nobody's son, nobody's daughter
Young!Simon and his troubled life in Manchester with his equally fucked up best friend Y/N, loosely based on "Chemtrails over the Country Club" by Lana del Rey.
Trigger warning: Mentions of abuse, sexual abuse, drug addiction, physical abuse, violence.
Author's note: In my head, at least for this one shot, young Simon would look like Charlie Hunnam during his Green Street Holigans era. Maybe a tad bit taller. A headcannon of mine, I guess.
He tried to convince himself that he was only crying because of the stinging feeling of the alcohol against his broken skin, against the red cheek bone and the bleeding gash he had on top of his right eyebrow. The flickering greenish, puke-colored light that was dangling on top of his head didn't help much to the cure. That and the sad looking tiles of his bathroom, no toothpaste, broken mirror, whole look. Simon had to convince himself that this really was going to be the last time. He did a lousy job at that. The lad really drank that kool aid.
That next time he will hit harder, that next time he would be smarter, faster, wiser than Daddy. His heart and his lungs were still on fire from the fight he just had with his father; saliva dripping down his chin mixed with vice and blood, because if Simon was a big boy, well, he had to get it from someone. Petey Riley was a big son of a bitch, standing 6'5, belly outside of his wife beater (saddly, ironical) blonde patches of hair covering his baldening head, he drank like one, hit like one. No distinction too, Tommy would take it, his Mum would take it too. Simon just wanted to be present to take the biggest hit. He could bare it; he would do it. For those he loved he would sacrifice.
Some days it felt like he was the bull and his father was The Matador. A bloody number they both put on for his mum and his little brother but none of them were clapping. Simon was merely a distraction, one that showed his horns to drag attention.
It was an act of love. Some days it was all he could give, somedays it was all that there was left of him.
"For fucks sake..." he hissed dapping a pink colored, blood-stained cotton ball against his eyebrow split, the gash squeezing out anti septic and crying red down his face. He threw the cotton ball to the trash bin and let his head hang low on top of the sink, without looking in the mirror, before letting out a big, tired sigh.
18 years old and his live had already gone to shit. No compass pointing north, no aspirations, no home, and a family he felt pity for. A world that felt no pity for them, for him. Simon Riley was just another alley rat of Manchester, with lungs so black from the coal he might as well have been a miner.
The truth was that Tommy could no longer stay in the house like this, nor could his mother. Tommy was barely 12, an age in which his brain was so moldable it might as well be play doh; and Pete fucked everything around him; even carrots would rot if stood next to him too much time. He had to get Tommy away from the man before it was too late. Before he became like him.
There was a knock on the door, and he instantly knew it was his mother, because Tommy would just slip in due to the nature of being a younger brother, and his father would just storm inside, stumbling around to piss without caring someone was using the toilet; plus, his father had stormed out of the house with a loud door slam, making all the glasses in the house rattle. He looked at himself in the mirror while answering.
"..." only silence for a moment, before her mother cleared her throat from behind the door. "Here's more antiseptic, sun..." They all knew too much about first aids, he might as well become a doctor or join the army.
He almost smiled at use of the old nickname. Her sun, he called him. 18, looking 23, and his mum still called him sun.
Simon perked up in front of the mirror, his trashed simple white shirt, (now stained with yellow and few drops of blood) slipping back on himself as he took a deep breath and walked out of the toilet, straight into the hall.
His mother took a few steps back. It had been a while since Simon had outgrown her in height. The blonde woman, pale and frail stood in front of him and only could see the tip of his chin now. She was wearing acid washed jeans and a bright colored shirt with shapes in it very 80's, and they were so dirt poor it might as well be from the 80's. On top of that, an open bathroom robe and her hair was, in deed a mess.
Molly Riley, maiden name Harrison, winced out loud at the state of his son's face. Simon could tell she had been crying. "Oh, sun..." she moaned, quivering lower lip.
The woman looked up at his older son and gave him an apologetic smile, and Simon would be damned if he stood around to listen to her apologized for whatever reason it made his father snap this time. Simon shook his head, sadly used to this and placed a hand on the woman's shoulder, feeling her shiver under his touch.
"Where's Tommy?" he asked, walking over to his room with his mother following close on his step. He just wanted to slip on his jumper and get out of the house.
