Hi, everybody!
Now, for those of you who haven't guessed already I've been pretty busy with fics recently. Six chapters to go of Broken Masks, a selection of one-shots, and even a Sherlolly fic when I can get my head away from the zombie boyfriends for long enough.
But this is one I've had in my head for a long time. This is pretty much the first multi-chapter I ever planned for this ship/fandom, had it kicking about in my head since episode 5 aired but I didn't get around to writing it for ages. But since I've got a couple of chapters written and several more planned (and there seems to have been a surge in popularity for Siren Still Alive AUs recently) I figured now's as good a time as any to publish the first chapter as a test run! If it goes down well I'll keep on writing :)
The name of this fic comes from the song by The Shins, some lyrics of which will be used at the very beginning and the very end. Listen to the song, guys!
MASSIVE MASSIVE TRIGGER WARNING: This is an incredibly gritty fic, and the first chapter is the worst of all as it depicts two suicide attempts, one of which is described in incredible (gory) detail. So if you are easily upset/triggered by self-harm, blood, drugs or depression, I would recommend just skipping this fic altogether. Or at least just skim the first chapter. I don't think it's ever gonna be as bad as this again, but I just got carried away writing this chapter and then couldn't bring myself to delete any of what I wrote. So please, don't read if you're overly sensitive 'cause I don't wanna make anyone depressed! Or at least, not in the actual clinical dangerous sense- if this fic just makes you sad in the harmless 'this-fic-is-tearing-out-my-heart-and-I'm-loving-it' way, then I consider that a success. I'm a fanfic author, I feed off your praise and feels.
So, that's the big ol' warning out of the way! On with the fic, I guess! I dedicate this to ilikedthewayhegaveback, who has had the (dubious) honour of reading each chapter as I write it and has been giving me the most amazing positive feedback imaginable. You rock!
DISCLAIMER: In The Flesh and all its characters belong to Dominic Mitchell and BBC Three, I write this purely out of love :3 Music and lyrics in this chapter belong to The Shins.
"Well, I guess it's only life
It's only natural
We all spend a little while going down the rabbit hole
The things they taught you
They're lining up to haunt you
They've got your back against the wall…"
-'It's Only Life', The Shins
Chapter One: Black & Red
He expected his skin to crawl and fists to clench. He expected to feel angry, feel rage like nothing he'd ever experienced before. Sadness deeper than the depths of Hell.
But everything is cold and numb. Every step feels like walking through treacle, every breath a laboured gasp of frigid air, burning his throat and coiling painfully in his lungs. His hands hang limply at his sides, and he can't even bring himself to care about the bitter winter chill that nips at his fingers. It isn't important. Nothing is.
He doesn't even need to look to know where he is going. He's walked the path a thousand times, it's as natural as breathing to his unfeeling body.
He doesn't remember entering the cave. He doesn't remember fumbling for the matches to light the candles and sliding to the cold, damp floor. But still he finds himself gazing up at the crudely painted words on the rough wall, the back of his head pressed against the cool stone. The open flames at his sides do nothing to alleviate the chill in his bones, but he already knows that. It is deeper than the cold of a winter's day. It is the kind of ice that never melts, seeping from the frozen marrow of his tired bones and spreading through his body, icy fingers clawing at his organs, trickling through his veins, and he honestly believes that he'll never feel warm again. As the tears begin to roll down his cheeks, he is amazed that they don't solidify against his freezing skin.
Nothing feels right. Nothing feels real. He turns his glistening eyes to the second word, etching each letter onto his heart. He has to, otherwise it'll slip away, all of it. All those secret smiles, all those chaste kisses, all those nights sneaking away to this place. Their place. He is the only one left to remember them, now. Once he's gone, so is everything they had. No one to know, no one left to remember.
Choking sobs engulf him, and he doubles over, clutching his sides because he knows that at any moment his body could collapse in on itself. It's hollow, now, a gaping cavity gouged out in his chest- nothing to stop the outside pressure from imploding his fragile body. Soon there'll be nothing left of him.
"Come back…" he gasps, turning his face pleadingly back to the writing on the wall. He doesn't expect an answer, but Christ, does he hope for one. It's still wrong. He can't be gone. Not just like that. This isn't the first time he's left without a word, but it's just so much worse than before because now he knows he's never coming back. He isn't just in a different town or across the sea. All that remains of him is his body, probably lying in pieces across a battlefield, too lost and scattered even for a burial. Lost forever in a godforsaken no-man's land, half the world away.
With every passing breath he feels the cold stab of ice in his heart, feels his frozen ribs pressing closer together, mercilessly constricting his struggling lungs. Yet still the vacuum remains.
