(no subject)
Title: Blue Christmas
Author:
slasher48 /
bad_bad_books
Rating: R for slightly mature emotional themes and a bit of self-harm. This is your warning.
Pairing: Future Vam
Disclaimer: Merry Christmas to me, because I own almost everything they've ever done, but not quite and definitely don't own them. ><.
AN: Another snippet. I highly suggest you read L'Acteur before you read this, but hey, whatever you wish to do. :)
~Thirteen and Sixteen~
"Don't wanna go, Momma. I want to stay here with Bam." Ville said petulantly, shrugging off his mother when she tried to forcibly put him in his coat.
Anita glared at him. "That doesn't work anymore, Ville Hermanni. You're not a child and you will go."
Ville pouted but reluctantly shrugged on his coat and donned his backpack with all his sketchbooks and things in it for the plane. "But, Momma..."
"No buts, sweetheart. Your grandparents miss you very much and they've asked specifically for you to go with us. You can see Bam when we get back."
All Ville could see was Bam's eyes a few weeks ago when Ville had caught him cutting out the pain of his rape. "But, Momma, you don't understand. I need to be here for Bam. Can't I at least call him before we leave?"
Ville was terrified that without him here, Bam would cut double the amount he had been. He...he might not still be there when Ville got back.
"You can call him when we get there, Viltsu. Now get your suitcase and get in that car."
Ville's eyes teared up but he did as he was told, jerkily grabbing the handle of his black suitcase and dragging it out the door and into the trunk of the car. He put his Walkman in his ears and sniffled as he turned it on.
He hoped Black Sabbath would be enough to make him forget how worried he was.
His parents got in the car and drove it away from the house. Ville sang 'Paranoid' under his breath.
They drove past Bam's house on the way to the airport and a tear ran down Ville's cheek at the thought of what Bam would say when he found out Ville wasn't going to be there for Christmas.
Or what he would do--that was a thought to be the most worried about.
Ville closed his eyes and prayed to the gods that his friend would be okay.
*
It was ten-thirty on the twenty-second of December. Where the hell were Ville and Anita?
Bam got up and looked out the window for the seventy-eighth time. April sighed. He was going to give himself whiplash from all that leaning over and pushing his face against the darkened glass, and for what? It wasn't doing anything but depressing him more every time he saw that Ville was still not there.
"Mom, where the fuck are they?"
April gave him a stern look. "Don't swear, Brandon, and I don't know where they are. As far as I knew, they weren't leaving for another couple days."
Bam's shoulders slumped. Why wouldn't Ville come?
His mind started to churn and answers came to him unbidden. Ville was sick of him. Ville was tired of trying to keep him happy after what had happened with Missy and the cutting. Ville hated him for disobeying him when he asked Bam not to cut anymore. Ville had a new best friend.
The pain was too much to bear and that urge started to overwhelm him again. With a loud, despairing sigh, Bam walked down the hall into the bathroom.
He pushed a box of tampons out of the way and lifted the bottom out of the second drawer to pull out his razorblade. He'd hidden it so Ville couldn't take it away, but he always knew where it was.
It was obviously a more reliable friend than Ville was.
The tears started to fall as he rolled up his sleeve. He made the first cut shallow, not deep enough to bleed, so he could take off his red silk shirt first.
Shirt off, he made another cut, this one much deeper. Red beaded on his arm and dripped into the sink where he stood. It felt cathartic, as if the blood leaving him carried all his pain out of his system.
He did it again, and again, and again. Soon his entire arm was red and then he started on the other one. If Ville didn't care about him anymore, what was the reason to restrain himself?
He had to sit down on the toilet as the blood loss started to make him dizzy. His hand shook as he ripped through his right arm, holding his arm out above the sink so as not to leave evidence on the floor.
His vision started to blur as he finished the second arm. He was about to start his legs when he heard footsteps. Quickly, he hid the razorblade again, biting his lips to muffle his sobs as he took his special towel out of behind the bottles of shampoo and such under the sink and pressed it between his arms.
