Survival Of The Fittest

“That’s all any of us can do,” Dicky said with a forced smile.

“And at the end of the day, I’m a big enough dude to be brave enough for two.”

Richard wasn’t capable of judging Iris’ notion of ‘try’. Effort wasn’t something that others could measure, it was between you and you. It wasn’t important that Iris actually was brave or not, what was important was that she listened to Dick. That she trusted him to lead and to be a shoulder to lean on. Dick needed that validation. It fueled his own persistence and hope. If Iris was capable of believing Dicky’s lie, it became that much easier for him to convince himself of its truth. Richard felt a familiar feeling and flashbacked to his speech for Vice President.

Pressure.

For the good, pressure made them fold. For the great, pressure made them focus. Dicky was determined to be great and in his mind it relied on a promise made, one person to another. The same promise that he had made half-time down 32-14, the same promise he made when he asked to be Homecoming King and Vice President: 'I will get my job done.' They elected Dick to be a leader, that meant Richard had to lead.

“They’ll be back any moment,” words said to another but intended for self, “I know it.”


The night was passed awkwardly and anxiously. Minutes turned to hours and hope persisted and remained in it’s defiance, while getting smaller and smaller every second. Richard placated Iris with easy conversation. He asked questions about bugs and photography and told her the history of the rivalry of The Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers with a long focus on the moral and technical superiority of The Hick from French Lick, Larry Bird. Small talk to distract from big things. They both tried to sleep at different moments and with varying levels of success. But it was hard to sleep soundly when plagued by such uncertainty.

Still those words and that hopeful feeling persisted and resisted against the increasingly certain reality.

'They’ll be back any moment, I know it.'

Then the announcement came.

And in so many words, those words were proven wrong.

Iris had stood, stretching out all her stiff, cold limbs. She could envision herself like a stickbug of sorts, spreading out in strange ways. Or a spider, again. Splayed open not as any kind of threat display, but just to get her blood flowing again.

She remained standing, stock-still, when the voice sounded all around them. She felt herself stop breathing.

And she felt it resume again, just as quickly. Her mind started whirring like a machine coming to life all at once. That voice was the spark she'd needed, waking her cold body up from the half-slumber still clinging to it since yesterday.

She knew these names. She could remember all of them. Put faces to most of them, easily.

"Richie-" She said, voice tiny in comparison to the echo of Danya that still hung in the air. "Lily and Amaryllis- they're still out there. They could be hurt."

It was hard to imagine either of them being hurt by Katelyn Graves, who was tiny and seemed to constantly be five seconds from bursting into tears even by Iris's estimation. But she'd hurt two people- no, killed two people already. Imagination meant very little now.

"We need to find them," Iris said, then after a moment added, "Right?"

“I…,” Dick paused as his honesty conquered his hubris, “I don’t know.”

And that was the horrid truth of it, wasn’t it? He didn’t know what to do and out here learning cost lives.

Dicky was Mr. Congeniality, the Homecoming King, the captain of the loser basketball team, the handshaker and back-slapper at student government sponsored fundraisers. Richard was the point guard on the court, dictating where the ball went and who scored and when. Dick was his mother’s son and his grandfather’s boy, already burning with the authority and sense of duty that a medical practitioner had to have if they wanted to provide confidence in care. Dicky was all Possibility and he felt, in this moment, all Pressure.

And for the great, pressure made them focus. For the good, pressure made them fold.

Dick went down like a laundry basket.

There was a guilt and a shame that mixed in his gut and boiled over into his expression. Doubt took ahold of Big Dick and he felt rigid in its grasp. For a few seconds, he didn’t believe The Announcement and tried to internally debate Danya—but it was futile and weak and the cynicism of his mind won over the optimism of his will.

“We gotta find them,” he took a deep breath, “we gotta find Darryl and Chloe and Fred and even Donovan’s bitch-ass,” a short breath, “fuck! We gotta find so many and do so much! Shit! Fuck!”

The steel in his hand didn’t match the one in his eye. The pistol felt cool in the morning air, but Dick could feel it battling with the warm stressed sweat of his palm. Iliya was killed and he had waited, naively, like the boy scout he was, smiling and making up ghost stories. Iliya had been killed by some socially awkward dweeb in a socially ill-advised hoodie. A tall girl murdered by a small girl. Iliya had a sister she wanted to get back to. What would they say at her funeral? That Iliya had tried her best? What would Dick say to her if he could? That he was sorry he hadn't tried at all?

He had to find Darryl and Chloe and the others.

But they would also have to deal with Kitty, Janice and that violent all-encompassing Other.

“Fuck,” Dick muttered again at the hopelessness, caught in the same loop of profanity that doubled as prophecy, “Iris,” desperate, “I dunno,” downtrodden, “…fuck.”

Defeated.

"You do know," Iris said. "You do- Richie, please. You just said what we've got to do." She needed him not just to know, but to be sure, surer than sure.

She swallowed and then closed the gap between them to take Richard's free hand in both of her own. She was no longer shaking; she hadn't been for a while. Her head still throbbed when she moved too fast, and her whole body ached from the falling and running yesterday, and the landscape in the distance was blurry unless she squinted real hard, but- but in the moment, she was grounded. Their clasped hands were a lifeline, anchoring them both to the earth.

"You asked me to be brave, and I'm- I'm gonna try. So I need you to be brave too, okay? Let's go find them, like you said."

The pistol, cool in his hand and the morning air, fell to the ground and out of his palm for what seemed to be the first time in twenty-four hours.

If his doubt had left him shaken Iris’ hands and words turned him steady. Dick transformed from soft to solid. Iris spoke and Richie listened and then, as silly as it sounded, he came to believe. This was what bravery was, wasn’t it? Not being fearless but facing your fears. Stick to the plan, trust his gut—they’d make it through to the other side. All the platitudes pretended to be prophecy. Richard felt himself conning his ego into confidence.

Dick nodded and he swallowed, loudly gulping but then just as theatrically shaking his head and blinking repeatedly.

“Thank you,” a frail-boyish whisper exited his lips, “you’re right,” he lightly kissed their interlocked hands, “we’ll be brave.”

He let go, he stood up, he picked up the pistol and began gathering his stuff.

“We’ll find them,” a boy’s feelings, a young man’s dreams, Iliya's imagined murdered face, hook-line, “we’ll find everybody.”

Sinker.

[ Big Dick Buster and Iris Waite Continued In: Return of Simba ]