Title: Behind These Eyes
Song: Pet by Perfect Circle
Rating: T
Genre: Angst, Horror, Hurt/Comfort
Fandom: The Lost Boys
Couple: none
Inspiration: Well, Laddie and this song and so many nightmares and my twisted mind. XD
Warnings: Post-Lost Boys, blood/gore (for real, you're here and you don't think there's gore?), underage drinking, stupid grown-ups and maybe-nihilism.
Behind These Eyes
.
.
.
In the cabinet behind an orderly disorder of boxes, glass vases, bags of sugar and a few caramel candies there is a bottle like the one I once drank from.
Its glass and heavy in my hands and makes hollow noises as its contents slip around.
Once I move everything around in the cabinet, there is just enough space for one such as me to sleep and when I close the cabinet door behind me; I cuddle the burgundy bottle to my body like a teddy bear, pull the cork and take a swig.
Because I need it.
Because it helps me sleep.
Because it helps me remember.
"Don't fret precious I'm here."
I'm like a broken toy, or a record, or something. No, I'm not dying and there's nothing (terminally) wrong with me, but it's my mind that doesn't cooperate. My mind is full of holes, more so my memory. Like video that had been watched too many times, my memory's skips and burns out time.
Important things like who kidnapped me.
No one ever talked about those six tragic months I went missing. For my parents it was just too much that they'd lost me for that long and they couldn't find out who'd done it. For distant family, it was another reason to maintain distance. For neighbors and town gossips it was something to murmur about behind cupped hands
It was a subject meant to be ignored and twisted. "Do you see that haunted look in his eyes? Like a goddamn ghost."
I'd just turned up on my doorstep one morning wrapped in a sandy jacket and clutching a muffed teddy bear. On my cheek, smudge magenta lipsticks stain.
No one had been there to drop me off.
"Step away from the window."
I was mute for months afterward.
Mother cried at the foot of my bed and Father called doctors from all over to come and see me.
I was hollow inside myself; always empty, always wanting, but at the edge of any satisfaction. Hungry, tired, and always sick. No one could tell what was wrong with me and I became like a sideshow freak the neighbors spoke about, shifting from one place to the next, caged and irregular and irritated.
They came at me with hooks baited and began probing me for a reaction. Speak, sit, stay, eat, quiet, as if I was a dog.
I faintly remember my first time talking two months later. In the doctor's office one of the young interns was fiddling with a radio. I watched her manicured red fingernails dance over the buttons and turn the dial, finally setting up a muted play of something with a bassline and I asked if she could please turn it up.
It speaks.
"And go, back to sleep."
I couldn't remember, but in my dreams I saw them as clear as day.
Five figures, my second family, with varying smiles, smirks and amused expressions.
I saw the dark-haired one who let me ride on the back of his motorcycle and held me protectively; the friend I never had always steady and unsmiling.
I saw the wild blonde who let me drink was the same bejeweled bottle as the others; the mischievous older brother I wish I could keep with jokes I didn't understand, but had laughter in abundance.
I saw the curly haired one, blonde also, who kept me fed and out of the way; the cynical uncle who tracked my ability to keep up with the group with an eyebrow and a winning smile.
I saw the leader with his cool smile and cooler eyes giving me an approving nod and laughing; the one who, with an air of finality, deemed me worthy and whose nod of approval was like the touch of God. He was like a father, a predetermined leader, a person you could ask question to and get the real answers.
But I remembered her most of all. The memory was prominently etched into my mind: the woman in long glittery skirts and silk shawls that flew in the wind behind her with her frizzy brown hair.
Her big doe eyes that sparkled when she laughed, however rare, were beautiful. I was always happy to be with her.
With all of them.
This strange sense of kinship had me clinging to dreams, and replicating illness just to be closer to them.
I missed them. They were the puzzle piece of the emptiness.
"Lay your head down child."
I shared my memories. My therapist was scrutinizing about this, my parents hung over his shoulders. "Tell me Landon, did this woman ever . . . hurt you in any way?"
I shook my head slowly. "No, she kept me out of danger . . . she kept me away from the Surf Nazi's and tucked me in every night—" They were never interested in the good things, they just kept digging and digging until they found something bad. Like the wine the one let me drink.
It must have been a joke among us all because I remembered them saying it wasn't wine.
"What was it then?" Funny question.
A sweet metallic taste rose to my mouth like an open wound on my tongue, sweeter than any Coke and sated like a full glass of ice cold water. I was dazed for a moment, caught in the thrall of my memory.
"I don't know . . ."
