title: the sky is dying (and so are you)
characters: Massie, Derrick, Alicia, Claire, Cam
summary: It's something she'd like to call eternity.
a/n: it's more of an AU version; it has canon events and begins sometime in 10th grade, supposing that massie returned back to westchester from london after about a year and had a bad ending relationship with james, the boy she met on the plane. it's a bit rushed and ooc, so i'm sorry about that - haven't written in the clique fandom for quite a while now too. hope you like it though, c:
disclaimer: i don't own anything besides the story idea; the characters and everything else belong to Lisi Harrison.
dedication: this is for zoey (the necronomicon) for aprili gge14
prompt: massington hurt/comfort
also, sorry for spag errors.
"The sky is dying," Derrick Harrington tells her on a Tuesday.
Massie smokes a cigarette and stares back longingly at the Academy in the corner—it is a place of perfection, perhaps, and looks as though it could have been in a cookie-cutter magazine advertisement for Saks or something wonderfully unrealistic like that mall—and thinks that the decisions she makes these days haven't been thought through hard enough.
It hurts to remember the days in which she would splay herself across a mattress (of course, then get up, and pinch herself so that the crescent shape mark would tattoo itself onto vein throbbing ivory skin) and think about anything and everything—she would over think, and sometimes, Massie wouldn't think at all but then would think it through and through and make a fool of herself, but she thought. She didn't go with the flow—it wasn't as though she acted that way because she was a Block.
She acted that way because she lived in Westchester, and the children from Westchester had expectations. Not to be doctors and lawyers and to get into the best residency program at John Hopkins, but to be pretty and travel the world and do something either wonderfully horrendous or distasteful, and have people talking about you for ages—that is the Block legacy, laden with prestige and honor. Massie sighs, letting the bitter stench fill her nostrils and quickly splays Chanel No. 5 across her porcelain features. "We are dying too, both of us, all of us."
Derrick laughs (it's not a pretty laugh, though, it's a chortle of mania, a cry for help in the subdued lights), "You're scared of death? Shouldn't be. We're all going to die someday, whether it's today or tomorrow, and you shouldn't be scared of something that is inevitable—it's more nonsensical and stupid than anything else. I didn't peg you for a stupid girl, Block." It doesn't matter that what he's saying makes no good sense.
Nevertheless, he traces of a smile splay across her burgundy red lips; you smile, smile so wide that nobody would ever think for a moment that you have broken done and burn out years earlier, smile as though you believe in eternity, smile as though there is always something left living for—smile as though you are whole, as though you are still a person to be proud of. "I'm not scared."
It starts with a party—
Beers are cracked, so are jaws - past pandemonium is in the ambiance, and jasmine perfume stench fill her nostrils, eyes bleary as she takes in the surroundings of chaos: Massie can picture the image very clearly; it's not the first time a 'high society' gathering has turned out this way, what with the advent of new ways to sneak in beer and such.
"It's the Party of the Year," Alicia drawls out, Spanish accent overwhelming from summer break and Massie rolls her eyes—she still acts as though she lives in Spain and is surrounded by adoring cousins. "You're coming, whether you like it or not."
Massie raises an eyebrow, "Course I'm coming, Leesh. It's not like I've got anything better to do with my life." She fingers a sheet of papers embedded within the hinges of her locker and scratches the red paint off the front cover of them, sighing a little once the paint sticks to the bottom of her nails, mixing with the dirt in the crevices of fingernails. "I have college apps, extracurriculars, and college parties."
"College parties? I highly doubt that; just because your parents are the Blocks, it doesn't mean that you can start acting like you're Skye Hamilton or anybody as high up as her."
Massie laughs, "Skye Hamilton, high up? The only thing that girl's high up on is drugs. Probably cocaine. No, something richer."
"You've been out of it for a long time, Mass—people have changed, everybody's trying to change themselves. It's senior year, this is our last chance, this is our last year, and this is the only year where everybody else is going to even treat us with some respect; one year from now, twelve months, we'll be freshmen again, back at the very bottom. So, give me your choice—do you want to be unforgettable or be forgotten?"
"Unforgettable, of course." (She will be—nobody forgets a train wreck.)
She stands at the doorstep, hesitance laced into a false display of confidence—the combination tends to work very well, fooling the crowd of people who don't care and those who choose not to care, and the few who choose to care don't care about her—and raps her knuckles upon the peeling red paint of the front door, noticing the black stains and the slightly bashed in gilded doorknob.
Massie shivers in the cold ambiance of a September and notes the various couples who spend more time snogging than talking in the garden and diverts her attention from the misfortunes of high school when the door slams wide open—"You know what, Cameron Fisher? Screw you."
