#songspark

It hits you in the middle of a song how beautiful his eyelashes are.

The music thuds around you and you can barely hear your own thoughts competing with the collectively shrill voice of over a thousand patrons who are very excited to be where you are. The night air brushes cold fingers on your own palms despite the leather jacket hugging you warm and soft from your shoulders to your wrists. He’s not looking at you, but his twiggy tree branch of a hand rests on your head like you’re five and he’s much older, which is probably what the people behind you suspect. The stage lights are scanning the crowd without any real direction. Illuminated faces with open mouths and sparkling eyes strike you as poetic, especially given the potent aroma of cigarette smoke that sticks to the jacket’s cloth interior.

You reach up and grab his fingers in your own.

His head swivels at that, and he takes a moment to look at the expanse of the crowd before lowering his gaze to yours. Your veins hum with a sudden adrenaline that revs like the depressed gas pedal in a stationary car. His eyelashes catch the piercing glare of one of the wandering floodlights and illuminate like thin feathers. Your fingers itch for his cheekbones. A concert would be a fitting place for a first kiss, even if you were sharing the experience with several hundred others. His fingers squeeze yours.

His hands are cold.

You start to shrug his jacket off. He stops you and you see his next puff of breath in the air between you, so you keep taking it off anyway. He folds it over his arm when you hand it to him. Your scowl crunches delightfully against the sparkle his smile and once again your fingertips yearn for his cheekbones. They press a gentle shadow down his face and briefly you regret your decision not to take any art classes in school.

English had been your forte, but even words have their limits at times.

He looks away from you a moment later, his attention drawn to the stage. You’d look too, if you could see anything beyond the shoulders and hips of the other patrons. But you can’t. You take a step closer to him and gently tug on the hem of his shirt. He’s been eating lately, and the weight he’s gained takes away some of the embarrassment or guilt for what you ask him to do.

His arms are cold, too.

At least you’re able to see now. The lights on the stage flash like they’re trying to impress the stars on high, and you turn away from their intensity. He’s looking at you, and at this height he probably has sufficient illumination to see your cheeks, rosy from the cold. You do the logical thing and smile, and so does he. His chest is warm beneath his shirt and you allow yourself to relax a little and maybe even rest your head on his shoulder. His muscles do not tremble with your weight and he even begins to sway gently back and forth.

If you ever have a daughter, you’ll name her Delilah.

Another song begins much more slowly than the previous one. Around you, voices hum in varied tones of the same pitch. The sound reverberates through your body when Marquis hums with them. The words of the chorus are lost as small, punctuated clouds into the night and nothing has ever looked so peaceful. You raise your head, to see if there are other clouds from other people, or if it’s only just gotten cold for the two of you. He whispers something to you when you look away. It brushes thin strands of your hair into your ear and you rub your head against your shoulder to get rid of the itch. Still, you hear what he says underneath the breath-quiet consonants and violin-stroke voices of everyone around you. You smile.

If we’re being completely honest here, the first time you meet him he scares the shit out of you.

You don’t know he’s a person at first because you only see him from the back, which affords a nice view of a clean-pressed suit and an eerily white head. When he turns, you nearly drop your camera because the face you were expecting isn’t there, but it’s the dog at his side that gives him away. Or perhaps makes the whole thing worse because it does that… mouth thing. That creepy dog smile you saw on /b/ a while back and has secretly bothered you ever since. Still, you’re quite certain that this guy is a human, albeit a really tall one. He doesn’t move while you snap one picture and then another, in case the lighting is shit, which you can already tell it’s going to be.

You flash him a thumbs up before trotting away.

You weren’t expecting it, but your stomach hums excitedly for the rest of the night. Someone was dressed as slenderman. On Halloween. In your neighborhood. You won’t admit to the tiny shriek you let yourself make, but you’re pretty sure you pissed off the neighbor’s dog. The rest of the night is spent looking for that person because you’d quickly embellished them in your mind’s eye until they were just too perfect to handle. You call your mother to tell her you're staying out later than planned, and she doesn’t sound too worried when you explain why. She even offers to drive you around to look for him, but you tell her that you can’t just do that. You have to find him on your own. It has to be on accident.

It has to be fate like these weird butterflies in your stomach.

