A/N: AU, maybe. I do not own Chronicle and its characters.
"Hell is empty and all the devils are here." – Shakespeare, The Tempest
He writes. He does, on the expanse of his skin, with ink from an old gel pen previously tucked in between papers and stained books underneath his bed.
The night is long, like the sentences and fragments he scars his arms with. It's a battlefield; he impales pale exterior with ink ink ink and mouths the words as if probing their definitions. They flood around his wrists, the pen sometimes staying too long, marking an epiphany. And he continues, planting illustrations time to time exponentially, as his smile is lethargic and he crumples up as if it was nonchalant. But he fights vehemently like he's a soldier upfront.
He thinks the universe basks in his suffering.
He scans his dictionary – his only one.
He learns to remember the words, even if only a few. He'd like to scribble some on himself and they frequently look very undecipherable under the languid moonlight raining from the gap of the curtains.
He can hear his stomach grumbling. He can hear the owls hooting outside. He can also hear the tick and the tock of the clock hanging above his head. Tick tock – like a litany from the gods, a countdown. A countdown to what? He bites down on the cap of his pen and almost breaks the plastic.
He wants to have X-ray eyes, and he laughs at his own imagination. He wonders if the words do seep into his blood or circles his bones and kisses them. Maybe the ink zaps to his head and clouds it with darkness. Yeah, maybe.
This night is short because dawn comes too soon.
Another night he breaks. His tears are hysterical and his feeling is cold. His sleeves are drawn over his dirty wrists. His eyes are bleary and he feels so sick.
He counts his breaths and trudges towards his bathroom. He feels so vulnerable than ever; naked and pernicious. He's plaintive and he just hates. He hisses and hisses and wails and he fucking doesn't like the pain and doesn't want to handle it anymore. He is small. He cries over the sink.
When he grasps the razor everything from his place on the icy tiles to the clock across his bedroom turns upside down. It's his world and when he exhales the place collides. He faces the mirror. His face is stoic, but he knows he looks aghast underneath the flesh as the razor grazes the battlefield of his skin.
He knows his body may be pliant to his actions but his instinct is to live, although he lives in perdition.
The next day he has rotten blueberry crescents under his eyes.
He attends his classes but only uses his pen on himself. He gets shoved around at least thrice but remains impassive and numb. That's his mantra; impassive and numb.
He meanders around and some stare at him but he doesn't give a shit; he knows he looks like a zombie. He passes a couple of jocks who are too busy huddled in conversation. He goes around a group of geeks; he will never be a part of them because he's too much of a galoot. Then he hovers near four weird girls.
One of them is Monica.
Stupid Monica with her stupid pink hair. He wallows in self-loathing because she will never notice him and he will never ever deserve even just a glance from her. His fist pounds on the wall for a second and a jock mistakes it as a punch meant for him. He suffers again, but when does he not suffer?
He arrives home and presents himself with a black eye.
He really tries to evade Richard and his abuse. He sees he's drunk and flees as fast as he can to the little comfort of his room. But before he shuts the door behind him Richard is there to shove him even more inside. The little comfort he has in these walls have vanished and the ghosts are closing in on him once again.
He tries to stop his damn tears from flowing but he can't. He feels so cowardly and his life sucks and he's waiting for death to come but it just won't.
So he tries to do something else. He attempts to stutter out for Richard to stop and go away. To go to hell. But he guesses that this is already hell – a place where his sorrow and misery is painfully obvious.
The universe does love to see him break apart.
Richard Detmer does something else he hasn't done before and Andrew howls at the pain and terror. The lonely shadows under his mattress spring up and set about to shush him but he can't. Because it's a bitter world and when he screams, he screams in sync with the tick and tock of the clock watching his father molest him. His screaming is a chant for the world to take him away. It's a lullaby calling out to you.
When Richard leaves he hides and dares to kill himself. But he doesn't know why he fucking can't.
Pitter patter; the sound of rain.
He dreams of flying, touching the clouds and being the king of the world. No one to bring him down, no one to come up and tug him back. He can soar.
He dreams of swimming, closer to the mysteries and under of it all. Death is here, under the sea where it's dark, cold, and dizzy. No more friends and no more light.
He dreams of writing, locating words and dislocating them, fusing them, overlapping them. Busy, busy, busy with the way the words spiral around each other. It's fun to watch.
He dreams of a lover, simple but perfect. Her lips are luscious and her legs never do end. Her voice seduces him like she's a siren. Her hair smells like strawberry. Her eyes are honey and her smile plays with his emotions.
He dreams of a friend, funny but careful. Their humor is sick but that's how it is.
He dreams of another life, the sun brighter and everything more colorful. Dawn is sweet as his lips trace his lover's spine in a smile.
He dreams of childhood, triumph and joy. He loves his mother and he loves his mother's warm heart. He misses his mother and he misses his mother's understanding heart. He remembers her laugh though it is far away. He replays the videos he used to watch of her in his mind a hundred times – how her fingers glided on piano keys, how her dress was of flowers and paint and oceans, how she was his hearth and source of happiness.
He dreams no more.
When Andrew stutters the world aches. It aches in a way he won't ever know. It aches when he doesn't know it does.
When Andrew writes the world is lured forward. It wants to inch closer but it can't, because he is cold when he shouldn't be. But he is.
When Andrew cries a deity dies. His aching is the breaking of a god.
When Andrew laughs the walls snap. Because the sound is music and it's holy because it's beautiful.
When Andrew stands Richard's bones dig deeper.