Title: Stoplight Red
Author: Naisumi
Rating: R
Disclaimer: You've _got_ to be kidding...^.~
Archive: If you want, but could you tell me at least?
Warnings: Language, deathficness (though not graphically)
Notes: I wrote this all in one sitting...and...yeah. ^^ After weeks of bitching about how we didn't have enough BH fics, I finally crank out a new one ^-^ um...rampant symbolism in this one, folks. LOTS of rampant symbolism. Surprisingly, there's no slash, though there's lots of little undertones. Anyhoo...
Additional Notes: Not betaread ^^
Enjoy, and please give me C&C!!!
"blah." People speak
-- uh...scene switch
--
Maybe it really was his fault that the world got a little too tough. Sometimes he tried to disbelieve it, tried to overwrite it with his own security and sense of pride. But other times, he would lie in his bed and stare into the blackness, wondering if it really was his fault. There were instances when the notion would flash by his mind and draw down the curtain of doubt over his coherent thoughts, then there were the instances when he would figure that maybe it didn't really matter. The world was cold and hard either way, so who was he to say maybe it was his fault? Taking credit for the burdens and wrong twists and turns was more than foolish, and just a little crazy.
But it was easier, sometimes, to think that it was because of him that things hurt, that things went wrong. Then he had control; then he could hold the solution in the palm of his hand and distribute it with apologies. When he could accept the blame, when he could bear the responsibility of it on top of his shadowy past, at least then he knew. At least then they knew. At least then the world made a little bit of sense.
In the fall, the sidewalks were cracked and forlorn, the dark gaps between slabs of cold cement filled with dirt and seeming like parched lips waiting to be filled with spring rain. When he walked downtown, he always kept his eyes on his feet; watched the toes of his worn rubber-marked tennis shoes scuff at the grimy ash-gray ground. Sometimes, if he was feeling whimsical, he wondered what was underneath; what history and secrets the dry brown earth beneath held. But most of the times, he just walked and kept on walking.
At this time of the year, the shops were full of clearances and special twenty percent discounts. There were yellow cardboard sunbursts on the windows, proclaiming to all who passed by that they were special, and that they deserved something different and wonderful and great for the upcoming holidays. The signs always were meant for people to stop and look at them, but no one really did. Everyone just kept walking, occasionally casting an idle glance at the store windows, ignoring the still life that ruled the downtown.
Downtown really is a world of its own, with shops like large metal-and-brick boxes and people inside looking bored and drained. Young salesclerks always stood by and didn't care even if the store policy was to smile and be friendly, welcoming. Often times, they lean against the racks, snapped their gum, and asked in a lazy drawl if your latest purchase was all you wanted. Then, mostly, they look confused and more than a little hostile if some poor middle-aged father can't make up his mind and wants something more. But then again, most people do want something more in life. However, most of the time, that 'something more' isn't purchasable in a brightly wrapped paper and plastic box in a downtown outlet store.
People bustled by, all looking terribly engrossed in their how-de-do lives and tired routines. He paid no attention to them, and was met by mutual reserve. Some pedestrian sped by with a fleeting whiz on his bike, leaving a few muted grumbles of irritation in his wake. Then, the noise of traffic and shriveled leaves skittering on the sidewalk returned, and people continued walking. They continued walking, and he walked along with everyone else, ignoring the bright pleading signs and shiny mirror-like windows and the weary, jaded people inside the box-like cages on either side of them.
--
Pietro sat down, strangely subdued, the wooden chair skidding backwards on the yellowed tile floor with a small screech. It grated on his nerves, but he didn't say anything or do anything. The clock on the wall ticked quietly, acting like a metronome to his staccato thoughts. He sat across from it, and stared at the table, watching his fingers and limp pale hand, white against the mahogany of dull wood grains.
Pressing his feet against the linoleum floor, he could feel the cool smoothness of it through the worn fabric of his socks, and wondered if there was a hole in the heel again. Usually he went through socks like hellfire, but lately, they had been staying intact more or less. It didn't really matter, and he didn't really care, so he didn't think about it anymore; dismissing the thought as soon as it came up.
There was a dull ache in the pit of his stomach and he stood up, crossing the kitchen to the brittle cabinets. He picked up a pewter bowl and a tin-like spoon, setting it on the counter with a light click. Then, with only the brief rustle of cellophane, he poured out some stale cornflakes, listening to them as they spilled with a dry hissing sound into his bowl. Glancing to the side, he looked dispassionately at the bar of wan sunlight that lit on his arm, making it glow hazily.