You do find him again, closer to eleven. It’s the dog you spot first and this time you venture close enough to hear her panting. He’s stopped under a streetlight, and the presence he’s holding makes you shiver.  Clearly he’s perfect to play this role and he knows it and is milking it for all its worth. His back is turned from you, so you let yourself survey his form through the viewfinder in your camera. He’s impossibly slim and intimidatingly tall, and yet you don’t feel afraid at all. For all his cool, you find yourself wishing that he might be a girl or someone else willing to talk to you, but looking back on it that was a silly wish. You remember thinking that it probably wasn’t even a true crush. At the time you’d seen him for less than ten minutes total that entire night, but hey, a boy can dream.

In the memory, dream you do, because holy shit the mask is coming off.

Clearly this person thinks that he’s alone on the street, and to preserve that illusion you quickly dart behind a nearby tree. He’s going to see you if he puts any effort into it at all, but you’re in luck because he doesn’t. He just leans against the lamp post and tugs off the headpiece of what is probably a morphsuit.

The bottom of your stomach drops out.

You know that boy. He’s in your biology class and he’s usually the only one to laugh when you bring up a bit of creepypasta or something you saw online. You can’t stifle a gasp because really, you’re more surprised than you have any right to be. The dog hears you and growls in your direction, but he shushes her and she wags her tail. God, he’s cute. You’ve never even thought a boy was cute before but this is probably the weirdest night of your life so far and the swamp puddle of feelings you don’t quite understand is brewing in the pit of your stomach. It only gets worse when he calls to you.

“You can come out, you know. I don’t bite that hard.”

Why did you think about the implications behind that statement. You don’t mean to. You never would’ve before, but still you step out from behind the tree. You are suddenly very grateful for your camera. Holding it keeps your hands from shaking when he grins at you. His dog does the same. It’s still freaky, but you approach him anyway.

“Uhm, hi.”

It’s the lamest thing you could possibly ever say. If you were scriptwriting, you’d strike it and take a break because clearly you’re not in the right mind to create acceptable dialogue, but this is real life and he’s kind of sweaty from the costume and you literally cannot stop ogling his body in that suit. He notices, apparently, and chuckles in a way you’d never thought you’d hear ever. It’s a husky kind of laugh, but it still manages to be breathy and holy fuck are you in a movie you think you are in a movie

“I’m Ryan.”

He stretches his hand out to you like a goddamn tree branch and you hope to god that he can’t tell how sweaty your own palm is.

“Casey. My name is Casey.”

You’re going to beat yourself up later and get Mariella to teach you how to interact with people because you clearly cannot be trusted on your own. You don’t know why Ryan is smiling, but he is and his eyes look pretty in the streetlight and it suddenly hits you like a freight train how alone the two of you are. Your breath hitches a little when you think about it. Anything could happen, even if that entire sentiment is a crock of shit because you’re a freshman in high school and this kid could very well turn out to be a serial killer.

Your phone rings at that moment and you nearly jump out of your skin.

Ryan’s smile turns to a grin and he motions for you to take the call. Clearly the boy is used to having others stare at him because the blush burning your cheeks doesn’t put him off. You have to force yourself to turn away from him to answer the phone. It’s your mother. She wants you home. A quick glance at the street sign says you’re only about a block from your house, so you tell her you’re on your way. She hangs up.

Ryan is looking at you when you turn around.

“I have to go,” you manage despite your own incompetence.

“So I gathered,” He pushes off the streetlight and it occurs to you that you were what was keeping him here. “It was fun, Casey, all five words we exchanged.”

“Ha, yeah,” You take a moment to gather your courage for what you’re about to do. “Would you mind if I got your picture? I mean, without the mask.”

When he consents, you have trouble remembering how to focus your camera. You remember it’s on autofocus. You literally only have to push one button. Your heart is beating too fast for this. You barely even look at the picture you get, at this point you just want to go home and breathe again. You thank Ryan for his kindness and he reaches out to fist bump you. Somehow, you manage to complete the action successfully and leave him under the streetlight as you walk home, shamefully becoming aware of the fact that you’re turned on.

You make it to your room unscathed and indulge in some screaming into a pillow.

Only after a thorough bout of self-shame and dear-god-I’m-the-scum-of-the-earth do you remember to actually look at that last picture you took. It upends your stomach and you nearly throw up right there. The lighting is somehow perfect because you can see it glinting in his eyes and every little hair that’s messed up by the costume is lit up in a florescent halo. His mouth is in a perfect smirk and you can already tell that you’re going to be looking at this picture a lot. You feel warm inside, and the butterflies seem to have multiplied. This is just some boy from school, not the next Greek god or anything. It’s embarrassing how much he affects you.

The first time you met him, you were both in a hospital and you were thinner than he was.

