Carol
*And i love ~~vermont~~ briar ridge / but it's the season of the sticks / and i saw your mom / she forgot that i existed / and it's half my fault but i / just like to play the victim / i'll drink alcohol 'til my friends come home for christmas / and i'll dream each night of some version of you / that i might not have known / but i did not lose / now you're tire tracks and one pair of shoes / and i'm split in half / but i think that'll do*

He is not a good man, but he is not heartless. That's what gets him at the Cooper Farms one night too late into the evening than is appropriate for him to be here, standing, looking at Charlie Cooper as he sits on a log.

He shouldn't be here, this he knows, but he's in his jeans and the sweater that Hazel made him, a silent flag, saying *I come in peace.* He knows he is not a good man, but Charlie Cooper has lost his father, and that's something Valerian Barca knows intimately. There was no one there for him when his father died - not even his mother - and while Charlie Cooper and Valerian Barca aren't the same boys they were back then, this was the log they'd sit on and share stories and giggle about girls and boys and everything in between. 

Valerian Barca doesn't know why he knew Charlie Cooper would be here. He just knew.

_ _
They say nothing to each other for the longest time, instead just maintaining some semblance of half-eye contact as the winter night comes to a close. They're both well-aware of what this is, some attempt at an apology, the first time they've spoken to each other since either of them came home. How Valerian wishes it were on better terms. How a part of him wishes they could suspend the injured and injurer look, here; how he wishes that Charlie's coat and Valerian's sweater were the bedsheets they ran around in as boys, playing heroes and knights and soldiers together. For now, it'll have to do, and Valerian intends to put everything at the door for this moment of grief.

How sick he feels, knowing what he knows - knowing that *Charlie knows what he knows,* Knowing that they'll take this to their graves, one more binding coil that separates and yet attaches them to one another. The silver string of fate binds them together in some semblance of fraternal kindred, as if for a moment they *Are* The boys they once were, and while Charlie may not be able to forgive Valerian for the things that he has done, Valerian will let himself be martyred in this moment to ensure that Charlie alright.

_ _
"Do you smoke?" He asks, and how he *Hates* That those are the first words that come out of his mouth. Of course vice has to exist in something like this - of course they have to mourn with some semblance of indulgence, as if they are burning a metaphorical funeral pyre for the late William Cooper. Valerian knows how this will go - Rafael will post some sort of announcement regarding William's death, it'll be written off as no one's fault, and Briar Ridge will make an announement for running for mayor.

The next time Valerian and Charlie see each other, he fears, will be on opposite ends of a debate stage.

Inviting himself in, Valerian sits down with a huff, opening up his cigarette box and extending one to Charlie. If he takes it, Valerian will light both his and Charlie's with a silvered lighter. If he does not, the one that sits between Valerian's lips will hang, unlit, some sort of de facto metaphor for a life snuffed out. Either way, it gets removed from his mouth moments later, his elbow resting on his knee, his eyes finding that slowly-dying sun. 

"...You have my condolences."
Emerson
The time that followed the passing of his father felt like a fever dream; he knew that, in the end, this was for the best. Eliminating a werewolf was the right option, this was the correct thing to do, and *Yet*— 

Charlie found himself moving through time like it was molasses. His body felt heavy, heavier than it had ever felt in his life. The ache that festered in his belly threatened to lurch upward, to make him sick, to take hold of him in a way grief had never manifested for him before. He found himself wanting to be alone, for which he felt incredibly guilty; his sister was hurting in her own way, his mother was in utter devastation, and he had the nerve to want to be alone. 

It seemed he wasn't granted that luxury for long, however. He was surprised to find the owner the boots crunching their way up the drive was none other than Valerian Barca, and the hazy, muddled feeling of grief was only slightly dampened by the new feeling of irritation. He didn't hate Valerian, but it was its own kind of mourning— for what could have been, what was now, and what would go on to be. 

He knew *Why* Valerian was coming; at least he thought he did. He was sure it was about his father, about the election that would come upon them, about the town, about *Werewolves*— he was sure Valerian wouldn't want to get down to the bone with it. The silence stretched as Charlie sat, his coat pulled tight around his body, his cane at his side, staring a hole through the ground rather than make eye contact with the man before him. 

*Do you smoke?* Charlie almost laughed, albeit something bitter and cold. He refrained from responding with *I've had enough ash in my lungs to last a lifetime,* Because that was unfair. Valerian himself had nothing to do with Charlie going off to the mines at 12, but that didn't mean he wasn't angry all the same. 

He eyed the cigarette and took it; an olive branch of sorts, and the tobacco served to calm him as he inhaled.

He held the thing between his thumb and two fingers, the cherry burning bright against the setting sun and the dark ground beneath their feet. What a sad reflection of their youth; they'd once been two young boys, sat here, talking about everything and anything until their stomachs growled and they'd run along to dinner. Now, they were two grown men; weathered by time and solemn. No camaraderie between them, only silence. *Painful* Silence. 