I fiddled with the draw strings of my sweater.
Did I really wear these things before?
I looked down at my faded blue jeans and sneakers. I instantly missed my jacket and velvet pants with leather boots. These weren't me.
Who was me before I came back?
Would he ever return?
"Landon," My attention snapped back, eyes wide and focus coming back, slowly.
"They said it was wine, but it wasn't wine . . . it tasted weird and I only got one sip before another guy tore the bottle away from me and yelled at the one who gave it to me. They were mad I drank it, but they didn't get the chance to yell at me because we all had to go to sleep."
"Go to sleep?" The man's brow rose.
"Yes, because the sun was coming up."
I felt like throwing up.
"I won't let the boogeyman come."
Mother gave me a radio to put in my room and she—with her coiffed curls and pant-suits—was terrified when I played what felt right: rock music as loud as the dial would go. She came charging into my room one day and yanked the plug it the middle of the last verse and this time I yelled, screamed.
"Don't touch my rock box!"
Mother stared and set the radio back on the side table and left me to my music and thoughts.
I quieted myself with the music as my gums bled.
"Count the bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums."
In my mind, I was back with my second family and I fantasized about sitting around, eating dinner, laughing and having a good time; while drinking from that strange bottle that always managed to starve off hunger for a few nights.
Chinese food, laughter, fires, rock music and motorcycles driving over sandy beaches.
I had lived the life I'd always wanted; free, so I could fly away and never come back.
"Pay no mind to the rable, pay no mind to the rable."
"Where did you stay?"
My face scrunched. Where did we stay?
My mind vividly recalled an eclipse of colors and a cluttered link of tunnels and silken scarves hanging from the ceiling around my bed and the battered old teddy bear one of the guys had given to me. I described it to them, but my memory was full of holes.
I don't remember walking anywhere. I'd always gotten on the back of the dark-haired one's bike and we rode off into the darkness. Always cuddled in bed in cold tunnels. Always boardwalks and hot lights. No streets and no towns.
"It was very far away . . ." I trailed off. "I remember being at the carnival and then getting on a bike . . . then the guy driving it was very nice. He never smiled, but he smiled at me and always ruffled my hair. I got mad at him for it and he'd laughed. It was very deep, like that guy from—"
"Stay focused Landon!" Mother snapped.
Laddie, Laddie, Laddie! another voice shrilled in my mind.
Everyone leaned forward waiting for me to speak, but I won't say anything they want to hear.
". . . I think we're done for the day."
"Head down, go to sleep to the rhythm of the war drums."
"Landon, sit up straight."
"Laddie, relax."
Why am I so confused?
"Landon, look me in the eyes while you're speaking!"
"Laddie, never look into a monster's eyes, look at his nose."
Everything they said, everything they taught me is clashing around my mind, begging for dominance and going to war. I know what's right, but it's not what I want.
"Landon, turn that music down."
"Laddie, turn the tunes up!"
And the more I resisted the more it wore me down.
"Pay no mind what other voices say
They don't care about you, like I do"
"Landon, you have to tell us what happened when you were away." The dull baritone is like a roaring in my ears, like the crashing of waves over rocks, they don't mean anything. They're just making noise to try and prove that they're there. They're selfish and noisy and no one can think properly when they're around.
"They can't hurt you anymore, Landon; you can tell us whatever you want to."
The therapist is always saying things like that. More so:
"Don't be afraid of them, Landon."
"They can't hurt you, Landon."
"We won't let them hurt you, Landon."
"They can't find you, Landon."
That was like a slug to the gut. Or worse:
"They never cared about you, Landon."
I screamed in protest and retaliated by throwing things around the office that would break.
"Safe from paint, and truth, and choice
and other poison devils."
My parents, my therapist and everyone in the world called me Landon. Landon, Landon, Landon James.
But to everyone out of this world—somewhere far off and distant—I was: Laddie. Laddie, Laddie, Laddie. No last name to stake me and free from the mundane in a time of color and lights.
In that world, I was someone else, something else. I had my freedom and no consequence and I had a family that loved me unconditionally because that's the only way they knew how.
They had no expectations of me and no demands to who I should be. I was allowed to be me.
Whoever me that was.
"See, they don't give a fuck about you, like I do."
Mother thought I was too pale, and tended to drag me along with her everywhere she went to get some sun on my cheeks. I didn't like the sunlight anymore, it battered at my eyes and made me feel so dizzy and nauseous I often lost the contents of my stomach on the sidewalk the more she took me out.
I begged her not to, but she never listened to me.
