Inseparable

HEY! I REUPLOADED THIS ENTIRE FIC. ALL OF IT. EVERY SINGLE PART. PLEASE REREAD IT AS THINGS HAVE CHANGED.

The cemetery is empty. Desolate. It’s secluded, nestled back into the hills, perfectly silent, and for that Andy is grateful. Right now, he doesn’t think he could take the company of people or the noise of the world.

He cuts the engine and sits in his truck, a little disconnected from the world around him.

It’s been three or so years, and he still hasn’t let himself actually grieve. He’s almost numb. No. He is. He’s numb. Positively numb.

The thing is, Andy has always tried to keep everyone safe and tries his best to keep the peace between themselves and other gangs. When they were all a little younger and way more reckless, back when the gang first started up, they’d made enemy after enemy and fought war after war. Alliances were made and destroyed, but after Juliet, Andy had severed every contact they had and built their ‘army’ from the ground up, twice as ruthless and three times as cunning.

Now, there is no room at all for error. Before there was no care for the execution of a poorly drafted plan.

If they even so much as forgot a fingerprint in a plan now, they’d be dead, and this time they care.

Andy finally drags himself out of his car, his boots hitting the damp grass with a soft thump.

He already knows where he’s going, even though he’s only been there once. The map in his head is sharp and clear, in high definition. The smells and the sensations from the last time he’d been there are still alive and bright in his mind, overriding any possible current ambiances he could be feeling.

When he comes to a stop, he doesn’t exactly want to face the headstone in front of him. Guilt consumes him, making his legs shake and his stomach churn.

Knowing that he won’t be able to stand successfully for too much longer, he sits down on the grass, turned towards the headstone, the name and date glaring up at him, as if it were judging him. Blaming him.

And he knows. Andy knows that this is his fault. Shifting the blame anywhere else but towards himself wouldn’t be right, because this is all on him. Every last word, every last drop of blood, every last breath.

It’s all his fault and it will never be anything less.

Absently, he picks a daisy that’s growing beside the headstone and twirls it between his fingers.

After too long, Andy finally looks at the headstone. Reading it is far more of a challenge than just looking at it.

Juliet Nicole Simms.

The name weighs heavy on his mind, rough like the stone it’s carved into.

He reaches out and touches it, rubs his fingers in the grooves of the letters, Andy finds himself wishing he could remember how her skin felt. All he really knows is that her skin was soft, the polar opposite texture of her headstone. He remembers her touches and her kisses and her laugh and everything comes crashing down on him like someone’s pulled all the pillars out from beneath the Acropolis.

For the first time in what has been years, he says two words he very nearly swore to never say again.

“I’m sorry.”

The words are choked, hardly there, shattering the otherwise pristine silence.

Shivers shoot up and down his spine, causing his entire body to tremor for a minute.

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so, so fucking sorry,” He says, dropping his head into his hands, shaking again, but not crying. Never crying.

Warm air fills his lungs when he breathes in deep, the air surprisingly muggier than it usually is at this time of year. The atmosphere settles around him, warm, warm and flushed like his cheeks feel, like he’s sure they look.

Nonetheless, he feels cold. So cold he’s shivering, like he’s got his own bubble of cold shielding him from any kind of possible warmth that he could’ve been feeling.

A breeze picks up and tousles the grass, the stems of the daisies around her headstone bowing, the gentle white-and-pink petals touching the stone softly. The blades of grass bend too, but they don’t dip nearly as low as the daisies.

He realizes he’s only distracting himself from the inevitable wave of memories that are surging just below the surface of his consciousness. Remembering is something he’s never really done, never really let himself do.

If he’s actually going to do this, actually going to let himself be submerged in the memories, Andy figures he should get back to his truck, so at least he’s somewhere familiar and mostly safe.

Andy mutters a goodbye and yet another apology to the headstone, dropping the daisy idly to ground, already a little detached from the world, preparing himself to totally let the blockade down and remember.

