Heaven's Ablaze - Chapter 2
Title:: Heaven's Ablaze
Genre:: AU Fanfic
Rating::R
Summary:: His heaven is ablaze in my eyes.
Author's Note:: This story is based on the album, Dark Light. Lyrics from all of the songs have been included in here at some point in time. Also slightly based on the book Der Vorleser, a german book by Bernhard Schlink, available in English under the title The Reader. The lyrics all belong to Valo, not to me, and I take no credit for them. This story and its content belong to me. Do not steal my work. ©heavenlyxflames, 2006
Prologue
Chapter 1 - Accident
Chapter Two - Pot Luck
I almost managed to forget about Bam - as much as I could given the current state of immobility I was in because of him. But he had shocked me so much that he was never really out of my mind. Not that I cared if I ever saw him again. It was just the impression that he’d made on me. I’d never seen someone so innocent before. Not in real life. Naïve and innocent. That’s what he was. Naïve and innocent and so completely trusting in God that it was unreal.
God. The thought of a God had always made me want to hurt myself or just burst out laughing.
If there was a God he obviously hated me.
But I didn’t think there was a God. I didn’t believe in any of that. God, Satan… it was all so ridiculous it made me laugh. I wore crosses sometimes because I liked the way they looked … and in Vegas, men were never able to resist the innocent church-boy look that it gave me. They paid well. I wore pentagrams sometimes for the same reason. It never meant anything to me and when people asked me if I was a Satanist or a Christian I just threw my head and laughed so hard that they would invariably edge away from me and never speak to me again.
I never needed God. I never wanted to know him. I didn’t believe in deluding myself into believing what amounted to a pack of lies. Some of the girls back in the city had nothing else but their belief in him … but I found that unbearable. I didn’t need anyone to help me but myself. So why convince myself that there was a God up there looking after me when there so blatantly wasn’t one? Those girls are probably still there, still clutching their rosary beads as some animal slams into them, the same name on their lips but for very different reasons.
I was about to order yet another meal from the Chinese place across the street - it was cheap and I got discounts there right now because the delivery woman had seen the bandages and felt bad - when the doorbell rung. In the hopes that it was the woman already there with my usual order, I actually got up and pushed the button to let her in.
How wrong I was.
It wasn’t the sweet Chinese lady that came up to my waist bearing hot steaming rice and sweet and sour pork in a little basket that came up the stairs to my apartment. It was the same boy that I’d been trying to forget for three days, a huge bag under his arm and his mother behind him, hissing something at him.
“Shut up, Mom, I know.”
They both smiled at me once they arrived where I was standing. I stared at them in shock. Then the mother started talking.
“Howdy, Mr. Valo. Well look, we just wanted to drop this by, to show how sorry we are about what happened, and to check on how you’re doing. I know from this one here that people with broken ribs can’t do much.” I stared at her.
“Mom, you’re scaring him,” said Bam, grinning. “How are you? Doing okay?” I turned to him and nodded slightly.
“Um… fine thanks.”
“Great.” He smiled at me and then turned to his mom, who started talking again.
“Come, I’ll just go set all this up for you and then you can eat while I see if there’s anything needs doing. I’m sure you haven’t been able to do a thing.”
I wanted to protest. I didn’t like people in my apartment. It was such a mess it was actually embarrassing. But she didn’t let me say anything, smiling as she pushed me back a little and let herself in.
“Well. It is a bit of a mess. Ah well, I’ll have it all clean in no time.”
“No, really, Miss, that won’t be…”
“Oh shush. Of course it’s necessary. It’s my hellion of a son’s fault you’re in this state. Let me do a little to pay you back.” Bam rolled his eyes at me behind his mother’s back and I smiled nervously. They were so… nice. Bam came in the apartment after I motioned to him that it was okay and I shut the door behind them.
“Painkillers?” He said, smiling, nodding to the piles of empty bottles that littered my floor. The kid had a sense of humor. I shrugged.
