As usual if this isn't your ship get off my boat, if you find an error you get one free fic! (1,000 words or less, any fandom that I know of). Eh…. Course language in this chapter. I happen to be someone who cusses a lot so expect that. Also I should probably warn you that there will be mild/moderate levels of Nick/OC sort of. It's hard to explain the OC's purpose without giving away too much of the plot and the one cardinal rule of literature is, to me at least, don't spill the beans.
Also I'd like to thank the person who reviewed the last chapter:
DL Barnners: The downfall for me is I am "men like Nick." I disappear for days, weeks, months on end (years in some cases) and when I come back I'm not sorry. Really, I'm not. I'm confused why you're mad at me and possibly why my whereabouts are of such import to someone who isn't me but I don't feel bad for going off on my own. I am basically a "no maintenance" person; knowing intellectually that I am cared for is enough for me but this happens to cause a lot of friction with… basically everyone.
The cello bit was supposed to be the only sensual one. Monroe is torn between a predilection for violence and abhorring the consequences of it. Sort of like how some pedophiles will chemically castrate themselves so they have less of a chance to hurt children.
I don't like the word plethora. It's a good word and all but it sounds too much like placenta. You watch one cat eat hers and your just done with the word.
Re "Little Red As Blood, Little White As Snow": It's actually an amalgamation of a lot of references. Most obviously it's a reference to Snow White who 'had lips as red as blood, skin as white as snow, and hair as black as the ebony wood of the Queen's window frame.' The "do you know the color of sin" is a reference to Isaiah 1:18 which says "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." I used the King James Version. I think it's Cambridge Ed. I'm not actually Christian so I don't know Christian lore very well so I'm operating off of what little I've gleaned from literature classes I've taken where the majority of the students and teachers have been some form of Christian. It's also a nod to a story I read in a sci fi and fantasy lit class I had a while ago. I can't remember its name or the author and I can't find the text even though I hoard English textbooks like some people hoard old newspapers.
I must confess I haven't watched the latest episode yet. I should, I really should, I know but I've been uh… doing stuff… yeah… that's it. Stuff.
Have fun with the insomnia. I'm a professional insomniac, myself. And as a professional I feel I must warn you: whatever your brain tells you at four in the morning it is not, I repeat, not a good idea to go into the marshlands to find "nature stuffs" to redecorate your room with.
Meg67: Thank you! I do love a compliment. I know I'm not fantastic (my grasp of grammar is rudimentary at best) but I do try. There really aren't any time shifts backwards, it's all just leaps forward. Where Angelina eating skin is mentioned is a memory but not a narrative flashback- just Monroe's brain getting muddled by the blood. This chapter is set ~four years after the beginning of my plot arch (the beginning is two years before the first chapter). I think I vaguely mention how much time has passed in each chapter but I know not everyone reads stories as close as me so there you go. Anymore questions you have you know where to direct them. Especially if I just confuse you more. It makes sense in my head but often times that doesn't mean it does out my mouth. You don't have to but I'd suggest reading the replies at the top of each chapter because I often put little hints or explanations into them.
Unfortunately, today's chapter is going to be short but hey, it's how the plan goes.
Chapter 11: Drown Out The Light
The residence of mind The Memory bright as an unsteady picture An impractical wish to bookmark this location A device for the chronically lost. Unlike a gander, I cannot find my way back. I gander at black ink. It always seems to insinuate itself Onto my white, lined face. Black my eyes brighter than I can handle.
Running. Running. He just has to keep running. He knows their boundaries; their limits. This edge is it and once he's over… His feet hit the asphalt and buckle under him. Rolling, he keeps his eyes wide open. He knows their boundaries. He knows… he knows. The spaces in between. He sprints down the road, dodging street lamps and skirting yards. Nick doesn't turn around because he can't, because it's a bad idea, because it'll slow him down, because he trusts that the feet he hears belong to the right person.
At the intersection he sees it and he cusses in between pants and takes off into an alley. It's not safe but it's better than the alternative. A black shade gushed up to Nick's left and he gives a stunted yell before throwing himself to the side.
A scream and happy gurgling tell him someone was not as lucky. The gurgle turns into an enraged frothing noise. Nick drags his head up from cracked cement below him. He turns and it seems like it's happening guttatim slow, racecar fast. There is this sound like one thousand fire hydrants softly bursting open at once. Nick crawls over to where little charcoal colored bubbles are drifting up from a prone figure.
The figure smiles and laughs. It's a pained merriment. There isn't any blood. Just, just- Nick doesn't even have the words. He smiles, too. It's just as grim, just as relieved. Just as damned.
It's a John Williams. Not a classical piece but he still finds it soothing. His fingers migrate slowly, steadily. He closes his eyes and listens to the sounds and attempts to forget everything.
He plays a flat instead of a sharp. Warren's young face floats behind his eyes. He's laughing and tugging Nick closer. They looked so happy, so practiced, so perfect. He makes it through barely another bar before an eighth note becomes a sixteenth. Warren sitting on Monroe's front porch, watching with fond eyes as Nick ran Monroe's mower over his grass. 'Thou aby it, dear' he had said and Monroe hadn't been able to place it at first. Nick had turned off the mower, wiped his brow with his shirt-edge, and began making his way towards them. 'Look where thy love comes! yonder is thy dear."
Monroe gives up playing when the memories won't stop interfering.
'And I have found Demetrius like a jewel, Mine own and not mine own.' Warren had looked so serious, so determined. Monroe had been lost. Now he was just as lost. Standing in his living room, drinking absently from his beer bottle.
He can't bare to stand in his own kitchen anymore. He runs in there and flees just as quickly. The whole house still smells like Nick and Warren. –Nick'n'Warren-
He's convinced himself that the spot under the microwave still smells like sex; dirty, guilty, mind-blowing sex.
He's convinced himself to keep his couch. It really does still smell like blood and sweat and NicknWarren cuddling up and whispering in each other's ears.
He looks out his living room window and whispers. So quietly he might as well be simply mouthing the words.
"'Truth kills truth.'"
Monroe had looked it up, remembered the play.
Warren had known. He'd smiled and kissed Nick with the same mouth that Nick had betrayed him. He'd sat there and talked to the man who knew the noises that came out of Nick's mouth too well.
Jesus.
He was fucked.
He needed to stop drinking whiskey so late at night, he decides. The room spins.
"Fuck you, Robin Goodfellow."
Monroe snickers at the idea of blaming fairies for faggots.
His head meets the ground and he stares straight ahead. Or as straight ahead as he can with the room all wobly. He can see the kitchen floor from here.
