(no subject)
Title: What Has Been
Rating: PG-13
Written for the vo_xmas secret santa as a present for imaginaryrain who asked for: Angst, though with maybe a little bit of a happy ending. And rain. and Uh, a high school AU?
WARNINGS: this has a lot of angst and pain, it has somewhat of a happy ending but not much so be prepared, also AU.
That night it rained, it pored buckets as if the Valar themselves were angry. The drops pelted the window, making patterns on the glass. Like little droplets of blood slowly running away from his heart. The hurt, the pain and the anguish all curled within. The sky outside was a dark gray. The thunder boomed and crashed and the lightening lit up the sky, jarring the atmosphere. The wind blew so hard that the trees were half bent, like old ladies with the weight. The window began to fog up providing the perfect shield from the prying eyes of the world.
The fire was warm, the room homey looking. The plush wine sofa was soft and comfortable, its well used look showing that this was a home. The walls were painted a sunny yellow that in the fire light was deep ochre. A beat up carpet covered the smooth honey wood floors, sanded to perfection. To all audiences it was a well loved room. To the man who sat staring out the mist covered window it meant nothing. It wouldn’t have mattered if he were in the Queen of England’s palace. His glazed eyes stared out into the torrential downpour seeing yet not. He didn’t blink or shift position; he was frozen as if in chronic sleep.
The droplets looked so inviting. He wished he could just meld with them, absorb into the separate worlds they held within. That way he would be truly free. There would be no more of this numbness. His eyes would no longer hold the glazed and cold look that tainted the once clear deep pools of rich chocolate color. There would be no more of the repetitive morning rituals, no more of the mindless conformity. His heart would no longer be empty, nor would it be made of stone. In one of those far off worlds he might be able to feel again.
The worlds in the droplets offered above all release from the thoughts that haunted him. He wouldn’t have to hide from the ghosts of his past. He might be able to come to terms with his fears and go back to that innocent, fun loving and crazy person that he used to be. He could be the person he wanted to be, like he was way back when. He could afford to be adventurous; he would no longer have to guard himself.
Threads woven through the carpet, intermingling, each a separate intersection in his life. Here was the place where it left off, the unfinished part of his life. The part left to fate, weaving into being as he breaths, every second wasted is a second less to completion. Resting in the immaculate picture and pattern of his tapestry was one large snarl. The point in time in which his heart was ripped out.
It was senior year two months till graduation. Everything was fine. Here he was sitting in English class, writing notes and staring mindlessly out the window. The sun shown with the glint of summer. The grass was green and just waiting to be walked on. He couldnt wait to get out and be free. After class he waited in his usual spot. Viggo usually walked with him as far as the bus stop. Five minutes passed then ten; soon he gave up and walked alone. This was the third day in a row that this had happened. He was confused, he and Viggo had been on and off again, this was the third time. Every time it was the same, same excuses, same lies but still they kept going back. It was like they had a connection, a deep unyielding bond and urge to be with the other. His heart had broken so many times. He trudged home weighted down by his thoughts in the summer sun.
Later that night the message light on his phone blinked, a little red ominous flashing light. He had fallen asleep with his head on his books. The message was simple and too the point. It cut right through formalities and right to the heart. Simple, there was someone else. There was the indecision factor again. His world became nothing; he was a backup, someone to fall back on when the going got rough and nothing more. His heart shattered into a million tiny pieces. He knew that he could never recover from that blow. That night he confided in the only thing he knew he could trust. He put into words what he thought he couldn’t. Things came out in a poetic manner, he saved that entry.
You capture the world in a moment, lighting it up with feelings of joy. Words of “will be’s” and “tomorrows” fill the waiting pages. You capture the wonderful moments of life, writing them down to remember, to be able to reflect back upon in times of darkness. The idea is simple, document what we had, save it to relish. Sadly nothing is that simple; soon the words of joy fade away, leaving broken silences in their place. The waiting pages become more and more, turning into a waiting stack. The broken silences stretch into an eternity, leaving doubts and implications in minds, stretching and bending the truth until it breaks. The “will be’s” and “tomorrows” are soon forgotten, the feelings of joy erased. It comes to a point where you are afraid to speak to one another, the silence only grows. The world is brought crashing down at the moment of confession and all hopes are swept away by an ever speeding tide. The openness is replaced with fickle promises, meant to sooth more than to keep. Those promises soon turn into lies, blackening your heart with their deceit. The letters so carefully preserved soon become implements of torture, reading and re-reading them, reminding you of what you lost. The time of blackness consumes you, feeding off what should have made you happy. The moments you remember are bittersweet, tainted with sourness of lies, and only serve to send you backwards. Yet you cannot forget them, they are ever present in your consciousness. Images of happier times float by on silver wings accompanied by the whispering doubt, of what has passed. The world is captured in a moment, the moment it came crashing down.
He had gone on from that moment, a shadow of who he was. Things were never the same again. There had been no time to heal, just clean cauterization of something so deep that it never went away. High school had stopped, he went on to college, and he never cared. He did as he was told and applied himself so he wouldn’t have to think.
The years had passed; time had taken its toll. Now he sits here in this house, staring out into oblivion at the rain drops slowly spattering trying to get his life back together. The unfeeling corpse has thawed a little, leaving a vulnerable young man in its place. Shy to the point of silence he never talks. Some day there will be a person who can fix him. In time he will learn what it is to love and truly be loved in return. He won’t be betrayed and used, but first he must learn to forgive, only then can he truly be free.