Smile On His Lips and Cuts On His Hips (27/?)
Title: Smile On His Lips and Cuts On His Hips (27/?)
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.
It was raining. Pouring, actually, plummeting water splattering onto the glass shielding me in bursting drops. The rubber wipers clearing it shuddered to a stop as my music abruptly cut off, key clicking out of the ignition, droplets impact’s becoming louder in the absence of the radio.
I glared out at the parking lot, huffing and blinking tiredly as I carefully tugged my hood up and steeled myself to slump through the foul weather, pushing the door open with a sigh and swinging to my feet. Lowering my head and shoving my hands into my pockets, I trudged quickly to the dry corridors and out of the sharp downpour. My vision was reduced to a five foot expanse of pavement immediately before me, eyes straining upwards as far as my lids would allow to peek out from under the hood and ensure that I didn’t get knocked over by a careless car during my trek across the asphalt. That would be quite an unfortunate way to start my day.
The atmosphere was gray and biting, the stereotypical setting for the beginning of a cliché horror movie. Hanging clouds smothered the sun, muting everything with a flat shadow, partnering nicely with the chill infecting the air. Cold and wet; miserable climate.
Reaching the hallway, I flopped my hood off and rearranged my fringe, tucking it back and narrowing my eyes uselessly as it drooped right back over them. Focusing on the soaked spots patterning my arms instead of the fixed faces surroundings me, I contemplated whether being inside and protected from the heavy rain but subjected to critical peers and high school torment was really an improvement.
___
Squinting out the window, I gazed past the glass, trying to focus my eyes clearly on the water streaming down and pooling into puddles. I was constantly mystified as to why rain was unnoticeable unless you were explicitly looking for it. Even though the drops coloring the sidewalks outside were substantial enough to leave my hoodie damp nearly two hours after I’d tramped through them, they were too misty and weak to be defined enough for my vision to naturally catch them.
Obviously, this had me twisted around in my stiff plastic chair, back turned uncomfortably and fingers gripping the edge of my seat as I ignored the work we’d been presented with. My history teacher had assigned us to read a chapter from the text book out loud and fill out a random sheet - busy work, it sounded like, leaving me to determine the activity useless and let my hearing discard my classmate’s voices and isolate the quiet sound of nature splashing the leaves beyond the window.
I was one of those contradictory and often irritating people who loved rain yet hated getting wet. Appropriately, I was also stuffed to the split seams with absolute shit.
While I had nothing inherently against letting the precipitation drip onto my skin and run streams over my cheeks, I was embarrassingly self conscious and spent obnoxious periods of time styling my hair to perfection every morning and attempting to convince myself that I looked decent enough to enter the judgmental public eye without attracting concealed ridicule and snickers . I adored the sensation of water flicking onto my lips and catching in my eyelashes, but never dared to venture openly into the rain because it also stuck bleached blond and contrasting black to my forehead, cold whitening my already paper pale skin and leaving my looking like a stupid wet ferret. Neither a view anyone wished to see or I wanted to become.
My ears picked up a snippet of information about George Washington, fact forgotten a quick second later as it was consumed by the curiosity that always plagued me, posing the question of why I actually cared about looking silly. I was a joke in every imaginable way; the words that left my mouth were only serious in the most desolate situations, I intentionally contorted my features into ridiculous expressions to intensify a punch line or cop an amused chuckle; I’d even made myself the subject of cutting jokes.
Though that cover-up was more obvious and intentional than the others, it was really astonishing how rarely I was genuine.
It wasn’t something that I consciously did; become the topic of my own jokes and fucked up humor. It was far easier, honestly, to laugh life away with meaningless sarcasm than to expose who I authentically was and open up my character to be sniggered at and looked down upon by others. If I purposefully made fun of myself and consistently failed to be sincere about anything concerning me, than no one could possibly strike a nerve that I hadn’t already glossed over with dry banter and absurdity.
I wondered about it, sometimes; what would happen if people knew how true some of the sarcastic remarks I made were. Back at the beginning of the year, when the first cracks were hammered into my sanity and I initially fell into this downward spiral, I often chuckled about the cuts slashed across my arm and proclaimed that I had indeed slit them myself with my tone heavily saturated with sarcasm. What would the reaction be if everyone knew of the honesty veiled in those statements?
