sometimes, a circle is just what you need. 1/1.
TITLE: sometimes, a circle is just what you need. 1/1.
AUTHOR: therecordskipsx, which would be yours truly.
RATING: Err…pg-15? Drinking, cursing, angst, kissing, small mentions of sex, and, if you squint a little, some drug use.
POV: second person.
PAIRING: Unspecified, but I shamelessly had Brendon/Ryan in mind, Brendon being the focus, and it’s fairly obvious. You can think whoever your heart desires, though. =]
SUMMARY: “But fuck, if you don’t see beauty in the dead leaves, the swirling sky, the monochromatic landscape! He taught you that, to see beauty in the smallest things, and you had found it in it’s purest, most innocent form in him, in the teacher.”
DISCLAIMER: Uh, duh, obviously NOT mine. If this happened, I think I would be rather sad, in fact. So, F to the A to the K to the EEE.
A/N: First things first, this is approximately 2200 words of my FIRST FIC. So, while comments and concrit are absolutely encouraged, please don’t kill me if i do, in fact, suck. Second things second, a bit of a song fic, based around ‘a line allows progress, a circle does not’ by Bright Eyes. Nods to other songs stuck in along the way. Oh, and i have no beta, just my own self reading it over twelve times. kthx.
sitting around, no work today, try pacing to keep awake
laying around, no school today, just drink until the clock has circled all the way.
You sigh, clicking your nails on the glass, the ice chattering against the sides. The sounds are soft, metallic, and they reminds you of windchimes. They make your skin crawl.
You’re not sure when this started. Was it before, on tour? Before even that? Or just now, with this drink? You don’t remember being a drinker, or much about the last few days. You remember how he hated it, though, how he hated the smell of the alcohol, how he cringed when someone came home drunk, how he mothered them, put them to bed, cleaned up their puke. Just like always.
You take another sip, no, a gulp, and return to the tingling click, click, click of your nails on the glass, the clinking of the ice, the barely there swish of the liquid.
----------
it’s late afternoon as you walk through the rooms of a house that is quiet except for unanswered telephones.
you stand near the sink while you're mixing a drink, you think you don't want to pass out where your roommates will find you again.
You can’t help it. The colour of the liquid in the glass, honey amber, it reminds you of his eyes. Perfect, and liquid, and burning. Even easier to lose yourself in. He never tasted like this, though, like fire and sandpaper. No, he was always some mixture, some tangible essence of salt and skin. And something else, something that was uniquely his, like his soul leaked out of his skin for you to kiss away.
The phone rings, frighteningly loud in the black silence of the house. You twitch, involuntary, and don’t bother to check the call display. It’s him, and he’s the only last one you want to talk to.
You click off lights as you go, slinking back to your room in a haze. If someone shows up, you don’t want them to find you at home.
----------
stumble around the neighborhood with nothing to do
you're always looking for something to sniff, smoke, or swallow
calling over next door, see what they got
you would settle for anything that would make your brain slow down or stop.
Shit. You’re out of whiskey. And you just smoked your last cigarette. Double shit. You run a hand through your hair, and scratch the stubble on your chin. God damn, you must look like shit. He, well, he never looked like shit, no matter what he said. He was always gorgeous, always glowing, always alive.
You pull your hood up around your face, shoving your keys and your wallet into your pocket viciously. You’re not sure who you’re more angry at, you for telling him to go, or him for walking away. And now it’s out the door, down the street in this abnormally warm winter. You’re glad, almost happy, that it’s overcast, that everything is the colour of concrete. You think the sky, the sun, they would just mock you. A display of their beautiful colours staged to taunt you, shove it in your face, this beauty that you couldn’t attain, this thing you could not be.
But fuck, if you don’t see beauty in the dead leaves, the swirling sky, the monochromatic landscape! He taught you that, to see beauty in the smallest things, and you had found it in it’s purest, most innocent form in him, in the teacher. In his breathing, his mouth, his eyelashes settled on his cheeks, his calloused fingers. You found it in the taste of his skin, the sounds he made, his incredible mind, and those eyes, those liquid, burning eyes.
