boone finch . seven [fin]

[pogue]

b o o n e   .   s e v e n   .   s e v e n t e e n

[pogue]

[attr="class","purple"]

It starts like all good childhood stories do, with a made-up game giving way to an argument.

It ends like all good childhood stories do, too, with his older brother’s fists connecting with his arm and leaving bright red marks, with Boone running inside and into his Mother’s arms amidst shouts from Porter to ”Please don’t tell Mom!”.

There’s already purple flowers blooming beneath his skin by the time his Mother dries his tears and calms his breaths, running soft fingers through his hair as they stand in front of the bathroom mirror. She whispers sweet nothings, soft murmurs of ”Shh” and ”You’re alright, you’re alright.” as he gathers himself, feeling his mother’s arms wrap around him, feeling the soft thumps of her heartbeat as he’s pulled into her grasp.

”Here.” She says, grabbing softly onto his shoulders and turning him around to face her, before leaning down and locking eye contact with him. ”Things like this hurt, right?” She says, pointing to the spots of purple and black that line his arm. He nods, lip quivers and and blinking back the tears as his Ma speaks again. ”But pain like that, it just goes away eventually, Boondocks.” His Mother smiles at him, kindness swirling in her eyes and he can’t help but smile back, listening to the way her breaths waver and groan as she exerts herself. It’s only gotten worse recently, the way her body fights her every movement as if it is constantly at war, but it’s childhood naivety that keeps him in the dark through all of it. His mother stands again, her figure towering over him as she places a hand under his chin and lifts his gaze towards hers.

”Bruises and bumps just make us stronger, Boone. And you’ll have to be big and strong to protect your little sister when she comes. Both you and Porter.” Her fingertips wrap around his hand and lifts it, placing his palm on her bulging belly. He swears he can hear his sisters heartbeat through it all, can already feel the life of something he’s supposed to protect.

”You’re gonna be the best big brother, Booney.” She says softly, placing a kiss on the top of his head. He smiles, blissfully unaware of how short-lived a happiness like this would be.

She passes a week after his little sister is born, body giving way to a sickness that had been there all along. The Doctor’s tell them it is a remnant of the war, lasting effects of the bombs that ravaged Seven before the Rebels fell.

He leaves purple flowers by her grave after an empty funeral. A week later he returns to find them wilted and dead.

[attr="class","pains"]

”You’re up.” He states, throwing down a queen of hearts onto the top of the card pile in between him and his brother before returning his gaze to the cards in his grasp. There’s a lot of time to pass in a place like Seven, in a house like this, where the walls and the hallways hold nothing but empty spaces and memories of a woman that left too soon. A pile of cards and bent and broken made up rules and him and his older brother had been able to fill in some of the gaps, enough to take their mind off of things for a while at the very least, if they were lucky.

He feels the vibrations before Porter does, soft at first and coming from the front of the house. ”It’s you, Boone.” His brother says as he throws the card down. Boone meets him with only silence, caught up in listening to the sounds that are growing from downstairs.

”It’s you, Boone.” Porter repeats again, this time with more force behind it, but their game is interrupted by the sounds of screaming and crying erupting from the kitchen. It’s only a shared gaze and a loud heartbeat in their chests before they shoot up from their sitting positions, the cards fluttering to the ground below as they sprint from the room.

When they finally rush into the kitchen they’re met with the shuffling form of their Pa in the kitchen, pressed against the side of the counter and alcohol clinging to every breath as he sputters nonsense into the air. Their sister is clutching her arm, tears pressed onto her cheeks as Boone scoops her up and looks towards the swinging door their father had accidentally slammed into her on his entrance into the house.

Porter moves forward, soft voice trying to usher their Pa into a seat but it does anything but, the man pushing his hands away from him and letting the same curse words and venom spew from his lips that had become commonplace in the wake of their Mother passing. Anger bubbles up in Boone’s stomach as he clutches his sister close, too young to be able to rationalize what he’s seeing and what he’s feeling.

”You’re hurting her!” he finally yells angrily to the stumbling mess in front of him, a ghost of the man he’d had the naive innocence to look up to as a kid. It’s the only thing that gets his Father to stop, the way his second son’s voice has raised at him for the first time in his life. His sister’s head is buried into Boone’s shoulder as he holds her tight against his body, all shaking breath and furrowed brows and anger in his eyes as his sister cries into his form. This is not the kind of pain that makes one stronger, not like his Mother once said.

