sleep of the honey bees // nobody

[Deleted]

( u l y s s e s    h u d s o n )


" it's my own design
it's my own remorse
help me to decide
help me make the most

of freedom and of pleasure "

---

"You need help, Uly," I say, as if I'll ever listen. 

Mal would say the same thing, I mean, it ain't like I'm living my best life nowadays. Ever since Myr went and died on me, I don't think I've really had a stable day. You see, I brought that calendar with me, the one with Julian Bryze's abs throughout the different seasons. I've been keeping track since I moved into this home and from his pecs in january to his biceps in june, I still don't think I'm worth a damn. 

What's my point, my purpose. These days, that's gotta be what it's all about, right? I get off the streets, take a strange man's offer and bum it out in a nice manor -- it's not like it's something out of the normal for me. Mal was skeptical when I told him I wasn't gonna break into his house anymore, and maybe he'd gotten a bit attached to the idea of me sneaking in. Always being there, but at the end of the day I think he's just one of those things I have to get away from. 

I've had some hard days on my calendars, every goddamn one of them so far. Ever since killing my step father, the world's just been unkind to me. Maybe it's because I was a Fray for so long, I mostly just stole that name for the business aspects, but so here I am, in another rich old man's house, and I'm not a Hudson either. Not really, I just list it because I don't have any last name, any family of my own. It's why I cut Mal out and moved on, pack of cigarettes tucked in my back pocket, calendar curled under my right arm and my pillow stuck under my other. You see, I think I just need to keep on moving. 

Just keep talking, going, if I make each day bleed into the next it'll make the sobriety sink in something better. I'm not baby faced anymore, the market's drying up and the creeps aren't interested in me anymore, and I think that's a good thing. Mal told me it was and- goddamn, I talk about him way too much. He's not even in my life anymore, I was the one who cut him out! 

I was the one who decided to move on, not him. 

That was the whole point, I wanted to be the one to do this.

Myrcella would've been real damn proud of me and my one missing boot, and since moving in on the Faulkner home -- bloodied mouth and foul words, and it's home, okay. It's home, right, I gotta keep convincing myself that. I look in the mirror and all I see is that same old Ulysses I've tried to hate for the past few years, bloodshot eyes and patchy neck. Facial hair that won't grow quite even, a face that isn't so round anymore and I never got comfortable with the idea of growing up. Growing older without Myrcella, how I must have been the one who deserved to live. 

The sobriety is making me angsty, I think. I've been agitated recently, and lonely, and spiteful as ever but ain't that the same old Uly? The whole reason I'm here -- to get better, to be with boys. 

Useless, fuckin idiots who can't take care of themselves. I pound my fist again the sink counter top, rhythmically in the way it matches my heart beat and I hate it here. Already, I'm convinced, I mean, I'm a smart guy I know what I want, and I feel the cells of my skin itch in the way I stare myself in the eyes. Starve myself in the way I'm unkind to myself, I know I deserve better, and that's why I take the first step back. Hastily turning the corner and quick in the pace to distract myself. 

That's what I've learned best so far, is that the easiest way to pretend your stable is to just distract yourself. Keep your mouth moving, hands working, don't let your brain catch up and remember that it hates itself, and if you're wasting away knitting a #1 dad shirt, you can't let it slip. You won't just accidentally spiral all over again, and if you do- hey, at least you aren't embarrassing yourself in the comfort of your own solitude. There's some character building in that you can cringe thinking of how publically you admit to your fears. 

All in a day's work, really, valuable content and I still don't know the way through this goddamn manor. Every time I get lost, I always end up looking out the same window and seeing the way the graveyard stands there alone, watching me watching it. I think it's ironic in a way, that I've been running from Myr's death for so long and I didn't even bring her tombstone to my new abode. 

"Hey," one of my brothers in arms lost in the same hallway and I always love finding new ways to embarrass myself. Maybe next I'll send Nico Thorne some nudes, see how that goes. Grimace just for the thrill of it all, "I uhh, I'm gonna be honest I don't know where the hell the rooms are." Is this even something I should be embarrassed about? I mean, really, I hate asking for help as much as the next libra, but this manor makes no goddamn sense sometimes. 

Feels like one of these, I'll just lost and die or whatever. "I've got a weed stash with your name on it if you help a guy out, bud."

Say I swear! I'll even let you sign my ass shot calendar. 

