A/N- Wassup? It be TOBN here with a new one shot for all you Bethan lovers :)
Yeah, this is yet another result in some procrastination-driven guilt (I should be working on The Search For Happily Ever After right now - I am so sorry), but I thought of the idea a while ago, and I thought it would be really nice. Sad, but nice.
And of course, I thought Bethan was the most appropriate, because they are such a beautiful couple, and I love them to pieces - I am sure that all my one shots are now going to be Bethan now; not complaining though - so of course! Bethan forever :)
I guess there was some inspiration and some influence to this one shot - I have been feeling up and down nowadays, and I guess what comes out of emotions you usually try to bottle up, turns into a piece of magic, huh? I think it is very nice that my sadness can blossom into a rose of inspiration :)
The title is a metaphor - I believe that is a proper term.
This story is also in Ethan's point of view, even with the third person description. Thought you should know. There is established Benny/Ethan. And this takes place a bit into senior year, but a bit more closer to graduation, if you get what I am saying. Erica and Sarah are in university. It's meant to be written this way, for your information. It's a style I want to try - it's kind of a present tense, repetitive, scripted type of writing. I am trying my hand at this :)
So yes. Enjoy this, and if you are reviewing - in that case, I'll love you forever *hand heart* - might as well take the opportunity to scold me for procrastinating, when I should clearly be working on something that people actually want to know about. I won't mind - scold away :P
But yeah! That is all I have to say, aside from this warning!
WARNING: THIS STORY CONTAINS SELF-HARM, UNDERAGE DRINKING/ALCOHOL ABUSE, DRUG ABUSE, ESTABLISHED DEPRESSION, AND OTHER MENTAL ISSUES THAT ARE NOT TO BE JOKED ABOUT. I AM SORRY IF THIS OFFENDS ANYONE - I SWEAR THIS IS BEING USED FOR CREATIVE WRITING PURPOSES. BUT IF THIS IS TRIGGERING TO YOU, OR OFFENDS YOU, PLEASE DO NOT READ; THE LAST THING I WANT IS TO OFFEND ANYONE. LOVE YOURSELF, DEARIES :)
There you go! I hope you...
ENJOY!
Disclaimer: I don't own MBAV, or its characters, nor do I own any video game references, or real life references. I own the plot, but I'm not getting paid for this. Would've been a great money opportunity however :P
Crimson Roses:
I'm fragile / I'm scared / I'm hopeless / I'm weak / I'm scarred / I'm worried / I'm anxious / I'm tired / I'm alone / I'm terrible / I'm frightened / I'm small / I'm afraid / I'm burnt / I'm depressed / I'm shaking
I'm done.
Just done.
I want to feel things, I promise - to be happy again - to believe in a hope that I can't find anymore
I want to find hope
or a purpose,
or a dream.
But I am not broken...
...I just need a little fixing
When he looks at Benny, he sees eyes of emerald and a smile that can stop wars.
He also notices that his skin is a little too pale, and that he occasionally itches his arm subconsciously. He notices the excess bottles of wine on the floor, and he notices the bloody towels that scatter the bathroom floor. He notices all this, but doesn't say anything, because Benny - his Benny - wasn't broken, not yet.
Benny, however, is still the Benny he fell in love with: he still plays Super Dead Guys, and Nights Of Ninjitsu, he still comes over and orders pizza, praying that it'd be free and that the delivery guy would get a flat tire or something. But, despite this, his sleeves are growing longer.
But he still loves, yes, he still loves him, and he tries to convince himself that is all he needs.
X~*~X
Benny sleeps over at his place tonight, and he is sleeping on his floor. It is midnight; moon shining, and not a single sound in the whole entire house, other than the occasional snore from Ethan, and wind that escapes through a crack in the window.
But he can hear Benny get up an hour later, walking to the washroom because he can't sleep, and frankly, neither can him.
Ethan's eyes fluttered open, and a groan escaped his lips, but he tried to remain calm and remain quiet. Benny had shut the door, and his footsteps had faded with the sound of a door creaking close. The washroom door; Ethan knew what he was doing.