Truthfully, some of my sarcasm had become dangerously close to satire, lately. I was endlessly amazed by the impressive amount of honesty that I could reveal, hidden under a laugh and silly voice, without anyone suspecting that the crap I spouted may not be entirely false. It had turned into a bit of an experiment, I suppose: how long could I disguise the truth as joking lies before someome callled my bluff?
May had come surprisingly close, giving me skeptical looks with every new scratch and scrape that appeared on my exposed skin, outwardly wondering how such cuts and burns could be accidental numerous times. It seemed that she knew what I did to myself, which actually only pissed me off, since she evidently did not care enough to directly discuss the subject or express her concerns to someone other than me. Quite disappointing, really, that my own sister wasn’t interested enough in my wellbeing to even try to discover the truth.
Alex, as always, was the exception to all this. That’s not to say that I made any less conspicuous cracks about myself around him, it was simply that he already knew all the honest truth that was increasingly poorly disguised by my lame jokes. It led to some awkward moments, actually, where I’d instinctively blurt out some shit and he’d gaze at me with sad, tired eyes and a wrinkled forehead, having heard whatever I hadn’t intended to admit.
All in all, though, it was quite nice to have someone I needn’t bother lying to. A refreshing change.
I guessed that the reason I was terrified of experiencing rain and looking like a drowned clown was because then my appearance would be out of my control. When I pulled a demented face or did a bizarre chicken dance, it was intentional and completely in my hands, so I could easily giggle along and grin at my own stupidity. As long as I was regulating how much of a mindless, sarcastic asshole I came off as, that was totally fine. It was when other people could make unseemly judgments about a real piece of me that I got uncomfortable.
So I stayed inside, safe and secluded, hoping that I’d someday be confident enough to be authentic and exist genuinely, letting everyone perceive me as they would.
I’d probably already irreparably fucked up that possibility, though. Despite what I so desperately acted like and frequently swore, I had everything to hide, and could never take back what I’d done or change the events of the past year. Scars are forever, and I was covered in them. Nobody ever openly shows their scars, and I, in that case, at least, was only another average standard.
___
Staring into my locker, I observed the toppled pile of notebooks and binders, contemplating whether or not it was worth standing them up correctly. With a resigned sigh, I shrugged, figuring that it’d be better dealt with when I needed to get my supplies for the last periods of the day. Leaving the fallen mess as it was, I grabbed two cubes of gum before swinging the door shut and clicking my lock closed.
Popping the bubblegum into my mouth and ignoring the groan from my stomach at being practically completely empty, I started off down the crowded hall, walking slowly in the general direction of Zack’s locker. I spotted his curly tufts of blond hair bobbing over the squeaking girls and jittery boys, turning around and stepping simultaneously next to him when I reached his side. Having passed the point of greeting each other with actual greetings long ago, Zack immediately said, “Hey, do you wanna eat outside today?”
Looking at the muscular boy beside me with a skeptical frown, my eyes shifted briefly down to the crinkled brown sack clutched in his hand. I wondered if he’d started smoking pot without sharing and was hiding it in his common lunch bag, asking, “Isn’t it still pouring? Why we would we do that?”
A quick peek through a propped open door alerted me that water was, expectedly, continuing to sleet out of the rolling clouds. I caught a lamely repressed smile playing with Zack’s mouth as we strolled on, glee in his purposefully neutral voice as he responded, “Rian likes the rain.”
I frowned with confusion at that, shrugging in submission and inspecting Rian when appeared out of the health office as we passed it. He was rubbing Purell over his hands in an attempt to murder the germs on his skin while I tried to figure out how the acutely health conscious boy could possibly enjoy being assaulted by dirty water.
Actually, after putting my brain to use, I realized that rain had been through the water cycle and was completely pure. Well, it still seemed uncharacteristic and strange for Rian to find any pleasure in that unpredictable form of nature, which he usually tried desperately to avoid and prevent from influencing his body. Maybe it was because rain was an anagram for his unusually spelled name.
