So, if you've seen my last update on A Spine-Tingling Tale, you'll know that I'm discontinuing my fics and leaving this fandom. However, this was partially written already, so I've decided to post this draft and summarise the blank spaces. My full words are in my ASTT chapter if you haven't read them already. It's a shame because I was proud of this fic, but such is life. The stuff I didn't write, I'll summarise in square brackets and italics.
"I don't want to scare you, Ryan," Barrett began, "but I feel you deserve to know the details for your own safety. You see, there's been a serial killer on the loose in Newcastle over the last month. We came here because I am a criminal psychologist with expertise in this killer's modus operandi - his pattern of killing."
"And what would that be?" Ryan queried, his interest piqued.
Barrett turned a very grave expression towards him. "He targets ... young men. Very young men. Mostly between the ages of 18 and 21. The way he does it is, well, he makes their deaths look like suicides. That, or he somehow makes them do it to themselves."
Ryan froze as he processed her implications. "So, when you saw me on the bridge ..."
She nodded soberly. "He's even left false notes, I've seen them. He's got their handwriting down cold, apparently, but he can't quite match their style, their personalities. That's how they eventually deduced it was a serial offender, and they contacted me since I'm seemingly the closest person with expertise in crimes like this." For a few seconds, she stiffened up too, staring down into her coffee cup as memories floated to the surface and bubbled over in her eyes before she snapped out of it. "That's what my meeting with the chief inspector in charge of the case is about. We need to know exactly what kind of person we're dealing with that would do something like this."
"... Why do I not know about this?" Ryan asked though he guessed that part of the reason was due to him having so little contact with the outside world over the recent weeks. The assault had induced overwhelming disgust and self-loathing in him to the point where he'd been scarcely able to leave his home, let alone keep up with current events.
"A few reasons," Sophia piped up. "For one, suicides of young men just don't end up in the news like they would if they were murdered. If there were a series of connected suicides - or murders made to look like suicides - that would certainly sell a few, but the police haven't given the press any evidence that there is such a pattern."
"If they did, then nearly every suspected suicide by a young man would immediately be suspected to be connected to this case," Barrett explained. "The reports would be too many and too much all at once. It's easier to filter them through the usual channels and then decide which ones are connected."
She gave Ryan a hard look, and Ryan realised what she meant. "I'm sorry, I'm not one of them," he said. "No one made me do this - at least, not like that. I can't help you."
"That's okay," Barrett sighed. "Like we just said, it's worth verifying which ones are connected to the case and which not. Besides, whether your case was connected to the investigation or not, I'm still glad we found you on the bridge just then."
Ryan swallowed down the last gulp of hot chocolate, almost choking on the cocoa and sugar that had settled on the bottom. "I'm not sure I am," he admitted.
"As I said, you can think about the right thing in the morning," Barrett said. "You've been up late enough; we need to try to sleep." She set her now-empty mug down and exchanged a look with Sophia. The blonde woman nodded before Barrett got up and made for the bathroom.
As soon as her companion was out of sight, Sophia got up and started searching through the drink selection again. "Time for some real coffee."
"Don't you need to sleep too?" Ryan asked.
"Nope," she replied, re-boiling the kettle. "I'm not sleeping tonight, not with you here."
Ryan immediately understood what she meant. "Might get a bit boring just watching me sleep all night."
"Then I hope I stay bored all night," Sophia said firmly, reaching for the real coffee. Ryan didn't have it in him to argue.
Barrett returned minutes later, taking over Sophia's role as watcher while the other woman used the bathroom. She whispered her explanations to Barrett on her way out and she nodded in agreement.
Soon after, Barrett was settling into one of the twin beds. She offered Ryan the other bed, but he declined, feeling too awkward about sleeping in the same room as an older woman he'd just met. Instead, he and Sophia stayed on the sofas as she prepared for a long night on suicide watch.
"You really should try and sleep," Sophia said, in a bare whisper so as not to disturb Barrett.
"Bit hard to sleep with an audience," Ryan muttered back.
Sophia brought out her phone and fixed her gaze on it. "I'm not staring at you now. Don't get any ideas; I can still hear you."
She needn't have worried - Ryan was out like a light within the next ten minutes.***
I should be dead. I should be dead. I should be dead.