"Did ya come all the way on down here just t' say that?" Charlie asked him. "Coulda sent a letter, but I s'pose I should be thankin' ya for makin' an appearance." He bit the inside of his cheek and glanced off a moment. It wasn't fair for him to be so angry, so bitter. He took another drag, hoping to find something stabilizing in the methodical pull and exhale. 

"Spent so long away 'n now I'm comin' back and everybody I know is dead 'n dying. What kinda shit is that?" He asked, flicking cigarette ash on the ground.
Carol
"I came down here for a number of reasons, Charl, but none of them feel quite right to be my motivation," He explains, looking at the sky still, wondering if staring straight into the sun will burn his corneas any more than his eyes were already broken. His glasses shone in the dimming sunlight, and he took a drag of the cigarette, breathing slowly through his nose as the tobacco of the cigarette warmed him something fierce. "All I know is that it's the right thing to do, to check on someone who's mourning for reasons he can't control."

*Everybody I know is dead and dying,* Charlie says, and Valerian almost wants to laugh. The people of Briar Ridge had been dead and dying for longer than Charlie Cooper had been gone, but Valerian bites his tongue, here. He knows there are semantics not otherwise communicated. He knows that Charlie is exclusively talking about the thing that took his father, but alas... Valerian had no wisdom, no guidance.

He takes another drag of the cigarette. "Place is damn near cursed, I think," He says, finally moving his eyes away from the sky lest he become Icarus, draped in wax and feathers, burned down his shoulders and back in a baptism by fire. "Maybe we made a mistake coming back." But Charlie Cooper and Valerian Barca left for identical reasons: to provide for their families, to set groundwork for things that were going to save them hardships in the future. They returned for the same reasons, too: to protect their siblings, to care for them in the face of adversity, to bring them to their chest and say *I'm the big brother; I'll protect you. I'll always protect you.* The only difference was Charlie was gone thirteen years; Valerian was gone three. Perhaps it was a representation of how hard they both had to sacrifice to get to where they wanted to be. Charlie sacrificed his body; Valerian sold his soul.

_ _
He shakes his head, tired. He can't help but feel that Charlie looks exactly how he did when his own father passed, legs trapped in some coal mine accident until he passed out from the pain and died from bleeding out. His jaw sets thinking about how he found out, how he himself received a letter that read *On behalf of S&C Coal, we offer our sincerest condolences...* His head turns to the man he once called friend, once called brother, and looks at him. He looks at the curved slope of his nose, so angry and bitter, the downward turn of his lip, the furrow in his brow. Valerian is not a stupid man - he sees the cane, the scars. Charlie Cooper has been in some kind of accident, lost to the mines, where a piece of him died that he'll never get back.

He leans back, back straight as he sits on the log, staring out into the abyss in front of him. Oswald Katz comes to mind again. Briefly, he wonders if that was Mayor Cooper that tore him apart on Barca property. Then, he wonders if it was Sheriff Rowe. That's an answer Valerian is never going to find out, yet he cannot put it to rest as he has put so many other things to rest.

"I know how you feel," He says, eventually putting the cigarette out on the heel of his shoe, setting the butt down atop the snow so that it might cool off before Valerian pockets it, preparing to throw it away. "Believe it or not. Losing your father when you're his oldest son takes something away from you. You have all of these... *Expectations,* Now, and you're not sure if you can keep up. No one stops to check on you, to ask you how you're mourning... For the longest time, it doesn't seem like anyone cares. Especially you. So many people in this town are going to blame Mr. William for what he was, for what he did... They'll badmouth him in one breath and coo at you in the other. Like damn pigeons. I fucking hate pigeons."

_ _
His head tilts his back, this time letting the gentle snowfall kiss the highest points of his cheeks, of his lips, of the tip of his nose. He can't help but wonder what the source of all of this is. How S&C knows what's become of this. How there are other towns out there, plagued with the same thing. He wonders, briefly, if these people can be cured. He wonders, briefly, if they deserve to. His hand rubs over his own chest instinctively, as if he knows something that cannot be brought to the surface. A piece of him, too, gone - ripped from him as William Cooper was ripped away from Charlie.

"...I'd like to pay for the funeral," Valerian says after some time. "Your father was a good man. He gave me good wisdom in the absence of my own father. And you've got enough on your plate now, planning the funeral and everything. No matter what anyone says about him, he deserves to be put to rest properly. At least, I think so. And I know I'm not the person you want offering that - I know it sounds like I think money can fix the problem, and I know it can't. But after everything that's been said and done... I'd like to do at least this for you, and for Alm."
Emerson
There was something so nauseating about the familiarity of a nickname. He couldn't imagine it felt natural coming out of Valerian's mouth— much like *Val* Felt foreign on his own. Charlie busied himself with smoking; focusing on the way the smoke filled his lungs and the methodical *Whoosh* As it left him right after. The cigarette was gone sooner than he liked, and he flicked the cherry until it dispersed into the cold grass, butt stowed away in his coat pocket without a second thought. "It ain't a mistake," He said. "Not fer me." If he had been any later coming back, or never at all, he wouldn't have seen his father again. Alma was already grown up, too; he hoped one day, he could see her happy again. It was the only dream he had left in this world. 