You wish you could forget him, all of him. You put your head down against the wind and press forward, a blur of a zombie walking the streets. You need that fix, you need to shut off.
----------
break this circle of thoughts you chase before they catch back up with you,
and your parents noticed your thinning face, all the weight you lost, all the weight you’re losing.
You brush past someone, a pretty boy, the kind that would normally make you smile, on your way home. The type that reminds you of him, small but limber, quiet and graceful in a way you never will be. He’s wearing, actually wearing, a shirt of your band, and you almost smile at the irony. Your arms are full of paper bags, your head down, your step quick and echoing off the buildings. The boy’s eyes, they light up, and do a double take over you. They’re blue, and full of life, full of spark. And then his face falls, and he turns from you, almost running. Scared of the junkie, the weird wineo creep he almost, for a second, believed was you. Away from the dark, empty looking man who he almost mistook as the leader of his favourite band. You don’t, cant, blame the kid, not really. You haven’t shaved in days, your hair is sticking up in all the wrong places, and you’re pretty sure you’ve been wearing these jeans all week. This morning, when you looked in the mirror, you swore for a second that your eyes were blanks, and you turned away quickly, and when you turned back, all you saw was a tired man with a stain on his t-shirt.
And you know you’ve never been a big guy, awkward sure, but not big...but lately, you’ve been wasting away to nothing, to a shell of your former self. Your nose is red and raw, maybe from the wind, maybe not, and you’re sure that you look like you could use a long nap. So, no, you really can’t blame the kid, not at all. You don’t even think your own mother would recognize you. You don’t even think he would recognize you, the one person who knew you best, and upon thinking about it, you’re sure you wouldn’t want him to.
Because it would just be some other reason to compare him, flushed from the wind, auburn hair flashing in his face, to you. To the nothing you’re capable of becoming.
----------
you said, "i'm done feeling like a skeleton, no more sleepwalking dead"
you're going to wake from this coma, you're going to crawl from this bed you’ve made,
and stop counting on that camera that hangs round your neck,
‘cause you won’t ever remember what you choose to forget.
You find yourself curled up in the bed, near sobbing and holding onto a sweatshirt that still smells of him, thumbing through glossy stack of photographs. It's pathetic, really, and you know it. You wipe at the tears, and you’re uncharacteristically thankful for their salty presence. This is the first time you’ve felt anything in weeks.
The pictures are of you. Of the other guys, other bands, the tour bus, the places you’ve been to but barely seen. He always saw everything. You stop at a picture, of the two of you. It’s these ones that get to you. You’re smiling, no, laughing. Both of you, arms around each other, radiant, beaming, shining, happy. In love.
The words ripple through your body, in love, a convulsion of feeling and failing, and you find yourself bent over the toilet, eyes streaming and stomach clenching mercilessly around your heart. Exhausted, you slip down and press your cheek against the floor, resting your head on the cold tile, with the picture still clutched in your hand.
----------
as you try to find some source of light, try to name one thing you like,
you used to have such a longer list, and light, you never had to look for it.
You dream, in shocking colour and clarity, so bright it's almost gaudy, so real you can almost feel it. You dream, for the first time in a series of black nights, sleeping alone. You dream about the first time you met him, the first time you kissed him. You dream about singing his words to a rippling, roaring sea of people, you dream about his sweaty, makeup covered face inches from yours, mouth to mic. You dream about the first time, and the last time, about how scared you were and the way you shook. About the way he lifted up to meet you, a perfect statue in living, loving colour.
You could never understand it, how he seemed to need you, how he could bear to be near you, how he could love you.
