Take Me Away~
Okay, so this didn't turn out quite as neatly as I'd hoped. It came off kind of scattered and weird (not that Nox and his mom are normal or anything) but I hope it's understandable regardless.
And now I know where Nox gets his language from.
It was with a loving smile that she gently cupped his hands together and placed the slender glass heart there. It was with a warm hand that she brushed his hair from his eyes and kissed his forehead with the kind of affection you only receive from a mother. “This is special, Noxy. This was given to me by my mother when I was three, and to my mother before me. This is for you, Noxy, because I love you and you should always remember that.”
The smooth glass in the three-year-old’s hands seemed to glow softly in the dim light of his bedside lamp as he held it. It was magical to him, having never held anything that could be called important and had certainly never been given something so special. Wide eyes lifted to catch his mother’s, calming a little at seeing her reassuring smile. “It’s okay?”
In a way, it seemed that his mother was putting her trust in his little hands and he did not quite understand what was going on. Truthfully, he likely did not fully understand the weight of this little responsibility-the fact that his mother’s fragile glass heart was now his to protect. He understood a little though. He understood that this was special to her and that she wanted it to be special to him, too. And it was.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. Take care of it, it’s yours now. I love you, Noxy,” she assured him, again placing a kiss on his forehead before standing up from the edge of his bed to tuck him in. Nox continued to stare at the heart in his hands as his mother bid him good night and turned the lamp off. It was not until she was almost out the bedroom door that he looked up and called to her in a quiet, awed voice.
“Mommy…I love you. Night-night.”
“Night-night, baby. Sleep tight.”
As the door fell shut, Nox set the heart on the bedside table with exaggerated gentleness as if he feared the wood surface would come to life and swallow it. “Night-night, Mommy’s Heart…You’re safe with me...”
------------------------------------------------
Thirteen years old, today.
A battered wood box sat open on the window sill before him, having relinquished the heart-shaped contents to him. The heart had grown warm in his hand, somehow managing to remain intact despite the way he held it, tightly clenched as if wishing for it to burst in his hand. His mother’s heart had not seen light for years and the reason for its freedom now was unclear. In all honesty, Nox did not recall having taken it out of its dusty box in the first place.
Cold blue contacts followed the movements of the three outside with a hatred that likely would have disturbed them had they been able to see it. It always did. He scared them and he knew it. He was glad, too, because that was what he wanted to do. Despite the window pane between him and the ‘outside world’, Nox could hear the excited squeals of the girl-bitch as she shuffled like an idiot in circles around the new car.
One might think it unfair or rude for the bitch-woman and his father to be gifting the bitch-girl with a car on his birthday but Nox had learned years ago that the last thing he should expect from them was any sort of ‘fairness’. They never remembered his birthday anymore and it was highly likely that they would be hard-pressed to even name his age.
Nox was indifferent.
He cared even less for his birthday than the three outside did, really. If he had it his way, he would not have a birthday at all-if he did not have one, what would there be for his ‘family’ to forget? If he did not have one, he would not be in this situation in the first place, right? That is to say, without a birthday there would never have been a birth in the first place. A pleasant thought, that one…If only.
Slowly Nox set the heart in its box, turning away from the window and making his way out of the room and to the entry where the three were just slipping in through the door amongst an excited, annoying chatter. His intent had been to leave but he knew that if he walked through the door now, he’d be hit with a wave of bitch perfume. Frowning, Nox stopped short several feet away from the three as they removed their shoes and coats. The bitch-girl was making piggish squealing sounds as she bounced childishly despite her sixteen years. “Oh, daddy, thank you so much!” The girl threw her arms around the man’s neck, eyes sliding over to Nox as she smiled triumphantly.
She had manipulated this, somehow, to happen just how she wanted it. It was not just chance that today was the day she was finally given the car. Nox was well aware of her ever-present desire to get a rise out of him. She wanted to manipulate him just as she manipulated her mother and his father. She wanted him to react to the way she screwed with his life.
