Fic: Grace
Title: Grace
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: P!atd
There are hundreds of beginnings to this story, so it took me a while to sift through them all, find the one that really was the start of this whole goddamn thing.
This was harder than it sounds, because my life has always seemed so fragmented. All bits and pieces and events and people that really hold no relevance to each other whatsoever, things that aren’t connected, just a series of stand-alone events.
I told Ryan this one day, and he said I was an idiot; that everything always leads to things, in life there are no loose ends. He’s probably right, he usually is, but really I’m getting ahead of myself.
After days of sifting and searching and chewing insanely hard on the end of my pencil, I narrowed it down to a select few beginnings. All unique and out of place starts to the same long story. I think I found one that I could use, a good place to begin, or maybe it isn’t, but it is a start, and it’ll put me on the right track.
So I guess it begins with a conversation.
“They don’t mean it, Brendon.” Catherine said, tucking strands of bleach-blonde hair behind her pale ear. Her face is flushed and her brow is furrowed and when I ask her years later what she was thinking, she’ll tell me that she was insanely scared for me. That maybe, to just a certain degree, her heart was sort of breaking.
“Of course they mean it, they always mean everything they say because they think every syllable out to the last letter hours before they even have to say it.” Catherine’s forehead furrowed further, her brown eyes squinting at me. That probably made a lot more sense in my head.
“Well…they don’t speak for all of us, Bren…I’m proud of you. I’ve always been proud of you.”
I roll my eyes, scathing and condescending and arrogant. “Whatever, Cate.”
“Seriously.”
We sat in silence, on the moth-eaten sofa in the apartment she shared with a bunch of junkies. Catherine was chewing on her big, red bottom lip, casting me soulful glances every couple of seconds, whilst I just lay back on the couch, arms folded over my chest. As far as I was concerned, this bullshit would all be over soon, these people would be nothing but some foreign matter of which I wouldn’t even have to think about.
And I was right, in a few days time I wouldn’t know these people anymore. They’d be right here, and I’d be in a totally different world. One far less familial, far less caring and one that knows me a whole lot more, but really, a whole lot less.
“I have something for you…for whatever happens next.”
Catherine dug a white, shaking hand deep into her messenger bag, pulling out a perfectly kept leather-bound journal. With a wistful kind of sigh, she handed it to me, a tiny smile tugging at the corners of her full lips.
“Mum gave this to me years ago. It…” She paused, trying to find the words, “It’s full of quotes, of lyrics, poetry…all that jazz. When I got it, it was full of things that Mum had read in her life, of things that had helped, y’know, see her through. I added my two-cents, so I guess it’s sorta collaborative now.”
I shot Catherine a strange look, not really sure why the hell I would want something like this. I expected her to grow scathing, to frown, glare, and take it back, but she didn’t, she just laughed.
“I had the exact same look on my face when Mum gave it to me…but y’know what, it’s worth it…even if you don’t look at it for fifty years, it’s…I can’t explain it.”
She laughs again, Catherine always laughs, but still, she didn’t take the book back. Instead, she leant down, kissed me on the forehead, and brushed the hair out of my eyes. She shot me one last, fleeting glance as she went into the kitchen to shoot up.
I roll my eyes again out of habit, before shooting the book another look as it lay bound and perfect in my lap. The cover was course as my fingers glided down the leather, heavy as I flicked it open, pages bright and pale, text dark and deep.
Seize the day, put no trust in tomorrow.
Right, I had thought, right.
So I scoffed, I snorted, I got up and I threw the book viciously into the bottom of my backpack and then I left the apartment. Left Catherine’s mindless giggles and trembling fingertips as she tried to stop me, left the filth of that rotting apartment and left behind a life that I forgot about too quickly.
It would be a number of years before I took a good look at that book.
*
I grew up in Las Vegas.
This probably sounds a lot more exciting than it was, because when people think Vegas they think hookers, they think flashing lights, gambling and endless crime. They think of entertainment and fun and wild animals and tacky museums.
They don’t see suburbia. Don’t see small children and primary schools and minor-league baseball.
I was also Mormon.
Not the conventional sort. Not the preachy, church-every-Sunday-I-doorknock-on-my-days-off sort. More the, hey-I’m-Mormon-but-don’t-actually-agree-with-it-or-pay-any-attention-to-it-what-so-ever sort.
My Mum however, was the out-and-proud sort. Friendly and preachy, devoted and sickeningly keen. She’s one of those church-housewives that bakes and cleans and perms her hair, the type you only see on the 1930’s tv-shows.
She doorknocks and watches Oprah and the Bold and the Beautiful, and always throws in her opinion of current affairs, relates it all back to things in the Bible. Catherine says she wasn’t always like this, that it happened gradually as the people from church slowly sparked her interest, and sent her to their moon-plant to be brainwashed. Sometimes I think Catherine’s right, other times I’m not too sure.
