maybe i can
TALKYOUDOWN
[maybe i can talk you down]
A.N.: Hey! So, annie has gotten nothing but praise from the people i read it to, so I'm taking another loverly song, Talk You Down by The Script, and making another KurtxOC partial-songfic. Enjoy! (Its only partial because I only used like, the first half of the song before the story took off on its own.)
I do not own the Script, X-Men, Marvel (and all sub-companies of Marvel), but I DO own McAllister O'Connors, and Annie DeLuca, who makes a cameo as Delusion. So please, no stealies.
the colours.
Name: McAllister Marie O'Connors
Aliases: Allis, Alli, Liss, Lissy, Reflix, Flix
Cause of Death: Suicide by Jump
Time of Death: 11:43 PM, December 25th 2002
Attending: The Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters, Bayville Public High School
Abilities: Super-heightened reflexes
I couldn't stand to read the information anymore. It was plastered all over the large screens of Cerebro, all about her and how she died. But Cerebro never answered why she jumped off the Institute's roof. Cerebro never told anyone that I could have saved her, but didn't. It was the software's only favor to me.
I could feel the color fade from my face. It was terrible to see her falling all over again inside my mind. It was an image I could never erase, no matter how much anyone tried.
She killed herself. How could someone kill themselves? How could she kill herself on Christmas?
I could have teleported to her, taken her hand like I'd done so many times before, and teleported her to the ground.
But she would have seen it coming.
que the colours, pastels
"Kurt!" she exclaimed, giggling wildly. I smiled, laughing along with her. "Stop, stop tickling!" she laughed.
"You're the one who knows my every move, Allis! You know just which way to turn to get away from the tickles!" I replied, laughing at her fit of giggles.
She squirmed a bit and said, "But I don't want to get away from you, Kurt."
I stopped. We both struggled to catch our breath, and then I took her hand. With a smile, the auburn haired mutant intertwined her fingers with mine, and closed her eyes in preparation. She knew what was coming next. I took a deep breath as well, and teleported us to the Institute's roof. We sat down on the tiles and watched the sky.
"How'd you know?" she asked me. I looked to her, confused. "How'd you know I wanted to get away from this place?"
"You… There was…" I tried, but I didn't know. I hadn't the faintest clue that Allis had wanted anything. She was the one who knew which shots you'd miss before you took them. Not me. I was just a blue fuzzy elf who could teleport.
"I don't want to leave you, Kurt. But I need to leave."
Things were silent for a while. Hey navy eyes were set to the sun, which was sinking in the sky, starting to hide beneath the rolling hills. I watched her. I waited for some sort of explanation, she owed me an explanation.
"Kurt," she breathed, her voice soft. "I'm so sorry. But I just… I can't possibly stay."
I opened my mouth to try and talk her out of it, but I couldn't find the words. She couldn't possibly stay? She had to stay. I liked her too much to let McAllister O'Connors go.
"I'm sorry. But can you take me inside? There's no way I'd survive a jump off this roof," she asked, still quiet. She knew she'd hurt me. She knew she never meant to, but Allis knew she hurt me.
"Yeah."
I took her hand. She intertwined her fingers in mine. It was a feeling so familiar, us holding each other's hands. I smiled, and her lips turned up into a smile as well. I teleported us back inside.
the colours.
This was all so long ago. She was only fifteen when she died. I was only sixteen. We were so close, and I wasn't ready to let her go. So she jumped. She had to get away, she couldn't smoke it off and she couldn't run far enough. She knew I'd come after her. She knew she'd hurt me too much. But how could Allis possibly think that killing herself would make it hurt less? It was two years ago, and it doesn't burn any less.
I looked back up to the screens.
Name: McAllister Marie O'Connors
Aliases: Allis, Alli, Liss, Lissy, Reflix, Flix
It was like stabbing myself with each letter I read, each time it collided into another and made the words. It was like a piece of me shriveled and died with each time I read her name.
