Item Post

[fuck_it]

It feels like a long fuckin' time ago that Chris walked out of his hut on an island a long way away and found his brother's grave stone. He reckons it's still there, because unlike the stuff he had on him and Anwar the toad, it never turned up with him. At least, so far as he can tell. It's a big city and he still hasn't managed to see all of it.

It bothered him at first, that reminder of Peter still being stuck there while he'd moved on, but there's really fuck all that Chris can do about it anyway, so he mostly tries not to think about it. And he's been doing a pretty good job of that, at least until he cuts through the graveyard behind one of the churches on his way home and happens to look down at the right moment.

Or maybe it's the wrong moment, because he would've just kept on going if he hadn't seen the name on the stone there, the one he thought he left back on the island, or back in Bristol.

Peter Miles
Brother, Son and Angel

Where he goes, Peter goes too, it seems.

At least they're in the same place again, that is, if it's everything and not just the stone there. Chris never found out for sure on the island and he doesn't think he wants to know here either. He makes a note of the church he's walked behind and is about to go on his way— he'll be back to visit, he always comes back to visit— except the marker just next to Peter's catches his attention. It's just a wooden cross, nothing as fancy as what Peter's got, or as the ones with the giant statues of angels and all. But Chris's own name is engraved on the wood there: Christopher Miles in neat letters.

He doesn't know how long he just stares at it, but it's long enough that he loses track of time, that he forgets for a bit that he was headed home in the first place. Is he down there? Buried underneath the dirt, would he find himself if he dug into the dirt? It's fucked to think about and Chris doesn't want to know.

But there they are, both the Miles boys, just like they're 'sposed to be, Chris thinks. At least there's something dead set on keeping bits of his family together.

[Open to people who know Chris, set in August.]

Comments

[pointzerothree]

It's only by chance that, on his way past the church, Eduardo happens to glance into the cemetery, catching sight of Chris there. Ordinarily, it's not somewhere he would have lingered, least of all because it's been a long day and he's looking forward to getting home. Something about the way Chris is just standing there, though, makes him reconsider, and after a moment, he's heading through the iron gate, making his way slowly, carefully in Chris' direction. Though it feels somehow a little irreverent, it's not enough so for him to really care.

"Hey," he says, quiet in large part because it's nearly silent out here, and he doesn't want to startle Chris. "Everything okay?"

[fuck_it]

"Yeah," he lies, and it takes maybe a second longer than it should before Chris takes his eyes off of the wooden cross to look over at Eduardo, "Yeah, it's cool."

He's sure Olive probably told him about Peter, back on the island. Either that, or he'd probably fuckin' noticed the stone right outside his hut. But the other thing, he hasn't told anyone about. Not since Claire, and he doesn't think Cassie or Maxxie did either.

[pointzerothree]

The headstone, he recognizes, having seen it on the island, even if he still isn't sure if he ought to ask about it or not. The cross, though, looks unfamiliar at a glance, and though it leaves Eduardo plenty curious, just knowing that keeps him from wanting to look more closely just yet. This might be a public place, but he can't shake the feeling that he's intruding somehow.

"Is that —" he starts, nodding towards the gravestone, then pauses, reconsidering. "That was on the island, right? In front of your place."

[fuck_it]

"My brother's," Chris says with a nod. That much has never been a secret. Or at least, not since whatever ran the island saw fit to put the grave stone right in his yard. Maybe he never came out and told everyone who ever came by his hut why it was there, but he reckons most people probably worked out it was someone related to Chris.

He doesn't remember if he ever told Eduardo, but supposes Olive probably mentioned it or something.

[pointzerothree]

"Shit," Eduardo says, mouth working into a frown. Now that Chris has said so, he thinks Olive might have mentioned it at some point, but being told by Chris himself is kind of different, anyway. It makes him think, fleetingly, of his own brother, and how long it's been since they've seen each other, but it doesn't last. Right now, that doesn't seem half as important as this. "Has this been here, or did you only just find it?"

[fuck_it]

"Turned the corner and there it was," Chris replies, which isn't the clearest answer there is, but he's not exactly working at full capacity just now. Not with his name etched there in the wood, not when he's stuck thinking about just what happens if he ever leaves Darrow. Maybe there was this second place, this third chance for him, but his luck's got to run out eventually.

It did in Bristol.