"Landon, stop this now!" she snapped and I heaved my stomach into the street, unaware of the wide circle being created around us.
My sweater was too hot, but I was so cold. Sweating and chilling and my stomach turn in knots and crying out for something I could possibly give it. My skin was blistering in the heat, and my knuckles and fingers were beginning to bleed.
It felt like my brain was melting and no one could care less as blood leaked from my nose.
A cool hand pressed to the back of my neck and an umbrella of shade lowered over me. Eyes stinging with tears, I looked up to find a face from my memory.
Fizzy hair created a halo around her head, and her eyes sparkled from behind a pair of dark shades.
"You're real."
She smiled and nodded. Her hands touched my face, cool fingers pushing my hair back from my face; so gentle, so soft. I closed my eyes at her touch, but as soon as she was there, she was gone.
Mother gripped my hand hard enough to feel bones grinding and pulled me up. She slowly rose to her full height; eyes hot with rage, her chin tilted upward.
Mother's face twisted and her mouth fell open in shock.
The woman matched my description: long brown hair, glittery skirts, band jacket with tassels hanging off the shoulders of the leather; undeniably beautiful and frowning softly to herself.
She was gone in the crowd before she could say anything else. Star.
"Just, stay with me, safe and ignorant."
Mother was frantic, calling Father, the police, my therapist, everyone: thinking she'd come again to take me back.
Take me back? I cuddled into my pillows and fought how hard I smiled.
The thought didn't sound so bad at all. Leaving Fresno and going back who whatever ethereal wonderland I was taken from and stay there forever seemed a dream come true.
"Go back to sleep."
That night I snuck into the cabinet and drank the wine.
It was thick on my tongue, sweeter in taste and fit in my hand like it was always supposed to be there.
That night a dreamed the most vivid of them all.
"Go back to sleep."
The cave was full of the usual cluster and noise emanating from Paul's rock box; I sat on a plushy brown couch with Dwayne picking at the Chinese food Marko had just brought back to the cave for us. I couldn't operate the chopsticks well enough with my pudgy fingers, so Dwayne had to show me; as usual he was patient and spoke softly because David was talking to the newcomer in his wheelchair-throne near the bone dry fountain.
"So, how are them maggots?" David asked conversationally, stabbing at his noodles.
Dwayne, Paul and Marko fought back chuckles in their throats as the boy looked confused. I curled my bottom lip under my teeth and bit down gently—buttoning them shut. Marko threw me a small smile.
"Maggots." David grinned, his face illuminated in the firelight. "You're eating maggots, Michael. How do they taste?" The boy looked into his container and spewed rice across the floor of the cave and began to cough.
We all laughed at the display, then with wide eyes I looked down at my chow mien, a personal favorite since the Boys began feeding me, and then to Dwayne who shook his head and held a finger to his lips.
"Leave him alone." Star called from the open curtains leading into our conjoined room. Her beautiful face was twisted in anger and she dared sending a glare in David's direction. He carefully regarded her and 'apologized' to the newcomer.
"Sorry about that. No hard feelings?" David offered his box. "How about some noodles?"
Dwayne laughed, careful to keep his rice in his mouth while I watched David work.
David was a magician. He could make anyone believe something was anything it was not.
I told this to Star and she'd given me a look and said I was right, but it wasn't just David's powers, it was his personality.
Marko stepped forward and David whispered in his ear. The exchange last for a moment, but Marko nodded and turned back to the small alcove of the cave where he'd stashed the wine bottle. Dwayne leaned forward, gaze intent, with Paul's. I lunged towards Star's room and she drew me into the curtains, covering my eyes. "Don't look Laddie."
The boy drank, and it became our undoing.
"Lay your head down child!"
I could heard loud crashing from outside, and then screaming.
Mother's screams ring up the walls and peel back the wallpaper with their shrilling soprano.
There's also laughter and shrieking that comes from no human mouth. There's a smell in the air, sharp and violent. Hunger gurgles at my stomach, I drink again, and it's sated.
Something makes a loud thud against the tiled floors, and the screaming ends, but the beast is far from done yet.
"I won't let the boogeyman come!"
Michael was his name like the savior from some Biblical story.
Star liked him a lot. And for that I hated him much, much more.
Would he try to take her away? No, he was part of the clan now, like me and Star he held on to the invisible in between of humanity and vampirism. It was a line I was eager to cross, but Star grasped tightly to me, anchoring me to the bend, and I remained faithfully by her side.
The Boys scared me sometimes.