Valerian was right; people were already discussing his father's death in a way he didn't like. He was a monster, yes, but he was still his father. Two ideas can exist at once, and they did, and he hated that anyone came to him at all with *Sorries* And tearful apologies for his loss. It was all bullshit— he hated it. At least, to Valerian's credit, some of what he said seemed genuine... Though these days, he trusted him about as far as he could throw him. "They can't begin to 'magine what it's like," He said, and sat in the quiet a moment. How could anyone imagine? A werewolf for a father, a town in shambles, and you're there to try and pick up the pieces. 

Valerian's words are enough to spring him from his inner monologue, bewildered as his eyes slid to him. His first instinct is to reject it, of course; he doesn't need charity from Valerian Barca of all people. But damn it all, the man made good points. "Fine," He replied, teeth slightly grit as he, too, looked out onto the horizon as the sun slowly disappeared. 

"You gonna run for mayor?" He asked bluntly. "Now that my father ain't 'round, somebody's gotta." He eyed him out of the corner of his eye. "You seem like the politicalin' type."
Carol
It was just like Charlie Cooper to change the subject from something emotional to something constructive - being too vulnerable with Valerian meant that they could fall back into their old habits, that they could be children again. To be young, to be small, to need others to take care of them... But who was there to take care of them? They are boys in the bodies of men - the child inside Valerian died when his father did, and the child inside Charlie did when he left for who-fucking-knows-where. (Deep down, Valerian thinks he knows.) Still, the topic of politics is on his tongue, and instinctively, Valerian laughs.

"Ah, yes," He nods, "The local coal man running for mayor. What a stereotype, hm? I have to admit, the power is tempting, even if it is some semblance of a nonstarter. Even if I did run, Charlie, who in their right mind would vote for me? I know what I've done to this place. I know what I've done to these people." A one-shouldered shrug, his other hand flat against the log they were sitting on. There is a long, long pause, and Valerian looks back up at the sky. "...I'm currently in the process of deciding if I want to put myself through that humiliation. After all, doing *Manual labor* For your sister after she laughed publicly at me, which inevitably ended me up in a house with the girl I like, covered in my own sweat and dirt, and being stuck like that for *Two days* Was humilation enough for now, I think."

_ _
Why is he running? Why would he want to? It's the same thing over and over again - he knows his place, the power he has, the crushing agony of being under Eugene's thumb. For as much as Valerian Barca thinks he is god, he knows that he is barely a cherub, always held and manipulated by someone else. He is a bad, bad man - he knows this. He knows what he is in every universe, in every attempt at some kind of freedom. Giving the silver bullet to Alma and getting laughed at still compels him to go see her, after this. To check on her, too. To pay for the funeral. He chews his lip here, tutting. "Are you?"

He looks now at Charlie, as if that was something he was desperately trying to ignore. As if he was Atlas, and meeting Charlie Cooper's gaze was the weight of the world in his arms. Still, he endures, and he looks at the man he once called friend, lips flat. "For what it's worth, you've got a fighting chance," He says earnestly, shrugging a bit again, as if it was the only motion his body knew what to do at the moment. "Who else is going to run? *Francis Estep?*" Despite the tone making it sound incredulous that the orchard owner would run for mayor, Valerian knows that both he and Charlie hold weight in the knowledge that Francis was definitely going to run.

_ _
A sigh, an exhale. His nose crinkles a bit, here, and the condensation of his breath plumes out of him. "You need to find someone to talk to about all of this, you know. Someone *Other* Than Alma." He can't keep his eyes on Charlie for this part, as if perhaps he is too ashamed to do such a thing at present. "If you don't, you turn into a version of yourself that survives, but doesn't live." He doesn't expect it to be him, and a part of him doesn't want it to be him, but a part of him *Does.* A part of him misses the days of Charlie and Valerian leaning on each other - quite literally - pushing back and forth to see which one of them was going to end up being the stronger one.

In every way, Charlie Cooper was much, much stronger than Valerian Barca.

Valerian was already cognizant of what his weakness had made him become.
Emerson
The idea of running for mayor had tumbled around in his head a few times since the very idea of a vote had cropped up. He supposed he did, as Valerian said, have a fighting chance. Charlie was born of this town; he might've been gone for a long, long time, but Briar Ridge was in his bones. It was in the very marrow of him, and who was he to deny that feeling? He was charismatic when he wanted to be, God knows he'd sold enough encyclopedias to learn a thing or two about selling his product, even if that product was himself. He wasn't half bad looking, neither— and that was important. 

"I might run," He said after a long moment. "If just t' keep Francis from winnin'," He said, a joke on his lips and the bare twitch of the corner of them giving way to something like a near-smile. It was perhaps the closest they'd get to their old back and forth, and Charlie was desperate to run from that feeling as he cleared his throat. 

