Smile On His Lips and Cuts On His Hips (8/?)
Title: Smile On His Lips and Cuts On His Hips (8/?)
Author: Rose Rose682
Rating: nc-17
Pairing: Jack Barakat/Alex Gaskarth
Summary: I’d lost count of how many had gaped at my arm with shocked expressions and open mouths, curious people unsure of whether or not they wanted to know the answer asking, “Did you cut your arm?”
Disclaimer: I own neither ATL or any other real person mentioned in this fic, though I wish for it constantly.
Author's Note: At the bottom.
Masterpost.
I’d never been sure what I believed about the afterlife. Both my parents were born and raised Christians, yet the only times I’d ever visited a church in my life were every year’s Christmas Eve; children’s service, we sang a shit load of carols and donated presents. I was pretty sure that wasn’t what went on a normal mass, not that I’d actually know.
Due to not being raised religious, I’d been left to develop my own views on God and what the fuck happens after you die. Something that I’d spectacularly failed at.
My beliefs about God were undetermined, obscure, and elusive, even to me. I’d never taken to the idea that there was some all-mighty Holy Spirit above pulling the world’s puppet strings and presiding over every entities actions. That theory raised the typical, over-asked question; why would God condemn bad things unto good people? It didn’t make any sense, and I guess that I was a non-believer.
Still, the suggestion that the world was governed by random chaos and designless anarchy was disconcerting, but it was factual and material and something I could put my faith in. Over thinking the argument always left me with more questions than answers, so I’d dropped trying to figure out where my beliefs lay long ago.
Since I’d never worshiped God and devoted all of my undiluted love to Jesus, as far as I knew, according to most religions, I was on the highway to hell. Speaking of, I found the idea that declining to regularly visit Church each Sunday and pray every passing second had you damned straight to hell absurd. If there was a God, I liked to think he was decent enough to determine people’s final destinations based on how they lived their lives, and not what religion they followed.
If you asked the Buddhists - or Muslims, maybe - I’d probably get reincarnated as a weak fruit fly with a lifespan of two point five days and achieve enlightenment about the same time the sun exploded. None of the religions favored my life style or existence, so I hoped they were wrong.
On the contrary, I knew exactly what I wished would happen after I died.
Heaven never sounded particularly appealing to me. Sure, it’s the supposed land of plenty where all your darkest desires and innermost dreams come true. My perfect world would probably include endless burritos and CDs, private daily Blink shows where Green Day and Fall Out Boy opened, every guitar I’d ever lusted after in my possession, and half naked male strippers at my disposable. Which, if I thought about it, would also get me shoved into Hell.
But what would you do for all of eternity in a flawless wonderland? To be honest, Heaven just sounded downright boring.
I’d rather die and be done. Just drop dead, life and energy fusing back into the atmosphere, igniting new stars and shocking new worlds to life. I wanted death to be the end. No afterlife. Blackness. Nothing.
I was unable to even see what other people found comforting about Heaven and Hell or reincarnation. Maybe they needed to trust that the evil in our world would be punished, and the good would be rewarded. But shouldn’t just knowing that you’re a decent person and making others happy be enough of an incentive?
Or, perhaps they took stole peace in the so called fact that everything had a higher purpose. That God had his master plan for everybody, everything you did had this profound effect, everything was precisely planned and perfected to lead you to your destiny. Then you die, and get judged on whether or not you did your shit correctly, and are sent off to exhaust forever above or below.
I took most of that to be true. Of course the decisions and actions you make matter - they are what make up your life and determine your tomorrow. But at the same time, I, a collection of cells and chromosomes and an anatomical decision declaring brain, was the one proclaiming that I was having Cookie Crisp for lunch and putting off my studying for my History test. Not some holy entity.
I put my lot in with the Jewish on the subject of the afterlife, though. They believed that once you die, you are just a body in a wooden box, eight feet under, eventually completing the life cycle and becoming the soil that births something new. But the soul: a person’s memories, their personality, their impact on other’s lives, their entire existence - the Jews believed that that just ended.
You were no more. Plain and simple. When I died, I wanted to be done. Done with existing. Done being Jack Barakat. Done with the world. One lifetime was more than enough.
Sometimes, I could see why people necessitated believing their were dead relatives and lovers and friends were watching from above. They couldn’t stand the thought that they were dead and gone from everything in every way, for all of eternity, forever.
