In Pursuit of Happiness
Whats it like to be happy? To feel wholsesome.. unburdoned?
To be able to enjoy this moment given to you without the lingering sadness that in no more than a second, it's going to end. And nothing you do can bring it back ever again?
What it like for feel content with your life? With yourself?
I can't remember, all I have are the memories, images of things that happened and what took place.
Again I guess I should point out that my life isn't a bad one by any normal standards. But I get called whiney a lot, so why the fuck not embrace the standard?
I have a roof over my head, a place to go each night, the reassurement that my bed is going to be there waiting for me... so what's so bad about it?
Everything, just... just fucking everything. Every second, good or bad. Nothing feels right, I feel so unsettled constantly. Like I'm not supposed to be here, even though I have no clue what any alternative would be. Like I'm looking through someone else's eyes at someone else's life, speculating on the sidelines.
xx
"You fucking idiot!" I shouted, "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"I ask myself the same question sometimes."
"That's not a proper fuckin' response! I'm serious, what am I doing wrong? Why do you hate me!?"
"Stop throwing your childish tantrums, you're the one who screwed up."
"I didn't fucking DO ANYTHING!"
Kakuzu rose from his chair, I had no more time than to inwardly steel myself before the side of my face exploded in pain, and I was thrown by the force down to the floor.
"I'm tired of hearing your disrespectful mouth." He said lowly. I glared at the toes of his boots, grinding my teeth with one hand fisting the threads of the carpet, the other gingerly rubbing the blooming handprint on my cheek.
"When you want to discuss this calmly, without your shouting and cursing, you may. Now get out of my sight."
I looked up at him, trying to control my breathing, trying to will the red from my vision. I couldn't do anything to him, he was stronger than me, and as hard as it was to resist, attacking him would do nothing but cause me more pain.
I hate you... I wanted to say, so fucking badly that I had to purse my lips to keep it from slipping out. That wouldn't do me any good either. Nothing would, except to get up and walk away. Obeying like the slave that I was. Waiting, always waiting for the day when I'd finally snap...
He didn't care about my feelings, he did not care about the dark hole he kept me emotionally trapped in. There was no reasoning with him, he was a brick wall, his will was dominant, and demanded obedience. There was nothing I could do. Not a goddamn thing.
I hate everything...
I pushed myself up and went into the house, leaving him alone in the garage he'd hapahazardly turned into a den.
Always, every day it seemed something like this happened. It was so confusing, it made everything hurt so bad. He's always mad at me, for one thing or another. Sometimes I haven't done anything, sometimes I swear he just makes shit up out of thin air to be pissed about. It's like he can't function unless he's angry.
The dishes mocked me as I walked by. I glanced at them, still nursing my tingling cheek as I passed. Damn, I'm such an idiot... leaving those there. That's probably why he's mad.
Into the livingroom I stalked, standing there and scanning. The stupid floor was clean, I hadn't even fucking touched this room, of course it wasn't dirty. My gaze landed on my phone, and my heart skipped a beat as I realized it was on, the screen showing the texts Itachi and I had been exchanging before I'd went to the den for a cigarrette.
There wasn't anything bad right? I'd deleted all the innuendos and references. It was just an innocent conversation between friends. Surely he wouldn't read between the lines...
How could you be so careless? My head asked.
You did nothing wrong... My heart replied.
xx
"I like kissing you.." He said, the sultry sound of his voice numbing everything that the weed and alchohol didn't.
"I can tell." I muttered back.
I don't know how it came to this... me laying flat on the floor, once again straddled by my best friend, lips locked together like the world might end if we parted.
It irritated me, somewhere in the back of my mind, a distant anger at myself for being so weak, at him for knowing how to work me like this. Kakuzu was out somewhere right now doing God knows what while I'm here, in his house, in his den, betraying him.
I feel disgusting, I feel shallow, I feel evil, and goddamit it feels so good.
I can't stop, just like always I can't stop myself. I don't ever want to stop, I want to kiss him forever. I want the world to just go away.
Like any night it started out as Red-eyes and me just hanging out. Or I guess I could say that, If it wasn't a fat fucking lie. I knew what would happen, I'm sure we both did. And honestly it's kind of funny if you think about it.