Internally noting that Zack and Rian were quite the cute couple when they weren’t flirting obnoxiously and displaying their affections with sickening actions, I followed them mindlessly, slumping back against a wall and crossing my ankles when we plopped down outside, sitting on the recently cleansed concrete. The overhang deflected the pattering drops, creating waterfalls streaming out of the gutters, the steady precipitation a consistent background.
There was exactly enough wind whipping up the air to occasionally splatter us with rain, causing me to tug my sleeves over my knuckles and huddle in on myself. I snapped my gum and wished that I was the type of person who’d strip off my hoodie and let the water sting at my bare arms while I absorbed it with a tipped back face and no cares.
I briefly wondered where Alex was, thinking over whether he was chatting safely inside or skipping around the drenched back field with his slightly questionable friends. I wouldn’t be surprised at either: while my boyfriend was equally as emotionally reserved as I was, he was far less reluctant to seize an opportunity that’d make him happy.
Then again, I actually had no idea if he even liked downpours, but, knowing what I did about the brunet boy, he’d almost certainly jump at the chance to let winter’s chill bite his skin and the cloud’s relief to pinprick his body. Even if Alex didn’t find the sensation of standing in heavy rain all that pleasant, it was certainly strong, and he already went to ridiculous lengths to simply feel.
I wondered if I was capable of inducing that. When we were laughing idiotically and immaturely tossing bits of ripped rolls at each other across a white tablecloth on Valentine's Day last week, did the frozen despondency numbing him boil at the edges? When he grinned with giggle as I smacked him with a pillow after being informed that his birthday - which I was previously unaware of - had been the past day, was the smile pulling back his lips concealing and fake or geniune and happy? When I slung an arm around his waist and held him close, did the contact heat of my skin adequatley replace the cold he subjected himself to?
I hoped so. If I could sometimes even partially shock Alex's system into realizing that it was alive, then at least I was doing something valuable with my existence.
I blinked at the dim atmosphere, rubbing my knees in a feeble attempt to dispel the cold that had set into them and turning to the boys propped up next to me, deciding that I should try to participate in conversations instead of letting my thoughts overtake me more often. Finding them both devouring their respective meals silently, I glanced into the thermos that was stuck between Zack’s legs, asking with a pointed gaze, “What is that?”
Zack took a second to still his plastic fork and swallow a lump, eyes never leaving his food as he told me, “Leftovers from the Asian takeout we had last night. Wantons.”
My idiotic brain immediately converted that into a stupid joke, making me instantly say, “Wantonamo Bay.”
Contorting my forehead as Zack choked on a laugh and sputtered over his meal, I tried to figure out where the actual fuck that remark had come from. I had to agree with a nod when Rian chuckled and proclaimed that that was the worst pun ever made.
Cocky asshole side clicking back into effect, I changed my opinion and grinned, ignoring the oddity of that embarrassing word play being my instinctive response and declaring, “Definitely the best pun I’ve ever made, though.”
Rian rolled his eyes and Zack steadied his gasping breathes just long enough to give me steady, amused look before cracking up again. I smiled, deciding that the horrible joke was worth making someone laugh.
___
I was presented with the answer to my unexpressed question less than an hour later when Alex showed up to art with damp hair and a beaming grin. He just laughed quietly and smiled wider when I tsked at him and wiped the clinging droplets from his cheeks.
I spent that period flicking my wrist in careful sweeps, slowly painting a radial color wheel (the only circular object that I’d been able to think of to create for that project was, ironically, an umbrella) and contemplating whether or not I’d ever be comfortable and spontaneous enough to join Alex in the glittering rain and frolic barefoot through slippery grass, giggling instead of grumbling after mud-splattering falls. I wished for that dream to be realized, though the obsessive neatness that I created my amateur art with perhaps pointed towards me always being meticulous, pointlessly calculating, and apprehensive.
Hopefully I could learn to let go and live more freely. Maybe someday.
____________________
A/N: I haven't been able to be inspired/motivated enough to write anything good lately, which has been really stressing me out. This is supposed to make me happier, not more anxious, and that hasn't been working, so I need a break. I've decided to take a week off, so the next chapter'll be posted two weeks from today. I'm sorry. However, when it is eventually up, next chapter's about looove. Please comment!-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.