“You could say that.” He must have been about 15, I reasoned. He looked about that age. He still had some of the puppy fat left over from his pre-teen era, but you could tell he’d just had a growth spurt. Though it was obvious by his stature and his mother’s height that he’d never be as tall as me, he looked like quite a promising teenager. People would be falling over each other for him in a few months, after he got over this odd, awkward in between stage. His mother - who insisted that I call her April - cleaned up my whole apartment in the time that it took the two of us to eat the magnificent feast they’d brought along. She kept checking in on us, making sure that I was eating - “You look like you need more than one decent meal,” she would say, over and over again; her way of telling me that they’d be back with food again soon - and reprimanding Bam for eating everything.
He ate like a machine.
I was amazed. Yet again.
We talked quite a bit. Thinking about it later I realized I’d never actually talked to anyone for longer than 5 minutes besides Ben since I left Vegas. Especially not someone more than 10 years younger than me. But he was so nice and natural to talk to that I found myself talking before I even realized. Not about anything consequential. Just about fall and winter and snow and hobbies and things like that. I found out that he’d just turned 15 the month before, and he laughed as I complained about turning 28.
“What do you do?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean… what do you do for a living?” I chuckled, a little cynically again.
“I don’t make much of a living, as you can tell.” I sighed and then shrugged. “I work in the alcohol store a few blocks away. Pay sucks but at least I get freebies.” His eyes widen a little as he says:
“Quite a lot of freebies by the looks of it.”
I smile at him ruefully.
“I told you. I’m a sad old grump. It’s the only thing I have.” That’s so depressing I have to shake myself and turn back to my food.
“I’m sure you have other things. Friends. Family of some sort… everyone does!” He said this so passionately that it felt like someone was scraping their nails against the cold stone of my heart.
“I told you,” I said a little bit bitterly. “I don’t have family. And I don’t have friends. I have myself. And I have alcohol. And I have Oprah Winfrey to keep me entertained on a Friday night. The only thing that woman is good for is a laugh.” He looked shocked at my anger, and I found myself apologizing again. “Sorry.” He shrugged and waved it off; anything to make me happy went that day, it seemed.
It was unnerving.
By the time he and his mom were taking their leave, all their dishes in tow with the leftovers in Tupperware containers in my disgusting fridge for dinner - April said that the fridge was her next task - their promises to come back the next day ringing in my ears, my nerves were shot.
I sat down on the broken couch that I’d found on a dumpster and dragged home one day and caught up a bottle of very strong liquor in my hands. It only took a little bit of it, mixed with the painkillers, to send me into a drunken sleep as deep as anything, where I could forget the burn of their niceness that lingered in the clean, fresh air of my apartment.
Memories, sharp as daggers
Pierce into the flesh of today
I hated that they were so good. I hated that they were so nice. I hated that they cared. Because now that I had a feeling of what it was like to be worried over, I was miserable again. Now that I could remember what it was like to be looked after, all my past memories were dug up. Memories of my own mother, not so different from Bam’s - except that she didn’t care about me half as much as April obviously cared about Bam. Memories of my family giving me presents on my birthday; as much as they ignored me for the rest of the year, I was still the king of the day on my birthday. It hurt to remember. The memories ripped themselves out of the back of my brain and flew in front of my eyes and it wasn’t long before I was crying real tears. 28 and crying. The salt mixed with the sickly sweetness of whatever I was drinking. I hadn’t cried since I was in Vegas. Not once. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I didn’t know what had happened. I cried until the tears and the drink and the pain killers knocked me out and I woke up in the same position the next day at noon by the door bell ringing again.
I didn’t answer it.
I couldn’t face them. I couldn’t see their smiling faces. Their worried eyes.
Couldn’t smell the amazing food that they brought.
I don’t know why I got up after the third time they rung the door bell.
I still don’t understand. I was in pieces. But I answered the door.
I never answered the door.
But I answered it for them.
Hope, maybe? Loneliness finally taking its toll on me, taking over, possessing me, driving me to seek company. Any company. Anyone, anywhere. Maybe it was desperation. Maybe I knew I was killing myself. Maybe something somewhere deep inside me something didn’t want to die. Something in there wanted and needed something to cling on to. Some kind of life to hold to.
Something. Anything. Someone. Anyone.