But I was perfectly at ease with the fact that my lung cancer grandfather who’d passed before I was born wasn’t eying me with distaste. Really, would the old man be proud of his useless sixteen year old grandson doing nothing with his life? I doubted it, and sure as hell didn’t need another person judging me. I had enough living relatives to fill that quota.
I’d never been acquainted with someone who had the same afterlife hopes as I. They all either thought the same as the Christians, or were raised into whatever cookie cutter religion and had never riddled it out themselves. I wondered if those kids, shoved into blind faith from the second they took a breath, ever questioned it and considered other possibilities. Maybe, maybe not.
The shit storm flying through my head was inspired by the Islam test we’d just gotten back. First one of the year, and I got a D. Off to a great fucking start.
Ignoring all the questions about my faith flowing through my thoughts, I was pissed. Because, for once, I actually spent hours studying for that test. I’d been up until two in the morning the night before it, squinting with blurry eyes at my laptop screen and trying to stuff facts about Ghandi into my already over cluttered mind.
Obviously, my cram studying had been unsuccessful, declared by the bright neon sign of a mark on my paper, announcing my failure to the world.
A lot of the time, I wouldn’t give two shits. Back in sixth grade, I very clearly remembered nearly having a mental breakdown after getting a C plus on a mini science test. I think it was when I almost pulled an A plus in the class that I realized one grade really has little to no affect on your over all semester score.
So I should have just mumbled a ‘whatever’ and prayed that the next tests wouldn’t be as difficult so I wouldn’t fail out of Junior year, shoving it into the back of a binder and trying to forget it had ever happened.
But my brain was restless, and hardly a second could ever pass without some thought making itself known. And the bad thoughts, the worries and the criticisms, popped up all too often. So I had this copping strategy of just ignoring them until they shut the fuck up and went away.
I thought that that was probably unhealthy, suppressing my emotions or some shit. Most likely couldn’t benefit my psyche, but I figured it was better than freaking out and collapsing into a self loathing wreak whenever a worry passed through my head. I didn’t have anyone I trusted enough to dispel the corners of my mind and vent to, so it was the least of two evils.
But, for some reason, that test grade set me off. Maybe it was because I actually tried that time.
There had been frequent quizzes where I just hadn’t cared at all last year, ignoring their existence until the day of and then scanning a page hopefully holding all the necessary information before picking up my pencil, filling out the forms and just going for it. There was one skeleton quiz where I’d literally studied during PE the period before by carrying a diagram with me during our run and spouting out bones to Zack. I aced it.
But on that stupid Islam test, I actually studied, and put in effort. My history class of that year - advanced placement United States history, more commonly known as A-PUSH - was notoriously difficult. So I worked my ass off and tried really fucking hard. And when you put your all into something, yet still fail, it’s basically the worst feeling in the world.
And there was something abnormal and plainly wrong going on with my emotions as I crammed that paper into a folder, pushing my chair back in favor of precariously leaning back on two of its legs, causing that burning to build in the bottom of my eyes.
I was not the type of person who cried over tests. Mostly because I just didn’t care that much. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t really the bad grade that had me so upset. More likely the fact that I ruined something else when nothing seemed to be going right.
But still, there wasn’t a chance in hell that I’d be caught dead dripping tears in the back of A-PUSH over a D, so I blinked in rapid succession and bit my lip, hair slamming over my eyes as they dropped to the grimy floor tiles.
I pushed back my right sleeve, scratching an incessant itch inside my elbow as my eyes stung. My nails had grown out, due to my forgetting to maintain their hygiene over the past couple weeks, scraping painfully against the previously flawless skin.
I scratched harder without a second thought, water dissipating back into my tear ducts, mind already attempting to plaster over the event and write it off as something unimportant, never to be thought of again. I spent a solid three minutes ripping away at that tickling itch, relaxing into my seat and flipping my hair out of my eyes, realization that class was over in less than five minutes managing to draw my lips into a smile.
It wasn’t until I was changing into an oversized, old Ravens t-shirt for bed that night that I’d pull off my black hoodie, noticing that I’d scratched my arm raw. I’d wake up looking like I’d perfected some miracle of physics and scraped the outside of my forearm up after tripping on rough concrete.
That’s what I’d tell people, anyways.