"He's at the TV room. Sooty and Co is on." She explained, leaning against the frame of the door, hugging herself. She watched with hazel eyes as his older son would sin on his bunk bed and slip on his white trainers, dusty and worn out, and zipped up a jumper that went just below his chin, putting on a jacket on top of it.
"Mum..." they both said at the same time as they mirror each other. He knew what would happen the second he went outside the house. Tommy would drown himself in milk and cereal, being a vegetable in front of the TV until his eyeballs burned, and his mother would sit in the couch behind him, laughing at the show until she ran away to cry in her room, toying with the idea of picking of the things and leaving Pete. Nothing would happen and the wheel will keep turning. In a not so hopeful way of speech, they still had tomorrow. They had to take that as it sounded at the moment.
"Where are you going?" she asked, in an effort to seem motherly. The boy had seen her give up all her earthly power to the monster of his father and being in this same room with her suffocated him. He hated himself for it. Sometimes he had to really try not to hate her. He could never be quite there, but he was always dangerously close.
"Pub." He simply said, feeling up his pocket to make sure he had enough money to spend. He worked long shifts in the butcher's and weirdly enough, being surrounded by so much blood and carnage made him feel relaxed. Maybe it had to do with the fact it was him holding the knife and the pig hanging upside down, cutthroat. Simon wanted to tap out, get a flat for himself, even move cities, move damn planets, but couldn't bring himself to leave Tommy and his mother behind. They were all victims of the same natural disaster. "Don't stay up."
"Well, give her my regards..." she simply said with a soft smile.
They shared a knowing look, knowing that Molly would drop a pill in a few hours and won't be up until tomorrow morning; if lucky. She nodded, dropped eyes, and leaned against the frame to let Simon walk past her, the too loud sound of the TV in the room next door and distracted laughs of his younger brother making a soundtrack. Simon would look the back of his blonde hair before stepping out of the door and head out to the pub, much like his father did a few hours ago.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Breathe in, breath out. Mechanical, your body could do it without your brain telling it to, but sometimes your brain got so anxious it forgot about it. Some people started calling them anxiety attacks. Doctors, mostly. Y/N wasn't a doctor, but instead just knew it made her feel like ripping out her hair one by one and crawl out of her skin.
The cigarettes helped. Michelle, her older sister told her it wasn't a very feminine look to smoke Marlboro reds the way she did, but with a prostitute mother and a junkie lizard for a step father, whatever effort they made to look good to society was futile now.
That and the multiple bruises they both sported on their bodies. Michelle had learned how to put makeup on them, Y/N couldn't bother anymore.
Michelle. Emerald eyes, long face, short hair. Smart Michelle, kind Michelle, 5 years older Michelle, in love Michelle, pregnant Michelle, crying face Michelle, "Come with us" Michelle, "Come to see me soon," Michelle. Two jobs and a new born Michelle, always a mother Michelle. Too busy for her Michelle.
Michelle, Michelle, Michelle. Ma belle.
She missed Michelle, and now and then she wished she just had picked up and left Manchester with her and John, take a train to America, to a place called Chicago. Scape this place like a crying Michelle had asked her to, but no. She had done too much: her older sister had already acted like a mother her whole life, and Y/N thought she deserved a chance at love. John was that. A chance at happiness. A warm pair of arms, a nice house. No unsolicited grabbing, to drugs, no shouting and no smacks. Y/N couldn't just storm into her life and wreck it all, be a reminder of the past Michelle barely survived.
She took a drag of her third cigarette and leaned against the back alley of the convenience store she worked in. Few hours, shitty pay, but it was a way to stay away from her house, with her mom asleep, drugged off her tits most of the day and working all the night, she no longer felt like it was a home; not that it ever did. It was a place where she had a thin mattress and some clothes and a place she would only want to use to sleep.
The girl hugged herself, her too big on her black coat almost swallowing her. Her shift was off, the old man owner of the store telling her to "fix herself" before coming back on Monday.
He meant the bruises. They all meant the bruises.
She had a gash on top of her eyebrow from running away from a blow from Ethan, Mum's husband, presumedly pimp. It took a lot of rage, but the bastard wouldn't touch her again, not a single hair on her head.
This was not the first time he did it. This was not the last time it would happen. Y/N knew it.
Her hands slipped down her face, chipped burgundy polish on her nails, and she ran her hand down her hair, stepping on her cigarette butt and placing her hands inside her pockets.