He granted her no such pleasure.
His father was smiling just as happily as she was, hugging her in return as she thanked him. “You’re quite welcome, sweetheart,” he responded, ruffling her hair as he released her. Nox’s eyes skittered in an unusually revealing manner towards his father, feeling an unpleasant twist in his stomach at the man’s words.
“It’s okay, sweetheart.”
The expression was gone before the bitch-girl could see it and Nox turned away from the three to make his way back to his room. The sound of his cell ringing as he slammed his bedroom door drew him back to the window. The flashing blue outline of the phone seemed out of place in the shadowed room and he found himself bothered by the appearance of movement in his little hell. “Shut the fuck up,” he snarled as he snatched the phone from the window sill. He might have thrown the thing, purely for the satisfaction of watching it break, had he not caught the name on the display.
He hated the rise of an emotion that wanted to be excitement curling the back of his mind. For a moment, he simply stared at the number on the screen debating whether or not he wanted to know why she was calling. It had been several years since she had last called, drunk and angry at his father but choosing to scream at him because she knew he would not be able to hang up on her-he never could, for some reason. But she had profusely apologized afterwards and had not called since. He was glad for that, though, as he was disgusted with himself for being afraid to hang up on her.
He was still terrified of her, he always was. He probably always would be.
For whatever reason, Nox found himself answering the phone. He said nothing as he put it to his ear, waiting for her to realize he was on the other end on her own. A long moment of silence had him wishing he had the nerve to hang up, wishing he was not so damn scared of her anger. “What is it?” His own anger sparked then, started by his disgust at having been the first to speak. Ticked at how quiet the question had come.
“Tell your father he can go to hell, you stupid skank.”
Nox smiled, the expression entirely unpleasant and cruel as he reached in to the box and drew the heart out of its fading velvet home. He turned a bit, holding the heart up as if inspecting it in the non-existent light. To watch him would be unnerving, the boy having been edgy and fearful just a moment before. Now, though, it seemed as if having his mother’s heart in his hand changed things entirely-there was a surety in his stance now, the boy entirely calm and collected. Save for the slightly sadistic glint in his eyes…
“But Mother, don’t you know what today is?” Nox purred, weighing the heart in his free hand. “Now I wouldn't want to ruin such a wonderful day with your death wishes, would I? You see, mommy, the little bitch got her car today. Everyone is just so happy. How unkind of you to ask such things of me today.”
“Just do it!” The woman snarled, her rising anger perfectly clear in her voice. Had she been there with Nox, there was no doubt that she would have hit him for every word he had just shot back at her. Nox’s odd smiled widened, seemingly fed by the anger on the other end of the line. “I should have killed you when I had you. Should have held you under for just a second longer and drowned your ugly ass.”
He seemed to freeze then, the heart nearly slipping from his hand as she spoke. The façade of confidence was gone now. He could almost feel the water, he could see her face as she held her child beneath the surface of the bath water. He remembered what it was like to gasp for breath he could not have. Nox’s hand clenched tightly around the heart as he shivered involuntarily, breath somewhat off-track as he listened to his mother’s peculiar giggling on the other end. “Maybe…you should have…” He hissed, grip on the phone loosening a bit as he answered her.
“I can fix that, sweetheart. Come see mommy and I’ll make it all better. You can come sing for me and mommy will make it all better,” she cooed, apparently confident that she could lure him back to her with the mock-comfort. “Come sing for me, my baby-boy.”
Nox tensed, his mother’s request to sing for her making him feel ill. He knew what she meant. He knew that underneath the ‘innocent’ desire to listen to him, what she really wanted was to hear him scream. Or at least, she expected him to try. “No.”
“No? Don’t you tell me no. Don’t you ever tell me no. Sing for me, whore. I know you. I know you’re terrified and baby, I know how you work. Mommy knows best and mommy will have her way. I’ll get you under the filthy water again and I’ll get rid of you like I should have the first time. You made everything go to hell and you think you can tell me no? You’re mine, you know you’re mine, and we both know you’ll be back because you don’t even want to be here. You know you don’t belong.”
