(I thought this up not too long ago and was determined to write it. After this I'm definately going to work on Chosenshipping, I promise. Dx Anywho, this is incredibly dark and possibly depressing, but I'm proud of it, dammit. That's the only reason I need to write! Anyway, yeah, ugly title, and I chose it because every scenario here pertains to something about just that, headphones, *blah blah blah*. Anyway, onwards.
Disclaimer: *sighs and folds arms* No, I do not own pokemon or any song/song lyrics that might've been mentioned in this story. Jeez, happy now, Disclaimer? =.=)
Headphones
~Red~
For his sixteenth birthday, Green bought him those headphones that are supposed to block out sound. He couldn't help but ask himself why as he stared down at the crimson red coloring of it. The MP3 player that came with it apparently had a few freebie songs on it. All he did was shove it away in his backpack and continue on like he never received it, though.
He didn't think of the headphones again until he went home three weeks later to visit his mother. She and his new stepfather were screaming. Back and forth, back and forth. He was too proud to just leave without atleast saying hi, yet was too scared to even croak up a word to either of them. Instead, he silently stalked up to his room, closed to the door behind him without even bothering to turn the lights on, and put those headphones on for the first time.
He'd do anything if it meant keeping thier voices as far away as possible.
However, when he turned that MP3 player on, all he heard was static mixed with sorrowful screaming.
Maybe that's all he'll hear. Nothing but distorted screams and static.
~Green~
He's laying on the couch in his apartment that's on the second floor of the Viridian Gym with forest green headphones over his ears. He has the music as high as it can possibly go on the loudest screamo song in his whole MP3 player. He does it to try and block out his own thoughts that seem to float right above his head, trying to kill him from the inside out.
He knows he'll never match up to him. He knows he can't BE him. His thoughts don't need to tell him that.
He also knows he can't live up to everyone's expectations. He can't be HIM either. He actually doesn't want to be. He just wants to be Green Oak. Can't he even do that?
The song ends and he takes his headphones off, smiling a little. He heard and saw nothing but the ringing in his ears and the room blurring right in front of him. This was good enough. It was better than being reduced to try and scare away his thoughts with blood and tears.
He wonders, then, why the blurriness in his vision feels like water.
~Blue~
It's raining outside and she's laying down in the grass in the middle of it, staring up at the sky despite how the rain stings her eyes. Or maybe that stinging was the salt of her own tears... Either way, the water just blended and slid down her face with the same crystal clearness as it dissapeared when it hit the ground. Even though it's raining, and she's soaked, she has sky blue headphones in her ears that are playing a soft song that she's never heard before.
It was some random song that was playing on the silly MP3 player she had stolen, yet here she was in this weak state. She couldn't even understand it, so why was she crying?
Maybe it's because she was tired of being everything she wasn't just to get by. Maybe she was just realizing how meaningless her jealousy for other people is. Maybe it's because she knows every person knows of her cheating, lying ways and doesn't want to be near her and she's all alone.
Or maybe it was the pain from the sparking electricity running along her skin that she was most probably starting to enjoy.
The song that had completely torn down all her built up defenses ended and shuffled to a generic hip-hop/rap song about sex, partying, and drugs.
She couldn't help but give a laugh as she turned her head to the side, hoping the rain would build up inside of her head so she wouldn't be able to think anymore and would just swim in a sea of stinging water mixed in with salty tears.
She, too, was just another generic song that everybody heard but was too annoyed with it to listen to.
~Yellow~
The blonde stared up innocently at the bland grey sky that was pouring rain with wide amber eyes. The rain hitting and dropping off the leaves gave off a rhythmic pattern she had been familiar with all her life. However, no matter how peaceful or wonderful she thought this sound was, she put yellow headphones over her ears that were the color of sunflowers.
She sat down on the ground with her back against the tree behind her, smiling ever so slightly as she kicked her sandles off and held her leg out to let the rain lay soft kisses upon her feet.
As much as she'd like to listen to it, she knows that she had no right to listen to it today. That's why she wears those headphones, so all she hears is nothing as she watches the sky cry.
