forget me not {alexis x louvain}

[[nyte]]

ALEXIS KANG

NO ONE WANTS YOU WHEN YOU HAVE NO HEART AND

I've been drinking less. Liquor smells like poison and vodka is fire down the drain and not my throat and-

I've been thinking less. About purple flowers that bloom every couple of weeks upon his grave and the hands from which they have sprouted. I don't think about his hands and the purple flowers that bloomed upon my skin or the stems he snapped with ease.

He likes to play pretend. That he was our knight in shining armor- the father he was meant to be and not a wolf sewn into sheep's hide. Sometimes he cries, acid rain crawling into the cracks in my brother's headstone- wearing away at all that is left of him with hatred so sickeningly sweet that it makes my stomach churn and I begin to remember why I emptied so many bottles looking for escape.

And I did escape. My father cannot hurt me anymore and yet like a shadow he lingers, sewn to my heels with the grin of a cat having just feasted on the canary. He carries a part of me in his jaws, teeth sunk into the scruff of my neck and every night I sleep alone it is he who wakes me up in a fit of angry tears and shaking limbs. It is his hands I feel, planting despair along the fields he so carefully carved out of his eldest son's flesh.

Louvain doesn't know about him. I can't bring myself to say any more about what came before my seventeenth birthday, to make it as real as it once was when I held Anthony's broken body to my chest and begged for God to take me instead. But they couldn't save him. (I heard none of it.) His heart has stopped by the time I arrived. (But I begged them to keep trying.) His brain was dead and- (they gave me sedatives to stop the screaming.)

"Hey there, big guy." I mumble and my knees hit the grass hard, shaking fingers tracing the crumbling granite and I know he deserves better. He deserves a resting place plated in gold and surrounded by angels, he deserved not to have his life trapped between the palms of a power hungry man who wanted nothing more than to make the rest of the world as miserable as he.

I don't visit Anthony when Lou is working. Louvain is something good, something precious and I cannot show him all of my broken pieces. Not without the courage stowed away in glass bottles and bitter poisons, without the walls that I have built time and time again to keep everyone away.

Ironically, he was the one who tore each and every one to shreds.

Sometimes I think it'd be better to run away from it all. Not to face the pain that comes with love, the stitches in between every breathless whisper and selfish smile. I'm a coward, after all. I sat and watched a boy die without raising a hand because at least it wasn't me and I know the names of the men who make Louvain's life a living hell and I lift not a finger because at least it isn't me.

"The fuck do you think you're doing here!?" My head is split open, blood like salt water down my temple, seeping into the corners of my mouth and turning the world into an ocean. It swims in front of me, waves of nausea forcing acid up my throat and into my mouth and his hand is in my hair. He pulls me back and it happens again.

I crash. I fall out of orbit and into the rocks below. I am impaled upon my sins, gasping for air where there is none left and this pain is somehow worse than death. Again he cracks my head against my brother's tombstone, painting it bright blue because the sky is falling, into my mouth- into my lungs. I am drowning in the heavens, weak fingers wrap around his wrist, nails digging into his flesh and coaxing acid rain off of his fingertips and into my clothes.

It doesn't matter, his blood is mine and mine is his.

"Dad." I gasp and the words get lost upon my tongue, tears leaving the taste of rotten pennies upon my cheeks.

I know his voice, I know the feeling of his shoes upon my ribs and the dread that leaves me nothing more than a useless child huddled upon my brother's grave- knees pulled to my chest and hands wrapped around the back of my neck as if that's somehow going to stop him from killing me.

"'S your fault he's dead Alexis!" He's drunk, I can smell the whiskey and the blood, I can taste the terror in my tears and it had been so long that I forgot just how powerless he makes me feel. "Doncha come 'ere greivin' your brother when ya didn't save 'im! Shoulda stopped me! You coulda! 'n your brother'd be a'live." There's blood on my hands, I don't remember where it came from.

"I'm sorry." The words are heavy leaving my lips, weighed down by every weakness I had forgotten in my father's absence. "Jus' kill me okay?"

