crown the kingdom; noah/cody

"Duncan sends his regards."

I bit my tongue; shipped off like cattle. That's where I lay in life, my entire future planned, wasted, to nothing more than two weeks. Where I stand now, I have no say - did I ever? What is the difference here, coal soaked hands, cotton sticking to arm hair and pricking myself on wheels, it's all over. My entire everything, it's all gone and- I think I'm okay with this.

Only two weeks, only two more weeks of pretending I exist. That my pale fingers and clean skin and hairy stomach, that any of my being still ever existed, it's okay. It's easier, simpler, and I always loved that in a sense. Trading forty years at best for a stranger in my door and two more weeks, only, I'm not a factory boy anymore.

Maybe it's raining in my head or my heart, but two weeks won't be so bad.

"Is there any reasonin' behind that," I whisper, surly. I'm standing alone, stripped of my background - no mother, no father, no factory and no Bailey. Only Noah, for now. What am I? My heart pounds, my hands sweat as I look my cousin in the face - Cody, who am I? I scrape my teeth, bit my tongue and swallow, eyebrows furrowed. "Why isn't m'sister here?"

There's smoke in my lifeline, and a crick in my breathing. I can't breathe, why is my sister? Would it be easier with her here or not, I don't know, but it wouldn't be worse than Cody. This isn't family, this isn't my departure - this is dying. It's so simple, five letters and two syllables and a singular inhale, exhale, it doesn't scare me. It'll swallow me whole and replace my existence, that small and unmeaningful thing, I'll be the abyss. 

I won't be Noah.

“If I knew where the rest of our family was it would have to mean that I cared about them,” and it's reassuring. Meaningless or unexistent, which is worse if there even is, in the beating of my chest - ti-tock, ti-tock, ti-tock - lays the only thing I know. Blood. Family and smoke, and my mother is holding my hand as I hold my own together - "I managed to find you, though." Who am I, Cody?

What is the beating of my heart worth if there is no life, if that ever growing light bleeds white noise; what is a life of white noise worth? Our talk is dead, automatized speech at best, there is no family in this room, no family in the melting of my veins more than Bailey, and mother who's holding my hand and father who is pressing my shoulder and the nuts and bolts in my pockets and Cody is none of the above. He died with Owen, compassion in a soul lost.

(And so will I.)

"Where's the good n'that? Our blood's runnin' thin, Cody, I'm no Bailey and neither 're you." There is no smoke between us, he is no family of mine and I'm no fighter either; I'm not Bailey, and I'm not Noah. Not forever, "tell Bailey I'nderstand, I wouldn't've came for her, neither."