AN: This was inspired by the HIM song Killing Loneliness. I hope you enjoy it.
Disclaimer: I don't own Zach Addy or Bones. I make no money off this fic, and it never really happened. I also don't own HIM.
Memories, sharp as daggers, pierce into the flesh of today. Suicide of love swept away all that matters, and buried the remains in an unmarked grave in your heart.
Zach Addy stood with a bunch of flowers in his hand. They were pink roses, her favorite. He gave her one for every month they had been together. Fourteen in all. He stared down at the gravestone, shiny and new. If it weren't so damn depressing, it would have been beautiful.
Gently he knelt down and laid the flowers against the stone. He wasn't sure if this was against the rules or not, but then, he really didn't care. How long had it been since he'd come out here? How long had it been since he'd gotten away from his family that thought he was a necrophiliac of some sort and just come here.
Come here to see her.
"Triana," he said her name as though that would bring her back, break the surrealism of this moment.
Triana had been the most beautiful girl in the world. At least, to his virgin sixteen-year-old eyes she had been. Even then, he had been remarkably intelligent, taking college classes along with his AP classes at the high school.
Even then, he had been an outcast. He sat alone during lunch, a textbook propped against his carton of white milk. He pretended to read while munching from his container of cold macaroni.
She'd just moved from one of the bigger cities in Michigan. Zach had heard whispers about her in the hallway. Had heard about her outrageous purple dyed hair, her black baggy pants dripping with zippers. She wore black lipstick and chewed gum. She was in AP classes too, but twirled her hair listlessly around her index finger instead of feverishly taking notes like the rest of the class.
She plunked down next to him at lunch, smelling like some dark and secret perfume and bubble gum. She pulled off the wrapping from her straw and pressed it through the tinfoil lid of her juice.
"This food blows." She said amicably. "I guess that's the one thing you know no matter where you go. In a strange, disgusting, vomit smelling way, it's almost comforting."
"Where do you live?" it sounded dumb, like he was some stalker trying to invade her privacy. But she seemed to take it all in stride, didn't miss a beat.
"East End Drive. You know, the gravel road with a million miles between all the houses?"
"No kidding?" he felt a spark. "That's where I live! You must have bought the old Jackson farm."
"Jackoff farm is more like it. It's all run down and nasty." She wrinkled her nose. Zach had to laugh. She smiled and sipped more juice.
"So what's your name?" Zach closed his book and scooted just a little closer to her.
"Triana Martin. You?"
"Zach. Zach Addy,"
They'd become best friends quickly. Early on Saturday mornings she rode over barefoot on her bike, as long as the weather permitted that lack of footwear. She wore shorts and a black t-shirt, always. She crept into the back door of his house, his parents being used to children constantly in and out of their home. (She was immediately a welcome member. A little odd, his mother said, but perfectly charming and loveable.)
She'd sneak up the narrow wooden stairs into his attic bedroom. He could barely hear her, and usually registered any sound as a dream. But always, she jumped on his bed, waking him.
"Come on, Zach. I want to go."
"Go where?" he always groaned, pulling the blankets up over his head.
"I don't know. Out. I might get the car today. Come on. We could go into town. Come on," she tugged him out of bed.
And so they went "out" as she said. Then the snow began to fall, as it always did in Michigan. She trekked over to his house bundled in her jacket and heavy jeans. She shook off the snow and often curled up on his bed with him, shivering and soaked.
For some reason, that was okay. He didn't mind her lying next to him, dyed hair and all. They spent the day at his house our hers, laying on pillows on the floor of somebody's living room, watching Disney movies at his house, or "important" movies at hers. Movies that were supposed to say something relevant about society. Somehow, he always liked watching the Disney movies better.
She wasn't so uptight then. She relaxed, resting against him as the animated creatures darted across the screen. She didn't see the need to stop the movie and ask him if he understood. He always did, but sometimes he said no just so he could hear her talking to him for a little longer.
The spring came. The ground thawed out, waking up all the grass and plants. She came over to his house again in her shorts and t-shirts. They were often splattered with paint. She was a painter, and when in the middle of a masterpiece, she stopped to do nothing than go and see him. She neither ate nor drank, slept nor rested. Her whole mind was on the painting.
"Come on, Zach. Come and play with me." She pleaded softly one late spring morning, her head against his. She sounded tired and triumphant, after she always did when completing a painting.
"Where are we going?" he sat up and yawned, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. She got off his bed, padded over to the round window and stared down.
"Tree climbing," it was the way she said this that made him think he should have always known.
"Of course," and he slipped out of bed to put on blue jeans and his sneakers. They held hands and ran out to the fields behind Zach's house, overrun with bushes and trees. She found the perfect one. Dropping his hand, she grabbed the lowest branch and scrambled up.
