IRAF Fic 7: Sunshine and Butterflies [Crazy-- Ray Lamontagne]
Seventh part of IRAF. :)
Title: Sunshine and Butterflies
Featuring:Crazy- Ray Lamontagne
Rating: PG
Release Date: June 20, 2007
Word Count: 2,365
Genre: Monologue
Read Only Version
Stfuiswearimnotscrewingwithcanon.
I did say at some point that I was going to do an Ichigo 1st person pov. Well I wasn't kidding. Here it is. Ichigo's pov is fun to write when you have writer's block and can't spin pretty words. For me, fanfiction in 1st person pov is a little taboo. But this is an IchiRuki Anthology FST. Which means it won't be complete without a first person POV. If I could survive an AU fic, I can survive anything. So now we're back to angst, hurrah for me. But it's Ichigo!angst, and Ichigo!angst doesn't qualify as real angst. While writing, I realized the extend of how much of a jerk, albeit endearing, he can really be. SoDanielle says it makes her want to punch him in the face, which is what Rukia does. A lot. So maybe this can give you a feel of how Rukia feels about Ichigo as well as vice versa?
Oh, by the way, we all see their SS parting scene and think "aww, Ichigo, you so good you". Well while I agree that he's happy while Rukia's happy, I'll be damned if he wasn't at least a little bit sad and angry about it. More angry than sad though, because that's how Ichigo acts sad, by being angry. Poor misguided soul.
This is the same Crazy that Gnarls Barkley sings. Except it's acoustic. I love GB's version because it's trippy, upbeat, but so, so sad at the same time. However, I think this version fits this fic better. Ray Lamontagne sings this song so unbelievably well that it breaks my heart listening to it. Every time.
♥
Jazzy
PS. <3s to all the betas that filtered this. The verb tense was horrible because I never quite figured out when this is taking place, but hopefully it's better now.
PPS. I take literary quotes that I like and sneak them in my fics. Gearwheel, for example, has a Faulkner line that I borrowed. There's one here, too. Not by Faulkner. If you can find it, I'll write you a drabble in the final project release. :D
I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind
There was something so pleasant about that place.
Even your emotions had an echo in so much space
I wonder how many ways there are to protect people.
In the beginning, there was one: Fighting.
It took me a while to catch on, runt of a kid that I was. I wonder if it’s typical of kids to want everything to be sunshine and butterflies. I had sunshine; that was sure. My childhood was filled with her, bright and brilliant and so damn warm. She was my sunshine.
Should’ve been appreciative, right? I suppose I was. But not nearly enough.
I lost her, you know. They say that the sun doesn’t shine forever, and I believe them-who ever the hell they are. I sure didn’t believe them back then. A star that bright just doesn’t fade away, right?
It doesn’t, really-not unless an idiotic little snot comes along and kills her by being a… well, idiot.
I wasn’t able to protect the sunshine in my life. It took something awful for me to finally admit that to myself. Later, with Karin and Yuzu crying, with my old man turning from a loony nutcase into a full out maniac, when I was older, I realized that she was the sunshine in other people’s lives as well. And boy did that make me feel like a gigantic jerk.
Ichigo, I told myself, you’re not allowed to be weak anymore, you little shit.
And when you're out there without care,
Yeah, I was out of touch
But it wasn't because I didn't know enough, I just knew too much
That’s when I started fighting.
It started first with my old man. He liked it though, the crazy nut, said something about being so proud that his little girl was finally turning into a little boy. I had his face grinding into the ground when it was over. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some sort of loser that goes around abusing his old man. But that guy’s fucking merciless, always sprouting up in random places telling me watch your back and you’re oooooopen, Iiiiiiichigooo before mounting a blow at me.
And then there were punks at school.
I never picked the fights there, cross my heart and hope to die and all that shit. You probably don’t believe me, and I bet it’s cause of the hair, huh?
It’s alright, no one else believed me either. That was why they always wanted to rough me up, ‘cause apparently I was such a goddamn rebel. I don’t know who it sucked more for, me or them.
To tell you the truth, and it’d make Kenpachi cry, what with all his talk about us being the same or something crazy like that, I’m a bit of a pacifist. I had more pride in it way back when I was still being beaten up by Tatsuki in karate class, but now, I try to keep it a secret.