Benny came back about half an hour later, his eyes tired and his cheeks sticky. He could hear Benny cry himself to sleep.
Ethan kept his eyes closed, but he knew he'd be awake for many hours.
X~*~X
Evelyn died this morning. Age 76. Too young.
This doesn't help anything; Ethan knows that.
The funeral was the next day, and Benny didn't come. Ethan came, and so did Erica, Rory and Sarah. A few of Benny's relatives came to the ceremony as well - not anyone Ethan recognized, nor knew about. It was a small world, he thought.
When he came to get his hat about an hour after the ceremony, he saw a crimson rose laid on the tombstone. He lowered, keeping his toes on the dirt, and his tie nearly brushed against the mud that squished below him when he leaned forward to touch those delicate petals.
It was Benny.
The petals were Benny.
They weren't broken.
Definitely needed fixing though.
X~*~X
Ethan came home, and Benny is drunk. Again.
Bottles of wine and beer were empty, or barely dribbling onto his carpet. Benny is on the couch, arm hanging off the edge of the couch, and when he came to, his eyes are glazed and blown wide with the spell of alcohol.
"Shh," Ethan cradles Benny in his arms, crying. "Don't tell Ethan. He'd be so mad I dr-drank again."
Ethan winces, and Benny lolls his head around in Ethan's hands. He was mad, but Benny did this for a reason he'd never understand, and if he still loves him - if he still felt the the same way he felt in freshman year - that is all he needs.
Benny wasn't broken. Not yet.
X~*~X
Benny skips school today. Ethan does too. Rory is confused. Sarah is worried. Erica just wants to know - why?
X~*~X
Weekend comes and Benny is alone in his house. Ethan wants to move in with him. Benny reclines, but lets him in anyway, because he still loves him - and nothing would ever change; Ethan would make sure of that.
Late at night, when the room is silent - aside from the TV softly playing the screams of frightened girls and the roars of serial killers - and Ethan is asleep, Benny gets up and goes to the washroom in the dark. Ethan hears him; he wakes up.
Benny drags the razor across his wrist, and winces as crimson blood starts to pour out of the new scar. He continues, but he doesn't cry - broken people cry. Broken people are broken. Benny, of course, is not broken. Not yet.
He's not damaged, shattered, or broken. He eats, he smiles, he walks, he talks, he loves Rory, he loves Sarah, he loves Erica, and, more importantly, loves him. Ethan isn't worried about it. Not one bit, and it stays that way.
He feels - every time he digs a bit more deeper into his flesh - empty, but feels full. Full, and empty. A void that is dug in his very full heart, and it's sucking all his common sense and consciousness Benny once had as a teenager.
'What happened,' he thinks, looking at himself in the mirror, silently running the water against the scar. He winces, 'What became of the guy that was full with happiness, spirit, and more importantly, that magic that I once had?
He doesn't come out until the bleeding stops, and the scars begin to clot and close, turning pale and purple.
Ethan is awake.
Benny knows.
X~*~X
Benny knows he sees them.
Ethan knows that Benny knows that he seems them, too.
That's what was so frustrating.
X~*~X
Blood splattered against the metal lockers. Erica smells it out, and Sarah leads them to the place of crime. The blue locker had a splash of crimson red, and Rory looks at in some child-like sense of wonder and curiosity.
Ethan sees differently, though - no pun intended. He sees Benny's hair being grabbed violently by [stupid, stupid] Tyler Griffin. He sees Benny being slammed face first into the cold, metal lockers, and he sees his face - no emotion.
Ethan walks to Benny's house. Benny's nose is broken, and his eye is swollen purple.
They exchange looks.
Benny doesn't talk.
...Ethan doesn't want him to.
X~*~X
Benny doesn't just break, and roses don't wilt in the winter snow.
He was as delicate as a crimson rose.
About to break,
but not yet.