I swear I tried to delay it, mainly because I was waiting for enough liquid courage to pool itself in my body for me to just tackle the bastard, sitting over there so far away... like he wasn't aware that I wanted to attack him, like the air wasn't suffocatingly heavy with the restrained lust we were both pumping out.
Kakuzu was out of town for the night. There was no one else here to catch us. And yet I still couldn't relax. I didn't want to stop, not ever. But something wasn't right. I was as unsettled as always, sitting there awkwardly with each other, each of us peeking small glances at each other that we thought the other didn't see before quickly feigning interest in the T.V.
I tried to make small talk, I mumbled and rambled on like I always do about anything and everything that pissed me off or made me laugh due to my perverted, morbid sense of humor. We laughed and joked and stared just a little too long, passing the pipe back and forth, letting our hands brush, pretending neither of us were thinking the things we were. Pretending the tension, a giant white elephant in the room, wasn't there.
It was strange, you know. Feeling awkward around Itachi. Strange and thrilling.
He made everything so natural, so easy. But something was different now. It was pretty fucking obvious what it was, but still I couldn't exactly understand why.
I'd pretty well gotten over all the anxiety of our last encounter. I'd decided to myself that I could do this, that I could live two lives, and if I couldn't, then it was for the better. If I got caught, good, great. The decision was already made of who I'd run to. It had been made long ago.
You deal me the cards, God, and I'll work with what I've got.
Life is too short not to do what makes you happy right?
I could embrace it, work with it, play it to my advantage. I can be smart when I have the proper motivation, I can be a good actor, I can take solace in something, let myself enjoy it, even though it's wrong.
And I was so positive of my feelings, I knew exactly what I wanted, I was so sure of everything that it was hard to give a damn about the repercussions.
I hated him, Probably for a long time I've hated him. Every time he talks, I want to hit him. Every time he touches me, whether it be just a bump on the shoulder when we pass or a full-on crotch grab when he's horny... I just want him to die. I want to tie him to the bed and set the house on fire.
It made it so easy to give in. So easy to betray him, even though it constantly weighed on me in the back of my head. I didn't care so much that it was wrong, only that if I get caught, it's going to hurt. It's going to hurt a lot.
"Why are you letting me do this...?" Red-eyes says all the sudden. He looks at me with a heavy, guilty, sadness that damn near breaks my heart. I want to tell him it's okay, that really it's not his fault, that I want it to happen and everything will work out and be fine.
But I keep my mouth shut and just stare back. I hate lies. I've always hated lying. And lying to Red-eyes... I'm incapable. He can see right through me, always could.
-o-
Every time I turned around I was lying, keeping secrets. It started long before Itachi, long before Kakuzu. I've been a sinner since birth. Doomed to crave innocence and purity, trying with all my might, every chance I got, to be perfect, consantly reminded that I'll never be anything more than a human, with all our faults and weaknesses. It's how it started, the lying. I don't like it, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, it makes everything more complicated, it makes me want to stab myself through the heart just to escape the unimaginable web I've weaved for myself.
But it keeps happening. I have no control. One fib after the other, each bigger and bigger to cover the ones before them. Eating away at me, parasitic love, putting that invisible wall up, trapping me behind and suffocating me while whispering sweet nothings in my ear. Stealing my strength. The truth is so blurred and hidden so deep that I have trouble remembering what I've lied about and what's been the truth.
But It had never gotten so fucking insanely out of hand.
Every little thing I do, every fucking action plaques me with millions of possible consequences. I can't think straight, all I want to do is crawl in bed and go to sleep. I just want the world to leave me alone. I want to be at peace, I can never get enough time to myself. I have obligations and responsibilities, some to the point where I wondered why I even wanted a life in the first place, why I even want to keep going.
What's it all for, what am I getting out of it? It's supposed to make me happy, yet all I can think about is death. Sweet eternal escape.
But I can't do that. I have no choice but to be strong and keep pushing on, keep acting like everything is fine and fucking dandy even though I want to scream and cry and hurt people and destroy things. I just keep holding it all in, swallow it down and drown it out, bury it so deep it nearly dies.
And even that isn't enough.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Are you mad at me?"
"No, why would I be?"
Kakuzu studies me for what feels like an eternity. His eyes boring into me almost painfully, and I can hardley breath.