Her eyelids droop half closed as her smile widens and she looks at the grave she's sitting next to. "Happy birthday, ChuChu. I hope you're doing well." she said, a single tear dropping her otherwise happy face.
She only smiled because she knew ChuChu would be sad if she didn't.
"I miss you..."
~Gold~
Cold steel bars kept him locked inside the jail cell as policemen walked by, giving him disgusted glances. All he did as a reply to those glances was grin and wave childishly even though, mentally, he wanted to flip them off. Thank Arceus he atleast was given his skateboard to entertain himself in his cell. If they didn't, he'd have to sit, being bored, until someone came to bail him out.
Why were they being so cruel to him? He was just doing what he thought was right-No, what he KNEW was right. Yet, here we was, under arrest.
He groaned in boredom as he wrung his hands around the worn steel bars and thumped his head against them, causing them to give out a dull ring.
They always went after him, the stereotypical 'badboy'.
A policeman walked up to his cage he was confined him and shoved him backwards by his head, causing him to stumble to the ground and glare up at the man who was now twirling handcuffs in his hand.
"Get up and get your things, princess. Your mommy finally came to get you." the policeman told him.
All he could do was give an arrogant suck of his teeth as he grabbed his things and walked out, receiving a smack upside the head from the officer. Who was the real pursuer of justice, he wondered...
He was returned the rest of his things; his Pokegear, his backpack, his cue, and the hat he wore practically day and night. As he exited to the wrong room of the building, he saw his mother walking toward him.
He knew exactly where this would go.
"Gold! Why in the holy name of Arceus would you do something like this!" she screamed as they started walking out of the police station.
He said nothing as he took his heaphones out of his backpack's front pocket and plugged them in his ears to block her out, playing the 'stereotypical badboy that doesn't care' once again.
Little does his mother know that every word she says buzzes in his brain.
'I must confess that I feel like a monster' the music sang loudly in his ears.
Because if he's not considered a hero when he helps someone, he might as well just be one.
~Silver~
Headphones the same color as his namesake eyes outlined in black lay on his head over his crimson red hair. He's sitting in a room with shivering cold reinforced steel floors with his back against the wall and his face buried in his knees. The music's singing 'let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the-', and as if playing along to the rhythm of the music, gunshots ring and singe his ears like fire while thumps are heard by lead heavy still bodies as they hit the floor one by one.
He rests his head against the wall and holds it in his hands as the almost maniacal laughter of his mother and father sounds like background singers to his metal music, thick blood seeping inside from the other side of the room.
'What's wrong with them?' he wants to ask.
'What's wrong with me?' he wants to scream.
'One, nothing wrong with me. Two, nothing wrong with me. Three, nothing wrong with me.' the music continues to tell his weary ears.
So he sits back and tries to believe the song's words for a little longer.
There's plenty wrong with him. He'll just wait a little longer to succumb to the madness that is slowly creeping toward his feet.
Thank Arceus the least headphones can do if block out the noise of oncoming destruction that would otherwise tear him to pieces.
"Nothing's wrong just yet." he murmurs, his eyes glazed over as another bang rings through the air.
~Crystal~
Apparently she's not aloud to have them in the lab. The professor tells her this as he grabs them off the desk she set them on and tosses them in the trash. He says he read in a science magazine somewhere that they give you brain damage anyway.
"Now, let's continue on with our work, Crystal." he urges her with a sickly sweet smile, then leaves the room to let her do everything herself.
With an emotionless expression, she bends down and takes the tiny bulbs that're supposed to go in her ears that are connected to light blue, almost see through wires out of the metal trashcan.
She wanted to tell the professor that she doesn't mind, that it's alright. She doesn't mind even if it corrodes her mind away because even with all that knowledge inside of her little head...No one cares about what she knows.
So it would just be best if she used those headphones to melt her brain away, slur her words, blur her vision, and melt it to the point where she's a motionless doll that won't know anything, much less say anything.
"What's knowledge worth if no one pays attention to it." she says as she plugs the headphones into her music player and continues on with her work, humming the melancholic tune echoing into her ears.
