britin1729 (britin1729) wrote in _love_qaf_fic, @ 2010-04-03 17:37:00 |
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"For death begins with life's first breath, and life begins at touch of death." - John Oxenham
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You hear stories, sometimes. You hear about people getting glimpses of apparitions out of the corner of their eye. You hear about unexplainable occurrences, and cold spots, and flashes of things that just can't be there.
Well, that's how it starts, anyway.
Maybe, for some people, that's all it ever ends up being. At first, I sort of envied those people. Those people who could brush it off, pretend it never happened. Pretend it could be explained.
Now, I pity them, in a completely different way.
~.~.
I barely even remember the day it all started. I know it was probably within the first forty-eight hours after he died. I know I was high, and drunk, and doing everything in my power to lose myself. Anything not to think or feel or remember.
I don't know what the first sign was. I don't remember if it was the bathroom door being open when I knew I'd closed it, or if it was my keys sliding off the counter for no apparent reason, or if it was the TV flicking on when I was nowhere near it.
All of those things happened at one time or another. And each time, I'd shrugged it off as a hallucinatory side-effect of whatever drug I'd snorted or pill I'd popped or alcoholic beverage I'd consumed.
Only then things started happening while I was sober.
Take the day after the funeral, for instance.
I almost hadn't gone. Partly because I wasn't sure if Jennifer would approve, and partly because I was just a selfish asshole. Because I didn't want to watch him being lowered into the ground. Because I didn't think I could without losing it.
As it turned out, Jennifer really was as reluctant to have me attend the funeral as I'd imagined. She ended up reaching out to me through Debbie, who had been invited, because Justin would have wanted me there, according to her.
It was twisted, but the thought that Justin would have wanted me to attend his funeral was suddenly the most important thing in my life...the only thing that held any meaning at all.
So, I went. Sober and everything. Watched as Justin was lowered into the cold, hard earth, trying to force my thoughts away from the ache in my chest, the burn in my throat, on anything but him. Anything but the fact that this was the last time I'd ever see him. This was the last memory I'd ever have of Justin Taylor.
Michael had apparently been elected to come and babysit me afterward. We lay on the couch for a while, just watching TV. I got the feeling he wanted to say something, but he never did, and I sure as hell didn't prompt him.
This was the first time since Justin's death that something happened that someone else could see, could verify. Someone who was both sane and sober.
See, Michael was scared shitless of anything carrying the slightest hint of the "paranormal." He'd go out of his way to justify such unexplainable weirdness to himself. I never had to justify— I never really bought into the whole supernatural, life after death thing, as it was.
But even Michael couldn't deny that something was off.
First it was the television. He'd stumbled upon a sports channel...baseball, at the moment. I was lying there with my eyes closed, doing my best not to take in anything at all, when suddenly Michael's surprised exclamation caught my attention.
"It went off," he said in response to my coolly raised eyebrow, jabbing the remote at the TV and flicking it back on just in time to see some player clad in red hit the ball out of the park. Michael resumed his channel surfing, flipping through programs, pausing just long enough to see what they were about before moving on to the next.
He'd found some stupid, teenage slasher flick...it was prom night in the movie, with some psychopathic killer on the loose bent on murdering Teenage Horror Movie Blond #4197.
I felt something inside my chest break at the thought of the only teenage blond I'd given a shit about. Unlike the clueless bitch in the movie, however, Justin hadn't survived his prom night. It was about the worst TV choice possible at the moment, given the circumstances, but the thought didn't seem to occur to my well-meaning but oblivious best friend.
The damn movie had just flashed back to the prom scene when the TV flicked off again.
"Brian, I think something's wrong with your TV," Mikey complained, pointing the remote at it again and jabbing the power button.
I should have cared. After the fortune I'd paid for the TV and the sky-high rate I was paying for all the extra channels I received, I should have had the energy to do something besides flop back against the couch cushions and close my eyes.
I heard the TV switch back on, only to hear it go off again a moment later.
"What the fuck?" Michael muttered, pointing and clicking the remote frantically. "Brian, your TV...."
"So, one more thing in my life has gone to shit," I said bitterly, surprising even myself. I forced myself off the couch and wandered across the loft, intent on finding whatever drugs and alcohol were left in the place. "What's one more tragedy?"
I heard him get up, too, and could practically feel his eyes boring into my back as he trailed after me.
"Brian..." he began, his voice soft, his hand gentle on my shoulder as I searched my bedroom for a leftover joint. Or at the very least a fucking cigarette. Was that too much to ask?