What have I done now? What has he figured out? Which lie has he seen through and what lie will I have to tell to get him to leave me alone about it? It's all I can think about, he's trained me so well that even when I've done nothing at all I can't help the hitch in my ribcage whenever I think he might be onto me.
"You don't talk to me anymore." He finally says, and I grit my teeth, returning to sorting the towels from the dishclothes and the rags, the way he likes it to be done but I couldn't give less of a fuck.
"I don't have anything to say.."I respond, repressing the anger, the urge to scream at him and tell him he's a stupid hypocritical bastard with unreasonable standards set with the exact intention to force me to fail at everything I do just so he can yell at me and beat me and feel better about himself. To explain to him in fury that he always, ALWAYS fucking tells me to shut up and when I finally give up and do it he gets mad at me for it.
"You always have something to say, Hidan. What's the matter with you."
He doesn't even say it as a question. Because it's not one, and I realize with crushing depression that this is one of those loaded demands. No matter what I say, no matter how I say it, he's going to get mad. And I'm going to walk away bleeding.
"It's nothing I promise. I feel like shit is all."
"Are you sick?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean 'you don't know'? You'd know if you're sick or not."
I focus on my breathing, my teeth grind together so hard I'm afraid they might crack.
Everything is a fucking game, a cruel dance he does with me when he needs to vent his anger but wants to make sure that I'm the one who starts the fight. Then he can call me names, knock me around, do what he wants while feeling justified to do so. I could kill him I hated him so much right then.
"Okay, I'm probably sick." As carefully as I could I said it. With as much feined nonchalance as possible.
I heard him stand up and I tensed myself more out of reflex than anything. But the pain didn't come, he hadn't moved to hit me at all. In fact it was the opposite.
It took me so off guard that I actually dropped the dishrag that was in my hand, staring at it wide-eyed there on the couch. Afraid to move, unable to process the arms wrapped gently around my waist and the body pressed comfortabley into my back... The chin resting on my shoulder and the calm breath tickling my ear.
"Why don't you go lay down and get some rest then." He said, giving me a small squeeze.
I could do nothing but swallow. I didn't know what this was. I wasn't familiar with this game. Kakuzu was not nice. Sometimes he would be not mean, but he was never nice.
"I'm sorry... I know you've been under a lot of stress with your new job and trying to still get everything done around here and keep your friends and me happy too... I know I've been a little... unreasonable... and it hasn't helped anything."
"Are... you high right now?"
"No." He pulled away only long enough to turn me around to face him. "I heard something on the radio today, a woman was talking about getting divorced and she had a list of ten things that she thinks was the main cause their marraige didn't work..."
My chest hurt now. Now That I realized he actually was being nice, being kind. I didn't want him to be nice to me, I realized, trying to force out a smile and make it seem like I appreciated his behavior. He could not do this to me... He couldn't suddenly go back to acting the way he had when we'd first gotten together, when I first moved in. Not after treating me the way he has for so long. He could not change my mind, not when it was finally made up. He could not put this guilt on me. He was the bad guy, him. Not me. I'm the victim, he cannot make me the bad guy.
It wasn't right. It wasn't fair.
"I noticed that a lot of things on her list were things that... well.. I sometimes do to you. And I... don't want that to happen."
'That' being divorce. He doesn't want to lose me... he still loves me?
This is bullshit... My head says.
This is what you wanted... my heart replies.
-o-
"Because I love you.." I finally replied, placing my hand on his cheek. He sighs, and put his own hand over my own, twineing our fingers together.
I do. I really do, I have to. This is what love is, isn't it?
Butterflies, bittersweet aches, gentle kisses, whispered secrets...
Am I wrong again? I can't help thinking when he leans back down, while I absently push his hair from his face, let my mouth move on it's own. My body has a will of it's own tonight, it and my brain are not on speaking terms.
I'm married, married and sitting here kissing my best friend, trying desperatley to keep it from going further, even though I want it so bad. It's the hardest thing I can remember ever having to do, in my drug-induced haze, to keep my hands in a safe place on his body. To pay attention, seeing as they would slip somehwere dangerous every time I let my guard down.
