A/N: I guess this is one for all you angst lovers out there. I started writing this a little while ago, when I was having a pretty awful time, and I felt like nothing would ever be the same again. And although I was right with that bit, I thought this was something I ought to share with you all. So, here you have it. Lots and lots of angst. Chapters will get longer.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the faintly cliched plot line.
Howard sat on the floor in front of the fireplace, slowly, methodically burning the newspaper he had kept for two weeks. He tore the pages out, balled them up, and threw them into the flames, starting from the inside and working out. When he reached the front page, he stopped, his eyes reaching the article he never wanted to see. The only way they had been able to describe it was 'broken'. The broken body lying in a pool of blood on the pavement three blocks away. Inky black hair splayed over the paving stones, matted with dried blood. A fresh wave of tears crashed over Howard as he threw the article into the fire. Two weeks was a long time to him now. In those two weeks, they'd identified the body, held the funeral and begun the inquest. So far they suspected suicide. But the funeral had been the worst part. Everyone quiet and sombre, wearing black, tears being shed for him. It wasn't what he would have wanted, Howard knew. But he hadn't made the arrangements; forgotten relatives had come back onto the scene and taken over all planning with cold, emotionless precision. They wanted Howard to empty Vince's side of the room they'd shared. But Howard refused. He still held out a hope, a tiny resilient little hope deep in his heart that Vince was alive. Although how that would be true was a mystery to him. He had seen the body himself, rushed over when he was called, held back by the policemen as he sobbed. Nothing had been the same since Vince left him. The flat was too quiet, too calm. Now there would be no more stupid questions while he was trying to be in a jazz trance; no more mad adventures when he would rather just stay and work in the shop; and no more quiet moments, unsaid words lingering in the air until the right ones came along to make each other smile and laugh and cry. Howard knew that nothing could bring Vince back now. And again he was falling, spiralling deep into the sea of despair and depression he had come to know so well. The ache in his chest was akin to having his heart torn out and left outside of his body, still keeping him alive against all human odds. This was what it was. His heart had been torn out, his one reason for living destroyed. And yet, by some miracle, or possibly divine error, he still lived, his feeble soul pounding on the walls of his mind and screaming. He wanted to escape it all, but where to go? Everything reminded him of Vince. The flat, of course, was difficult, with his clothes still scattered everywhere, his smell permeating their room. Walk around Camden and, before long, you came to the scene itself. The whole city was full of reminders of Vince. The park where they first met; the zoo where they worked for years; the velvet onion, where they had gigged often. It was so difficult to find a place where there was nothing like this. Howard often resorted to sheer unconsciousness to make the pain go away, sleeping as many hours as he could. Yet still Vince was in his shattered dreams, on the edge, on the side-line, taunting him and drifting silently away. And sometimes the long hours of unconsciousness messed up his sleeping patterns. Three times now he had woken up in the early morning. Never had he felt so alone, like there was nothing in the world left for him to live for. That was when the tears came, and when the thoughts came, the darkness and the fear and the sheer atrocity of the world he lived in. The mornings were his darkest times. He wished that he could just end it, finish it all and join Vince wherever he was. But he didn't have the courage to take the pills, to use the knife, to acquire the gun and put it to his head. The days were dark now, and they passed quickly. But that was good. Any lighter and he would have been blinded; any slower and he would have suffocated in the sluggish flow of time. But every day, although he wasn't strong enough to deal it, he wished for death. He wished for something to come along and end this misery, like Vince had seemingly ended his.
Yeah, kind of depressing. Anyway, let me know what you think.