When he reaches his truck, he stands outside the driver’s side door and breathes, just breathes, for a moment, hand resting on the door handle.

With a final burst of ‘fuck it’ and the pound of memories against his skull, he jerks open the door and climbs into the car.

Resting against the driver’s seat, he leans back and just lets himself remember, for the first time ever.

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His intentions had never been to anger anybody. He didn’t think any of the other gangs would take a little arson as a personal offense, but yet, here he is, face to face with the leader of another gang, harsh words and threats that are most definitely valid being thrown at Andy, silence on Andy’s part. Andy doesn’t want to anger anyone further, so he takes the verbal abuse and carefully plots how he’s going to get away.

“Listen,” Andy says, interrupting the man. “I don’t understand why you’re so pissy about this. I burned down a goddamned bar. Why the fuck are you acting like a two year old? Stop crying over some spilled fuckin’ milk and grow the fuck up.”

The man’s face goes an unflattering shade of crimson and he spits at Andy’s boots.

“Count your fucking lucky stars that I’ve got the self-restraint to not break every bone in your body,” The man practically growls.

“I’m not gonna count jack shit. It’s broad daylight, dumbass. Besides, what are you? Fucking scared to get in a fight?”

“Oh that fucking does it,” The man snarls, leaping forward and wrapping his hands around Andy’s throat.

They fall to the ground, Andy kicking and throwing punches, thrashing around and finally throwing the man off of him and to the sidewalk beside him.

Andy jumps to his feet and draws his gun, just as the other man leaps up too, drawing his own weapon.

The two stand still for a minute, guns aimed in between the other’s eyes.

“Damn,” Andy says, feigning remorse. “I wish I was sorry for this.”

“What do you-” The man begins to say, but he falls silent.

Andy has pulled the trigger, the bullet blowing apart the other man’s skull, blood pooling beneath his collapsed body, drenching the cement.

He shakes his head and clicks his tongue, tucking his gun back into the waistband of his jeans.

“What a pity. Not,” Andy laughs.

It’s all too easy to walk away from the body, but something is tugging in his gut. A sense of foreboding with an unknown cause is nauseating him, disorienting him.

Although, it’s more than likely unfounded.

:::::

When he gets back home, Juliet is curled up on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, asleep, a forgotten movie playing on the screen. It’s pretty late, so he doesn’t mind or really care that she fell asleep before he got back to say goodnight.

He smiles, turning off the TV and walking to the couch, bending down and scooping Juliet – still wrapped in the blanket – up and carrying her gently upstairs. Andy lowers her to the bed softly, and she hardly stirs, although she does shift a little when he sets his gun on the nightstand and climbs up on the bed next to her.

As if Juliet automatically senses his presence in her sleep, she moves towards him and buries her head in his chest. He tugs the comforter out from under them and pulls it over them, curling around her himself and slowly, slowly, drifting off to sleep.

:::::

Andy wakes with the morning light to find himself alone in the bed. For a moment, he panics, fearing the worst, but his anxiety plummets when he hears the noise of the radio and the clanking of kitchenware.

Dragging himself out of bed proves to be a challenge, his limbs heavy, but he manages to stumble out of bed and put on some clean clothes before tripping gracelessly over his own feet down the stairs and into the kitchen.

“Morning, sunshine,” Juliet says, looking up at him from the pan of eggs she’s stirring.

“Morning,” He replies, coming up behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist, dropping a kiss on the curve of her shoulder.

“I made breakfast,” She says.

“So I see. And I love you for it.”

Juliet snorts. “You’d still love me even if I didn’t cook for you.”

Andy pretends to ponder the statement for a moment. “I guess I would.”

She laughs. “Be useful and set the table, please?”

“No,” Andy says as he gets plates out of the cupboard and sets them on the table.

“Would you put some toast in the toaster?” She asks.

“You demand so much of me, woman,” Andy says as he does as Juliet asked.

