around them like a fist as they step closer. ‘Because I won’t remember it anyway?’
‘No,’ Bastian says, shaking his head. ‘Briar, no—’
‘Why do you even care? If none of it matters? You won’t touch me now, you don’t want to be near me, just in case - why not just do it? Order me around, use me - it’s not like I’m going to fucking remember!’
‘Because I’ll remember,’ Bastian grits out, face thunderous.
Briar realises they’re standing too close, being too loud.
They’re crowding Bastian, and he’s leaning away from them, an inch away from needing to catch himself on his elbows on the bed.
‘And it does matter, and I do care. About this, anyway.’
Briar’s shoulders wilt. They sit down next to Bastian on the bed, push their hair back with a shaking hand, taking measured breaths. ‘So you were just going to . . . let it happen?’
Bastian shrugs helplessly, glancing at the mess on his desk and back again. ‘Maybe it would be for the best.’
Briar stares at him. ‘What?’
‘You wouldn’t know what you lost, that Christmas. And this, with us, I know it’s not . . . I know you think you’re degrading yourself. I thought you might be happier, not remembering.’
‘That’s not true,’ Briar says - but they can’t tell if they’re lying.
Briar doesn’t want to be someone with a dark vein of violence running through their heart, someone who can excuse Bastian of terrible things as long as they want him near - or someone who can lie, again and again, to themself and others, whatever’s needed to twist the narrative their way.
They don’t want to be a person who hurts people.
It’s too murky, too difficult. Things had been hard before Temple, but at least they’d felt simple.
But to lose every part of Temple? Every hungover breakfast and late evening spent alongside Westby, Tate and Hadley, every stolen moment with Bastian? That’s surely worse.
‘I don’t want to forget,’ Briar says, finding that their throat feels tight, their voice thin.
‘Not even . . .’ Bastian doesn’t finish his sentence, but he doesn’t need to. It’s written all over his face.
‘No,’ Briar says. They take his face in their hands, and when he doesn’t pull away, they kiss him.
Gentle, patient, breaking apart and coming back together, like they have all the time in the world.
Which they don’t. Bastian lets Briar ease him down on top of the covers, his hands clutching at Briar’s shirt, his eyes squeezed tightly shut.
‘Not this,’ Briar says quietly, kissing the sharp edge of his jaw, the soft part of his neck. ‘I don’t want to forget this.’
‘Briar,’ Bastian says, and Briar knows he’s going to say that it’s too dangerous, that Briar needs to leave - but Briar doesn’t want to hear it.
They kiss and kiss him, mouth questing over the corners of his eyes, the hollow of his cheekbone, the silver at his hairline, and Bastian’s breathing is more like sighing, both of them on borrowed time, until he says, ‘Enough.’
Briar stops. They wonder if this is a Working. Impossible to know. They like to think they’d have stopped anyway.
‘I’m sorry,’ they say, backing off. ‘I’m sorry, I—’
‘Don’t go,’ Bastian says. When Briar looks at him questioningly, he says, ‘It’s not the fucking Work, Briar. I wouldn’t - I’m not - you can leave if you want to. But please . . . don’t.’
Briar nods, suddenly feeling almost tearful.
How strange, that this precise moment would be when their heart gives out.
‘I just . . .’ Their hands curl in the air, useless, desperate to explain.
‘If this is it . . . if this is all we get, all I’ll have .
. . then I want to take it. All of it. Let me have this, before it’s gone. Let me have you.’
Bastian rubs at his brow like Briar is bringing on a migraine, and Briar realises just how exhausted he looks. He gets up, goes to his desk, puts one hand on an open notebook.
‘I think . . . look, I’m not sure. But I think I might know a way to undo it.’
‘What?’
‘The Working,’ Bastian says. ‘Your memories. I read it in my father’s office, and I mean .
. . I was eleven. But I know the basic tenets, and I’ve been working on it since we spoke, and I think .
. . the memories aren’t gone. They’re just blocked.
And blocks can be removed, if you know what they’re obscuring.
Or at least, I could try. You should know that I don’t think anybody’s actually ever done this before, and it’s half guesswork, but I think if anybody could do it .
. .’ He looks uncomfortable for a moment. ‘. . . well, it would probably be me.’
‘Yeah,’ says Briar. ‘It probably would.’
‘And if it works . . .’ If it works, then in theory, Briar can have all of this back. The board won’t be able to do a thing about it. ‘Do you want me to try?’
Briar is suddenly very afraid. They’d wanted this, fought for it - but now they’re not sure if they’re ready.
Coward.
‘Yes,’ they say. ‘Do it.’
Bastian takes a deep breath, and then holds out a slender hand, still hesitant. ‘Come here, then. If you’re sure.’
Briar closes their eyes and leans into Bastian’s embrace, the feeling of his arms around their shoulders, holding them tight.
For a while it’s so peaceful, a moment of rest - Bastian is whispering something inaudible, just catches of breath and the movement of his mouth - and then there’s a strange feeling in the back of Briar’s mind, like a word on the tip of their tongue.
It doesn’t hit for a beat or two of Bastian’s heart.
And then Briar remembers.
Jason had been particularly vicious that day. In retrospect, Briar can think of many reasons why - trouble at home, shipped off to his grandmother’s, stuck in a tiny village - but nothing excuses his relentless, calculated vitriol.
He’d been in trouble for picking on them already, Briar running to their mum to tell even when Seb refused, so he’d waited, and watched, and followed Seb and Briar from a distance until they were far enough away from the village that nobody could interfere.
He’d circled them for a while, tossing insults while Briar’s face grew hotter and hotter, already upset and discombobulated from distance from Seb, the hurt look on his face, the way he’d shrunk away when Briar had stepped in close - and then Jason had touched Seb on the shoulder, and that had been it.
It’s not sharp. It’s blurry, as any memory that old would be.
But Briar remembers hitting him. Remembers liking it.
Remembers how Jason had broken away and gone for Seb, a punch to the face, Seb going down hard on his left side - and then Briar had tackled Jason.
It had been so easy to knock him off balance, Briar’s full weight thrown at his middle, and then they’d hit him hard, again and again, until the blood was running in rivulets down his brow, into his ears, pink eyes and pink teeth.
It had felt good. It had felt like what he deserved.
They’d turned to help Seb up, reaching out a hand, and Seb had looked up at Briar like they were the one he needed to be afraid of.
Then Jason had been there, slippery hands clamped around Briar’s throat. Seb had shouted something in a burst of panic, forced him to back off - the Work, Briar knows now - and then Briar had followed him, pushed him, and he’d staggered backwards and gone down.
Down and down and down, over the edge of that short, unlikely cliff, until he lay screaming and broken, cradled in the unforgiving brambles at the bottom.