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mclachlandSet the Fire to the Third Bar, by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mclachlan
QaF US, Brian/Justin
1.22
Summary: An incoherent look at Brian, post-prom.
I find a map and draw a straight line over rivers, farms and state lines.
Justin would beg him to come up onto the roof with him to watch the sun set. Every night that he was over. Whenever he would flee Debbie's warm house, escaping the smell of marinara to find a semblance of shelter on Tremont Street. Trading family and affection for alcohol and cigarette-soaked fucks and harsh words. Foregoing listening to old stories of Vic's heyday for the chance to be ignored, to be shown how little his presence means by fucking some random trick.
Brian never understood it.
Mikey had sent him back to the loft to eat, take a shower, change. He hasn't done any of those things. He will surely vomit if he tries to put anything in his stomach. The blood on his skin won't come off, no matter how many times he washes. And he can't change. Not one thing about him can he change.
But he wants to. If it means that the boy breathing because of a machine will wake up, he will change.
There is comfort in the familiar snick and whirr of his lighter as he ignites the end of the cigarette between his lips, drawing in the sharp bite of smoke into his lungs. His throat aches. From laughing in a parking garage, or from screaming, he isn't sure which. Both, maybe. Smoking probably isn't a good idea.
He goes through an entire pack of Marlboro's before he even dares to look out the large window on the far wall. The sun will be setting. The sun is going to set, and he hasn't received any word if it will take Justin with it. The possibility is great. They aren't optimistic. They blame it on the impact from the bat, but Brian knows that it all comes back to him. This was his doing. The blame rests with him.
The streetlight on the opposite sidewalk across from the loft clicks on, but Brian looks away from it. He doesn't particularly care for streetlights anymore. Not that he ever paid much attention to them, but these days it serves as a reminder of a night that he's wishing more and more had never happened.
The sun is going to set, and there is no one here trying to cajole him into watching it from the roof. No one to listen to his rejections, the way he mocks the very idea of doing something so ridiculously romantic. There's no one.
Funny how he always wanted silence. Now it's too quiet, a niggling sense of loss that burrows under his skin and writhes around, causing him to shift in discomfort.
I hang my coat up in the first bar. There is no peace that I've found so far.
He climbs the old wooden stairs to the roof, every creak almost deafening to his ears. He winces with each stair. His body aches. Sleep sounds so inviting, but someone may call with news. And right now, he needs to know.
The metal door is heavy. Brian wonders belatedly how Justin was able to push it open with the little muscle he has on that skinny frame. The air is beginning to cool, but the sky is on fire, brilliantly lit, as if God decided that the Kingdom needed to be redone and burned it to the ground to collect the insurance money. To pay for the renovations. He laughs at the thought and thinks about asking his mother the next time she comes crawling to him for cash to burn on liquor or Claire and her spawn.
He palms his face and continues to laugh, hating the high-pitched whistles of air that push past his lips every time he gasps for breath. Like a rubber band, stretched too far and too thin.
Finally quelling his mirthless amusement, Brian drops his hand and gazes around. The roof is a fucking dump. Old, mangled metal beams rest against one of the corners of the edge, catching the sun from behind and casting odd shadows over the cement floor, stained with age and grime. There are no traces of Justin here, not in the ancient, filth-covered pigeon cages, nor the metal beams, nor the dead garden on top of a table. But he walks to the edge of the roof and gazes out at the city laid before him, a labyrinth of concrete and glass windows, pollution and sound.
If he turns his head just so, he can see Justin sitting on this edge, staring out, capturing the conflagration in the sky to memory, comparing it against the snapshots from the evening before, and the one before that, each picture different, because a sunset is never the same.
Hey, Brian! Come up to the roof with me! The sun looks amazing!
Always ignoring him in favor of something more important. A cigarette. An account. A drug. Anonymous sex with a stranger. Always leaving Justin to smile wistfully and go up to the roof alone, hoping that this time will be the time that Brian follows and sits with him, watching the sun set.