"A little manual labor ain't hurt ya none, Valerian," He said, looking up as the stars started to make their appearance overhead. He'd missed this; the city lights drowned out the presence of stars, and you had to drive a bit away from it to get a glimpse. None of those city girls he'd dated had ever understood the romance of looking up at the stars, so he'd stopped trying to take them there. But being back home was refreshing, even if he had to trade out pretty girls for viewing them with *Valerian Barca.* 

And that damned man was right, he knew. But he didn't want to admit it. "I ain't gonna burden Alma with it none," He promised. "I got my ways of handlin' things, Valerian, I ain't gonna lose myself over all this." Though he already felt lost. "I've spent the last nearly two decades dealin' with it my own way," Charlie said. "Ain't no sense in changing it now." He wanted to tell Valerian *Everything*. The mines, the city... But there was a part of him that knew Valerian was well aware of what went on in those mines.
Carol
He barks out a laugh when Charlie says he might run to keep Francis from winning. He's not sure if that was a continued riff based on his own commentary, but Valerian is choosing to believe, for now, that it is. He's choosing to believe, right now, that there is still a frayed thread of comradery. For a moment, Valerian's laugh sounds like the scales he used to practice on his guitar, and he shakes his head, only slowing it when Charlie speaks again. 

"I'll do manual labor any day of the week if it means that I can take care of my siblings," He shakes his head again, as if he's trying to shake out something that's latched itself onto the back of his neck and feeds off him like a parasite. "Hell, I'd go down into the mines myself if I fuckin' needed to, but the caveat here, Charl, was that I *Had gone to the house of the girl I'm tryn'a court and I was stuck in there with her for two days wearin' my work clothes.* " He huffed, looking a bit like a disgruntled dog. "I could'a kissed her then, but I didn't get to, 'cause I was too sweaty. Just know, that if I see Alma bein' sweet on that Rhett boy sometime soon, I'm gettin' my just desserts."

_ _
The silence fills them, here; a guillotine separating the thread that was soon-to-be renewed between them. The shields they've built around themselves fortify again, but this time, Valerian Barca is holding a rifle, and Charlie Cooper is holding a pickaxe. Whether or not they choose to demolish them is their decision; Valerian loads the gun and shoots it.

"Could talk to me about it," He suggests, looking straight ahead onto the horizon. There is a Greek myth of a man who pursued the sun so reverently that his wings made of wax burned his skin and plunged him into the ocean. There is the story of Lucifer, whose pride pushed him to become greater than God, and he was thrown from the balcony of the altar of heaven. Valerian Barca, too, was burned; but instead of being thrown from the world and banished, he was burned crawling himself out of the coal mines; he was burned with the acidic blood of every man he killed down there. That's why he can't look at Charlie right now; he's too afraid to know what Charlie Cooper's burns come from, or if they are more holy than Valerian's.

"I've spent nearly two decades dealin' with the world my own way, too, Charlie." Finally, he meets his friend's eye, "And look at the monster it made me. No— look at the monster *I* Made me. I sure as hell ain't a priest, but... I could listen."
Emerson
There's something about Valerian's laugh that settles heavy in his bones; it's an echo of something far older. A memory of sitting there, digging their heels into the soft ground and kicking up rocks to throw; hefty, sturdy things that they could hurl into the trees and disrupt the birds. They were just kids back then, before things got all serious and responsibility lay heavy on their shoulders. They'd been grown for far too long; men with barely any hair on their chests, squeaky voices breaking way as puberty burgeoned, and forced to take on the weight of the world anyhow. 

"You wouldn't last a week in them mines, Val," He said, the nickname slipping far faster than he'd intended for it to. "I'm sure she woulda kissed ya either way, yer being ridiculous," He said with a shake of his head. "Ya think a little dirt n' sweat makes a girl not like ya? That's the secret, ya know— they like a workin' man, I think. Somebody who ain't afraid to get their hands in the mud." Though, Charlie's nose wrinkled a bit and he cleared his throat. "I want my baby sister t' be happy and all, but I will say... I ain't keen on watchin' her get cozy with Rhett Sterling." Maybe it was that protective big brother nature he possessed inside of her, and maybe it was the fact that he wasn't sure he could trust everybody in this town right now. 

Rhett Sterling was a good man; kind, hard working, a bit of a follower at worst. Any other time, he'd be plenty alright with it, but knowing that the beasts lurked amongst them made him feel awful wary. 

The silence stretches a moment and he dug the toe of his boot into the dirt, kicking up a smooth rock. He stooped to pick it up, using it as a distraction as he rubbed his thumb across the surface of it. 

In all honesty, he wasn't sure how to answer at first. Coming back to Briar Ridge had been hard in many ways; seeing old and new faces and finding himself lost in a place so familiar had been hard.

Valerian was a familiarity that he wanted to give into, but he was unsure if that was the smart thing to do. As sure as he could be about Rhett Sterling and Valerian Barca not being werewolves and all, there were more pressing matters about Valerian that pressed into the back of his skull. 