A boy with a mess of light blonde hair, contrasted by the rather extravagant costume he dons—it's something of a combination between formalities and casual, basketball jersey upon dress pants, and it could have worked well if the boy was actually on the basketball team and not trying to fake it all. "Aw, come on Claire, don't be like that—Nikki doesn't mean anything to me, she was just a summer thing."
The girl crosses her arms, "Sure didn't look like that when she was at your house last weekend, wearing nothing but a towel." Then with a reluctant pause; Massie wonders how many times the two of them have done this before; "We're done, Cameron. For good." Claire (Lyons? Massie ponders, younger, or possibly, older sister of Todd?) stares blankly at Massie for a few moments, "Well, are you coming in or not?"
She nods in response, entering into the foyer of glimmering lights and red cups and wonders how they've made it this far.
It would be a lie for Massie to tell herself that she's enjoying this party— Then again, lies aren't something that are too far-reached, so she thinks to herself, It can only get better from here, or, why don't you go to talk to Alicia? She sort of waved over at you. "Don't look now, but soccer boy's looking at you," Alicia murmurs slowly, one hand clasped tightly around a red rimmed cup, mascara slightly smeared.
They're not the type of close friends they used to be, so it's not as though Massie can ask her if anything's wrong, because the only answer Alicia would give her is What's wrong with you? She misses middle school, she misses how easy everything used to be, before boy drama got too complicated, before she went off gallivanting to London and came back to a completely new place, one where she wasn't the alpha anymore. She tilts her head sharply to her side, cheeks coloring at the presence of a foreigner, then looks back, "He is, isn't he?"
Alicia raises an eyebrow, "So are you going to lay your claim on him or not? You're pretty indecisive as of late, but I'll give you the rest of the weekend to see if you want him or not, for real. Otherwise, I'll take him."
"You don't even know him, Leesh."
"Neither do you," she snaps, harsh tone; Alicia grimaces, faking a smile, and swallows down a sip of scotch and shoves Massie slightly, effect exacerbated by the alcohol that reeks in her breath. "Go on, then."
She doesn't end up talking to him at the party.
It's a bit too presumptuous to assume that he was looking at her—perhaps, she thinks, out of cowardly demise, he was looking at Alicia. Or maybe Leesh and him had organized this great big prank to make the poor not so popular (anymore) girl to make a fool out of herself in front of the star of the Briarwood Tomahawks. The next time she sees him is at the away basketball game—Coach Myner, old and haggard, looks as though the sun will not rise the next day if his boys don't crush the opposing team at A.D.D., and Massie partly agrees.
It feels like desuetude, the laggard motions, the effusive cheers filling to the brim with vivacity; it is nothing of eloquence perhaps, though, looking from one of the back rows, Massie notices the way Alicia performs: it's almost like a dance. And she's not the only one who's cheering as though her life (social one, of course, and perhaps, her real one) depends out; the rest of the girls do it, and Massie wishes that everybody hadn't changed so much and left her in the dust. Or, perhaps, she was the one who had changed.
The halftime bell rings and in a last-minute effort, Kemp Hurley throws the ball halfheartedly at the basket and watches it rebound off into the clutches of an opponent. Alicia walks up to her and drags her arm to the front of the line, forcing another girl back, "You didn't talk to him, did you? Because he hasn't been looking at you any time during the game."
"Maybe I'm just not interested in dating anybody now," Massie murmurs, her voice barely rising above a whisper; it's nothing euphonious, just tired of all the carefully constructed screams and chants. Alicia raises an eyebrow in question, "And it's not because of what happened with James. I'm over that."
"Uh, uh." She doesn't look very convinced, but shrugs her shoulders nonetheless, smile imprinted back onto charcoal rimmed eyes, "Anyway, it doesn't really matter anymore. Cameron, your ex-crush, likes Claire, who seems as though she likes Derrick. And for sure, unlike the rest of you fools, I know that I like Derrick; and who the hell knows who you like anymore?"
And then she meets him; he's wonderful, really.
The library is something of peace—Massie falls in love with the way that her long fingers curl around the edges of a pencil, the graphite seeping within the cracks of her fingernails; the way that she sometimes finds herself sitting down on the floor, piles and piles of books around her, and deciding to read all of them, promising to herself that she'll find time to read them all—she never does, of course.
There's always the ability to escape this world, and it's not even that simple anymore—the life in the books is the life that she wants for herself; not the characters, for she does not wish to be one of them.