"So how long before your mother comes and takes over the next shift?" I bit off. I felt a little guilty for being so irritable with him, but I just wasn't fucking in the mood for people right now, even the company of my best friend. In fact, the only friends I had any desire to see at the moment were a bottle of beam and something I could smoke.
"Shift?" he repeated, and I didn't have to look to see his eyebrows scrunching in confusion above dark brown eyes that tried not to betray the hurt I was causing...hurt from being in pain myself, and hurt because he couldn't be the one to fix it. But no one could possibly fix this. No one could bring him back. No one could erase the memory of watching a bat slam into his skull, his blood draining out onto the concrete. No one could take that away. Not Michael, not anyone. It was with me forever, now, every time I closed my eyes.
"Babysitting," I sneered. "That's what this is, isn't it? You're all afraid I'll go off the deep end, so they sent you over here to make sure I don't drink and smoke and fuck myself into an early grave."
"Believe it or not, we're all just worried about you," said Michael, his voice carrying a hint of sharpness that his eyes belied.
"Well, don't," I said shortly. "I'm fine."
What a fucking lie.
Actually, I think it may be the biggest I've ever told. Well, other than telling Justin that I didn't care about him. But that didn't really matter anymore.
Nothing did.
"You are not fine," Michael said sharply. "I know you. You can tell yourself whatever the fuck you need to— pretend this isn't killing you, if you have to— but you're not okay," he whispered. "You're not."
"Would you be?" My voice was almost deadly quiet, throbbing with an ache than ran too deep. Could anyone possibly be okay after something like that? Could anyone have the person they...cared for, deeply...die in their arms, and just be okay? While knowing that it could have all been avoided with one good judgment call?
"No," he whispered. "And you're not either."
I felt the burn of tears, starting in my throat and stinging my eyes, but I refused to cry. Refused to break down, even though inside, I could hardly bear it.
"I'm going to take a shower," I said, swallowing hard around the lump in my throat. Michael hung back as I swept into the bathroom, pulling the door shut behind me. I let out a deep breath, relieved to finally be alone. The almost scorching heat of the shower was a welcome discomfort; maybe I could just close my eyes and burn away every last trace of the last four days. Every last memory, every last moment of fear and pain and devastating loss.
I must have been in there for a while...long enough that the shower ran cold, anyway. I climbed back out and dressed in a pair of faded jeans and an old shirt. Normally, I wouldn't have bothered with the latter, but there was a third addition to my wardrobe that had to remain hidden.
The scarf. The bloodstained scarf that Justin had been wearing, the night he...the night it had happened.
I'd worn it ever since, a heavy reminder on my shoulders. Of what I'd lost, of who he was and what he'd meant. A reminder of what happened when you shared your heart with someone.
Somewhat reluctantly, I emerged from the bathroom, not even daring to hope that Michael would be gone. Sure enough, he was sitting on the bed, holding something small and staring down at it with an expression of deep melancholy.
"I was just looking..." he said, holding up the object in his hand for me to see. It was Justin's picture, I realized. The one and only picture of him I had, the one Daphne had taken of us at his first art show at the GLC. He'd given me a copy the very next time he'd seen me, all bubbly and smiley and infectious. Of course, I'd pretended not to care, making some comment that implied I'd be chucking the thing into the garbage the first chance I got while slipping it into my pocket for safekeeping. I'd never told him I'd gotten it framed, and I'd never displayed it before. The only reason it had even been out was because I'd retrieved it from its hiding place inside one of my drawers a few days ago and left it out on the dresser, where Michael had obviously picked it up. "He really was beautiful, wasn't he?"
For some inexplicable reason, that made me want to scream. Yes, he'd been beautiful. And smart and talented and sweet and relentless. Dedicated and determined and happy and generous, always giving so much of himself to the people and causes he cared about. How fair was it that he was now lying in the fucking ground, among hundreds of others, his body just wasting away into nothing? How fair was it that his life had been cut short at the age of eighteen? All for the crime of, what, dancing with me at a fucking high school prom?
Not for the first time, I wished that I'd managed to hit that little fucker Hobbes even harder, given him some real pain, not just the broken knee I'd left him with. I wished I'd never stopped hitting him, not until he was bleeding onto the cold concrete just like Justin, feet away, surrounded by a dark halo of red.
It was the sight that haunted my nightmares. The vision that plagued me during my every waking hour. The thing that tore me apart every second I was alive.
