No Good Deed [Pied Piper]
Canon Status: Post-Rogues Revenge.
Genre: ...Songfic?
Rating: G.
Characters: Pied Piper/Hartley Rathaway, mentioned Trickster I/James Jesse.
Pairing: None.
Warnings: Songfic, of sorts. Implied m/m unrequited (or is it?).
Notes: For the piper_trickster Halloween challenge, prompt #34--"Wicked".
Summary: Piper is alone in Iron Heights, but there's one source of music that hasn't been taken from him. Not that it does him any good...
Iron Heights was as grey and chill as ever, but the old Warden was gone, something about abuse of prisoners (Piper laughed when he heard, a laugh that was almost a sob, because he could have written a book on the subject), and the new Warden took his pipes but left him sounds, the rustles of fabric and clinks of metal, all the sounds the absence of which had made the prison into a nightmare. Now it was just a place to wait.
He could probably escape again, third time the charm. But really, why should he? There was nothing out there waiting for him. In here, at least there was nothing searching for him. He could sleep, for what felt like the first time in years. Maybe later he would find a reason to do something other than sleep. Maybe. The comforting numb blanket wrapped around his mind made it hard to care about doing anything. He’d tried doing something, and look how that had turned out. Far better to just sit and wait for something to change.
After a month, the numb feeling wasn’t as helpful. It seemed like the smallest things-a glimpse of blue and yellow, someone with hair like his mother’s, the smell of dust-would set him thinking of people best left in the corners of his mind where their absence couldn’t cut so deep.
The only thing he had left was music. They had taken away his pipes, his gadgets, anything that could be turned into an instrument, but he still had his voice, and while that wasn’t very good it was better than nothing. He could hear every little (and large) error in his voice, but somehow he couldn’t find it in him to care. Part of him thought that was a bad sign. The rest was just glad to have something to take his mind away from all the places he was not.
He avoided some songs: the one he and James had called “their song” and laughed at their own clichéd phrasing; the precious few he had learned from his mother, before she had realized he wasn’t going to be worth the effort; the silly songs he had played to make Trickster laugh; the songs that had been most significant in the life he used to have. Instead, he sang his way through every CD that had ever graced his shelves, then through the lyrics of every musical he had ever seen.
It was almost working, until he got to “No One Mourns the Wicked” and the all too apposite words felt like they were crushing his throat. He got as far as “the wicked die alone” when the tears started falling for the first time in too long. He made it through the rest of the song and continued to the next, but now it felt different, like an eulogy or a dirge.
As “The Wizard and I” turned into a requiem for the Rogues as they had once been, when they had been the first people to accept him, as “What is This Feeling?” became in his song an imitation of all the squabbles between him and Trickster that hadn’t really meant a thing in the end, as “Not That Girl” was a song of regret for something he never could have had and only now realized he had ever wanted, “Defying Gravity” poured past his lips as an eulogy on everything Trickster had been, every rule he had defied, every refusal to stay dully on solid ground. It felt better, in a way, to put everything into words, even if they weren’t his own.
By the time he got to “No Good Deed”, Piper was caught up in the music as he had not been in what felt like eternity. Also, it was an opportunity to scream (which he had not done lately either and suddenly felt that he badly wanted do). Maybe it was the memories of what his good deeds had wrought, maybe it was the bone-deep ache that was the absence of Trickster when once he had gotten used to his presence, maybe it was emotions too long bottled up coming to the surface at last, but for once he felt singing the way he did when he was playing his flute, as though the world was listening and taking heed. As though something was going to happen.
“Let his flesh not be torn, let his blood leave no stain, though they beat him let him feel no pain! Let his bones never break and however they try to destroy him, let him never die, let him never die!”
He was half-expecting to see some effect, as though he were capable of manipulating his voice like his flute to bend the world to his will. But nothing happened, and when the song was done the cell was as it had been.
Piper suddenly found that he was tired. Curling up, he decided that he could finish the musical tomorrow and drifted off into the first sleep uninterrupted by nightmares he had had in months.