~Ruby~
He's hiding in the highest branch of some tree on the outskirts of the small town he didn't really want to move to. The small microphone he usually always carried with him was wrapped in tape and was bent in at the part where you usually spoke into. That was thanks to his father, the father that hated everything he did and was never please with him. Though, this wasn't the first time his father did this to him. He did it all the time.
Today's most recent even included his father telling him how weak he was, and how he didn't even need that microphone he holds in his weak little fingers. Then he took it, and broke it into what Ruby thought was a million pieces.
He didn't just stop with the microphone.
A kick to the stomach. A kick to the back. A punch to the head. And his mother just sat back and watched him to it to her little boy...
He endured it all until he just erally couldn't take it anymore. That's when he ran. He ran and ended up climbing all the way up this tree with nothing but some old headphones and a CD player with songs he had practically burned into his brain already.
"Ruby! Where are you!" shouts a voice from below.
All he does is put the headphones over his hears and leans against the trunk of the tree, listening to words he's heard before is better than hearing words from a person who would crush him from the inside out.
~Sapphire~
She stared down quizically at the electronic contraption in her hands. What was it, exactly? She wasn't very familiar with anything high tech, but it seemed interesting to say the least. Why would she need this when she had things like the tranquility of a forest, or a lullaby of the sea, though? It annoyed her how people were so absorbed in technology and barely payed attention to the world around them.
"What da heck is this thingy majiger?" she thought out loud, biting the wires as if to try and obtain some kind of information that way.
"They're headphones, Sapphire. You know, what your friend Ruby always has in his ears?" her father said to her as he walked past to enter his lab.
Sapphire's face instantly dulled as he mentioned it. She took the wires out of her mouth to gaze down at the ocean blue headphones.
So these were the things Ruby said he always used to try and numb the pain he felt...
"I never...Want to have to use these a day in my life." she mumbled before she ripped them to pieces and tossed them into the nearest trashcan, carrying on with what she considered an average day.
~Emerald~
He's sitting in his orphanage's cafeteria, staring in disinterest at a girl who's sitting by herself in the corner. The girl's eyes, from where he was sitting, seem coffee black and coated over with an empty expression. She doesn't feel the stares from the other kids, or hears the giggles from the people who enjoy to make fun of her on a daily basis. That's because she has headphones covering her ears that are a bright green, just like his eyes.
She's wearing a red jacket that's too long for her arms, but he can still notice the repetitive horizontal movements she does against one of her wrists.
He can't help but stare blankly. "I don't get it. How come everytime I see someone listening to music with headphones like that, they look so damn miserable?" he thought out loud with a sigh as he stood up.
"That girl will probably die or something sooner or later." he said before he gave one last glance at her green headphones and walked out of the cafeteria to do something else.
Little did Emerald know she really would the next day, and those headphones would no longer play music to ears that would listen.
~Diamond~
He walks into his house to see his mother laying on the couch in the living room with a blanket over her. She's wearing his favorite headphones and has them plugged into a tape recorder with Professor Rowan's name taped on it.
He wonders why she's like that because usually when he gets home, she's washing the dishes or cooking dinner. Occasionally, he'd come home to see her watching TV if she finished all her ''chores''.
The only thing that made him wonder was the fact that the only light on was the lamp light next to the couch, the television was off, and she'd yet to wake up and welcome him home with her usual peachy smile.
He simply gave a soft smile as he murmured 'sleep well' to her before going up to his room to do what he always did.
He wouldn't find out until tomorrow that his mother had actually cried herself to sleep because she had accidentally found his father's long lost suicidal tape in the basement. And to think they were both finally startng to forget he died...
She should've just thrown it away.
~Pearl~
He's sitting in a room by himself in the back of the gym. He has his elbows resting on his knees and his bright, usually playfull eyes are focused on the floor with a solomn look. Covering his ears are shiny orange chrome headphones that color collaberate with his favorite shirt he's wearing. Right now he's listening to the theme song his 'Teacher' made especially for him, but for some reason, he can't be happy.