X~*~X
Benny is playing Mortal Kombat on his console. Ethan is reading a book, but when Benny looks nervously at his grandma's old wine cabinet, he winces, and Ethan can see him do so. He lowers his magazine, and he looks at Benny.
"Benny?"
Benny doesn't turn around, and continues to place his focus to the game, but at the same time listens to his boyfriend's words. "Yes?"
"...you know I love you, right?"
"Of course."
"And you know I would do anything for you, right?"
"I know."
Ethan lowers his eyes. "Why?"
The word means everything and nothing to Benny, and he pauses his game to turn around and face Ethan's brown eyes. Ethan notices the dull color in Benny's once-emerald eyes, and Benny doesn't meet his glance.
He says nothing as he turns off the console, and goes upstairs.
Where he cried,
and cried,
and cried.
Ethan stays behind; Benny's not broken.
X~*~X
That was the last time Ethan confronted Benny about it. Benny drank about it two days later, and got horrendously drunk two days later as well.
The scars - no, the marks - on his arms aren't exactly a confrontable issue - they are there, and when Benny graces him with his presence, he doesn't bother him with depression and secrets - he loves him, that's why; because he loves him.
Some are deeper than the others - some are pink, white, or a dull purple from excess hitting, thanks to the hockey players in WC High. He never sees them fresh though - he wouldn't let Ethan see that. He sees them, though, when they are raw scars - paper colored lines across his skin.
Benny doesn't do it for attention, because he doesn't do those kind of things. When Ethan first met Benny, he did whatever the fuck he wanted to, whenever the hell he wanted to do it - whether it was being reckless with magic, or in general.
Because that was Benny.
Ethan liked it that way.
X~*~X
A ghost possessed Benny today. They fixed it.
Benny looked happier, and Ethan wanted the ghost to plague his soul forever, if it'd meant seeing Benny's joyous smile in his life once again.
X~*~X
"I'm sorry," Ethan says, "if I'm not enough."
Benny looks up from his comic book and frowns. "You are always enough, Ethan."
Ethan stabs his fork into the pancake he is eating, and Benny flinches. "I can't fix you, Benny."
Benny growls, throwing his comic book on the ground and glares at Ethan with eyes of steel and self defense - a self defense he has to take down, Ethan acknowledges, and a self defense he must use for something else - "I'm not a fucking video game console, Ethan. I don't need fixing."
The words hurt. Benny didn't mean for them to. But they do. Ethan doesn't care.
"I'm not broken." Benny says after an uncomfortable silence.
"I'm not saying you are."
"Good."
Benny walks away.
Ethan stays behind.
Again.
X~*~X
Erica promises Ethan it wasn't her fault - Benny asked her to sink her fangs into his wrist, and Erica was hungry that night. Benny was passed out on the floor, still giggling between coughs, and Ethan kicks Erica out of their house, and his life.
Sarah makes Ethan apologize - Ethan throws her out too.
Rory smiles, and Ethan just gives in and forget all about those vampires.
X~*~X
He fucking swears that Benny's smile can end world tragedies.
But the reason why those tragedies continue is because Benny just doesn't smile anymore.
...the world needed that smile right now.
X~*~X
Ethan isn't surprised when he finds Benny, alone in the dark of his washroom, blood running down his arm and his pale eyes barely open. Dots of ruby and crimson trace his white, striped shirt, and Ethan doesn't say anything as he bandages it his arm and drags him to his bedroom. He found pills scattered along the way - Benny was high.
"Sor-sorry." Benny mumbles, eyes glazed. "N-Not bro-broke -"
Ethan flops him on the bed, and places his index finger on his wet lips and kisses him. "I know."
X~*~X
Benny doesn't smile when he is finally getting out of that hell hole of a school.
He drinks instead.
He gets drunk instead.
Ethan has to take him home again.
And Ethan never liked the word 'again'
X~*~X
"I think we should talk."
"Why?"
"I...I just think so."
Benny pouts. "You promised you wouldn't."
Ethan nods. "I promised you're not broken."
Benny growls, and Ethan just sighs.