*
Bam had been gone an awfully long time and April was starting to wonder where he was. She'd gotten up and tiptoed down the hall to the bathroom.
She pushed open the door a crack and gasped quietly. Bam sat on the toilet crying with his arms all bloody and she bet she knew what he'd been doing.
He moved away the towel to inspect his work and she felt tears well in her eyes. He was cutting himself. Her Brandon was cutting himself. When had this started?
Immediately, though, she knew why. A mother always knows.
She hurried as quietly as she could back to the living room and picked up the phone to dial Ville's house.
There was no answer, so she pulled the number of Anita's parents out of the desk drawer and dialed that next.
"Terve?"
"Hello. May I speak with Anita, please?"
"Is five at morning, why?" Ah, that must be Anita's mother.
"It's an emergency, Ma'am. I need to talk to her."
"A'right. Anita!" There were hurried yet sluggish footsteps and Anita answered the phone with a soft,
"Hei?"
"Anita! Get Ville on the phone, quickly!"
"He's sleeping, April, dear."
"I realize that, Anita, but Bam is...Bam..."
"What is Bam doing?" Anita sounded worried now, and so she should be.
"Bam? What about Bam?" It was Ville's voice, tired and barely there, but it was his voice.
"April's on the phone, Viltsu. Momma said it was an emergency."
There was the sound of stampeding footsteps and what sounded like someone tripping over to the phone. "Ape? What's going on with Bam?"
Ville sounded frantic and for a moment April wondered if he knew what she was going to say already.
"Bam is...he's...I mean, he..." April started to cry and Ville gasped.
"No...he isn't...?" Ville was horrorstruck.
"Yes. He's cutting, Ville."
Ville's breath hitched and April heard him suck down a shot from his inhaler. "Give him the phone, April."
"He doesn't know I called you."
Ville sniffed and April could imagine him crying. It was enough to crack her heart a little more. "I need to talk to him. He listens to me."
"He's going to be angry with you, Ville. He doesn't know where you are. He thought you were coming tonight and that's probably why he cut...because you didn't."
Ville made a sound of impatience. "April, if you wait much longer, he won't be conscious anymore. Give. Him. The. Phone."
Swallowing back another rebuff, April took the phone down the hall into the bathroom.
"It's Ville, Bam," she said as she pushed the phone through the crack of the door, wanting so badly to comfort her boy but knowing somehow that he wouldn't want her to as much as he'd want Ville to.
It hurt, but as long as Bam was alright, she didn't care who made him that way. So she turned away and walked back into the kitchen. She was only making two batches of cookies this year because Anita wasn't there to help, but they were keeping her busy.
*
"Hey." Bam said curtly.
"Bammie, don't be a shit." Ville's tone was heavily laden with disapproval, but there was a definite tinge of concern.
"Why not? It's not like you care anyway." Bam sniffled and Ville felt his heart break. He knew he should've called before they left.
"Of course I care, Bam. I care so much that it breaks me to hear you're cutting. You are, aren't you? Right now."
Bam blew through his nose. "Yeah. So what. If you cared, you'd be here scolding me instead of at your house on the phone."
Ville clenched his teeth to hold back a loud sob. "I'm in Finland. They wouldn't let me stay there with you."
Bam's anger disappeared. "What?"
"Yeah. They wouldn't let me stay no matter how much I begged. I wanted to stay so much because I knew you would do this if I wasn't there and I couldn't bear the thought of you not being alive when I got back." Ville stopped holding back and let Bam hear him crying.
Bam started to cry harder. "I was cutting because I thought you and I weren't friends anymore...I-I thought you hated me for being so sad."
Ville wished he was in Westchester so he could hold Bam in his arms and soothe him. "Oh, no, Bammie, no. Never. I couldn't hate you for that... for anything."
"R-really?" Both boys could barely speak now through their tears.
"Yeah. Don't hurt yourself, Bam, please. I promise I'll be home soon."
Bam pushed the drawer closed and stepped away from it. "I promise, Ville."