That word spirals around in you again before erupting out of your mouth. You don’t hear the knocking until you’re sitting, doubled over and emptied, leaning against the wall. It’s loud, and fucking insistent, and you’re not sure how you didn’t hear it before. You stand up and brush yourself off, grabbing the crumpled photograph off the floor and shoving it in your pocket, and head towards the front door.
----------
but now it's so easy, it’s so easy to, so easy, it’s so easy to,
second guess everything you do, until all you want is, all you want is to...
Why are you standing here, dirty and unkempt, no doubt smelling of vomit and liquor? What possessed you to open it when you knew what waited on the other side? Why, when you knew that you would just find yourself staring into those eyes again? And then it comes from his lips, slow and careful, “Man, you look like shit.”
Yeah, you think, I probably do. You look him over, top to bottom, slowly, and he doesn’t buckle or blush under your gaze. Why should he, anyways? You’ve seen it all. And he is, of course, beautiful as always. But the bags under his eyes, the pallor of his skin, tell you stories about the nights he’s sat up, waiting by the phone. They tell you about all the things that should have been said when you asked him to leave. You step back, into the house, and he follows without a word, closing the door behind him.
You sit on the couch, watching him rush back and forth. Taking care of everything, just like always. He brings you ginger ale and soda crackers. He pours half empty bottles of whiskey down the sink, and there’s a full pack of smokes, broken in half, lying in their graves in your trash can. You put one hand on your face and sink further into the couch, the other hand curled loosely around the photograph in your pocket. When you peek out from between your fingers, he’s gone. You take out the picture, smooth it out, stare at it. You feel him standing there, and when you look up, he’s there and waiting patiently, a small smile on his face, his arms behind his back. "You still have it," he says. You just nod, a pathetic excuse for an answer, but it suffices. And then somehow, from everywhere and nowhere at once, a razor and shaving cream and warm water and a towel appear. He sits down, straddles your lap, the weight of his body familiar. He says something about sitting still, but you barely hear it. You just sit there, mind running back over all the times he’s been pressed to you like this, wondering at how breathless it all still makes you. So you just sit, compliant, while he shaves and rinses.
When he reaches for the towel, you manage a smile in his direction, and he says, “Dude, this is so Dawson’s Creek,” and for the first time in what feels like forever, you laugh.
Now, 7:00 p.m. approximately, you’re sitting at opposite ends of your never-used dining room table, sipping coffee and looking across the expanse of polished oak into each other’s eyes. You’ve showered, oh miracles, and brushed your teeth, and put on clean clothes. You feel better, you guess, except for one thing. There’s something you need to do before this is over.
So you stand up, chair scraping noisily across the hardwood floor and walk over, slowly, one step at a time. His eyes, fuck, those eyes, flicker up to meet yours, expectant and full, and that’s it. You take his face in your hands, running your thumb across his lower lip, and whisper “Thank you,” and everything comes out in those two words, words that tremble with unshed tears and things you always meant to say.
You kiss him, so gentle, so soft. At first, it’s just chaste, it’s gratitude and affection. But it ends, as always, in a tangle of limbs and twisted linens. You’re tracing patterns up and down his side, hip to shoulder, and looking at his face. Angelic, always, but especially in sleep. You burrow closer, kiss his forehead, and close your eyes.
This, like everything else in life, has come full circle, back to the beginning.
----------
finish this half empty glass, before the ice all melts away...
You sip gently at the water in the glass, watching him making his way to you through the crowd of the party. “Hey babe,” he shouts over the music, and presses his lips to yours briefly. “Come dance with me!”
You down the rest of the glass and follow after him, hand in hand. He looks back over his shoulder and sways his hips, pulling you close to him and turning into your arms. You look in his eyes, and he’s shining, glowing, beautiful.
“Love you,” he says it so simply, and presses his lips to yours. Somewhere to your left, a camera flashes, capturing the moment on film forever. Another photograph to keep, alongside the crumpled one you carry everywhere with you.
“Love you, too,” you say with a smile, and the music thumps on.