Wordlessly, I took the picture from Michael's hand, suddenly not wanting him to be touching it. I set it on top of the dresser, face down, grasping onto the memory of how happy he'd been that night at the GLC, at the same time as wishing I could forget it. Wishing I could forget everything, forget him, but knowing it was impossible.
"He loved you," said Michael, as if this was supposed to make me feel any better. "He must have been happy...you know, right before it happened...at least you know his last moments were good ones."
What was it he'd called it? The best night of his life. All because I'd shown up at his fucking prom and danced with him in front of everyone. That was all it took, that one little gesture, to make him happier than he'd ever been in his eighteen years of life.
Right before it was cut short. Forever. The irony of making that night the best he'd ever had was that— in the process of making it the best— I had also made it his last. I was the reason he'd never again see the sun that paled in comparison to the smile he'd given me, just before our lives had imploded. I was the reason his life had ended, before it had even really began.
Contrary to what Michael said, Justin's last moments were anything but joyful. There had been a pulse, for a few brief moments, as he struggled for his life in my arms. I'd begged and pleaded, whispering prayers and encouragement and I love yous...anything I thought might help, and everything I thought would never slip past my lips. It hadn't done a damn thing, in the end. I was forced to sit there with him, pleading with the paramedics to hurry up while his life slipped away, staining my jacket, his breathing slowing and then stopping and his pulse fading to nothing beneath my touch. They hadn't managed to restart his heart in the ambulance, and he'd been pronounced dead upon arrival.
In a way, a little bit of me had died along with him that night. Part of me was gone, I could feel it, sensing the loss as one would that of an arm or a leg. Something inside me was missing, never to be returned. Because he'd taken it with him.
"He knew you loved him, too," Michael continued, in what was obviously a misguided attempt to ease some of the hurt inside me. "The way you were with him...like you couldn't stay away. You've never been like that with anyone."
"Yeah," I snorted darkly. "I didn't stay away. And look where that led to." The words were angry, bitter, but it was all directed at myself.
"It wasn't your fault," said Michael firmly, standing up and coming to lay a hand on my shoulder. But how could I possibly believe it, when the truth was so evident? If I hadn't gone to Justin's prom, if I hadn't aided him in giving St. James that final farewell 'fuck you,' if I hadn't allowed us those few brief moments of unbridled joy, spinning around the dance floor...then Justin would still be alive. Probably still smiling and laughing at the looks on his classmates' faces, days later, gushing over how amazing it had been. He would have been approaching graduation, which he would have celebrated with Daphne and his mom, who would have taped the whole thing. I would have tried to sneak to avoid being seen, but he would have come running up to me afterward, face aglow, having spotted me anyway. And he would have kissed me in front of everyone because he was Justin Taylor, and he wasn't scared or ashamed of anything.
Maybe he should have been. Maybe we both should have been.
Maybe then, he'd still be alive.
"Hey, maybe he's in homo-heaven right now," said Michael, at an attempt at lightheartedness so pale it was practically see-through. He huffed a small laugh that couldn't quite hold the sheen of tears in his eyes at bay. "He's probably petitioning right now to have Brian Kinney let in, too, once it's time."
I snorted again, this time finding at least a little humor in the situation. "At least I have someone campaigning to save my soul besides my dear old mom," I said sarcastically. "She'll be thrilled."
"The point is, he's in a good place, Brian," said Michael. I wished I could believe it as easily as he did. "He's safe, and happy. And he knows how loved he was...how much we all loved him."
And that was when it happened. There was a small clatter from behind us, and Michael and I both whirled around in surprise.
"What the f...what happened?" he asked as I bent to retrieve the object that had fallen off the dresser. The picture— Justin's picture.
"It's called gravity, Mikey. I assume you've heard of it," I said, but there was no bite in my words.
"It was in the middle of the dresser," he pointed out, looking at me with wide eyes.
I shrugged. "Stray gust of wind?" Never mind the fact that we were inside, and the windows were all firmly shut. "Earthquake? Random Falling Object Syndrome?" I frowned at the picture, now harboring a crack in the glass, right across the top of his head. Not liking the jolting of my stomach one bit, I set the picture face down again and turned my back on it.
By the time it was late enough that I could reasonably pretend to be tired and go to bed, Michael had convinced himself that we must have knocked into the dresser, and that was why the picture had flown more than fallen onto the floor. I tonelessly agreed with everything he suggested, not giving a shit about much of anything he had to say at the moment. Not giving a shit about much of anything in general.