"What do you want me t' say?" He asked him after a minute, eyes transfixed on the stone in his hand. "That I miss my Pa even if he was a monster? That I cain't get the sight of his dead body out my mind? That I shot him, and ain't nothin' can be done to go back and fix that? Or even if I wanna fix that?" He ran a hand through his hair and looked to the sky. "Is that what you wanna hear?"
Carol
*I shot him,* Valerian nods, and part of him feels some guilt. They passed silver through their hands, one to the other. Valerian Barca knew long ago that it was going to be Charlie Cooper to kill his father - and even then, he wasn't sure if he believed Charlie, or if Charlie was lying to protect Alma. He leaned his head back, looking to the sky to see if there was something in Heaven that Charlie could see that Valerian was barred from so very long ago. "I miss my mother," He tells Charlie, "Even though she was the one that broke me so bad that I turned into this."

A pause. His tongue runs over his teeth, and he exhales slowly. Part of him still wishes he had the cigarette, so that tobacco-laden breath could be a visual aid for the breath he took — in, and then out. "I don't want to hear anything. I don't need lip service, I don't need lies, I don't need nothin' but your truth and your feelin's. I ain't a stupid man, Charl, and I know there's a lot more you want to say to me that you're not gonna because this ain't about us - it's about your old man. If you don't want to fix it, that's fine. If you want to fix it, that's fine."

He exhales slowly, running his hand down his face and then looking over to the man he once called brother. Cain and Abel - though, the rock in Charlie's hand was misplaced. It was Valerian who was Cain, who struck down his brother (the scars on his body aren't a mystery to him; he knows what the men he sent into the mines looked like when they returned), and it was Charlie who was Abel, irreparably damaged by his brother's actions. He runs his tongue over his teeth, and he sighs. There was so much that he wanted to do —

_ _
— he crosses the bridge.

One hand is placed on Charlie's back, and sure, it's almost too platonic an action for what the two of them have become, but Valerian doesn't seem to care. It is a metaphorical Christmas Eve during the banks of a war, a hypothetical ceasefire in the wake of the violence that was the full moon, that was William Cooper's murder. He doesn't care to know the details; willful ignorance is, in some ways, easier for them both. *Especially *About this. 

He withdraws his hand, putting it in his lap with its matching half. "What I want, Charlie, is for you to stop trying to be the older brothers we've both had to be, for maybe, perhaps, *Ten minutes.* I want you to stop walkin' around with the world on your shoulders and be *Mad.* Be angry, be sad, be frustrated, be *Fuckin' pissed* If you have to. At Briar Ridge, at me, at your dad, at Alma, at— *Whoever!*" He looks at his friend, his eyes twisted into a look of desperation and concern. "We're human, aren't we? You deserve this, don't you?"

*We're human,* He says. *You deserve this,* He says.
Emerson
He preferred to handle complex emotions in the privacy of his own room; but as much as Briar Ridge was home, it had become completely foreign to him. He'd spent nearly two decades living in an apartment in the city, living a lie, avoiding the disappointment of his family that he was sure he'd face upon returning. He'd done it all for them, he'd sent money when he could. He'd avoided letters, avoided coming home... He'd missed out on so much, and his home had turned into a place so unfamiliar to him. New faces, new things, everyone knew everyone and he seemingly knew *No one* Besides the select few that had stayed and lived. 

Valerian was a constant; he was a familiar face, but even he was different. It had been baffling, to see him— his face had retained some of that boyishness under the surface, Charlie physically recognized him, but the rest of him was distorted by time. Valerian was not the same person Charlie had left behind when he went to work in the mines. In fact, he had become part of the machine that had changed him forever. 

"I ain't been a big brother," He snapped, the rage coming to boil at the top. "Don't you get that, Val?" He spat the words like venom as he stood up, having to use his cane to keep himself properly upright, because his bad leg threatened to give out. 

"I ain't been home for damn near twenty years! I didn't get to be nothin' cuz I was busy working my ass off in those god forsaken mines—" He squeezed his cane handle nice and tight. "And then I can't even do that! I gotta pack up, they say I can't work no more cuz I'm a *Liability*, leg's too far gone to be any use! Can't come back home, yknow, let me family down— so you gotta move on to the city, get some job usin' all yer charms to sell books to housewives, that ain't damn respectable none!" He dragged a hand through his hair. 

"And then you stay in the city for two decades cuz you ain't fit to face your family, you ain't fit to do nothing but schmooze yer way through."

His breath grew ragged. "So ya miss out on everything. On every birthday 'n every moment ya coulda had cuz yer a coward. And then you come back, and everything is shit, Val, and then you put a bullet through yer father cuz he's a monster but who the hell is the monster here?" 

His chest heaved, his hand shook and he begged for it to steady. "I didn't want t' kill him," He said after a second. "But I knew it was the right thing to do, cuz if I didn't, I could lose Alma. And that's my little sister, Val, I cain't lose her too." His voice was raw, exhausted, and he felt his cheeks color from having expelled all that emotion in one go. 