I don’t feel like much has changed in terms of fighting. From ass-kicking chicks with fists of steel to crazy souls with swords, who would’ve thought?
Well, I guess some things have changed.
For one, I’m not just fighting to keep an overly aggressive old man off my neck, or stupid thugs that can’t pull punches worth an ounce of salt off my back, not anymore.
Those fights are the annoying kind after you figure out that there is no way in hell that they’re going to beat you. It’s even worse when they refuse to acknowledge that fact. Because that meant they’d come after you, again and again. Never mind their hospital bills or your level of tolerance.
Now I fight a lot of things, first beastly animal things with holes in their chests, then Shinigami with their dingy little swords, and now some hybrid it-child fathered by the former two.
It makes me afraid to think about reality sometimes, reality and time, because there’s no way I can do so without realizing that I’m fucking crazy.
Does that make me crazy? Probably
I’m human, you know? Well, at least I think I’m still human. Anyway, the thing is that I was raised a human and no matter what Soul Society stuff I do or how long I do it, a part of me will always wonder if I’ll wake up one day in a room with white, cushy walls, in a straitjacket, surrounded by masked people and syringes.
That’d be a pretty shitty way to wake up, if you ask me.
And I hope that you are having the time of your life
But think twice, that's my only advice
And then I would turn my head, would see the closet, and would have to acknowledge her.
It looked really, really bad, having a girl in my closet.
It sounded even worse, trust me.
I would think about her and then I would have to admit to myself that all this crazy shit that I’d been going through was real. Her existence alone forbade any denial on my behalf. Typical of her, but annoying as hell.
She was my connection between Soul Society and the real world, always walking around with that cellphone-that-isn’t-really-a-cellphone and telling me to get that Hollow, Ichigo and save that old woman, Ichigo and how do you open this ramune bottle, Ichigo?
I wish I could say that she was a product of my LSD trips, but I can’t, because I’ve never had an LSD trip.
Come on now, who do you think you are,
Hahaha, bless your soul, you really think you're in control?
There is something about her though, this girl. I mean, she talks like a fucking man, even Tatsuki isn’t that hostile. She goes around bossing me around, kicking me around, dragging my soul out of my body to do her stupid work. I’d like to know, sometimes, what I’d done wrong, this life or the last life or the next, to have merited this enslavement a la girl-who-lives-in-my-closet.
Never gonna get used to that, I swear.
There are other sides to her though, and it makes me wonder if all the loud and obnoxious ways she is with me is just a façade.
Like when it rains.
We never argued when it rained. It was really weird. I guess it could be just me though, you know? I’d never been a big fan of rain myself. Rain is when the sun dies and the sky starts crying. It’s depressing as hell. So when it rained, I liked to turn up the music really, really loud and read a book or watch the television to help me stop thinking.
Rainy days aren’t thinking days and I’m never in the mood to start a fight then.
Funny thing is, though, that she didn’t like fighting on those days either. We’d be talking, something would happen and the familiar tensions of a fight would start to well up, and then we would take a look at each other and turn away.
At that point, I would usually ignore her and would rummage through my CDs to find something nice and loud for my CD-player.
That was one thing we didn’t share.
She hated loud music during the rain; any other day would be fine. Almost fought with me about it too, on a rainy day no less, but she didn’t. Instead she had opened the window to spend the night on the roof. Outside.
What the hell.
What would people think if they saw a girl sleeping on my stupid roof, in the rain no less? Had to call her in, apologize, dry her up and use my CD player instead.
Life really sucks when you’re a guy. Whoever created chivalry needs to be shot in the face.
Well, I think you're crazy, just like me
I snuck a glance at her once we had settled down. She had been next to the window with her head on her hands, face so close to the glass that the drops must’ve sounded like a fucking stampede. You’d think she loved the rain, but all you had to do was look at her face.
Fuck, man, and I had thought that I was depressed. You’d think that the sun died every time it rained for her, too. I don’t know how she stands it, being so close to something like that. It was like she wanted it to hurt, wanted to remind herself about some ancient pain or something shitty like that.
Seeing her on days like this reminds me that I wasn’t the only one that was screwed up in the head.
