#but i'll add em in later when tumblr stops being a dumbfuck i guess

[forvalor-blog]

                                          ❛❛ So, yeah…  I failed the course. ❜❜

       The look his parents share is one of bewildered shock.  It only drives home the fact that he failed them, as unintentional as it may be.  Unable to meet their gaze, the young man drops his eyes to the floor, wishing it would open up and swallow him whole.

       He hasn’t really stopped crying since his meltdown on stage during his final piece.  There have been moments where the tears have stopped  (  namely when he’s sleeping, which he does a lot of nowadays  ), but the vacancy in his chest has never since been filled.  In comparison to the crippling loneliness he’s now plagued with, his failing grade does little to upset him.  He doesn’t care that much that he couldn’t graduate;  he cares that he couldn’t take his graduation piece to his best friend’s doorstep.

       His mother’s hands on his face bring him out of his thoughts, warm and gentle, and he feels his throat threatening to close.  Had he not felt so devoid of emotion, so deliriously drained of tears, he may very well have started crying again.  Instead, he stares at her blankly, tiredly, soul aching so profoundly that he feels fit to die in her arms.

       ❛❛ You didn’t fail, honey, ❜❜   she chimes softly, thumbs swiping gently over the heavy bags beneath his eyes--  as if she’s trying to lessen the cumbersome luggage with her tender touch. Murr feels his mouth open but no sound comes out.  He’s left frustratingly quiet, like a pipe that desperately needs unclogging.  It’s only when she pulls him into a hug that he feels something heavy settle atop his lungs, as if a thick layer of tarmac has suddenly blocked the road to his heart.  Despite it all, he feels his eyes growing warm all over again.  How many times am I going to burden the people around me with this frivolous misery?  It isn’t as if it matters.   ❛❛ You just didn’t do it this time.  And that’s okay. ❜❜

                                                                                                             ❛❛ I’m sorry, mama…  ❜❜

       When his father embraces the pair of them, big arms wrapped around them like an oversized scarf, Murr is unable to keep himself together any longer.  Again, he breaks.

                                                                     *  *  *

       He’s been sleeping a lot lately, the months rolling by in flippant little flashes of lucidity before he promptly drops off again.  It seems to be about the only thing he can do without screwing anything up, so he takes refuge in the pointless activity.  At the very least, while he’s dead to the world, he isn’t bothering anybody;  isn’t wasting people’s time with his vapid uselessness;  isn’t embarrassing himself in front of people who put their faith in him.  Dear Raku, that scene haunts his dreams sometimes.  He kills it with cough medicine.  In large doses, the syrupy concoction is enough to lull him into undisturbed sleep for long blissful hours at a time, a blurry feeling filling his body as he dozes off.  He’s unsure if his mother knows about it for he always makes sure to hide the bottles.  If she has noticed, she certainly hasn’t said a word about it.  He doesn’t even have a reason for why he chose cough medicine over other medicines than the fact that it tastes better than most  What had started as an occasional dose-up in order to cope with the scratchy feeling in his throat  (  most likely a byproduct of so much crying  )  has turned into somewhat of a dependence.

       ❛❛ Li’l Murph…? ❜❜

       Dead Autumn eyes slowly open to gaze upon the concerned face of his mother.  Only she calls him that.  His father is ‘’Big Murph’’.  Despite the fact that he’s a little bit woozy, he feels his heart twist in his chest at the sight of her.  Even just by laying in bed, he’s somehow proving himself to be a total embarrassment.  He’s filled with so much self-loathing he feels fit to burst;  as if that inky blackness is going to start leaking from the pads of his fingers and into the bed.  It feels very much like that’s all his ‘’work’’ ever was:  an unfortunate stain on otherwise worthwhile parchment. 