From what you’d heard from the orderlies, though, it seemed like he was trying to achieve the opposite. You remember telling Lacie that he had his work cut out for him, and her being who she was, she laughed with you. You never thought you’d see him after the regulation three weeks of observation. He looked like a pretty smart guy and unfortunately, smart guys didn’t stay long in places like this.

This observation was disproven when you saw him with a copy of Nietzsche’s theories the next day.

Your sigh of disgust was apparently audible from the hallway, because he stopped and poked his head into your room. Lacie had been out in rounds that day, so you were the lone culprit. Still, he didn’t look much like the confrontational type and you were able to shoo him out with a raised eyebrow. He took the opportunity to peek in what he probably thought was a covert fashion into your room every time he passed it for the rest of the day.

Lacie said his name was Marquis.

You’d scoffed at first. What kind of a name was Marquis? A dumb one. Especially since he liked Nietzsche. He had so much promise that first day that it just made you tired to think that you lost a friend before you’d even made one.

The first week of his stay proved you wrong yet again.

One day during lunch, in one of your growing-more-common naps you woke up to see a skeleton of a boy trying to spit up half-digested food into your trash can. You’d laughed at the time and he nearly choked. It was one of the more cunning plans, really. You weren’t all that good at keeping your food down lately either, but vomit in your trashcan was hardly a punishable offense. You felt you had a right to talk to him after that and found him to be quite charming. He seemed nervous at first, and near constantly he picked at his cuticles, but you liked the quiet sadness in his eyes and the wit that he let bite you every now and again. He said he didn’t actually like Nietzsche.

Soon, he became a regular presence in your room.

You saw that he kept his food down in the following weeks. He wasn’t happy about it at first, but you quickly learned that a cough or any projected feeble condition from you could get him to walk across coals, despite irregular but frequent visits from a well-muscled boy who looked like he only wore pants as an excuse to take them off. Still, the first time Marquis left, you made him promise not to come back here, but to keep in touch.

He didn’t look like the sort of boy to keep promises.

He was back within two months, and you weren’t doing much better. This time he looked worse than when you’d originally met him, though he was still happy to see you. You don’t like to admit that you’d missed him as much as you did, even if he did call you once a week from outside. You were used to being a greedy noble in a world where time was luxury commodity and soaking up his words like a sponge had become your favorite pastime.

This time he stayed four and a half weeks, and began to visit you once he left.

At one point, he came to see you nearly every day, but you saw him checking his phone for texts and he kept talking about this new boy. Delwyn was his name. At first you envied the new boy, but it began to pass. You were getting pretty damn wise in those months. It was good for him to choose someone healthier than you to place his affections with. You were just happy that he was happy, and for a time he stopping calling or coming to see you. It continued to where you thought he wasn’t coming back, which was excellent news, you knew. Even if it hurt.

Especially if it hurt.

The nurses noticed your change in mood and tried to console you with every tired line for every girl with a broken heart. ‘Don’t be sad that it’s over, be happy that it happened’ was a favorite. It didn’t help that he left that Nietzsche book this time. Lacie put it on your nightstand, where it remained and remains. You refused to touch it, but it was nice to know it was there even while he wasn’t.

The last time you saw him, he was thinner than you were.

There was a lot of sappy crying because you didn’t feel like wearing your wig those days and it had never occurred to him to ask why you were in the hospital in the first place. Your voice was going by that point too, so it got harder to keep up with debates about philosophical tendencies or shitty movies. You took to just listening to him talk about things for hours. You felt a guilty pleasure when you noticed that he never spoke Delwyn’s name anymore, and no one came to visit him save his father and mother. They were nice people, what little you saw of them from your room. He said he wanted to introduce them to you, but you were too tired to see them when they did come. Then again, you were so tired all the damn time at that point.

You woke up to him holding your hand a lot.

Your mom and dad and brother all met Marquis suddenly one day. You usually cleared him out before they got there, just so they wouldn’t have to worry about boys and think about you never dating, but one time you just slept through it all and when you got up they were all talking like old friends. Your mother invited him over for dinner whenever he got out of the hospital and he looked you in the eyes when he promised to eat it.

Your laugh sounded like a broken whoopee cushion, and he laughed too, but only at your voice.

After that you had to wear an oxygen mask most of the time and it made you look even worse. Marquis held the bucket when you vomited and rubbed what stubbly hair was still on your head. You’re pretty sure that you loved him by that point, and it was around then that you both were small enough to share the bed. The nurses didn’t like it, but Lacie had enough guts to keep them at bay. Who was going to deny you what you wanted? It was a sick kind of power that was wasted on you. You only wanted Marquis then.