McAllister Marie O'Connors, you killed yourself and now you're killing me.
You killed yourself. I could have saved you, if only I'd been with you. If only I didn't let you leave. If only I'd been listening harder, looking for the signs.
the colours, the pastels
She headed to her room. "Hey, hey, Allis, what's the rush?" I asked.
"I need a dose of cancer. I kind of feel like killing myself."
She had always said that, 'I kind of feel like killing myself'. She took a lighter from her pocket and threw it in the air, catching it as she ascended another stair.
"Can I come?"
"Do you want one?"
"Maybe," I told her. It was a lie. "Maybe, Allis."
"Sorry, kiddo. I only send invites to those sure they want 'em."
I turned back around. Running a hand through my hair, I took a deep breath to calm myself. She's just going to take this one last cigarette, and then she'll see how much it really does kill her and she'll stop. Right? Allis was going to stop smoking. She was going to stop, right?
I turned on the T.V. and waited for her. She'd come back down when she was ready. She'd walk down the stairs and giggle, puff a little smoke towards me and whisper a quote from a song she had just listened to. Then we'd sit on my balcony, and she'd tell me all her secrets all over again and we would talk until 3:00 in the morning.
Allis never walked down the stairs.
I looked down at the holowatch. It was already 3:00. AM. Why had no one come down and told me to get some sleep? I ran towards her room, knocked on the door. "Allis!" I hissed. Trying not to wake anyone, I knocked again. "Allis!"
The door slowly creaked open. There was a cigarette in her mouth, two empty cartons on the floor and about thirty cigarette butts littering the carpet, too. "You called, Blue?" she asked. She exhaled the smoke in her lungs. I coughed.
"Allis, what are you doing?" I asked. I looked around the room. Her clothing was laying on her bed, neatly folded and sorted into seven piles. She had an open suitcase laying next to them. "No. No, McAllister…You aren't…"
"Yeah, Kurt, I am. I'm leaving. So?"she asked. Grabbing each pile and stuffing it in the case, she zipped it up and grabbed it angrily by the handle. The only piece of clothing left on the bed was her X-Men uniform. She looked to the almost empty bureau. The only thing left was a picture of the two of us, sitting on my balcony, laughing. I remember that. That was taken on the day we first kissed.
"Allis, please. Allis!" I tried to protest. She picked up the picture, and walked to the door. Shoving it into my chest, she walked out.
"Allis!"
"What, Kurt? What?!" she screamed, turning around. "What do you want me to do, Kurt?"
"I want you to stay," I whispered.
"So you can kill me?" she whispered back, tears in her eyes. "I just know it, Kurt. You, this place, it's going to kill me inside. I can't do that to you, Kurt."
"What, and leaving me hurts less?" I spat back.
She stayed silent for a moment, taking a deep breath as she choked back tears. "Yes, Kurt. It will."
"It's 3 AM, where are you going to go, Allis?" I asked.
She laughed, and continued to the front door. "London."
"What? Allis, where are you going to stay? You can't possibly stay in London."
She didn't' pause to talk this time. She kept walking down the halls. "I have some friends who live in London, Kurt. I called earlier, they said I could stay with them."
She turned around once she reached the front door.
"Please, Allis. Don't do this to me," I pleaded. "Don't just walk out on everything you had here."
I could see the tears in her navy eyes. I took her hands in mine. She snuck her fingers in between mine.
"I'm sorry, Kurt. But I just can't stay."
She leaned in to kiss me one last time. It was a hesitant kiss, but it still left me dizzy and unable to breathe. Then Allis turned, auburn pigtails over her shoulders like always, and opened the door. Walking out, she left everything the Xavier Institute had to offer her behind.
But she took away a piece of me.
the colours
I remembered. She was going to stay with friends in London, it was I got to know. She didn't tell me that her mother and sister had died in a car crash in London. She didn't tell me she'd seen it coming. It would have killed her.
But not telling me? Killed her.
It was a lose-lose situation.
