#radicaller

He doesn’t remember when he met SC, only that he feels like he’s always known him.

He’s there when he wakes up and there when he falls asleep, but he never hears him when he comes in or leaves.

Sometimes when he wakes up and SC isn’t there, he panics; fingers gripping his hair and pulling, yanking, scraping until he feels sticky wetness along his scalp.

That’s usually when the faceless come in.

The light from the doorway is too bright when they enter. Chem has to close his eyes tightly and turn his head away. It hurts- hurts his eyes which are accustomed to the darkness.

These shadow people hold him down and berate him for hurting himself.

They tell him that’s a coward’s way out, he’s useless, that no one can’t save him. They tell him that-

Bad boys like you go to hell, Chemmy. You want to repent, don’t you?

This is your entire fault. This is what you deserve. You don’t deserve freedom. You don’t deserve a family. They’re better off without you.

You have us now.

They stick needles into him. Sometimes, they beat him until he’s bruised and bloody. They tell him not to move again or else the damage they’ll inflict will be worse.

He falls asleep after that. He feels like he sleeps for hours, or days.

When he wakes up, SC is there and holding him tightly.

It feels good to have someone there with him.

SC presses his warm lips against the back of Chem’s neck.

“Sing me something, Chem.” SC says. His voice is soft and barely above a whisper.  “Sing the first thing that comes to mind.”

Chem’s voice is raspy, like an old record player in an old house that is full of dust and cobwebs and stale air and cracks along the walls and ceilings, broken like door hinges.

That doesn’t stop him from doing what he’s asked.

“When the lights go out, will you take me with you?”

SC holds him tighter.

“And carry all this broken bone, through six years down in crowded rooms and highways I call home, is something I can’t know till now…”

He doesn’t remember all of the song; he trails off and picks up at a different part.

“If you stay, I would even wait all night- or until my heart explodes. How long until we find our way… in the dark…”

He doesn’t finish the song. He never does.

He can feel SC’s gloved fingers sliding over his cheeks and pushing away stray tears.

“You can run away with me, any time you want.” SC whispers gently, somewhere between singing and talking.

Chem wishes that he could.

-

He doesn’t remember when he met Rad, only that he showed up one day asking questions and trying to make Chem crack a smile.

Chem knows he’s around by the smell of smoke and watermelon that seems to follow him wherever he goes- like a trail of ashes and something almost earthy; like wet rain hitting the pavement.

That’s how he knows he’s in the room before he’s even conscious enough to register him sitting back against the wall beside his bed.

When Chem rolls over to look at him, he sees light trailing in through the high window of his room.

Rad looks a mess, and looking at him makes him wonder if Chem looks any better. Rad’s hair is thick and greasy- cut short in the back where it sticks up on its own. His previously white t-shirt is stained with spots of old and new blood. Rad’s knuckles are bruised and bleeding and he has a long cut on his cheek.

“What happened today?”

“Got inna fight with one of them. I’m surprised I’m even still here to tell you the truth.”

Chem sighs, before he forces his aching body out of bed to examine Rad’s wounds. He takes one of his hands into his own and looks them over. He feels Rad watch him with an almost critical eye.

“What do you miss the most, Chem?”

The question startles him out of his examination.

“What?”

“You heard me, man.”

“I guess I miss…” Chem trails off and looks away from Rad, who’s sliding his hand out of Chem’s. “I miss… everything. There’s a lot of things I’ll never get to do or try.”

Rad ruffles Chem’s brown hair and clenches his teeth from the pain.

“You will. Believe me, you will.”

Chem smiles.

-

Chem never sees her (he’s always facing away), but he can tell where she’s standing by the shadow it casts on the wall.

“These delusions are very troubling, Chem.”

He stays quiet.

“Before they weren’t as frequent, now I’ve been told that you see these people nearly every day.”

His eyes focus on his bruised knuckles as he lightly traces a finger over them.

“Mister Sunderland, are you listening to me?”

Nothing.

“You haven’t been eating. You’ve been acting out and hurting yourself more.”

He glances a look up at the wall. Her shadow is leaning back against the desk with a clipboard in hand.

“One of my team said they heard you talking about suicide.”