"So... I can't just stop being the big brother that Alma needs me t' be cuz I hardly been one to her." He said after a second. "I owe it to her."
Carol
_ _
"And who th'fuck told you all of that?" Valerian says, the immovable object taking a step towards his friend. "Because you know what I see, Charlie Cooper? I see a man who *Did what it fuckin' took* To provide for his family until it *Fuckin' broke him,* Who was too worried at being unable to provide for them that he instead took the next best thing and worked what he could to continue to fulfill a role *He* Set for himself? That doesn't sound like a goddamn coward, Charles, that sounds like a *Fuckin' man!*" His chest is rising and falling as his words pull memories from his own mind- with every syllable that leaves his mouth, he thinks of the odd jobs he kept to provide for his younger siblings. He cleaned tables and floors at the Diner, ran courier jobs from neighbor to neighbor, helped with farms, cleaned out stalls, shucked and hammered and sang and laughed and fought and *Fought and fought and fought and fought-*

How the hell could Charlie Cooper call himself a coward, when they are two people wearing the same clothes, except despite Charlie being the murderer, it is Valerian's suit that is stained in blood?

He stands there, looking at the other, for a long, long time. *I owe it to her,* He tells Valerian, and Valerian wants to roar back, *You don't owe anyone anything!* Charlie Cooper has given so many pieces of himself away that he is *Broken,* And still he thinks he has to give more? He looks back at his friend, trying to figure out what to say or what to do. There isn't much more to say as he looks sick to his stomach (*What makes you righteous, Valerian? What makes you better than the man in front of you?*), and instead, he crosses the threshold.

_ _
It's probably too forward of an action, but he throws one arm around Charlie, one that draped over the shoulder, and it was quickly followed by the other, that met about at the bottom of the ribs. The embrace was warm, and disgustingly familiar, and *God,* Shouldn't Valerian hate him? Shouldn't Valerian envy him for being the man that he fought and fought and fought to become? Shouldn't Valerian have the same disdain for Charlie that he does for Alma, that he did for William? What about standing before the man he once called friend makes this any different? What about any of this is *Normal?*

Where Charlie's hand shakes, Valerian stays upright. *I've got you,* The embrace says, and it's so familiar, *Lean on me.*

"I know you didn't want to," Valerian says, his voice warm and reassuring. "And I'm not gonna tell you that what you did ain't the right or wrong thing to do. But I want you to think, Charlie, about everythin' you've been to everyone. And I want you to think about all the things everyone's been to you. And when you think about all that *Shit,* I want you to ask if you are giving out what you're gettin' in return. And if you're not, ask yourself... *Why?* Why ain't you gettin' back what you gave? And when you tell yourself that you think you ain't deserve it, listen to everythin' you just told me. Every *Last fuckin' detail,* About how you worked until you broke and then worked some fuckin' more to make sure that little girl you're so desperate to take care of was safe. Because *You deserve it,* Charlie Cooper. You deserve a fuckin' break."

*You deserved that emotion,* Valerian doesn't say, and he squeezes Charlie tighter. *You deserve whatever you might feel next.*
Emerson
Valerian had really always been a little more eloquent with his words; even back then, when they'd just been two boys running around the yard, he'd always had a more proper tongue that Charlie fumbled with. Now, as an adult, he was sure Valerian used that same tongue to cut down his enemies as quickly as they came. He was sharp, he could do it. Even now, as they stood there, the words rolled off his lips easily and Charlie felt compelled to believe them, even just for a moment. 

He had worked hard, he could admit that to himself. He'd pulled himself up off the ground and fought to keep on living, doing whatever he could to fight. Charlie Cooper was good at fighting his way through the mud, he'd done it a thousand times before. 

It felt like the wind was knocked out of him when Valerian lurched forward and hugged him. It felt so foreign, so strange— they hadn't done this dance in a very long time. They were much bigger now; his arms stayed stone still at his sides as he grasped at what he was experiencing. 

After a moment, Charlie's arm came up, the one not holding the cane, and it came around Valerian's upper back to reciprocate at least some of the action. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, hearing his voice so close to his ear, an experience he was accustomed to engaging in with others but *Not* His childhood best friend. 

This was an intimacy they'd left behind years ago; whispering secrets in each other's ears and hugging and all— it would feel juvenile if he didn't feel so raw. 

"Who's she got if I ain't helpin' her?" He asked, clearing his throat a little. He knew she was an adult but that didn't mean shit— and he liked Rhett Sterling but he was still a stranger in a way, and that was his baby sister. Mama wasn't much help neither. 

The tightening of Valerian's hold dragged him back to reality and he felt embarrassment, having burst out in such emotion "I ain't about to fall to pieces, you ain't gotta try and hold me together."
Carol
*Who does she have,* Charlie says, and Valerian snorts. "Are you fuckin' kidding me?" He asks, shaking his head as he sits there, beginning to pull away from him yet keeping his hand on the other's shoulder (On the side of his body that doesn't have the cane, he reminds himself; Charlie and Florian were mirrors of each other now with their injuries. It's fitting, then, that Valerian feels the responsibility to atone for his sin by caring for them both, and it's fitting that both of their angers were rightfully justified.) as he looks at him. "Alma is the town's sweetheart, Charl. She started that stupid coalition with her boytoy, she's got your ma, she's got Akira and Dimitra and Miss Lefevre and whoever else. I'm not sayin' she don't need you — of course she does. But you don't gotta carry all that on your own."