----------
this feeling always used to pass, seems like it's every day, seems like it's every night now.
AUTHOR: therecordskipsx, which would be yours truly.
RATING: Err…pg-15? Drinking, cursing, angst, kissing, small mentions of sex, and, if you squint a little, some drug use.
POV: second person.
PAIRING: Unspecified, but I shamelessly had Brendon/Ryan in mind, Brendon being the focus, and it’s fairly obvious. You can think whoever your heart desires, though. =]
SUMMARY: “But fuck, if you don’t see beauty in the dead leaves, the swirling sky, the monochromatic landscape! He taught you that, to see beauty in the smallest things, and you had found it in it’s purest, most innocent form in him, in the teacher.”
DISCLAIMER: Uh, duh, obviously NOT mine. If this happened, I think I would be rather sad, in fact. So, F to the A to the K to the EEE.
A/N: First things first, this is approximately 2200 words of my FIRST FIC. So, while comments and concrit are absolutely encouraged, please don’t kill me if i do, in fact, suck. Second things second, a bit of a song fic, based around ‘a line allows progress, a circle does not’ by Bright Eyes. Nods to other songs stuck in along the way. Oh, and i have no beta, just my own self reading it over twelve times. kthx.
sitting around, no work today, try pacing to keep awake
laying around, no school today, just drink until the clock has circled all the way.
You sigh, clicking your nails on the glass, the ice chattering against the sides. The sounds are soft, metallic, and they reminds you of windchimes. They make your skin crawl.
You’re not sure when this started. Was it before, on tour? Before even that? Or just now, with this drink? You don’t remember being a drinker, or much about the last few days. You remember how he hated it, though, how he hated the smell of the alcohol, how he cringed when someone came home drunk, how he mothered them, put them to bed, cleaned up their puke. Just like always.
You take another sip, no, a gulp, and return to the tingling click, click, click of your nails on the glass, the clinking of the ice, the barely there swish of the liquid.
----------
it’s late afternoon as you walk through the rooms of a house that is quiet except for unanswered telephones.
you stand near the sink while you're mixing a drink, you think you don't want to pass out where your roommates will find you again.
You can’t help it. The colour of the liquid in the glass, honey amber, it reminds you of his eyes. Perfect, and liquid, and burning. Even easier to lose yourself in. He never tasted like this, though, like fire and sandpaper. No, he was always some mixture, some tangible essence of salt and skin. And something else, something that was uniquely his, like his soul leaked out of his skin for you to kiss away.
The phone rings, frighteningly loud in the black silence of the house. You twitch, involuntary, and don’t bother to check the call display. It’s him, and he’s the only last one you want to talk to.
You click off lights as you go, slinking back to your room in a haze. If someone shows up, you don’t want them to find you at home.
----------
stumble around the neighborhood with nothing to do
you're always looking for something to sniff, smoke, or swallow
calling over next door, see what they got
you would settle for anything that would make your brain slow down or stop.
Shit. You’re out of whiskey. And you just smoked your last cigarette. Double shit. You run a hand through your hair, and scratch the stubble on your chin. God damn, you must look like shit. He, well, he never looked like shit, no matter what he said. He was always gorgeous, always glowing, always alive.
You pull your hood up around your face, shoving your keys and your wallet into your pocket viciously. You’re not sure who you’re more angry at, you for telling him to go, or him for walking away. And now it’s out the door, down the street in this abnormally warm winter. You’re glad, almost happy, that it’s overcast, that everything is the colour of concrete. You think the sky, the sun, they would just mock you. A display of their beautiful colours staged to taunt you, shove it in your face, this beauty that you couldn’t attain, this thing you could not be.
But fuck, if you don’t see beauty in the dead leaves, the swirling sky, the monochromatic landscape! He taught you that, to see beauty in the smallest things, and you had found it in it’s purest, most innocent form in him, in the teacher. In his breathing, his mouth, his eyelashes settled on his cheeks, his calloused fingers. You found it in the taste of his skin, the sounds he made, his incredible mind, and those eyes, those liquid, burning eyes.