       ❛❛ How’re you doing…? ❜❜   She knows it’s a frivolous question, but she can’t help but ask.  As she perches on the edge of the bed, a gentle hand sweeps over his forehead, brushing unkempt curls aside.  Her little guy has always had such thick hair.  She’s learned over time that there’s no point in trying to tame it.   ❛❛ It’s…  been a while since you got out of bed.  Yer father ‘n’ I’re really worried about you.  Are you…  sick? ❜❜

       Sick in the heart, mama.  Sick in the brain.   ❛❛ … no.  I’m just tired. ❜❜

       ❛❛ Tired? ❜❜

       ❛❛ Yeah.  Really tired. ❜❜

       He watches numbly as his mother moves to lay beside him.  His bed is small, singular, and even though he doesn’t really desire company he feels himself shuffling backwards in order to give her more room, his back snugly against the wall.  She’s a small woman, so it isn’t as if he’s struggling to breathe.  When he entered his tens, he’d dwarfed her almost immediately.  It had become a running joke, constantly measuring himself up with her and asking,  ’’how much longer are you gonna be bigger than me?’’

       ❛❛ Maybe it would help to get out of bed? ❜❜   The small smile that curls onto her face is safe.  While he may have told someone else saying something similar to him to fuck off, never his mother.  Never her.  She’s only ever tried to do the things that make him happy.   ❛❛ I know that you think you’re a failure, Alé, but yer not.  You’re not.  Okay?  You’re.  Not.  ❜❜

       ❛❛ Mama-- ❜❜        ❛❛ Please stop-- ❜❜   

       His lips press tightly together as he watches her eyes fill with tears.  It’s now that he realises just how much he’s worrying her.  It hits him with the startling weight of a truck, hard and fast, and all at once it’s difficult to keep his eyes on her.  It’s even worse when she brings her hands to his face, pulling him closer and closer until she can press a gentle kiss to his forehead.  Tender fingers reach up, card through his hair even in spite of its nightmarish tangles, his head drawn to her chest.

       ❛❛ … you’re my son.  I know you better than anybody.  Yer smart, ‘n’ funny, ‘n’ talented, ‘n’ yer ideas are out of this world.  The crowd loves you.  That hasn’t changed just because you failed once.  It’ll never change.  So long as you keep making things, it’ll never change.  So please, keep making things. ❜❜

       Though it by no means fixes the battered state of his heart, it soothes the ache just a little, and ‘just a little’ makes it bearable.  Though he doesn’t suddenly believe in himself, he tells convinces him to tell her that she’s right, that he’s being too hard on himself   (  no you’re not no you’re not no you’re not  )  and at some point drags himself from the warm cocoon of his sheets with her help.  He showers for the first time in forever, tends to himself properly, and then goes downstairs to eat.  His mother is allowed to feed him a whole meal after months of him starving himself and living on scraps.  It hadn’t all been intentional.  He’d simply had no desire to eat at all.  When his father enters the house after tending the fields all day, he all but double-takes when he sees his son somewhere other than buried in his bed.

       ❛❛ By Gods…  it’s him. ❜❜        ❛❛ Ha-Ha, dad.  Maybe the real stage presence in this family is you.  Total knockout.  ❜❜

       The small ‘smack’ delivered to the back of his head is filled with nothing but affection.  For just one night, they feel like they have their son back.

                                                                            * * *

                                     For a while, he thought he was going to be okay.  

     For a while, waking up every morning at the crack of dawn and helping his father with fruit-picking and orchard-watering had been enough to motivate him.  For a while, peeling their harvest in the cellar with his mother and stuffing it into kegs had been enough to distract him.  For a while, Murr really thought that the quiet family life could salvage his wounded pride, his shattered self-image, his exhausted brain--  but it couldn’t.  None of it can.

       His parents have started to notice the bad habits creeping back in.  They’re mysteriously out of cough syrup when hay season comes and irritates their throats.  His notebook remains as empty as it did the day after he bought it.  As soon as he’s done with work, he goes straight to bed, most of the time not even stopping to eat before collapsing out of sheer exhaustion.  His mother tries to make sure he has some sort of breakfast before he goes out to work;  most of the time he picks at it, clearly disinterested.  His father tries to talk to him about re-applying for school.  On the surface, he meets them both with a vague sense of cooperation;  a deceitful amicability, almost, before retiring to bed and letting his deep sense of apathy take over.

       The longer he thinks about it, the more disconnected from himself that he feels.  He’s no longer a student, or a best friend, or an on-and-off-maybe-crush.  At this point, he barely even feels like a son.  He’s just a lost man in a void sea, floating wherever the grief takes him, the little paper boat that’s been crudely folded for him out of playwright notes and fantastical plots beginning to grow soggy and sink.  At the end of the day, when all is said and done, he can do nothing to stop the overwhelming emptiness from taking over.