I don’t know why I answered the door and let Bam and his mom in that day.
I don’t know why I kept answering the door for them. I told myself every time they left that it had to stop. That I had to go back to being alone. I couldn’t let myself think for one moment that things might get better for me because they wouldn’t. It was a fact that I had to face. I’d been facing it for 12 years. What was going wrong now?
Oh, I'm killing loneliness with you
I'm killing loneliness that turned my heart into a tomb
I'm killing loneliness
After a few days Bam’s mom stopped coming and it was just Bam turning up on my door step at dinner time, a basketful of food in his hand.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked him after a few days. “I mean it. Why are you guys doing all of this for me?”
Bam just shrugged and shoveled another fork-full of the best spaghetti I’d ever eaten into his mouth.
“Because I hit you with the car. And broke three of your ribs. And rendered you helpless. And because we care.”
“Yeah but why?” He shrugged.
“Do we need a reason to care?” I looked at him, stunned, my fork halfway to my mouth. I put it down on the plate with a clatter.
“Well I mean… yeah. Normal people don’t just… start taking care of some random stranger like this.” Bam smiled.
“Sure they do. Why not?”
“Well… cuz… cuz…” I had no reply. There was no comeback to that. It was so heartfelt and earnest. I didn’t understand. I couldn’t understand. I’d never cared about someone for such completely selfless reasons.
“See? It’s fine. I like coming over here anyways.”
“Why?” I say, chuckling a little.
“Just because. I don’t know. Mom’s actually trusting me with something semi-important, I guess. Doesn’t happen too often, see. I break things too much.” I smile at him. I was a bit surprised that she was letting him come see me by himself. But I suppose that she had acquired some false sense of trust for me because I was so overly polite to her. She did clean out my house though. Who wouldn’t be polite to someone like that? Even I, bitter scarred bastard that I was, knew how to be nice and thankful.
“I see,” I said. Silence reigned for a little while; not too uncommon between us. After all, what was there for a 28 year old to talk to a 15 year old about? Especially considering our completely different backgrounds. I still don’t know why he bothered. I think it’s one of those things about him that I will never understand. There are many of them.
Genre:: AU Fanfic
Rating::R
Summary:: His heaven is ablaze in my eyes.
Author's Note:: This story is based on the album, Dark Light. Lyrics from all of the songs have been included in here at some point in time. Also slightly based on the book Der Vorleser, a german book by Bernhard Schlink, available in English under the title The Reader. The lyrics all belong to Valo, not to me, and I take no credit for them. This story and its content belong to me. Do not steal my work. ©heavenlyxflames, 2006
Prologue
Chapter 1 - Accident
Chapter Two - Pot Luck
I almost managed to forget about Bam - as much as I could given the current state of immobility I was in because of him. But he had shocked me so much that he was never really out of my mind. Not that I cared if I ever saw him again. It was just the impression that he’d made on me. I’d never seen someone so innocent before. Not in real life. Naïve and innocent. That’s what he was. Naïve and innocent and so completely trusting in God that it was unreal.
God. The thought of a God had always made me want to hurt myself or just burst out laughing.
If there was a God he obviously hated me.
But I didn’t think there was a God. I didn’t believe in any of that. God, Satan… it was all so ridiculous it made me laugh. I wore crosses sometimes because I liked the way they looked … and in Vegas, men were never able to resist the innocent church-boy look that it gave me. They paid well. I wore pentagrams sometimes for the same reason. It never meant anything to me and when people asked me if I was a Satanist or a Christian I just threw my head and laughed so hard that they would invariably edge away from me and never speak to me again.
I never needed God. I never wanted to know him. I didn’t believe in deluding myself into believing what amounted to a pack of lies. Some of the girls back in the city had nothing else but their belief in him … but I found that unbearable. I didn’t need anyone to help me but myself. So why convince myself that there was a God up there looking after me when there so blatantly wasn’t one? Those girls are probably still there, still clutching their rosary beads as some animal slams into them, the same name on their lips but for very different reasons.
I was about to order yet another meal from the Chinese place across the street - it was cheap and I got discounts there right now because the delivery woman had seen the bandages and felt bad - when the doorbell rung. In the hopes that it was the woman already there with my usual order, I actually got up and pushed the button to let her in.