I looked to the clock. 3:00 AM. How ironic. Walking out of the room holding Cerebro, I headed for my room. It was late. I had school tomorrow. Sleep was necessary. As my feet dragged lazily along the carpeted floors, my eyes drifted up to the door that still lay ajar. The room inside was bare, and there was no inhabitant. There hadn't been for two years.
There were only a few things left in the room. a picture of the dresser, so dusty that you could no longer see the picture, a lighter on the nightstand, and a half-empty carton of cigarettes on the floor.
I took the liberty and walked into Allis's room. I went straight for the dresser, letting my fingers slide across the photo. Heavy layers on dust clung to my finger tips, revealing a younger me, laughing on my balcony with Allis.
She would forever be that very Allis, the one with the Irish auburn hair, forever in pigtails that would always lay over her shoulders. She would always be remembered with those curious navy eyes, the ones that would twinkle when she laughed. Allis would always have long, slender arms and the smallest wrists I'd ever seen. She would never change. I felt a smile creep onto my face, one of the fewer times since her memorial service a year ago. Allis was so lucky, to be immortalized so beautiful.
I looked to the cigarettes. That was all she really was anymore, a cigarette gone. She had become just another suicide case. It wasn't like her. But she was fifteen, what did I really know about her?
I had to go see her. I had too many questions to ask her now. I ran down the halls, out the front doors, and around the garage. The X-Van was there, along with Evan's new(ish) motorcycle, Logan's motorcycle, and then I saw it: Scott's car. He'd told me on his graduation day that whenever I wanted to, so long as he didn't have a date with Jean, I could use it.
It was 3:00 AM. I'm pretty sure he didn't have a date with Jean.
Trying to go as fast as possible, I teleported into the car, turned the ignition and sped off. The gates lay ahead, coming into view faster and faster.
I couldn't take the time to wait for the gates. Instead, I merely teleported beyond them, and Scott's car continued to race down the streets.
It was just a few more miles now, I could get there in around six minutes.
Allis's voice echoed in my head, "I've got friends in London. I called earlier, they said I could stay there."
She told me that, then killed herself. London. Why hadn't this clicked before?
St. London was a small town around six miles from Bayville. There was a cemetery there, and when Allis ad her family immigrated to America from Ireland, her mother and sister were buried in the St. London cemetery. London. She was going to stay with friends in London.
I hit the steering wheel, as if abusing the car would make it go faster. "C'mon, c'mon!" I shouted, desperate. I had to get there soon. I had to talk to Allis.
Those next six minutes were the longest in my life. But finally, sure enough the St. London cemetery came into view, and I jumped Scotts car to the first place I could see. Pulling out the keys to his car, it immediately died, skidding just about four feet before the momentum died as well.
"McAllister!" I shouted, into an empty cemetery in a small town of New York at 3:16 AM. "Allis!"
I turned around and started looking at headstones.
Juliet Skyse – 1981-2000
Blakely Jenifer Neuport—1988-2004
Not Allis. Not Allis.
Connor Dailey—1990-1992
Elizabeth Dailey- 1981-1992
Maria Ann Dailey- 1962-1992
A family, dead. All together. The little boy was only two? Reading headstones was starting to tear me further apart. But the Dailey family still wasn't the O'Connors family.
My eyes came to rest on a very large stone, perhaps ten feet tall with a two foot cross atop the pillar. I walked to it. The pillar was engraved with the "X" symbol, and I knew I'd found her. "Allis…" My eyes scanned downward. Towards the bottom of the pillar, it read "Cause of Death: Suicide by Jump". There was a plaque on the base of the pillar, the actual headstone, that read "MCALLISTER MARIE O'CONNORS – 1987-2002".
"Allis…" I whispered. Seeing this… Seeing her grave… My knees began to wobble. I fell to the ground, kneeling in front of her headstone, watching little circles of dark cover the entire grave mark. It was raining. Lovely.
"You're late, Kurt. You're two years fucking late."