"I gotta sleep, Bam, but I'll call you when I wake up, alright?"
Bam walked into his bedroom and shut the door. "Mm, alright."
There was a long pause.
"...I love you, Bammie. I hope you know that."
Bam smiled. "I do. I do now, and I love you, too. Hurry home..."
"I'll try. Bye, sweetheart."
"Bye."
The dialtone reached both boys' ears and Ville sighed, turning to where his mother still stood.
"I told you I needed to be there." He sniffed into her shoulder as she pulled him into an embrace, then let go and walked back up to his room to sleep.
*
"Come on, Bam! We're going to paint Raab like a candy cane while he sleeps!" Ryan poked at his stoic friend where he sat on the couch. Bam didn't even look at him, just continued staring out the window at the snow and generally ignoring his surroundings.
It was Christmas Day and Bam was missing Ville badly. He hadn't even been able to give him the presents he'd picked out, a warm, woolly black beanie and a book of stories by Edgar Allen Poe. They sat next to him on the coffee table, looking very forlorn in their silver and red wrapping paper with no one to open them.
Bam's own gifts sat in a messy pile in front of the Christmas tree. He'd gotten a lot of what he wanted, but what he really wanted was in Finland right now. Bam found himself hating Ville's grandparents for taking his Willa away on Christmas.
Ryan sighed and gave up, turning back to run down the hall with DiCo, Rake and Novak to Bam's bedroom where Raab had conked out on Bam's bed.
Bam's shoulders shook as he sniffed back tears.
He didn't even notice when his mother set the phone on his knees.
He did notice who was on it though, as a deep, familiar voice asked for him.
"Hi, Willa," he said sadly when he put the phone to his ear.
Ville sighed. "Hey, Bammie. How are you?"
Bam swiped at his eyes. "I-I'm fine. Just miss you, I guess."
"Are you lying to me, Bam?" Ville sounded just as unhappy as he was.
He nodded, forgetting Ville couldn't see him. "Yeah. I'm miserable. I miss you so damn bad. Come home, please..."
"One more day, Bammie. Just one more day and we can see each other."
On Bam's end of the phone, Blue Christmas started to play and unconsciously, he started to hum along. If there was any song that captured how he felt at that exact moment, it was this one.
Ville sang along with Bam's humming after a minute, tears choking his voice at the dull, flat sound of Bam's.
"I'll have a blue Christmas without you..." Sniffle. Sob.
"I'll be so blue just thinking about you..." Bam whimpered, interrupting his humming.
"You'll be doing alright..." Both boys wiped their noses and continued.
"With your Christmas of white..." Bam, in Westchester, and Ville, in Oulu, looked out their windows and watched the snow fall, wishing more than anything they were together.
Bam joined in on the last verse. Neither boy was very coherent by now through their tears but they knew what they were singing.
"But I'll have a blue....blue, blue, blue, blue Christmas."
"Love you, Bammie, " Ville whispered, sniffling, and after Bam said it back, he hung up.
They hadn't said Merry Christmas, Bam noticed, wiping his flowing eyes yet again.
Well, that just must be since their Christmases weren't very merry this year.
*
April wasn't surprised when her youngest raced out the door at seven o' clock the next evening and she let him go, after scolding him about his lack of hat and gloves, of course. He threw them on and blew her a kiss, running outside and down the street.
She also wasn't surprised when a few hours later, Ville and Anita walked in with him.
She was even less surprised when Anita told her that Ville and Bam hadn't let go of each other since the Valos had gotten home; the older boy hadn't even unpacked yet.
Arms still slung around each other's shoulders, Ville and Bam walked down the hall singing.
April and Anita looked at each other and shrugged.
They were both totally mystified as to why the boys were both singing White Christmas at the top of their lungs.
***
*sniffles* I love reading this over again. True friendship these boys have. :).
Merry Christmas, darlings! Enjoy being with the ones you love and sharing gifts and kind words with them!