       And Kuro…  God, he hates him.  The more he thinks about the other, the more twisted up he becomes.  He’s always had an explosive temper, since he was a young child, but the outbursts have been getting so much worse lately.  He knocked a plate out of his mother’s hand a few days ago when she tried to feed him.  He threw an empty pail at his father when he’d tried to insist that he should give school another go.  Though he’d apologised both times, blaming his current moodiness, he hadn’t felt any guilt--  just more anger, sick and hateful, and somewhere along the way it had turned into an anguish so raw that it was difficult to remain upright.

       This is your fault.  You can’t do anything right.  If you had tried to reach him more, he wouldn’t have turned his back on you.  He did you a service, not attending your piss-poor performance.  It would probably have been a huge embarrassment to the both of you.  God, you suck…  you know that Kuro isn’t the only one, right?  It isn’t just Kuro that thinks you’re worthless, even if it’s his opinion that hurts you the most.  Your mom thinks you’re moody and mean.  Your dad thinks you flopped on purpose so you could have an easy life as the spoiled rich kid in the Murphy household.  They both think you failed them, and you did.  Your peers at school haven’t tried to reach out to you since you left.  Not one of them.  You know why? Because they’re all embarrassed by you too.  They hate you, Murr.  Everyone hates you.  Kuro hates you.  Kuro has hated you for a long time.  Kuro never liked you.  Kuro despised you all along and you fell for it.  You fell for it, Murphy.  You fell for him.  How does that feel?

       It feels overwhelmingly painful.  It’s why he dulls the ache with copious amounts of medication.  In a way, whenever that concoction slides down his throat he feels a sense of relief.  Not because he’s immediately high or he feels a sudden disconnect from the strain, but because it feels as if this feeling can really be cured;  as if he’s able to reach inside of himself and apply medicine to the places that hurt the most.  

       When he stumbles out of his house early one morning in the midst of a storm, it’s with the pitiful gait of a man so intoxicated he can barely make progress.  Nevertheless, his dose propels him down the hill, all but tumbling down the steep incline and into the field below.  The floaty feeling that spreads through his body as he lays face-up in the sunshine field  (  as he and Kuro had so eloquently dubbed it after observing that the weeds had looked much like tiny suns  )  is pleasant.  It doesn’t last, but while it does he’s happy, glazed eyes staring up into the endless sky, rain spattering heavily against his face.  Normally, he hates getting his hair wet, but in this state he’s unaware--  doesn’t possess the motor function to be irritated by it.

       At some point, he clambers to his feet again, slipping and sliding his way up the second hill as if caught on ice, entangled in the throes of a drug-induced dizziness, and somehow, he manages to wedge his foot into the footholes of the Big Tree and begin climbing.  Only Raku knows how he manages, arms shaking with the effort it takes to even lift himself from the base of the trunk.

       Me and Kuro used to do this all the time.  Now that I’m grown, it’s easier to climb.  Maybe if I climb I can reach that state of happiness again.  If I keep going, higher and higher, maybe I can leave my life behind and live in my memory, the place where nothing hurts and everything is right and I was happy and I had a life ahead of me--

       Somewhere along the way, the high begins to die down, a dead weight in his chest as he starts his mindless ascent.  What replaces it is a sorrow so dreary that he starts crying, tears mixing with the rain.  Air that crackles with static becomes hot and heavy to his aching lungs, the sadness that spreads itself across them like butter so thick that his breaths rattle like chains.  His climbing is frantic, as if he’s really trying to reach somewhere beyond the stretches of his imagination;  as if he truly believes that a different world is waiting for him beyond the barrier of leaves.

       It doesn’t take him long to reach the surface.  In fact, so surprised by his fast mount of the giant monument is he that he very nearly falls while searching for a further footfall, only to realise there isn’t one.  With his elevated height, it’s now easy for his face to push itself through the thick foliage  - something he couldn’t do as a child  -  features exposed to the sky.  To his turbulent sense of grief, there is no light, ethereal plane above.  The storm is the same, the night thick with cloud and and dreary headaches.  He feels his expression falling until he’s left with the same apathetic arrangement as usual.