It was raining. Pouring, actually, plummeting water splattering onto the glass shielding me in bursting drops. The rubber wipers clearing it shuddered to a stop as my music abruptly cut off, key clicking out of the ignition, droplets impact’s becoming louder in the absence of the radio.
I glared out at the parking lot, huffing and blinking tiredly as I carefully tugged my hood up and steeled myself to slump through the foul weather, pushing the door open with a sigh and swinging to my feet. Lowering my head and shoving my hands into my pockets, I trudged quickly to the dry corridors and out of the sharp downpour. My vision was reduced to a five foot expanse of pavement immediately before me, eyes straining upwards as far as my lids would allow to peek out from under the hood and ensure that I didn’t get knocked over by a careless car during my trek across the asphalt. That would be quite an unfortunate way to start my day.
The atmosphere was gray and biting, the stereotypical setting for the beginning of a cliché horror movie. Hanging clouds smothered the sun, muting everything with a flat shadow, partnering nicely with the chill infecting the air. Cold and wet; miserable climate.
Reaching the hallway, I flopped my hood off and rearranged my fringe, tucking it back and narrowing my eyes uselessly as it drooped right back over them. Focusing on the soaked spots patterning my arms instead of the fixed faces surroundings me, I contemplated whether being inside and protected from the heavy rain but subjected to critical peers and high school torment was really an improvement.
___
Squinting out the window, I gazed past the glass, trying to focus my eyes clearly on the water streaming down and pooling into puddles. I was constantly mystified as to why rain was unnoticeable unless you were explicitly looking for it. Even though the drops coloring the sidewalks outside were substantial enough to leave my hoodie damp nearly two hours after I’d tramped through them, they were too misty and weak to be defined enough for my vision to naturally catch them.
Obviously, this had me twisted around in my stiff plastic chair, back turned uncomfortably and fingers gripping the edge of my seat as I ignored the work we’d been presented with. My history teacher had assigned us to read a chapter from the text book out loud and fill out a random sheet - busy work, it sounded like, leaving me to determine the activity useless and let my hearing discard my classmate’s voices and isolate the quiet sound of nature splashing the leaves beyond the window.
I was one of those contradictory and often irritating people who loved rain yet hated getting wet. Appropriately, I was also stuffed to the split seams with absolute shit.
While I had nothing inherently against letting the precipitation drip onto my skin and run streams over my cheeks, I was embarrassingly self conscious and spent obnoxious periods of time styling my hair to perfection every morning and attempting to convince myself that I looked decent enough to enter the judgmental public eye without attracting concealed ridicule and snickers . I adored the sensation of water flicking onto my lips and catching in my eyelashes, but never dared to venture openly into the rain because it also stuck bleached blond and contrasting black to my forehead, cold whitening my already paper pale skin and leaving my looking like a stupid wet ferret. Neither a view anyone wished to see or I wanted to become.
My ears picked up a snippet of information about George Washington, fact forgotten a quick second later as it was consumed by the curiosity that always plagued me, posing the question of why I actually cared about looking silly. I was a joke in every imaginable way; the words that left my mouth were only serious in the most desolate situations, I intentionally contorted my features into ridiculous expressions to intensify a punch line or cop an amused chuckle; I’d even made myself the subject of cutting jokes.
Though that cover-up was more obvious and intentional than the others, it was really astonishing how rarely I was genuine.
It wasn’t something that I consciously did; become the topic of my own jokes and fucked up humor. It was far easier, honestly, to laugh life away with meaningless sarcasm than to expose who I authentically was and open up my character to be sniggered at and looked down upon by others. If I purposefully made fun of myself and consistently failed to be sincere about anything concerning me, than no one could possibly strike a nerve that I hadn’t already glossed over with dry banter and absurdity.
I wondered about it, sometimes; what would happen if people knew how true some of the sarcastic remarks I made were. Back at the beginning of the year, when the first cracks were hammered into my sanity and I initially fell into this downward spiral, I often chuckled about the cuts slashed across my arm and proclaimed that I had indeed slit them myself with my tone heavily saturated with sarcasm. What would the reaction be if everyone knew of the honesty veiled in those statements?