In most of the books Massie fancies, the characters keep on being killed off for the most nonsensical of reasons, just to advance the plot forward. She finds herself on a Tuesday afternoon during a lunch hour nestled in between a stack of books, mindlessly flipping the pages and letting the words filter through her eyes but not seep through her brain.
And then, there he is—Derrick Harrington, in all his snobby, somewhat chauvinistic glory, looking through a pile of books and placing them in his hands; she stands up, and moves closer—Alicia would have been proud. "Thoreau, then? I wouldn't recommend it, Harrington. You don't seem like the type to be interested in The Communist Manifesto either."
He rolls his eyes, "Yeah, well, you don't know anything about me, Block."
"I used to do," she mutters out, low enough for her voice to traipse between the still air; the words fall out of her mouth like acid, and they look at each other as though they are almost but not yet quite, but they are not, and that is all that is of significance. "Anyways," she brushes off the thoughts, "Are you taking AP World History or just for some light reading?"
Derrick barks out a laugh, "I'm not a complete idiot: light reading, of course."
"Don't get who you're trying to impress, Harrington."
"Maybe I just find The Communist Manifesto to be an interesting specimen—it's about communism, in general. The bourgeoisie and the proletarians, the relationship of the social classes to communism, communist literature, and the position of the communists in relation to the various opposition parties that there might have been." He looks rather impressed with himself, smug grin.
Massie raises an eyebrow, "Not sure if you thought that would work on me, but I think I've spent enough times on the internet to know that you've memorized an almost exact summary of that book from Wikipedia."
His grin drops, smirking, "It'll be our secret then."
This is how it happens—
In the land of the gods and monsters, it is possible for the humans to be corrupted—they are driven by revenge and hope and dreams, and these can all be quickly and quietly contorted into demands, and it is easy to lose oneself in the confusion that is life. Love is not for the faint of heart, that is what the people say: but she is broken and he is breaking, and they do more damage to themselves together, far worse than they could have done alone.
The two of them self-destruct (except it's worse than it was in eighth grade, it's so much worse) ashes circling upon the terrace and falling into the wide expanse that is the sea.
He is not a picture-perfect boy anymore; Derrick Harrington is supposed to be a boy out of white picket fences and St. Bernards—perfection of society, but he is not the boy she had dreamed him up to be. Deep within the teeth which begin to yellow and the bloodied face, pale white, other times brooding grey, there is still the boy she love(d) and as desperation seeps through her fingertips, Massie carves away at his face, looking for the real Derrick Harrington, and is unable to find it beneath a new layer, layers always growing.
Massie lets her expectation fall, and along with her expectations, so does she.
New York is lovely—she runs through Central Park, bare feet upon prickly grass, breathing in the polluted air of a fully industrialized city; it is a wonder, she thinks, that the human race has made it so far.
"We are capable of this, all this beauty but at the same time we are capable of wars and communism—"
"Nothing wrong with communism, is there? I rather like the system. Makes sense and everything—everybody puts in a low amount of work, and everybody gets a low, but equal, salary," Derrick spits out; he is not entirely bad today, just tired. It seems to be her excuse for his behavior all the time these days.
Massie smiles towards the bright blue sky and thinks it's a little darker than it used to be, brightness imprinted into the back of her eyelids; living a life like that, with false expectations and unrealistic dreams, it's a dangerous life to lead. "That's because you slack off, Derrick. You're not like the rest of us—if you were, maybe you would work a bit harder. Mum and Dad aren't going to buy your way in, now are they?"
He smokes a cigarette, half smile and heavy breaths. "Why would I want to go to college, then?"
The last time she had been to New York it had been to enclose her parents beneath the graves—it's magic, the smiling man had told her; he was a magician, the frightening one with blood on his eyes, red and alluring. Kendra and William Block were smiling socialites for a moment, and the next, they were beneath the ground, but how could that be? A person couldn't truly be in a box—their bones and remains were there, but their soul was in the pits of hell. That much she was ascertained of. "How else you going to get married? Pretty rich girls don't marry worthless boys with no education—that's not the way the world works."
"It's the other way around, ain't it? And Massie, darling," he mimics a high society tone and Massie holds back the urge to slap him across the face because the only people who talk like that are her parents, and she doesn't want to think about them now, and Derrick knows that, but he's just an idiot—they're all idiots, not just boys, the entire human population. "How would you know anything about life?"
"I don't know everything, I know some things. Education gets you places. If you work hard, it might eventually pay off, if you pray hard enough, if you have enough luck in your veins."
"You've worked real hard, haven't you? And now you're here, with the gang."