And maybe more time.

But only one of those things was granted, and you wish it could’ve been in a better way for him. When you woke up that day, you knew you weren’t going to again. Which was okay, you were surprised you’d made it this far. You could feel your demise in your bones and blood – which were the chief problem areas – and you could see it on the doctors’ faces and your mother’s face when she came in for her lunch break. You told her that you loved her and would wait until she got everyone to come after dinner to say goodbye. She told you not to talk like that. You’re pretty sure that your smile did not help her. Marquis came in after she left and clambered into your bed. You could see that he’d been crying and you told him how stupid that was, but it broke your heart because he didn’t respond. He only hugged you to his rib cage and shuddered like it was so cold here that he could never be warm again. You mustered up the energy to talk to him about things and life and eventually chess. Of all things you argued about chess. It was a wonderful afternoon that made you feel the best kind of tired you’d felt in a long time.

You told him you loved him.

It was a moment of glory for teenage hormones everywhere when he reached over and kissed you. He left a bruise where he cupped your cheek. You asked if it made you kinky because you liked it. That made him smile. You really did like it, though. Now everyone would see the physical representation of the culmination of your relationship, because you were getting more action than some kids outside these linoleum floors and white walls.

When your family arrived, Marquis did not leave, but you did.

You took pride in the orderliness of it. Your dad bawled like a baby, but what did you expect from a man the size of a bear with a precious little girl not yet fifteen. Your brother, Casey, valiantly tried to keep it together, and mostly did right up until you told him he could have all your makeup. Then he lost it and had to go sit in a bathroom because he couldn’t even look at your matchstick body in Marquis’ toothpick arms. Your mom didn’t cry, and you were so, so proud of her for that. You gave her a fistbump that resulted in bruised knuckles for you even though she couldn’t have knocked over a butterfly with the amount of force she used. She nearly cried too. Lacie was technically out on rounds, but she popped in long enough to tell you how cool you were and did not understand why you groaned when she said you inspired her to read Nietzsche.

It made Marquis laugh like sunshine.

You kissed him a lot after that, even with your family there. You wanted to be every kind of tired now that everything was squared away. You made him promise to keep eating after you left, because not just anyone could look after his pale, bony ass. He was crying when he did. You’re pretty sure ‘alright’ was a lame last word as far being profound went, but not everyone could die in a Hollywood movie. It didn’t hurt, but you knew it wouldn’t. It was peaceful and easy, especially with them all there and loving you. The hospital and the world kept ticking around your still heart and body, and your black blood was finally let to halt. All in all, it had been a pretty good run for a teenage girl with leukemia. Given a choice you wouldn’t have changed much, you had Marquis by the end of it.

The highway stretches out before you like the ending credits to some triumphant summer blockbuster, and from the tip of your pixie cut to the motorcycle leaning behind you it is clear that you were the unlikely tragic protagonist. Cars whiz by your spot on the shoulder with dizzying speed, but you don’t worry about a collision like you used to. This time you only notice the way your cigarette smoke dances as it’s ripped by the moving air. You idly remember how your parents weren’t thrilled when you picked up smoking. The look on your father’s face when he first caught you in the middle of the drag was nearly as painful as the absence of a reprimand afterwards. You recall the punch in the stomach it had given you when you realized that that guilt made you want another cigarette, and you breathe deeply on the one currently between your fingers. You hadn’t intended for it to become this much of a habit, but everyone has their own ways of coping with loss and really, there’s no one left to stop you.

There is no comfort in that realization.

You stamp out the smoking tobacco under the heel of one thick combat boot. You’d bought these shortly after the funeral because you needed to feel strong and they clunked dangerously against the pavement when you walked. Most of your wardrobe had changed, for that matter. Old-timey button-up shirts that were much too big for you were suddenly your thing, even if you couldn’t look at a sleek vest yet without itching to make some bad decisions. You debate lighting another cigarette at that memory.

You don’t.

When you straddle the motorcycle, your feet only barely touch the kick-lever and you’ve got to awkwardly maneuver and stomp on it to compensate for your short legs. It spits and roars when you get it woken up and it’s only through years of dance that have the leg strength to hold it standing and revving before it moves slowly forward. The dealership was hesitant to sell it to you on account of your size. It was a reasonable caution, honestly. Most people just under an even five feet can’t ride a motorcycle safely through no fault but their own genetics. But cash money can be surprisingly convincing, as you’ve recently learned, and their concerns evaporated from their arguments but remained in their eyes as you pulled clumsily away that first time.

