fic: Keep the Sky
Title: Keep the Sky
Word Count: 932 (drabble fail again, I rock! :p
Characters/Pairings: Johnny Stens
Summary: The sky had already fallen. It's just ... getting worse. Written for the prompt Rest your head, it's just as well. You can't keep the sky from falling anyway - Johnny and/or Sam, from _chibidragon_. Thank you! :)
Notes: And, yeah, I've written this before ever bringing him into the game. I ... yeah, obviously I TOTALLY rock. Only not. :p
It’s before he kisses Matt, but after his mother dies. One year to the day after her funeral, in fact.
The two most defining events of his life.
The plate missed his head, exploding spectacularly against the light blue of the painted wall behind him, right over his father’s black recliner. The shattered glass almost sparkled as it fell. Johnny thought, if he could slow down time, it would have sparkled, and probably been pretty. Then his head whipped over to look at his father. Fourteen years old, missing his mother, in need of a haircut. In need of some comfort. He’s gone to his mother’s grave since the funeral; but he can’t go today.
“What are you, some kind of fucking queer?”
That’s what his dad had yelled as he threw the plate from his standing place, in the kitchen entryway. Doing dishes. Drying them. The heady smell of salty pre-packaged pasta still making the place feel muggy. And his son had snuck up behind him, slipping his arms around his father’s waist and wiping just-popped-out tears on the back of his sweater.
The rage was immediate, without thought and dangerous in its very instinctiveness. His father had thrown himself from his son and then thrown the plate. Thrown wasn’t the right word for it, Johnny knew: there was so much power and anger behind it.
The fury of someone who sees the most threatening hidden parts of themselves reflected in another.
A finger pointed. Heaving chest. And a face full of such naked hatred that Johnny steps back where he had only stood still as the plate was coming at his head.
“Don’t you ever let me catch you crying again, do you hear me?” Johnny hadn’t realized until just then that more tears were sliding down his face. He didn’t bother to wipe them away, even though they started to make his cheeks itch as soon as his attention was brought to them. “Or I will give you something to cry about.”
“Yes, sir,” Johnny had mumbled, still a little stunned, looking down at his father’s chair again to contemplate the glass. What would have happened if it had been just a few inches over, and hit his head? Bashed him right in the face? His father had made threats before, many threats, but nothing like this had happened. Hitting, maybe, yes, a few times. But nothing like this.
“So STOP.”
Johnny had looked up in surprise, then finally wiped his face, sniffed loudly and as manly as possible, and tilted his head up. He made sure his voice was loud and didn’t shake. It was the only way to get out of here. “Yes, sir.”
“Get the fuck out of my sight. And finish doing the fucking dishes.”
Johnny did. Quietly. His father cleaned up the glass. So they weren’t in the same room. But Johnny stood straight and tall and his eyes were dry when he was finally able to slip to his bedroom.
He kept the lights turned off and pulled his blinds down. The sun was setting so there was still light, too much, but with the blinds down it was dark enough. Johnny walked over to his bed slowly, turning on the CD player on his bedside table and making sure the volume was low enough that his father couldn’t hear. Hopefully. The Planets, sissy music and the only CDs he actually owns, the only thing he listens to besides CBC radio and the occasional foray into MuchMusic when he can have the downstairs TV.
The music relaxes him almost immediately. He lies down in his bed and pulls the necklace out from under his Tshirt, his hiding place. He can’t bear to take it off. His father can’t bear to see it on his son. Johnny doesn’t know what he’d do if he ever saw it, or if a teacher ever told him. We’re worried about your son, he wears a necklace all the time and it’s just not the right behaviour for a young boy …
He can see them sending him to the school shrink or something, if they even have one. Just ‘cause he wears a necklace. People are idiots.
Johnny fingers the necklace a moment, running his thumb over the smooth little blue stone. His mother’s. He had snuck into their room and taken it before his father threw everything away. Sometimes Johnny is walking down the street and thinks he sees a woman wearing his mother’s favourite sweater, or the lavender jogging pants she loved.
Then he reaches over and turns on the light she gave him. Constellations weakly sprinkle onto his ceiling and walls. He’d like to paint his room black. But his father would never let him. And though some light is still leaking in from the window, from under his door, it’s still enough for the stars to show, just a little. Enough to make him feel better.
His life feels over at fourteen. He doesn’t want to die, exactly, but it feels like there’s nothing to really live for. He needs a change. Something.
Something needs to change.
He’d like a brand-new life. To rewind and start over. He needs to start over because everything else - everything else, it is over. But there’s nothing he can do. Nothing he can do to change anything. He can’t rewind. Life is … what it is. And his father seems to be getting worse. He’s alone. His world has gone to shit.
And all he can do is lie here and listen to Holtz.