My heroes had the heart to lose their lives out on a limb
And all I remember is thinking, I want to be like them.
Now that I think of it, most of my fights that I’ve fought, I’ve done it for her sake.
It’s only right though, I guess, since she was the one that caused me to unleash all this power. Running around and fighting Hollows, it was almost liberating in a way. Maybe I was just being the delinquent everyone had thought I was, but running around swinging big-ass swords at monsters in public. It was kind of cool.
When she had gone back to Soul Society-well, when she had left through that portal with her brother and that visor-wearing fuck-all I could think about was that stupid look on her face she had on every time it rained.
It had been raining that night too, hadn’t it?
Oh hell, that was just as well. Now every time it rained, she would have to remember me dying like a pathetic slab of meat on the floor, and I would have to remember that disgusting look on her face before she left, crying.
Bad blood, man. That was just bad blood.
So as I had lain on the ground, I vowed that if I survived, that is, if I survived this, I’d go and drag her back here, so that… so that there’d be something better to remember about rainy days, because… because otherwise that’d be just fucking depressing. And we don’t need any more sadness in our lives, neither of us.
Ever since I was little, ever since I was little it looked like fun
And it's no coincidence I've come and I can die when I'm done
I’ve heard my old man sing on Saturdays. He’s a horrible singer, can’t find a tune even if it danced naked in front of him. You’d think that he’d have potential with the way he uses his falsetto, but he doesn’t. He thinks he does though, and he likes making us kids agree, the brute.
But my point is, the old man likes to sing, and sometimes he would sing something about a man fighting the world for a girl’s smile. Said it was his and mom’s song, and always asked me if I thought it was romantic. It was gushy as hell and if it wasn’t because it had to do with mom, I’d flat-out say no.
Now though, even if it did have to do with mom, my answer would be a swift kick to his stupid face, maybe throat, then he wouldn’t be able to sing anymore and save us all some heartache.
There’s nothing romantic about fighting for a girl’s smile. There’s nothing romantic about fighting for a girl, period. Not that I was or anything. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ, you’re dying here. And every time you swing your blade you wonder if you’re flippin’ crazy, every time you’re on the ground, drowning in your own putrid blood you wonder what the hell you were doing all this for. I mean, putting your life on the line again and again? It’s only a matter of time before you start realizing that you’re an idiotic fuck, and by that point you’re in so deep that there’s nothing you can do about it anymore.
So somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking about what I was fighting for.
Maybe I'm crazy
When it was all over, after the multiple chest wounds and head wounds and gashes everywhere possible-how the hell was I still alive?-when that chapter of my life had been over, the question raised itself again: What the hell was I fighting for?
I was fighting to save her, to bring her back, to… to something,
I don’t know. Should I have known?
And the bitch had the nerve to stay in Soul Society after all I had suffered for her. I must’ve been fucking nuts to do it. Not that anything I did made any sense anymore.
What the hell did I fight for?
Maybe you're crazy
I suppose though, that she wanted to stay.
In a way, she needed to.
She was that kind of person, you know?
Face the rain and make it hurt.
Face the pain until you understand it.
Face reality until the sun comes out again.
Fucking nuts.
Maybe we're crazy
Now, me? I’m not that crazy.
I just fight. I fight and fight so it stops hurting. Fight so I can forget that I’m the reason why it rains.
Rainy days are not thinking days, and fighting days are not thinking days either.
I think if I just keep going on like this, keep fighting and keep getting stronger, I won’t ever have to face it. And if I die, then-well hell, I hope that doesn’t happen, but if I die, I would’ve died for something, at least.
Possibly
It’s not a matter of debt anymore.
You want me to answer my question? I can’t.
I just fought for her, and that’s all that had mattered.
But what I wouldn’t give to see her smile on a rainy day.
That’s a secret though; keep it between you and me.
Maybe I’ve retained some of my innocence, some essence of those sunnier days. It’s funny as hell to think about, but I might’ve been right.
Sunshine and butterflies, eh?
Well maybe this is the butterfly part.
end.
Download song here:Crazy[Ray Lamontagne]
View lyrics here:
http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=3530822107858628288
All comments are screened until unscreened. Please do not hesitate to point out any awkwardness or errors that I have missed.
