Hole or Whole {Lalia}

This growing old is getting old
I often find myself here thinking
About the birds, the bees, the past loves
That flew away or started sinking
It's crazy here without you

They're the same as they were yesterday, and the day before that. The graves, of course. They both say the same things, in stone slightly weathered already from the salt air. Yeh, one has your little brother's name on it, and the other your little sister's. It's raining softly, little black marks appearing on gray stone, but he cannot feel the rain. He doesn't feel much these days. Doesn't talk much either, not when it's so close to the anniversary of their deaths. He has a bottle of something in his pocket, an old flask that his father took off a body once and he didn't have the heart to sell. He's already listing a little to the side when he takes a step, but he's gotten very good at hiding it. I've always been excellent at hidin' things. The only one it benefits to hide is Jude himself.

He didn't start drinking because he really wanted to. He started because Pen and Fitz wouldn't go away. They kept popping up, everywhere he went, trying to fill up that big hole that they left. It's sort of funny that 'whole' and 'hole' sound so similar. One means empty, the other means full, but they sound the same. But maybe that's what sadness is, feeling so empty that you're filled right to the brim. Whatever the answer, Jude was having a hard time remembering the last time he was truly complete in every way. It must have been when he was four or five. He doesn't know what it felt like then because he spends so much time in the more recent past and present. Another thing that the drinking hopes to achieve is a goodbye to that little voice inside his head. The grey one that's always arguing with him.

That's been a false hope since day one because Jude's pretty sure at this point that he said goodbye to the edge of sanity long ago. Oh honey, don't yeh know by now that I'd never leave yeh? We belong together~<3 Maybe he's too complete, he's got two people inside him after all, ravaging up all that empty space with a cold war. Or maybe it's possible to be so full that it all flows out through a hole in your leg. Jude sometimes thinks that he'd like to flow out through a hole in his leg, and leave this other guy to run things. But he gets afraid that the other guy will go about it all wrong.

And my body grows but heart lays
Blink hard and set it to ink
These items fade faster than you think
Feelin' low in a major key
Do they remember me now that it's one year A.D.

He slips another drink down his throat, and stands quietly in the rain. He's not wearing a jacket, just a sweater, but he doesn't quite feel cold. He's got enough cold on the inside to make his outsides feel warm enough. The stone is so much darker now in the rain, all the wet easily covering everything like a wave in the sea. It's fitting somehow, because they are from District Four, their graves should always be wet. He misses Fitz' laugh. Very, very much. He didn't laugh often, but that's what made it so sweet. He liked it when any of his brothers laughed. He hasn't heard them laugh in a year or more. Ever since their brother got sent of to die. He still blames himself for that. Well, yeh should. It's a damn shame! Why don't you just disappear already? Yeh quack.

It's true, he can't help agreeing that he's crazy and not much of a help to anyone. There's only a few things that make him want to strive forward towards a better something. Nessie Libertine. Dirty perv. She's three years younger than him but he hasn't met anyone since Pen that understands Jude like Nessie does. He can't say he's in love with her because his feelings are more than that. It's like a hunger that he's willing to wait to feed quietly every day. A smile sparks a flame there, a hand held an ember there. In all actuality, she's a life line, a tether to this existence. If he can see her everyday, than it's worth living. Going from a gloomy house to their cave is a walk he loves to make.

But, he can't help missing his brothers and what they used to be, and how the games ruined them. Their graves are untouched, very well kept actually. The Ripleys spend a lot of time in grave yards so of course they visit their family very often. Just never together. If there is one thing the Ripleys are gorgeous at, it's pretending like nothing is wrong. We've been doing it our whole lives. Jude used to be very good at it. Sure, sometimes he'd forget to eat and look a little pale, but that was the extent. Now he accidentally goes days without speaking a word, or forgets to eat until Nessie makes him, bringing a sandwich for herself as if she wasn't thinking of him, but making sure it had what he liked on it. She was sweet that way. Jude had lost weight, more than he should have, and it wasn't coming back. He couldn't find it in himself to miss it. He couldn't find it in himself to do much these days, other than the usual duties that he had been doing like clockwork ever since his parents died.

Get up, make breakfast for the brothers, go out, look for an odd job, do it, get paid, buy groceries, go home, make dinner, wait for dark, go out, dig up dead bodies that scream profanities at you, go sell their things, go home, sleep or at least pretend to. When he didn't sleep, his brothers worried. He didn't want them to have to worry, not ever. Sometimes what keeps me up at night is the fact that Fitz must have worried every night in that arena. No one should have given him the job of big brother. He had been the wrong choice.

And you, you're always holding onto stars
I think they're better from afar
No one is going to save us
And me, well I am fading in the dark
So don't you ever kiss me, don't you wish on me