_____________________
A/N: Fun fact, Jack's description of his perfect Heaven was supposed to be even more unrealistic than it is, because I wrote this while FOB was still on hiatus. Anyways, please comment and tell me what you think.-Rose
Author: Rose Rose682
Rating: nc-17
Pairing: Jack Barakat/Alex Gaskarth
Summary: I’d lost count of how many had gaped at my arm with shocked expressions and open mouths, curious people unsure of whether or not they wanted to know the answer asking, “Did you cut your arm?”
Disclaimer: I own neither ATL or any other real person mentioned in this fic, though I wish for it constantly.
Author's Note: At the bottom.
Masterpost.
I’d never been sure what I believed about the afterlife. Both my parents were born and raised Christians, yet the only times I’d ever visited a church in my life were every year’s Christmas Eve; children’s service, we sang a shit load of carols and donated presents. I was pretty sure that wasn’t what went on a normal mass, not that I’d actually know.
Due to not being raised religious, I’d been left to develop my own views on God and what the fuck happens after you die. Something that I’d spectacularly failed at.
My beliefs about God were undetermined, obscure, and elusive, even to me. I’d never taken to the idea that there was some all-mighty Holy Spirit above pulling the world’s puppet strings and presiding over every entities actions. That theory raised the typical, over-asked question; why would God condemn bad things unto good people? It didn’t make any sense, and I guess that I was a non-believer.
Still, the suggestion that the world was governed by random chaos and designless anarchy was disconcerting, but it was factual and material and something I could put my faith in. Over thinking the argument always left me with more questions than answers, so I’d dropped trying to figure out where my beliefs lay long ago.
Since I’d never worshiped God and devoted all of my undiluted love to Jesus, as far as I knew, according to most religions, I was on the highway to hell. Speaking of, I found the idea that declining to regularly visit Church each Sunday and pray every passing second had you damned straight to hell absurd. If there was a God, I liked to think he was decent enough to determine people’s final destinations based on how they lived their lives, and not what religion they followed.
If you asked the Buddhists - or Muslims, maybe - I’d probably get reincarnated as a weak fruit fly with a lifespan of two point five days and achieve enlightenment about the same time the sun exploded. None of the religions favored my life style or existence, so I hoped they were wrong.
On the contrary, I knew exactly what I wished would happen after I died.
Heaven never sounded particularly appealing to me. Sure, it’s the supposed land of plenty where all your darkest desires and innermost dreams come true. My perfect world would probably include endless burritos and CDs, private daily Blink shows where Green Day and Fall Out Boy opened, every guitar I’d ever lusted after in my possession, and half naked male strippers at my disposable. Which, if I thought about it, would also get me shoved into Hell.
But what would you do for all of eternity in a flawless wonderland? To be honest, Heaven just sounded downright boring.
I’d rather die and be done. Just drop dead, life and energy fusing back into the atmosphere, igniting new stars and shocking new worlds to life. I wanted death to be the end. No afterlife. Blackness. Nothing.
I was unable to even see what other people found comforting about Heaven and Hell or reincarnation. Maybe they needed to trust that the evil in our world would be punished, and the good would be rewarded. But shouldn’t just knowing that you’re a decent person and making others happy be enough of an incentive?
Or, perhaps they took stole peace in the so called fact that everything had a higher purpose. That God had his master plan for everybody, everything you did had this profound effect, everything was precisely planned and perfected to lead you to your destiny. Then you die, and get judged on whether or not you did your shit correctly, and are sent off to exhaust forever above or below.
I took most of that to be true. Of course the decisions and actions you make matter - they are what make up your life and determine your tomorrow. But at the same time, I, a collection of cells and chromosomes and an anatomical decision declaring brain, was the one proclaiming that I was having Cookie Crisp for lunch and putting off my studying for my History test. Not some holy entity.
I put my lot in with the Jewish on the subject of the afterlife, though. They believed that once you die, you are just a body in a wooden box, eight feet under, eventually completing the life cycle and becoming the soil that births something new. But the soul: a person’s memories, their personality, their impact on other’s lives, their entire existence - the Jews believed that that just ended.
You were no more. Plain and simple. When I died, I wanted to be done. Done with existing. Done being Jack Barakat. Done with the world. One lifetime was more than enough.
Sometimes, I could see why people necessitated believing their were dead relatives and lovers and friends were watching from above. They couldn’t stand the thought that they were dead and gone from everything in every way, for all of eternity, forever.