He knows that he should go home. But he doesn't know where home is anymore. His own house hasn't felt like a home in weeks, every night a new fight. Nothing has been right since Rick left. Suddenly, he was alone again. He couldn't speak to anyone. He couldn't tell his little sister- he wanted to protect her from the misery in the world, not drag her headfirst into his own pain. He couldn't talk to his father, not about Rick. He wouldn't understand. He couldn't even talk to his mum. She wouldn't know what to say, how to help. There was nothing she could say. Nothing to be done. He was on his own now, in this godforsaken village that had always hated him from the day he could think. The feeling was mutual.
With every passing moment, escape seems more impossible. So what if he goes away to college? So what if he moves to a different city? It won't change anything. It won't kill the memories. It won't stop this feeling in his chest, this impenetrable frost over his heart. It is a part of him, it's who he is. Even with Rick, even here in their special place amongst the walls that had witnessed their entire life together from childhood friends to cautious lovers, it was a feeling that never departed, just lessened. At least for short snatches of time, nestled against his love's side in their little haven, it had become easier to pretend. But he was gone now, and the den would never be anything more than a tomb where their memory would go to die.
Maybe it wouldn't be the only thing to die here.
He doesn't know when he reached into his pocket, when his fingers wrapped around the cool metal. But it's there now, resting in his trembling palm. He doesn't know why he carries it around with him- he'd never had much use for it, it had just been a neat present from his dad. Maybe he'd always known, maybe that's why he kept it in his pocket. Maybe it was always supposed to end this way.
He raises his other hand to it, catching his breath as he slides the knife from its slot. The cold metal gleams in the candlelight, tongues of orange flame dancing over the polished steel. He lightly presses his finger to the edge, and when it comes away he stares at the fine red slit. Not the sharpest blade in the world, but enough. More than enough.
He slides into an almost trance-like state as he lifts the red-tinged blade to his left wrist. As the metal presses closer he finds his mind flying back to that old box of memories under his bed- the only memories of them that will last once he's gone. Maybe someone will find them and know why he had to do it. Maybe they will see the photos, read the letters and the love in every word, and know why he couldn't stay. He thinks back to that postcard, the one he knows better than the lyrics of his favourite song. He thinks of the tiny, timid 'x' beneath Rick's name, as if terrified of what could happen if the note was found by anyone other than its intended recipient. He thinks of the famous self-portrait on the front of the card, the colourful face of his favourite artist. How many biographies has he read of that wonderful, tortured genius? As the blade nips his skin he thinks of his death, the infection from the gunshot wound they believed to be self-inflicted. They say his brother had been the only person to witness the great Vincent Van Gogh's last words, the final thoughts of one of the greatest artists who ever lived.
"The sadness will last forever," he quotes under his breath, gasping at the pain as the cold steel breaks his skin. The tears roll freely down his face now, but he doesn't care. There is nothing left to care about. As he drags the blade down his pale wrist he truly feels like he could let go. There is nothing left to hold onto. As he lifts the bloodied knife from his skin he stares at the seeping line it left in its wake, blinking slowly, uncomprehendingly at the wound. Not as much blood as he thought there would be. As the droplets roll unhurriedly from the crack the knife falls from his hand. He can't do the other one, not just yet.
Black. He knows it's not really black- he's seen blood before, seen it mere moments ago glistening on the knife's edge. But it looks black against his skin, dark in the dim light of the flickering candles. Slowly, sluggishly, he raises it to the light, watching in amazement as the crimson intensifies the closer he gets.
It's at that moment that he remembers Van Gogh's later works. Some were dark, sombre, melancholy, sure. Of course they were- his last great struggle.
Then there were others. Works of such colour and beauty they still inspire generations of artists, himself included. Works of optimism, of hope. Because that was one thing the unfortunate man always had- even in his last days, he hoped that he would get better. Hoped that one day he would be able to function again. As the black fades to brilliant scarlet, Kieren Walker thinks of beautiful colours, flooding the dark corners, blowing away the dust.
In that moment, he realises he didn't cut deep enough- the scratch, though long and angry, has not dug down to his vital veins, the flow will cease long before he runs out of blood to lose.
In that same moment, he realises that he can't cut any deeper.
The blood trickles down his hand as he stands up, but he knows it won't kill him. Whether it makes him stronger… well, that remains to be seen.
He doesn't bother putting out the candles. They'll burn themselves out before too long, as everything must.
He doesn't know what he's doing, where he's going. For all he knows he'll be right back in this place in a few days, or a few hours, and this time he won't hold back.
But right now, all his numb body can do is walk.
At that same moment, in a city several miles away under the same full moon, someone staggers on clumsy feet through the dark side streets, oblivious to the cold rain on his feverish skin.
As his foot slips on the slick tarmac he can barely even bring himself to curse- his tongue is too numb. He lurches off-balance, shoulder colliding with the hard brick wall at his side, but he's too far gone to care about the bruising.
