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THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOVED
______THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOST
Private.
THE THINGS I'VE HELD SACRED
______________THAT I'VE DROPPED
_____ The house was burning. Misery was breathing, but just barely, drifting in and out of consciousness. Her blood was all over his hands. His horse was unsettled, snorting, eyes rolling. Corona was behind him and then there was a terrible noise, a noise he would never forget as long as he lived. The door gave way with a splintering crack and then Meth was on the ground screaming, writhing, her blind eyes burnt up and her skin dripping from her bones--
_____ Ahren woke with a start, panic fresh in his blood. He had not thought of that day since it occurred, but now he could smell her burning. Rising from the soft ground, he began walking along the road they had followed from what had been home. It was cold under his feet, and his toenails made faint noises as he moved. A glance over his shoulder showed him that from this distance he could still see his companions, though they were dark masses in the night.
_____ For a while longer, he walked in silence. Then, without any reason besides impulse, Ahren began to sing. “The space between, where you're smiling high, is where you'll find me if I get to go…” In the darkness, his voice was a quiet baritone, roughened from the smoke and the years. “The space between, the bullets in our firefight, is where I'll be hiding, waiting for you,” The red eyed man looked down at his feet, still a dark ash gray, and wondered how long he had been following the fading line in the road. “The rain that falls, splash in your heart, ran like sadness down the window into...the space between, our wicked lies, is where we hope to keep safe from pain.” Smiling faintly, hair falling into his face, he held out his scarred hand to an invisible companion. “Take my hand, 'cause we're walking out of here…”
I won't lie no more you can bet
I don't want to learn what I'll need to forget
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Perhaps it was strange that nothing greeted him there. Ghosts danced as they always did, but now, just out of reach. In their usual place was a dark and gaping void that echoed with no one's voices and quiet breathing. Even the laughter seemed to have taken a break from its endless rounds of cackles. He could feel the pressure and presence still lingering and flitting around the other corners of his head, but the only thing that was greeting him directly now was a solemn and profound silence. And he could not help but think that it was incredibly lonely.
Laruku woke up to nothing at all, unless a sudden absence should be a cause. He couldn't immediately see or smell or rely on any of his actual senses, but knew anyway. He stood, precariously and uncertainly, and stepped away from where he had been lying. The forest still smelt like strangers and a foreign land, like a dream, like something that wasn't real at all because the only reality he'd known was on the other side of the mountain. Ahren's scent was warm on the quiet dawn though, the only vaguely familiar thing he had now. And he followed it like a child.
The voice was strange and drifted through the trees like the fog used to. I've never you sing before, he said, gradually walking up to the other. And vaguely, he recalled that he used to sing too and had been told that he had a pretty voice. Oh well. You should do it more often.
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THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOVED
______THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOST
THE THINGS I'VE HELD SACRED
______________THAT I'VE DROPPED
_____ There was more to the song, but he was all too suddenly interrupted by the voice behind him. His eyesight was still poor, and he had realized at this point that his right eye was never going to be right again. His nose couldn’t make out anything past the smell of smoke and ash in his fur. He had not bathed yet. Only his eye had been cared for. Ahren’s concerns had laid with those he was with, not himself. That was the instinct of a father, and that was what he obeyed.
_____ Ahren turned and saw Laruku, wondered just how long he had been there, and frowned slightly. His eyes went down to the ground, as if ashamed of being caught doing such a thing. “I don’t like the sound of my voice,” he said. He sounded like the back roads of America that had been walked by only the furthest wayward travelers. He sounded like he had been born of flame and smoke, constructed in steel mills only to rust over time. He sounded like a preacher, a bar-hopping musician, an ex-opera member. Above all else though, he sounded as if despite all the terrible things he had seen, said, and done, he still had hope.
