athens muto :: district 2 {fin}

pogue Graphics 1,811 POSTS Pronouns: He/Him last seen Apr 16, 2024 18:41:45 GMT -5 Is she trying to interrupt our henna session?	athens muto :: district 2 {fin} Jun 20, 2016 22:32:10 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by pogue on Jun 20, 2016 22:32:10 GMT -5 so when achilles gets slaughtered i can continue living my fantasies wip
	Last Edit: Jan 4, 2017 2:06:10 GMT -5 by pogue

pogue
Graphics

1,811 POSTS

Pronouns: He/Him
last seen Apr 16, 2024 18:41:45 GMT -5

Is she trying to interrupt our henna session?

athens muto :: district 2 {fin} Aug 1, 2016 19:35:30 GMT -5

Quote

Post by pogue on Aug 1, 2016 19:35:30 GMT -5

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He is not a fighter.

He spreads his religion in little white lines of snow across the table, broken glass laced between his fingertips, scraping against the table as he etches the feeling of forgetting into the wood. There's a choir in the background made of metal and static, antenna outstretched towards the sky. Its voice is blurry, caught up in the songs it screams out, echoing through the skull of the worshipper who sits before it. He can count every scuffed up floorboard and scratch that mark his walls, tracing their kingdoms into the fiber of the wallpaper. He bought the apartment for dirt cheap, sold his soul to the landlord in the arms of the shadows, cigarette smoke. He draws the shades and it goes from coffin to church, light seeping in through the holes in the walls, dancing with the shadows and sins that splatter across the floors.

He's grown accustomed to the way the shadows spread across his skin, soak him in gasoline and light him on fire with the indecencies he clenches between his teeth. They burrow holes into his skin, drown themselves in the blood that seeps from his wounds. There's a shattered mirror in front of him, tracing lines through his reflection, broken glass shards carved into his fist. He admires the scars it left when he shoved his fist into it, whitewashed knuckles pulsing red in the moonlight, falling from fingertips into the floorboards below.

”So long ago…certain place…certain time…”

He hums the tune to the radio behind him, glancing into the mirror and watching as the cracks run their course through the image of the angel wings that spread from his back, white like snow in the darkness.

And then, he takes the hit, coming up with one finger pressed against his nose, eyes roll back as his gaze drifts upwards. When he’d first settled in here, he’d painted his ambitions onto the faded white ceiling above him, casting his hopes and wants into the light. Pencil marks and brush strokes line the ceiling, a half-finished half-abandoned art piece staring back at him. In all his ignorance he’d wanted to fall asleep with the heavens above him, and so he had. Wings on their backs, basked in an ethereal glow, they were perfect-

She was perfect, too. Faded memories of bedtime stories and early mornings, spending the sunrise in her lap, falling asleep wrapped in her embrace, her voice a backdrop to the night. Every brush stroke painted on his ceiling is an homage to her memory, before she disappeared and everything turned to grey, before the colors dulled from his world and before he watched the orphanage gates swing open, creaking hinges hissing at him as they did. He’d longed for her embrace, then, for one more midnight lullaby, for one more sunrise. It had all been-

Stop, he remembers nothing is perfect when the drugs take him, the world blurs and the memories fade into the void, he slips into that same feeling he’d learned to crave months ago. His church is the infested alleyways of the district, his psalms the deals he makes under a midnight shattered moon. Maybe he’d started out of curiosity, maybe it was so he’d just stop missing her, for once, forever.

He arches his body back in his chair, the drumbeat cheering him on from the sidelines, the singers voice belting out the only lullaby he needs now. No mother, no embrace, all he needs is this dinged up apartment, all he needs is his half painted ceiling, all he needs-

All he needs is the drug in front of him.

In the middle of his episode he extends his arms, feeling as light as the angels he’s painted across his ceiling, feeling the dust gather into wings sprouting from his back. No more, no more, his eyes never leave the ceiling, but his body does. He leaves reality the same way he came into it- whole.

“But if our paths never cross,
Well you know I'm sorry but-”

In the end, he breaks.

The memories poor from his nose this time, the color of scarlet and rose petals. His chest slams together like the hissing gates of the orphanage, and it traps the breaths inside his throat. He chokes on his own sins, his eyes wavering and his body trembling. Tremors and tears, he’d only felt like this when she’d left-

Perhaps he wasn’t so whole after all.

The music blares in his head as he tumbles from his chair to the floor, his body seizing and collapsing into itself. The music doesn’t stop, it laughs at his descent, her voice softening as everything fades to black.

From his nose, a drop of blood trickles down and slips through the floorboards, falling down to the ground below, stained.

“I’ll never live to match the beauty again
The rainbow’s

end.”

---

His sermon today spins a fairytale, his church the rotting orphanage and his followers the children trapped inside. Every word he reads burns his tongue like arsenic, spat out into the air as if they mean something. Third door down to the left, he grew up here, traced the arc of the sun against the window as it rose in the morning, created stories inside of his head to fall asleep at night. Beneath scratchy blankets and dirtied sheets is where he became a loner, tore himself to bits and let the dark become his only light.

He realizes now, at eighteen, that they cared. They all cared.

