by Xenutia
Disclaimer: Boy, do I wish. Do I ever wish. But looks like I'll have to be content with just playing with em.
Rating: It's Harper's past, so some references to violent stuff. There's nothing graphic, but seeing as it's talking about Magog infestation, and is pretty adult stuff, it's an R'. Y'all going to get the wrong impression about me if I keep writing stuff that's this rating...lol
Summary: Another short fic delving into Harper's life on earth. Not a particularly original story, this, I just wanted to try doing something very heavily stylised. It's set the day after my other short fic dealing with this stuff, Let There Be Light'. This one explores his cousins' funeral, and what may have been going through his head...and what happened that night.
Author's Note: Okay, so it's the first time I've tried one of these song-fic things and actually posted it - it's a slightly different format to most song-fics, but don't let that put you off! It's in answer to a challenge on Slipstream, where basically you had to write a song-fic, but instead of quote the song, act it out. So that's what this is. And as a sidenote, no, this won't get in the way of my posting more of my continuing fic. It's still coming, as usual!
***
My lullaby. The one Mom used to sing to me all those times I wouldn't sleep.
They sung it now, a murmured whisper, rippling through the circle of bitter men, women and children paying their respects. Harper moved his lips, miming words he had almost forgotten in time to the remainder of his quiet family. Only a part of him was even here, and that, only barely; he was spent, weary, sleepless, hungry...he was hung out to dry. But it was over. For better or worse, it was done. It was over.
Daylight had come, and it had been better...it had been spent, squandered, in burying the dead and tending the wounded, all the time they worked forgetting to strengthen their perimeter fences against another attack. Maybe they knew there would be no further attacks. Maybe they had just ceased to care.
Not all that were missing were found that day; so many bodies, so much ash, flame, faces burned away, nothing to identify them but small tokens and articles of jewellery. His aunt had been named only by her wedding ring. There was nothing beyond that that any of them would ever recognise.
Where are you, Dad? he whispered, breaking from the song, laying his own tortured words over theirs, turning his face from the fierce blaze of the pyre centre circle. He had seen too many flames. Too many burned, just like this, burned rather than buried because those that were infested must be completely destroyed.
Harper raised his blurring eyes across the circle, meeting his mother's through the red-hot dance, spirals of ash twisting lazily in the soft night breeze. Smoke blanketed the camp for the second time in as many nights. She was looking so sad, so lost, but he couldn't be there for her. Couldn't be...couldn't be a son, or a friend, couldn't be any of the things these people needed him to be. He couldn't let them close if all it meant was, one day, losing them too.
He didn't want to be alone. It was dark in here alone, trapped in his own head with no-one to turn those thoughts and feelings to; but that was the way it had to be, from now on. No more of this. Never again.
He looked away first. Not willing, not able, to see the hurt in his mother's devastated eyes and not go to her. He let his eyes fall to his torn, bleeding hands, cut to shreds from so many long hours of digging harsh, unyielding ground with blunt, rusty shovels. He watched as the wounds wept, crying bloody tears that trailed down his hands and pattered softly into the dirt. It hurt, but that was okay. Bleeding was breathing, after all. Bleeding fresh blood meant he was alive.
He squinted into the flames, at the blackened remains of his two cousins. They would never bleed again. For them, the nightmare was over.
He almost envied them.
He glanced about the faces in the circle, faces he had grown up with, some shedding tears, others stoic and silent. The lullaby had died; his uncle was saying a hushed prayer over the dead. None of them worried what another thought; they were hiding underneath the smoke from the bonfire, concealed by the drifts of blackened ash. As he hid.
Some of them wept, and his wounds wept scarlet rivers, but he couldn't do the same. His mouth was dry, his tongue parched and swollen, his throat sore, lips cracked. Somewhere along the way, he had forgotten how to cry. But maybe that, like his blood, was okay.
You're hurting me, can't you see that? he thought, lost in despair. They were hurting him with their sad faces, their glances to him, their attempts to break him back out of his shell. But he couldn't let them. If he had to put up a wall, had to act like he didn't care, just to protect himself, then so be it.
He was running fast from the guilt that wanted to make him change his mind, running from the memories of this morning, his cousins paralysed and glassy-eyed, in pain, unable to scream, to move, to...to kill themselves. He was running but he couldn't hide the past. It followed him with swift and lethal dexterity, like a Magog lunging for prey, all claws and fur and high, reptilian squealing. Pushing him to run faster.
Why? Why did this have to happen? Why did the universe take them, and leave him? He was nothing, after all, and less than nothing. He might have been something to his family, but they might as well be dead to him now. He couldn't let them in.
The people in this circle were bleeding, broken, believing in things he couldn't anymore; believing in hope. Whilst he hid underneath the smoke, trying to breathe, and trying to believe as they did.
I used to, he thought, wretchedly. His gaze swept the faces, pale smudges in the night, aglow with the reflections of the cleansing fire, and amended that. We used to.
***
Lyrics: Smoke' by Natalie Imbruglia
My lullaby
Hung out to dry
What's up with that?
It's over
Where are you, Dad?
Mom's looking sad
What's up with that?
It's dark in here
Why - bleeding is breathing
You're hiding
Underneath the smoke in the room
Try - bleeding is believing
I used to
My mouth is dry
Forgot how to cry
What's up with that?
You're hurting me
I'm running fast
Can't hide the past
What's up with that?
You're pushing me
Why - bleeding is breathing
You're hiding
Underneath the smoke in the room
Try - bleeding is believing
I used to
We used to
Why - bleeding is breathing
You're hiding
Underneath the smoke in the room
Try - bleeding is believing
I saw you
Crawling on the floor
Cry - bleeding is believing
You're hiding
Underneath the smoke in the room
Try - bleeding is believing
I saw you
Crawling to the door
Cry - bleeding is believing
You're hiding
Underneath the smoke in the room
Try - bleeding is believing
I saw you
Falling on the floor