His Father catches himself on the counter, Porter’s hands pressed into his shoulder and shoving him down into the chairs of the table, the wood creaking and groaning under his weight as he slumps forward into his own palms. There’s silence for what feels like an eternity, with Porter staring angrily at their Father and words caught in his own throat, with his sister whimpering with her head pressed down into his shoulder, with Boone’s fingers running through her hair like their mother had done for him memories ago.

And finally, their father cries too, heartbreak and mourning and a bottle of scotch laced into the sobs as the tears fall down to the wood grain of the table. Boone lifts his gaze, eyes softening in both surprise and confusion as he locks eyes with Porter, begging for his brother to find the words that he cannot.

”I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I’m-“

It starts a rambling of words and ends with nearly the same, the words ”I can be better. I’ll be better.” left hanging in the dead air of the night when they finally leave the room.

He thinks it a promise, that their Pa will pull himself up by the bootstraps and regain his footing.

But it’s nothing but growing pains, flower blooming from grief and turning into nothing but trauma and lines of empty bottles on the windowsills.

[attr="class","darkworld"]

”Red, far left, for five.”

White knuckles wrap tight around the carved wooden slingshot within his grasp, rock wedged in between his fingertips as he pulls back against the rubber band. It fights back against him with every second that he holds it, right eye pressed tightly closed and left eye focused on nothing but the crimson glass perched across the lot, its logo little more than a soft white hue after years spent buried in the dirt patches of Seven. Heavy breath in and hold, cool fall air piercing his lungs and he hears the wood of the slingshot in his hand begin to groan in protest, combatted only by the sounds of his own heartbeat.

His fingertips peel back from the rock, the rubber band snaps back into place and as that same breath pours out from his mouth he watches the rock fly forward into the bottle, the latter shattering into a million pieces, each one catching and throwing the morning sun as they fall to the dirt below.

”Nice shot.”

”Five points. That means I’m up by -“

”Yeah yeah, ten. I got it.”

Boone smirks as Porter finishes the sentence, reveling in the hint of malice that slips into his older brother’s words as he speaks, dip tucked behind his lip muffling his words. Boone tosses the slingshot to his brother, leaning back against the tree behind him, bark pressing through moth hole ridden shirt and into his back. His eyes follow Porter’s movements, watches his brother bend down to the ground and run his hand through the pebbles to find the right one. Grin leftover from the score count gradually slips from Boone’s face as his gaze lifts, up and out towards the silhouettes of the bottles against the metal wall stood behind them.

”Dad was mad again last night...” He says coldly, arms folded so that one couldn’t see the way his fingertips press heavy into the inside of his forearm, until the shaking stops. Mad, it’s an umbrella term that sticks itself to the edge of their tongues more and more with every week, amidst shaking walls and slamming doors and the sounds of his little sister crying, loud enough to hear even though she stifles it with her pillow. It’s more than just anger that runs through their father’s blood, they both know that, but it’s easier to put a bandage over the bullet hole instead of just watching it bleed.

He’s met with silence from Porter, the soft whistling of wind snaking out from the forest and between their conversation. He can’t blame his brother for not having the words, can’t blame himself for not having them either, because the foreignness of the experience has long since faded from their reality, until the walls of their home went from holding good memories in to keeping the bad ones from being made. ”Can you blame him?” Porter finally responds, tossing the pebble up and down in his palm as he stands again. Brow furrowed, Boone’s gaze narrows as it shifts from the bottles to his brother. ”What do you mean?” He asks, and it’s ice and malice that he can feel seeping into the words.

”I mean-”

Porter glances back at him, solemness swirling in his eyes before he turns away again. ”Seven has taken everything from him, from us. What has it given?” Silence steps in between the two of them, Boone chewing on the words he wants to say versus the words he cannot find. Because as much as he hates to admit it his brother’s words are laced in a truth that’s hard to swallow. It was true that Seven had taken a lot of what they’d known, memories of their old home and his Mother bubbling up to the surface, the way they’d left the world a little bit dimmer when they’d went. He chokes them down, a practice tried and true as his brother’s words interrupt.

”Silver one in the way back, for fifteen.”