How wrong I was.
It wasn’t the sweet Chinese lady that came up to my waist bearing hot steaming rice and sweet and sour pork in a little basket that came up the stairs to my apartment. It was the same boy that I’d been trying to forget for three days, a huge bag under his arm and his mother behind him, hissing something at him.
“Shut up, Mom, I know.”
They both smiled at me once they arrived where I was standing. I stared at them in shock. Then the mother started talking.
“Howdy, Mr. Valo. Well look, we just wanted to drop this by, to show how sorry we are about what happened, and to check on how you’re doing. I know from this one here that people with broken ribs can’t do much.” I stared at her.
“Mom, you’re scaring him,” said Bam, grinning. “How are you? Doing okay?” I turned to him and nodded slightly.
“Um… fine thanks.”
“Great.” He smiled at me and then turned to his mom, who started talking again.
“Come, I’ll just go set all this up for you and then you can eat while I see if there’s anything needs doing. I’m sure you haven’t been able to do a thing.”
I wanted to protest. I didn’t like people in my apartment. It was such a mess it was actually embarrassing. But she didn’t let me say anything, smiling as she pushed me back a little and let herself in.
“Well. It is a bit of a mess. Ah well, I’ll have it all clean in no time.”
“No, really, Miss, that won’t be…”
“Oh shush. Of course it’s necessary. It’s my hellion of a son’s fault you’re in this state. Let me do a little to pay you back.” Bam rolled his eyes at me behind his mother’s back and I smiled nervously. They were so… nice. Bam came in the apartment after I motioned to him that it was okay and I shut the door behind them.
“Painkillers?” He said, smiling, nodding to the piles of empty bottles that littered my floor. The kid had a sense of humor. I shrugged.
“You could say that.” He must have been about 15, I reasoned. He looked about that age. He still had some of the puppy fat left over from his pre-teen era, but you could tell he’d just had a growth spurt. Though it was obvious by his stature and his mother’s height that he’d never be as tall as me, he looked like quite a promising teenager. People would be falling over each other for him in a few months, after he got over this odd, awkward in between stage. His mother - who insisted that I call her April - cleaned up my whole apartment in the time that it took the two of us to eat the magnificent feast they’d brought along. She kept checking in on us, making sure that I was eating - “You look like you need more than one decent meal,” she would say, over and over again; her way of telling me that they’d be back with food again soon - and reprimanding Bam for eating everything.
He ate like a machine.
I was amazed. Yet again.
We talked quite a bit. Thinking about it later I realized I’d never actually talked to anyone for longer than 5 minutes besides Ben since I left Vegas. Especially not someone more than 10 years younger than me. But he was so nice and natural to talk to that I found myself talking before I even realized. Not about anything consequential. Just about fall and winter and snow and hobbies and things like that. I found out that he’d just turned 15 the month before, and he laughed as I complained about turning 28.
“What do you do?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean… what do you do for a living?” I chuckled, a little cynically again.
“I don’t make much of a living, as you can tell.” I sighed and then shrugged. “I work in the alcohol store a few blocks away. Pay sucks but at least I get freebies.” His eyes widen a little as he says:
“Quite a lot of freebies by the looks of it.”
I smile at him ruefully.
“I told you. I’m a sad old grump. It’s the only thing I have.” That’s so depressing I have to shake myself and turn back to my food.
“I’m sure you have other things. Friends. Family of some sort… everyone does!” He said this so passionately that it felt like someone was scraping their nails against the cold stone of my heart.
“I told you,” I said a little bit bitterly. “I don’t have family. And I don’t have friends. I have myself. And I have alcohol. And I have Oprah Winfrey to keep me entertained on a Friday night. The only thing that woman is good for is a laugh.” He looked shocked at my anger, and I found myself apologizing again. “Sorry.” He shrugged and waved it off; anything to make me happy went that day, it seemed.
It was unnerving.
By the time he and his mom were taking their leave, all their dishes in tow with the leftovers in Tupperware containers in my disgusting fridge for dinner - April said that the fridge was her next task - their promises to come back the next day ringing in my ears, my nerves were shot.
