#barnaby and everyone: auuggooodfhsdkjfnd wally is deaaadddd

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

oooo it's been a while since the last snippet :]c it's another fantasy au one where I'm! Putting! Barnaby! Through It!

a minor warnings: implied/referenced major character death <3

 No one eats dinner, and Frank won’t stop tapping his spoon against his bowl. Tok tok tok it goes, over and over again.

Poppy made a simple stew from their provisions, but only Eddie and Sally make an attempt at tasting it. Their halfhearted ‘it’s good’s don’t pierce the pressure weighing down on them all. Barnaby swears he can taste it, thick and cloying. 

Already he keeps catching himself looking for Wally. Where is- he starts to think, and then he remembers the moment Wally fell with a spear piercing his chest, and the grief rises so fast it nearly drowns him in a heartbeat. Barnaby can’t bring himself to try and hide it behind anything but a stony mask. In any other situation he might try to put some levity into the group. Cheer up the sad and empty faces staring into their meals. 

He wouldn’t be able to think of a single lighthearted thing even if he wanted to. He doesn’t.

Tok tok tok-

Shuffling from Howdy’s tent has everyone glancing over at it, and Frank’s spoon stills. Howdy briefly woke up while Poppy was cooking. All he did was sit up, look at everyone, then pitch to the side and vomit. They got him into a tent before he passed out again, mumbling something about puppets. Frank made a comment about how Howdy was supposed to be a bit out of it, not at fae-drunk levels of hazy. Eddie had muttered back a dejected apology, and after that the camp was silent until Poppy’s announcement that dinner was ready. The spoon continues tapping when the shuffling stills.

Tok tok tok-

Since Eddie and Sally saying that dinner is good, there hasn’t been a noise beyond the occasional sniffle. It’s a good thing Julie isn’t trying her stew - it must be disgustingly salty from all the tears dripping into it. 

Tok tok tok-

Barnaby sighs through his nose and puts his bowl down, sick of looking at everyone’s misery. He would say that he’s going to go sleep, but he has a feeling that none of them are getting a wink tonight. 

Tok tok-

Before he can stand, Frank blurts, “We shouldn’t have attacked it. It was a mistake.”

“Please don’t,” Julie begs.

“There’s no need to rub salt in the wound,” Sally says firmly, her stew starting to sizzle from the rising heat in her hands.

“Not right now, Frank,” Eddie mutters. 

Frank visibly bristles, and he launches to his feet. “I refuse to pretend not to have seen what I did! The truth is a terrible thing, but someone needs to say it. Wally lied to us.”

“Frank…” Barnaby warns.

“We shouldn’t have attacked the demon,” Frank barrels on, ignoring him, “because there was no need to. It didn’t eat Wally until the end because the demon is his patron. Wally was never a wizard at all, he was a warlock-”

Barnaby lunges with a deep bark that echoes against the trees. The crickets symphony falls silent. Frank trips backwards over his seat, staring up with wide eyes as Barnaby stalks around the fire, growling. Eddie and Sally slowly stand, inching between him and Frank. 

Barnaby stops, snout bunched and canines bared. He jabs a claw at Frank. “Don’t you ever say that again. Ever.”

Frank’s mouth flaps uselessly for a moment. When he speaks, it comes out as a whisper, “I’m-”

“If you end that with right instead of sorry, I’ll make damn sure that you are.”

Frank wisely keeps his mouth shut. The crickets continue chirping.

Barnaby glares at him until Frank looks away. Barnaby straightens his vest with a sharp tug and strides away from the fire, towards his and- his tent. Just his, now. Murmuring breaks out at his back. He yanks the flap open, grabs his pipe and herb pouch, and heads towards the forest. He pauses only to listen by Howdy’s tent, waiting to hear proof of life before continuing on.

Once he can’t see the firelight anymore, Barnaby chooses a random tree and sits heavily in front of it. Rough bark digs into his back through his vest. A night bird hoots overhead. Crickets continue to make their music, but Barnaby wishes they would shut up for good. 

Light from the full moon pours through the branches to provide just enough light to see by. Barnaby holds up his pipe and quickly puts it to the side to take off a grimy glove. The heart-pad and blue fur underneath contrasts vibrantly with the dust-grayed rest of him. After a moment he removes the other glove, wincing as the leather drags over his injured knuckles. He turns his paw over and scowls at the dirty black edges of the red-raw scrapes. He should have punched harder. He hopes it scars, even though he knows it won’t.

The gloves themselves are scuffed up, but not beyond use. Barnaby folds them into his pocket and gets to work lighting his pipe. He packs it and instinctively opens his mouth to ask Wally to light it for him. The words die on his tongue as he turns only to see dark forest. Empty woods save for the tiny blue lights of night wisps floating on the breeze. 

Barnaby stares into the darkness with yawning dread. He keeps looking. How long will it take him to stop? How long until Wally’s face starts to smudge in his memories, until his voice is gone and Barnaby doesn’t even remember what his smile looked like? How long until Barnaby only thinks of him in passing? 

He doesn’t want to reach that point. He desperately does. 

Will it hurt more or less? Does it matter? He wants it to ache until he dies.

Barnaby frantically fishes his sparkrune out of the herb pouch - only there for emergencies, when Wally or Sally isn’t there to light it for him. It will wear down to a nub within the month. He strikes his thumb claw against it, and sparks fly expertly into the bowl of his pipe. It takes a moment to catch. Barnaby lifts the bit to his lips and takes a drag before enough smoke forms for a lungful. 

Maybe he should have grabbed the stronger stuff. If he breathes enough of it, maybe he’d be able to see Wally. 

But Barnaby doesn’t get up in the end. He sits against the base of a tree and hugs himself, the pipe’s intermittent glow betraying the shine in his eyes.