Make Me (Remdy)

We All Get Lonely

Trigger warnings: Mentions of depression, death.

Remington 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.

"You knew them, didn't you?" Andy asks in a voice softer than Remington has ever heard from him.

The young man wipes his eyes weakly and looks down. "Brothers," he mumbles. He isn't completely convinced that Andy is even here at all. It's just like him to imagine somebody when he feels alone this way.

Andy suddenly regrets all the snarky comments and remarks he's aimed at the boy. "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault. You weren't the one driving the lorry." He sighs. "Why're you here?"

"I like it here."

"Why?"

"It's quiet."

"So's the library, and there aren't rotting corpses there."

Andy shakes his head. "You put it so poetically."

"If your brothers were dead, would you have time for being poetic?"

"Fair point."

Pulling a blade of grass to pieces, Remington sighs. It makes Andy realise how wrong about the whole situation he's been. Remington isn't rude or cocky or insensitive (okay, make he is a little bit); he's just sad and alone.

Like him in many senses, Andy supposes. "Were you close with them?"

Remington replaces his sadness with a hard shell of sarcasm for a moment. "No, I'm sat at their grave having a mental breakdown even though I hated them." The expression disintegrates into sadness again.

"Right, sorry. Stupid question," mumbles the elder guiltily.

"It's fine."

Andy looks at the graves. "You wanna talk about it?"

"What, do I wanna talk about my dead brothers with you, a dickhead who's been rude to me since I first met you? Enticing offer."

"Look, I..."

"Save it, Andy. I don't need to hear it and frankly, I ain't got enough sanity left to waste it on you right now. Is that all?"

That stings a little, Andy must admit. "You don't talk about it, do you?"

"Seriously."

"You know you should. Grief is too tough to deal with alone. The death of one person is enough, no matter two."

"This is really helping," Remington mutters spitefully.

"I'm trying to be nice."

"No wonder your wife wants a divorce, you're toxic."

"Why do you have to keep bringing my wife up all the time? You think I'm jumping with joy at the divorce?"

The younger shrugs. "You'd be the type."

"We fell out of love," Andy tells him. More information than Remington cares to know. "We fell in love too young, I suppose. It couldn't last and we were stupid thinking it could. She hates the sight of me and I her, so drop it, will you? It's not fucking easy for me."

"Well, I say good for her. She's getting out while she can." His words are dry. Andy realises he's probably gone past the point of caring at this point. Sadness can do that to a person.

"Right, that's it. I've had enough of this. I was trying to make you feel better because clearly, you're upset, but if you're just gonna keep snapping at me and insulting everything I say, then what's the point? You know the whole world doesn't revolve around your dead brothers."

Remington lifts his gaze and looks at Andy with deep offense. "I quit your band," he spits. Then he gets up and walks away, pressing his tongue to the roof of his mouth to supress tears until he's in the safety of his own private home.

Andy puts his head in his hands and swears out of anger at himself. He returns home to find his wife – soon to be ex-wife – in bed with another man. "Fuck you!" He yells at them both, slamming the bedroom door, kicking it, yelling again, and leaving the building. "Can I stay here tonight?" He asks Lonny, stood looking rather small on the front step of his friend's place.

"What's wrong?"

"She fucking went and broke my heart, that's what!"

"Alright, alright. Calm down."

"Did your wife just sit on another man's dick?"

"Juliet did what?"

"Just let me in, alright? It's fucking freezing out here and I'm fucking tired."

Lonny steps aside. "Sure, come in. Rita's in the living room. D'you want a drink or anything?"

"No, I'm going to bed."

"You can have the spare room, but the sheets aren't clean."

"I literally couldn't care less to be honest with you, Lonny."

The bassist frowns but leads Andy towards the spare room. "I'll get you a cup of tea."

Andy follows his wearily. "Thanks," he mumbles, losing the will to argue against anything.

"You know where the bathroom and everything is. Make yourself at home."

"Thanks," he mumbles again, sitting on the spare bed and putting his head in his hands.

When Lonny returns with the tea and a bowl of apple crumble, Andy is crying into his hands and he carefully puts them down on the side, sitting beside his friend on the bed and saying quietly, "she doesn't deserve you."

Andy lifts his head. "We don't deserve eachother."

"Some things just aren't meant to be."

"You're tellin' me." He picks up the tea. "Thanks, Lon."

"Of course, anything for you mate. Have a good sleep." Lonny rubs the man's shoulder and stands up. "If you need anything, help yourself or come find me, okay?"

Andy nods and sips the drink. "I appreciate it."

Remington can't sleep tonight. He feels sick with guilt at the way he treated everyone at the party earlier and ridiculous for getting so angry with Andy and he wants to disappear. To occupy himself, he opens all the cards and reads them until he can't breathe and then he cries loudly and painfully into a cushion.

Then he screams and throws the cushion at the mantlepiece and all he can think of doing is calling Shy because clearly, he needs someone.

The woman agrees to come round, of course, and hugs him while he cries. She doesn't tell him it's okay because it isn't and there'd be no point. Instead, she tells him that she's there for him and that he's not on his own and he cries until he's too tired to cry anymore. Then Shy helps him to bed, getting him a glass of water and saying she'll stay the night on the couch so that he isn't on his own. Remington thanks her in a half-asleep daze and then he's sleeping unhappily just as Andy is, and perhaps if they were to be sleeping beside eachother or in one another's lonely arms then they wouldn't feel so unhappy.

Because sometimes it's the loneliest people who have the most love to give.