The sickening churning in his stomach was worse now, almost painful as the woman spoke to him. She knew how he worked and he hated that almost as much as he hated her-but not nearly as much as he hated himself for all of it. “Fuck you,” he whispered, the phone slipping from his hand and hitting the floor with a dull thunk. “I won’t…I won’t…” He shuddered, hearing the woman still speaking to him from the phone at his feet. “I…I won’t fucking sing for you!” Whether he was loud enough for his mother to hear did not matter; all that mattered was the way the glass shattered as his mother’s heart hit the wall.
It was several minutes before he stopped staring at the glass pieces on the floor, alerted by the bothersome beeping of his cell telling him that the other line had hung up some time ago. Slowly, moving as if numbed, Nox lifted the phone to shut it before letting it drop from his fingers again. With the same excruciatingly precise movements, he found himself picking up the pieces of glass as if wishing not to cut himself. As he stood, though, his hand shut painfully tight around the sharp edges of glass. Oblivious of the slight rising of blood on his hand, he released the glass back in to the box and closed the lid with an unusual gentleness. Watching the pieces disappear in the shadow of the lid, Nox’s eerie smile returned.
Perfection in a box.
‘Mommy’ could not have him now. He had ruined her little heart like she had his and he loved her with as much of his heart as she loved him. Absolutely none at all. Latching the box, he dragged the curtains shut with a bloodied hand.
“Happy birthday to you, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Sleep tight.”
The broken clock is a comfort, it helps me sleep tonight
Maybe it can stop tomorrow from stealing all my time
I am here still waiting though I still have my doubts
I am damaged at best, like you've already figured out
I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing
With a broken heart that's still beating
In the pain there is healing
In your name I find meaning
So I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on
I'm barely holdin' on to you
The broken locks were a warning you got inside my head
I tried my best to be guarded, I'm an open book instead
I still see your reflection inside of my eyes
That are looking for a purpose, they're still looking for life
And now I know where Nox gets his language from.
It was with a loving smile that she gently cupped his hands together and placed the slender glass heart there. It was with a warm hand that she brushed his hair from his eyes and kissed his forehead with the kind of affection you only receive from a mother. “This is special, Noxy. This was given to me by my mother when I was three, and to my mother before me. This is for you, Noxy, because I love you and you should always remember that.”
The smooth glass in the three-year-old’s hands seemed to glow softly in the dim light of his bedside lamp as he held it. It was magical to him, having never held anything that could be called important and had certainly never been given something so special. Wide eyes lifted to catch his mother’s, calming a little at seeing her reassuring smile. “It’s okay?”
In a way, it seemed that his mother was putting her trust in his little hands and he did not quite understand what was going on. Truthfully, he likely did not fully understand the weight of this little responsibility-the fact that his mother’s fragile glass heart was now his to protect. He understood a little though. He understood that this was special to her and that she wanted it to be special to him, too. And it was.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. Take care of it, it’s yours now. I love you, Noxy,” she assured him, again placing a kiss on his forehead before standing up from the edge of his bed to tuck him in. Nox continued to stare at the heart in his hands as his mother bid him good night and turned the lamp off. It was not until she was almost out the bedroom door that he looked up and called to her in a quiet, awed voice.
“Mommy…I love you. Night-night.”
“Night-night, baby. Sleep tight.”
As the door fell shut, Nox set the heart on the bedside table with exaggerated gentleness as if he feared the wood surface would come to life and swallow it. “Night-night, Mommy’s Heart…You’re safe with me...”
------------------------------------------------
Thirteen years old, today.
A battered wood box sat open on the window sill before him, having relinquished the heart-shaped contents to him. The heart had grown warm in his hand, somehow managing to remain intact despite the way he held it, tightly clenched as if wishing for it to burst in his hand. His mother’s heart had not seen light for years and the reason for its freedom now was unclear. In all honesty, Nox did not recall having taken it out of its dusty box in the first place.