He can hear her start tapping her pencil against the clipboard.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

“Mister Sunderland.”

Tap. Tap. Tap.

“Chem.”

Tap. Tap. Snap.

“Andrew!”

There’s a tense silence that follows.

“Mister Sunderland, when we brought you here, we were hoping you would prove to be the best hope for the future of humanity. It seems that we have been mistaken in this assumption.”

Chem closes his eyes.

“No loss. We still have the others.”

He stares at the floor.

“You were special once.”

-

“You always want me to sing you songs,” Chem says to SC one night. He can feel the other man shift on the bed almost like he was getting more comfortable.

“And?”

“You never sing me anything.” Chem sits up, tugs his knees up to his chest and wraps his skinny arms around them. His rests his chin on his knobby knees and stares at the spot he’s sure SC is on the bed.

“Oh.” His voice is quiet, a bit far away as if he’s thinking deeply. “I didn’t know you wanted me to.”

“Well yeah, man. You told me yourself that you play guitar and stuff. I wouldn’t mind listening to you sing.”

“Well… I guess I can sing you a little tune.”

Chem hears SC take a sharp breath, as if steadying himself.

“Well, I know it’s kind of late. I hope I didn’t wake you, but what I got to say can’t wait. I know you’d understand- Every time I tried to tell you, the words just came out wrong. So, I’ll have to say I love you in a song.”

Chem feels his face heat up- feels his chest tighten in a mixture of hope and sadness and love.

“I know it’s kind of strange, but every time I’m near you, I just run out of things to say. I know you’d understand.”

Chem’s arm shoots out in the dark and searches around until he finds SC’s hand. He grips it tightly- his bruised knuckles tightening up and causing him to suppress a hiss of pain. He doesn’t want to interrupt SC’s song.

SC wraps his arms around him and holds him close.

Chem hadn’t realized he was that close to him.

“Every time I tried to tell you, the words just came out wrong. So, I’ll have to say I love you in a song~” SC whispers softly against his ear, making Chem shiver and his heart beat faster. He leans his head against the other’s shoulder and closes his eyes.

SC’s voice drifts away, but Chem’s never felt so safe and comforted than he does at this moment.

-

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” Chem feels Rad shift on the bed beside him, rolling over to face him.

“Yeah. I tried my best t-“

“No, I don’t want to hear it.”

“You have to understand that I-“

“I know what they did to you.”

Rad becomes quiet.

“It’s okay, though. I’m not mad that you’re leaving.”

He feels Rad lean in closer and press a kiss against his forehead; it’s innocent, bittersweet almost.

After that, he never sees Rad again.

There was no funeral, but Chem silently wrote a song for him in his head.

-

“You keep telling me that you’ll take me away from here, SC. Why haven’t you done it yet?” Chem asks as he curls up against the wall. He thinks he can see a low glimmer of light coming in from the normally covered window- it hits SC’s hair at a particular angle, making his dark locks shine.

It reminds Chem of a halo around an angel.

“It’s not that easy, Chem.” SC sounds exasperated. His shoulders are slumped and he’s biting at his thumb’s finger nail through his green gloves, before he seems to realize what he’s doing- pulling it away quickly.

“They keep telling me that you’re not real. That… you’re all in my head and that you’re both planning on hurting me. They’ve… come up with a new nickname for me.” Chem slides his fingers through his hair and bites down on his raw lip momentarily. “They’re calling me Crazy Chem.”

He sees the other man’s head snap around to look back at Chem. His face is obscured by his bangs, but then SC is stepping out of the light and closer to him. He feels his gloved hand on his shoulder; it slides up his neck and cups the back of his head gently as he stares up at SC’s face.

“No. You’re not crazy, Chem. You’re fine- perfectly fine.”

“But… but what if I’m not? What if they’re right, SC?”

“They’re lying to you, Chem. They want to keep you under their thumb.”

“SC… why can’t they see you?”

SC’s thumb trails along Chem’s cheek gently. Chem can feel his eyes going over his face- as if taking the panic that was no doubt there. He doesn’t answer for a long time, “I don’t know.”

“I want you to be real, SC.”

