For Blue Skies
Title: For Blue Skies
Rating: PG-15 for drug references and mild language
Genre: It's not very happy
Pairing: Junseung
Summary: A year later and Junhyung returns to the dusty road that constantly pervades his thoughts. (Heavily inspired by Stray's Don't Sleep song of the same name).
For Blue Skies
It's been a long year since we last spoke.
Loud, crunching gravel rent twilight’s silence as the Chevy’s worn tires pulled off the lane. A long stretch of highway travelled into the horizon, undulating in the heat and swirl of sunset. Kicked up dust settled, gently covering the worn black paint of the pickup. A click of the door preluded the emergence of worn red canvas shoes, thumping against dry dirt.
A young man stepped out, eyes small and dark. Bloodshot whites stared at the shimmering road ahead, red reflecting in tired irises. He slunk to the hood as the groaning engine clicked, cooling from the summer heat and prolonged activity.
He was reminded of how torturously long the drive lasted.
Hopping up on the toasty hood, he felt the heat searing into the back of his ripped jeans. The burn was a necessity. Kept him grounded. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes, popping one out and with mechanical habit his other hand pulled the purple lighter from the breast pocket of his flannel shirt. He ignored the trembling of his hands as he lit the end and took a deep drag. The smoke filled his lungs and he savored death before exhaling it into the dry air. He rested his back against the windshield and stared hungrily at the horizon. “Hey,” he addressed the murky sky, “how’s your halo?”
Silence. Expected, yet disappointing nonetheless. A heavy sigh, head thunking heavily against cool glass in weary frustration.
Sitting a long eternity, he watched the smoke’s curling path against the shining backdrop of heat and dirt. The hills swallowed the sun and black crept into the corners of the world. Coolness kissed his shaking hands in a breeze and he shuddered. “That you?” he asked the air, voice cracking from disuse.
The sun struggled one last minute before succumbing to the teeth of the distant earth. A star blinked on-bright and cheery contrasting the muddy pitch. He almost made a wish, inhaling deeply and summoning the magic words before he realized it was just a satellite. Figures. Wishes were impractical anyway. Soon more stars flickered across the large expanse of sky, but he’d given up by then. He was pretty sure he’d wished on all of them before.
“I never believed you,” he tells the quiet dusk. “I mean…I wanted to. But. Well, you know you never really inspired much confidence.”
Not after thousands of promises. Thousands of disappointments. Countless arguments and secrets and pleading and crying. He’d begged those wide eyes, vacant and swollen, to stop. Held tender hands that pushed pills and powders into the resisting body he’d desperately loved. Pleaded with lips that lied and flirted to get one more hit, one more high…
His third cigarette went out by the time he’d worked up the energy to go back into the cab and drag out his blankets and tequila. He fashioned a makeshift bed in the back of his truck and sat cross-legged in the middle, the bottle snug between his thighs.
“Hey,” he asked the evening. “You homesick?” He laughed sardonically and opened the bottle, taking a burning swig of alcohol and feeling his face scrunch in distaste. His shaking hands gripped the bottle tightly and he took a few more mouthfuls before twisting the cap back on the top.
“I can’t…” he mumbled, head lolling against the window of the cab. “I can’t get used to it.” Gnawed fingers played with the plastic twining of the broken seal on the bottle cap.
“I’ll never get used to it,” he said, hands shaking again as he tugged the bottle hastily against his mouth and drank comforting oblivion. Violently shaking hands pulled out another cigarette. He reached in to tug the lighter out of his breast pocket, fumbled, and dropped it against the blankets.
“Fuck,” he cursed and pulled it back to his mouth. The cigarette clung desperately to quivering lips and his hands trembled as he flicked the lighter one, two, three, four times before it caught.
Red streaked across his vision and he lurched against the steel of the car, breath catching in his throat. It was the flame flickering bleakly in his palm. His heart pounded. His mind’s eye saw twisted metal, warped and scratched from earth’s unforgiving stone. Red, always red. His hair, his car, his shoes.
Couple shoes. He stared at the worn shoes hugging his feet. One was too small. His left foot hurt, embraced tightly from the red canvass stretched across the wrong bones. The right shoe was gone, lost in the wreckage. His big toe was going numb but it was alright: he’d always clung tight anyway.