He offered to stay the night, but I think he was starting to get a little weirded out, because he didn't protest too much when I suggested he go home to Ms. Honeycutt. I probably should have been trying to enjoy his company more; he was due back in Portland in a few days, once things got "settled." In reality, this meant once his mother had stopped crying and once he was sure I wasn't going to kill myself in grief. I didn't ask why the good doctor hadn't come along; to him, we were all just Michael's friends, the ones he tolerated. Why should he come support his own boyfriend/partner/whatever the fuck they called themselves at a time like this?
A time like this. A time where fucking nothing was right, and everything in the world had gone to shit within the space of a few hours. A time when it felt like something had been stolen from the world— from me— that was so vital that things would never be right again.
A time when I could fully admit to myself just how important Justin Taylor had been to me.
"Fuck!" I cried, aiming a kick at the bed. It hurt, but not enough. Never enough to even begin to compare to the pain inside.
I took out the nightstand with a single swipe of my arm, the contents clattering across the floor. "Damn it! You...fucking...asshole!"
My chest heaving, I upended the now-bare table, throwing it clear across the room, where the leg broke and rolled down the stairs. I wasn't sure if I was yelling at Hobbes, at myself, or at Justin, but suddenly I was just so fucking angry, tears springing into my eyes and rolling down my cheeks as I threw each and every piece of shit I owned across the room, down the stairs, into the walls, relishing the feeling of breaking things. Doing something. Feeling something besides emptiness.
At first, I didn't even realize why I stopped. Then, I recognized Justin's picture in my hand, the broken glass, the perfect smile. The one I missed and loved. The one I'd never see again.
I gave a sob, my entire frame shuddering as I sank to the ground, Justin's photo still in my hand. I hunched over, holding the treasured possession to my chest, and cried.
~.~
I blinked several times, my eyes swollen and bleary. I wasn't sure how long I'd been lying there, but I was pretty sure I'd finally exhausted myself to the point of actually falling asleep on the floor.
I forced myself to sit up, groaning at the ache in every part of my body. I ran a hand over my face, but made no further attempt to move. I stared down at the broken picture in my hand, but my eyes were quite dry. Maybe I'd simply cried the tears all out. Or maybe I just knew there was no amount of them that could possibly be enough to rid myself of this pain.
I'd grown up learning about Heaven and Hell, God and Jesus and all the rest of it. There was a point, long before now, that I'd stopped believing. Maybe once I'd realized the whole thing was bullshit, because my mother's supposed all-powerful God had sure as hell never given a flying fuck about me. Not when she was too drunk to fix dinner and my sister and I went hungry for the night. Not when my father came home from a night out of drinking and itching for a fight, even if it was with his own defenseless-at-the-time, not-even-technically-teenaged son. Or maybe it was when I realized how many people were condemned by the religion, people whose only crime was fucking the wrong gender, or fucking before having a ring on their finger, or divorcing a person they couldn't fucking stand and saving the entire family years of misery, and other stupid shit that had never made sense to me. To Joan, religion was salvation. To me, it was something that said it was far more important to care about some invisible deity in the sky than give a shit about your own happiness, or the happiness of the people you cared about. I'd never seen the point of living in chains.
For the first time in a long time, however, I desperately hoped for the existence of a heaven. If it was indeed a real place, then there was no doubt in my mind that that was where Justin was, just like Mikey had said. After well over a decade of not believing it in the slightest, however, I wasn't quite sure what to think now.
"Fucking show them all, Sunshine," I whispered, running a thumb over his beaming face in the picture. If there was a fag that could get into heaven, it was him. There was no doubt in my mind that if it was real, that's where he would be, proving to all those assholes how very mistaken they'd always been. "If Joanie was right about heaven, you'll fucking prove her wrong about the rest of it."
"Yeah...can you imagine the faces of all those religious zealots when they realize God doesn't give a shit about us sucking cock?"
You know that heart-in-your-throat feeling you get when someone sneaks up on you in the dark?
Yeah. Multiply that. By about a thousand.
And you'll get my reaction.
I swore loudly, nearly tripping over my own feet in my haste to get up. "What the motherfucking hell...?"
And then I went from startled and pissed to three seconds away from pissing myself. Because what I was seeing...or at least, what my mind was telling me I was seeing...could not possibly be there. I was either hallucinating or having a very vivid dream, because there was just no fucking possible way that Justin Taylor was standing in my fucking bedroom, looking as carefree and beautiful as if he had just walked in off the street.
I gave myself a good, hard pinch on the arm. It hurt. A lot. I was almost completely sure I wasn't dreaming, which only left hallucinatory drugs and potential schizophrenia. Either way, I figured I was pretty fucked. Or fucked up. Or both.