I looked up. On the top of the cross sat a young girl, sitting cross-legged. The wind blew her hair up from where they rested on her shoulders. She was scowling down at me, and a faint "tsk-tsk" came from her.
"What?" I asked.
She stood up, reaching a height of 5'2". "I knew you wouldn't show up for the funeral, or the memorial. But I didn't think it would take you two years to track me down, Kurt. You're better than that."
I was so horribly confused.
"Come on. Don't tell me Xavier used his Jedi-mind trick crap to make you forget about me. You couldn't possibly forget about me," she continued, standing up on her toes.
The rain had developed into a storm. The was a strike of lightning about fifteen miles east, but the light was enough to let me see. I saw auburn hair in the wind. I saw a scowl on her face, but I saw her navy eyes twinkling. Her jeans wouldn't seem to get wet, and her layered blue shirts didn't seem to absorb the water either. I couldn't seem to wrap my mind around it.
McAllister Marie O'Connors was back. Her ghost had come back to her own grave, and she had chosen to haunt me.
"Allis?" I asked. My legs didn't seem to get my brains message to stand.
"There we go! Now he remembers. Give the elf a prize."
"Allis?" I repeated. It was all I could seem to say.
She laughed. "Yeah. Okay, see, I thought we got past that by now."
If I couldn't move my legs, I could still teleport. I aimed for the left side of the cross. Finding the three inch thickness of the stone hard to balance on, I reached for Allis's hand. I slipped right through her. Falling a few feet, I aimed for the ground again. That sulfuric smoke ad never been so comforting to me.
"Oh, yeah, sweetheart? I'm not really here. I'm dead, if you'd forgotten." She made it look so easy. She had made everything look so easy. "I'm part of you. You're talking to yourself. You've cracked! I knew you would someday."
I laughed, more from the adrenaline of falling six feet then from anything being genuinely funny. "You make that look so easy."
"I always kind of did," she replied.
"Allis… Why'd you do it? Why did you jump? Why'd you walk out in the first place, I-"
"I think you need to slow down," she told me. "There's only so much a girl can answer at once."
"It was suicide, Allis."
"I know, Kurt."
There was a silence, as we both sat down again, me on the wet grass and her on wet stone, before I asked her, "What happened that Christmas?"
Allis took a deep breath, sighing eventually. "It's hard to find the words, Kurt."
"Find them."
"Touchy, touchy," she laughed.
"Allis…" I warned, standing again.
She took a deep breath, and jumped down to the ground. Walking to me, she gently placed her hand to my cheek. I closed my eyes, somehow knowing that was what she wanted me to do. And as she started to tell me the story, I saw what happened that Christmas.
the colours, pastels
She closed the door behind her, leaving me inside the mansion. Allis walked towards the gate, thinking only of the events that happened in London, thinking only of getting to St. London, New York. Thinking only of how to get away from Bayville.
"Kurt…" she whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks. "I am so sorry."
She knew I couldn't hear her. She didn't care. She continued to whisper those words until she reached the gates of the St. London Cemetery. Hoping over the gate, leaving her suitcase on the streets of St. London, Allis ran for her mother's grave. She slipped in what was now the wet grass, as rain poured down on New York. Standing again, mud staining her jeans, Allis ran faster.
"Mum." The headstone was worn down. "Julia Masters-O'Connors—1961 -1997" read the stone.
"Emmie." The grave marker was engraved with small butterflies. Tears burned in Allis's navy eyes. "Emily O'Connors—1991-1997" it read.
She fell to the ground, hair sticking to her face in the rain, dirt on her face and a pain in her shoulder. Crying, shoulders heaving against the grass, Allis curled her legs closer to her body.
colourful words
"Allis…" I started to say, but she whispered a "shhh".
"That was at five-thirty in the morning. After that, once I'd collected myself together, I hitched a ride back to Bayville."