Boone’s eyebrow raises as he finds the bottle his brother is talking about, the furthest back in the collection they had set up. Months of practice and neither of them were the best shots, lacing luck in their fingertips and hoping for the best. Still, neither of them had been able to hit a solid fifteen pointer in all of their games, his brother would be better off trying to narrow the lead by going for five pointers and hoping Boone misses. He smirks as Porter takes aim, prepping a laugh for when he misses, but it quickly falls from his face when he hears the glass bottle shatter. He frowns as Porter turns with a triumphant grin. ”Lucky shot.”

Porter holds out the slingshot to him, letting the grin drop as he returns to the previous topic. ”I hate that he’s so angry all the time, Boone. I do. But I can’t blame him for wanting to escape a bit. Who wouldn’t?” It’s a question that’s never meant to be answered, and Boone is still chewing on the thought as he takes the slingshot. ”Green, far back. Fifteen.” Porter laughs as he walks up to aim, ”Bold strategy, Boondocks. Hope it works out for ya.” Boone doesn’t answer to the slight jab his brother throws at him, nickname and all falling to the ground as he pulls the rock back.

Fingertips slip and the rock flies forward and what he doesn’t see comes back to hurt him. The rock misses the bottle, green hue a mockery as it bounces off of the metal wall and arcs back directly towards his face and, before Boone can even think to respond darkness erupts from his left eye, pain blooming out from the source and he’s screaming as he stumbles backwards, Porter’s hands catching his fall and ”shit shit shit” the chorus to his bleeding eye. ”I- i can’t see from it Porter, I can’t fuckin’ see-.”

His Father wipes the tears from his eye when he looks at the wound later on that night, calloused thumb pressing hard into his cheek as his father grimaces. ”Stop cryin’, Boone. Men don’t cry.” Fifteen year old heart knows nothing but to listen, and so he swallows his pride and blinks his right eye until the tears force themselves to stop, listening to his Father assure him it would probably heal on its own.

But the darkness never leaves, pulsing and swirling and shattered like glass. It’s sobering, in a way, that it forces him to view the world half empty.

Late at night, with torn through covers doing nothing to stop the cold, he wonders if it’s always been that way, he just was too naive to see it before.

[attr="class","skinandbone"]

His family’s reputation sticks to his skin like wet clothing, needless weight pressed down on tired shoulders and dragged along behind him wherever he goes. Boone knows this, knows to ignore the scowls that slink onto his classmate’s faces or the looks of sympathy that wash and furl in his teacher’s eyes, knows better than to take the bait. Instead he bares fangs

The world had never been kind to the Finch’s, why anyone would expect them to be kind back to the world always managed to elude him.

It’s exactly that mentality that he carries with him through every class at school, head down and gaze averted and mumbling non-answers to every question he’s ever asked. It’s a recipe for trouble, and like watching water boil it’s only a matter of time before it spills out and over. His teacher’s voice slips into frustration as Boone refuses to answer his question one too many times, too busy carving his initials into the wooden frame of the desk to be paying attention.

“That’s it. Boone, out in the hallway...now.”

Huff and puff and Boone’s good eye rolls as he stands up, slamming his chair into the wall behind him. But it’s only a few seconds, a few lost heartbeats before he loses his balance walking up towards the front of the class, years of one eye too damaged to heal getting in his way as he stumbles, catching himself on the desk of a girl too quiet to do anything but gasp in shock as her papers fall to the floor.

”One-eye Boone ain’t got no balance...” One of his classmates calls out, and a chorus of stifled laughter slinks into the foreground of his hearing. Boone stops just short of the door, curls his fingers into a fist as he turns to see whose mouth the words slipped out of. And amidst a sea of grins and averted gazes he locks eyes with Drew Robinson, resident fuck boy who was too pretty for his own good. There’s a grin on his face, and as Boone stares him down with both his good and bad eye he knows the only way to get back at him is to get even.

It takes one night for him to plan it out, footsteps heavy the next morning as he walks through the hallways towards Drew, narrowing his gaze on the bright blue shirt his classmate wears.

”Hey Robinson!” He calls to the boy in blue, back turned towards him and gossip spilling from his lips to his groupies. If he were honorable he wouldn’t have slinked up on him in the shadows like this, but if there’s anything he’s learned about his family its that honor left ‘em a long time ago. Drew turns, and it’s only a split second that he catches the shock on his face before white-tipped knuckles of a boy named Boone collide with his mouth, sending him stumbling backwards towards his open locker.