He finished off the bottle quickly before curling up in soft blankets. The cool chill of midnight settled into weary bones as darkness swayed in his drunken vision, rocking him comfortingly.
In his cocoon he allowed himself to call upon the shuttered tears, waiting patiently the long year for freedom. Ugly monsters that spilled down dry cheeks and into his collar. A keen pierced the air and he started, scared, before he realized it leaked from his throat. Thin fingers gripped the worn flannel sleeves around his arms.
The alcohol easily recalled that night. Pulled it from the dark corners of his mind-sitting in the passenger’s seat, the fabric worn where his body had so often settled. He’d been crying then, too: frustrated, helpless.
It was the same, except this time he was alone.
He didn’t want him to drive. He’d been out of his mind again, mind wrestling with the drug that he’d willingly pushed into his body. The eyes he loved were wild with paranoia.
For the first time that night the redhead had gotten violent, swinging out and connecting solidly with his cheekbone. Shock delayed sense, registering the opening door a beat too late. Making the connection a step too slow. Reaching for the keys an inch too short. And in wild desperation he’d leapt into the car and sat, eyes streaming, voice solidly attempting to talk sense: The straight road, barren and void of any traffic should have been safe. He’d been desperate, so afraid of his own lover that he’d tricked himself into believing he could get through the night unscathed.
Somewhere in his mind he’d known better.
“Could I have saved you?” the trembling query stuttered between hiccupping breaths. The stars blinked faithfully overhead.
They were all he could see after the car came to a stumbling halt. Blinking with that same consistency. Unwavering as the rest of the world crashed around his ears.
It was the silence that did him in. The eerie moaning from his lover’s mouth as he hazily tugged at the glass shard embedded in his arm. The wet rattle of blood bubbling up around his lips. The red dripped from his hair. Red hair, red shoes, red car.
Red blood.
“You left me,” he accused the sky. Shaking hands grabbed another cigarette, the last in his pack. The nicotine didn’t help the shaking but he’d grown used to it. They’d been shaking for a year.
He heaved his upper body up to the side of the truck bed, allowing the crumbling ash to fall to the dry dirt below.
“You knew how I felt about those drugs,” he mumbled to the dirt. “But you were too weak, baby. I guess even I wasn’t enough for you.”
The smoke irritated his eyes so he took a long drag before dropping the stub to the dirt below, slinking back down to stare at the stars.
For hours, forever he lay there, barely blinking, barely thinking. And his eyes fluttered shut.
A dream flittered about his consciousness, blending reds and golds and memories of soft sheets and warm eyes. Gentle hands, happy laughs.
He awoke to the dawn-pinks and golds guiding the morning in. Fresh air filled his lungs as he groggily blinked crusty eyes. His stomach felt like a cement truck.
And yet, he felt warm, like he hadn’t slept alone. Who knows, maybe wishing hard enough tricked him into sensation. Trick or not, he clung to the idea.
Powdered blue began to dust the sky and he ran a scratchy tongue over his lips. “What you couldn't do,” he mumbled, “what you couldn’t do, I will.”
He untangled his legs from the blankets and climbed out of the cab. Bundled up the thick fabric, grabbed the empty tequila bottle. Opening the creaking passenger door, he shoved them all behind the seats. Then he carefully pulled a bouquet from the floor. The plastic crinkled protectively around red petals. He grabbed the key off the driver’s chair and cut the plastic off. Taking the lose bundle of red flowers in shaking hands, he left the opened door behind him and walked a ways into the unending terrain. Finally he stopped, a looming stone outcrop the X that marks the spot. He shuddered, but stood still, breathing through his mouth. His hands flexed around the bundle.
“I forgive you,” he said, and released a stem. It fell to the earth, a smattering of red against the brown canvass.
“I forgive you.” Another.
“I forgive you.”
“I forgive you.”
“I forgive you.”
A bundle of red flowers, one by one, fell at his feet.
“Tch,” he said, “a silly gesture. You hated these.”
He kicked a scruffy shoe (right), against the dirt. The words clung heavily to his tongue.
“I can’t…” He stared at the delicate blossoms.
“I’ll see you next year,” he promised. “Maybe then, I can forgive myself, yeah?”
A swivel, a slamming of the passenger door. The motor roared to life as shifting gravel wished the tires farewell.
The sound faded into the silence of the blue morning. The flowers shifted in the breeze.