The only reason he’d survived was because of that radio, cranked up so loud that the neighbors had slipped into his apartment complaining. Nosebleeds and closing chest, every time he takes a step towards recovery it feels like shards of broken glass, carving his own mistakes into the soles of his feet.

The moonlight casts a soft glow on him, illuminating eyes that have seen too much pain already and a hand that holds tight to the covers of the bed he sits next to. His voice is soft, melodic, the creaking of the floorboards putting no dents in the way he speaks. The words slip from his tongue like silk, spoken into the shadows and bumps of the night, echoing off of each scratch and hole in the floorboards and walls. In front of him, wrapped snug inside of the covers is a girl, his foster sister.

Lea, her name rings true in his head and, for a moment, he stops reading, letting the sounds of her soft snores fill his ears. He had never been close to her, had never allowed her to be close to him, either. Eighteen years and he’d thought the only way to mend the pain was to isolate it, cut off any chance of relations so that it could never happen again.

When he’d returned, trembling in his boots and draped in shame, she’d been the first to hug him close, whispering his name underneath her breath.

With enough silence as he can muster, he rises, returning the chair to the corner of the room and making his way towards the door, glancing behind him for a brief moment. He smiles slightly, and for the first time in a long while, he is happy.

He takes two steps from the porch before a rustling from the bushes calls his attention. Her muscles tighten, eyes narrowing in response to the sudden movement. Heartbeat flares, he takes a step towards the noise, the darkness consuming his vision before he sighs, spotting the figure of another boy from the orphanage, stalking his way out of the bedroom window, making his way towards the street.

”Going somewhere, Ben?”

The boy turns and his face flattens, eyes hollow and unmoving, dark and brooding. He recognizes the look from his own mirror, peering into his eyes and seeing nothing but pain and fear. His innocence is stripped, too, and pain riddles the way he speaks, the way he acts, the way he escapes every night to do whatever he does. They aren’t that different, he supposes, besides their age.

”Just, for a walk I guess. Need to clear my head.”

He recognizes the feeling because his stomach twists and turns with the thought of the coming morning. Reaping, it chills his spine before settling in his blood, poisoning his veins and turning him to stone under the moonlight. Fear comes tomorrow, especially for people like them, for the non-careers.

”Come here, sit with me.”

He makes his way towards the porch, but Ben hesitates, stopping and shaking his head, framed by the porch light. His foster brother’s brow is furrowed, frown dancing across his face before he speaks.

”Look, what do you care, Athens? You ran away from here for christ’s sake.”

His words cut like glass, and for a moment his eyes drop towards the ground. Athens bites his lip, nodding slightly before he looks up again. He has been through worse than being chewed out.

”That’s exactly why I care.”

Warily, Ben makes his way towards the porch, the steps creaking as he sits down next to him, hunched over with his elbows on his shoulders. For a long while, they simply sit there, listening to each other’s heartbeats, to the sounds of the crickets chirping from the words, to every distorted and broken noise that nightfall brings. It is his foster-brother who breaks the silence, tears forming in his eyes. His face is quivering like the ocean in the wake of a storm, and when he looks up Athens can tell he is doing everything he can to not cry.

”I don’t know, Athens. What if it’s someone I care about?”

His words break at the end and he presses his thumb pointer fingers against his eyes in a half-assed effort to stop the tears from flowing. It does not work, and as the moon shatters so does his foster-brother. Athens rests his hand on his back, patting softly and letting him have a moment before responding.

”Trust me, I know.”

He pauses, pondering who he would care about, before biting his lip. He has no true family here, not anymore. But he has this orphanage. His heart hurts thinking about it.

”But we can’t let our own fears drive us into the dirt. You’re stronger than that, Ben.”

Silence, the boy next to him stops crying and brings his head up, wiping his eyes and dragging the tears onto his jacket. He doesn’t make eye contact, shame dripping from his skin.

Athen’s hand slips from his back. He knows.

”Thanks, Athens.”

”Of course. Anytime, kid.”

He slips back into his room and Athens makes his way home, smiling again for the second time that night.

—————

The escorts slender fingers reach into another world, glass bowl distorting her arms image and he tightens, waiting watching as she pulls a name from the bowl, unfurling the slip in her fingertips.

”Esther Salvera!”

He lets go of the breath he held in his lungs and slips into the blur, the murmurs of the crowd and the volunteers next words going unnoticed as he searches for Ben or Lea, anyone he knows.

”Achilles Muto.”

His eyes widen as he turns towards the stage, familiarity piercing through every bone in his body.

His world shatters and he falls-

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athens muto

Last Edit: Jan 4, 2017 2:02:57 GMT -5 by pogue

pogue Graphics 1,811 POSTS Pronouns: He/Him last seen Apr 16, 2024 18:41:45 GMT -5 Is she trying to interrupt our henna session?	athens muto :: district 2 {fin} Jan 4, 2017 2:22:03 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by pogue on Jan 4, 2017 2:22:03 GMT -5 fin, bih arx has the dibs heenie

Deleted 0 POSTS last seen Apr 18, 2024 19:47:32 GMT -5	athens muto :: district 2 {fin} Jan 7, 2017 21:45:09 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by Deleted on Jan 7, 2017 21:45:09 GMT -5 i read this entire thing ages ago and it was great and arx choke xox ily athens pls step on me