Tempo di vita :: Standalone / Libertines & Ripleys

“Pen!”

We are worlds away from each other, but no oceans and seas could separate me from you at this time. In this moment, dear sister, we are cradled in Mama’s arms as she sprinkles ghost kisses on our foreheads, laughter ringing down the empty beach as the moon pulls the waves away from us. The sand is soft under our feet as we run down the wet ground, and the stars above us glisten with the light of millions of my tears. And Mama will protect us, as she always has, from the threat of drowning - and even if she can’t save you, my dear, I will happily plunge down the depths of those cold dark waves that threaten to grip you, and I will wrench your corpse away from those hands and swim you back to shore - and bring you back to me.

I roll the window down
And then begin to breathe in
The darkest country road
And the strong scent of evergreen
From the seat as you are driving me home.

"Oh god Fitz, why did you do it, why. I can't...I don't. Fitz, I-I can't. I can't see you die. Promise me, promise me you won't die. If you die I don't know what I'll do, it'd be worse than Mom, Dad, or anyone I knew combined. If you die, I die. Metaphorically, okay. I can't lose another piece of me, I need you. Fitz, you can't leave me, okay? Promise. Please, promise me that you won't die."

Something happened to Jude in the short space of time that was the games. He was the cool Ripley, everyone knew that. The one with angular features, and a calm demeanor. The guy who walked around the district with black ink running up his arms in messages and drawings, who carried paper bags in his back pocket just in case. Sure, he had lost some of his carefree demeanor, just a tad when his parents died what felt like years ago, but he had always seemed so tough, so serious before then, that no one had really noticed the panic growing in his eyes. No one really noticed the way those paper bags weren't just handy dandy holdy things anymore, or surfaces for my pen to fly. No one saw him, panicked, hidden away, gasping for breath and using a fragile paper bag as an anchor to the Earth's surface.

Well I noticed~

Since when do you count.

Fitz' body against his in that room had been it. The thick smell of two boys that weren't always altogether clean bunched up together in a desperate embrace. How Fitz' hair had smelt like him in that delicate way it always had, and always would've. How his younger brother had been shaking, but so firm and so seemingly cool. He got that from you. Desperate hope flooding the body of the taller, older one. The thought that maybe he'd be coming home, knowing anyway that it wasn't happening. The shocked surprise when he found out that he could still even bother hoping. How Fitz looked when he was younger and a little chubby three year old running around the house, and how he looked later when he was twelve and digging through a grave beside him. The colour of his skin, and the soft tone of his voice marked with cracks of puberty.

"I'm proud of you Fitz, and I love you. You're braver than you think, and you're stronger than you feel. Win. Try to win. Promise."

How crazy he'd felt, letting himself be taken away from that room with his little brother in it. It felt like the first time he saw him in his mother's arms, and he wrinkled his nose and said, "He's mine." Something about the thought of having a brother always excited Jude. Every time he got a new one, it was only complete joy. Only ever was complete joy, even when his parents died and he was all that was left to take care of them. He never wished for less, only happy to have his boys. That's why there were four of them. Everyone called them the Ripley brothers, and everyone knew there were four. Yeah? Well now they'll stare at you remaining three with pity. Now everyone would call them the Ripley brothers, and there wouldn't be any joyful scalleywag tone to their voices, only pity, a fog that wasn't there before. The tone of the lives brought down yet again by another death.

Then looking upwards
I strain my eyes and try
To tell the difference between shooting stars and satellites
From the passenger seat as you are driving my home
"Do they collide?"

This isn't actually happening.

He remembers thinking that when Pen's name was called with a tone of excitement what felt like years ago, how it felt to realize that she was going into the games, and the relief he had felt when he thought his brothers were safe. how the relief had sat like a sickening black ink in his stomach as soon as it washed through him. What it felt like to wrap his arms around the shorter girl, and hold onto her in the dimly lit justice building room, sun streaming through the dirty panes in a drunken glow. How he had handed her one of his token paper bags without saying a word, knowing she'd get the message. Soft summer afternoons spent together in a hazy silence, not speaking, because she was the only one who knew. Once she had spotted Jude talking to himself, well arguing. I like to call it a clash of different opinions.

She hadn't ever told anyone. Simply sat with him till he calmed down. Because although Pen was a boisterous, loud oddball, she was a friend. She knew when things had to be a secret. She grew up in a family of secrets like Jude did. She knew. She sat with him for long sunny afternoons somewhere between the trees, listening to him argue with himself and laughing. Once he thought he might like to kiss her, but only once. Pen was never meant for Jude, she was meant for one of his other brothers, but that was alright. Jude knew it. He was happy just to listen to her laugh, and see her bring smiles to his brothers in turn. That's all Jude really wanted. Smiles from his brothers and Pen. That's all he really had when it came down to the deaths that hung over him like gray clouds, and the meager income from grave robbing. Sure, sometimes they hit a motherload, but not very often.