He doesn't know why he's here, walking alone through the austere backstreets in the pouring rain. This wasn't how it usually happened. He didn't have a home anymore, but the grimy underpass he shared with three other addicts had been the closest he had for the last two months. Before that there had been the bedsit, and before that there was the shelter. For a while before that there had been the youth hostel in Philadelphia, the place he returned to every day as the sun came up after another night of searching for something he would never find.
In the end the place doesn't matter, it's not like he goes there for the scenery. Wherever it is that he hangs his hat, usually he merely sits there while he rides out his high. Not tonight. Tonight he needs to move. Moving, however, is growing harder with each step.
He knows with a dull certainty that he's gone too far. There's no pleasure left to cancel out the pain. One moment he feels like his body is a block of ice, the next he feels like each of his nerve endings has been set alight, raging like a forest fire. His skin crawls over his flesh, he feels like he could just shuck it off and keep on walking. Maybe the cold air on his flayed body would be enough to clear the fog from his mind, but he's not even sure if he wants that. Maybe this is just how it's supposed to be.
He's not sure how long he walks before his knees give out. He feels parts of his body shutting down and he's powerless to stop them. He doesn't want to stop them. He wonders how long it will last. How long until he's unconscious? How long until his heart and lungs give out under the strain? He'd heard of people dying within minutes of a lethal dose, and other, rarer cases in which the victim's lay awake and in pain for hours on end. Maybe it depends on the drug, or the user's level of tolerance. He hopes it isn't the latter- he'd have a long night ahead of him.
As his knees hit the unforgiving tarmac, grimy water soaking into the fabric of his jeans, he hears a muffled snap as something else hits the ground. He slowly turns his head, but the movement sends a fresh wave a nausea through his stomach and bile rises in his throat. As he retches onto the pavement, he stares forlornly at the battered remains of his phone on the ground at his side. He hadn't even realised he'd been holding it. He sees the green light flashing on the side. Flashing from a message he'd received two days ago. He hadn't even bothered to read it- he already knows what it says. And he doesn't want to hear it.
He reaches out and seizes the scruffy device, raising it above his head with what little strength remains in his limbs and dashing it once more against the ground. It doesn't break. "Feckin' Nokias," he mutters. Much easier to blame the 'indestructible phone' than to admit that his muscles are little more than tense strings of sinew at this point. He shoves it away, feeling satisfaction for a split second as it skids into a deep puddle before the pain hits again.
He groans, pitching forward and grazing his leather-clad elbows on the rough asphalt, skinning his cheek as it scrapes the hard ground. Just another dimension of pain to add to the already searing cacophony in his head. He rolls onto his side with a whimper as the pain roars through his veins. He pulls his sodden knees up to his stomach, curling in on himself as everything begins to slip away. Possibly for good this time. Hopefully for good this time.
Your whole life. Twenty-seven years, a family, a future and the world at your fingertips, and you never once felt a thing.
As pain rips through him again, splitting him open and hollowing him out with deep, vicious strokes, Simon Monroe throws his head back in a silent scream.
Feel it, now, can't you?
Kieren has no idea what he is doing now. As his steps carry him further and further from the den, he finds himself approaching the deserted train station. He pays no mind to the blood seeping through the sleeve of his hoodie as he stands numbly at the platform beside the abandoned ticket office. As the next train glides to a stop, he doesn't even bother to check where it's bound. All he knows is that he has to move, and keep moving. There's nothing left for him here. He boards the closest dimly-lit carriage, not really caring who comes round checking tickets. Let them give him all the fines they want, nothing can keep him here.
As the train lurches forward, he stares vacantly back at Roarton for what he suspects might be the last time. He raises his hand to his face, chewing on his nails and not much caring what any of the exhausted commuters think of the dark blood staining the sleeve. It's not their concern. Instead of shying away from curious glances or dirty looks, he simply closes his eyes and allows his body to sway gently in time with the click of wheels on rails.
He doesn't know what he's looking for, but it's not in Roarton. He doesn't know where he's going, but it's somewhere else. These are things he knows, and right now that's all that matters. He doesn't even expect to find whatever it is he's searching for, but he knows that he doesn't even stand a chance if he stays at home and wallows in memories, taking tea with ghosts of the past.
If nothing else, he has to take a chance.
Because sometimes you just find things.
And, as the shuddering, feverish figure of Simon Monroe was less than five hours from finding out, sometimes things just find you.
Well, there you have it- experimental first chapter! Let me know what you think, (I'm always open to reviews/PMs, either to talk about this or just talk in general) and if you want more I can keep posting it- for the first few chapters I can actually update pretty regularly as I already have them written (minus proof-reading, of course!), although the next few might not be published at weekends as I have some pretty hectic plans from the 23rd onwards (guess who's going LARPing!)
So yeah, really hope I haven't made anyone suicidal- I love you all so much!
(And don't worry, I will not neglect Broken Masks for this, it's just something I've wanted to write for ages and I'm finally getting it out of my system.)
Until next time! X