French Vanilla
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Timid Dabbler
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- Posted: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 03:59:09 +0000
Laroyena
...
He misses his brother. He misses his brother the way he might miss a limb, a lung, the ghost of a second heart beating against his with all the force of memory and loss. William isn't quite sure how he is going to live now; Jeremy was his family, his friend, his support and shield, and without him it is like trying to walk with his legs cut out from under him. The weight of Jeremy's phantom hands and silent words drives him away at every corner, the glimpse of his smile rounding the corner of Washington Square Park, electric blue eyes watching him march through that ivory arch upon his graduation; impromptu lunches on those benches, the hiss of fountain water filling their moments of quiet, he cannot bear this city's endless light anymore. The shadows it casts are long and great, so he runs all the way to California where the sun shines everywhere.
- "Your brother loves you more than life itself."
William never doubted it, but he wishes now more than ever that it wasn't true. He wishes that his brother hadn't loved him, hadn't held him in the center of his world and forgotten that even death might come between them. Maybe Jeremy would still be alive right now.
And that would mean almost as much as his love.
- "Go, Will. I'll take care of this."
"I - I - my hands. My prints - they must be every - "
"Go," he growls, angrier, colder than William has ever seen, glinting like a diamond in the light, striking, handsome, but the hardest, cruelest of them all. The knife drops with a rattle onto kitchen tiles, harsh against the slow, meaty sound of blood pooling around the wound.
He bites back the familiar taste of betrayal and guilt, bites it like he bites his lip, the way he used to chew on the end of a pen until finals were finished. Regret is as natural as breathing, as natural as the rise and fall of his chest, because he knows he should have stayed and saved the one person that cared for him more than any other. On the back of the engine's roar, he hears her voice, high and fast, hurling the words like acid in his face.
- "You make him weak," she screams, sounds tripping out of her mouth faster than she seems to think.
"You corrupt him."
William still sees her blood red and warm, streaming through his fingers when he pulls the blade out. It would have been easier if he had left it in, the act neater, cleaner. He feels it like a second skin, a layer of grime that no amount of soap and water will relieve him of. He feels it like the bullet that kills his brother.
The plane takes off and he slips the one way ticket into his pocket, watching as the city falls away beneath him, until he has risen far above the clouds and he can touch the sky.
- "I'll always have your back," Jeremy whispers in a place between his shoulder blades, his mouth hot and firm, branding the oath there with teeth and tongue.
A spot along his spine burns with a promise.