“I don’t demand that much,” Juliet says. “You’re being terribly overdramatic.”

Andy scoffs. “I am the perfect amount of dramatic.”

She laughs again, that beautiful, sparkling laugh that Andy lives for.

By then, the eggs are done and the toast is up, and after a moment of situation they sit at the table and start to eat.

About halfway through the meal, Juliet speaks.

“I’ve gotta go home after this,” She says, a little dismal.

“You need me to walk you there?” Andy offers.

Juliet shakes her head. “No, it’s okay, I don’t want you to get caught up in my parents fighting again. It’s probably best if I just go home on my own.”

“Are you sure?” He asks.

She sighs. “Yeah, I’m sure. Don’t worry about me, Andy, I’ll be alright.”

He’s visibly uneasy. “If you say so.”

:::::

He gives her a kiss before she leaves. It’s short, but sweet, and full of as many emotions as Andy thinks he can shove into one kiss.

“Be safe, okay? I love you,” Andy says, cupping the side of her face, looking into her eyes and hoping she understands that he means every single word.

“I’ll try. I love you too,” Juliet replies, standing on her tiptoes and pressing another kiss to his lips.

“Okay,” He says, and she’s out the door and gone.

That nauseating, disorienting feeling bubbles up in his stomach with the close of the door behind her.

He shudders and finds his gun to go patrol the area for any intruders or angry other members for another gang.

:::::

It’s exactly 9:31 PM when Andy receives the first call. He doesn’t recognize this number, but this is the phone he uses for gang-related business only, so if they have this number, it must be important, so he answers it.

“Hello?”

Silence, save for the crackle of the phone line.

“Hello?” He says again.

This time, someone speaks, and his heart plummets.

“A-Andy?”

It’s Juliet, and her voice is trembling, near tears.

“Fuck, Juliet,” He says, concern accelerating rapidly in his chest. “What’s wrong?”

She breathes shakily before speaking.

“W-what you did was unforgivable, so t-this is your payback. W-we’ve got your p-precious girlfriend and you’ll both be d-damn lucky if you ever see each other a-again,” Juliet says, obviously reading something pre-written for her, choking on tears that are being held back.

“Juliet,” He says, insistent. “What’s wrong? What the fuck is going on?”

“Andy, Andy, whatever you did, whoever you killed, or hurt, or whatever, these people, they’re angry, and they grabbed me off of the side of the street and Andy, they’re going to hurt me as revenge, they’ve told me terrible things, terrible, Andy, Andy please, help-”

Her begging is cut off abruptly by someone taking away the phone and speaking instead.

“Listen up and listen up good, Biersack. We’ve got your pretty little girl with us here, and you know that guy you shot? That happened to be our friend. And we don’t take kindly to losing our good friends. Just like you’re not going to take too kindly to losing your truly beautiful girlfriend. Shame that you had to do what you did...” The person says, trailing off, leaving the sentence open.

“You bastard, I swear to fucking god that if you hurt her, I will crush every bone in your body and force you to eat your own intestines. Don’t you fucking lay a hand on her.”

“Oh, it’s too late for that,” They say, and Juliet’s screams of terror begin to fill the earpiece of the phone.

“Juliet! Juliet!” He screams, but the person on the other end of the line hangs up, leaving Juliet’s screams ringing in his ears.

:::::

With shaking hands, he calls the only person that he thinks can help: Oli.

“Mate, what’s up? It’s getting late,” Comes Oli’s voice once he picks up.

“Juliet’s in trouble.”

There’s silence on Oli’s end of the line.

“What?”

Andy takes a deep breath and begins to explain.

“When we burned down that bar a while back, it was in the territory of another gang, and the leader of that gang came up to me the other day. We got into a fight, and I wound up killing him. The remaining members of that gang got really pissed and decided to kidnap Juliet as some kind of revenge, and they’re hurting her, really hurting her,” Andy spews.

Oli breathes in deep.

“Did they ask for anything? Money? Territory?”