Truthfully, some of my sarcasm had become dangerously close to satire, lately. I was endlessly amazed by the impressive amount of honesty that I could reveal, hidden under a laugh and silly voice, without anyone suspecting that the crap I spouted may not be entirely false. It had turned into a bit of an experiment, I suppose: how long could I disguise the truth as joking lies before someome callled my bluff?
May had come surprisingly close, giving me skeptical looks with every new scratch and scrape that appeared on my exposed skin, outwardly wondering how such cuts and burns could be accidental numerous times. It seemed that she knew what I did to myself, which actually only pissed me off, since she evidently did not care enough to directly discuss the subject or express her concerns to someone other than me. Quite disappointing, really, that my own sister wasn’t interested enough in my wellbeing to even try to discover the truth.
Alex, as always, was the exception to all this. That’s not to say that I made any less conspicuous cracks about myself around him, it was simply that he already knew all the honest truth that was increasingly poorly disguised by my lame jokes. It led to some awkward moments, actually, where I’d instinctively blurt out some shit and he’d gaze at me with sad, tired eyes and a wrinkled forehead, having heard whatever I hadn’t intended to admit.
All in all, though, it was quite nice to have someone I needn’t bother lying to. A refreshing change.
I guessed that the reason I was terrified of experiencing rain and looking like a drowned clown was because then my appearance would be out of my control. When I pulled a demented face or did a bizarre chicken dance, it was intentional and completely in my hands, so I could easily giggle along and grin at my own stupidity. As long as I was regulating how much of a mindless, sarcastic asshole I came off as, that was totally fine. It was when other people could make unseemly judgments about a real piece of me that I got uncomfortable.
So I stayed inside, safe and secluded, hoping that I’d someday be confident enough to be authentic and exist genuinely, letting everyone perceive me as they would.
I’d probably already irreparably fucked up that possibility, though. Despite what I so desperately acted like and frequently swore, I had everything to hide, and could never take back what I’d done or change the events of the past year. Scars are forever, and I was covered in them. Nobody ever openly shows their scars, and I, in that case, at least, was only another average standard.
___
Staring into my locker, I observed the toppled pile of notebooks and binders, contemplating whether or not it was worth standing them up correctly. With a resigned sigh, I shrugged, figuring that it’d be better dealt with when I needed to get my supplies for the last periods of the day. Leaving the fallen mess as it was, I grabbed two cubes of gum before swinging the door shut and clicking my lock closed.
Popping the bubblegum into my mouth and ignoring the groan from my stomach at being practically completely empty, I started off down the crowded hall, walking slowly in the general direction of Zack’s locker. I spotted his curly tufts of blond hair bobbing over the squeaking girls and jittery boys, turning around and stepping simultaneously next to him when I reached his side. Having passed the point of greeting each other with actual greetings long ago, Zack immediately said, “Hey, do you wanna eat outside today?”
Looking at the muscular boy beside me with a skeptical frown, my eyes shifted briefly down to the crinkled brown sack clutched in his hand. I wondered if he’d started smoking pot without sharing and was hiding it in his common lunch bag, asking, “Isn’t it still pouring? Why we would we do that?”
A quick peek through a propped open door alerted me that water was, expectedly, continuing to sleet out of the rolling clouds. I caught a lamely repressed smile playing with Zack’s mouth as we strolled on, glee in his purposefully neutral voice as he responded, “Rian likes the rain.”
I frowned with confusion at that, shrugging in submission and inspecting Rian when appeared out of the health office as we passed it. He was rubbing Purell over his hands in an attempt to murder the germs on his skin while I tried to figure out how the acutely health conscious boy could possibly enjoy being assaulted by dirty water.
Actually, after putting my brain to use, I realized that rain had been through the water cycle and was completely pure. Well, it still seemed uncharacteristic and strange for Rian to find any pleasure in that unpredictable form of nature, which he usually tried desperately to avoid and prevent from influencing his body. Maybe it was because rain was an anagram for his unusually spelled name.
