Love Your Way - Chapter 2b
Acepilot

AN - This is the second part of Chapter 2. This part of the fic is where it hits it's darkest and most disturbing, and it contains some pretty strong adult themes. If you're on then this is rated right, but on Luke's AGU board and can't handle the edited out swearing (proboards does that, so I discovered when I betad over it) or adult themes, then I urge you to wait until Chapter 2c comes out and let it fill in the blanks.

Disclaimer - The characters from AGU are property of Klasky-Csupo. The song found in this chapter was written by Nick Cave and Mick Harvey.

Lil

I push open the door to the apartment, gazing around it levelly.

Most of the lights are out, the muted TV is providing a damp glow to the air. Smoke and alcohol hang heavy and I have to struggle to breathe. It's been bad before, but never like this.

He's at the piano, left hand distractedly hammering chords while the right hand dances delicately across the treble keys. He screaming lyrics, nonsensical if I didn't know the song from his obsession with it when we lived together. On one end of the upright is a glass of scotch, with the near-empty bottle at his feet. At the other end is an ashtray overflowing with butts and half-smoked home-mades. One is quietly burning away while he thumps out rhythms and notes disassociated of each other.

If this is heaven Ah'm bailin out...
If this is heaven Ah'm bailin out...

"Phil?" I ask, stepping closer.

He kind of nods but doesn't turn to face me as he pounds the black and white keys mercilessly twice more before finally letting the tortured instrument fall silent. He spins extravagantly to face me. His hair is getting longer than I've ever seen it, and his eyes are slightly glassy. He's pale as a ghost. "Want a drink?"

I shake my head. "No thanks." I take a deep breath. "I'm sorry I haven't been over much the last few weeks. I've just...I've had a lot to deal with."

He nods and turns back to the keyboard to pick up yet another nightmarish tune. "I'll bet. Who'da thunk it, huh? Tommy and Kimmi, getting married. Isn't it wonderful?"

I sigh. "Look, Phil, trust me, I know what you're going through -"

"Fuck that!" He all but screams, his hands both landing on the one end of the piano and delivering a horrible, unmusical chord. "You've got no fucking idea what I'm going through!" He rises from the piano bench and pits me with a horrifying glare.

I match it. "Oh, don't I? You think you're the only one with feelings? The only one with emotions!"

"Your feelings toward Tommy have nothing in common with my feelings for Kimmi!" He yells. I've never really seen him so angry. His eyes are practically red, he seems so furious. "You've got a crush on a boy you've known forever? So what! I had her! I had her and I lost her and now I have to live with that! I love this girl, and she's marrying someone else! Fucking betrayal, that's what it is!"

Rats in paradise
Rats in paradise

"What betrayal?" I yell, finally raising my voice to him. "What betrayal? You broke up! You never told Tommy to back off! You never tried to win her back! You weren't betrayed! When were you ever betrayed?"

"Just fuck off," he orders me, pointing to the door. "If you're not here to help, then fuck off."

I shake my head in disgust. "You think I want to be here, Phil? You think I like picking you up off the floor and dusting you down every time something happens between them? That I like being the strong one, the one of us who has to disregard their feelings?"

"You don't know anything about my feelings, so don't lecture me about being 'the strong one'. You have no idea how strong I've been so far." His voice is a shrill cry I've never heard before. He's all but on his knees in front of me, and I don't remember him getting there. "Get out!"

Something tells me I should stay. Something tells me that going now would be wrong, that this way only leads to disaster.

But the hurt in my body is just too overwhelming. So I drag my feet to the door, and force myself not to look back on my brother, laying in a desperate heap on the floor. I force myself not to look back. Not to take on problems that aren't my own, that are beyond my control.

Phil

Oh lord, Ah git down on mah knees
(Ah git down on my knees and start to pray!)
Wrapt in mah mongrel wings, Ah nearly freeze
In the howlin' wind and drivin rain
(All the trash blowin round 'n' round)
From slum-heaven into town

I take a deep breath. Music is thumping on the stereo, and I watch with some kind of vague disinterest as the characters on the TV move around their daily lives. I let myself think that they're singing the songs, not the guy on the record that turns slowly on my player. The man in the black-and-white movie is talking about rats crawling across his soul, to the charming young lady who continually rebuffs his advances.

Suddenly another man's on the scene, declaring that mutiny has begun. The red train is pulling away from the station and whining like some kind of destructive guitar. I smile as the luckless love-struck loser frowns, his plan yet again thwarted as the one who captured his heart wanders away for another man, her red lips glistening.

Her lips never glistened.

I stare at the red ceiling and wonder at what my life might have been like.

Her lips were always beautiful. Never dry. Soft, like petals, to the touch.

I turn back to the TV as one of the characters screams of punishment, of reward, while facing down the victims of his rival's crimes. The victims of the man she chose ahead of him. He's evil. He might not think so, but he's evil.

Tommy isn't evil. Tommy didn't do anything wrong. Tommy didn't betray me. He fell in love. And who can blame him? I mean, if I can, why can't he?

The man on the movie and watch the man chase his friend through sewers that run bloodred. Gun shots are exchanged, but oddly they make no sound. As they face off, fingers reach through the grate in some final cry for help.

And as he shoots his friend once more, everything goes red, his wings folding out around him. Made of crutches and pinions.
The TV screen goes bright, vibrant scarlet, and I look down at my wrists, and wonder how that happened. The knife falls from my grip and I smile weakly, falling backward onto the reddening floor and lacking the energy to laugh.

Ah take my tiny pain and rollin back mah sleeve
(Roll anna roll anna roll anna roll)
Ah yank the drip outa mah vein! UTOPIATE! Ah'm bailin out!
UTOPIATE!
If this is heaven Ah'm bailin' out
Mah threadbare soul teems with vermin and louse
Thought comes like a plague to the head...in God's house
Mutiny in Heaven

sorry about the coarse language. it just kind of wrote itself that way. please review.