Justin hopes, and Brian learned long ago that hope does nothing. Hope is a pipe dream, and unreliable. Hope doesn't bring one up to a rooftop, nor does it rouse someone out of a coma. He wishes Justin would just come to that conclusion and save himself the disappointment.
He has never followed Justin onto the roof. And if the doctors are correct in their predictions, he never will.
Gazing out at the sinking sun, at the sky, turning a deep indigo, Brian muses that Justin's little ritual must be losing its magic, since the boy watches his sunsets alone.
The sun disappears into the horizon, and he makes the trek back down the stairs to his loft.
It must be something incredible that Brian can't understand, though, for Justin to continue to endure the disappointment. And disappointment is something Brian understands.
And miles from where you are, I lay down on the cold ground and pray that something picks me up.
He showers and changes his clothes, but tucks white silk into his shirt, hidden from sight but tangible against his skin. A reminder. A relic. A prayer to a God who never listened to him, not once.
His cell phone trills, a scream that rips apart the silence, and he closes his eyes when Mikey reports that there is no change. But every hour that Justin doesn't wake up lowers the possibility of him ever waking.
Just keep hoping, Brian. Mikey is always hungry, gulps down every single thing handed to him. Love. Hurt. Hope. Always hungering for more.
But hope is a bitter thing Brian finds himself too full to swallow.
I find a map and draw a straight line
Over rivers, farms, and state lines
The distance from here to where you'd be
It's only finger-lengths that I see
I touch the place
Where I'd find your face
My fingers in creases of distant dark places
I hang my coat up in the first bar
There is no peace that I've found so far
The laughter penetrates my silence
As drunken men find flaws in science
Their words mostly noises
Ghosts with just voices
Your words in my memory
Are like music to me
I'm miles from where you are,
I lay down on the cold ground
And I, I pray that something picks me up
And sets me down in your warm arms
After I have traveled so far
We'd set the fire to the third bar
We'd share each other like an island
Until exhausted, close our eyelids
And dreaming, pick up from
The last place we left off
Your soft skin is weeping
A joy you can't keep in
I'm miles from where you are,
I lay down on the cold ground
And I, I pray that something picks me up
and sets me down in your warm arms
mclachlanQaF US, Brian/Justin
1.22
Summary: An incoherent look at Brian, post-prom.
Justin would beg him to come up onto the roof with him to watch the sun set. Every night that he was over. Whenever he would flee Debbie's warm house, escaping the smell of marinara to find a semblance of shelter on Tremont Street. Trading family and affection for alcohol and cigarette-soaked fucks and harsh words. Foregoing listening to old stories of Vic's heyday for the chance to be ignored, to be shown how little his presence means by fucking some random trick.
Brian never understood it.
Mikey had sent him back to the loft to eat, take a shower, change. He hasn't done any of those things. He will surely vomit if he tries to put anything in his stomach. The blood on his skin won't come off, no matter how many times he washes. And he can't change. Not one thing about him can he change.
But he wants to. If it means that the boy breathing because of a machine will wake up, he will change.
There is comfort in the familiar snick and whirr of his lighter as he ignites the end of the cigarette between his lips, drawing in the sharp bite of smoke into his lungs. His throat aches. From laughing in a parking garage, or from screaming, he isn't sure which. Both, maybe. Smoking probably isn't a good idea.
He goes through an entire pack of Marlboro's before he even dares to look out the large window on the far wall. The sun will be setting. The sun is going to set, and he hasn't received any word if it will take Justin with it. The possibility is great. They aren't optimistic. They blame it on the impact from the bat, but Brian knows that it all comes back to him. This was his doing. The blame rests with him.
The streetlight on the opposite sidewalk across from the loft clicks on, but Brian looks away from it. He doesn't particularly care for streetlights anymore. Not that he ever paid much attention to them, but these days it serves as a reminder of a night that he's wishing more and more had never happened.
The sun is going to set, and there is no one here trying to cajole him into watching it from the roof. No one to listen to his rejections, the way he mocks the very idea of doing something so ridiculously romantic. There's no one.
