Title: Regret
Author: Soldier of the East
Genre: Hurt/Comfort
Description: A piano. A dream. A death. A funeral. A regret. A tale of how one Spy learns how to cope with something he never had to before.
Characters: Spy & Scout
Warnings: Implied death, implied relationship, depressing scenes, blood, angst, and so on.
Note: This may not make much sense. I'm sorry. I haven't been writing anything for a while. Critiques are welcome!
Bold is lyrics, italics are dreams.
This is some sort of song thing I suppose.
Song is Welcome to the Black Parade by My Chemical Romance.
A breath held in. A moment of agonizing trepidation. Shaking hands placed on keys carved of ivory and ebony. The memories and emotions come flooding back, grappling to the front of an overloaded brain. A moment of piercing clarity as it all begins. The taut strings are piercing and luminous as the notes echo off the walls of the barren room. Each one deliberate and inspired. But the sound does not come from emotion. Years of practice had made his hands soft and lean. The music is played from habit. Not from emotion. G4, F#, B4, E4, D4, G4, C4, B3, E4, A3, D4. This is the song of his oblivion. The words came out powerful and secure.
"When I was a young boy
My father took me into the city
To see a marching band"
Grey eyes looked up to the mirror as the words echoed off his chapped lips. He thrust his hands deep into the hot liquid swirling tauntingly in the sink below. It promised him relief. It promised him that his blood would wash off his hands. Pain stung his sensitive nerves but that wasn't important now. He needed relief from this overwhelming sense of guilt. The young man shuddered, hopelessness devouring him whole. He threatened to collapse. His mind rebelled against him, screaming and rioting. His body was weak with exhaustion from sleepless nights spent alone. His knees hit the tile floor with a thump. He had to wash this blood off though. Head rising back up, blue eyes greeted his own in the mirror. A question he couldn't answer swam under their surface. Pressure built up in his eyes signalling the impending storm. His throat closed off, the pain too real for him to handle. The Frenchman just stared at him through that accursed mirror, forever asking the same question. Why?
"He said son when you grow up
Would you be the saviour of the broken
The beaten and the damned?"
The orange liquid swirled delicately, tone slowly becoming darker and darker. A frustrated groan filled the air and a hand reached for a nearby wire brush. He hesitated for a moment, looking down at the sink filled with acid. Something in him pleaded for him to see logic. His nerves had been brutalized. The blood had washed off long ago, so what was the point of this? A face. Ghostly pale, stone cold. Life gone from its form long ago. Blue eyes that hold no laughter. A choked laugh filled the bathroom and the brush entered the acid, scrubbing against his damaged muscles. Blood tainted the once flawless acid. Chunks of skin floated to the top while the smaller flakes were suspended in the solution. He kept scrubbing and scrubbing. The stains were still there. He could never wash them off. Just try to in a vain attempt to get rid of this pain that rode his soul.
"He said will you
Defeat them
Your demons
And all the non-believers,
The plans that they have made?"
Crimson stained his vision. The glass looked almost exotic scattered across the floor. Some were still pure. Scaringly silver with blue eyes staring accusingly through them. Others were tainted with his pain. A near transparent red, splashed over everything. They blocked those eyes. The blood made the question go away. It made the answer even more obscured. Maybe he never would know why. But as long as that haunting mirror was shattered into a million pieces, he wouldn't have to answer his phantom. Of course the spy would never go away. Shards of what his life used to be were buried in his body. The glass in his feet echoed all those times he would run care-free into the others arms. It was so safe there. He felt so loved. The piece of mirror in his stomach played the scenes of all those times Spy would make him breakfast. The gesture was small, but that's all it needed to be. He cared about the idiotic Scout. Glass pieces could be seen sticking out of his bare back. He had collapsed after he punched the mirror, breaking his lover's image again. They dug into his body, shockingly undimmed. They whispered and mocked, imitating the death scene of the one person his heart belonged to. Heavy breaths and wide eyes as everything set in. He murdered him. An agonizing scream as his heart was ripped out of his emotional being. The burnt muscles and the pierced skin were gone. The pain he felt was legitimate. He was falling into oblivion.
"Because one day
I'll leave you
A phantom
To lead you in the summer
To join The Black Parade"
The sun peered over the horizon, illuminating the desert landscape with its soft light. It caressed the faces of eight hard-faced soldiers, carved by their childhoods and worn down and broken by reality. All of them were different. They came from around the world, from various backgrounds and religions and languages. The only thing that brought them here today was this war and their sorrow. Honestly, it was just a box. It shouldn't be a source of sorrow. Sure, it carried the body of a soldier. A solider that fought this pointless war like the rest. A pawn fighting for a king they never even saw. He was their son and their brother. A source of comfort and entertainment. Time hadn't touched him yet. He was so young and happy and youthful. None of them knew that a stray bullet was took their team mate from them. A stray bullet that pierced the heart of the RED Spy. A stray bullet that sent the BLU Scout over the edge with guilt and blood stains that weren't there. Scout could play war games. He grew up with his brothers yelling at him, telling him when to duck and roll, when to reload and when to shoot. Murder though? No one had taught him how to cope with that.
"When I was a young boy
My father took me into the city
To see a marching band"
A slam. Footsteps marching away from the piano, determined. A sob that had been held for too long bursting forth, the agonizing sound fallen upon nothing but ghosts. The hands of the musician shook horribly, body hinting that it was about to do the same. Every time his hands touched that instrument the same scene played through his head on repeat. It wasn't like he wanted it to. But the piano was once his young lover's favourite instrument. Now every time he touched it, the poison seeped back into his brain. He had left that war many years ago and now lived alone. No matter how hard he ran or tried to hide though, these nightmares plagued him.
Why couldn't the story have gone like that?
Why were the roles reversed in reality?
Why was his Scout dead, while he was still alive?
Why did that damn Medic come and save him? He was so close to death. So close to washing it all away. But now that broken mirror was replaced and the acid damaged sink repaired. Now he was alive and trying to cope with the fact that he killed the only person he had ever loved.
The blue eyes of his Scout greeted him with familiarity as he stepped into the washroom. Another day had gone by without him. Another song degraded with haunting tones and a broken voice.
A breath held in. A moment of agonizing trepidation. Shaking hands brought the gun up to his head. The memories and emotions came flooding back, grappling their way to the front—
A gunshot. A thump. A body. A funeral. A tragic story of two lovers lost in the tragedy of time.