Cold blue contacts followed the movements of the three outside with a hatred that likely would have disturbed them had they been able to see it. It always did. He scared them and he knew it. He was glad, too, because that was what he wanted to do. Despite the window pane between him and the ‘outside world’, Nox could hear the excited squeals of the girl-bitch as she shuffled like an idiot in circles around the new car.
One might think it unfair or rude for the bitch-woman and his father to be gifting the bitch-girl with a car on his birthday but Nox had learned years ago that the last thing he should expect from them was any sort of ‘fairness’. They never remembered his birthday anymore and it was highly likely that they would be hard-pressed to even name his age.
Nox was indifferent.
He cared even less for his birthday than the three outside did, really. If he had it his way, he would not have a birthday at all-if he did not have one, what would there be for his ‘family’ to forget? If he did not have one, he would not be in this situation in the first place, right? That is to say, without a birthday there would never have been a birth in the first place. A pleasant thought, that one…If only.
Slowly Nox set the heart in its box, turning away from the window and making his way out of the room and to the entry where the three were just slipping in through the door amongst an excited, annoying chatter. His intent had been to leave but he knew that if he walked through the door now, he’d be hit with a wave of bitch perfume. Frowning, Nox stopped short several feet away from the three as they removed their shoes and coats. The bitch-girl was making piggish squealing sounds as she bounced childishly despite her sixteen years. “Oh, daddy, thank you so much!” The girl threw her arms around the man’s neck, eyes sliding over to Nox as she smiled triumphantly.
She had manipulated this, somehow, to happen just how she wanted it. It was not just chance that today was the day she was finally given the car. Nox was well aware of her ever-present desire to get a rise out of him. She wanted to manipulate him just as she manipulated her mother and his father. She wanted him to react to the way she screwed with his life.
He granted her no such pleasure.
His father was smiling just as happily as she was, hugging her in return as she thanked him. “You’re quite welcome, sweetheart,” he responded, ruffling her hair as he released her. Nox’s eyes skittered in an unusually revealing manner towards his father, feeling an unpleasant twist in his stomach at the man’s words.
“It’s okay, sweetheart.”
The expression was gone before the bitch-girl could see it and Nox turned away from the three to make his way back to his room. The sound of his cell ringing as he slammed his bedroom door drew him back to the window. The flashing blue outline of the phone seemed out of place in the shadowed room and he found himself bothered by the appearance of movement in his little hell. “Shut the fuck up,” he snarled as he snatched the phone from the window sill. He might have thrown the thing, purely for the satisfaction of watching it break, had he not caught the name on the display.
He hated the rise of an emotion that wanted to be excitement curling the back of his mind. For a moment, he simply stared at the number on the screen debating whether or not he wanted to know why she was calling. It had been several years since she had last called, drunk and angry at his father but choosing to scream at him because she knew he would not be able to hang up on her-he never could, for some reason. But she had profusely apologized afterwards and had not called since. He was glad for that, though, as he was disgusted with himself for being afraid to hang up on her.
He was still terrified of her, he always was. He probably always would be.
For whatever reason, Nox found himself answering the phone. He said nothing as he put it to his ear, waiting for her to realize he was on the other end on her own. A long moment of silence had him wishing he had the nerve to hang up, wishing he was not so damn scared of her anger. “What is it?” His own anger sparked then, started by his disgust at having been the first to speak. Ticked at how quiet the question had come.
“Tell your father he can go to hell, you stupid skank.”
Nox smiled, the expression entirely unpleasant and cruel as he reached in to the box and drew the heart out of its fading velvet home. He turned a bit, holding the heart up as if inspecting it in the non-existent light. To watch him would be unnerving, the boy having been edgy and fearful just a moment before. Now, though, it seemed as if having his mother’s heart in his hand changed things entirely-there was a surety in his stance now, the boy entirely calm and collected. Save for the slightly sadistic glint in his eyes…
“But Mother, don’t you know what today is?” Nox purred, weighing the heart in his free hand. “Now I wouldn't want to ruin such a wonderful day with your death wishes, would I? You see, mommy, the little bitch got her car today. Everyone is just so happy. How unkind of you to ask such things of me today.”