Silently, he picked up his bowl and spoon, and moved out of the sun back to the alcove of the dining table, staring at the clock again, and shoveling dry cereal into his mouth every so often.
The quietness appeared again, then the front door squeaked open and heavy footsteps approached. There was the quiet crinkling of used brown paper as Lance set down an armful of grocery bags, and he began unloading the manmade products, blank-labeled cans of processed food. Pietro watched the clock for a few minutes more before standing up silently and going to help him, all the while feeling the chill of the floor under the soles of his feet.
After they finished unpacking the groceries, they both parted ways, and the kitchen was silent once more, with only the soft ticking of the white and black clock and a mostly uneaten bowl of cornflakes, tin spoon sticking out of it with smudged fingerprints on its handle.
--
It was quiet in the park, just like he remembered it. The sunlight seemed dim, however, not golden and liquid warmth like it used to be. It was dim, yet oddly too bright and filled with a strange sharpness that hurt his eyes. This day was different from the others. This day did not hold the sun dancing playfully even between the bare branches. This day was empty.
He remembered the park in the winter, filled with icy wonders and slopes of snow shining prettily and blue-white. The lake had glazed over thickly and turned into a boundless ice rink waiting for eight-year-old children to pretend to be Olympic skaters. They had rented some ice-skates for a dime or so and he had spun a figure eight before falling and nearly fracturing his elbow. The others had laughed and called him a show-off. He had smiled and laughed along with them.
It hadn't been out of spite, and it hadn't been out of competition.
It had been friendship. It had been family.
In the summer, he recalled taking walks on the hiking paths, feeling the warm brown earth under his shoes. He couldn't actually feel the warmth, truth be told, but he could imagine what it was like. He could imagine what it was like to feel close to life and what it was like to feel right at home. They were all really good at imagining.
He remembered him pointing out the birds and actually being able to name them. It had been pretty amazing, since none of them had ever coined him for being the type. But he had known, and it had been fun. Fun and peaceful and close to life. Right at home.
He could also remember them laughing together, the sunkissed trail under their feet. Upon sifting through all the memories, he leaned back against the barren tree, and wondered how he could have ever thought that the park was quiet and secluded, and how he could have ever thought that that was how he remembered it to be.
--
Sometimes Fred wondered if they cared. Sitting there on top of the damn hill, eating their damn classy food, living in their damn mansion with all the wealth of inheritance. Sometimes he wondered if they even thought enough to not care.
Victim of ignorance that he was, Fred knew that they probably had stories; probably had some tragic backdrop. Some of them, at least. However, victim of society that he was, Fred had ceased to care. Rather, he had stopped caring under the undying torrent of righteous anger and bitterness that had besieged him from too long ago to remember.
He would be the first to admit that he wasn't of the intellectual type. No, he liked to keep things simple. He was a man of simple words and simple actions, and that was how he liked to keep it. It didn't really matter if there was a reason behind your action--as long as it didn't change it. No, what mattered was what was done and what damage control you did. It didn't really matter if you were sorry-- unless that made it all alright in some instances--because you still did something. Some people got through life with selective shielding and selective dreaming and remembering. Freddy got through it by narrowing his outlook, putting things in terms that he understood; opening paragraph, five sentences, closing paragraph. As long as the world was black and white, then he was okay. As long as everything was as simple as protecting friends and surrogate family while not caring about the world, then it was fine.
It hurt to think otherwise.
Nothing really could ever make up some actions, and he didn't want to think of forgiving. No sorry could really make some things alright, and he didn't want to think so.
Sometimes, apologies and reasons aren't enough.
--
Life is like clockwork.
People always say that changes and curveballs always pop in and throw you off course, but the truth is that the changes only adjust your course.
Once people get over a valley or under a hill or whatever damn phase they're going through, they fall back into the same old routine time and time again. Sometimes, after something drastic happen, they stop and say 'My life will never be the same.' But the truth is, that once that something drastic happens, they fall into a new routine. It doesn't matter that it's goddamn different. It doesn't matter that it's goddamn new and outlandish and frightening. It's still a goddamn routine. Routines can give order or they can give chaos. And sometimes, routines are just plain dangerous.
Life is like clockwork, and he believed firmly in that theory, that blatant fact. Sometimes it breaks down and stalls, but eventually the gears just start cranking again; cracking down on time. However, after a while, the machinery starts getting rusty and just a little out of whack. When a clock goes out of whack, it whines and makes all sorts of piteous noises.