You wish you could forget him, all of him. You put your head down against the wind and press forward, a blur of a zombie walking the streets. You need that fix, you need to shut off.
----------
break this circle of thoughts you chase before they catch back up with you,
and your parents noticed your thinning face, all the weight you lost, all the weight you’re losing.
You brush past someone, a pretty boy, the kind that would normally make you smile, on your way home. The type that reminds you of him, small but limber, quiet and graceful in a way you never will be. He’s wearing, actually wearing, a shirt of your band, and you almost smile at the irony. Your arms are full of paper bags, your head down, your step quick and echoing off the buildings. The boy’s eyes, they light up, and do a double take over you. They’re blue, and full of life, full of spark. And then his face falls, and he turns from you, almost running. Scared of the junkie, the weird wineo creep he almost, for a second, believed was you. Away from the dark, empty looking man who he almost mistook as the leader of his favourite band. You don’t, cant, blame the kid, not really. You haven’t shaved in days, your hair is sticking up in all the wrong places, and you’re pretty sure you’ve been wearing these jeans all week. This morning, when you looked in the mirror, you swore for a second that your eyes were blanks, and you turned away quickly, and when you turned back, all you saw was a tired man with a stain on his t-shirt.
And you know you’ve never been a big guy, awkward sure, but not big...but lately, you’ve been wasting away to nothing, to a shell of your former self. Your nose is red and raw, maybe from the wind, maybe not, and you’re sure that you look like you could use a long nap. So, no, you really can’t blame the kid, not at all. You don’t even think your own mother would recognize you. You don’t even think he would recognize you, the one person who knew you best, and upon thinking about it, you’re sure you wouldn’t want him to.
Because it would just be some other reason to compare him, flushed from the wind, auburn hair flashing in his face, to you. To the nothing you’re capable of becoming.
----------
you said, "i'm done feeling like a skeleton, no more sleepwalking dead"
you're going to wake from this coma, you're going to crawl from this bed you’ve made,
and stop counting on that camera that hangs round your neck,
‘cause you won’t ever remember what you choose to forget.
You find yourself curled up in the bed, near sobbing and holding onto a sweatshirt that still smells of him, thumbing through glossy stack of photographs. It's pathetic, really, and you know it. You wipe at the tears, and you’re uncharacteristically thankful for their salty presence. This is the first time you’ve felt anything in weeks.
The pictures are of you. Of the other guys, other bands, the tour bus, the places you’ve been to but barely seen. He always saw everything. You stop at a picture, of the two of you. It’s these ones that get to you. You’re smiling, no, laughing. Both of you, arms around each other, radiant, beaming, shining, happy. In love.
The words ripple through your body, in love, a convulsion of feeling and failing, and you find yourself bent over the toilet, eyes streaming and stomach clenching mercilessly around your heart. Exhausted, you slip down and press your cheek against the floor, resting your head on the cold tile, with the picture still clutched in your hand.
----------
as you try to find some source of light, try to name one thing you like,
you used to have such a longer list, and light, you never had to look for it.
You dream, in shocking colour and clarity, so bright it's almost gaudy, so real you can almost feel it. You dream, for the first time in a series of black nights, sleeping alone. You dream about the first time you met him, the first time you kissed him. You dream about singing his words to a rippling, roaring sea of people, you dream about his sweaty, makeup covered face inches from yours, mouth to mic. You dream about the first time, and the last time, about how scared you were and the way you shook. About the way he lifted up to meet you, a perfect statue in living, loving colour.
You could never understand it, how he seemed to need you, how he could bear to be near you, how he could love you.
That word spirals around in you again before erupting out of your mouth. You don’t hear the knocking until you’re sitting, doubled over and emptied, leaning against the wall. It’s loud, and fucking insistent, and you’re not sure how you didn’t hear it before. You stand up and brush yourself off, grabbing the crumpled photograph off the floor and shoving it in your pocket, and head towards the front door.