[Cait]

n o b o d y

"i swear i'm not angry
that's just my face"

---

I’ve been thinking,

it’s time I move on.

I don’t think it’s in my bones to stay in one place for too long; they have no roots to hold me down. I’ve done my time – tried my hand at brotherhood, again, a new home, again, but it’s always been temporary. I come and I go, without announcement, without care, until the day there’s no ‘come’ to follow the last ‘go’. I should have left by now, ‘cause it’s Winter already, and there’s a calendar drawn up in one of the boys’ rooms crossing off the days since amalgamation, and I can’t remember when I said I’d run,

can barely remember my own fucking age,

but I gotta move.

An impossible feat to manage when you’re hungover and blinded by last night’s stars, still.

Fuck, fuck moving, I need to sleep.

I’m just another ghost of a collapsed kingdom, all sunken eyes and cheekbones. Thought I’d mapped the rooms, but even lost boys lose themselves over and over. You’d think we’d learn, but we just keep running,

running,

a lost cause. See, this place is no good for me, it’s gonna drive me insane. So I’ll find something better, yeah, ha; I’ll laugh at the lies I’ve been telling myself since my rebirth; I’ll hope to find something strong enough to cut the suspension cables. They’re weakened, but not enough.

Maybe I’m lost, second, but I’m a ghost first. Walls don’t slow us down – our inebriated minds don’t live by the same rules, so they take over, running on autopilot, and that’s where the story ends.

Most days. Just not today.

“Hey,” my head is pounding, “hey, hey, hey, hey,” drumming, too loud, I can’t help but moan.

Sorry, just read my mind; I didn’t mean to groan, I’m just so fucking over everything. And playing ‘Hide and Seek’ wasn’t actually on my To-Do list today, funny enough. I guess sometimes it’s just too easy to forget I’m not the only lost boy around here anymore. Surely it’s supposed to be a good thing, this comradery – we’re not alone anymore.

It doesn’t really feel like a win.

Neither does the promise of a shared joint, but hey, maybe I’ll knock out for a few more hours than usual if I’m lucky.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t talk so loud. Let me think.”

I let my eyes focus, shake the milky glaze from them. Looking, up and down, and up again. Staring into the handsome face of a lost poster boy for Capitol debauchery. Someone who’s swapped and borrowed last names more times than a washed up, three-timed divorcee. Not like it matters here; I tell myself it doesn’t matter, because I want to believe I’m still a whole person without a name of my own. But here I am, pushing down the bile already rising in my throat ‘cause I’ve never been good at lying, rolling my eyes and choking, sputtering like an idiot all at once. I’d be surprised if he doesn’t think I’m a possessed freak of nature.

Well, more than.

“Ulysses, yeah?” I blink through the tears of blood pooling on my face.

I know who they all are, but I’d never say. It’s the irony of remembering every single face except my own. Call it temporary amnesia, that no matter how hard I try to hold onto some part of myself, I draw a blank. Useless.

What good am I to anyone other than a lost boy,

thieving,

running,

just to feel free.

What good am I to anyone other than me? And barely even that?

“Your room’s in the west wing. Two corridors down, take another left and you’re there.”

Uhh,

“I mean, I think.” Not like I’d care.

There’s a beat or two of silence, and I swear he’s got the face of someone trying not to laugh out loud.

I should just go. Keep quiet, stay alone. Obviously.

“My room’s right here though, if you, uh, wanted to hang, or something. I’ve probably got something to drink, too.”

Well, it’s a fuckin’ party!

Eager to prove a point – or just to make a friend, I don’t know which is more embarrassing – I rush through the door and find a bottle of clear liquid behind my pillow. There’s something to be said for curing a hangover with more alcohol, I’m sure, though I don’t know exactly what that is.

“Only if you want to.” ‘Cause maybe this is just a terrible idea. I keep trying to quit all the things I know are bad for me, but it just blows up in my face every time.

Exhibit A: two lost boys destined for loneliness, trying.

Exhibit B: a lighter in a dark room.

Exhibit C: I should really fucking be asleep right now.

Self-destructive asshole: me.

Either way, my mind is made up as I launch myself into a haphazardly made bed: I’m not moving for the rest of the day.

“You can come in, if you want. If your stuff’s any good.” Really, I just need something to kill this headache, swear it!

“And don’t even think about trying anything funny.”

Unless, you know, you want to.