Title: Sunshine and Butterflies
Featuring:Crazy- Ray Lamontagne
Rating: PG
Release Date: June 20, 2007
Word Count: 2,365
Genre: Monologue
Read Only Version
Stfuiswearimnotscrewingwithcanon.
I did say at some point that I was going to do an Ichigo 1st person pov. Well I wasn't kidding. Here it is. Ichigo's pov is fun to write when you have writer's block and can't spin pretty words. For me, fanfiction in 1st person pov is a little taboo. But this is an IchiRuki Anthology FST. Which means it won't be complete without a first person POV. If I could survive an AU fic, I can survive anything. So now we're back to angst, hurrah for me. But it's Ichigo!angst, and Ichigo!angst doesn't qualify as real angst. While writing, I realized the extend of how much of a jerk, albeit endearing, he can really be. SoDanielle says it makes her want to punch him in the face, which is what Rukia does. A lot. So maybe this can give you a feel of how Rukia feels about Ichigo as well as vice versa?
Oh, by the way, we all see their SS parting scene and think "aww, Ichigo, you so good you". Well while I agree that he's happy while Rukia's happy, I'll be damned if he wasn't at least a little bit sad and angry about it. More angry than sad though, because that's how Ichigo acts sad, by being angry. Poor misguided soul.
This is the same Crazy that Gnarls Barkley sings. Except it's acoustic. I love GB's version because it's trippy, upbeat, but so, so sad at the same time. However, I think this version fits this fic better. Ray Lamontagne sings this song so unbelievably well that it breaks my heart listening to it. Every time.
♥
Jazzy
PS. <3s to all the betas that filtered this. The verb tense was horrible because I never quite figured out when this is taking place, but hopefully it's better now.
PPS. I take literary quotes that I like and sneak them in my fics. Gearwheel, for example, has a Faulkner line that I borrowed. There's one here, too. Not by Faulkner. If you can find it, I'll write you a drabble in the final project release. :D
I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind
There was something so pleasant about that place.
Even your emotions had an echo in so much space
I wonder how many ways there are to protect people.
In the beginning, there was one: Fighting.
It took me a while to catch on, runt of a kid that I was. I wonder if it’s typical of kids to want everything to be sunshine and butterflies. I had sunshine; that was sure. My childhood was filled with her, bright and brilliant and so damn warm. She was my sunshine.
Should’ve been appreciative, right? I suppose I was. But not nearly enough.
I lost her, you know. They say that the sun doesn’t shine forever, and I believe them-who ever the hell they are. I sure didn’t believe them back then. A star that bright just doesn’t fade away, right?
It doesn’t, really-not unless an idiotic little snot comes along and kills her by being a… well, idiot.
I wasn’t able to protect the sunshine in my life. It took something awful for me to finally admit that to myself. Later, with Karin and Yuzu crying, with my old man turning from a loony nutcase into a full out maniac, when I was older, I realized that she was the sunshine in other people’s lives as well. And boy did that make me feel like a gigantic jerk.
Ichigo, I told myself, you’re not allowed to be weak anymore, you little shit.
And when you're out there without care,
Yeah, I was out of touch
But it wasn't because I didn't know enough, I just knew too much
That’s when I started fighting.
It started first with my old man. He liked it though, the crazy nut, said something about being so proud that his little girl was finally turning into a little boy. I had his face grinding into the ground when it was over. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some sort of loser that goes around abusing his old man. But that guy’s fucking merciless, always sprouting up in random places telling me watch your back and you’re oooooopen, Iiiiiiichigooo before mounting a blow at me.
And then there were punks at school.
I never picked the fights there, cross my heart and hope to die and all that shit. You probably don’t believe me, and I bet it’s cause of the hair, huh?
It’s alright, no one else believed me either. That was why they always wanted to rough me up, ‘cause apparently I was such a goddamn rebel. I don’t know who it sucked more for, me or them.
To tell you the truth, and it’d make Kenpachi cry, what with all his talk about us being the same or something crazy like that, I’m a bit of a pacifist. I had more pride in it way back when I was still being beaten up by Tatsuki in karate class, but now, I try to keep it a secret.