But I was perfectly at ease with the fact that my lung cancer grandfather who’d passed before I was born wasn’t eying me with distaste. Really, would the old man be proud of his useless sixteen year old grandson doing nothing with his life? I doubted it, and sure as hell didn’t need another person judging me. I had enough living relatives to fill that quota.
I’d never been acquainted with someone who had the same afterlife hopes as I. They all either thought the same as the Christians, or were raised into whatever cookie cutter religion and had never riddled it out themselves. I wondered if those kids, shoved into blind faith from the second they took a breath, ever questioned it and considered other possibilities. Maybe, maybe not.
The shit storm flying through my head was inspired by the Islam test we’d just gotten back. First one of the year, and I got a D. Off to a great fucking start.
Ignoring all the questions about my faith flowing through my thoughts, I was pissed. Because, for once, I actually spent hours studying for that test. I’d been up until two in the morning the night before it, squinting with blurry eyes at my laptop screen and trying to stuff facts about Ghandi into my already over cluttered mind.
Obviously, my cram studying had been unsuccessful, declared by the bright neon sign of a mark on my paper, announcing my failure to the world.
A lot of the time, I wouldn’t give two shits. Back in sixth grade, I very clearly remembered nearly having a mental breakdown after getting a C plus on a mini science test. I think it was when I almost pulled an A plus in the class that I realized one grade really has little to no affect on your over all semester score.
So I should have just mumbled a ‘whatever’ and prayed that the next tests wouldn’t be as difficult so I wouldn’t fail out of Junior year, shoving it into the back of a binder and trying to forget it had ever happened.
But my brain was restless, and hardly a second could ever pass without some thought making itself known. And the bad thoughts, the worries and the criticisms, popped up all too often. So I had this copping strategy of just ignoring them until they shut the fuck up and went away.
I thought that that was probably unhealthy, suppressing my emotions or some shit. Most likely couldn’t benefit my psyche, but I figured it was better than freaking out and collapsing into a self loathing wreak whenever a worry passed through my head. I didn’t have anyone I trusted enough to dispel the corners of my mind and vent to, so it was the least of two evils.
But, for some reason, that test grade set me off. Maybe it was because I actually tried that time.
There had been frequent quizzes where I just hadn’t cared at all last year, ignoring their existence until the day of and then scanning a page hopefully holding all the necessary information before picking up my pencil, filling out the forms and just going for it. There was one skeleton quiz where I’d literally studied during PE the period before by carrying a diagram with me during our run and spouting out bones to Zack. I aced it.
But on that stupid Islam test, I actually studied, and put in effort. My history class of that year - advanced placement United States history, more commonly known as A-PUSH - was notoriously difficult. So I worked my ass off and tried really fucking hard. And when you put your all into something, yet still fail, it’s basically the worst feeling in the world.
And there was something abnormal and plainly wrong going on with my emotions as I crammed that paper into a folder, pushing my chair back in favor of precariously leaning back on two of its legs, causing that burning to build in the bottom of my eyes.
I was not the type of person who cried over tests. Mostly because I just didn’t care that much. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t really the bad grade that had me so upset. More likely the fact that I ruined something else when nothing seemed to be going right.
But still, there wasn’t a chance in hell that I’d be caught dead dripping tears in the back of A-PUSH over a D, so I blinked in rapid succession and bit my lip, hair slamming over my eyes as they dropped to the grimy floor tiles.
I pushed back my right sleeve, scratching an incessant itch inside my elbow as my eyes stung. My nails had grown out, due to my forgetting to maintain their hygiene over the past couple weeks, scraping painfully against the previously flawless skin.
I scratched harder without a second thought, water dissipating back into my tear ducts, mind already attempting to plaster over the event and write it off as something unimportant, never to be thought of again. I spent a solid three minutes ripping away at that tickling itch, relaxing into my seat and flipping my hair out of my eyes, realization that class was over in less than five minutes managing to draw my lips into a smile.
It wasn’t until I was changing into an oversized, old Ravens t-shirt for bed that night that I’d pull off my black hoodie, noticing that I’d scratched my arm raw. I’d wake up looking like I’d perfected some miracle of physics and scraped the outside of my forearm up after tripping on rough concrete.
That’s what I’d tell people, anyways.
_____________________
A/N: Fun fact, Jack's description of his perfect Heaven was supposed to be even more unrealistic than it is, because I wrote this while FOB was still on hiatus. Anyways, please comment and tell me what you think.-Rose