Internally noting that Zack and Rian were quite the cute couple when they weren’t flirting obnoxiously and displaying their affections with sickening actions, I followed them mindlessly, slumping back against a wall and crossing my ankles when we plopped down outside, sitting on the recently cleansed concrete. The overhang deflected the pattering drops, creating waterfalls streaming out of the gutters, the steady precipitation a consistent background.
There was exactly enough wind whipping up the air to occasionally splatter us with rain, causing me to tug my sleeves over my knuckles and huddle in on myself. I snapped my gum and wished that I was the type of person who’d strip off my hoodie and let the water sting at my bare arms while I absorbed it with a tipped back face and no cares.
I briefly wondered where Alex was, thinking over whether he was chatting safely inside or skipping around the drenched back field with his slightly questionable friends. I wouldn’t be surprised at either: while my boyfriend was equally as emotionally reserved as I was, he was far less reluctant to seize an opportunity that’d make him happy.
Then again, I actually had no idea if he even liked downpours, but, knowing what I did about the brunet boy, he’d almost certainly jump at the chance to let winter’s chill bite his skin and the cloud’s relief to pinprick his body. Even if Alex didn’t find the sensation of standing in heavy rain all that pleasant, it was certainly strong, and he already went to ridiculous lengths to simply feel.
I wondered if I was capable of inducing that. When we were laughing idiotically and immaturely tossing bits of ripped rolls at each other across a white tablecloth on Valentine's Day last week, did the frozen despondency numbing him boil at the edges? When he grinned with giggle as I smacked him with a pillow after being informed that his birthday - which I was previously unaware of - had been the past day, was the smile pulling back his lips concealing and fake or geniune and happy? When I slung an arm around his waist and held him close, did the contact heat of my skin adequatley replace the cold he subjected himself to?
I hoped so. If I could sometimes even partially shock Alex's system into realizing that it was alive, then at least I was doing something valuable with my existence.
I blinked at the dim atmosphere, rubbing my knees in a feeble attempt to dispel the cold that had set into them and turning to the boys propped up next to me, deciding that I should try to participate in conversations instead of letting my thoughts overtake me more often. Finding them both devouring their respective meals silently, I glanced into the thermos that was stuck between Zack’s legs, asking with a pointed gaze, “What is that?”
Zack took a second to still his plastic fork and swallow a lump, eyes never leaving his food as he told me, “Leftovers from the Asian takeout we had last night. Wantons.”
My idiotic brain immediately converted that into a stupid joke, making me instantly say, “Wantonamo Bay.”
Contorting my forehead as Zack choked on a laugh and sputtered over his meal, I tried to figure out where the actual fuck that remark had come from. I had to agree with a nod when Rian chuckled and proclaimed that that was the worst pun ever made.
Cocky asshole side clicking back into effect, I changed my opinion and grinned, ignoring the oddity of that embarrassing word play being my instinctive response and declaring, “Definitely the best pun I’ve ever made, though.”
Rian rolled his eyes and Zack steadied his gasping breathes just long enough to give me steady, amused look before cracking up again. I smiled, deciding that the horrible joke was worth making someone laugh.
___
I was presented with the answer to my unexpressed question less than an hour later when Alex showed up to art with damp hair and a beaming grin. He just laughed quietly and smiled wider when I tsked at him and wiped the clinging droplets from his cheeks.
I spent that period flicking my wrist in careful sweeps, slowly painting a radial color wheel (the only circular object that I’d been able to think of to create for that project was, ironically, an umbrella) and contemplating whether or not I’d ever be comfortable and spontaneous enough to join Alex in the glittering rain and frolic barefoot through slippery grass, giggling instead of grumbling after mud-splattering falls. I wished for that dream to be realized, though the obsessive neatness that I created my amateur art with perhaps pointed towards me always being meticulous, pointlessly calculating, and apprehensive.
Hopefully I could learn to let go and live more freely. Maybe someday.
____________________
A/N: I haven't been able to be inspired/motivated enough to write anything good lately, which has been really stressing me out. This is supposed to make me happier, not more anxious, and that hasn't been working, so I need a break. I've decided to take a week off, so the next chapter'll be posted two weeks from today. I'm sorry. However, when it is eventually up, next chapter's about looove. Please comment!-Rose