Leave me some love, maybe? Not necessarily tomorrow, but if you read this again after that? O.O
Author:
slasher48 /
bad_bad_books
Rating: R for slightly mature emotional themes and a bit of self-harm. This is your warning.
Pairing: Future Vam
Disclaimer: Merry Christmas to me, because I own almost everything they've ever done, but not quite and definitely don't own them. ><.
AN: Another snippet. I highly suggest you read L'Acteur before you read this, but hey, whatever you wish to do. :)
~Thirteen and Sixteen~
"Don't wanna go, Momma. I want to stay here with Bam." Ville said petulantly, shrugging off his mother when she tried to forcibly put him in his coat.
Anita glared at him. "That doesn't work anymore, Ville Hermanni. You're not a child and you will go."
Ville pouted but reluctantly shrugged on his coat and donned his backpack with all his sketchbooks and things in it for the plane. "But, Momma..."
"No buts, sweetheart. Your grandparents miss you very much and they've asked specifically for you to go with us. You can see Bam when we get back."
All Ville could see was Bam's eyes a few weeks ago when Ville had caught him cutting out the pain of his rape. "But, Momma, you don't understand. I need to be here for Bam. Can't I at least call him before we leave?"
Ville was terrified that without him here, Bam would cut double the amount he had been. He...he might not still be there when Ville got back.
"You can call him when we get there, Viltsu. Now get your suitcase and get in that car."
Ville's eyes teared up but he did as he was told, jerkily grabbing the handle of his black suitcase and dragging it out the door and into the trunk of the car. He put his Walkman in his ears and sniffled as he turned it on.
He hoped Black Sabbath would be enough to make him forget how worried he was.
His parents got in the car and drove it away from the house. Ville sang 'Paranoid' under his breath.
They drove past Bam's house on the way to the airport and a tear ran down Ville's cheek at the thought of what Bam would say when he found out Ville wasn't going to be there for Christmas.
Or what he would do--that was a thought to be the most worried about.
Ville closed his eyes and prayed to the gods that his friend would be okay.
*
It was ten-thirty on the twenty-second of December. Where the hell were Ville and Anita?
Bam got up and looked out the window for the seventy-eighth time. April sighed. He was going to give himself whiplash from all that leaning over and pushing his face against the darkened glass, and for what? It wasn't doing anything but depressing him more every time he saw that Ville was still not there.
"Mom, where the fuck are they?"
April gave him a stern look. "Don't swear, Brandon, and I don't know where they are. As far as I knew, they weren't leaving for another couple days."
Bam's shoulders slumped. Why wouldn't Ville come?
His mind started to churn and answers came to him unbidden. Ville was sick of him. Ville was tired of trying to keep him happy after what had happened with Missy and the cutting. Ville hated him for disobeying him when he asked Bam not to cut anymore. Ville had a new best friend.
The pain was too much to bear and that urge started to overwhelm him again. With a loud, despairing sigh, Bam walked down the hall into the bathroom.
He pushed a box of tampons out of the way and lifted the bottom out of the second drawer to pull out his razorblade. He'd hidden it so Ville couldn't take it away, but he always knew where it was.
It was obviously a more reliable friend than Ville was.
The tears started to fall as he rolled up his sleeve. He made the first cut shallow, not deep enough to bleed, so he could take off his red silk shirt first.
Shirt off, he made another cut, this one much deeper. Red beaded on his arm and dripped into the sink where he stood. It felt cathartic, as if the blood leaving him carried all his pain out of his system.
He did it again, and again, and again. Soon his entire arm was red and then he started on the other one. If Ville didn't care about him anymore, what was the reason to restrain himself?
He had to sit down on the toilet as the blood loss started to make him dizzy. His hand shook as he ripped through his right arm, holding his arm out above the sink so as not to leave evidence on the floor.
His vision started to blur as he finished the second arm. He was about to start his legs when he heard footsteps. Quickly, he hid the razorblade again, biting his lips to muffle his sobs as he took his special towel out of behind the bottles of shampoo and such under the sink and pressed it between his arms.