Because I want the pain to stop. It's tearing me apart, seeping into every inch of me and it is a virus. Infecting me. Poisoning me. I cannot escape, not into the confines of my mind like I used to back when things got this bad. I'd rather die than feel any of this, than listen to my father scream every fucking word that has engraved itself to my tongue in the year that I have been without him and without my brother. My fault. My fault. My fault. "Please, Dad?"

He laughs and it is cold. A familiar kind of cold that was all I could feel before I met Louvain. "You're not worth it, Lex."

My feet touch the floor and then my knees. There is no strength left to keep me upright and so I slump against my brother and gasp for air. Anthony is cold, he is ice beneath my touch and I don't even recognize the feeling of his marble skin anymore. "I wish you a long, long life Alexis." He laughs and sinks his knee into my stomach and I think I would scream had there been anything left. "That way, you'll never be rid of what you did to him and you'll sure as hell never be rid of me."

And he does not leave me there to die.

He did something much worse.

He left me there to live.

I'M SITTING PRETTY IN MY BRAND NEW SCARS

[presto]

SAY YOUR PRAYERS

[/presto]

[Python]

L O U V A I N  C E D A R

They followed him.

After school, in the graveyard, by the lake – their feral smiles forever lurking behind shadows and corners. Bruised knuckles and beady eyes, they were perhaps the worst human beings he had ever known. Adults preached the idea of “standing up for yourself”, but it was romantic idealization. He stood up for himself, they tore him apart, and now they were chipping away at his sanity piece by piece. What he had considered brave at the time was stupid, and he hated himself for it. His high marks in school meant nothing if he couldn’t survive in the real world. He had single-handedly landed himself in tormenters’ claws, all because he tried to play hero for his dead grandmother.

Idiot. The dead didn’t care.

They marked him up like a chalk board, but he couldn’t brush off the wounds. Purple patches and rosy scrapes bloomed across his torso. He was a galaxy of pain, and it was hard to smile in front of a mirror that reminded him of this every day. Time was the only healer, but there were always new bruises to replace the old. An endless cycle. Distinguishing the old from the new was easy yet pointless, because no amount of healing cream or medicine would help him. Mom worried herself sick over it. He felt sore, ugly, and scared. The only person who didn’t agree was Lex.

Lex thought he was beautiful.

He didn’t understand why. Staring at himself in the mirror, he saw a broken, helpless doll covered in purple and green splotches. He was naturally small, with only an ounce of muscle tone in his arms from shoveling graves. What did Lex see in him? That was the beauty of blind faith; he trusted Lex’s sincerity, so no matter how often he questioned himself he knew Lex saw something in him. The appreciation for it always showed in his flushed cheeks and timid smiles. Despite everything bad happening around him, he could still have a cheerful heart around Lex.

Days like this – when he wouldn’t have the opportunity to see Lex – were not so cheerful. He dreaded pulling on his T-shirt and walking outside. Paranoia whispered in his ears, warning him that anyone could be waiting for him. What if they had finally followed him home to corner him where he felt safest? Every knock on the door and rustling outside his windows belonged to Lex, and he wanted it to stay that way. Evil was not welcome here.

There was a churning in his stomach as he walked outside, insides bubbling like a cauldron. Digging graves was grueling enough without the added aches and pains. He always brought water and a first aid kit, stashing them in bushes to avoid their detection. If the boys stalked him, he would cower beneath their fists and patch himself up after they moved on. At least then he wouldn’t be dripping blood into the dirt.

This is what my life has become.

He sighed and opened the gate to the cemetery. It was his job to lock it after sunset, but that wouldn’t stop idiots from climbing it. He didn’t know what it was about the dead that attracted delinquents and pranksters, but he wished he had the courage to find a new job. A safer job. It wasn’t easy.

As the gate creaked shut, he hauled his shovel over his shoulder and started toward the path. Flowers, both fresh and wilting, passed him by. Some stones were cracked, others crooked, most of them sculpted properly. He made his way toward the very end when he noticed a figure slumped against one of the tombstones. Drunk, perhaps. Mourning. He wouldn’t be surprised if they were praying – except their body language suggested defeat. It reminded him of himself, trying to retain what little strength he had after a beating.

He noticed the familiarity of the hair, and walked over. Panic seized him then. He knew who it was.

”Lex??”

