there's a room in my house, there's a light in the night
first MCR-ish fic i've ever done! i’m quite uncertain about it. i’m still learning a lot about how to write for this. i don’t think I’ll be writing anything MCR again soon, it is difficult! i have a lot to learn about characterization and once again I need to learn to write a proper straight-up linear story. omgplzrlyrlysrsly still can’t do it to save my life.
cherub_ellie specifically requested Gerard/cherub_ellie anyone, ah hah hah. but I turned it around and got all odd and prosey with it. throw in our december 19 prompt at we_are_cities and there’s numbering again (for the gajillionth time in my writing), and unnamed people, and tense shifting, and SECOND PERSON PRONOUNS, geez gosh. you are super warned, and i am super sorry. i know a lot of people hate things like that and avoid them like the plague.
But Chell! I hope you like it!
litany in which certain things are crossed out
(four proofs for a theory of everything)
MCR. kind of about Gerard; i have no idea who the other person is.
In which the things that have happened are not reversible.
*
Exhibit A: the existence of a list;
This is something written neatly on scrap paper, folded neatly in four parts, tucked once in your back pocket, then taken out at various times, unfolded, added to. At some point you use it to mark chapter 27 of a long, rambling book you haven’t really been reading.
The chapter is entitled: 27, IN WHICH THE THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED ARE NOT REVERSIBLE but it is not as if you care. You are too busy watching him sleep.
( but it’s not like you need to guard him, it’s not like he disappears without you. it’s just that this is what he is, to you. what he has been for as long as you remember.
it’s just the way he occupies space and time, the small vacancies in between thoughts: so soft and so solid. )
Exhibit B: the list in question;
This only makes sense to you, and even then, only sometimes.
Exhibit C: the list, explained;
1.
He thinks of you in equivalences, in ratios and perspectives, because that is how artists tell themselves they should Learn to See. Because that is how he can draw you accurately. The negative space showing your outlines, the light showing your shadows.
It’s the art school things I can’t shake, yeah, he says sheepishly, trying earnestly to avoid pretentiousness. But maybe it’s also from looking at you so often.
(Recently he told you -- proved to you -- that your spine could be traced in eleven of his mouth-spans. This was an odd fact to learn about yourself, so you kissed him in the middle of his next sentence, so you wouldn’t learn too much.
More or less, he said. It’s an estimate. We’ll see, we’ll
, mmnph --
You have to do that sometimes, kiss him to keep the revelations from getting out.)
2.
Sometimes when you ask him a question there is a short pause in between: the answer coming five seconds delayed, as if he were a foreign correspondent reporting from a far-off country. Maybe he is. It’s possible that his voice sometimes comes from somewhere you cannot reach, war-torn and desolate (too distant & too dangerous). There is barbed wire edging the borders like elaborate lace. Somewhere, the empty streets are filled only with stones and broken glass and the sounds of sirens.
3.
You were reading to him, despite the dim bedroom half-light, despite his warnings of you’re going to ruin your eyes, you know. You had an answer to that but you don’t remember it. You are used to the unreliability of your senses, even more used to his warnings.
You put the notebook down and asked him what he thought of it. “...I,” he started and didn’t finish, “I.”
He had one hand in your hair as you lay perpendicular to him, your head resting on his chest. You turned your head to look up at him and this movement let you press your ear to his ribcage, to hear his heartbeat, the oxygen cycling through him.
And maybe you were a little uneasy that you asked him something he seemed unwilling to answer. But he opened his mouth again and words tumbled out and you exhaled the breath that had caught in your throat.
“Ah, Christ, I honestly did not hear a single fucking word. I was too busy watching you.
…I hope that’s okay.”
And then he grinned, a little wildly.
4.
It shouldn’t have to matter. But there was a time when you lived in a house together and it felt right, to live with him, there. Its whitewashed walls ached like you did, the house with its rusted screen doors and drafty hallways and you with your teeth and uncooperative lungs.
Together you hurt like history: something that happened long ago, still resonating strong into the present. Sometimes the air whistled through you both and it felt like ghosts.
5.
You both love the truth, the pain and the purity of it. You know this. There is a trustworthiness in his face that makes him seem incapable of lying, although he would lie to protect you without question. You know this too; he would lie like a sick dog. His love is the kind of love that drives people to lock up beautiful things, the kind of love that drives mothers to kill for their children: fierce, protective, unconditional.
Exhibit D: sworn account of the minutes;
This is you looking at the list and trying to decide if they are the reasons you love him, or the reasons why you can never be together. It is one way or the other. You laugh at yourself just a little, kind of sadly; why are these things always such a struggle? When you finally decide, you take a felt-tip pen --
( it’s his, of course, left on your nightstand the night before, and it’s funny the things he forgets, for all his attention to detail, all his compulsions )
-- and you cross it all out. The list becomes a picture drawn line by line, jet-black on white, parallel after parallel after parallel.
This is the only drawing you will do for about of him, ever.
*
fin.
title comes from a poem by Richard Siken. beffy!beta sonstoodstammer is girlfriendly above the waist -- always in the brain and heart vicinity. ♥
feedback would really be appreciated! i'll take concrit gracefully, i'll really try. i know i have a long way to go, a lot to learn, young grasshopper am i, etc etc.