Rating: PG-15 for drug references and mild language
Genre: It's not very happy
Pairing: Junseung
Summary: A year later and Junhyung returns to the dusty road that constantly pervades his thoughts. (Heavily inspired by Stray's Don't Sleep song of the same name).
For Blue Skies
It's been a long year since we last spoke.
Loud, crunching gravel rent twilight’s silence as the Chevy’s worn tires pulled off the lane. A long stretch of highway travelled into the horizon, undulating in the heat and swirl of sunset. Kicked up dust settled, gently covering the worn black paint of the pickup. A click of the door preluded the emergence of worn red canvas shoes, thumping against dry dirt.
A young man stepped out, eyes small and dark. Bloodshot whites stared at the shimmering road ahead, red reflecting in tired irises. He slunk to the hood as the groaning engine clicked, cooling from the summer heat and prolonged activity.
He was reminded of how torturously long the drive lasted.
Hopping up on the toasty hood, he felt the heat searing into the back of his ripped jeans. The burn was a necessity. Kept him grounded. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes, popping one out and with mechanical habit his other hand pulled the purple lighter from the breast pocket of his flannel shirt. He ignored the trembling of his hands as he lit the end and took a deep drag. The smoke filled his lungs and he savored death before exhaling it into the dry air. He rested his back against the windshield and stared hungrily at the horizon. “Hey,” he addressed the murky sky, “how’s your halo?”
Silence. Expected, yet disappointing nonetheless. A heavy sigh, head thunking heavily against cool glass in weary frustration.
Sitting a long eternity, he watched the smoke’s curling path against the shining backdrop of heat and dirt. The hills swallowed the sun and black crept into the corners of the world. Coolness kissed his shaking hands in a breeze and he shuddered. “That you?” he asked the air, voice cracking from disuse.
The sun struggled one last minute before succumbing to the teeth of the distant earth. A star blinked on-bright and cheery contrasting the muddy pitch. He almost made a wish, inhaling deeply and summoning the magic words before he realized it was just a satellite. Figures. Wishes were impractical anyway. Soon more stars flickered across the large expanse of sky, but he’d given up by then. He was pretty sure he’d wished on all of them before.
“I never believed you,” he tells the quiet dusk. “I mean…I wanted to. But. Well, you know you never really inspired much confidence.”
Not after thousands of promises. Thousands of disappointments. Countless arguments and secrets and pleading and crying. He’d begged those wide eyes, vacant and swollen, to stop. Held tender hands that pushed pills and powders into the resisting body he’d desperately loved. Pleaded with lips that lied and flirted to get one more hit, one more high…
His third cigarette went out by the time he’d worked up the energy to go back into the cab and drag out his blankets and tequila. He fashioned a makeshift bed in the back of his truck and sat cross-legged in the middle, the bottle snug between his thighs.
“Hey,” he asked the evening. “You homesick?” He laughed sardonically and opened the bottle, taking a burning swig of alcohol and feeling his face scrunch in distaste. His shaking hands gripped the bottle tightly and he took a few more mouthfuls before twisting the cap back on the top.
“I can’t…” he mumbled, head lolling against the window of the cab. “I can’t get used to it.” Gnawed fingers played with the plastic twining of the broken seal on the bottle cap.
“I’ll never get used to it,” he said, hands shaking again as he tugged the bottle hastily against his mouth and drank comforting oblivion. Violently shaking hands pulled out another cigarette. He reached in to tug the lighter out of his breast pocket, fumbled, and dropped it against the blankets.
“Fuck,” he cursed and pulled it back to his mouth. The cigarette clung desperately to quivering lips and his hands trembled as he flicked the lighter one, two, three, four times before it caught.
Red streaked across his vision and he lurched against the steel of the car, breath catching in his throat. It was the flame flickering bleakly in his palm. His heart pounded. His mind’s eye saw twisted metal, warped and scratched from earth’s unforgiving stone. Red, always red. His hair, his car, his shoes.
Couple shoes. He stared at the worn shoes hugging his feet. One was too small. His left foot hurt, embraced tightly from the red canvass stretched across the wrong bones. The right shoe was gone, lost in the wreckage. His big toe was going numb but it was alright: he’d always clung tight anyway.