I sat down on the broken couch that I’d found on a dumpster and dragged home one day and caught up a bottle of very strong liquor in my hands. It only took a little bit of it, mixed with the painkillers, to send me into a drunken sleep as deep as anything, where I could forget the burn of their niceness that lingered in the clean, fresh air of my apartment.
Memories, sharp as daggers
Pierce into the flesh of today
I hated that they were so good. I hated that they were so nice. I hated that they cared. Because now that I had a feeling of what it was like to be worried over, I was miserable again. Now that I could remember what it was like to be looked after, all my past memories were dug up. Memories of my own mother, not so different from Bam’s - except that she didn’t care about me half as much as April obviously cared about Bam. Memories of my family giving me presents on my birthday; as much as they ignored me for the rest of the year, I was still the king of the day on my birthday. It hurt to remember. The memories ripped themselves out of the back of my brain and flew in front of my eyes and it wasn’t long before I was crying real tears. 28 and crying. The salt mixed with the sickly sweetness of whatever I was drinking. I hadn’t cried since I was in Vegas. Not once. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I didn’t know what had happened. I cried until the tears and the drink and the pain killers knocked me out and I woke up in the same position the next day at noon by the door bell ringing again.
I didn’t answer it.
I couldn’t face them. I couldn’t see their smiling faces. Their worried eyes.
Couldn’t smell the amazing food that they brought.
I don’t know why I got up after the third time they rung the door bell.
I still don’t understand. I was in pieces. But I answered the door.
I never answered the door.
But I answered it for them.
Hope, maybe? Loneliness finally taking its toll on me, taking over, possessing me, driving me to seek company. Any company. Anyone, anywhere. Maybe it was desperation. Maybe I knew I was killing myself. Maybe something somewhere deep inside me something didn’t want to die. Something in there wanted and needed something to cling on to. Some kind of life to hold to.
Something. Anything. Someone. Anyone.
I don’t know why I answered the door and let Bam and his mom in that day.
I don’t know why I kept answering the door for them. I told myself every time they left that it had to stop. That I had to go back to being alone. I couldn’t let myself think for one moment that things might get better for me because they wouldn’t. It was a fact that I had to face. I’d been facing it for 12 years. What was going wrong now?
Oh, I'm killing loneliness with you
I'm killing loneliness that turned my heart into a tomb
I'm killing loneliness
After a few days Bam’s mom stopped coming and it was just Bam turning up on my door step at dinner time, a basketful of food in his hand.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked him after a few days. “I mean it. Why are you guys doing all of this for me?”
Bam just shrugged and shoveled another fork-full of the best spaghetti I’d ever eaten into his mouth.
“Because I hit you with the car. And broke three of your ribs. And rendered you helpless. And because we care.”
“Yeah but why?” He shrugged.
“Do we need a reason to care?” I looked at him, stunned, my fork halfway to my mouth. I put it down on the plate with a clatter.
“Well I mean… yeah. Normal people don’t just… start taking care of some random stranger like this.” Bam smiled.
“Sure they do. Why not?”
“Well… cuz… cuz…” I had no reply. There was no comeback to that. It was so heartfelt and earnest. I didn’t understand. I couldn’t understand. I’d never cared about someone for such completely selfless reasons.
“See? It’s fine. I like coming over here anyways.”
“Why?” I say, chuckling a little.
“Just because. I don’t know. Mom’s actually trusting me with something semi-important, I guess. Doesn’t happen too often, see. I break things too much.” I smile at him. I was a bit surprised that she was letting him come see me by himself. But I suppose that she had acquired some false sense of trust for me because I was so overly polite to her. She did clean out my house though. Who wouldn’t be polite to someone like that? Even I, bitter scarred bastard that I was, knew how to be nice and thankful.
“I see,” I said. Silence reigned for a little while; not too uncommon between us. After all, what was there for a 28 year old to talk to a 15 year old about? Especially considering our completely different backgrounds. I still don’t know why he bothered. I think it’s one of those things about him that I will never understand. There are many of them.