And I hate myself, every time I look into his eyes. It's the same thing I see, like looking in a mirror. He's miserable, he hates everything, the world has abaondoned him and he feels all alone, even moreso right now because he feels so good. As if letting himself feel were a crime...
I want to give more, I want to be the one to hold him up and help him. I want to tell him it's okay, I always want to tell him. But I can't. I have to tell him no, just like everyone else. No, I cannot love you. Even though I want to so badley that it hurts.
Why me? Why do I have to be the responsible one? I'm not responsible, I'm fucking crazy, right? Why do I have to feel this... this guilt. It's not mine, I don't want it. I'm not the bad guy... I'm not...
Everything is wrong, everything is confusing. Nothing makes sense, everything hurts.
Sleep. Sleep... I just want to go to sleep.
"I'm so fucking tired.." I pant, forcing myself up when he refused to get off me. He remained seated on my lap, sinking onto me when I sat up, hunching over and molding into me like a blanket with his arms around my neck and face pressed into my shoulder.
"Don't make me leave.." He said quietly, almost a whimper.
You could be mine. I think to myself, pulling him tighter. I could take care of you.
No. No you can't.
Married. I'm married. I have someone taking care of me, I'm not fit to take care of anyone. I can't take care of myself. Just look at me, look at this situation. What kind of fucking example is this? How could he sit here like this, clinging to me so tightly? I'm a cheater, a blaphemous disgrace, riddled with sin and adultery. How can he think I'm so good? How can he make me believe I deserve him?
I could. I could have him. He would be mine if I asked..
But you can't.
Kakuzu. Kakuzu. Kakuzu.
Husband. Husband. Husband.
Damn it. Damn it all to hell. Fuck the alchohol, fuck the weed. Why isn't it helping, stupid defective drugs. Where's the escape? Why don't I feel good?
"No, you're coming with me.." I said, somehow managing to get up, and make it into the bedroom. He got in the bed, and I followed, not knowing how to feel. Telling myself to enjoy this, pretend it's real, pretend it will happen again and again. Like this is just an average night, enjoy the moment Hidan, quickly, before it's gone.
I can't though, not ever. Not any single goddamn time. I try so hard, I swear. But I can't, all I can think about is tomorrow. Only 5 hours until Kakuzu is back, and this moment is gone. Only five hours, that's no time at all. No time for anything.
Don't touch him, let him lay there, Yes, push yourself against him, let him touch you, but don't you dare touch him. Don't you fuck this up you brainless oaf, don't you dare fucking touch him.
Married. Married. Married.
Cheater. Cheater. Cheater.
-o-
Weeks later. I'm going insane, I think. More than I already fucking am.
He won't shut up, he won't leave me alone. It's aweful, it's torture, I can't take it. I'm going to die.
I can't do this. I was wrong. Two lives, what the hell was I thinking? Fucking psycho, dammit Hidan.
Sobriety is hell. Everything is hell. It's so far past the point of utter bullshit that I wake up every morning to my alarm clock, saying a silent prayer to God for letting it be a work day. I hate work, I hate getting up early, I hate waiting on other people, I hate doing anything for anyone else, putting up with people, pretending to be someone I'm not. Some happy, sunshiney motherfucker with all his ducks in a row. It's just more lies, it's always lies.
And that tells you something doesn't it. As much as I despise it, I can't wait to go, I get depressed and angry when I have to go back home.
Hah. Home. Whatever you call that place where you live. The word seems foreign to me now...
By day, with one man. Texting back and forth, all day long. sometimes about real things, sometimes just complaining to each other. Making jokes, giving compliments, smiling like a creep at my phone like it's the one I want to make out with.
By night, another man. Bickering back and forth, shying away from him, busying myself with all the things I fucking loathe just to keep myself in a different room than him, just to keep him quiet. He comes in every so often anyway, or shouts at me to do him a 'favor' that never gets returned. Making his rude little comments that send me storming away, unable to do anything at all when he follows and gushes out apologies. If things weren't bipolar before, they sure as fucking hell were now.
I don't know what to do. I don't know what to expect. I'm afraid to wake up in the mornings, I can't wait to go to bed. I've been going to sleep at 9 o'clock all week. Me. Hidan. Going to bed early. Just to fucking get away, just to be alone.