Funny how he always wanted silence. Now it's too quiet, a niggling sense of loss that burrows under his skin and writhes around, causing him to shift in discomfort.
He climbs the old wooden stairs to the roof, every creak almost deafening to his ears. He winces with each stair. His body aches. Sleep sounds so inviting, but someone may call with news. And right now, he needs to know.
The metal door is heavy. Brian wonders belatedly how Justin was able to push it open with the little muscle he has on that skinny frame. The air is beginning to cool, but the sky is on fire, brilliantly lit, as if God decided that the Kingdom needed to be redone and burned it to the ground to collect the insurance money. To pay for the renovations. He laughs at the thought and thinks about asking his mother the next time she comes crawling to him for cash to burn on liquor or Claire and her spawn.
He palms his face and continues to laugh, hating the high-pitched whistles of air that push past his lips every time he gasps for breath. Like a rubber band, stretched too far and too thin.
Finally quelling his mirthless amusement, Brian drops his hand and gazes around. The roof is a fucking dump. Old, mangled metal beams rest against one of the corners of the edge, catching the sun from behind and casting odd shadows over the cement floor, stained with age and grime. There are no traces of Justin here, not in the ancient, filth-covered pigeon cages, nor the metal beams, nor the dead garden on top of a table. But he walks to the edge of the roof and gazes out at the city laid before him, a labyrinth of concrete and glass windows, pollution and sound.
If he turns his head just so, he can see Justin sitting on this edge, staring out, capturing the conflagration in the sky to memory, comparing it against the snapshots from the evening before, and the one before that, each picture different, because a sunset is never the same.
Hey, Brian! Come up to the roof with me! The sun looks amazing!
Always ignoring him in favor of something more important. A cigarette. An account. A drug. Anonymous sex with a stranger. Always leaving Justin to smile wistfully and go up to the roof alone, hoping that this time will be the time that Brian follows and sits with him, watching the sun set.
Justin hopes, and Brian learned long ago that hope does nothing. Hope is a pipe dream, and unreliable. Hope doesn't bring one up to a rooftop, nor does it rouse someone out of a coma. He wishes Justin would just come to that conclusion and save himself the disappointment.
He has never followed Justin onto the roof. And if the doctors are correct in their predictions, he never will.
Gazing out at the sinking sun, at the sky, turning a deep indigo, Brian muses that Justin's little ritual must be losing its magic, since the boy watches his sunsets alone.
The sun disappears into the horizon, and he makes the trek back down the stairs to his loft.
It must be something incredible that Brian can't understand, though, for Justin to continue to endure the disappointment. And disappointment is something Brian understands.
He showers and changes his clothes, but tucks white silk into his shirt, hidden from sight but tangible against his skin. A reminder. A relic. A prayer to a God who never listened to him, not once.
His cell phone trills, a scream that rips apart the silence, and he closes his eyes when Mikey reports that there is no change. But every hour that Justin doesn't wake up lowers the possibility of him ever waking.
Just keep hoping, Brian. Mikey is always hungry, gulps down every single thing handed to him. Love. Hurt. Hope. Always hungering for more.
But hope is a bitter thing Brian finds himself too full to swallow.
I find a map and draw a straight line
Over rivers, farms, and state lines
The distance from here to where you'd be
It's only finger-lengths that I see
I touch the place
Where I'd find your face
My fingers in creases of distant dark places
I hang my coat up in the first bar
There is no peace that I've found so far
The laughter penetrates my silence
As drunken men find flaws in science
Their words mostly noises
Ghosts with just voices
Your words in my memory
Are like music to me
I'm miles from where you are,
I lay down on the cold ground
And I, I pray that something picks me up
And sets me down in your warm arms
After I have traveled so far
We'd set the fire to the third bar
We'd share each other like an island
Until exhausted, close our eyelids
And dreaming, pick up from
The last place we left off
Your soft skin is weeping
A joy you can't keep in
I'm miles from where you are,
I lay down on the cold ground
And I, I pray that something picks me up
and sets me down in your warm arms