I won't lie no more you can bet
I don't want to learn what I'll need to forget
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I do, was his automatic answer, though he didn't really get a chance to think about it until the words were already there. A voice that could sing was a voice that could find the perfection in something, the music, the melody and the words. A song was a belief and a belief was something to hold on to, a light, a hope, a sliver of life in the neverending darkness. It was a sad little thing, ever trampled over, but it was there. For the hopeless, anyone's voice that could hold on long enough to carry a tune and remember the lyrics was something beautiful. It was the only thing around there that was.
Laruku stopped five feet away and looked off in the direction Ahren had been walking. An endless expanse of forest on all sides, as far as he could see. It wasn't home and never would be, but perhaps only because he was ever unwilling to let go, no matter how much nothing was left. What's the rest of the song?
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THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOVED
______THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOST
THE THINGS I'VE HELD SACRED
______________THAT I'VE DROPPED
_____ They were both very much alike. Laruku couldn’t let go and Ahren had wrestled with his own version of that problem for years. The only answer he had found was to never hold on in the first place. Instead he remained cautious, something that had come off as arrogance, and never let himself go. He had twice, and both times he had ended up in failure. Kaena was a failure. Matinee was a failure. He had let them go long after the wounds had healed. Scar tissue was stronger then flesh. Mab had told him that.
_____ Looking back up, Ahren studied Laruku’s scarred face as if he was a stranger. Then, as if accepting something, he shut his eyes and picked up where he had left off. “The space between what's wrong and right, is where you'll find me hiding, waiting for you,” His feet shifted on the cold ground, though he never once opened his eyes. “The space between, your heart and mine, is the space we'll fill with time...” Only when finished did he move his head, open his eyes, and look at his companion. He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t know what to say.
I won't lie no more you can bet
I don't want to learn what I'll need to forget
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Letting go had always been a difficult concept, but when the alternative was to simply have nothing at all, even the twisted and wretched past was preferrable. He had been faced with abandonment at an early age and from then on, he had spent his entire life watching everyone around him come and go. Of course he had never wanted to let himself go; of course he had always known that getting attached to anything would only hurt him to the end. Of course, of course. They were things he had always known and promises he had always meant to keep, but breaking his word was never as easy as it had been when the promises had been made to himself. All the same, some things just weren't meant to be controlled.
And to let go, even after all of these months and years, years was like giving up breathing because it had become such a prime part of himself that his mind was willing to tear itself apart rather than let any of it go. Even if he tried, nothing would ever be gone for good, so why not just accept and keep it there? And it was easier still, to think about what all had been than to think about what still could be because it was those what ifs that had gotten him in trouble in the first place, the little sliver of dare-to-hope that had wrecked havoc all around. Ahren's song filtered through his ears like sunshine through his eyes. It was turned upside down and projected an image of something he hated to think about. It was all the same.
Laruku shifted his haphazard gaze and watched the other watch him back. His chest felt tight. Why couldn't you leave me there? A valid question; there was no accusation in his voice, no anything, as usual. A captain was supposed to drown with his ship, after all.
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THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOVED
______THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOST
THE THINGS I'VE HELD SACRED
______________THAT I'VE DROPPED
_____ This was a phenomenon, and a remarkable one at that. Here two men (who might have been brothers) were caught in the terrible strings of wayward life. Existentials and middle-aged men often suffered these crises, though neither did so with finesse. They were supernova revenants, pieces from the death of a star. Beautiful but faulty, incomplete, once great not no longer whole. They wandered in quiet solitude through the darkness of the universe, never coming into contact with others until they were forced, crashing into strangers who became much more then that.
_____ He wanted to say many things, to that question. There was a dire need to explain, to justify, to defend. Instead, his voice was caught in his throat and his eyes darkened. Ahren had to look away. “I don’t know,” he lied. It was all he could do to survive.
I won't lie no more you can bet
I don't want to learn what I'll need to forget
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Despite the fact that he tried very hard to be, Laruku was not completely oblivious to everything around him. He could see the shied away expressions and understood, to some extent, the things said with the lack of words. After all, there had to have been something that built up to the warmth of one night, even if they wouldn't talk about it anymore. Even if they couldn't. And he might have been satisfied to ignore it if it didn't seem to keep coming up, if they could only stop seeing each other, being by one another, being together. A thousand things should send them apart, but there they remained, standing in the same space, breathing the same air. And why? Why did they try so hard so half-heartedly?