Zach followed her. They spent the rest of the day perched in the tree. The sun began to go down. Triana had wormed her way beneath Zach's arm. They watched the view from the limbs, tangled up in one another.
"I wish we could stay like this forever." Triana murmured. Zach looked at her. In an overwhelming moment of love and protection, he licked his thumb and rubbed gingerly at a spot of the tempura paint on her face.
"Why can't we?" he asked softly.
"Because we have to be grown up. And when you grow up, people change." She snuggled into him a little deeper, as though he could ward off this fearful change that both of them could sense coming.
"Maybe not. You're right," he was getting excited. "You love me, don't you, Triana?"
"Of course," the way she said it make Zach feel silly for ever doubting it.
"So marry me."
"What?"
"Marry
me," he repeated. She looked at him blankly and he started to
wonder if maybe he should have just kept his mouth shut.
"Marry
me. I promise you can climb all the trees you want." She smiled
then and the tension broke.
"Okay, Zach," she giggled. "I'll marry you. Three weeks after we graduate, I'll marry you."
His days began to pass by blissfully after that. He'd see her pass him by in the halls, hair still purple, pants still dripping zippers and chains. They smiled at each other, walked one another to class when possible, hands linked. The word began to spread that they were "going out".
And then one day, she changed. Zach couldn't put his finger on exactly the right day, point out the exact moment, but there was something wrong. She began coming to school spattered in paint. She still held his hand, but their conversations had become thin and strained.
She stopped coming over to wake him up, refused to talk to him when he went to her house. He sat in the corner of her room, watching her paint. Her paintings had become deeply disturbing. They depicted scenes of the most horrible ways to die. Crucifixions, stabbing, beatings, being tied to horses and pulled apart. They made Zach shudder. He couldn't not watch, though. It was as though he were possessed. She was truly beautiful when like this.
He woke up one morning, three weeks into this madness that she had begun to call life. There was a strange feeling in the air. It was heavy like mourning, and yet there was the taste of relief after it. Zach sat up slowly, clearing his throat.
He slipped the blankets off of his body and stood up, shivering as his bare feet hit the cold of the hardwood floor. He padded over to his little round window, arms crossed over his chest.
A sheet of fog covered the world, so thick you couldn't see through it. The sky through the film looked gray. He could tell already that this was not going to be a very good day as far as the weather went.
Or for her. She was gone. Zach could feel it right down in his bones. He closed his eyes and could almost see her lying on her bed, could smell her smell, a mix of death and her perfume. There was the fetid order of stagnant blood, pooled at the floor.
His eyes snapped open, and he couldn't quite catch his breath. His heart was thudding in his chest. His fingernails were digging into his forearms. Zach blinked a few times before rushing to his dresser and pulling on a sweater and socks. He hopped precariously down the stairs, pulling on his shoes all the white.
And Zach began to run. He ran faster and further than he thought would be possible. He ran all the way to her house. He skidded to a stop, almost falling, just in front of her porch.
There was an ambulance in her driveway, marked with the large red cross. Her mother and father were sitting on the porch swing in their pajamas. She had on a long floral print cotton nightgown, and he was wearing a striped outfit. If they hadn't had that shell-shocked look on their face, it would have been quaint. She even had curlers in her hair.
"Zach," she looked at him, but
not quite at him. It was almost as though she were looking right
through him.
"The sirens didn't wake you, did they?"
"Where's Triana? Is she okay?" he knew the answer even as he asked the question. As it turned out, her parents didn't have to respond.
Paramedics came, carrying a stretcher between them. Zach's mouth dropped open. There was a white sheet drawn up over her body, sort of like the fog. And like the fog, if you squinted hard enough you could make out vague features. It looked like she was smiling.
"Go upstairs," her father didn't even look at him. He just stared at the fog. Zach glanced at Triana's mother, who nodded once. Slowly, carefully he picked his way over the porch and into the house.
He walked up the creaky steps and into her room, covered by paintings and punk rock posters. Clothes came spilling from her dresser and closet, mostly black and red and ripped with lots of metal on them.
There in the corner was a painting. Zach could tell the paint was still wet on it. It was a painting of two people. One was clearly Triana, the other Zach. They were holding hands and smiling. She was wearing a bridal gown, he was in a tux.
Together Forever, a banner above them read in script. Attached to the corner was a note saying simply; "I'm sorry. I love you." Zach grabbed the painting and carried it downstairs, out of the house, not speaking to the parents.
They buried her on a Friday. Her parents picked a small plot, far in the back. They refused to buy her a headstone, saying she had disgraced them by committing that… that crime against God.
Suicide. They meant suicide.
Zach had come there every Saturday until he'd had to go to Washington DC. And then, the very instant he had enough money for it, he bought her a headstone. He engraved her name, the day she was born and the day she died. Underneath, he had one simple message.
Beloved artist. She had been his beloved artist.