One of the things that recently took her fancy was September 11, she uses every chance to cry out about that now, to condemn Islam. The irony of this has always hit me hard and fast because honestly? Give my mother a few grenades, a couple of guns and she’ll fight to the death for Mormon-ity. She’ll argue and preach and threaten her way into people’s lives, die for the sake of Jesus and Joseph Smith.
Martyrdom is bullshit.
My Dad’s an accountant. A Mormon accountant.
That always struck me as being so fucking out of place. We live in Las Vegas, home of the gamblers, pimps, hoes and my Dad…the number cruncher.
Fuck.
I think I’m getting sidetracked.
A hundred years ago, on a particularly breezy day in late August, Grace Peddals and Boyd Urie met at a church bake sale. (Once again, I feel the urge to point out that this is in fact Las Vegas and not motherfuckin’ Alabama)
They fell in love, or so my grandparents claim. I asked my Mum once and she didn’t answer, just picked up the mop and waddled her way back into the kitchen. This wasn’t unusual for her, she didn’t really talk that much. Catherine said that she was unhappy, but then again, Catherine thinks everyone’s unhappy.
Catherine’s my sister, the eldest daughter of this bizarrely out of place little clan. She’s tall and blonde and witty and enjoys her little rebellion a lot more than she probably should. Catherine works in a casino. Catherine sleeps around. Catherine shoots up and swallows all sorts of shit. Catherine wants to die one day.
Dad says she sets a bad example for the rest of us, says that she’s the reason I left, but I think I’m getting ahead of myself there too.
I have three other siblings, Joseph, Judy and William. Each prim and proper examples of the Mormon denomination.
Mum and Dad are proud of them.
They’re not proud of me.
…Or Catherine, but that one kind of goes without saying.
I haven’t always disgusted them, there was a time, a long time ago mind, that they could meet my eyes. That they could go to dinner parties and church services and say: “Good evening, my name is Mr/Mrs. Urie, I have four children, Joseph, Judy, William and Brendon.” But somewhere along the line it became three. Three perfect little children and two black sheep, two children possessed with the spirit of the devil.
For the record, I don’t know if they actually said that, but I’m sure they’ve thought it on numerous occasions.
Maybe by this point you’re wondering what I did so wrong, what I did to fuck it all up so fucking badly. Well there’s a thousand and one reasons really, but it can all be tied to one tiny, eensy little thing.
I wanted to be famous.
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: P!atd
There are hundreds of beginnings to this story, so it took me a while to sift through them all, find the one that really was the start of this whole goddamn thing.
This was harder than it sounds, because my life has always seemed so fragmented. All bits and pieces and events and people that really hold no relevance to each other whatsoever, things that aren’t connected, just a series of stand-alone events.
I told Ryan this one day, and he said I was an idiot; that everything always leads to things, in life there are no loose ends. He’s probably right, he usually is, but really I’m getting ahead of myself.
After days of sifting and searching and chewing insanely hard on the end of my pencil, I narrowed it down to a select few beginnings. All unique and out of place starts to the same long story. I think I found one that I could use, a good place to begin, or maybe it isn’t, but it is a start, and it’ll put me on the right track.
So I guess it begins with a conversation.
“They don’t mean it, Brendon.” Catherine said, tucking strands of bleach-blonde hair behind her pale ear. Her face is flushed and her brow is furrowed and when I ask her years later what she was thinking, she’ll tell me that she was insanely scared for me. That maybe, to just a certain degree, her heart was sort of breaking.
“Of course they mean it, they always mean everything they say because they think every syllable out to the last letter hours before they even have to say it.” Catherine’s forehead furrowed further, her brown eyes squinting at me. That probably made a lot more sense in my head.
“Well…they don’t speak for all of us, Bren…I’m proud of you. I’ve always been proud of you.”
I roll my eyes, scathing and condescending and arrogant. “Whatever, Cate.”
“Seriously.”
We sat in silence, on the moth-eaten sofa in the apartment she shared with a bunch of junkies. Catherine was chewing on her big, red bottom lip, casting me soulful glances every couple of seconds, whilst I just lay back on the couch, arms folded over my chest. As far as I was concerned, this bullshit would all be over soon, these people would be nothing but some foreign matter of which I wouldn’t even have to think about.
And I was right, in a few days time I wouldn’t know these people anymore. They’d be right here, and I’d be in a totally different world. One far less familial, far less caring and one that knows me a whole lot more, but really, a whole lot less.
“I have something for you…for whatever happens next.”
Catherine dug a white, shaking hand deep into her messenger bag, pulling out a perfectly kept leather-bound journal. With a wistful kind of sigh, she handed it to me, a tiny smile tugging at the corners of her full lips.