ETA 12-24-06: Thank you so much to _mydecember_ for the feature at her rec journal, letterbomb___! ♥
cherub_ellie specifically requested Gerard/cherub_ellie anyone, ah hah hah. but I turned it around and got all odd and prosey with it. throw in our december 19 prompt at we_are_cities and there’s numbering again (for the gajillionth time in my writing), and unnamed people, and tense shifting, and SECOND PERSON PRONOUNS, geez gosh. you are super warned, and i am super sorry. i know a lot of people hate things like that and avoid them like the plague.
But Chell! I hope you like it!
litany in which certain things are crossed out
(four proofs for a theory of everything)
MCR. kind of about Gerard; i have no idea who the other person is.
In which the things that have happened are not reversible.
*
Exhibit A: the existence of a list;
This is something written neatly on scrap paper, folded neatly in four parts, tucked once in your back pocket, then taken out at various times, unfolded, added to. At some point you use it to mark chapter 27 of a long, rambling book you haven’t really been reading.
The chapter is entitled: 27, IN WHICH THE THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED ARE NOT REVERSIBLE but it is not as if you care. You are too busy watching him sleep.
( but it’s not like you need to guard him, it’s not like he disappears without you. it’s just that this is what he is, to you. what he has been for as long as you remember.
it’s just the way he occupies space and time, the small vacancies in between thoughts: so soft and so solid. )
Exhibit B: the list in question;
This only makes sense to you, and even then, only sometimes.
- It’s unfair, how good he is, at the things he does.
It’s not fucking fair.
- he -- - -in-s- - - --- ---- - !!
( it’s illegible, due to your own handwriting and stray drops of a drink you can’t identify. when did you write this? there are soft pink and greenish spots where the black ink has separated a little, from the spills. )
- His effortlessness It’s like he doesn’t even try sometimes.
- It doesn’t matter if it was years ago or just yesterday.
- Too good to be tr It’s too true to ever be good.
Exhibit C: the list, explained;
1.
He thinks of you in equivalences, in ratios and perspectives, because that is how artists tell themselves they should Learn to See. Because that is how he can draw you accurately. The negative space showing your outlines, the light showing your shadows.
It’s the art school things I can’t shake, yeah, he says sheepishly, trying earnestly to avoid pretentiousness. But maybe it’s also from looking at you so often.
(Recently he told you -- proved to you -- that your spine could be traced in eleven of his mouth-spans. This was an odd fact to learn about yourself, so you kissed him in the middle of his next sentence, so you wouldn’t learn too much.
More or less, he said. It’s an estimate. We’ll see, we’ll
, mmnph --
You have to do that sometimes, kiss him to keep the revelations from getting out.)
2.
Sometimes when you ask him a question there is a short pause in between: the answer coming five seconds delayed, as if he were a foreign correspondent reporting from a far-off country. Maybe he is. It’s possible that his voice sometimes comes from somewhere you cannot reach, war-torn and desolate (too distant & too dangerous). There is barbed wire edging the borders like elaborate lace. Somewhere, the empty streets are filled only with stones and broken glass and the sounds of sirens.
3.
You were reading to him, despite the dim bedroom half-light, despite his warnings of you’re going to ruin your eyes, you know. You had an answer to that but you don’t remember it. You are used to the unreliability of your senses, even more used to his warnings.
You put the notebook down and asked him what he thought of it. “...I,” he started and didn’t finish, “I.”
He had one hand in your hair as you lay perpendicular to him, your head resting on his chest. You turned your head to look up at him and this movement let you press your ear to his ribcage, to hear his heartbeat, the oxygen cycling through him.
And maybe you were a little uneasy that you asked him something he seemed unwilling to answer. But he opened his mouth again and words tumbled out and you exhaled the breath that had caught in your throat.
“Ah, Christ, I honestly did not hear a single fucking word. I was too busy watching you.
…I hope that’s okay.”
And then he grinned, a little wildly.
4.
It shouldn’t have to matter. But there was a time when you lived in a house together and it felt right, to live with him, there. Its whitewashed walls ached like you did, the house with its rusted screen doors and drafty hallways and you with your teeth and uncooperative lungs.
Together you hurt like history: something that happened long ago, still resonating strong into the present. Sometimes the air whistled through you both and it felt like ghosts.
5.
You both love the truth, the pain and the purity of it. You know this. There is a trustworthiness in his face that makes him seem incapable of lying, although he would lie to protect you without question. You know this too; he would lie like a sick dog. His love is the kind of love that drives people to lock up beautiful things, the kind of love that drives mothers to kill for their children: fierce, protective, unconditional.
Exhibit D: sworn account of the minutes;
This is you looking at the list and trying to decide if they are the reasons you love him, or the reasons why you can never be together. It is one way or the other. You laugh at yourself just a little, kind of sadly; why are these things always such a struggle? When you finally decide, you take a felt-tip pen --
( it’s his, of course, left on your nightstand the night before, and it’s funny the things he forgets, for all his attention to detail, all his compulsions )
-- and you cross it all out. The list becomes a picture drawn line by line, jet-black on white, parallel after parallel after parallel.
This is the only drawing you will do for about of him, ever.
*
fin.
title comes from a poem by Richard Siken. beffy!beta sonstoodstammer is girlfriendly above the waist -- always in the brain and heart vicinity. ♥
feedback would really be appreciated! i'll take concrit gracefully, i'll really try. i know i have a long way to go, a lot to learn, young grasshopper am i, etc etc.
ETA 12-24-06: Thank you so much to _mydecember_ for the feature at her rec journal, letterbomb___! ♥