Days of Lightning (2/3)
Title: Days of Lightning (2/3)
Fandom: Queer as Folk
Author: waxrose
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for profanity and character death.
Length: 935 words
Author's Notes: Post-S1 AU with spoilers for 122. Written for my dear snugglyboo, theleapingmuse. ♥ Many thanks to everyone who read and gave me wonderful feedback on the previous chapter! The third and final chapter will be out within a few days.
Summary: His eyes are so bright just before the end comes.
Jennifer sits tall and straight in the front pew as the organ drones and screeches a hymn to signal the beginning of her son’s funeral. The church is a clinical shade of white that hurts her eyes and makes her feel slightly sick. The front of the church is full of arrangements of equally hideous white flowers with sympathetic and (in many cases) insincere little cards.
She holds Molly’s hand tightly and resolves not to cry. Molly doesn’t really understand what’s going on, doesn’t understand that the long wooden box almost directly in front of them holds her big brother. Jennifer can hardly believe it herself that her baby is beneath the heavy mahogany lid, her baby, her baby. The lid is closed - his head was split almost completely open with the force of the blow and there was only so much that could be reconstructed.
She feels people watching her, taking their cues. Some are already sobbing as the procession arrives at the alter and a white-faced, shaking Daphne places a large picture of a grinning, reckless Justin on a table next to the coffin. She can hear Debbie crying quietly somewhere close behind her and Vic’s soft hush, hush.
The service is short and simple, comforting in an orderly, brisk manner. They were never very religious, but it was important to Jennifer to try and find closure like this. Here, not in an emergency waiting room. Not in the dusty coldness of an underground parkade, the hard concrete not quite completely scrubbed clean of blood.
She nods automatically at the fawning, awkward sympathy later as she makes her rounds about the hall in the church’s basement. Stern, pinch-cheeked old ladies who volunteer for the church serve up little sandwiches and fruit trays. People clear their throats loudly and mutter in small groups, creaky metal chairs pulled close together.
Justin would have hated this. Her eyes blur momentarily and she wants nothing more than to collapse into the nearest chair and let go, cry and scream and let the world dissolve around her. But she can’t. She won’t.
And there he is. Pale and respectable in a pressed black suit. He’s leaning against a wall, eyes flickering from the peeling floor tiles beneath him and the nearby flight of stairs leading outside. Well, if he wants the convenience of escape, she’ll give it to him. She sets her cup of black coffee down on the nearest table and resolutely walks towards him, heels clacking soundly against the tiled floor.
There is silence for a minute and Brian Kinney simply stares at her.
“I don’t intend to have anything more to do with you,” Jennifer says, voice calm and controlled.
Brian is silent. His face remains expressionless and her heart hardens. He did nothing but hurt her son and even if he didn’t deliver the actual blow, he as good as killed Justin the minute he walked through the doors and took her son’s hand to dance.
He was there and he cou - didn't protect him.
Yes, he could have saved him. If he had been faster. If he hadn't let him walk alone. He should have saved him but he didn’t.
“It’s your fault Justin is dead,” she continues, voice rising and Brian’s eyes go wide, vulnerable, “And you have no right to be here. So I’d like you to go.”
“I cared about him.” Brian says quietly.
“Well, you certainly showed him when he was alive,” Jennifer says. “Please leave.”
Brian looks like he might argue for a minute. Then he turns and heads up the stairwell. Good fucking riddance.
Jennifer struggles to smile as she’s confronted by relatives, teachers, friends. She tries to be gracious and show that she’s coping so well, isn’t she?
People are expecting so much of her. Debbie tries to comfort her with talk of PFLAG campaigns, how the news of Justin’s death has outraged and saddened the nation. She never wanted her son to be a martyr, she wanted him to be safe. She never asked for this and she doesn’t want any part in it.
Her ex-husband silently gloats at her, is applying for custody of Molly. She gave Justin too much freedom, and he died for her mistakes. She’s lost everything and yet she still has so much to lose, so much to hold onto no matter how weary she is. The scariest thought is moving on, that she will have to go back to the ordinary, despite the fact that nothing, nothing could ever be the same again.
“Jen?”
Debbie looks unusually colorless, her normally vibrant attire toned down to shades of black and grey, her red hair contrasting strangely with her somber outfit.
“I’m so sorry, honey,” Debbie says for the thousandth time and Jennifer automatically receives her embrace, “Christ, but we’ll get those bastards. The Hobbs trial is two weeks from now - we’ll have entire PFLAG contingents crowding the court room - rallies in the street! Sunshine wou-“
“Debbie-“ Jennifer cuts her off, “I’m sorry, but I can’t think about that now. It’s too much. It’s all too much, Debbie.”
“Oh - sorry, honey,” Debbie says, looking slightly ashamed, “Why don’t I get you some food? You need to eat.”
“Yes, all right. Thank you.” She will drink her coffee, she will nod politely when people talk to her, she will not break down in front of all these - people.
She will go on. And try, for the moment, to forget everything except her son’s beautiful smile.
Because she will never see it again.
