Work Text:
A sinking feeling every second of the day. Ben Yero doesn't know how many more of those he can take, and it's been barely a week, and his lifeguard of a brother is not there to help. He is, in fact, the reason of his shipwreck.
Ben wonders if it is a mistake. Perhaps, Louis got lost on an assignment. Got distracted with a pile of documents from a secret destination, and would emerge with a wrinkled stack in his hand and a pleased smile, victorious.
But two weeks pass and there is no Louis, no papers, no victory. No peace of mind.
DEO is not helpful. Ben wants to stomp to their headquarters, find anyone to scream at, to ask questions. He knows deep in his heart that they are just as clueless, but blaming them is easier. Gives him at least an ounce of an explanation more than the empty telegram he has read over and over.
"There is no body."
There is nothing to bury. But they still get a plot, a cross, a eulogy, a prayer. He swallows an ocean of tears before he can even get to the beginning of his speech. Afterwards, he holds his children and lets his wife comfort him as they mourn for Uncle Louis.
And in a blink of an eye, it is a year passed. The hope of his return still lingers. There is no body, after all. But the pain dulls, and never leaves. A puncture hole in Ben's heart that cannot be mended.
He smiles a little more often. Listens to vinyl from Louis' collection that he picked up from his home. Not his taste in music, but a nostalgic sound of it.
Louis is all over his life. In song lyrics, in the chair in the kitchen where he'd sit, in the taste of breakfast they would have together. The photos in the album and one in his wallet. The spot he'd sit in at the summer lake house, now empty.
July is scorching. Summer's brutal love letter. But the night is cold and cooling down, and the sunset plays on the lake with gentle orange.
And Ben... feels it. A presence, a premonition. Louis here a year ago, laughing. And in the today, should he have stuck around. And next year, sharing beer with him and telling a story from work that he should not be telling.
Ben looks around. His heart yearns and aches. Louis is not here.
But somehow is, on this scorching cold July's summer night.