“No. All they said was that they didn’t take kindly to losing their good friends and that it was a shame that I did what I did. I think that all that they want is to hurt me by hurting Juliet.”

Oli breathes deep again. “Well, that’s obviously working. Do you have any kind of phone number that we could trace the location of?”

Andy shakes his head, but then realizes that Oli can’t see him. “No,” He says, “It was a private number.”

“Jesus. This is some deep shit.”

“I know,” Andy says, still shaking.

“Obviously calling the police isn’t an option,” Oli observes.

Andy snorts. “No shit. I don’t want to get arrested on murder charges and whatever the fuck else they find out.

“Could we try to find wherever it is they’re keeping her, just on our own?” Oli proposes.

“This town is far too big. It’d take weeks, and by then, god knows what they’ll have done to her. She could be dead by then.”

Oli sucks in a sharp breath. “Let’s not think about that. Do you need me to come over?”

“Yes. Please. I think I’ll go insane if I don’t have some kind of company or some shit right now.”

Andy hears a door close, and Oli says “On my way” before hanging up, leaving Andy alone with his thoughts, albeit temporarily, but nonetheless, alone is alone for however long (or short) it may wind up being.

:::::

When Oli shows up, Andy is still shaking, panicking big time.

“Fuck,” Oli says, walking up to him and grabbing his shoulders.

“Alright, Andy, I need you to breathe, okay? Inhale, exhale, right? Breathe with me. In, out, in, out, in, out. Feel better now?” Oli asks, coaxing Andy into breathing a rhythm that could be considered stable until he stops shaking and appears to be calmer. Well, as calm as the situation will allow.

‘We’ve got to find her,” Andy says, curling and uncurling his fists, the tension rapidly returning to his body.

“You said it yourself, Andy, it’s basically impossible. All we can do right now is wait and hope. I’ll stay with you for as long as you need,” Oli consoles.

“Then get ready to stay here forever. Fuck, I can’t lose her,” Andy says, the shaking recommencing.

“You’re not going to Andy. That won’t happen, I promise,” Oli says.

Andy knows he’s got nowhere else to put his faith but in Oli’s words.

:::::

The next call comes at 5:13 AM. Andy is awake, having gotten up particularly early as sleep had come in short, restless bursts and he’d decided that trying to sleep is an uphill battle.

He answers the call with shaking hands.

“Hello?” He says tentatively.

There’s silence for a moment, and all Andy can hear is the pound of his heartbeat.

Until the silence is shattered by screams.

They’re the kind that are ripped from the depths of someone’s existence, the kind that only happen when someone’s in excruciating, unstoppable pain.

For a minute, he’s concerned that she’s going to lose her voice, but the reality of what’s happening smacks the notion right out of his brain.

“Juliet! Juliet! Goddammit, you bastards, I’m going to kill every last one of you in the slowest fucking way possible! Juliet!” He screams, but the line goes dead, his threats going unacknowledged.

With the dial tone ringing in his ear, Andy hangs up and all but runs downstairs, the phone still in his hands.

Halfway down the staircase, the phone buzzes in his hands.

Stopping, he sits on the staircase and very, very hesitantly, opens the text message.

It’s a picture, dimly lit, but not dark enough to obscure what it is the photograph is of.

Juliet’s face is tilted towards the camera, bloodied past recognition. Andy’s sure that if he didn’t know her as well as he does, he probably wouldn’t even be able to tell it was her. Her face is swollen and cut in a few places, and Andy feels sick. The phone buzzes again, and the sick feeling increases.

Cautiously, he opens the message.

He almost vomits then and there.

This picture is far, far worse than the last one, and the last one was terrible. It’s a clear shot of her bare chest, littered with undoubtedly deep cuts that are exposed and their severity obviously ignored. She’s tied to a chair, hands behind her back, ankles bound to the legs of the chair with what appears to be a combination of rope and duct tape.