I don’t feel like much has changed in terms of fighting. From ass-kicking chicks with fists of steel to crazy souls with swords, who would’ve thought?
Well, I guess some things have changed.
For one, I’m not just fighting to keep an overly aggressive old man off my neck, or stupid thugs that can’t pull punches worth an ounce of salt off my back, not anymore.
Those fights are the annoying kind after you figure out that there is no way in hell that they’re going to beat you. It’s even worse when they refuse to acknowledge that fact. Because that meant they’d come after you, again and again. Never mind their hospital bills or your level of tolerance.
Now I fight a lot of things, first beastly animal things with holes in their chests, then Shinigami with their dingy little swords, and now some hybrid it-child fathered by the former two.
It makes me afraid to think about reality sometimes, reality and time, because there’s no way I can do so without realizing that I’m fucking crazy.
Does that make me crazy? Probably
I’m human, you know? Well, at least I think I’m still human. Anyway, the thing is that I was raised a human and no matter what Soul Society stuff I do or how long I do it, a part of me will always wonder if I’ll wake up one day in a room with white, cushy walls, in a straitjacket, surrounded by masked people and syringes.
That’d be a pretty shitty way to wake up, if you ask me.
And I hope that you are having the time of your life
But think twice, that's my only advice
And then I would turn my head, would see the closet, and would have to acknowledge her.
It looked really, really bad, having a girl in my closet.
It sounded even worse, trust me.
I would think about her and then I would have to admit to myself that all this crazy shit that I’d been going through was real. Her existence alone forbade any denial on my behalf. Typical of her, but annoying as hell.
She was my connection between Soul Society and the real world, always walking around with that cellphone-that-isn’t-really-a-cellphone and telling me to get that Hollow, Ichigo and save that old woman, Ichigo and how do you open this ramune bottle, Ichigo?
I wish I could say that she was a product of my LSD trips, but I can’t, because I’ve never had an LSD trip.
Come on now, who do you think you are,
Hahaha, bless your soul, you really think you're in control?
There is something about her though, this girl. I mean, she talks like a fucking man, even Tatsuki isn’t that hostile. She goes around bossing me around, kicking me around, dragging my soul out of my body to do her stupid work. I’d like to know, sometimes, what I’d done wrong, this life or the last life or the next, to have merited this enslavement a la girl-who-lives-in-my-closet.
Never gonna get used to that, I swear.
There are other sides to her though, and it makes me wonder if all the loud and obnoxious ways she is with me is just a façade.
Like when it rains.
We never argued when it rained. It was really weird. I guess it could be just me though, you know? I’d never been a big fan of rain myself. Rain is when the sun dies and the sky starts crying. It’s depressing as hell. So when it rained, I liked to turn up the music really, really loud and read a book or watch the television to help me stop thinking.
Rainy days aren’t thinking days and I’m never in the mood to start a fight then.
Funny thing is, though, that she didn’t like fighting on those days either. We’d be talking, something would happen and the familiar tensions of a fight would start to well up, and then we would take a look at each other and turn away.
At that point, I would usually ignore her and would rummage through my CDs to find something nice and loud for my CD-player.
That was one thing we didn’t share.
She hated loud music during the rain; any other day would be fine. Almost fought with me about it too, on a rainy day no less, but she didn’t. Instead she had opened the window to spend the night on the roof. Outside.
What the hell.
What would people think if they saw a girl sleeping on my stupid roof, in the rain no less? Had to call her in, apologize, dry her up and use my CD player instead.
Life really sucks when you’re a guy. Whoever created chivalry needs to be shot in the face.
Well, I think you're crazy, just like me
I snuck a glance at her once we had settled down. She had been next to the window with her head on her hands, face so close to the glass that the drops must’ve sounded like a fucking stampede. You’d think she loved the rain, but all you had to do was look at her face.
Fuck, man, and I had thought that I was depressed. You’d think that the sun died every time it rained for her, too. I don’t know how she stands it, being so close to something like that. It was like she wanted it to hurt, wanted to remind herself about some ancient pain or something shitty like that.
Seeing her on days like this reminds me that I wasn’t the only one that was screwed up in the head.