Continue to Part 3
Cross-posted to bjfic
Part 1
Fandom: Queer as Folk
Author: waxrose
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for profanity and character death.
Length: 935 words
Author's Notes: Post-S1 AU with spoilers for 122. Written for my dear snugglyboo, theleapingmuse. ♥ Many thanks to everyone who read and gave me wonderful feedback on the previous chapter! The third and final chapter will be out within a few days.
Summary: His eyes are so bright just before the end comes.
Jennifer sits tall and straight in the front pew as the organ drones and screeches a hymn to signal the beginning of her son’s funeral. The church is a clinical shade of white that hurts her eyes and makes her feel slightly sick. The front of the church is full of arrangements of equally hideous white flowers with sympathetic and (in many cases) insincere little cards.
She holds Molly’s hand tightly and resolves not to cry. Molly doesn’t really understand what’s going on, doesn’t understand that the long wooden box almost directly in front of them holds her big brother. Jennifer can hardly believe it herself that her baby is beneath the heavy mahogany lid, her baby, her baby. The lid is closed - his head was split almost completely open with the force of the blow and there was only so much that could be reconstructed.
She feels people watching her, taking their cues. Some are already sobbing as the procession arrives at the alter and a white-faced, shaking Daphne places a large picture of a grinning, reckless Justin on a table next to the coffin. She can hear Debbie crying quietly somewhere close behind her and Vic’s soft hush, hush.
The service is short and simple, comforting in an orderly, brisk manner. They were never very religious, but it was important to Jennifer to try and find closure like this. Here, not in an emergency waiting room. Not in the dusty coldness of an underground parkade, the hard concrete not quite completely scrubbed clean of blood.
She nods automatically at the fawning, awkward sympathy later as she makes her rounds about the hall in the church’s basement. Stern, pinch-cheeked old ladies who volunteer for the church serve up little sandwiches and fruit trays. People clear their throats loudly and mutter in small groups, creaky metal chairs pulled close together.
Justin would have hated this. Her eyes blur momentarily and she wants nothing more than to collapse into the nearest chair and let go, cry and scream and let the world dissolve around her. But she can’t. She won’t.
And there he is. Pale and respectable in a pressed black suit. He’s leaning against a wall, eyes flickering from the peeling floor tiles beneath him and the nearby flight of stairs leading outside. Well, if he wants the convenience of escape, she’ll give it to him. She sets her cup of black coffee down on the nearest table and resolutely walks towards him, heels clacking soundly against the tiled floor.
There is silence for a minute and Brian Kinney simply stares at her.
“I don’t intend to have anything more to do with you,” Jennifer says, voice calm and controlled.
Brian is silent. His face remains expressionless and her heart hardens. He did nothing but hurt her son and even if he didn’t deliver the actual blow, he as good as killed Justin the minute he walked through the doors and took her son’s hand to dance.
He was there and he cou - didn't protect him.
Yes, he could have saved him. If he had been faster. If he hadn't let him walk alone. He should have saved him but he didn’t.
“It’s your fault Justin is dead,” she continues, voice rising and Brian’s eyes go wide, vulnerable, “And you have no right to be here. So I’d like you to go.”
“I cared about him.” Brian says quietly.
“Well, you certainly showed him when he was alive,” Jennifer says. “Please leave.”
Brian looks like he might argue for a minute. Then he turns and heads up the stairwell. Good fucking riddance.
Jennifer struggles to smile as she’s confronted by relatives, teachers, friends. She tries to be gracious and show that she’s coping so well, isn’t she?
People are expecting so much of her. Debbie tries to comfort her with talk of PFLAG campaigns, how the news of Justin’s death has outraged and saddened the nation. She never wanted her son to be a martyr, she wanted him to be safe. She never asked for this and she doesn’t want any part in it.
Her ex-husband silently gloats at her, is applying for custody of Molly. She gave Justin too much freedom, and he died for her mistakes. She’s lost everything and yet she still has so much to lose, so much to hold onto no matter how weary she is. The scariest thought is moving on, that she will have to go back to the ordinary, despite the fact that nothing, nothing could ever be the same again.
“Jen?”
Debbie looks unusually colorless, her normally vibrant attire toned down to shades of black and grey, her red hair contrasting strangely with her somber outfit.
“I’m so sorry, honey,” Debbie says for the thousandth time and Jennifer automatically receives her embrace, “Christ, but we’ll get those bastards. The Hobbs trial is two weeks from now - we’ll have entire PFLAG contingents crowding the court room - rallies in the street! Sunshine wou-“
“Debbie-“ Jennifer cuts her off, “I’m sorry, but I can’t think about that now. It’s too much. It’s all too much, Debbie.”
“Oh - sorry, honey,” Debbie says, looking slightly ashamed, “Why don’t I get you some food? You need to eat.”
“Yes, all right. Thank you.” She will drink her coffee, she will nod politely when people talk to her, she will not break down in front of all these - people.
She will go on. And try, for the moment, to forget everything except her son’s beautiful smile.
Because she will never see it again.
Continue to Part 3
Cross-posted to bjfic
Part 1