He knelt in front of his boyfriend, eyes widening at the sight of blood. He could only think of one perpetrator: Lex’s terrible friends,, but why would any of them hurt him? It didn’t make any sense.

”What happened?”

[[nyte]]

ALEXIS KANG

NO ONE WANTS YOU WHEN YOU HAVE NO HEART AND

I'm such a fucking coward. Since my brother died, months turned to years ago I have been running. From attachment- from feeling. From anything but the silence that bounces about my now-empty skull. He's beaten the brains right out of it. If I had any to begin with. I got used to the pain a long time ago. I stopped feeling his fists against my broken body so that my brother would not have to do the same. Part of me wonders if my father regrets it. Killing my brother instead of me. He was only twelve and I was sixteen and we were innocent in our own right but now innocence is only etched upon the pages of my sketchbook.

And it is found within his eyes. Like opals or onyx- I cannot think of the name. I lose myself within his gaze and suddenly I am unable to tell the difference between centuries and seconds. My head is spinning and I think something has popped out of its socket because when I shift it finds its home again and I would scream if it were not so tiring. Everything hurts. Not only these physical wounds- the blood dripping down my chin and onto torn jeans but the memory of every night I spent just like this. Terrified that my father would destroy my brother and I would not be able to lift a finger to stop him. Because I was so helpless, so weak.

One night, that is exactly what happened. For months I drank to drown out his screams- the way he begged for my help and how I shouted to him that it would be okay when I knew I was lying. I'd have died for my brother. I tell myself that but I don't know if its true. I'm such a fucking coward. Because I'm glad I lived to see the innocence in his eyes despite the bruises upon his skin and I'm glad I didn't die so that I could meet him and get to know that there can be happiness found within the inky black of hopeless midnight.

But it feels as though I traded my brother's life for this happiness. That I do not deserve Louvain because of every bruise I find upon his skin, hidden beneath his clothes or sometimes bright and angry upon his cheeks. Deja vu, is that what they call it? The past repeating itself in front of your eyes and there you sit- helpless and scared and too fucking selfish to lift a finger and help someone you claim to love.

It's why I haven't said it. I love you. The very thought of admitting that I have grown so attached to someone else is more painful than even the nightmares he has helped to chase away. Certainly more painful than this beating and every other I have endured in this lifetime and into the next. I love you is a death sentence. Admitting that I will one day lose another person. That I will sit at another grave with blue flowers clutched to my chest to sate the hollowness of my heart. I can't do it.

I'm such a fucking coward. "Lex??" His voice is high pitched, so sweet and familiar and more than enough to calm the thrashing of my feral heart. I don't want him to see me like this- defeated and broken. Ruined by my own father's blood-kissed knuckles but there is no one that I would rather hold me right now. Because his hands are that of an angel's, free of pain and bringing only peace with his soft fingertips against my skin. There's no doubt that I love Louvain- I just can't say it. "What happened?"

He kneels in front of me and I force my head to turn and spit bitter crimson upon the dirt away from him. I don't want him to see this. I don't know what to say. (It's nothing. It's everything. I'm dying, please save me.) What happened? There is no simple explanation. No point blaming this on anyone but my father because I know him. This was not his last word. That he will not stop until I am an oil canvas stained black and red and blue with death. I should tell Lou to get used to this.

I cup his cheek with a shaking palm, staining it with dirt and blood but I need to touch him more than I care to keep him clean. It's my blood. It's my dirt. He is still pure, as far as I'm concerned. There is innocence within his eyes and they are onyx or opal and I lose myself within them for a long moment before parting my lips and spilling my demons into his lap.

"The guy who killed my brother..." I didn't know that words would take so much energy, every breath is strained and I must have broken a rib or two because even shifting to stop the aching of my spine is enough to draw a whimper from lips I have learned to sew shut. "Came back to visit."

The backs of my eyes are stinging and I have never felt more vulnerable. Crafted from glass and only Louvain is here to see me shatter. I'm glad. "You might call it a family reunion." And I laugh to avoid the bitter taste of such a harsh reality upon my tongue.

I'M SITTING PRETTY IN MY BRAND NEW SCARS

[presto]

SAY YOUR PRAYERS

[/presto]