It's hopeless. It's so hopeless, there's no fucking escape from it. Everyone always wants me to do things, I just want to lay here in bed. I don't want to talk, I don't want to think, I just want to lay here... to just be left alone. Just for one day, just be left alone.
It can't happen, it never will. It's impossible to expect such a fucking thing. It's what I get, I suppose, for being such a shitty person. Betraying my husband, hurting my best friend. I should have told him no. Dammit why can't I just say no?
"Why are you smoking so much lately?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know anything, do you?"
"Not really."
"You know I hate it when you give me cryptic answers."
I withheld the irritated sigh, taking in a very slow breath and forcing myself to smile when I let it back out. Just stop talking to me. Let me smoke the damn cigarette and I'll leave...
"I'm sorry. I'm just stressed... and pissy."
"I can tell. Why are you stressed?"
"Work."
"What's going on?"
My jaw clenched, and I pried them apart long enough to take a long drag of my cigarette, my salvation, one of the drugs that kept me here, alive and breathing... in between the coughing fits at least.
More lies. 'What's wrong?' I hate that stupid fucking question. There's a million typical answers to it but they're all motherfucking lies. There's only ever one true answer, and that's explaining what's wrong.
But it's never an option.
"They assigned me extra hours to a client I can't fucking stand..." I said. It was a half-truth, it was something that slightly bummed my day. But that's not why I was stressed, why I puffed on these cancer-sticks every chance I got like they were inhalers, helping me breath instead of toxic trash spewing poison into my body.
A masochist I am, I've always been. Blood and wounds have always interested me. Sick intrugement with pain, I've always had it. But I think what's really ludaris about it is that I enjoy it the most when I do it to myself. I hate it, despise it, wish I would just die... but I can't ever stop my self-destructive tendencies.
"That doesn't sound like something that would make you miserable enough to smoke your life away." He finally replies.
I look at him, I'm not sure what expression I'm making... if I'm making any at all. I'm just so tired, I'm so tired of fighting with him, fighting with myself. I'm tired of the struggle, tired of being miserable, I just want to be happy. I just want to tell him, tell him so he can hate me as much as I hate him. So he can be out of my life and I can... I can do what?
Keep going to work every day. Smoking a pack or two of cigarettes a day. Get obliterated every weekend, do whatever I want. Being stupid, reckless, destroying myself even more.
I... I would be dead right now if it weren't for Kakuzu. I know it to be a fact.
I tried once before... to kill myself. I'd overdosed on pain medication, raided the medicine cabinet, grabbed every pill bottle I could find and swallowed them down... I don't even remember how I survived... I just woke up in the hospital, and from there they sent me to a psyche ward for a week, where I bullshitted everyone with my lies and they deemed me worthy to rejoin society.
He controls me, it's both good and bad. I would have died years ago if he hadn't been here, forcing me to take care of myself just enough to stay alive. Beating me up with his own hand so I wouldn't die by mine...
It's a dark, macabe fucking love story... But what else would you expect from me?
"Are you happy with me?" he finally asks after it becomes clear that I'm not going to reply to his previous statement.
I can feel it, a fucking knife plunging through my heart as my mouth opens and replies for me while my head chides me yet again.
"Of course I'm happy Babe. I wouldn't be with you if I weren't. You know me."
Liar.
"I make you happy?"
"Yeah."
Lies.
"You're sure?"
I forced myself to laugh, flicking my gaze back to the television so he wouldn't see the murderous wishes I harbored for him through my eyes. Apparently they're like windows to the soul or something.
I guess my soul is pink.
"I'm fucking positive." I said, pulling my lips back into the best smile I could manage. It made it hurt, it made everything hurt. Like the effort to smile pulled on all the energy reserves I needed to keep control of myself. It made my chest hurt, my throat hurt, my head hurt, my eyes stung...
You're not strong enough... My head told me.
You have no choice... My heart replied.
A/N-
I tried to stick with the flow of this story but I just... I don't know. It's all really hard. Having a hard time writing anything. I need to go back to doing one-shots all the time, Lol.
So yeah, I was going to do more with this chapter but I just.. I'm emotionally drained at the moment. I can't even... I don't know. I can't.
Review if you wish, I love feedback. :3
