Title: Deeper than Red
By: RayOfDarkSunshine
Summary: His façade is like a china doll. The slightest slip would cause it come crashing down and break into a thousand pieces.
Ebony eyes watch over the street. It's a dark night and nobody's around. He breathes in and then sighs. He's the only one on the street, a lone soldier facing the world and darkness alone because although they say they understand. They don't really understand at all, nobody does. He lies back and looks up at the sky, minimally eclipsed by an overhanging tree. He watches birds as they fly back home to the nests and he wonders what it would be like to have a home to go to. One that was welcoming and warm. A place where he could go to feel safe and secure. A place where somebody would ask how his day was and if something was on his mind. Friends aren't the same as family, you can tell them things but not everything. Sometimes things aren't worth sharing or are too painful to share. He sighs again but this time it's slow and shaky. It's not often he cries, rarely and never around people he knows however, during the empty nights, he can't help it. Nothing gets to him, or that's what most people think. He's not like most people though, on the outside he looks it, on the inside he's different.
His façade is like a china doll. The slightest slip would cause it come crashing down and break into a thousand pieces. It's so easily broken but so carefully maintained that nobody sees through it. He sits up looks around. It's quiet, empty and dark. A single car cruises down the street. It's not the first time he's watched the cars go by, not like the way Steve does, for a different reasons. Sometimes he wonders if he'd be better off underneath the wheels of a car, would anybody really care. His parents certainly wouldn't care. He cared about them though. That was something nobody could understand. His parents always said they hated him, that he was unwanted so why did he care. Because they were his parents. Even he didn't understand it. No matter what they did to him, they'd always be his parents. So was it because of them that there were scars running deep. That some nights he'd watch the blood run down his arms, drip onto the ground. He took another shaky breath. He stayed away from his home, away from his family. Yet he cared so much, if they cared they would look for him.
He thinks and tries to count off the people who really would care. Maybe a few, two for certain but that's all. He closes his eyes as tears roll down his face. It's silent sorrow as as almighty two people would really, properly care if he was gone. There would be fancy funeral, no large procession and maybe not even a proper stone to mark his life. Does it really matter though, he smirks and looks back up the starts as though expecting a response from them. It doesn't matter to him, through pain, hatred fear. Through friendship, happiness and comfort. Either way is a good thing for him. Even if each day blood runs down his arms and red clouds his vision he knows that, somewhere, there is a reason for everybody to keep going. A reason that they are there. He never says these things but he keeps them close. After all, he'll keep living. Even if he's alone and in the end, that's all that matters.
A/N: And there we have it. Darker than Black, Graver than Blue and Deeper than Red. This one was the hardest for me to write and to be honest I don't expect much feedback on it. If you've got this far, thank you for reading. Faves and Reviews are always appreciated.