My heroes had the heart to lose their lives out on a limb
And all I remember is thinking, I want to be like them.
Now that I think of it, most of my fights that I’ve fought, I’ve done it for her sake.
It’s only right though, I guess, since she was the one that caused me to unleash all this power. Running around and fighting Hollows, it was almost liberating in a way. Maybe I was just being the delinquent everyone had thought I was, but running around swinging big-ass swords at monsters in public. It was kind of cool.
When she had gone back to Soul Society-well, when she had left through that portal with her brother and that visor-wearing fuck-all I could think about was that stupid look on her face she had on every time it rained.
It had been raining that night too, hadn’t it?
Oh hell, that was just as well. Now every time it rained, she would have to remember me dying like a pathetic slab of meat on the floor, and I would have to remember that disgusting look on her face before she left, crying.
Bad blood, man. That was just bad blood.
So as I had lain on the ground, I vowed that if I survived, that is, if I survived this, I’d go and drag her back here, so that… so that there’d be something better to remember about rainy days, because… because otherwise that’d be just fucking depressing. And we don’t need any more sadness in our lives, neither of us.
Ever since I was little, ever since I was little it looked like fun
And it's no coincidence I've come and I can die when I'm done
I’ve heard my old man sing on Saturdays. He’s a horrible singer, can’t find a tune even if it danced naked in front of him. You’d think that he’d have potential with the way he uses his falsetto, but he doesn’t. He thinks he does though, and he likes making us kids agree, the brute.
But my point is, the old man likes to sing, and sometimes he would sing something about a man fighting the world for a girl’s smile. Said it was his and mom’s song, and always asked me if I thought it was romantic. It was gushy as hell and if it wasn’t because it had to do with mom, I’d flat-out say no.
Now though, even if it did have to do with mom, my answer would be a swift kick to his stupid face, maybe throat, then he wouldn’t be able to sing anymore and save us all some heartache.
There’s nothing romantic about fighting for a girl’s smile. There’s nothing romantic about fighting for a girl, period. Not that I was or anything. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ, you’re dying here. And every time you swing your blade you wonder if you’re flippin’ crazy, every time you’re on the ground, drowning in your own putrid blood you wonder what the hell you were doing all this for. I mean, putting your life on the line again and again? It’s only a matter of time before you start realizing that you’re an idiotic fuck, and by that point you’re in so deep that there’s nothing you can do about it anymore.
So somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking about what I was fighting for.
Maybe I'm crazy
When it was all over, after the multiple chest wounds and head wounds and gashes everywhere possible-how the hell was I still alive?-when that chapter of my life had been over, the question raised itself again: What the hell was I fighting for?
I was fighting to save her, to bring her back, to… to something,
I don’t know. Should I have known?
And the bitch had the nerve to stay in Soul Society after all I had suffered for her. I must’ve been fucking nuts to do it. Not that anything I did made any sense anymore.
What the hell did I fight for?
Maybe you're crazy
I suppose though, that she wanted to stay.
In a way, she needed to.
She was that kind of person, you know?
Face the rain and make it hurt.
Face the pain until you understand it.
Face reality until the sun comes out again.
Fucking nuts.
Maybe we're crazy
Now, me? I’m not that crazy.
I just fight. I fight and fight so it stops hurting. Fight so I can forget that I’m the reason why it rains.
Rainy days are not thinking days, and fighting days are not thinking days either.
I think if I just keep going on like this, keep fighting and keep getting stronger, I won’t ever have to face it. And if I die, then-well hell, I hope that doesn’t happen, but if I die, I would’ve died for something, at least.
Possibly
It’s not a matter of debt anymore.
You want me to answer my question? I can’t.
I just fought for her, and that’s all that had mattered.
But what I wouldn’t give to see her smile on a rainy day.
That’s a secret though; keep it between you and me.
Maybe I’ve retained some of my innocence, some essence of those sunnier days. It’s funny as hell to think about, but I might’ve been right.
Sunshine and butterflies, eh?
Well maybe this is the butterfly part.
end.
Download song here:Crazy[Ray Lamontagne]
View lyrics here:
http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=3530822107858628288
All comments are screened until unscreened. Please do not hesitate to point out any awkwardness or errors that I have missed.