art&amp;violence

how does she say no to him ?

she’s never seen him like this . she’s never known this side of him . she knew he didn’t drink – politely declined whenever she offered , kept himself clean and tidy , the motions of his day generally lazy – but thought - out . she hadn’t pegged him to be this way , but the more her mind frantically seeks answers , the more they come to her . carve into the back of her skull . she thinks her mind might be bleeding – oh , god . how does she say no to him ?

their eyes meet , her own uneasy . anxious . frightened that if she were to give in to him , she might find herself trailing after him on a destructive path . one of them has to keep their heads on straight – she wants to be that person . she wants to take care of him , reach out to his friends – somebody . he can’t stay like this . this isn’t good .

but when their eyes meet , his glossy and smooth , her own ridden with stress – giovanna finds herself unable to draw back . she doesn’t know how to say no to him . she doesn’t know how to deny a boy whose mother had just killed herself . and so her hand lifts , tenderly touching the round of his cheek and resting her forehead to her partner’s . her eyes seek out his own – they look for grief . agony . find nothing .

she turns her head away and doesn’t draw back – doesn’t say a word .

Aiden is too afraid of his own grief and agony to face it; it’s better to get high, to drink, to go back to the way he used to be. Killing his body isn’t nearly as big of a deal to him as other things — nearly anything else. Hazy-minded, he isn’t even sure why he sobered up in the first place. Because Jim wanted him to, because he was a better hunter and a better worker with a clear head. Maybe even a better person, but right now he isn’t entirely sure — right now he doesn’t care. He is who he is.

He watches her for a few moments, noticing that something seems off but too out of his head to understand what. An arm wraps around her and he rests his head on her shoulder, letting his eyes fall shut.

She’s so good. She’s so good.

She’s so good and he thinks maybe he wants to share this with her.

He doesn’t want to be alone here. He doesn’t want to be alone anymore. He feels so isolated, even if he’s ignoring it. All by himself. Only Aiden.

Somewhere, the Aiden of a few days ago is screaming at him to sober up and to really think about what he wants to do, but that boy’s voice has long since been muffled by chemicals and alcohol and lack of sleep.

❛ … Hey. Psst. ❜

❛ when was the last time you ate something ? you look sick . ❜ he’s not sick , she hisses at herself . he’s fucking doped up . she feels herself shiver , but knows better than to buckle beneath the pressure she feels . a hard weekend gave way to an excruciating week – she had been worried for him to the point of sickness . but this only amplified each and every emotion that corrodes into her .

he’s not going to eat . he’s stubborn – he’s just as stubborn as she is , and giovanna swallows down hard , not really knowing if she wants to sit near him . she doesn’t want to sit . she wants to clean – scrub , make him walk outside with her , get some fresh night - kissed air . that’s what he needs . he needs a cold shower and he needs a meal – needs her , needs his mother most of all .

but she’s gone . she’s dead and rotted . giovanna feels oddly detached from the thought .

giovanna gives her head a little shake – the faintest shimmer of fear in her dark eyes . fear of him , fear for him – she wets her mouth and draws back , pulling in a slow breath . keep it together . keep it together .

❛ i .. i’m going to clean – make you some coffee . okay ? ❜

❛ You don’t have to do that. We can do it later. C’mon, c’mere, c’mere. I’ve missed you so much. You’re so pretty. How did I manage to get with someone so pretty? So perfect. C’mere. Please? ❜

Cloudy blue eyes flicker at first with anxiety and ease into something more charming, something that will hopefully coax her closer to him. He’s overcome with the urge to lean his head on her shoulder. It’s a nice shoulder. Everything about her is nice and well-sculpted and she’s beautiful, the most beautiful girl he’s ever known. The sweetest, too. She’s the sweetest fucking thing; how can one person be so sweet?

His mother was that sweet. She’s the only other person he’s ever known who could be that sweet. She was sad, though. She was always so sad, she had her heart broken all the time. Sometimes he wondered if he inherited that, the constant broken heart, at least to some degree. It was just easier for him to outrun it because he also inherited daddy’s addictive personality and his wild temper which supplied him with escapism and unhealthy outlets.

