I'm still painting flowers for you~ I still love you… and you can ignore me so simply… how can you still smile as my heart is screaming for you? Can't you hear the pain? I know you're blind, but you can feel it, can't you? I need you… I need you more than I ever have… I want to take your hands in my own, gently kiss you and remind you every day that you're mine and I'll never hurt you… but instead I'm forced to watch you smile and giggle in his arms instead of mine… I'd suggest you shoot yourself and save me the trouble, but you don't deserve the only bullet in my chamber. I'm using it on myself and then maybe you'll see how much you really needed me.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Back when a home really was a home, back when moms and dads were just that and they loved each other for the good and the bad, Wally West had never wanted to be a hero. 'Save the tights for someone who cares,' he would always say in a little voice before going back to using the cat as a soccer ball or drawing little stick figures in the middle of a huge battle with explosions, tanks and guns perched atop the tallest of hills with thickly colored stick men operating them.
When the poisons of the real world kicked in, poisoning his perfect reality, that quickly changed. When home became hell, when mom and dad became enemies that tried to kill each other day and night over the stupidest of things, he knew that there was nothing else he wanted to be. 'Tie on my cape so I can fly away to join the rest of the rejects,' he would sigh, his eyes glued to the television screen as he played Medal of Honor and blasted depressing music through his IPod.
It wasn't until the devil personally walked up to his house and warmly knocked on the door, sitting down at dinner with them that he truly realized his dream. The screams and shattering glass further pressed it deep into his heart, his own bitter tears sealing that dream tight so he'd never forget it. He wanted to be the kind of hero that could suck all of the bad from the world so no kid would ever again have to bury his head in his pillows just to muffle his loud sobs of pure agony.
To be a hero though, he needed one to save him first. He didn't want the kind of hero with the mask, tights and huge symbol on their chest though. He wanted the kind who wore civilian clothes and reassuring smiles that would lessen the tears as he was ripped from his parents' arms and forced to stay in a safer haven with people that actually loved him. The kind of heroes that could promise lies, but the lies were all you needed to keep going through the pain.
Even when he was saved though and living with his aunt and uncle who acted as better parents than he had ever known, he hadn't been saved. He was still in the top floor of the burning building, trapped in a burning building under a fallen piece of ceiling tiles. The heroes were floating outside the window, but they were only staring in sadly because they knew they couldn't help. No one could help him. He was a lost cause and eventually, he was going to burn alone and scared in the corner with no one to remember him.
That's what he thought anyway. Then a pang of consciousness came and in a moment, he was in the warm and protective arms of his uncle, a million secrets spilling from the red spandex and the vivid streak that the fast feet left in the air behind them. That was only part of the solution. He was out of the building, but what about his legs? They'd been crushed under the roof bits and he was still on fire. He was going to die there, an important secret forever burnt into his mind as the world slowly faded out and everything finally became peaceful.
In the hospital, they tried all they could, but he seemed to be unfixable. He was a wreck; an impossible wreck and he was doomed. The tears never stopped, the smiles never started and the heartache only worsened with every day spent away from hell. He missed the screams, the breaking glass and the irreplaceable burn that he always felt as his parents' anger had grown darker and deeper.
He wanted to see the devil again and sit with him, talking the day away. Then, as the sun set on his worst day, he would drive a knife straight into the throat that spread all of the lies and hated that made his life this horrible. He would press it deeper and deeper through the veins, turning it slowly until the demon's strangled screams were silent and the never ending pain in his eyes faded to a milky color, hopefully bringing back a more peaceful time back from when he actually had a reason to smile.
That dream was near as impossible as his hero dream though so he just stayed holed up in his new room all day and night, playing war games where he was the hero; where he got to save the day; where he stopped all of the hurt and the pain while releasing some of his own. He wouldn't listen to his new 'parents' and for the longest time, he even stopped eating. He wasn't sure why though.
Dying wouldn't be any better than living because chances were he hadn't followed the right religion and he wasn't going to like what happened after lights out, if anything happened at all. What if the light at the end of the tunnel was just the light above his head on the bed? What if his faint mumble of seeing some goddish figure waiting for him in the light was just a heartbroken way of saying there hadn't been anything at all?
Soon enough, the world began to give up on him. 'Traumatized,' they would declare him, as if they knew him that well. How dare they decide what he was? They had no right! That was all the encouragement he needed to beg the blue fairy to change him back into a puppet because being a real boy wasn't as great as he had thought. Fairies weren't all they were made up to be though and he was reminded that the curse was permanent. Forever would he be forced to drag one foot after the other, waiting for the world to slow down in his mind.
It didn't slow down. Instead, it took pity in him. One day as he was dragged along to work with his uncle on the promise of meeting a hero, a bolt of lightning struck the lab he was in. The tables turned and this time, the screams escaped Wally's lips and the shattering glass was aimed towards him instead of the ones he loved. When he awoke, his strongest dream had halfway been granted. He had powers now; he was faster than before. He wasn't happy with them though.
He cursed the sky, he cursed the ground, he cursed the earth and everyone in it. Why hadn't he been hit back when he really had a reason to want to run? Where had been his super speed when he had been hiding in his closet, three magic numbers typed onto the home phone, ready to call for the strongest range of help when the screams finally stopped? What about those times when he was sitting at the table and eating as he heard them fighting about him behind the closed bedroom door, sounding as if they were right there beside him?
Barry Allen had chosen that time to take his nephew's angry hands into his own, meeting the pain-filled emerald eyes with his own. He couldn't promise the moon, but he promised the next big thing. How would little Wally like to be a hero? How does saving the world from all the bad and evil sound? You could be in spandex and tights with a mask and your own symbol in a second! What about it kid, do you want to be a hero?
Years passed and Wally had finally fulfilled his dream. He was a hero. The burns had healed and he had gotten fake legs to replace his broken ones. He had friends that loved him and family to match. The screams sometimes still managed to escape, but they were as rare as the times he managed to stop smiling. He still wasn't happy though.
Just because a smile always decorates your face doesn't mean you're always happy. No one ever bothers to notice the tearstains against the laughter and he was completely fine with that. The world had pitied him once and it had done him too much. Maybe for once, everyone would just take a hint and back off, letting him live his own life.
"I'm not a videogame; stop playing me."
Other fic coming up soon, hopefully lighter. I can't help it if I want to strangle young animals underwater until the bubbles stop… *shrug* Wally deserves mentions I guess. I always swarm little Dicky, but Wally should get his own turn every once in a while. Just because he doesn't have a soul doesn't mean he isn't just as awesome (: See? I smile when I'm definitely in no mood to. Review?
-F.J.