"What the hell are you doing here?" I demanded, blinking at him, as if I expected him to be just a trick of my eyes. He was a pretty clear, detailed hallucination, that was for fucking sure. He wasn't dressed in the prom garb he'd died in, but an old pair of jeans I'd seen him wear a hundred times and a blue T-shirt that brought out his eyes.
"Coming to see you," he said, as though it were obvious, looking a little hurt by my obvious distress over his presence in my loft.
I just stared. No fucking way was this happening. No fucking way was I actually going crazy.
Was I?
Well, considering I was standing in the middle of my bedroom having a conversation with a dead high school student, I figured the answer was pretty much self-evident.
"I mean, what the fuck are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in....in heaven, or the afterlife, or wherever the fuck they send you after you—go?" I couldn't say die. I couldn't say that word. Make it real. Make him gone.
He frowned, looking confused. "I don't know...maybe." He seemed to ponder it for a moment, then shook his head. "It doesn't matter."
"Doesn't it?" I asked him, blinking rapidly several times. He was still there. "Not that I'm an expert, but aren't you usually supposed to...go somewhere, or something? Isn't it, like, a rule?"
He shrugged. "When have I ever just followed the rules?"
Okay, he had a point there. Hell, maybe this was Justin.
"You're not real," I said, panic and fear warring with anguish and hope and a very real desire to touch him.
"Says who?" he asked flippantly, strolling over and flopping down on the bed. There was no movement of the mattress, no dip in the duvet. But there he was, lying there as though I'd invited him, looking as though he owned the place, owned me, just like when he was alive. Maybe in a way, he had owned me, or enough of me, anyway. The parts that mattered had all belonged to him.
"Says...logic," I said, moving slowly around the outside edge of the bed, taking him in from every angle, still not trusting my own eyes. "Says every fucking rule in the goddamned universe." The rules of nature. The rules of whoever had created the fucked up agenda that was life. All the rules that said he shouldn't be here— couldn't be here.
He shrugged, his eyes following my progress around the bed. "I told you, I've never set much store by rules. Besides, you looked really upset. Is there anything I can do?" When I continued just to stare at him as though he might suddenly announce that I'd most definitely lost my fucking mind, his shoulders sank, as though disappointed that I wasn't being more receptive to his appearance in my bed. "Brian, are you okay?"
"You...can't be here," I said slowly, resuming my pacing around the bed. "You're not here."
"Well...actually, I am," he said. "But that's not important. You were crying, Brian...I've hardly ever seen you cry. Is this about me?"
I stared at him, trying to fight down the lump that had suddenly made a reappearance in my throat. "You know you're..." Fuck, how was I supposed to say this? How did you break this news to someone? I was pretty sure that, for all her experience, Miss Manners had never offered advice on this one before. "You know that you— died, right?" It was torture, forcibly tearing those words from my throat, where they wanted to cower and hide away, and never face daylight.
"Yeah...fucking Hobbes." He looked put out for a moment, biting his bottom lip in that way he did when it was trembling and he was trying not to cry, but then his face brightened as he looked back up at me.
"But I'm okay, really. I mean...I'm here, see?" He smiled up at me, apparently pulling out everything he possessed that had the power to break me.
"You're not here," I whispered, because the hard, painful lump in my throat wouldn't allow anything more. "You can't be."
He shrugged again. "Well, I am. I know, it's totally insane— but it's great, isn't it? I mean, that you can see me? It's hard, though, tying to get through...even throwing your stuff around and messing with your TV— it makes me really tired. Showing up like this is probably going to cost me like a week of doing that stuff. And I'll probably have to go soon...but it's worth it," he added, smiling at me again, a little softer this time. That smile I knew so well, the one that begged me to give him something, anything. The one that made me want to give him everything.
"Wait," I said, unable to help myself, even as I couldn't quite believe what the hell I was doing, indulging my mind's fantasies like this. "You're...before you go...just tell me you're okay. Tell me it's nice, wherever you are...when you're not here."
"What do you mean? Like, when I'm at my mom's? Or Debbie's?"
I frowned, opening my mouth to explain myself more fully, but suddenly, he was gone. Just like that. One moment, there was an eighteen year old blond boy in my bed, and the next, it was empty.
I lay down in the spot he had just vacated, as though hoping to catch a bit of the residual warmth that his body had left behind. Only there was none. I must have fallen asleep again, because I awoke a few hours later, drool trickling out of the corner of my mouth, the room still a wreck all around me.
Except for me and the mess that was my bedroom and my life, the loft was empty.
TBC.