Card Pyramid, the Third
*~*~*
Seth makes a list and doesn’t risk putting a title on it
- Drowning
- Pills
- Alcohol poisoning
- Gun
- Traffic
- Slit wrists (messy)
He quietly observes the list before crushing it into a ball and throwing it in a bin.
*~*~*
- Asphyxiation
- Hanging
- Cut throat
- Poison
- Building/bridge
He throws the list in the bin, along with several others, but it doesn’t stop him dreaming in red. The red that’s everywhere.
*~*~*
“Wait, I get it now,” Seth says, tearing out his headphones and stumbling over to where Ryan stands, “I get what I have to do. Don’t leave.”
Ryan tenses, looking down, “Seth…”
“No, see, nobody’s tried that yet. It’s all ‘I get it’ or ‘I wish you didn’t have to’ but never ‘Don’t leave’ so,” he breaths, his eyes wide, “Don’t leave.”
“Seth,” he repeats more firmly, “I have to.”
“No, you really don’t. Stay here… you haven’t tried the staying thing, you shouldn’t just ignore staying just because it, um, doesn’t coincide with your morals. Ooh, I know! Both of you can stay here, it’ll be like that movie…or-or was it a sitcom? Yeah, a sitcom. I’ll be the quirky uncle who’s a bad influence… Marissa can be the ditzy and somewhat alcoholic aunt! It’ll be perfect!”
“Seth,” he whispers, his voice cracking, “Shut up.”
His mouth snaps shut, before opening almost immediately after, “Dude. Hanson,” he reminds Ryan quietly, edging forward, “Mmm bop, ba duba bop…”
Ryan laughs sadly, dragging his hand over his face, “I have to go…”
“I love you.”
A slightly panicked look crosses Ryan’s face, “Really?”
Seth looks down, fiddling with his hands, “Would it make you stay?”
“I don’t think so,” Ryan mutters after a rather extended pause, “I have to, I mean I… I want to stay. You know that.”
“Do I?” Seth snaps bitterly, “’Cause you haven’t really says anything. At all. Just you have to go, obligation and all that shi…”
“You think I want this?” Ryan is shaking, his eyes bright and incredulous, “You don’t know…”
It was Seth’s turn to interrupt, “I don’t know?! Who the hell do you think’s losing you?” Seth’s fingers began to cramp up from being played with, but he just gritted his teeth, “I don’t mean to be gay, like, in a homosexual way but…”
Suddenly, he’s engulfed in a wifebeater and Ryan’s arms. He reacted immediately, hanging on tight, “You don’t mean to be gay?” Ryan says sarcastically, his voice thick.
Seth’s eyes flew open with sudden clarity, “I love you,” he says aloud into the cool air of his bedroom. It echoed, unanswered, and his ears began to hum with the silence. His fists gripped the bed sheets, unwilling to let Ryan go, but the dream was already fading from memory.
He wants to repeat it, he wants to say I love you again, but the door slides open and he sees his father. Sees his face and knows he can’t go back, even as his father moves forwards, towards the bed, towards him.
His mother dies the next day.
*~*~*
Seth finds her. She’s hunched over the Arts & Entertainment section, her hands crushed into her solar plexus and her eyes unfocused on Garfield but unable to acknowledges the cat’s cynicism.
When he touches her, he can’t stop, he pulls her closer, imagines her stirring but knowing it’s not true, praying to a god that should have intervened before now.
Should have intervened before now, please.
His world tilts a little and Seth screams into his mother’s neck. He’s pulling her hair too tight, too tight, and something tears. Something tears and he can’t stop. Not until his father throws him off her to the floor, a chunk of her hair in his fist.
“What did you do?” Sandy yells, “What did you do?!”
“Nothing!” he shouts, before a keening wail escapes his throat, “I didn’t do anything!”
Should have intervened before now.
*~*~*
“Alcohol poisoning,” the doctor says later, “She probably felt very little pain, probably just some nausea and dizziness, mostly numbed by the alcohol, and then she would have lost consciousness a few minutes before the death.”
“Was there something we could have done?” Sandy asks gravely.
“No.” Yes. “Not unless you’d stopped her have that final drink.” If you’d cared.
Sandy puts his arm around Seth’s shoulders as they leave.
“Touch me again,” he says thickly, “And I’ll kill you.”
Sandy removes his arm.
*~*~*
Summer breaks into his house an hour after she gets the news.
“Get up,” she says throatily, “Get up, you’re coming with me.”
He decides to lay there, and his mouth won’t move.
“Seth,” she whispers, her voice breaking, “You can’t stay here, please take my hand and come with me.”
He gets up, closes his eyes, before they fly open and his hand reaches up and slaps her on the face. She gasps and holds her cheek, tears glimmering on her eyes that already say forgiveness.
He looks at his slightly reddened palm and blinks, “I…”
“I know. Please come with me Seth, please,” she says, her shaking hand once again held out to him.
He takes it, then breaks three of her fingers. They gasp at the same time, but Summer is the only one who sobs in pain, stumbles, and runs away.
“I’m sorry!” he screams to the slammed door, before he punches straight through it.
*~*~*
He looks into Marissa’s face, and he can almost imagine the glimmering sand that separated them so long ago, and he laughs as tears cut through him.
She doesn’t join in. She doesn’t do anything. She doesn’t even breathe.
He does, into her hair, “I’m sorry. I wish I was stronger for you.”
Marissa isn’t even alive and she knows that statement wasn’t for her.
*~*~*
He loves Summer. He loves everything about her, and god, she loves him. Loves. Loved. Or something.
But something is different, he acknowledges as he looks upon her blood-spattered tweety bird pyjamas. Something’s changed.
He kisses her icy lips gently, but doesn’t recall much else
*~*~*
“I don’t mean to be gay, like, in a homosexual way but…”
Suddenly, he’s engulfed in a wifebeater and Ryan’s arms. He reacted immediately, hanging on tight, “You don’t mean to be gay?” Ryan says sarcastically, his voice thick.
“I love you,” he whispers, his breath fogging in the frigid night air.
He won’t remember it later, but he kisses Ryan too. Ryan’s lips, swollen with death, don’t respond, but he imagines they do.
They’re hot, and wet, and he tastes like warm gravy and a heat that overwhelms. Ryan holds him close, protecting him and loving him, his hands sliding up to play with Seth’s hair because he’s always wanted to do that. Yeah.
“I love you,” Ryan mumbles shyly, his eyes big and blue and adoring.
Seth smiles so hard he can feel his face splitting, “I love you too, dude.”
Seth leans against him, snuggling into his shoulders as red and blue lights flash around them. Seth can’t seem the lights, he can only feel the warmth.
Finally.
Fin.
