they call you ___ :: {laz x scar}
Feb 13, 2017 0:09:11 GMT -5
Post by pogue on Feb 13, 2017 0:09:11 GMT -5
Broken boys do broken things-
Alone, he sits, feeling himself shatter against the mattress. His fingers twitch and groan, clenched too tight around the bedsheets, bones creaking and popping as he tightens his grip. He sits against a backdrop of peeling, torn through wallpaper, shattered picture frames and paper tombstones littering the floor. A heartbeat and a half ago he had entered with the fury of a storm at sea, with eyes like fire and hands like hurricanes. Paper cuts and glass shards, his knuckles are riddled with the remnants of the mirror that hangs from the back of his door. He'd caught a glimpse of himself barricaded in the glass, and he could have sworn he'd watched his own reflection laugh at him, with fangs bared and blood red eyes. And for the millionth time since his mother had dissected his soul and pulled what remained, what she'd wanted, what she could use-
For the millionth time, he hadn't known the boy who was staring back at him.
Just, this time, he had a reason.
Three and a half heartbeats ago he'd sauntered into the private training session as if he'd owned the place, as if the memories he'd long since forgotten had not etched themselves into the walls and shadows around him, brushing fingertips against the back of his brain whenever he fell asleep, as if every time he closed his eyes he did not see the barrel of a shotgun floating, drifting against a sea of black, of darkness. Darkness, he had become his mother's rag doll, and she had stitched every fiber of gut-wrenching, bloody darkness into his heart, ripping fiber from flesh and replacing it with what she needed, what she wanted.
That's all he was- what she needed, what she wanted."I'll agree to help you, Mr. Stroms, but don't expect it to be easy.""Wouldn't have it any other way, would we?"
He'd stared his Father down first, studying the holographic flesh that cloaked his skin, the way his eyes darted around the room, fear swirling in his irises. Oni, she'd done well, and his eyes had widened with surprise when his father's voice had leaked from the mouth of a ghost, begging for mercy that he did not deserve.
Slice dice, knives hit the ground as another figure appears before him, eyes dead staring like ice, fingers wrapped around the hilt of her sword, licking fire from her lips. His mother, with sword raised and eyes narrowing. Clash and strike, she does not bleed when he drives his sword through her chest, but she sputters out a few unrecognizable words, wires frying before her eyes go black and her body falls to the ground, turning to ash at his feet.
And then she comes, like a wolf in the night, fangs bared and face contorted in anger. Scarlett Stroms becomes the shotgun he sees in his nightmares, weaved into his being, intertwined every time his eyes blink. Pistols at dawn, they raise their swords at each other and he feels as if his heart is going to disintegrate, even though his opponent is metal and her blood is oil and her soul is rusted, he feels satisfaction carved into his bones when he drives the knife into her throat and watches her choke on nothing, words deflated against her lips, dribbling from her mouth as he pushes her over and watches her body turn to dust, throwing the knife to the ground- bitch has it coming.
He hears it when he turns to leave, echoing the heavy heartbeats that reverberate through his chest. Air against air, but her footsteps are not heavy with the sins of his father, mother, and sister. No, it is as if they walk on clouds, light like air, innocent against the backdrop of bloody fingertips and heavy shoulders.
When he turns, he sees her, he knows- somehow.
Blonde hair, cascading down against her shoulders, face as if he is looking in a mirror, eyes broken like shattered glass, tears resting in the corners..."Do you recognize me, Peter?""No, please, don't come closer-""It's me, Peter. I'm your sist-"Broken boys do broken things,
broken boy collapses into broken thing, with tears running down his cheeks,
broken thing turns to nothing, and broken boy drives knife into metal floor"It's me, Peter- It's me, Peter- It's me, Peter-"And now, he sits, a graveyard of papers and glass shards at his feet, staring at the tapes that were left at the foot of his door when he'd returned, stuck there eloquently with a ribbon red like blood.
I said it wouldn't be easy, didn't I?
Hope you enjoyed your training session, Peter...It takes every ounce of strength that he does not have to open up that box, with trembling fingers that have soaked themselves in the blood of enemies he did not have the right to hate, with lungs that have breathed the poisons that line the walls of his household, with lips that spew venom at everyone he speaks to. The barrel of a shotgun points up at him, but it is in the form of a digital tape, unnamed and forgotten, dust gathering on the edges.
Film reels and grainy videos, when it finally clears he is sitting against the bed again, his palms to his hands, fingers tightening around his kneecaps as he sees the image come into focus, watches the faces dissolve in from the shadows-
His heart bursts when he sees himself, young and bright, with innocence framed in his eyes and a cake in front of him. In sloppy frosting handwriting there is the number seven, with "Happy Birthday, Peter!" underneath.
He shatters when he sees his sister come into focus, smiling and angelic, her face illuminated by the candlelight, her chin resting against the table as she stares at her brother, interested by the ordeal.
Fire, it burns through him when the video frame cuts to a woman, blonde and beautiful, slicing into the cake, licking the frosting that is left on her fingers as she lifts the slice, gently, onto the plate next to it. For the second time that day, tears slide down his cheeks when he sees his mother realize that she is being filmed, watches her laugh and hide her face out of embarrassment, press her palm to the camera and there is darkness. No, please, not the darkness again.
When it fades he is on his father's shoulders, running through the meadow and laughing, smiling. In the background is a simple farm, a small garden, a home.
A home, he sees a home for the first time in his life.
And wordlessly, silent just as he has always been, he shatters as the video replays and the door creaks open.