She could see her breath in front of her, and the news said that it might snow this year again. Man, her house could no longer hold another winter the way it was. It was cold and wet on the bottom floor, and she wouldn't dare step upstairs in fear of the risks of being in the same room as Ethan.
She thought that if it came down to it, she could always convince Simon to just gather some money and spend the season in a motel with heat. It was a luxury, but she didn't want to be an Ice Lolly.
She smiled to herself at the thought of him. She flicked open the fire and lit another cigarette, the cherry burning almost instantly as she blew the smoke out of her hair. The girl started walking out of the alley, with a bit of a hunched back to her step, something she learned from when she was a kid and tried to conceal the fact that she had grown tits now.
The boy was her best friend, if not he was her only friend, the only one she could trust. What started with an innocent childhood friendship, with both of them being at the headmaster's office almost daily (teachers would find Y/N stealing stickers and pennies out of other girl's school bags and had to physically break out fights Simon started) developed into a deep understanding of each other circumstances; into an everlasting love that held no labels.
Simon gave Y/N her first beer at 11 years old and smoke her first joint with her at 12. Y/N pierced Simon's ear lobe with a burnt-out safety pin drenched in vodka, and with time had more experience in curing his bruises than the local doctor. A match made in heaven, you could say. A refuge for both of them. They both did it for the right reasons.
It was freedom of not having to use a mask. Y/N could crumble to pieces in front of Simon, curse the Gods, curse fate, confess herself a human being because she knew her vulnerability was safe with him, that Simon wouldn't let the light in.
In a sick joke of destiny, they seemed made for each other. Y/N's mum was also an addict much like Pete Riley. Broken homes both opened their doors to let loose the monster that lived inside Simon and Y/N's chest, and their jaw clenched at a fury that they never knew where to direct. None of them knew very well how to live now, and at 18, it had stopped being cute long ago.
So, it wasn't Simon beating up John Misty in the playground, rather bare-knuckle fighting drunks at the local pubs that would serve him, spitting into his father's face, in a screaming contest with the police. It was no longer Y/N shop lifting lip glosses from Macy's, giving a cheeky wink to the slow and beat up security cameras, rather than that it was her letting any boy that would fake listen to her feel her up under her clothes in the alley, picking up the tails of stranger's joints in the street. In a race with rats.
The girl detached herself from the wall and fixed her jacket, putting some strands of hair behind her ear and walking down the alley, the sound of her torn sneakers against the cold pavement. The bags under her eyes were turning blue now and her back was starting to hurt like it always did after a shift, but she couldn't go back home, if she ever had one. Plus...she thought, looking up.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
He could see it through the smoke of his joint as he leaned over the hill, joint in one hand, 40oz of beer in the other one. Nothing but the grey air of Manchester and the big hill under him, and yet the moon and the stars managed to go out and shine down on all of them mortals. Simon took a drag of the smoke and blew it out almost immediately, feeling every muscle in his body relax. He had to thank Ake next time he saw him; Ake had half a brain but double the heart and was always there when he needed someone to talk to...or free weed.
Yeah, Simon had that other bit covered. He knew that whenever he decided to open his mouth to speak whatever was locked inside, Y/N would be there to listen to him. He was the only girl he could talk to without fucking stuttering or feeling such an inadequate monster of a man. All the girls around him were older, mostly prostitutes, ladies of the night, that were equally broken than him, and more often than not, Simon thought about...just doing it. Pay for it. Pay for sex. In reality, he was paying for the company, for a warm chest and nice hands, for a fake smile, cheap perfume, but who was he to judge?
He stopped doing it that one time he saw Y/N's mum walking down the street in very tight latex and tired eyes and he couldn't stomach the image of another prostitute's kid, hungry and cold, waiting for their mum at home. Much like Y/N had done it before, and Michelle before her.
Around the same time, Y/N grew sick of the one-night stands. Of boys pretending to listen, to care, to feel her up. She grew tired of the empty eyes and the dead beat "goodbye's" after having sex. And after fucking Paul Brendan in the back of the school yard, and the boy fixing himself up and giving him a nasty wink without a second action to it as a goodbye, she decided enough was enough.
It was nice to have a friend for any ocasion.
They started fucking each other the summer they both turned 17.