*
Bam had been gone an awfully long time and April was starting to wonder where he was. She'd gotten up and tiptoed down the hall to the bathroom.
She pushed open the door a crack and gasped quietly. Bam sat on the toilet crying with his arms all bloody and she bet she knew what he'd been doing.
He moved away the towel to inspect his work and she felt tears well in her eyes. He was cutting himself. Her Brandon was cutting himself. When had this started?
Immediately, though, she knew why. A mother always knows.
She hurried as quietly as she could back to the living room and picked up the phone to dial Ville's house.
There was no answer, so she pulled the number of Anita's parents out of the desk drawer and dialed that next.
"Terve?"
"Hello. May I speak with Anita, please?"
"Is five at morning, why?" Ah, that must be Anita's mother.
"It's an emergency, Ma'am. I need to talk to her."
"A'right. Anita!" There were hurried yet sluggish footsteps and Anita answered the phone with a soft,
"Hei?"
"Anita! Get Ville on the phone, quickly!"
"He's sleeping, April, dear."
"I realize that, Anita, but Bam is...Bam..."
"What is Bam doing?" Anita sounded worried now, and so she should be.
"Bam? What about Bam?" It was Ville's voice, tired and barely there, but it was his voice.
"April's on the phone, Viltsu. Momma said it was an emergency."
There was the sound of stampeding footsteps and what sounded like someone tripping over to the phone. "Ape? What's going on with Bam?"
Ville sounded frantic and for a moment April wondered if he knew what she was going to say already.
"Bam is...he's...I mean, he..." April started to cry and Ville gasped.
"No...he isn't...?" Ville was horrorstruck.
"Yes. He's cutting, Ville."
Ville's breath hitched and April heard him suck down a shot from his inhaler. "Give him the phone, April."
"He doesn't know I called you."
Ville sniffed and April could imagine him crying. It was enough to crack her heart a little more. "I need to talk to him. He listens to me."
"He's going to be angry with you, Ville. He doesn't know where you are. He thought you were coming tonight and that's probably why he cut...because you didn't."
Ville made a sound of impatience. "April, if you wait much longer, he won't be conscious anymore. Give. Him. The. Phone."
Swallowing back another rebuff, April took the phone down the hall into the bathroom.
"It's Ville, Bam," she said as she pushed the phone through the crack of the door, wanting so badly to comfort her boy but knowing somehow that he wouldn't want her to as much as he'd want Ville to.
It hurt, but as long as Bam was alright, she didn't care who made him that way. So she turned away and walked back into the kitchen. She was only making two batches of cookies this year because Anita wasn't there to help, but they were keeping her busy.
*
"Hey." Bam said curtly.
"Bammie, don't be a shit." Ville's tone was heavily laden with disapproval, but there was a definite tinge of concern.
"Why not? It's not like you care anyway." Bam sniffled and Ville felt his heart break. He knew he should've called before they left.
"Of course I care, Bam. I care so much that it breaks me to hear you're cutting. You are, aren't you? Right now."
Bam blew through his nose. "Yeah. So what. If you cared, you'd be here scolding me instead of at your house on the phone."
Ville clenched his teeth to hold back a loud sob. "I'm in Finland. They wouldn't let me stay there with you."
Bam's anger disappeared. "What?"
"Yeah. They wouldn't let me stay no matter how much I begged. I wanted to stay so much because I knew you would do this if I wasn't there and I couldn't bear the thought of you not being alive when I got back." Ville stopped holding back and let Bam hear him crying.
Bam started to cry harder. "I was cutting because I thought you and I weren't friends anymore...I-I thought you hated me for being so sad."
Ville wished he was in Westchester so he could hold Bam in his arms and soothe him. "Oh, no, Bammie, no. Never. I couldn't hate you for that... for anything."
"R-really?" Both boys could barely speak now through their tears.
"Yeah. Don't hurt yourself, Bam, please. I promise I'll be home soon."
Bam pushed the drawer closed and stepped away from it. "I promise, Ville."