X~*~X
Benny begins to drift away - the cuts become deeper, the pills are more used, and the amount of glass that scattered across the carpet as Ethan moved boxes into the guest room was a lot now - almost a garbage bag full.
And he found blood on the tiles of the bathroom, and on the towels. Pill bottles were scattered - Ethan had a lot of cleaning up to do.
Benny didn't speak to Erica, Sarah and Rory, who had left Whitechapel with the vampire council. Neither did Ethan.
Benny was falling,
and Ethan was being dragged down with him,
and insanity claimed them both
X~*~X
Ethan holds Benny in his arms as blood stained Ethan's shirt. Benny was crying hysterically, but no, is not broken just yet.
"I-I don't understand." Ethan says after a while, silently drying the blood off Benny's arm. He had cut a little too far this time, and Ethan nearly saw him die. If Ethan hadn't...or anyone for that matter...if he didn't see this...
"I-I want to feel again, Ethan." Benny murmurs, tears down his cheeks. "I want to feel happy, angry, sad, fearful, disgusted, annoyed, joyous, happy..."
Ethan hugs him. "You can feel this way about me."
X~*~X
Sarah comes back a year later, and she comes to Ethan with fire in her eyes.
"Erica is dead. Rory is gone. What have you done, Ethan?! All for one person - one broken person - you kick us all out, and we all break inside. We all broke! Our society is fading, and you just stay here like the only thing you broke was him! This is your fault, Ethan! THIS IS YOUR FAULT!"
Ethan cries. The words dig into his skin like a blade.
"HE'S BROKEN, ETHAN!" Sarah continues. "HE'S BROKEN!"
She's insane. He's insane.
"BROKEN!"
The stake drives easily through her chest.
X~*~X
Ethan makes his first scar, and Benny finds him. Ethan has no strength for this - he cries and hisses like a boy who got a paper cut, and Benny doesn't do anything - he loves him, that's why - but sit down beside him, revealing a matching scar on his dried-blood arm.
They cry together in the dark.
Benny is falling, and is dragging Ethan down into the deep hole of death as well.
X~*~X
Ethan knew that something had to change.
"Be-be my g-genie, E!" Benny bubbles, drunk as Aladdin played in the background. Ethan didn't care much about how his boyfriend was high, and that his arm was bleeding again, because he had to talk to Benny - either sober or not.
"Break up with me."
"What?"
"I'm not good enough. I can't fix you."
"So?"
"Make me leave."
"Never." Benny pushes Ethan onto the couch, and he presses his wet and bad-breathed lips onto Ethan's. Ethan moans at his touch, and Benny smirks at the resignation. But Ethan knew this had to change - he pushed him off.
"Just promise, Benny, to stop."
"I can't stop something I'm not doing."
It made sense, Ethan thought. In that weird, paradox-like way.
"At least for me. Stop for me. I love you."
Benny didn't cry.
(Broken people don't cry)
Ethan broke down in tears.
"I love you so fucking much, dammit. Why. Why?"
Benny saw the tears in Ethan's eyes.
"Fine."
"What?"
"I love you too."
X~*~X
His first therapy session was yesterday. He only drank half a beer bottle about it after, and only cut himself once this time, and only consumed one pill. The next therapy session was the next day, and he didn't do anything but sit there.
He was -
- fixing himself.
Ethan came with him, and the one scar on his pale arm cleared as quick as one-out-of-a-hundred scars on Benny's arms.
They broke.
They healed.
They're fixed.
X~*~X
"Tickets to Paris?"
"I want to show you the world."
X~*~X
It has been ten years since Benny dragged a razor against his wrist, and Benny has kept his promise. The bloody blades are all thrown away, and the only thing that was red and scattered on the floor around them were delicate, fragile, broken crimson roses.
And as the baby cried in the other room, Benny and Ethan curled in a bed together.
Ethan rubbed his fingers over the scars that were healing. They were marks of everything that they ever went through.
...he was fixed.
Both of them.
xX The End Xx