(no subject)
His room at Milliways is simple, attuned to what Seymour knows best: it’s got peeling wallpaper, a warped floor, and the faint smell of mold when the windows are closed for too long. He used to grow flowers in his room back home. He doesn’t.
He sees people down at the bar, every other morning when hunger drives him from his pillow. He looks at some new faces and thinks about talking to them. He never does. When he sees any familiar faces, he slinks back up to his room and comes down when they’re gone.
He hears the musical numbers in his head. He can sing all he wants - and he has, to the point of hoarseness once or twice - but the numbers don’t happen here.
He isn’t awake much, but when he is, he reads and downs beer up in his room. The cans are gone by the time he wakes up, so he never knows how much he drank. All he knows is that he’s not getting far in The Grapes of Wrath.
Today he did something different: today he went outside. Today he looked in the greenhouse - just popped his head in. It looked like it had been repaired recently, and there was no sign of Twoie.
Seymour got very drunk very quickly after that.
He’s sleeping now. The nightmares change, but there are always some common themes.
Like the shop. It isn't always; sometimes it's the dentist's office, or the back alley, or the rooftop. This shop is clean and Twoie-free. Seymour sits behind the counter. Audrey wears a short black dress. The shop window provides a dull grey background to her movements as she mists the plants, more lush and rare and green than they ever were in real life.
“I can’t keep doing this Audrey,” he says. “What’s beyond the door...it’s gotta be better than this.”
“Spring’ll come, Seymour. Soon! You could go out to the garden and it’ll be so green....” She’s looking at him so hopefully. The plant she was misting (a dream-chimera of daffodil and dog rose) sprouts twitching vines.
Seymour shakes his head, hating himself for having to disagree with her. “It would’ve been enough, once.”
“You have friends,” she insists, stepping away from the reaching vines to spray a nearby fern.
“I don’t.”
“It’s clear you suffer from a low self-image.”
Seymour shrugs. Then he chuckles, because he finds a lot of things funny when he shouldn't, these days. “Who deserves it better than me, huh? And I’m tired of them. The friends. It’s not-- anything. Here. Nothing is.”
He stops at the hurt look on Audrey’s face. He glances away while he adjusts his glasses. He doesn’t need to turn back to her - she’s there, the mister gone, and close enough that he could feel her breath if her dream-self breathed.
“You can’t leave,” she tells him sadly.
“Not yet, boy,” comes a voice from behind her, but Seymour keeps looking at her.
“I can’t kill him. I dunno where he is. And Bar - I can't get matches from her.”
“He’ll get bigger,” she whispers, her face close like the time he kissed her when he walked her home.
“And I’m all set for supper-time…mmhmm….”
Her cold fingers stroke his cheek, like she did once before. His arms slip around her waist, but it’s nothing, a brief impression, gone the instant his brain focuses on something else. It’s not real.
“I love you, Audrey.” What’s new is what he adds: “I’ll make sure people don’t feed him. I’ll find him and make sure.”
“How, Seymour?”
He tries to speak, to say he’ll think of something, but Twoie’s laughter drowns out his words. As always. He gets onto one knee - like the way you’re supposed to propose to a girl, the proper way, the way he didn’t. It’s a promise that once he does figure out what to do, he’ll do it.
Audrey smiles at him. The dazzling, breath-stealing, heart-breaking smile Seymour lives for. He’s done right. She’s wearing white, clouds are behind her, four notes play from an unseen piano. Then their lips meet until the vines wrap around him-
She’s gone and they’re all over the floor, everywhere, they’re dragging him towards a fanged, fetid cave-
Seymour’s eyes fly open as Twoie’s laughter rings in his ears. He waits for his breathing to calm.
“I’ll find out how, Audrey,” he says - he can’t always tell the difference between thinking and speaking anymore. “Then I’ll do what I have to. The story’s gotta end sometime. Final curtain.”
He's not aware that he's smiling as he gets dressed.