R.J's Room - 2025

The day after Cookie's death.

Russell James' bedroom.

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Russell could not stop the tears. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't help it.

Cookie...had been everything. A brother, almost a father, a friend, a protector, a teacher...

Russell's sobs were silent, and his throat and chest were constricting painfully. What in hell was he going to do now?

...It was all his fault.

He rested his heads in his hands, seated on the edge of his bed, not even bothering to lock the door.

Vanessa was carrying a tray of food to Jamie's room. Hector was kind enough to offer santuary to Jamie despite... Despite everything. She was shocked, beyond shocked really of what had happened. Cook... He meant more to her than anybody knew. He was the breath of fresh air, her very own knight... She wanted nothing more than to lock herself up in her private room in the chateau and cry until the tears stop falling but she could only do grieve in secret. If anyone saw the extent of which Cook's death affected her... She could only shudder to think.

But Jamie... She could only imagine what he was going through. And Cook... He always worried about Jamie. He would have wanted someone to look out for him. She pushed the door open and entered.

"Jamie? I've brought you some food."

Jamie barely heard the words. He was somewhere else entirely. The present was too painful, but so was the past, and the future was empty, cold, unknown.

He hovered in grief between the past and the present, retaining enough sense of happenings around him to bury his head further in his hands.

"Thank you...But I'm not hungry." He managed to choke out, voice constricted and rasping.

He didn't bother to try and hide the tears. It wasn't worth it. How could he hide his guilt, his grief? He felt he had betrayed himself. Had anyone else done what he had, Russell would have killed them.

Her heart went out to him. The poor kid. Cook always talked about him. She knew how close they were. Cook would want her to watch out for him.

"I know." She said setting the tray down on a table. She sat next to him on the bed. Not close enough to make him feel awkward and uncomfortable but close enough. "But you have you eat sometime."

Rus didn't move. He didn't want to. Never. He would stay here and rot. He deserved to. He could have fought, he could have stayed with his brother. But he didn't. He turned tail and ran, like a child. Like a coward.

"Why?" He choked between the sobs, raising his head slightly from his hands to glance at Vanessa. "What's the bloody point?"

His voice lacked any sort of anger, the only emotions he could feel at the moment being depression and despair. And they were choking him. He could feel it getting harder to breathe with every single sob, as the dead weight of realisation hit him.

Cookie was...gone. Or as good as gone.

Vanessa decided it was time for tough love. She understood what he was feeling, but she couldn't help but feel a little anger. "He gave his life for you. The least you can do is eat something."

Rus returned his face to his hands, tears now falling silently. Not that this new development stopped his throat from slowly shrinking.

"...I can't." His voice was dry and cracking. "He...He shouldn't have!" Rus seemed to shrink in on himself, a faint attempt at a punch glancing off the duvet.

"Why...It's all my fault..." Attempting to maintain composure with a pink face and tear tracks was impossible, so he wiped at the tears congealing on his eyelashes and turned his eyes to the floor.

Damn. The poor kid. That was really stupid Vanessa. "I'm sorry..." She said sitting closer so that she could give him a napkin to wipe his tears.

She sighed. "It isn't... it isn't all your fault, though, messing around with Dark Magic is a really stupid thing to do. But... the Purgers are the one to blame."

Rus hesitantly accepted the napkin, although it was soon wringing wet with salty tears. He couldn't stop them falling.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the fire...he didn't even know if any of his friends had made it either...

Not even his hatred for Purgers could pull him out of his daze. He'd been a stupid, foolish child, pretending to rebel, and Cookie had suffered for it. He was a moron. A bloody imbecile.

Russell couldn't speak as another wave of tears overcame him.

Vanessa rubbed his back in a reassuring matter. "Listen, I... recently lost someone as well..." She said slyly. "So I know something of what you must be feeling right now."

"But, How- Cook," She corrected herself. No one refered to Cook as Howard. If she started doing it, it would be suspicious. "He always worried about you. Won't you eat something?"

Rus was too concerned with the fire he could still see, lurking at the back of his mind's eye, to pick up on Vanessa's almost-use of Cookie's first name.

"D-Did he?" He asked as he fixed his bleary eyes towards her. "...He was so..." Russell couldn't express it. Not in words. Cookie had been everything to him. Well, almost everything.

His brother. He was...he was Cookie. There was no other word to explain him. Just Cookie.

"...he was larger than life, a cup of hot chocolate in a cold winter's day..." Vanessa completed emotionally.

She was starting to loss it. She couldn't tear up now. Not in front of Jamie. "Here," she reached for the glass of orange juice to cover up the fact that her voice was shaking and that there was a suspicious moisture in her eyes. "Just drink for now."

His tears slowing slightly as he ran out of moisture in his eyes, Russell accepted the cup. Despite the slowing tears, his vision was still blurred.

Russell swallowed a few gulps, but the rest got stuck on the lump in his throat. He coughed, replacing the orange on the side table and struggling to swallow.

Vanessa rushed towards him immediately worried for his safety. She patted his back in an attempt to help him. She was really useless at comforting people. Especially since, though she'd fail to recognize, she seemed to need comforting as well.

Russell regained his breath, and his tears slowed temporarily to a halt.

He noticed something in her face that told him she missed Cookie too. He didn't know quite how, but he got that feeling.

In his emotional turmoil, he pulled her into a hug. He had a feeling they both needed one.

Vanessa was shocked by Russell's actions but that only lasted for a millisecond. She welcomed the hug and oddly enough found comfort in his arms.

Now fully enveloped in the hug, Russell's hacking sobs began to slow down.

Finally, they ceased altogether-for the time being, in any case - but he remained in the hug. For some reason, he felt safer and more comforted than he had for a long time.

As Russel's tears seem to disappear, Vanessa realized her own eyes were damping up. She actually hadn't really cried for him yet. She was just in shock of the whole thing. But being in Russel's arms it seemed like she could stop the tears from falling.

Russell noticed her eyes tearing up out of the corner of his eye.

He didn't bother with any of the fake smiles and promises it was all alright. He couldn't stand them. And he didn't believe them himself.

Russell was in no fit state to comfort anyone, not even himself, so he remained silent, holding her in his arms in case she decided to cry.

A strange numbness was eating it's way through his insides, turning them to stone, then to ice, as a harsh prickling started. Perhaps it was guilt. Perhaps it was sorrow. He wasn't sure he could tell the difference.

"I'm sorry." She whispered through her tears. She wasn't really sure what she was saying sorry for bu she felt she should say something. She pulled away from him.

Russell let her go, suddenly feeling much more alone without her in his arms. Odd.

He shook his head at her apology-random as it seemed; what did she need to apologise for???

"No need for you to be." His voice was parched.