And they never said it was something, let's say, exclusive, but none of them touched anyone else. Y/N just couldn't trust anyone else enough to do so, wouldn't go near boys or men in general after that last slip of her dignity and self-worth, and it was only wrapped around Simon's arms that she could allow herself to be as intimate as she wanted to, to literally spread open for him.
For Simon, however, it ran deeper. Once he tasted Y/N, well...there was literally no one else in the whole of Manchester that could catch his attention. Maybe he was attracted to other girls, sure, Emily Nichols could make a grown man cry with those tits of her, and Samantha Blunt's leg should be ensured for 1'000'000 pounds at least, but there was just something about Y/N that no one else could supply. It was like she had some sort of additive dripping from in-between her legs, something laced in her saliva that he just couldn't resist. He was just perpetually thirsty.
They never quite said it but they both knew they were only for each other, and they knew each other enough, so much, to reach the point where Simon could tell Y/N who she was in case she forgot.
And that's why, guzzling the rest of his first 40 oz down his throat, messily getting his chin wet, Simon could hear the dry leaves behind him and identify, the way only a kid born in a house on fire could, the steps of her friend behind him.
This was their spot. Sure, maybe some junkies came over, left needles and used condoms around, teenagers like themselves used them to drink from cans of beer and leave their traces behind but this was their spot. Hidden behind thick leaves and bushes, down the hill, slightly tilted down enough to lay down with no effort, only using their elbows. Simon bit down the joint to keep it in place and scratched under his shirt lazily.
"Look what the cat dragged in..." Simon joked, eyes still to the front, to the dark night. He earned nothing but an annoyed huff erupting from Y/N's plush lips as the girl sat down next to him in the dark.
"Fuck off, Riley. I am not in a good mood today."
Simon almost giggled in a lazy weed haze. "Oi, when are you ever in a good mood? I bet...-Shit."
"Shit." They both said at the same time, staring at each other, analyzing their faces, at least as much as the moonlight would let them. They had seen each other with all sorts of bruises and gashes, purple and red, dried blood and busted out stitches but it was always a sight for sore eyes. Simon sat down correctly, putting off the joint next to him next to the beer bottle and Y/N crawled next to him, sitting on her knees to observe his face.
Simon's hands went directly to her face, delicately, afraid to hurt her even more, calloused hand above a beat-up princess cheek. He wasn't surprised, he stopped being surprised years ago, at the same exact spot, seeing her first bruise, boiling with rage, wanting to go to her father, beat him up. Simon was as scrawny 12 year old back then.
Yeah, but it still wasn't a pleasant view. Never would be.
Y/N at the same time was able to stare back at him. Simon's rugged features were there, no doubt, but if she squinted her eyes enough, she could see the boy beneath him. The soft cheeks, now beat up, the kind eyes, now darkened. He was also sporting a pretty gash on top of his eyebrow, still red and angry around the edges. He must have cured it himself. She sucked on his teeth as his hands went and wrapped around Simon's wrist, in an effort to make contact. They both stared at each other for a pretty minute before both stumbled across their own words, trying to figure out what had happened.
"That fucking arsehole, the cunt..."
"No." They both remained silent. She had hurried the answer, not wanting for Simon to finish the question. "He didn't." Not this time. And it was true. This time it was true. Y/N had seen him reach for his buckle, but she had hurried away before he could do anything to her. Make her do anything to him.
Simon scanned her face for a second. "Good..." he whispered. There was nothing much else to say. He sorts of missed the days where she would rush over to him a crying mess, babbling, shaking with fear and anger and sadness and shock. These days Y/N would just sit next to him, sort of showed her wounds and then just...drink it away. There was nothing else in there. The light was already broken.
The ball of the bottle gagged up and down as Y/N drank a big gulp from it, the burning sensation on her throat long forgotten. Simon watched for a few seconds before deciding to look away, look to the abandoned park in front of them and just let her sit in silence for a while, figure out her emotions, how much pain she was in. If it was worth the cry.
Y/N leaned the bottle next to him and her fingers left the neck of it seconds before Simon picked it up, drank a little himself. She placed her elbows on her bent knees and sniffed the cold air of Manchester through her nose. Simon lazy eyes scanned her side. Perky nose, loose messy ponytail, tear eyed, glassy look. He sighed and shook his head slightly. He wasn't sure about himself but...he knew Y/N deserved better.