"We're not a gang; it's you-me-Leesh-Joshua-Cameron-Dylan-Kristen-Claire-Kemp and that's it. We're the same, except we're not. We're completely different people and I don't want you pretending as though we're all the same, because we're not." It doesn't bother him that one he says doesn't make any good sense at all. I'm not like you, I won't be like you, Massie adds in the forefront of her mind, trying to send the message across with a firm gaze.
Derrick barks out a laugh, "We're more alike than you would think, Block."
The Last Good Day was not a good day at all—
He comes bursting into her college apartment; Claire Lyons, blonde and pretty and weak, stifles a gasp and sits in shock for a few minutes before running out of the flat. Thanks for nothing, Lyons, Massie murmurs.
Derrick is bloodied, blood splayed across his pale white face; he is not beautiful, he is a monster. I should call the police, she murmurs slowly, letting her fingertips roam across his face; when she was younger, with dreams and hopes: but you see, she still has dreams and hopes, but they are of killing and destruction and revenge and answers and they are not the same as a happily ever after: perhaps Derrick Harrington was something of an angel in her evanescently guided mind.
He flinches at the touch of human contact, You wouldn't dare.
You're killing yourself. She barks out a laugh, actually, not quite sure if you're killing yourself or if you're killing others. She doesn't respond to the question that he poses upon his face. I guess the alternative is better, Massie continues her train of thought; she looks at him as though he is a doll, a pawn in her game, but is the other way around she has long learned. I'll get you some ice.
When she turns around, slow footsteps and high-heel clicks, the gun is pressed to her forehead, circular indent already forming. His hand is trembling, unsteady; his eyes are maniac red. Count to ten. This won't hurt at all.
In the depths of the abattoir that is his apartment, two pairs of eyes lock; his eyes stare into the depths of hers, apologetic, and the silver bullet, golden accents in all its majestic glory, clashes into her right shoulder, dents caving in all around. Nobody hears her screams.
But she lives—it is the Last Good Day for eternity, but it is not the last day.
Her last day, Massie is already quite assured of, will be filled with pain and misery—karma, everybody talks about; if you have done something wrong in an earlier life, it will come around to haunt you. She wonders how many sins she had committed to deserve a life like this.
I'm not scared, I'm not scared, I'M NOT SCARED OF THE MONSTERS I'M NOT SCARED, I'LL NEVER BE SCARED. The words launch themselves from her corrupted lungs and spill through the cracks of the universe; the cracks close with a burst of ichor, but the words are still there, and Massie falls down upon the cracking pavement and lets the crack swallow her, with the lies.
It is okay to be afraid, what with the explosions in the sky—
Any person with a measure of smarts developed over the months and years would understand that is okay to be afraid—for there is a boy running on the streets, a boy who was once captain of the Briarwood Tomahawks, most popular boy in the Academy of the lower grades, and he traipses around town and drags down high society girls (but perhaps, they are the ones who drag themselves down, but when he breaks their hearts and bones after a few weeks or months, they are to run back to their parents and tell lies because that is the only way a society can function, with lies and gossip and scandal).
The ones he chooses are never weak, perhaps; you cannot be weak—you must not be afraid to let a little blood spill, to break a few bones and watch the bruises heal over time, to imprint the crescent-shaped scar onto your palm to forget of the horrible things you have done in the night—it is not as though you have committed murder, bitten into necks (for vampires do not exist, you, yourselves are the monsters—other monsters would have mercy, but you are overwrought by mania and stupidity and dramatics) but you have ruined lives, and that is bad enough.
The worst part, perhaps, is that you are the monster now—the monster you had thought lived underneath your bed. And you have done this all to yourself, and there is nobody else left to blame. "You're back," Judi Lyons, honorary guardian, drawls out, accent tinged with grief and wear. Later that night, at dinner, she murmurs over candlelight, "I don't understand why you're doing this to yourself."
"Where's Claire? And Todd, and Jay?" Massie only asks, letting the silver tines stab into the cracks of the coral plate, tinted with jasmine scents and rose petal decorations. "And don't bother with lies."
"She wants to avoid you; you've consorted with Derrick, and he's dangerous, darling, and you shouldn't be around a boy like that because people are going to start thinking that you're dangerous too."
She takes a sip of club soda and purses her charcoal lips together, "Maybe they're right."
She uncurls her hand from unconsciously formed fists and moves forward into the room, sitting down upon the couch—the scent of alcohol and scotch permeates through her nostrils and Massie reaches into her purse for Chanel No. 5 and quickly spritzes the surroundings and inhales a new age, wondering how long it will take for the fragile atmosphere to collapse upon itself. "You haven't been at school," she murmurs.