“Mum gave this to me years ago. It…” She paused, trying to find the words, “It’s full of quotes, of lyrics, poetry…all that jazz. When I got it, it was full of things that Mum had read in her life, of things that had helped, y’know, see her through. I added my two-cents, so I guess it’s sorta collaborative now.”
I shot Catherine a strange look, not really sure why the hell I would want something like this. I expected her to grow scathing, to frown, glare, and take it back, but she didn’t, she just laughed.
“I had the exact same look on my face when Mum gave it to me…but y’know what, it’s worth it…even if you don’t look at it for fifty years, it’s…I can’t explain it.”
She laughs again, Catherine always laughs, but still, she didn’t take the book back. Instead, she leant down, kissed me on the forehead, and brushed the hair out of my eyes. She shot me one last, fleeting glance as she went into the kitchen to shoot up.
I roll my eyes again out of habit, before shooting the book another look as it lay bound and perfect in my lap. The cover was course as my fingers glided down the leather, heavy as I flicked it open, pages bright and pale, text dark and deep.
Seize the day, put no trust in tomorrow.
Right, I had thought, right.
So I scoffed, I snorted, I got up and I threw the book viciously into the bottom of my backpack and then I left the apartment. Left Catherine’s mindless giggles and trembling fingertips as she tried to stop me, left the filth of that rotting apartment and left behind a life that I forgot about too quickly.
It would be a number of years before I took a good look at that book.
*
I grew up in Las Vegas.
This probably sounds a lot more exciting than it was, because when people think Vegas they think hookers, they think flashing lights, gambling and endless crime. They think of entertainment and fun and wild animals and tacky museums.
They don’t see suburbia. Don’t see small children and primary schools and minor-league baseball.
I was also Mormon.
Not the conventional sort. Not the preachy, church-every-Sunday-I-doorknock-on-my-days-off sort. More the, hey-I’m-Mormon-but-don’t-actually-agree-with-it-or-pay-any-attention-to-it-what-so-ever sort.
My Mum however, was the out-and-proud sort. Friendly and preachy, devoted and sickeningly keen. She’s one of those church-housewives that bakes and cleans and perms her hair, the type you only see on the 1930’s tv-shows.
She doorknocks and watches Oprah and the Bold and the Beautiful, and always throws in her opinion of current affairs, relates it all back to things in the Bible. Catherine says she wasn’t always like this, that it happened gradually as the people from church slowly sparked her interest, and sent her to their moon-plant to be brainwashed. Sometimes I think Catherine’s right, other times I’m not too sure.
One of the things that recently took her fancy was September 11, she uses every chance to cry out about that now, to condemn Islam. The irony of this has always hit me hard and fast because honestly? Give my mother a few grenades, a couple of guns and she’ll fight to the death for Mormon-ity. She’ll argue and preach and threaten her way into people’s lives, die for the sake of Jesus and Joseph Smith.
Martyrdom is bullshit.
My Dad’s an accountant. A Mormon accountant.
That always struck me as being so fucking out of place. We live in Las Vegas, home of the gamblers, pimps, hoes and my Dad…the number cruncher.
Fuck.
I think I’m getting sidetracked.
A hundred years ago, on a particularly breezy day in late August, Grace Peddals and Boyd Urie met at a church bake sale. (Once again, I feel the urge to point out that this is in fact Las Vegas and not motherfuckin’ Alabama)
They fell in love, or so my grandparents claim. I asked my Mum once and she didn’t answer, just picked up the mop and waddled her way back into the kitchen. This wasn’t unusual for her, she didn’t really talk that much. Catherine said that she was unhappy, but then again, Catherine thinks everyone’s unhappy.
Catherine’s my sister, the eldest daughter of this bizarrely out of place little clan. She’s tall and blonde and witty and enjoys her little rebellion a lot more than she probably should. Catherine works in a casino. Catherine sleeps around. Catherine shoots up and swallows all sorts of shit. Catherine wants to die one day.
Dad says she sets a bad example for the rest of us, says that she’s the reason I left, but I think I’m getting ahead of myself there too.
I have three other siblings, Joseph, Judy and William. Each prim and proper examples of the Mormon denomination.
Mum and Dad are proud of them.
They’re not proud of me.
…Or Catherine, but that one kind of goes without saying.
I haven’t always disgusted them, there was a time, a long time ago mind, that they could meet my eyes. That they could go to dinner parties and church services and say: “Good evening, my name is Mr/Mrs. Urie, I have four children, Joseph, Judy, William and Brendon.” But somewhere along the line it became three. Three perfect little children and two black sheep, two children possessed with the spirit of the devil.
For the record, I don’t know if they actually said that, but I’m sure they’ve thought it on numerous occasions.
Maybe by this point you’re wondering what I did so wrong, what I did to fuck it all up so fucking badly. Well there’s a thousand and one reasons really, but it can all be tied to one tiny, eensy little thing.
I wanted to be famous.