Elsewhere, a puppet, body striped in blue and yellow, twitched.
Genre: ...Songfic?
Rating: G.
Characters: Pied Piper/Hartley Rathaway, mentioned Trickster I/James Jesse.
Pairing: None.
Warnings: Songfic, of sorts. Implied m/m unrequited (or is it?).
Notes: For the piper_trickster Halloween challenge, prompt #34--"Wicked".
Summary: Piper is alone in Iron Heights, but there's one source of music that hasn't been taken from him. Not that it does him any good...
Iron Heights was as grey and chill as ever, but the old Warden was gone, something about abuse of prisoners (Piper laughed when he heard, a laugh that was almost a sob, because he could have written a book on the subject), and the new Warden took his pipes but left him sounds, the rustles of fabric and clinks of metal, all the sounds the absence of which had made the prison into a nightmare. Now it was just a place to wait.
He could probably escape again, third time the charm. But really, why should he? There was nothing out there waiting for him. In here, at least there was nothing searching for him. He could sleep, for what felt like the first time in years. Maybe later he would find a reason to do something other than sleep. Maybe. The comforting numb blanket wrapped around his mind made it hard to care about doing anything. He’d tried doing something, and look how that had turned out. Far better to just sit and wait for something to change.
After a month, the numb feeling wasn’t as helpful. It seemed like the smallest things-a glimpse of blue and yellow, someone with hair like his mother’s, the smell of dust-would set him thinking of people best left in the corners of his mind where their absence couldn’t cut so deep.
The only thing he had left was music. They had taken away his pipes, his gadgets, anything that could be turned into an instrument, but he still had his voice, and while that wasn’t very good it was better than nothing. He could hear every little (and large) error in his voice, but somehow he couldn’t find it in him to care. Part of him thought that was a bad sign. The rest was just glad to have something to take his mind away from all the places he was not.
He avoided some songs: the one he and James had called “their song” and laughed at their own clichéd phrasing; the precious few he had learned from his mother, before she had realized he wasn’t going to be worth the effort; the silly songs he had played to make Trickster laugh; the songs that had been most significant in the life he used to have. Instead, he sang his way through every CD that had ever graced his shelves, then through the lyrics of every musical he had ever seen.
It was almost working, until he got to “No One Mourns the Wicked” and the all too apposite words felt like they were crushing his throat. He got as far as “the wicked die alone” when the tears started falling for the first time in too long. He made it through the rest of the song and continued to the next, but now it felt different, like an eulogy or a dirge.
As “The Wizard and I” turned into a requiem for the Rogues as they had once been, when they had been the first people to accept him, as “What is This Feeling?” became in his song an imitation of all the squabbles between him and Trickster that hadn’t really meant a thing in the end, as “Not That Girl” was a song of regret for something he never could have had and only now realized he had ever wanted, “Defying Gravity” poured past his lips as an eulogy on everything Trickster had been, every rule he had defied, every refusal to stay dully on solid ground. It felt better, in a way, to put everything into words, even if they weren’t his own.
By the time he got to “No Good Deed”, Piper was caught up in the music as he had not been in what felt like eternity. Also, it was an opportunity to scream (which he had not done lately either and suddenly felt that he badly wanted do). Maybe it was the memories of what his good deeds had wrought, maybe it was the bone-deep ache that was the absence of Trickster when once he had gotten used to his presence, maybe it was emotions too long bottled up coming to the surface at last, but for once he felt singing the way he did when he was playing his flute, as though the world was listening and taking heed. As though something was going to happen.
“Let his flesh not be torn, let his blood leave no stain, though they beat him let him feel no pain! Let his bones never break and however they try to destroy him, let him never die, let him never die!”
He was half-expecting to see some effect, as though he were capable of manipulating his voice like his flute to bend the world to his will. But nothing happened, and when the song was done the cell was as it had been.
Piper suddenly found that he was tired. Curling up, he decided that he could finish the musical tomorrow and drifted off into the first sleep uninterrupted by nightmares he had had in months.
Elsewhere, a puppet, body striped in blue and yellow, twitched.