#i wrote this before the tucking in scene bruh. came like a punch to the gut

[beedreamscape]

I just like to imagine the point in time when Cosmo and Oscar were the same age and father watches son get older and they slowly lose the old power dynamics and the fights begin to level because he's not a boy anymore, not even a young man — two men seeing eye to eye, fist to fist.

But how can he hate him for enduring? How can he hate him for forgetting? How can he walk away? Sometimes he has to hold him, hurt him, hug him to be sure his father didn't also die that day, mouth forgotten open, wandering spirit, everlasting and immutable.

How do you tear apart from an equal? Father turned brother turned son turned grandson. Lines blur on who protects who, bound to Candela to keep his father safe until he's weak and frail -like a child again- and who else to keep him safe, to care for him but his father? Helping him walk, brushing his hair, buttoning his shirts, telling each other stories before bed because it helps sleep come easier, it helps to keep the nightmares at bay.

A kiss goodnight, wishing/dreading a kiss goodbye.

Cosmo will tell the same stories over and over again like a broken record, an old man's habit, but truly it's because it always makes Oscar's face light up like it's the very first time, he forgets the setup thus he forgets the punchline and the joke is always funny even for the 20th time. It's that smile, it's the son seeking his father's pride.

In Oscar's dreams, they go to sleep together with mouths sewn closed on the same rich dark earth six feet under in four neat rows like in the long-forgotten days of communal sleeping under a travelling tent, the last days of true rest. If he closes his eyes he can still hear the cicadas and hoots of owls, and on the edges of it, he hears the ocean as they drown.