_ _
"And yes, I do gotta hold you together." His arms cross here, his weight shifting from one foot to the other and his head tilting a bit. He grits his teeth behind his lips as he thinks of the words he wants to say. An exhale leaves him instead, and he shakes his head. "You stupid thing. Briar Ridge is about to change - and not for the better - with the death of your old man. You've heard how all of these people speak of the damn wolves, how they'll turn on their heels away from their mayor. Losing your dad is hard enough without all that shit, and I kinda consider myself a subject expert on the whole dead dad thing."

A hand runs through his hair; he still has a blister or two on the palm of his hand, where the knuckle sits on the other side of the hand. He got them from moving all of that metal, from carrying that weight. He wonders if the Christ got blisters when he carried his own cross to his execution. (He pretends he doesn't get enraged by the sound of Alma's laughter, or runs cold with fear when he thinks too hard about the sound of rifles raised when he took out that revolver.) He sees the embarrassment in Charlie's body, but doesn't comment on that — he knows he has to give him some kind of dignity back.

_ _
"Y'er old man was as much a father to me as he was to you," Valerian admits, shaking his head, "Maybe not in the same way, but... He put me right, best he could, 'specially after my mom left. What you've got is a weight I can help you carry, if you let me. There ain't too many people out there who knew him the way you did, myself included. And for what it's worth, Charl? I think you should follow in his footsteps. This town's gon' need a mayor to put it back to rights." A silent admission: Valerian knows that if he runs, he'll lose. No one wants the coal man in charge. (Little does he know he won't be the coal man for that much longer, the baton passed back to Mr. Kent.) "And I mean, hell. You sold, what was it, *Encyclopedias?* You'd sell yourself just fine."
Emerson
In a way, being chastised like this by Valerian feels foreign and too familiar all at the same time. He imagined this must be what it was like to have an older sibling; he was the oldest, he'd never know what it was like to be on the receiving end of this kind of lecture. "I ain't been around for so long, Val," He pointed out. "People barely know me round here anymore. What if they think I'm in cahoots with my pa? That I'm just the same as he is?" He grimaced. "Can't very well waltz up to them and say— *Nah; I'm the one who done put a bullet in him.*" 

"And there's a helluva lot of people wantin' to run, from what I've heard. Yknow even the pastor's considerin' it?" He raised an eyebrow. "I don't know if I stand a fightin' chance, but..." His fists tightened up a bit. "I was considerin' giving it a shot." He leaned heavily on his cane, the ache in his leg really doing a number on him tonight. His eyes were on the ground as he thought on it. 

"Shame you won't run," He raised an eyebrow at Valerian. "You's got the... Mayoral look to ya." A glimmer of something like a smile on his lips appeared before it vanished just as quickly. "If we're all honest to ourselves, ain't none of us in the right mind to be runnin' for mayor. Havin' to write in goddamn werewolf legislature and all, like something out of a damn story." How dystopian it all felt... Like a horror novel. 

He paused a moment, all the words catching up to him, and he smacked Valerian on the shoulder, like a pair of brothers would. "And don't go on callin' me stupid." He said, shaking his head. "You really ought t' be minding your own sometimes, yknow that? Between me an' Florian, when have you minded yer own?" 

Charlie was mostly joking, but he'd seen it with his own eyes; how Valerian had taken such care of Florian. He was sure it had only continued all the years he was absent, too.
Carol
He can't help but make a face when Charlie mentions all of the people wanting to run for mayor, because in Valerian's mind, the only worthy successor to William's legacy was standing right in front of him. He plays his cards right, here; practiced and concerned. Too much outward support of Charlie's campaign would damage it — *Who would want backing from the Coal Man?* — but too little would mean that the word of Charlie's intentions wouldn't get spread. Valerian has the essence of a viper, though; this is not the first time he's whispered in people's ears, convinced them to do one thing or another. Hell, that's how he got the Briar Ridge contract: manipulation, encouragement, ambition.

He's interrupted by Charlie smacking him in the shoulder, and he makes a quiet *Oomph* In response. *Don't go calling me stupid,* Charlie says, and Valerian laughs, shaking his head. When *Has* He minded his own?

In another life, their roles are reversed: Charlie, selling some sort of something to people who needed it; Valerian, abandoning his family just like his mother and father did only to come back and feel out of place in a world he was once such an integral part of. (A piece of him wonders if perhaps their roles would completely be reversed, and it would be Octavian Barca who served as the mayor for several years only to be damned to the same thing he was trying to stop.) Valerian shakes his head.