Her wounds are deep enough to be potentially fatal, especially considering that they’re exposed to her environment, but not deep enough that she could bleed out. It’s obvious that the people that have her don’t want that. Oh no, they want her alive, they want to wreck Andy by hurting the thing that Andy loves the most.

He hates to admit it, but it’s working.

:::::

Oli’s face goes white when Andy shows him the pictures. He swears, very quietly, nearly silent, and he hands the phone back.

“This is bad,” Oli says.

Andy laughs, despite the weight of the situation. “No shit.”

“We’ve got to help her,” Oli presses.

“I don’t know how,” Andy says, bowing his head, defeated.

“I might,” Oli says, bringing forth a seed of hope that Andy thought could’ve never even been brought into existence.

:::::

Somehow, Oli has gathered an almost literal army of more than thirty people. Andy is beyond astounded.

“Alright, motherfuckers! Listen up!” Oli shouts, standing up on a table that has been left in the abandoned building Oli chose as their meeting place.

“This is literally a fucking matter of life and death. There is a girl who is being held hostage and tortured as we speak and every last one of you need to search every fucking inch of this city until this girl is found. And if somebody doesn’t fucking find her, alive, or, god forbid, dead, I will personally slit all of your throats. You’ve all got my number, so fucking call me if you find even a fucking speck of evidence. Now get out of here, and I don’t want to see any of you again until this girl is found. Go. Get out of here,” Oli spits, captivating the entire room and his commands are met with muttered responses of ‘yes, sir’ and the room progressively dissipates.

Oli jumps off of the tabletop and stands next to Andy, who is shaky, equally hopeful as he is terrified.

“Don’t worry, these people are some of the most determined and hell-bent motherfuckers I’ve ever seen. None of them are going to come back empty handed. You’re going to get Juliet back. I promise.”

“I hope so,” Andy says, but deep down, in the parts of his mind that he usually ignores, he knows that Oli’s promise holds little optimism in being fulfilled.

:::::

The third message comes at 12:58 PM, a day after Oli had sent out the (nearly verbatim) troops. He leaves it on the coffee table in front of him for a minute, plagued with sickness and anxiety, head in his hands. Eventually, he knows he’ll have to open the message, but he doesn’t want to, he really, really doesn’t want to, ever, preferably.

After approximately ten minutes of hesitation and sickness, Andy grabs his phone and opens the message.

He just about drops his phone.

This picture is of her legs and stomach, just as destroyed as the picture they’d sent of her chest, except there’s far more bruising and what appears to be some rather severe burns among the lacerations.

Everything is surreal. It feels like this is all some twisted, fucked up dream and he’s going to wake up soon, shaking, sweaty, and Juliet will be lying there next to him, asleep, and when he lies back down she’ll cuddle up to him subconsciously, like she always does, and everything will be okay.

That sick feeling returns and he feels his stomach physically lurch.

“Please, please, let Juliet live,” Andy begs the empty room.

His pleads are met with silence.

:::::

It has been five days since the first phone call. Five days since Andy’s entire world shattered. Five sleepless nights. Only three days since Oli unleashed his search teams on the city. And in that short, short span of time, nothing had yielded.

Miles upon miles of the city have been searched, over and over, but nothing had happened. No one had found her.

All he knows is that the bastards that have her have kept sending him pictures and once they were so audacious that they called him and let him hear Juliet’s screams while they hurt her, and subsequently, hurt Andy.

His phone buzzes and jerks him from his thoughts. Andy’s heart plummets, but when he looks at the caller ID, he sees that it’s Oli.

With a spark of hope, he answers.

“They found her.”

Those are the only words Oli speaks, and that is all it takes for Andy’s heart to soar upwards and for hope and relief floods through his veins, pulsates warm in his chest.

“How is she? Is she okay?” Andy asks.

There’s silence on Oli’s end of the line, and the hope Andy had before rapidly dissipates.

“I’m coming over,” Oli says, and hangs up, leaving Andy’s previous question open ended.