Though I loved them as much as they could love me; sometimes the brightness in their eyes wasn't just from laughter and cool magic tricks weren't just for fun and when they smiled too wide animal-like teeth inched from their jaws and their faces twisted with ridges of terrifying masks.
In a few fleeting moments, gone were the jokes and warmth and music, as creatures far stronger than any man overtook them. Monsters. Eyes not to meet.
That's what kept me at bay.
"Count the bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums!"
Father was next, and he tried to fight, shotgun in hand the noise had raised the alarm of some neighbors, but they wouldn't come around or call the police either. Gossip, they would, but intervene? Never.
They were just as terrified of us as I was of the Boys.
He died quickly, by the sound of it, and fell right into the heap with Mother, empty and cold.
"Pay no mind to the rable, pay no mind to the rable!"
They pulled Michael's brother Sam into the equation, forcing the bloodwine down his throat as if to purge humanity from his body.
David had taken matters into his own gloved hands and cut the wrists of two hunters only to lock them away with the newly awaken vampires.
It had taken less than three hours before their screams rocked the cave and Max, our apparent true leader, had his bride Lucy.
We were whole, one big happy family, except . . .
"You will feed too Star." David's voice was rough from the fight and his beard collecting dried blood that gathered on the sides of his mouth. His gaze flickered to me and with a finger, he beckoned me forward.
I was frozen.
. . . Star ran away that night, taking me with her.
. .
"Head down, got to sleep to the rhythm of the war drums!
"Laddie?" my name rose to the lips of the intruders and someone knelt in front of my cabinet. "Laddie, won't you come out?"
My eyes snapped open and the darkness filled my vision, aside from the soft lights coming from the cracks in the wood of the door. A splinter of terrifying realization crept through me and my hands were shaking so badly, I couldn't make proper fists to defend myself.
An empty bottle lay in my hand and I pushed it away from me, hearing it clink against the closed space and then a soft chuckle from the side of the door. Nauseous, I curled my tiny, soft self into the furthest corner of the cupboard and tried to pray.
"Laddie, Laddie, Laddie, you have to open the door."
It was David.
I knew that silky voice anywhere.
"Laddie, come out. Come see what you've done."
What I've done? What have I—?
"I'll be the one to protect you from
Your enemies and all your demons"
"Laddie?" A teary voice slipped into my subconscious and I knew it, the pining memories now so clearly in my mind. I kicked open the cabinet door with her name on my lips.
"Star!"
They had come back for me! I knew they wouldn't truly leave me here alone! We could be a family again and go to the carnival and go on motorcycle rides and eat Chinese and listen to rock music all night long.
In the kitchen there was David and Marko and Dwayne and Paul and Star!
Star was there! Clear as day before my eyes!
But she was frowning and tears were slipping down her cheeks, her mouth created and 'oh' shape and her pretty face crumbled. "Oh . . . Laddie . . ."
"I'll be the one to protect you from
A will to survive and a voice of reason"
Suddenly I realized the kitchen had undergone some form of extreme remodeling.
There were holes in the wall, deep burrows and dents. And red paint was splattered all over like someone had had a paint fight. Handprints of red, splashes of red, pools of red; everywhere red, red, red.
Who'd come in with the paint? I wondered for a moment when my nose twitched at the scent.
The scent of something warm and sacred and more delicious than any nectar offered to the gods.
It wasn't paint, just like it wasn't wine, it was blood.
"I'll be the one to protect you from
your enemies and your choices son"
David, Marko, Paul and Dwayne stood around two bodies—my parents—nudging them with their boots and whistling at the gaping wounds that tore at their throats.
Their faces were clean from taint, but not the malevolent smiles.
I looked to Star, whose beautiful face was also clean, and her hands folded over her mouth. Her eyes were wide in horror.
"One in the same, I must isolate you
Isolate and save you from yourself."
"Laddie, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I should have never—Laddie, I didn't know." Star spoke quickly, her words tumbling other themselves as the Boys inched closer to me, smiling, just smiling. "I didn't know this would happen. Laddie, I'm so sorry, forgive me." She was in tears.
With a shaky hand, I reached up and touched the corner of my mouth.
Glittery red warmth mirrored back on my fingertips.
And cheers erupted from the throats of my family.
This took a while to write, but I work up this morning (this song blaring in my earbuds) and decided to finish what I started. This is a bit of a warped ending to how I wanted Lost Boys to end if it was told from Laddie's point of view. I love this movie too, and I watched it non-stop this summer.
Drop a line, say hello!
—queenchesh, 12/31/15