Ahren... But Laruku didn't know what to say either because words could provoke so easily, because words sometimes meant more than they should, and because he didn't think there was anything that hadn't already been said before. What was there to ask or want for an answer? It didn't really matter in the end, if they weren't going to do anything about anything, if they both felt safer with the status quo. Too bad it was just so goddamn lonely that way. The hybrid kept staring towards the other's injured eye; it had been his fault the first time too.
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THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOVED
______THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOST
THE THINGS I'VE HELD SACRED
______________THAT I'VE DROPPED
_____ The tone in which Laruku said his name made Ahren look up. He sounded desperate, he sounded sorry, he sounded exactly like they had. That worried him, for several reasons. If they got in too deep they would both drown, consumed by the need to maintain order, maintain safety, to protect everyone else from themselves. A chunk of his hair fell in his face, over the injured eye, and he wondered vaguely if what he was hearing himself say was at all what would come out.
_____ But his mouth stayed shut. His eyes betrayed everything.
I won't lie no more you can bet
I don't want to learn what I'll need to forget
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They were all desperate in their own ways, with their own needs. Most people's intersected at some point: they all reached out for attention, for meaning, for a reason to keep existing because sometimes, it was just so hard. They needed more than anything to be needed, to be wanted, to be loved for everything that they were. But everything always seemed to be more complicated than that; there were rules, proper ways to do things, and things were never as simple as they could be. After all, simple things were easier to ruin, and this way, there were a thousand things that could go wrong. And they all walked into it knowing that. Not anymore though, right? Not anymore. He wasn't allowed to walk any closer.
Their eyes were the same in too many ways, each pair stolen from a parent far away and with too much hereditary meaning. Words could tremble into nothing in their throats, but. Laruku had spent a long time already as a ghost, a zombie, a lifeless, emotionless thing that betrayed nothing at all. And maybe his exterior remained the same, but he could feel his heart in his chest and the heaviness in the back of his mind. The tattered male shared the other's maintained silence now though and it had become a conversation without words now. Words had always been inadequate.
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THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOVED
______THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOST
THE THINGS I'VE HELD SACRED
______________THAT I'VE DROPPED
_____ Misery’s god had been desperation. His name had been Tak, though Ahren couldn’t remember how he knew that. She lived in that state, struggling with the needs and wants of a sickness that came after great tragedy. The blonde coughed suddenly, feeling deep in his lungs the ache of smoke and waste. Brushing his hair back, Ahren’s arms moved without much thought and held onto one another, above his chest. The tattoo on this was fading, even now. It would never go away, but it was fading, like he was trying to disappear. Maybe, just maybe, he was.
_____ “Do you want to find them?” He asked, referencing the numerous cries they had heard over the past few days. People were out there—they were not alone in this wilderness. If they had been, perhaps things would have been different. Ahren didn’t know. He didn’t think he was strong enough to ever believe the things his heart told him.
I won't lie no more you can bet
I don't want to learn what I'll need to forget
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Someone was laughing at the question, but he ignored it. He had heard them, of course; the voices rang out from all over the forest and whatever lands lay beyond. They called for family and friends, for order and organization, for rebirth, rebuilding, and renewal. And he couldn't find the desire to answer any of them. At various points throughout each day, he would suddenly realize again that he was homeless and had no where he was supposed to be. He had come upon the idea many times already, but each time still seemed like a surprise. It was ironic that he seemed to be having such a hard time grappling with it considering how detached he had been from it all to begin with. Did he want to find them?
They don't need me anymore, he said simply, not really answering the question. Never did, really. They were mere statement of facts, facts that he had known and accepted for a long time already, but they made him feel hollow and useless anyway. Do you? Of course, Ahren had Jasper still with him, and Laruku wasn't sure if he had really been in contact with any of the rest of his family even before the fire. They had both been so isolated. What had really changed now?