"I gotta sleep, Bam, but I'll call you when I wake up, alright?"
Bam walked into his bedroom and shut the door. "Mm, alright."
There was a long pause.
"...I love you, Bammie. I hope you know that."
Bam smiled. "I do. I do now, and I love you, too. Hurry home..."
"I'll try. Bye, sweetheart."
"Bye."
The dialtone reached both boys' ears and Ville sighed, turning to where his mother still stood.
"I told you I needed to be there." He sniffed into her shoulder as she pulled him into an embrace, then let go and walked back up to his room to sleep.
*
"Come on, Bam! We're going to paint Raab like a candy cane while he sleeps!" Ryan poked at his stoic friend where he sat on the couch. Bam didn't even look at him, just continued staring out the window at the snow and generally ignoring his surroundings.
It was Christmas Day and Bam was missing Ville badly. He hadn't even been able to give him the presents he'd picked out, a warm, woolly black beanie and a book of stories by Edgar Allen Poe. They sat next to him on the coffee table, looking very forlorn in their silver and red wrapping paper with no one to open them.
Bam's own gifts sat in a messy pile in front of the Christmas tree. He'd gotten a lot of what he wanted, but what he really wanted was in Finland right now. Bam found himself hating Ville's grandparents for taking his Willa away on Christmas.
Ryan sighed and gave up, turning back to run down the hall with DiCo, Rake and Novak to Bam's bedroom where Raab had conked out on Bam's bed.
Bam's shoulders shook as he sniffed back tears.
He didn't even notice when his mother set the phone on his knees.
He did notice who was on it though, as a deep, familiar voice asked for him.
"Hi, Willa," he said sadly when he put the phone to his ear.
Ville sighed. "Hey, Bammie. How are you?"
Bam swiped at his eyes. "I-I'm fine. Just miss you, I guess."
"Are you lying to me, Bam?" Ville sounded just as unhappy as he was.
He nodded, forgetting Ville couldn't see him. "Yeah. I'm miserable. I miss you so damn bad. Come home, please..."
"One more day, Bammie. Just one more day and we can see each other."
On Bam's end of the phone, Blue Christmas started to play and unconsciously, he started to hum along. If there was any song that captured how he felt at that exact moment, it was this one.
Ville sang along with Bam's humming after a minute, tears choking his voice at the dull, flat sound of Bam's.
"I'll have a blue Christmas without you..." Sniffle. Sob.
"I'll be so blue just thinking about you..." Bam whimpered, interrupting his humming.
"You'll be doing alright..." Both boys wiped their noses and continued.
"With your Christmas of white..." Bam, in Westchester, and Ville, in Oulu, looked out their windows and watched the snow fall, wishing more than anything they were together.
Bam joined in on the last verse. Neither boy was very coherent by now through their tears but they knew what they were singing.
"But I'll have a blue....blue, blue, blue, blue Christmas."
"Love you, Bammie, " Ville whispered, sniffling, and after Bam said it back, he hung up.
They hadn't said Merry Christmas, Bam noticed, wiping his flowing eyes yet again.
Well, that just must be since their Christmases weren't very merry this year.
*
April wasn't surprised when her youngest raced out the door at seven o' clock the next evening and she let him go, after scolding him about his lack of hat and gloves, of course. He threw them on and blew her a kiss, running outside and down the street.
She also wasn't surprised when a few hours later, Ville and Anita walked in with him.
She was even less surprised when Anita told her that Ville and Bam hadn't let go of each other since the Valos had gotten home; the older boy hadn't even unpacked yet.
Arms still slung around each other's shoulders, Ville and Bam walked down the hall singing.
April and Anita looked at each other and shrugged.
They were both totally mystified as to why the boys were both singing White Christmas at the top of their lungs.
***
*sniffles* I love reading this over again. True friendship these boys have. :).
Merry Christmas, darlings! Enjoy being with the ones you love and sharing gifts and kind words with them!
Leave me some love, maybe? Not necessarily tomorrow, but if you read this again after that? O.O