       What was I thinking?  Of course there’s nothing above this threshold.  Of course there’s no memory palace, no safe havens, no pleasant things--  just rot, and rain, and dark.  Just vapid emptiness.  Just nothing.  Dear Gods…  my life means nothing.  I mean nothing.  There’s nothing for me here.  What I thought was mine was snatched from my hands.

       Sobbing at the top of the tree feels right somehow.  Hunched there in the leaves, tight and balled, as invisible now as he’s felt for the past few months, it brings him some amount of solace to wring himself dry of feeling.  He cries until his throat begins to hurt;  until his hoodie has been soaked through;  until his boots become slick and slippery.  Everything just hurts so much.  And there’s nothing I can do to escape it.  There’s nothing I can do to--

       His thoughts are interrupted by his shoe slipping badly as he begins to squirm his way down.  He slides along branches, some snapping with the force, and falls a short way down until his arms are able to wrap around a thick branch that is capable of hosting his weight.  Even in the heavy rain, he can hear the bark groaning, as if it too is expressing a deep discontentment with him.  Check that, Murphy - not even trees like you.

       With his face momentarily buried into his shoulder, trying to clear his vision of tears and water, he gets a glance at the ground.  He really didn’t fall that far;  he’s left suspended a great ways off the ground still, his legs dangling like nooses.  Somewhere inside of him is a fight pulling through, legs swinging in an attempt to lock around the tree and continue his descent.  His boots continue to slip, unable to find purchase.

       God-fucking-damnit.  I can’t get up.

       Why’re you fighting so hard though?

       The thought brings with it an alarming amount of clarity.  When he really settles down to tackle it, why is he struggling so vehemently to remain aloft?  His family is disappointed in him; his best friend has suddenly decided he hates his guts;  his college career went down the drain; he’s stuck working on a farm that reminds him of all the dear things he once had but no longer does.  Is this all there is?  Haunted memories and half-people?  A safe, average existence that risks absolutely nothing?  Betrayal from those you trusted with your soul?  Was this really all he had to look forward to after leaving his fluffy childhood behind?

       Oh, you’re crying again.  Big surprise.        Shut up.  Stop whining.  This is your fault.        ❛❛ I know…  I know…  so pleeease... ❜❜

       You don’t seem like you want to get back up.

       Does he?  Even though he knows that this voice has a tendency to say the worst things, is it wrong?  He feels the strength leaving his arms slowly, though he wriggles desperately in an attempt to remain hanging there.  If I can just wait until dawn, my dad’ll find me--

       You KNOW you have the strength to pull yourself up.  You just don’t want to.

       ❛❛ ... ❜❜

       It’s this thought that is the final nail in the coffin.  Really, these thoughts are right.  Why is he trying so much?  All he ever does is fail.  No matter how much effort he puts into things, he always comes up short.  Everything that he touches dies in some way.  He’s incredibly unstable and makes his mother cry.  He can’t do anything right…  but he could let go right.  He could do that.  Even a complete idiot like him could do that, couldn’t he?

       Sure you could, kid.  You know you could.  Think of it as a service.  Besides, you’re so high up, it’d be relatively painless.  Relatively. 

       It isn’t painless.  It hurts as if hell has opened up inside of him, a torn scream escaping his raw throat before he falls still and quiet in a heap on the ground.  Unable to move, blood pooling around his head, he feels his vision swim and give out.

       Hey…!  HEY!!       … yer cryin’...       Screw off…  I thought ya died.

       His eyes open halfway, as if he expects to see his dearest friend scrabbling his way down the tree, just like he had all those years ago.  There’s nobody there.  Of course there isn’t.  Why would there be?  Nobody’s coming to get me.  Even when I came to get them, they’re not going to come and get me.

       A slideshow of mismatched memories play through his head at the speed of sound, a sensory overload that ultimately leaves his ears ringing and his eyes stinging.  Kuro…  I miss you…  I could never hate you…  I need you here…  don’t you see that you’re the reason for all of this pain…?  All I want is for you to come back…  please come back.  I’ll try harder!  I’ll reach further!  I just need you to come back please come back please please PLEASE COME AND GET ME I FUCKED UP REALLY BAD--

                                                                                                                          He doesn’t.