❛ I just missed you so much, babe. Gio-baby. ❜

there’s nothing about him that’s fine . nothing about him that doesn’t scare the shit out of her right now – because she knows that this isn’t healthy coping . healthy coping should be withdrawing – grieving , denial . not turning to drugs immediately . she feels her stomach turn as hands , once so incredibly comforting and sweet , press against the round of her cheeks .

she walks inside carefully , fighting the extremely annoying urge to start frantically cleaning the entire place . throw out the needles – you don’t need those , baby . we don’t need those .

but the truth of the matter is , a lack of confidence in regards to dealing with her older boyfriend is what keeps her silent . frightened . submissive to him and relieved that she hasn’t caught him in the midst of a comedown . she keeps her jacket on , tucking a lock of hair behind her ear as dark eyes lift to meet aiden’s . she wets her mouth , rubbing at her arms and anxiously keeping herself from looking at his own .

❛ … everything was alright . ❜ sought out a snitch . research for a set-up . she would send zero after him when things were cleared tonight . ❛ i saw family . ❜ OI PRIMA ! THE RACK ON YOU , RIGHT ? GODDAMN , YOUR MOTHER RAISED YOU RIGHT . ❛ … do you have food ? you look hungry , let me – let me make something for you , baby . ❜

❛ What? No, no — no, babe. No food. We don’t need food. I don’t need food. ❜

The mere thought of eating causes a twist of anxiety in the pit of his abdomen, already making him queasy. He doesn’t want to eat, he doesn’t want to smell something being cooked. He can hardly even open his fridge without feeling a surge of nausea, seeing all that food there. His head becomes filled with rot and when he thinks of rot he thinks of corpses and when he thinks of corpses —

Aiden should go on a hunt soon. That’s what he thinks, suddenly switching gears, his head cloudy and absent. It would be good for him, he thinks, to go on a hunt; it would be good to kill something, to get rid of something bad, to do right by the world instead of wallowing. Yes, he should go on a hunt. It would be good therapy, as long as he can look past the fact that it involves death, and when he thinks of death —

❛ Come on, just sit with me. Sit with me for a while. ❜

She’s so beautiful. Beautiful is good. Beautiful has nothing to do with death. Beautiful looks worried, though; beautiful looks upset, she shouldn’t be looking upset.

Everything is fine.

#FACE.

this wasn’t right .

none of this was right . there’s something devastatingly familiar in this – something that she recalls , vivid and stark in the back of her head . carved on the walls of her skull . she knows that she found comfort in aiden’s lack of similarities in regards to her family – the men of her family . the men who were quick to demean her , the men who were quick to force themselves on her . you touch right there , you see ? just like that . doped up and coked up .

when they had been found out , her father had tied their ankles by a chord of rope . the rope was then tied to the bumper of his dodge .

her father drove eight miles before dousing the offenders with gasoline , flicking the match – POOF ! up in flames . he had kissed her forehead afterwards . she was eight .

and so , there is something violently nauseating in this – she remembers those sights , remembers this body slouched against her . it takes a bite into her bottom lip to remind herself of him – her aiden , her aiden . he was hurting – oh , god . he was hurting . shocked , in a vicious awe – santiago tenderly pushes him back . touches his face . notes the gloss to his eyes – hasn’t shaved , showered . he’s not right . he’s fucked up .

❛ a .. aiden – .. let’s – let’s get you inside . come on – ❜

Hands slip from around her waist as he’s pushed back, now moving up to cup her face, her cheeks, his ice-blue eyes continuously melting, giving way to a sort of glazed blankness. Leaning in, he presses a gentle, lazy kiss to her forehead and draws back, staggering slightly as he leans against the doorframe again.

❛ Inside. Right, right, inside — c’mon in, baby. ‘S’a little messy. ❜

Empty bottles, needles, clothes — the only thing missing is dirty plates, empty take-out bags, remnants of the sustenance of a junkie. He hasn’t eaten, keeping himself content with liquor and heroin. Even thinking about food makes him feel sick, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to keep it down. He’d just think about his mother’s corpse and the sound it made when he punched his father in the gut as hard as he could.

He picks up some clothes and tosses them into an empty laundry basket, then scoops up two of the empty bottles, setting them on the counter, clearing something of a path for the girl as she steps inside.