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THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOVED
______THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOST
THE THINGS I'VE HELD SACRED
______________THAT I'VE DROPPED
_____ Ahren responded without hesitation. “No. I disappeared with Chimera,” he said, as if this explained everything. It had, but he was replacing cause with effect. The willingness to vanish had been intentional—he didn’t belong in their world anymore. Not with the scent of the ocean in his hair and Europe deep under his skin. Not while he stared out with demons in his eyes and bitterness in his heart. He lived for the here and now, and not what had been. Not anymore. All he had from the past were scars, a tattoo, and the necklace he had never taken off.
_____ “Do you remember anything from that night?” He asked suddenly, eyes downcast.
I won't lie no more you can bet
I don't want to learn what I'll need to forget
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To someone else, a stranger, it may not have been an explanation at all, but Laruku nodded. It was easy for him to understand because he was doing the same. Clouded Tears was dead and he was dead with it. It was what everyone was probably believing anyway and he was comfortable enough with that idea. As this new place became conquered and claimed, maybe they would find him and try to wrestle a reason why out of him, but until then, he didn't have to deal with... anything. Grim contentedness and the hollow feeling from before sat in the pit of his stomach. Life had become such an abstract concept; what was he supposed to do with anything now? Purposeless wanderers with no homes -- what to do, what to do?
The question caught him off guard and he flinched for one reason or another. Red eyes looked up, then down again, and he swallowed. Some of it, he said quietly, almost painfully. The hybrid didn't remember how, why, or who had started anything, or even the alcohol they must have had. But he remembered feeling better than he had in months, years; he remembered feeling wanted and safe and a thousand other stupid emotions that someone else had taken away from him. He remembered feeling good. And he remembered waking up and the thousand other emotions that he had never wanted in the first place and all of the regret and regret and regret. But god, he missed the warmth. He missed it, but he couldn't say it. Never again, they'd already promised. Never again.
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THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOVED
______THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOST
THE THINGS I'VE HELD SACRED
______________THAT I'VE DROPPED
_____ The blackouts, the white spaces, the sunspots in his memory were all there for one reason or another. Drink, drugs, self-protection. He had been living precariously for years and he knew the signs. His life was half erased for one reason or another and that was how it should have been. For over a year, he had drifted in and out of life like a dream. He remembered the ocean, and the girl with Africa in her blood dreading his hair. He remembered waking up in some town in Europe covered in blood. He remembered the heap, never the trigger, never what had been done only that something had changed. Why else could he suddenly do magic?
_____ Perhaps this ridiculous notion, unspoken, made his perception on reality change. Remarkably, the blonde began to laugh. He laughed boyishly, laughed without the cynical bite and the crow’s mockery he had carried for so long. He laughed the laugh of a towheaded young man going off to war, the laugh of a man who had discovered the greatest joy in the world. The truth had come, quietly, and it struck him like a battering ram. “Only when we lose everything are we free to do anything,” he said, smiling, as if this meant the world.
_____ Ahren de le Poer, whose existential crisis ended in a brilliant, blazing flash, extended his hand to the scarred man.
I won't lie no more you can bet
I don't want to learn what I'll need to forget
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He had spent his entire life going through hell. And now, with the entire other side of the mountain smoldering, maybe he truly had nothing to lose. But having been through something once didn't make it any easier the second time and it was hard enough to keep standing on his own without replaying his past back again. So staring at Ahren and watching him laugh, he felt like he could understand at least some of the notion, could appreciate it for what it was, but it didn't change the fact that he was paralyzed where he stood, tense and apprehensive.
They could do anything, but that didn't mean they wouldn't regret it again. Forgetting didn't make things better. Pretending didn't either. Laruku couldn't disconnect from his past without losing himself completely (that was what Ryoujoku was, wasn't it?). The hybrid was looking at the offered hand sadly but didn't know what to do. Are we? he wondered in the same soft voice. What does free mean here? They could do whatever they wanted and there was nothing to stop them or punish them afterwards but themselves. There was always themselves, and Laruku was terrified of that.