He finished off the bottle quickly before curling up in soft blankets. The cool chill of midnight settled into weary bones as darkness swayed in his drunken vision, rocking him comfortingly.
In his cocoon he allowed himself to call upon the shuttered tears, waiting patiently the long year for freedom. Ugly monsters that spilled down dry cheeks and into his collar. A keen pierced the air and he started, scared, before he realized it leaked from his throat. Thin fingers gripped the worn flannel sleeves around his arms.
The alcohol easily recalled that night. Pulled it from the dark corners of his mind-sitting in the passenger’s seat, the fabric worn where his body had so often settled. He’d been crying then, too: frustrated, helpless.
It was the same, except this time he was alone.
He didn’t want him to drive. He’d been out of his mind again, mind wrestling with the drug that he’d willingly pushed into his body. The eyes he loved were wild with paranoia.
For the first time that night the redhead had gotten violent, swinging out and connecting solidly with his cheekbone. Shock delayed sense, registering the opening door a beat too late. Making the connection a step too slow. Reaching for the keys an inch too short. And in wild desperation he’d leapt into the car and sat, eyes streaming, voice solidly attempting to talk sense: The straight road, barren and void of any traffic should have been safe. He’d been desperate, so afraid of his own lover that he’d tricked himself into believing he could get through the night unscathed.
Somewhere in his mind he’d known better.
“Could I have saved you?” the trembling query stuttered between hiccupping breaths. The stars blinked faithfully overhead.
They were all he could see after the car came to a stumbling halt. Blinking with that same consistency. Unwavering as the rest of the world crashed around his ears.
It was the silence that did him in. The eerie moaning from his lover’s mouth as he hazily tugged at the glass shard embedded in his arm. The wet rattle of blood bubbling up around his lips. The red dripped from his hair. Red hair, red shoes, red car.
Red blood.
“You left me,” he accused the sky. Shaking hands grabbed another cigarette, the last in his pack. The nicotine didn’t help the shaking but he’d grown used to it. They’d been shaking for a year.
He heaved his upper body up to the side of the truck bed, allowing the crumbling ash to fall to the dry dirt below.
“You knew how I felt about those drugs,” he mumbled to the dirt. “But you were too weak, baby. I guess even I wasn’t enough for you.”
The smoke irritated his eyes so he took a long drag before dropping the stub to the dirt below, slinking back down to stare at the stars.
For hours, forever he lay there, barely blinking, barely thinking. And his eyes fluttered shut.
A dream flittered about his consciousness, blending reds and golds and memories of soft sheets and warm eyes. Gentle hands, happy laughs.
He awoke to the dawn-pinks and golds guiding the morning in. Fresh air filled his lungs as he groggily blinked crusty eyes. His stomach felt like a cement truck.
And yet, he felt warm, like he hadn’t slept alone. Who knows, maybe wishing hard enough tricked him into sensation. Trick or not, he clung to the idea.
Powdered blue began to dust the sky and he ran a scratchy tongue over his lips. “What you couldn't do,” he mumbled, “what you couldn’t do, I will.”
He untangled his legs from the blankets and climbed out of the cab. Bundled up the thick fabric, grabbed the empty tequila bottle. Opening the creaking passenger door, he shoved them all behind the seats. Then he carefully pulled a bouquet from the floor. The plastic crinkled protectively around red petals. He grabbed the key off the driver’s chair and cut the plastic off. Taking the lose bundle of red flowers in shaking hands, he left the opened door behind him and walked a ways into the unending terrain. Finally he stopped, a looming stone outcrop the X that marks the spot. He shuddered, but stood still, breathing through his mouth. His hands flexed around the bundle.
“I forgive you,” he said, and released a stem. It fell to the earth, a smattering of red against the brown canvass.
“I forgive you.” Another.
“I forgive you.”
“I forgive you.”
“I forgive you.”
A bundle of red flowers, one by one, fell at his feet.
“Tch,” he said, “a silly gesture. You hated these.”
He kicked a scruffy shoe (right), against the dirt. The words clung heavily to his tongue.
“I can’t…” He stared at the delicate blossoms.
“I’ll see you next year,” he promised. “Maybe then, I can forgive myself, yeah?”
A swivel, a slamming of the passenger door. The motor roared to life as shifting gravel wished the tires farewell.
The sound faded into the silence of the blue morning. The flowers shifted in the breeze.