The mantra hadn't stopped playing in Ryan's head since he'd woken up, his stiff and sore joints reminding him that his body was very much alive - even more so after the first food in days.
I should be dead.
They'd left the hotel in a daze. Barrett had left them at some point, presumably to meet with the chief inspector of the case of the linked young male suicides. Ryan had been left with Sophia, following her around the streets of Newcastle like a lost puppy. Even in his idle communications with her, any semblance of connection he'd felt with her the night before had slipped away.
[Eventually, he opens up to her, and they have a good, therapeutic talk. Sophia talks about her relationship with Barrett and a little about her life when she was in high school - she was part of the most popular clique in school but fell dramatically from grace after Heather, the most popular girl in school, killed herself as well as the two best players on the football team. When Sophia opened up about how she'd felt suicidal too due to the immense peer pressure, she'd been kicked off the team and bullied until she tried to overdose. Barrett, however, stopped her before she could and they became good friends.
Eventually, Barrett rejoins them, and they eat lunch in a cafe. Barrett talks about her side of the high school story, how she'd also been part of the popular clique but had been kicked off for standing up to Heather. It's even hinted at that she knows more about the suicides of Heather and the football players than she's letting on. She describes how their small town of Sherwood, Ohio, and especially their high school, had been an oppressive Thunder Dome that she and everyone else had to fight their way through to survive. In a way, it was hard to blame the popular clique for trying their hardest to stay at the top.]
"What did you do when you got out of there?" Ryan asked.
"Bought a motorbike, changed my name and moved up to Seattle," Barrett said casually. "Went to college, majored in criminal psychology, published a few papers drawing on my own experiences and, well, the rest is history. I ended up marrying a lawyer."
Ryan nodded slowly before turning to Sophia. "What about you, then? What do you do?"
"I'm a lawyer," she said simply.
Ryan found himself perplexed at the knowing smirk on her face before he pieced together Barrett's words from just prior.
Sophia smiled at the realisation on his face. "Yep. We moved out of town together after graduating high school. Stayed together all through college until it was legal to marry in our state. We were lucky - Washington was legalised a few years before most of the rest of the US, including our home state of Ohio." She looked pensive again. "I changed my name too. It was tough cutting off our old life, but what happened there was ... we just had to erase ourselves from the narrative."
"And yet it's unacceptable for me to erase myself from the narrative?" Ryan parroted, raising an eyebrow.
"That's not the same thing, and you know it," Barrett retorted firmly, before softening. "Ryan ... I'm sorry you've had it rough. You're young; you're damaged, you're frightened. To be completely candid, I wish I could wave a magic wand and make it all better for you, but I don't own a magic wand and I'm pretty sure none of us here do. Just answer me this - what kind of life do you want? What kind of life would you want to have and not want it to end?"
Ryan winced. The question of what-might-have-been was one that he'd been toying with for far too long. It was an exhaustingly painful game to play, one that left him curled up and shedding silent tears into his knees every time he did, trying to ride out the stinging wave of unforgiving loneliness and futility. But it was too much effort to stay away from, like an insect bite you couldn't stop scratching.
He sniffed. "I want... I wish everything were different," he admitted. "I wish my mum were good; I wish my dad had stayed around a little longer. I wish my sister didn't fall out of a window and be paraplegic for the rest of her life. I wish she, at least, understood why I couldn't mourn our mum dying. I wish I didn't have to go through life like I was fighting a war every step of the way."
He gripped the hot mug in his hands as a lump formed in his throat. "For so long, all my hope was pinned on Chloe who I didn't even know and who didn't know me but ... you know, maybe if I did, maybe if I could just talk to her then I could be okay but ... then I finally met her and ... nothing was different at all. I wish everything had changed back then; I wish I had changed back then. I wish I was part of ... something. I wish anything I said, or did, mattered to anyone. I mean, let's face it - would anyone even notice if I just disappeared tomorrow?!"
Sophia quickly removed the mug from his shaking hands, placed it on the table and grasped his hand in both of hers. He clutched hers back for dear life as he tried not to break down all over again in the middle of the cafe. "I can't live like this. Not now and not for the rest of my life. I just can't."
[Barrett and Sophia comfort him and conspire quietly among themselves until Barrett proposes ...]
"Sometimes, instead of erasing yourself from the narrative, maybe try ... writing your way out of it."