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THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOVED
______THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOST
THE THINGS I'VE HELD SACRED
______________THAT I'VE DROPPED
_____ Being absolutely free meant that there was nothing to lose. Ahren could have preached his existentialism till he fell down dead from exhaustion but he doubted it would matter. If Laruku understood then he would. If he was still chained to things that no longer mattered then he had resigned himself to fate. The scarred man looked as if he was caught in that terrible squirrel-cage of self doubt, and Ahren heard him like a ghost from a dream.
_____ He didn’t think, he just moved. He grabbed Laruku’s hand, eyes burning into his skull. “It means nothing matters. What happened there,” he gestured wildly towards the mountain behind them. “, it’s all gone. It burnt up and we’ve got nothing left.” Even now, in the starlight, it was clear his right eye was going bad. It was going bad faster then he wanted to admit. “Don’t you get it? You’ve got nothing left to lose.”
I won't lie no more you can bet
I don't want to learn what I'll need to forget
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It was a nice idea, really, and the cynicism must have burned deep for him to be standing against it now when the other man seemed so excited. There was always something left. It didn't matter if all of the physical evidence evaporated with time or that the setting of their entire past had burned up behind them -- residual memories never left and the sharp pain of previous mistakes never really healed. Even when scars roughed over and he couldn't feel them anymore; they were there. And there was always something left to lose. Laruku flinched again at the touch (it was so unnatural), but smiled, though it was a weak and sad smile (any other smile did not belong to him). I do, he replied, looking at Ahren's bad eye.
The rest of my head. And the rest of his heart -- the blackened and broken shards of his neglected heart that he often claimed no longer really existed. But it had to still be there because he could feel it in his chest, thundering along wildly even while he stood shock still. His tail twitched and he was restless. This was too much deja vu; this was too much like other conversations he thought he could remember. What do you really want, Ahren? What are you going to now that you have nothing to lose? It was a lie. They would always have themselves to lose.
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THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOVED
______THE THINGS THAT I'VE LOST
THE THINGS I'VE HELD SACRED
______________THAT I'VE DROPPED
_____ He wanted to grab him and scream. Nihilist, you believe in nothing, it’s meaningless, he would cry, he would struggle to explain and hit brick walls. The longer he struggled against those walls the more his hands would bleed, but the wall could crumble, the wall could fall. Ahren could never live without having the ability to completely abandon himself. Of course, he did not know of the thing that lived within him, the thing that could have been himself so long ago. Perhaps, just like Laruku’s demon, that was the only explanation.
_____ For a long time, Ahren stared at Laruku, contemplating his answer. “To live,” he said simply, as if this meant everything. His scarred palm, XII, held onto his companion’s hand even now. He cared about him, and he cared about Jasper, Poe, Anathra—the lost children of the forgotten places of the earth.
I won't lie no more you can bet
I don't want to learn what I'll need to forget
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To live. What was it to live? Was it more than just breathing and more than just waking up every morning and going to sleep every night. Life was an endless routine of wanting and pursuing and chasing after what you wanted, so when you wanted nothing... or convinced yourself that you wanted nothing, then there lay the nihlist because nothing mattered. Most of the time, he had honestly come to believe that there was nothing that he wanted (liar, he'd been called before). Other times, he simply cowered in his corner, afraid of chasing anything down because it would turn around and bite him back and tear him apart from the inside. The air around them was cold and Ahren's hand was warm. Laruku wanted to disappear into that warmth.
How? The hybrid would not be the first to admit anything this time, could not, perhaps because the thoughts in his head had yet to settle yet. He knew he cared about Ahren; they had a lot of history together and the blonde, even now, had been his only friend for a very, very long time. But beyond that? SURROGATE, cried the cackling laugh, nothing but a replacement for someone that was long gone because coincidence made it too easy and his heart was chained in the past. He couldn't tell the feelings apart anymore and couldn't trust himself to even try. He was a liar so he just didn't say anything at all.
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