This wasn't like any of the other times. Once she was fierce, fiery, talking about how many things he would do to her stepfather if she ever gathered the courage to do it herself or let Simon take business in his own hands, but now she was quiet, and the lonely park was just an extension of her silence. Dead, and beautiful and familiar and comfortable.
He opened his mouth to say something, as he thought he should but Y/N, beautiful, forceful, trainwreck Y/N spoke first.
"You know I see us so far away from here? Sniff." She said with a watery tone in her speak. She looked at him before briefly looking at her torn boot. She sniffed again, holding back tears. "So far from Manchester, so far from that fucking neighborhood..."
"What?" He dared to say. "Wales?" They shared a very brief look before she shook her head.
"Out of fucking England, me and you..." she said, talking absently, more to herself, as if Simon wasn't there. "Away from Ethan, the cunt, and your bloody father. Away from this park..." Her voice was raising, and she didn't even realize she was close to shouting. Simon straightened up in his seat, alert.
"Oi..." he tried to interrumpt, hands up to stabilize her.
"Away from this fucking cold, and the leaky ceilings and, and my whore of a mother and... a-away from...away from that fucking house! Away from... FUCK, FUCK!" she ended screaming, as if it was a crescendo.
No one was around to hear it except Simon, and it tore his insides a little to see the vein in her neck pop out, to see her run out of breath, fisting her hands, face all red and angry. Her chest was going up and down, her rage bubbling inside her chest, from an angry red dissolving into a confusing and cold blue. She swallowed her tears, chest still in a rush and stared at him, biting her bottom lip, trying to contain herself.
It was seeing herself reflected in Simon's unsure, impressed face what broke her. Her brows furrowed, and her face contorted in a sob as Simon opened his arms to embrace her, whiskey bottle now forgotten next to them. Their cheap jackets rubbed against each other, sheltering the cold away from them, so thin their hearts could touch each other.
She had kneeled next to the boy now, almost crawled into his lap and it was only there that she allowed to...feel.
It was the loudest she had cried in years and again it was Simon's chest who sheltered, from the outside world, from the cold, from the dark of the park, from herself. From Ethan.
The girl leaned her cheek against his chest, pressing hardly, as if wanting to crawl into his ribcage. It had reached a point where she was that scared. Where she made sense out of it. She trembled and groaned, and cried, stopped for a few seconds shivering, while Simon rocked her slightly, confused, aware, terrified.
Was this the end? Was this what happened before the whole world went utterly to shit? Were they staring at the abyss and didn't even realize?
The girl trembling in his arms knew it was ending. Something had kicked inside her, her surviving instincts and, okay, if it came to it, he knew that Y/N would be the type of girl to survive a mass shooting, a natural disaster, any disaster really, but first...she was going to cry. She was a Manchester girl, a port girl, she was made to live in the waters.
"I see us so far away from here, Simon..." She repeated, her voice calmer, miles away from that park. "I need us far away from here." Y/N closed her eyes and frowned. "I still believe we deserve a kinder life than this..."
"Y/N..." he whimpered, holding her tight against his chest. "Where...?"
"Do you see it?" She asked, and Simon looked down to his chest, to her pressed cheek against his pectoral, his arms surrounding her small frame, his thumbs rubbing against her shoulders. Her eyes were staring at nothing, or at something very far away in the distance. "Simon, do you see it?"
Did he? What were they going to do now? Okay, out of Manchester, out of England. Then what? They were 18, just out of their mum's fannies, not a penny to their names, no one that gave a shit about them really. Did he really saw something out of that park, something that involved them both, safe, not starved, somewhere warm?
Nobody's son, nobody's daughter.
He looked down to his chest, to her rosy cheeks, to the small patch of tears that stained his jacket, the icy forms her lips made due to the cold of her breath. A little dove nesting in his chest, a pair of bloody knuckles from bare knuckle fighting, holding her so softly. Simon's breath got caught up in his chest and he decided they will leave town the next day.
"Simon?" she asked, looking up, childish thick eyelashes, glossy stare, hopeful, terrified. "Do you see it?"
He nodded, hugged her tightly against him and felt her arms hugging him back for the first time in the night. She had moved into giving a part of herself, hugging back. She was in.
He kissed her temple, he dared, softly, wet, his eyes now also looking into the distance, to something that involved them both in a kinder place.
yousharknotpass
romaincrisis
jbbartram-illu
areudirty
janainaart
germansingergirl
2087
annaxmalina