The words seem to mesh and blend in his ears until he no longer hears words of a song that will pick him up, but instead hears the words of a song that wants to grab him by the shoulders and drag him down, down, down to the ground. Instead of encouraging, all he thinks he hears the singer say is 'Just give up on whatever dream you have. You know you'll have to be what he wants you to be if you want to keep getting praised by him'.
Because his father has always wanted him to follow in his footsteps.
The song will inevitably change and he knows the next song will say in a voice that reminds him alot of himself: 'I'm tired of being what you want me to be'.
But when his Teacher's song end, the door to the room opens and there's said teacher grinning down at him like nothing's wrong.
He's only grinning because he doesn't even know what the blonde in front of him is truly thinking.
"Pearl, your father's here! You can come out now!" his 'Teacher' tells him.
He then shuts his music off and lets the headphones drape around his neck as he gives a smile that's practically bleeding with fakeness.
"Alright." he agrees and goes out to greet the very same person he doesn't want to become.
~Platina~
She's the girl that everyone has high hopes for, and adores completely. She's incredibly smart, polite, and is as gorgeous as can be. Right now, she's sitting at a shiny grand piano that is located in her estate's library and is completely empty aside from her presence.
Her fingers lace across the piano keys gracefully as she plays in tune to the classical music wafting through her ears from her specially made 'earplugs', as she calls them. Despite her emotionless eyes and peaceful facial expression, she doesn't feel 'peaceful' at all.
She's only playing the tune because her father wanted her to. She didn't have a choice in the matter. Remembering that cold, hard fact causes her to momentarily faulter, but she quickly catches up to the tune of the piece once again.
Her gaze can't help but glaze over as she starts to think why she's even playing. She doesn't really want to, now that she thinks about it. All she wants is to be like every other average child her age.
She stops abruptly as she hears something on the inside of the piano snap, then sighs and folds her hands on her lap, frowning.
She wonders when the day will come where she won't have to do what they say anymore.
One day her tolerance might break, much like the inside of the piano. Or, it might fade away slowly like the classical song that has reached it's ending now.
~Black~
He's sitting there on that Ferris Wheel seat wishing he had something-anything-to block out the words his friend is saying to him. He knows if he listens to him, he can't be best friends with him anymore and he'll have to force himself to hate that green haired individual.
He wished he never agreed to come. He wished he had just liked, and said he had other things to do so this wouldn't of had to happen.
Now he's watching the person in front of him speak the words he pleads Arcues he can't hear, but does, with that look in his eyes that looks so painful.
Once more he wishes he had something that would block out what he's saying.
However, he doesn't have anything like that right now. So, unfortunately, he's forced to listen to his now former friend's talk. Every syllable is sheer torture to him as he eventually finished what he wanted to tell him. And as if he wasn't living for a moment, the next thing he knows he's standing on the empty sidewalk in front of the Ferris Wheel, watching the person with green hair walk away.
"I rather of had my ears bleed..." he whispers in a hoarse voice as he hides his face with the rim of his red hat.
~White~
She's sitting at a desk with a pencil in her hand at three am. She doesn't have any lights on because the neon lights of the city from outside her room window is more than enough. She's dead tired and wants nothing more than to go to sleep, however, here she is listening to the same commercial jingle over and over again because her boss says it's not good enough.
She's listened to it play over and over until it was engraved into her memory. Yet, in the end, she still doesn't know how to make it pleasable to her over-harsh boss.
Eventually she gives up and finally turns the horrible tune off and reverts her bloodshot eyes to the deep black night sky that's halfway lit up with the light of the huge city below. Even though it's turned off, the song is still continuing to play in her hears, and it causes a splitting headache to coarse through her brain like she's wearing invisible, mental headphones.
Maybe she's just now realizing how much she truly hates this job of hers.
"I hope the other people out there with headphones...Faire better than people like me ever will..." he whispers before her eyes close and she slowly falls to the floor from exhaustion.
If she knew how all the other people were doing, she'd probably think she's the one better off.
END.
(The only thing I gotta say is if I accidentally killed you inside, i'm sorry. Tell me how I did, though, okay? o.o Lates! I have a chosenshipping to do.)