He wondered if their life was making those sounds now.
Nothing was the same anymore, but they had fallen into a routine. The same old routine now and every day. Oh, it didn't matter in the whole scheme of things. Nothing really mattered worth a damn in the whole scheme of things. Maybe that's why people said he was a rebel, that he was angry and bitter at the world. Maybe it's because of his outlook. Maybe it's because he took in the whole picture and became jaded; realized that sometimes you get to the point where life doesn't matter. Maybe it's because he was hurt again.
Life is like clockwork.
Sometimes he wished it wasn't so; wished that happiness came packaged neatly in airtight cellophane and cardboard boxes. Other times, he was glad; glad that there was some semblance of order in his life.
Most of the time, though...most of the time he was just tired.
--
Lance leaned back and wondered where Freddy was. He wondered and wondered some more, wondering when life had become so sunken and dark and shadowy. Beside him, Pietro was lying on his back, his elbows sticking out on either side of his head as he pillowed the back of his neck on his arms. He stared at the sky and didn't say anything. Pietro seldom said much anymore. None of them really said anything.
The soft lapping of teal-tinted water on the edge of the beach filled their ears like broken down pipe-work, the gurgling and quiet wash of noise calming. It seemed distant, like listening to the sea in the hollow of a conch seashell. It kept on relentless, like the ticking of an alarm clock. It flickered, stopped, then came back.
After a few more minutes, the rustle of sparse grass heralded Freddy approaching, his footsteps slow, lethargic. Silently, he sat down, a little higher up on the slight slope of the sandy bank than the other two. There was more quiet, then Pietro murmured without preamble,
"It's different, isn't it?"
Fred nodded, and Lance picked up a blade of grass, shredding it slowly before adding softly,
"It's just not the same."
"Not the same," Pietro echoed. He turned his head slightly, pressing his pale cheek into the gritty sand.
"Not the same at all."
Freddy nodded, even though no one could see.
"Do you think they're sorry?" The ivory-haired boy asked after a beat of silence.
Lance shrugged, leaned his elbow against his knee, and watched the gray sky with dull eyes.
"Do you think we care?"
"No." Pietro might've smiled, but instead, his thin lips stayed listlessly in a straight line. The bright-eyed boy who would grinned and gone out on a tangent had died a few months back, and now, the solemn stranger who took his place kept staring into nothing and repeated, "No."
The sea roared a little louder and somewhere a bird called mournfully. Lance tilted his chin upwards slightly, sienna eyes searching the cloudless sky. Then, he ducked his head as the thought of someone else who would've known what bird it was crossed his mind.
"Was that a seagull..." Pietro started, then finished a few seconds later, as if he had run out of energy before, "or a dove?"
"Don't know," Lance replied with just as much of a pause beforehand. The cerulean-eyed boy didn't seem to notice his response and began drawing in the sand with his index finger, his other arm still behind his head.
"Look, a car." Pietro smiled without humor. The older boys further up on the dune looked at the picture.
"Look...an innocent little boy." The pale boy was beginning to tremble now.
"Look...those bastards who ran him over..." Sand scattered over the shaky doodling as his hand began to quiver uncontrollably. No one moved to go beside him.
"Look...look..." Pietro's shoulders hunched up then jerked slightly before slumping back down and heaving up in a silent sob.
"Look..." he repeated, tears splattering in the sand, darkened splotches dotting the mussed up pictures he had drawn just a few seconds earlier.
"'It was an accident,'" the ashen-haired boy mimicked, his voice thick, strung high with emotion. "'God, I'm so sorry...'"
There was silence again. Then, softly,
"I hate them so much..."
A few more minutes, then the dull-eyed youth rolled over onto his back again, uncoiling from fetal position. He stared into the sunset, the pale sun glowing a brief watery red over the horizon. Red, like the puddles of warm blood, the rivers of blood, trickling down the gutter. Red, like eyes that cried too much. Red, like dispassionate lips mouthing apologetic words that weren't worth shit. Red, like the stoplight that hadn't been there to stop the clockwork gears from breaking down.
The clock stopped ticking and the world was muffled by cellophane.
The park was silent and ripped up grass littered sand because of now unmoving fingers.
And behind the quiet, blank-eyed boy on his back, Freddy nodded again, even though no one saw.
~fin~