“Just do it!” The woman snarled, her rising anger perfectly clear in her voice. Had she been there with Nox, there was no doubt that she would have hit him for every word he had just shot back at her. Nox’s odd smiled widened, seemingly fed by the anger on the other end of the line. “I should have killed you when I had you. Should have held you under for just a second longer and drowned your ugly ass.”
He seemed to freeze then, the heart nearly slipping from his hand as she spoke. The façade of confidence was gone now. He could almost feel the water, he could see her face as she held her child beneath the surface of the bath water. He remembered what it was like to gasp for breath he could not have. Nox’s hand clenched tightly around the heart as he shivered involuntarily, breath somewhat off-track as he listened to his mother’s peculiar giggling on the other end. “Maybe…you should have…” He hissed, grip on the phone loosening a bit as he answered her.
“I can fix that, sweetheart. Come see mommy and I’ll make it all better. You can come sing for me and mommy will make it all better,” she cooed, apparently confident that she could lure him back to her with the mock-comfort. “Come sing for me, my baby-boy.”
Nox tensed, his mother’s request to sing for her making him feel ill. He knew what she meant. He knew that underneath the ‘innocent’ desire to listen to him, what she really wanted was to hear him scream. Or at least, she expected him to try. “No.”
“No? Don’t you tell me no. Don’t you ever tell me no. Sing for me, whore. I know you. I know you’re terrified and baby, I know how you work. Mommy knows best and mommy will have her way. I’ll get you under the filthy water again and I’ll get rid of you like I should have the first time. You made everything go to hell and you think you can tell me no? You’re mine, you know you’re mine, and we both know you’ll be back because you don’t even want to be here. You know you don’t belong.”
The sickening churning in his stomach was worse now, almost painful as the woman spoke to him. She knew how he worked and he hated that almost as much as he hated her-but not nearly as much as he hated himself for all of it. “Fuck you,” he whispered, the phone slipping from his hand and hitting the floor with a dull thunk. “I won’t…I won’t…” He shuddered, hearing the woman still speaking to him from the phone at his feet. “I…I won’t fucking sing for you!” Whether he was loud enough for his mother to hear did not matter; all that mattered was the way the glass shattered as his mother’s heart hit the wall.
It was several minutes before he stopped staring at the glass pieces on the floor, alerted by the bothersome beeping of his cell telling him that the other line had hung up some time ago. Slowly, moving as if numbed, Nox lifted the phone to shut it before letting it drop from his fingers again. With the same excruciatingly precise movements, he found himself picking up the pieces of glass as if wishing not to cut himself. As he stood, though, his hand shut painfully tight around the sharp edges of glass. Oblivious of the slight rising of blood on his hand, he released the glass back in to the box and closed the lid with an unusual gentleness. Watching the pieces disappear in the shadow of the lid, Nox’s eerie smile returned.
Perfection in a box.
‘Mommy’ could not have him now. He had ruined her little heart like she had his and he loved her with as much of his heart as she loved him. Absolutely none at all. Latching the box, he dragged the curtains shut with a bloodied hand.
“Happy birthday to you, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Sleep tight.”
The broken clock is a comfort, it helps me sleep tonight
Maybe it can stop tomorrow from stealing all my time
I am here still waiting though I still have my doubts
I am damaged at best, like you've already figured out
I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing
With a broken heart that's still beating
In the pain there is healing
In your name I find meaning
So I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on
I'm barely holdin' on to you
The broken locks were a warning you got inside my head
I tried my best to be guarded, I'm an open book instead
I still see your reflection inside of my eyes
That are looking for a purpose, they're still looking for life