“I am. Of course, I’m real. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t real.”

“Maybe my brain really is broken.”

“No.”

“Maybe I really am a failure. I won’t amount to anything.”

“Chem.”

“I’m going to die here.”

“Andrew, stop.”

Chem closes his eyes and stops talking. He feels himself being eased onto SC’s lap; warm arms wrapped around him and lips being pressed against his temple, his cheeks, his eyelids, his nose, his lips- it’s slow and languid. Comforting.

He closes his eyes and lets the feeling wash over him.

“They took me when I was eight,” He whispers softly when he feels SC’s mouth linger against his jaw.

Chem feels SC pull away and feels his questioning eyes on him.

“I hardly remember what happened. My dad and I had been fishing earlier in the day. We use to do that a lot.” He bites the inside of his cheek and rests his face against SC’s shoulder. “One moment I was with him… and the next he was gone. They brought me here.”

He lets out an almost bitter laugh.

“They told me I was a special child. They told me that they would help me change the world.”

He feels SC’s hand sliding through his pink hair.

“What child wouldn’t want to hear that?” Chem asks, “To believe their going on an adventure and to want to be needed?”

“Some adventure.” SC comments using a soft tone.

“Yeah.”

It’s quiet after that. The only thing being heard were soft hisses and cries of pain filtering in through the cracks in the wall.

“I’ll get you out of here, Chem. I promise. You don’t deserve to be treated like this.”

Chem thinks he must be falling asleep because SC’s voice is barely a whisper; something intimate and gentle, something Chem’s not use to hearing that much anymore.

He finds himself believing him.

-

This time when the door opens, Chem doesn’t close his eyes.

Standing there is a young woman with curly brown hair; glasses perched perfectly on her face. She’s wearing a police outfit and has a gun strapped to her thigh.

“It’s time to go, Chem.” Her voice is soft like feathers- has an airy, almost sing-song quality to it.

“Go? Go where?”

“Home.”

“Do I even have a home?”

“Of course you do. We all have a home, silly.” She smiles and offers her hand out to him.

Chem stares at it momentarily, before reaching out and taking it.

They walk down brightly lit hallways- door after door after door now vacant.

“What happened?”

“We rescued you.”

 -

When they leave the building, he’s met with paramedics and taken to the hospital.

One of them, he thinks, looks like SC, but the eyes, the demeanor is different.

He thinks he must have passed out during the trip, for he wakes up again, he’s hooked up to IVs and monitors, needles in him and wires coming out of him.

He feels his chest tighten, his heart rate spikes, his hands fly to his arms- trying to rip everything out.

No.

NO.

No more tests.

No more fucking tests!

Nurses and doctors are rushing in. They grab his arms and he struggles- he’s able to grab one arm free and punch one of the doctor’s in the face, but they grab it again. His voice comes out as a huge scream.

But then, SC is there.

He’s there.

SC’s there and moving Chem’s bangs out of his face. He’s whispering soft words to him that he’s unable to completely decipher, but just him being there is enough to calm him down.

-

The next time he wakes up, he isn’t alone.

SC is holding his hand and asleep with his head lying on the bed beside him.

He thinks that this is a new beginning for him.

He feels his chest swell with something like happiness.

-

He stops at the corner of the street with SC; their hands clasped tightly together. He finds himself listening to the old man playing a song.

“And there’s no room in this hell. There’s no room in the next…”

He can’t hear much of it, but just enough…to…

“…but does anyone notice…”

Sometimes when Chem looks around him, he’s back where he started.

darkness everywhere consuming him eating him alive becoming him

It makes him choke, makes him gasp for fresh air, and makes him wheeze out SC’s name.

When they force him to eat, his throat raw and bleeding, he thinks about how life must be outside this hell; normal people doing normal things, spending time with their families, making music and working and affection and the feel of a real kiss.

When they test him and hurt him and beat him, he fights back because he wants that; wants a life where he’s okay and normal and with SC and full of people who love him, people he can care about and people who care about him.

But, the day always ends the same…

He cries and clutches his bed sheets- closing his eyes tightly against the weight of the loneliness he feels.

It’s a devastating, crushing feeling.