So he does.
Word Count: 932 (drabble fail again, I rock! :p
Characters/Pairings: Johnny Stens
Summary: The sky had already fallen. It's just ... getting worse. Written for the prompt Rest your head, it's just as well. You can't keep the sky from falling anyway - Johnny and/or Sam, from _chibidragon_. Thank you! :)
Notes: And, yeah, I've written this before ever bringing him into the game. I ... yeah, obviously I TOTALLY rock. Only not. :p
It’s before he kisses Matt, but after his mother dies. One year to the day after her funeral, in fact.
The two most defining events of his life.
The plate missed his head, exploding spectacularly against the light blue of the painted wall behind him, right over his father’s black recliner. The shattered glass almost sparkled as it fell. Johnny thought, if he could slow down time, it would have sparkled, and probably been pretty. Then his head whipped over to look at his father. Fourteen years old, missing his mother, in need of a haircut. In need of some comfort. He’s gone to his mother’s grave since the funeral; but he can’t go today.
“What are you, some kind of fucking queer?”
That’s what his dad had yelled as he threw the plate from his standing place, in the kitchen entryway. Doing dishes. Drying them. The heady smell of salty pre-packaged pasta still making the place feel muggy. And his son had snuck up behind him, slipping his arms around his father’s waist and wiping just-popped-out tears on the back of his sweater.
The rage was immediate, without thought and dangerous in its very instinctiveness. His father had thrown himself from his son and then thrown the plate. Thrown wasn’t the right word for it, Johnny knew: there was so much power and anger behind it.
The fury of someone who sees the most threatening hidden parts of themselves reflected in another.
A finger pointed. Heaving chest. And a face full of such naked hatred that Johnny steps back where he had only stood still as the plate was coming at his head.
“Don’t you ever let me catch you crying again, do you hear me?” Johnny hadn’t realized until just then that more tears were sliding down his face. He didn’t bother to wipe them away, even though they started to make his cheeks itch as soon as his attention was brought to them. “Or I will give you something to cry about.”
“Yes, sir,” Johnny had mumbled, still a little stunned, looking down at his father’s chair again to contemplate the glass. What would have happened if it had been just a few inches over, and hit his head? Bashed him right in the face? His father had made threats before, many threats, but nothing like this had happened. Hitting, maybe, yes, a few times. But nothing like this.
“So STOP.”
Johnny had looked up in surprise, then finally wiped his face, sniffed loudly and as manly as possible, and tilted his head up. He made sure his voice was loud and didn’t shake. It was the only way to get out of here. “Yes, sir.”
“Get the fuck out of my sight. And finish doing the fucking dishes.”
Johnny did. Quietly. His father cleaned up the glass. So they weren’t in the same room. But Johnny stood straight and tall and his eyes were dry when he was finally able to slip to his bedroom.
He kept the lights turned off and pulled his blinds down. The sun was setting so there was still light, too much, but with the blinds down it was dark enough. Johnny walked over to his bed slowly, turning on the CD player on his bedside table and making sure the volume was low enough that his father couldn’t hear. Hopefully. The Planets, sissy music and the only CDs he actually owns, the only thing he listens to besides CBC radio and the occasional foray into MuchMusic when he can have the downstairs TV.
The music relaxes him almost immediately. He lies down in his bed and pulls the necklace out from under his Tshirt, his hiding place. He can’t bear to take it off. His father can’t bear to see it on his son. Johnny doesn’t know what he’d do if he ever saw it, or if a teacher ever told him. We’re worried about your son, he wears a necklace all the time and it’s just not the right behaviour for a young boy …
He can see them sending him to the school shrink or something, if they even have one. Just ‘cause he wears a necklace. People are idiots.
Johnny fingers the necklace a moment, running his thumb over the smooth little blue stone. His mother’s. He had snuck into their room and taken it before his father threw everything away. Sometimes Johnny is walking down the street and thinks he sees a woman wearing his mother’s favourite sweater, or the lavender jogging pants she loved.
Then he reaches over and turns on the light she gave him. Constellations weakly sprinkle onto his ceiling and walls. He’d like to paint his room black. But his father would never let him. And though some light is still leaking in from the window, from under his door, it’s still enough for the stars to show, just a little. Enough to make him feel better.
His life feels over at fourteen. He doesn’t want to die, exactly, but it feels like there’s nothing to really live for. He needs a change. Something.
Something needs to change.
He’d like a brand-new life. To rewind and start over. He needs to start over because everything else - everything else, it is over. But there’s nothing he can do. Nothing he can do to change anything. He can’t rewind. Life is … what it is. And his father seems to be getting worse. He’s alone. His world has gone to shit.
And all he can do is lie here and listen to Holtz.
So he does.