In some ways, Pen had been a Ripley, always around through his years of growing up, even if there parents left them in a dwindling fashion. You let them die! She had always been there, and the other Libertines not far behind. The family had been a second skin, always there, always present. Pen was the most present of them all, the most colourful thing in existence. Where everyone was a dim light on a dim planet, Pen was a fiery ball of real life colour. She was an anchor as well. She wasn't just an anchor, she was a boat, and the chain, and all the ocean and sky above it. Pen was something brilliant and shining. And she died in the ocean.

I ask and you smile.
With my feet on the dash
The world doesn't matter.
And the strong scent of evergreen
Oh my god, it’s killing me.

"Your Brothers are your treasures, if anything happens to us, you keep them shining like gems."

Well. You certainly succeeded, eh?

Jude doesn't have the heart to tell himself to shut up, the words striking true and deep into something that isn't a heart anymore, but something evolved in a downwards spiral back to the middle ages. The words his father spoke to him before his death, (before you let him die) have never stopped running through Jude's head once. That doesn't mean that he could actually accomplish it however. Instead he's lost two gems already. Some older brother he turned out to be. If you can still call him that. He doesn't think that they can, seeing as he's let one of his brothers die. Everyday he thinks about how he should have been the one to volunteer, and how everyday he can't help but remember the way he choked on the words, thinking it was best to stay safe, stay home, he needed to protect his brothers. They could both be alive right now if you had. Fitz would have been safe at home, and Pen could have been Victor with his help. They would have all been happy, healthy, and alive. You failed them, like you always will.

He can't remember how he got here, this little section of wood that he always used to go to with Pen. There's a clear space on the ground beside the giant rock covered with fading sketches from previous visits, and before he can stop himself, a voice is ringing out through the glade, "Silly little Jude, can't even take care of his brothers properly. First you let your father die, then you let your mother die, then you let two more people slip through your fingers. Look at all you've accomplished Jude! A big fat load of NOTHING. You can't take care of anyone. You should have been the one to die instead of your father or mother, then the boys might have actually stood a chance. Instead of this, this ugly hell that they live through because they have you for a brother. They didn't ask for you, but they got you. They lucked out eh? poor basterds. They got you, you, you, you, poor little cowardly lion you. Why, I be-SHUTUP!" Pausing, Jude shakily took out a paper bag, opening it and closing it with wooshes of air caught with the wind.

Pen's dead body won't stop flashing through his head, and neither will Fitz'. He let his brother and sister die. His mother and father stare at him from every surface, looking more than disappointed. Everywhere he goes he sees all four of them, hating him for letting them simply slip away so easily. All the chances he had to protect have failed him. He can't even protect these two young lives anymore because they're dead. They're dead and gone. No more will Pen's voice ring out through the district in that commanding way it always did, and Fitz' voice won't be at his elbow anymore in the kitchen when they made pancakes on Saturday mornings for the other two. Another lost tradition.

Now there's only two other brothers left and they're slipping from his hands like his hands are held out and they're water being poured through. With the loss of one, the foursome is unbalanced and everything feels like it's crashing down around him. Jude can't figure out what to do. Yeah, he's changed in the short time of the games. He's less full. More gaunt, those cheeck bones are more angular. He's lost all ability to sleep anymore, like he did so much before. He's become as hollow as a golem, but he hasn't said a word about it. When he watched Fitz and Pen die, he didn't say a word. He only left the house for a few hours, and came back like he was fine. Jude Ripley is always fine. His dead brother and sister aren't. They're dead. But jude is fine, just peachy, always has been, always will be. The only difference is, that now there's no one to laugh with him in an empty glade when he can't breath anymore. There's no one to make pancakes with on Saturday mornings but ghosts.

His hand has been sketching on the paperbag for the last few minuets. When he looks down, there's a boy and girl hodling hands, the moon and sea above and below them. His shoe has worried a hole into the ground. The glade is close knit with trees overhead and the rack serves as a block to the salty wind. Under a tree is where he made the hole, and dug a grave for his sister and brother with bleeding hands and the worn toe of his boot. No jewels or keepsakes go in but a brown paper bag and a worn hemp bracelet because he doesn't want to rob it later. All that's left when he pats the dirt down is two more brothers, and a Jude that's half as full as he used to be. There's something soft about the sun touched glade when he leaves it, and for just a moment, he thinks he can hear laughter.

When he turns back around, no one is there.

He didn't know why he thought there would be.

When you feel embarrassed then I'll be your pride
When you need directions then I'll be the guide
For all time.
For all time.
And, oh my god it's killing me.