_ _
It's true, though: Valerian takes care of others, prioritizes them, places them at the top of his expectations with the hope it serves as a reason for doing the things he needs to do. Valerian is in the business of ensuring everyone around him is okay to fortify the walls of survival around him. He knows he is not liked; he knows there are so many things about him that are detestful. (He has half a mind to go to the graveyard and kneel before his father's grave and cry into the soil to watch sprouts form of his agony and apologize over and over and over again.) He prioritizes others with the intention he won't have to think too long about himself — to be faced with the consequences of the sins he has committed.

"You all *Are* My business," He shakes his head, pocketing his hands. "I've seen what happens if it isn't. Florian's angry, you've got a goddamn cane, Olivia came home crying after finding her man in a bed with another who—*Woman.* I see Ruth has a glassy look in her eye, something that misses real rough, and I see that Hazel does not see the woman I see when she looks into the mirror. I know that Alma is bearing some kind of weight for some kind of fuckin' guilt, and I know that *Despite his best intentions,* Rhett cannot carry it for her."

The light hits him in a way that makes him Luciferian; not the devil, the man who has fallen and built his empire off of the grief of sinners, but the angel. Multifaceted and multi-eyed, a horror amongst people, watching, ever-and-omnipresent. It was easy for Briar Ridge to take him again, to worm him back into the roots and soil, to make him yet another effigy of disgrace alongside everyone else who was here. Valerian's was covered in thorns, too prickly, too angry, too grievingg—someone who could not understand what it meant to be abandoned by both mother and father. Someone who didn't understand what it meant to glue yourself back together incorrectly.

_ _
The Cain instinct is embedded in all siblings; Cain looks upon Abel and sees him as an amalgamation of all of his faults and followings and shortcomings. Cain waits for Abel to become an effigy of all of his wrongdoings and when he goes to God and pleads for assistance in knowing his brother, God won't look back from His doorstep when he says, *You're older, Cain. Help him behave.* And when Cain draws blood from Abel, when Abel screams as he is cut straight through his ribs with a stone that should have only bruised him but instead was too sharp to kill, God is removed from his doorstep and returns to the hearth. And it will be Cain who is blamed for this; the God of your world has too many things to worry about to understand the blood between brothers.



Valerian looks at Charlie, again, and Coal Man does not exist anywhere inside of him: not his eyes (dead and tired, with no gleam to them), not his smile (nonexistent, here, lips turned down in something that reads *I am a sinner, Abel*), not his outfit (that of a man who is preparing for a funeral; that of a man who is carrying a weight so that no one else has to, someone who is letting that rot make him a monster, and laughing because he believes he is the exception to the rule).

He chuckles, softly, acknowleding what Charlie has intended to be a joke. There's a fraternal nature that S&C has beaten out of him, returning. "Until I'm dead - or worse - all of you will always be my business. It's my job to make sure everyone I care about is okay. No one else is going to do it."
Emerson
Despite all odds, despite Charlie's insistence that this conversation was to remain professional— the tone had shifted anyhow. The tight-laced and straight-backed, solemn conversation had devolved into something closer to their brotherly camaraderie, something he had not anticipated. Then again, Valerian had changed, hadn't he? 

The man had changed for certain; the crisp and clean suit of S&C Coal had fallen to the wayside, leaving behind something that resembled those old shirts and trousers they'd worn as kids. Of course, Valerian was still dressed impeccably to the nines— but the soul he carried was of a different man entirely. A far more familiar man, which startled Charlie, but made Briar Ridge feel a lot more like home. 

Of course, Valerian was still a stubborn bastard at the end of the day. Insistent on nosing into the lives of those he was closest to. "Yer job," He repeated, shaking his head and chuckling. "That is how you get yerself killed," He told him, folding his arms over his chest. "But I know for a fact that it ain't gonna stop you none, is it? No, yer as stubborn as they come. Bastard." 

Charlie spoke fondly, even as he swore at him. Valerian was like a brother to him; it was an unspoken thing, he supposed, that should anything happen to either of them, that Valerian would care for Alma, and Charlie would set about bothering Florian in return. Even if they hadn't come back together this way— it seemed that there was always a remnant of brotherhood between them. 

"But y'aint gotta do it alone," Charlie reminded him. "Now..." He cleared his throat and used his proper balance to lift his cane and whack it against the side of Valerian's shin— hard enough to sting but not actually hurt. "Yer gonna help me with this mayoral shit, ain't ya?" He raised his eyebrow. "I figure, your coal industry knowledge and my skills bein' able to sell water to a fish, we could make a good team on it." He extended a hand, to firmly shake on it.
Carol
"Oh, please," Valerian chuckles, a hand on his chest as he laughed. It is a low and gentle thing, practiced and reserved, hiding the true laughs Valerian once laughed in his friend's company. "Between my wit and your experience, the position might as well be yours. I'll swing by later and we can prepare you for the inevitable *Waste of time* This debate is going to be, because there will be one — if the community doesn't organize it, that slop-in-the-mud Sheriff will. But you, my friend? "

*My friend,* Valerian says, because *My brother* Doesn't feel quite right yet. He leans down to grasp Charlie's hand with his own; his hands are cold, all things considered. But then again, it's cold outside.

"I think we're going to make a very good team."