Ryan frowned. "I'm not sure I follow."
"Think of it this way," Barrett said. "If you had died last night, the story would've ended completely. It's not a good story, I'll give you that, and it would've had an even worse ending. But if you write your way out, the narrative doesn't have to end - it just changes."
"And how do you suggest I do that?" Ryan asked pointedly, raising an eyebrow.
"What did we just say about what we did when things got too bad?" Sophia pointed out.
"I don't own a motorbike," Ryan stated.
"No, but I do," Barrett said, her juvenile smirk playing on her features once again.
[Barrett suggests that Ryan change his name, leave his old life behind - what little of it there was - and come back with them to America. Insert lyrics/references to Sincerely Me from Dear Evan Hansen here (yes, this is still a fic mostly written for the purpose of having the excuse to cram in a lot of musical references), which are about reinvention and changing who you are. Ryan, understandably, isn't 100% on board with it at first]
Sophia paused. "Have you ever actually grieved, Ryan?"
"I've already told you why I won't grieve for my mum," Ryan replied through gritted teeth.
"That's not what I meant," Sophia said. "I mean, have you ever grieved for your sister?"
The question took Ryan off guard. "W-what?"
[Sophia tells him that, judging from what he's told them, he never properly let himself feel the loss of Chloe cutting him off after their mother died, he just tried to ignore it before attempting to erase her by burning her letters. Ryan gets pretty emotional at this revelation, and they quickly have to leave the cafe so he can break down in their car, feeling the loss of his sister freshly.]
"It's okay," Sophia whispered. "I know that this is moving really fast for you. It feels like your world has turned upside down. I know there's no replacing what you've lost and you need time to grieve. But we won't abandon you. We'll be right here by your side. Everything's going to be okay."
[Ryan contemplates his options, decides he really has nothing left to lose and agrees to leave everything behind. Just before he does, however, he's left with just one thing to do. He calls the suicide hotline again and asks for Sylvester Cole.
If there's one thing I regret, it's not getting to writing the second and final conversation with Sylvester - where Ryan tells him that he has been found and that if Sylvester hadn't kept him around for long enough for Barrett and Sophia to see him, he would've been dead. Sylvester is over the moon, but still nervous, and makes Ryan promise that he will live. Thankfully, Ryan promises he will, and lets him know that this is the last conversation he will have as Ryan Reeves - he's changing his name and writing his way out, starting again somewhere new. Sylvester is worried and asks to talk to Barrett and Sophia. They assure him that they're legit. They say their goodbyes, Ryan changes his name to Aaron Flint because I say so. References to Hamilton and Heathers are sprinkled liberally throughout as well as any others that I would've felt appropriate. Wish I still had the fuel to write it properly. The fic ends with this line]
With that, Dr Barrett Watts, Sophia Lance and Aaron Flint boarded their plane and flew away back to Seattle, together. Just behind them, the world seemed to burn.
Good Lord, the parts written in italics and square brackets were cringey. I know there are a few too many loose ends still untied by the way I laid things out, like the fact that there's apparently a serial killer in Newcastle that's just ... left there. A more diligent writer than I would've planned things out a lot better - if I had the motivation, I probably would've too - but as is, I am a simple person who now has a special interest in musicals so rampant that I literally inserted two characters from one right under your noses. Okay, I'll clarify - Barrett and Sophia are literally meant to be Veronica Sawyer and Heather McNamara from the musical Heathers. The part about them changing their names isn't actually out of character for them, trust me. I would explain further but honestly, go listen to the Heathers musical yourself. And then watch Hamilton on Disney+ if you can. Then go listen to Dear Evan Hansen, the initial inspiration for this fic, and Be More Chill, which is basically Dear Evan Hansen's awkward, geeky younger sibling who people often meet through their popular older sibling, but still has a charm of their own. Sorry, I'm rambling right now.
Honestly, it's actually kind of fitting that this fic ends, in its own shoddy way, with Ryan leaving his old life behind and starting over somewhere else as that kind of what I'm doing with this fandom. Unlike him, I'm not burning my bridges though. I love all of you guys and I won't ever forget any of you. Maybe I'll be back to join you further down the line, but for now I'll say ... farewell, Dumping Ground fandom. Thank you for being awesome.
Justice xxxxxx