----------
but now it's so easy, it’s so easy to, so easy, it’s so easy to,
second guess everything you do, until all you want is, all you want is to...
Why are you standing here, dirty and unkempt, no doubt smelling of vomit and liquor? What possessed you to open it when you knew what waited on the other side? Why, when you knew that you would just find yourself staring into those eyes again? And then it comes from his lips, slow and careful, “Man, you look like shit.”
Yeah, you think, I probably do. You look him over, top to bottom, slowly, and he doesn’t buckle or blush under your gaze. Why should he, anyways? You’ve seen it all. And he is, of course, beautiful as always. But the bags under his eyes, the pallor of his skin, tell you stories about the nights he’s sat up, waiting by the phone. They tell you about all the things that should have been said when you asked him to leave. You step back, into the house, and he follows without a word, closing the door behind him.
You sit on the couch, watching him rush back and forth. Taking care of everything, just like always. He brings you ginger ale and soda crackers. He pours half empty bottles of whiskey down the sink, and there’s a full pack of smokes, broken in half, lying in their graves in your trash can. You put one hand on your face and sink further into the couch, the other hand curled loosely around the photograph in your pocket. When you peek out from between your fingers, he’s gone. You take out the picture, smooth it out, stare at it. You feel him standing there, and when you look up, he’s there and waiting patiently, a small smile on his face, his arms behind his back. "You still have it," he says. You just nod, a pathetic excuse for an answer, but it suffices. And then somehow, from everywhere and nowhere at once, a razor and shaving cream and warm water and a towel appear. He sits down, straddles your lap, the weight of his body familiar. He says something about sitting still, but you barely hear it. You just sit there, mind running back over all the times he’s been pressed to you like this, wondering at how breathless it all still makes you. So you just sit, compliant, while he shaves and rinses.
When he reaches for the towel, you manage a smile in his direction, and he says, “Dude, this is so Dawson’s Creek,” and for the first time in what feels like forever, you laugh.
Now, 7:00 p.m. approximately, you’re sitting at opposite ends of your never-used dining room table, sipping coffee and looking across the expanse of polished oak into each other’s eyes. You’ve showered, oh miracles, and brushed your teeth, and put on clean clothes. You feel better, you guess, except for one thing. There’s something you need to do before this is over.
So you stand up, chair scraping noisily across the hardwood floor and walk over, slowly, one step at a time. His eyes, fuck, those eyes, flicker up to meet yours, expectant and full, and that’s it. You take his face in your hands, running your thumb across his lower lip, and whisper “Thank you,” and everything comes out in those two words, words that tremble with unshed tears and things you always meant to say.
You kiss him, so gentle, so soft. At first, it’s just chaste, it’s gratitude and affection. But it ends, as always, in a tangle of limbs and twisted linens. You’re tracing patterns up and down his side, hip to shoulder, and looking at his face. Angelic, always, but especially in sleep. You burrow closer, kiss his forehead, and close your eyes.
This, like everything else in life, has come full circle, back to the beginning.
----------
finish this half empty glass, before the ice all melts away...
You sip gently at the water in the glass, watching him making his way to you through the crowd of the party. “Hey babe,” he shouts over the music, and presses his lips to yours briefly. “Come dance with me!”
You down the rest of the glass and follow after him, hand in hand. He looks back over his shoulder and sways his hips, pulling you close to him and turning into your arms. You look in his eyes, and he’s shining, glowing, beautiful.
“Love you,” he says it so simply, and presses his lips to yours. Somewhere to your left, a camera flashes, capturing the moment on film forever. Another photograph to keep, alongside the crumpled one you carry everywhere with you.
“Love you, too,” you say with a smile, and the music thumps on.
----------
this feeling always used to pass, seems like it's every day, seems like it's every night now.