Five-thirty. I was sitting on my balcony with the picture from her dresser. I remembered that. I remembered how I'd sat there all Christmas, tears staining my face, looking out at Bayville waiting to see her pop up from the trellis and puff some smoke at me. Sing a quote from a song she'd listened to.
"I would have gone back to the mansion, be your Christmas present, but I ran into this little blonde girl. On the way up."
She put her hand back on my cheek, and it started all over again.
the paste colours, fading further
Allis shut the doors of the blue Ranger. "Thanks so much. You saved my life, Kelly."
Literally.
The Ranger drove off, leaving Allis is the shadow of the Xavier Institute on Christmas day. A smile crept onto her face. She took a step forward. Wait… there he was! She hadn't noticed until just then, but there lay Kurt, by the fountain. There was a dark stain on the gravel he lay on.
"Oh. Oh, God, Kurt!"
She couldn't possibly be seeing this. He couldn't be dead.
"Kurt!" Allis screamed. She feel to her knees by the elf's body, placing a hand on his cheek. He was so cold. He couldn't be so damned cold! He couldn't be dead!
His eyes were glassed, a trickle of blood escaping his ajar mouth. He eyes began to burn with held back tears.
Kurt was dead.
Kurt was dead.
Kurt was dead.
He was so cold. Why was he so cold? This wasn't real, it couldn't be happening.
Kurt was dead.
A blonde ran for his corpse. "Kurt!" she screamed.
Kurt was dead.
The blonde put a hand on his cheek. Tears fell onto his face.
But Kurt was dead.
The blonde shoved Allis away, tracing her fingers around the mutant's lips. Tracing the trickles of blood, the scratches, the gashes.
He was so cold.
"Kurt, my God…" the blonde whispered. Tears fell onto Kurt's face.
Kurt was dead.
Allis looked to the blood stained gravel.
Maybe I can talk you down….
Kurt was dead.
Tears fell onto his face. The blonde girl ran her fingers through his hair.
Try to open up your eyes, this is relationship suicide…
He was so cold. Why was he so damn cold?
Kurt was dead.
Maybe I can talk you down…
Kurt was dead.
Gonna use my heart, not my head…
Kurt was dead.
Kurt was fucking dead.
Allis stood, legs shaking. She ran for the mansion, her steps become more stable the further she ran. The Irish mutant ran to the trellis by Kurt's room . She climbed it halfway, then jumped to the balcony a floor lower. Kitty's room. Everyone was downstairs anyways, in the foyer, for Christmas. Allis sprinted down the hall, finding the corridor that led to the steep stairs for roof access.
She walked to the ledge. She remembered what she told Kurt the night before. "There's no way I'd survive a jump from this roof."
There wasn't. She knew she'd die if she jumped. She knew she could be with him again if she jumped.
Allis looked again to Kurt, lying by the fountain, blood staining the ground. She looked again to the blonde, knowing she'd seen her before. The tears burning in Allis's dark eyes, she took that last step.
That's when she remembered. The blonde's name was Annie. Annie DeLuca. Codename, Delusion. She could trick your mind into seeing what wasn't there. That was how Allis hasn't seen any of it coming. Knowing that the trick had played its part, Delusion let the charade drop.
Kurt had never been there at all.
Kurt was never dead.
Delusion stood by the fountain, eyes locked on Allis's falling body. And as she came within the last feet, McAllister whispered her last words. "'Cause if you go, I go."
She puffed air from her lungs, the bitter December turning the breath into frosty whisps. She had puffed out the smoke and quoted the song. Where was Kurt?
Delusion began to laugh.
Allis closed her eyes, but she still saw the collision coming.
the city lights are screaming
A.N.: Okay, there. I got my obligatory teenage angst story out of the way and I have to say, even I am crying. But that may just be because I'm a sap. Oh well.
Please review. I DO accept anonymous (not logged in) reviewers, so please, everybody, don't be shy. Even if you hated it, let me know. I'm writing this for you guys!
So, I'm proud of this. Have a lovely July, all, and I will be back with updates after Band Camp ends July 25th.