Derrick's eyes flash up as he sits opposite from her, head resting in hands, eyes bloodshot and swollen. "I just needed to get away. From everything, and I needed to get away as soon as possible." It's something obvious, of course—she had read through the papers, headlines flashing of Harrington Fortune Passes on to Derrick Harrington, heir of the fortune, as soon as he becomes of age, the tabloids reaching throughout the corners of the Briarwood Academy, plastered to the brick walls and stamped upon cement.
"I was worried about you." She lets the concern seep through her voice, flooding the room, because the words out of his mouth are stated in a monotone fashion, as though he believes that there's nothing left in this world that is good, and perhaps that is the truth. They are all corrupted people breathing through broken lungs and they are waiting to destroy one another, but there is still some traces of 'good' left.
There must be, or they are living with false hopes, with dreams in their mind of better days. "You shouldn't have been," he says, as though turning off one's emotions is as easy as turning off a light switch. She breathes in the air and lets it pour through her lungs and stands up, walking toward the side of the penthouse, opening the blinds and letting the light pour in, streaming across.
"Go back to school, Derrick. You need to move on." Perhaps, looking back upon the situation, the words could have been something akin to harsh, but life is harsh, and that is one of the universal truths of life and Massie thinks that it will be better for him to learn that as of now—the world is not a wish-granting factory. Though they live on the Upper East Side, happiness is not on the menu; these are stories, not fairytales.
It only takes a moment for him to stand up, quick motion, balancing unsteadily on right leg, and a sharp slap inflicted upon her cheek. His eyes flash back to something of puppy dog amber, emotions seeping through and Derrick flinches back and retreats behind closed doors. She purses her lips numbly, clutches onto her purse and leaves—this time, for good.
"You haven't been dating in weeks," Claire mentions, blonde hair flicked back and blue eyes flashing with concern; she's something pure and kind and innocent and doesn't belong on the Upper East Side, not at all. "You can't still be thinking about Derrick."
Massie barks out a laugh, then stifles her expression. "I'm not."
She plummets off the roof and dives into oblivion—
The first thing she packs is those faded jeans (the ones that probably don't even fit her anymore, but with a couple weeks of fruit and vegetable cleanses, you know, anything could happen) and tries not think why she holds onto the past, stuffs them in the back of the suitcase and sighs, eyes glancing over the surroundings of a college dormitory room—
Clothes are strewn across the bed, books and pencils neatly organized by color on a rack to the side, photographs of happier days pasted upon the wall as though there'll be there forever—there's an empty section on top of the desk, the label, COLLEGE MEMORIES, and it is empty of anything but one photograph—one of her and him.
They are smiling, as though they are in love (as if falling in love is as easy as falling asleep); his lips are cherry red, accented with tan face and a mess of chestnut curls neatly trimmed. She is something she could once called beautiful—eyes are not laced with lethargic actions and worry and lips are not curled downward in guilt and stress, eyes lighting up. Massie grabs the photograph, rips in three times, and throws it out the window and watches the scraps of a earlier life fall to the ground.
Three hours later, she stands underneath the door frame and looks upon the empty room, heaves a sigh, wonders for a moment what in the world she's doing with her life, and leaves again.
(Blessed are the weak, they will inherit the earth.)
"I don't understand why you're following me," she murmurs out in Rome, where the air of the beaches is something she needs to infiltrate her lungs, to remind her of chances of redemption. This is not who I am meant to be, Massie thinks to herself, neurotic and overthinking situations. I am meant to be cool and calm and collected, superior to all of my lowers; eternity puts things in perspective, perhaps. Except she does know why. "You're a nice guy, Cameron. You deserve to be with somebody who's as nice as you—Claire, perhaps."
Cam, ex-crush, a ex-boyfriend of Claire, chuckles, heavy voice laden with tears ready to flow. He smiles at her reassuringly—he is the light in the darkness, and their love story might have been ever so easy but the love songs written are never the ones that come easy—and holds her hand in something she'd like to call eternity.
Blood has coagulated around the edges of the wound—
Derrick stands in the distance, eyes brimmed with soul-consuming tragedy, and numbly waits for the universe to swallow him.
They will be happy, joyous even, with their white-picket family and miniature sized dogs, and he will be dead, and maybe they will visit his gravestone—but who would be much of an idiot to bury him in a graveyard of angels and innocents; it is perhaps one of the worst feelings, something of gut-wrenching catastrophe, to admit to yourself that it is not as though you are an idiot, you are a monster, you are the monster that you had feared of as a child and worst of all, you have become a monster yourself—and place lilies and white roses upon the brim.
They will cry, but they will move on, and they will forget—the Earth keeps spinning on its axis, and that is the way of life.