:::::

When Oli walks in the door, his face is blank and his eyes are dark.

“C’mon,” Oli says, monotone, face remaining expressionless. “Let’s go sit down, okay?”

Andy is beyond terrified as they walk into the living room.

He sits, but Oli remains standing, eyes cast downward.

“Is she okay?” Andy prompts.

Oli shakes his head, and Andy’s world, heart, very soul explodes and falls to the ground in smithereens.

“Andy, I’m sorry, I’m so, so fucking sorry,” Oli says, his poker face breaking, his voice sounding strained with the choked back tears that Oli doesn’t want Andy to see.

“Just tell me. Just say it. There’s no other way to do this other than just saying it,” Andy says.

“She’s – she’s dead. Andy, I’m sorry, there wasn’t anything we could do, when we found her they’d shot her in the head and abandoned the warehouse and left her there for us to find. CPR would have been useless,” Oli says, obviously upset, but not as much as Andy.

By now, Andy is crying. Even though it’s silent, Oli knows that Andy just doesn’t let people see him in any kind of emotional distressed.

“Fuck,” He says, his voice a whisper, not even really there.

“I’m sorry,” Oli says again. It’s really the only thing Oli can offer in this situation.

“Do her parents know?”

“Yes. They called the police and an ambulance took her body.”

“No, do her parents know? Do they know that she was held hostage and tortured because I fucked up?”

Oli shook his head. “No. They don’t know that. What everyone thinks is that she was jumped, mugged, beat up and raped and dropped in a ditch. Which I suppose is better than knowing the truth,” Oli says.

Andy nods, and drops his head in his hands. He stays like that for a moment, gathering his emotions and pulling together a mask made of stone, one that he vows never to let crack.

:::::

The funeral is emotionally compromising. Andy doesn’t really know what he feels. Everyone else is sad, people are crying, there are flowers every-fucking-where, but Andy doesn’t feel anything. Not even a little. There is nothing. He is emotionless.

Juliet’s mother steps down from the microphone, having finished the eulogy of her child, sobbing harder than anyone in the room, which is understandable. She just lost the girl she’d given birth to, the girl she’d watched come into existence, grow, and ultimately, die. Andy now has a visual aid for the statement ‘You’re not supposed to live to bury your children’.

Andy can relate to how Juliet’s mother feels. Of course, it’s nothing like losing a child, but it feels like someone’s blown a hole in his soul. He lost the one person he knew would never betray him, the one person he knew would always, always love him.

Somehow, he’s lost his grip on the present, buried deep in his mind, and now they’re at the cemetery, and he’s watching as her coffin is lowered into the ground.

There’s a bouquet of flowers for people to throw into the grave before they start pouring the dirt back into the earth, and absently Andy picks up a flower and walks to the edge of the grave.

He looks down at the flower in his hand. It’s a white carnation with red tips, and inattentively he wonders how they got like that.

People around him are tossing flowers and saying their goodbyes, but Andy still stands at the edge, dazed.

Finally, he tosses the flower onto her coffin, opting to say his goodbye silently.

Goodbye. I love you.

:::::

He doesn’t go back to her grave. He doesn’t talk to Juliet’s parents. He doesn’t talk to anyone, really, aside from Oli.

As a result, he loses nearly all of his connections. Andy supposes it’s better to start over, anyway. It’d be easier for him to appear as a ruthless leader if no one (save for Oli) knows.

His mask of stone remains uncracked and her screams are still ringing in his ears.

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When Andy more or less comes to in his truck, his stomach is churning and he feels almost as if Juliet has just finished speaking, the remnants of her voice reverberating in his ears.

He shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair, like he can get all the memories to leave if he just tries hard enough.

But he knows that that isn’t the case, and will never be the case.

With a sigh, he starts his truck and pulls away from the cemetery, feeling as though he’s leaving a little bit of his soul behind, left in the petals of the daisies and the dirt of her grave.

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