You’ve gotten better since then.

You lean forward over the bike and it’s comforting to feel the hum of the engine warm beneath you. The movement pushes the collar of the leather jacket that you took on impulse against your cheek. You put on the speed and just before your breath is lost in the wind ripping past you, you inhale sharply against the collar of the coat that doesn’t quite fit you, even after it’s been tailored. His smell is just enough to make your heart hurt as you push the bike to go faster. You merge into traffic by darting around a minivan with a trailer attached and weaving past a Volvo a moment later. Neither driver is happy, but it’s difficult to hear any honking over the air in your ears. You don’t really care, anyway. It’s been difficult to care about much as of late. The jacket flaps against your sides at this speed but not hard enough to sting. Yet. You know you’re doing his memory a disservice by losing yourself like this. By running away. But everyone has their own way of coping with loss, and even if you keep him close with old leather jackets and certain teas and a worn pocket watch on a necklace chain pressed to your skin

The first time that you find him at your doorstep, you’re worried and surprised.

His skin is pale and his forehead is slightly damp. He looks at you with eyes ringed with sleepless bruises and dehydration. Your knees tremble slightly, hidden in cotton pajama cloth, but you take his hand and pull him in anyway, like he’s a weak kite that’s just on the edge of breaking in a strong wind. You lead him to your family room in the basement and seat him on the floor. His breathing rattles less in the darkness, and that provides some level of comfort. His legs fold like two bundles of twigs crossed over each other and he has never looked as fragile as he does right now. You tell him to breathe and remind yourself to take your own advice as you ascend the basement steps in search of blankets.

You find them and a few pillows to spare.

When you return to him, his eyes are closed and his head hangs like he’s lost all energy to keep it up for another second. That’s okay, you decide. He’s never had to be strong for you. You make him a nest on the floor nearby and reach to pull him to it. His head snaps towards you like a frightened animal and you nearly flinch for the fear in his eyes, but you don’t. You squeeze his shoulder and pull on the fabric of his shirt again gently. He slowly relaxes and comes out of whatever trance he was just in, slowly processing that he is not where he thought he was. Shakily, he crawls the few feet to the makeshift bed and collapses into it like Atlas in old age.

You are reminded of how much you detest Ayn Rand by your own simile.

He doesn’t notice you sneaking upstairs to get a bottle of water and a hot rag, or else he doesn’t care. You turn on a soft lamp in the back corner of the basement when you return, just so you can see. His skin shines mutedly in its sheen of sweat and it bothers you that he only resists a little when you reach to pull his shirt off. You swallow a gasp and push the air down to your gut to fan a slow burn that has just been struck by the glitter of the silver lines across his back. You look up to see one rain-storm eye looking at you sideways before closing again.

You hold your tongue.

You’re not quite sure if he appreciates the hot rag on his skin, but it has to be better than the chills the sweat would give him. At least, that’s what you tell yourself. You are so very, very gentle with him that you can tell that he’s going to protest the treatment later if he remembers. The way his ribs jut out in sharpshadow definition in the dim light makes your stomach rock unpleasantly and the faint lines of scar tissue criss-crossing his back do not help at all. His breathing is quiet now, but deep. You’re nearly positive he’s asleep so you reach out to trace the raised skin with fingers thin and pale as birch branches. He turns over onto his back just before you touch him and holds onto your wrist too tightly. His motion was swifter than you thought possible in his condition, but his eyes are clear when he stares you down. In apology, he cups your cheek and the smile he fails to give you runs a knife between your ribs. He wipes away a tear from your cheek.

Apparently you’d been crying.

You want to hold him. You want to crush him in your tiny arms so he will never hurt like this again. You want to yell at him. You want to rip his every argument to shreds in his hands and get him help. You want to destroy the person who did this to him, and you already know who it was by the look in his eyes. You want to get him to a hospital right now before this can get worse, because you know in your bones that it will. You want to run away with him, far from this place. A small, dark part of you wants very much to kiss him here with his bruises and cuts and bad decisions.

You do none of these things.

Instead, you smooth the hair from his forehead and place the rag in its place. You open the water bottle and make sure he drinks at least half of it before you let him lie down again. You lock the basement door and tell him to go to sleep here, that you’ll wake him later. You cover him with another blanket and pet his hair until his breathing evens out and keep stroking it even as he slumbers. You reluctantly plan for the next time that this will happen. You do not cry when he tries again to smile, just before truly drifting off. You do not call your mother, even though you suddenly desperately want to. You do not think about what happened to him last night. You do not lie down next to him.