Gasps ring out and jaws drop to the floor, the eyes of a group of kids that had never seen pain in the world widen as Boone doesn’t waste any time, launching another fist into Drew’s stomach and sending him coughing forward, blood and spit and a loose tooth flying to the ground below. Boone’s hand wraps around the boy’s arm, calloused fingers pressing hard into exposed flesh as he slams it against the lockers, holding it in place with one hand as the other reaches towards the locker door. No balance Boone can still do this, right Drew? he thinks as he locks eyes with his classmate for a brief moment, before slamming the locker door down into his forearm with all of his strength.

He hardly registers Drew’s yelp of pain as he pulls back open the door, thin line of red erupting on the boy’s skin before he slams the locker door back down on it.

”Call-“

Slam

”me-“

Slam

”Un-“

Slam

”balanced-“

Slam

”one-“

Slam

”more-“

Slam

”time,-“

Slam

”Drew-“

Slam

By the time he’s done there’s skin and bone and everything in between on display for the whole school to see, blood leaking out from his classmate’s newly gifted wound as he screams. Boone’s tight grip loosens, just enough for Drew to rip his arm away from his grasp and slink to the ground, clutching what’s left of his arm in quivering hand. Boone looks at him for a moment, scowl heavy on his face and no trace of the mock sympathy everyone had thrown his way all of his life in his eyes, before hacking a ball of spit down into the boy’s face.

He doesn’t make it far before a teacher grabs him by the ear and drags him to the principal’s office. And it’s absolutely not his first incident at a school like this but it is absolutely his last, Principal’s curled fist slamming down into the wooden desk in frustration. The three strike rule didn’t apply to permanently disfiguring a classmate’s arm, apparently.

It’s worth nothing but a verbal lashing from his Father, shouts of useless and no good and every venom dripped alcohol laced word spilling from his Father’s lips. He can’t lock eyes with Porter and much less his little sister’s solemn gaze. He goes to bed hungry that night and, the next week, starts his job at the lumber mill.

[attr="class","shatter"]

Four weeks into his new day job and he returns home, all sweat and sawdust and nothing more as he opens the door. His little sister wouldn’t be home yet, not for another hour would he hear the soft rumble and groan of a school bus too tired to still be carrying the voices of thirty innocent children. His Pa could be here, he knows that to be true, but there’s something else that has dug its claws into his Father’s life and it’s the dark brown of scotch and whiskey, until his father can’t walk straight and much less think the same, until he feels the world slip from his grasp in temporary escape.

It’s a pattern born out of cowardice and fear. He’d spit on the grave of the man he’d once respected.

”Porter?” He calls out, hearing his voice echo and curl around the empty hallways as he’s met with only silence. An eyebrow raises as he drops his knapsack at the door, the silence snaking its way through the house as he makes his way to the kitchen, locking his gaze onto a page too white to exist in a house this dark.

I had to get out

I’m sorry.

-P

Word spreads fast in a place like Seven, desperate lips and desperate people and it’s only a matter of time before he hears of the way men in white pulled his brother away from the fences, connected steel of their guns to his temple and dragged his unconscious body to somewhere the Finch’s would never be able to find him. He stares up to the ceiling that same night, listening to the soft lull of his sister’s breaths as she finally sleeps. He’d dragged her bed into his room when he’d heard her crying, told her ”I’l be here for ya, don’t worry.” and listened to her cry herself to sleep. His Brother’s words from so many years earlier slip in and out of his thoughts, remnants of ”Can you blame him for wanting to escape?”[ murky in the forefront of his mind.

He decides that his older brother was just another grave to spit on, exactly like their father.

A week later he hears his name slip from the lips of the escort of Seven, gaze dropped down to the ground. His sister’s cry meets his ears but doesn’t register, nothing registers, not until one of his former classmates whispers solemnly ”It’s you, Boone.” and his mind starts to play tricks on him for a heartbeat and a half, convincing him that Porter’s voice is whispering to him once again.

He’s wrong, of course, standing on the stage and staring into the faces of a District that had never been asked to care about him. He feels his heart shatter and fall inside his chest, the worst pain that he’s ever felt.

Soon, he’d be just another grave to spit on.

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[pogue]

L△LIA he’s done!

[L△LIA]

ACCEPTED!