❛ Told you I was fine. Aside from the mess. I’m good, I’m so g… How was the trip? Everythin’ go good? ❜

how many times does she need to knock on his fucking door to get an answer ?

she had been two days late – two days . two days of constant calling , texting , assurances that fell on dead ears . she doesn’t think he was listening to her . the last time she had spoken to him , his voice sounded metallic – cold , strained . and now he isn’t opening his door .

giovanna feels her anxiety reach a peak as small knuckles beat sharply against the door – he was home , he had to be – he wasn’t at his shop , so he must be at home . he must be grieving here .

was she pushing herself on him ? was she bothering him during his process ? but she so violently wanted to watch over him – feed him , take care of him . was he blocking her off ? not trusting her to be near him during this moment ?

another knock .

❛ aiden – baby , please . answer the door – ❜

she really didn’t want to have to pick the lock . that much violate some level of trust .

neonisms

He doesn’t answer when she first knocks because he isn’t sure that he’s actually hearing what he thinks he is. He doesn’t answer the second time because he doesn’t know it’s her. He doesn’t answer the third time due to anxiety, even when it does register that it’s probably her. Whenever she calls through the door for him to answer, though, he’s only able to wait a few more seconds before heaving himself up and shuffling toward the door. He peers through the peephole, then opens the door for her, leaning against the frame.

Aiden looks a mess, and so does the home behind him. His things are strewn about, the drug paraphernalia is on the coffee table and on the floor. His eyes are bloodshot and hazy, seeing but unseeing, as though he’s half-blind. He looks as though he hasn’t bothered taking care of himself this whole time — and it would be true.

❛ Gio, baby. ❜

His voice doesn’t sound like his own. His movements don’t look the same, either — another boy has stolen his face and taken his place here. He takes a precarious step forward and wraps his arms around the girl, nuzzling into her neck and pressing a thousand lazy kisses to her skin.

she doesn’t know what he’s doing – doesn’t know what is being kept from her . he was always the kind of boy who kept things from her . he loved that mask he chose to keep on so often , a constant cockeyed smile – optimism even when he suffered , and giovanna doesn’t know if he does it for others or for himself .

he was so incredibly sensitive . giovanna thinks she sees this in him – not sensitive to words , but actions , concepts , thoughts . a dreamy boy , an idealist in his own reckless way – but sensitive . she loves that about him , never finding much sensitivity within herself . she loves each and everything about him – so much that it smothers her , and as she wait anxiously for a text back , a horrible urge to cry overtakes her .

he was okay ? he was okay ? how could he say that – how could he keep this from her ? a part of her feels betrayed – but another part knows better than that , knowing that such a blow to him , such a fracture – it had him crumbling , cracking like glass .

oh , god .

it’s compulsive , but she dials him – holds her phone to her ear and feels her eyes swell , though tears do not rise . giovanna tries to swallow the lump in her phone , nearly whimpering beneath her breath .

enough of that . she bites back a whimper – squeezes her eyes shut . no answer . she quickly calls again .

The phone sounds so loud, too loud, when she calls. He wants to ignore it, and so he does, at least the first time. The second time, though, he can’t pretend that he doesn’t hear it; he has to put the needle down and answer, trying to make his voice sound the way it did before, yesterday, even this morning.

What does Aiden’s voice sound like? A happy rasp? He’s having trouble remember what he’s supposed to sound like, what he’s like whenever he’s normal.

❛ Hey, babe. ❜

He sounds sad. This isn’t what Aiden sounds like. He doesn’t know how to correct it.

❛ Before you — before you say anything, I’m handling it. You don’t have to worry. I can feel you worrying from all the way over there. I want you to know that you don’t have to. ❜

That sounded a little better, but not by much. Not by much.

#we bust ghosts. we're a ghostbusting squad.

sickmarla

no answer . it’s been a 43 minutes now , and no reply – and she’s frantically pacing about , unable to leave her room without someone seeing her – questioning her . she feels as though she’s about to burst from nervous , frantic energy – she adores him , she’s terrified for him , terrified of adoring someone to the point of this volatile reaction .

but his mother just died .

each time her thought slips to another worried though , she can only repeat that compulsive thought in her head – what did it matter if she was shocked by her own feelings ? what did it matter if she was so damn desperate for him to text back ? his mother is dead , and he is alone . his mother killed herself and left the bleak decline of her life in audio bits . his mother reached out to him and he was absent , his mother killed herself – dead , dead , she’s dead and aiden is alone .

alone . he’s alone .

[ sms text : aiden ] baby please [ sms text : aiden ] PLEASE answer [ sms text : aiden ] please call me . please

her chest tightens , stomach churns – a violent fluttering in her chest . as she presses her palms to her head , a dry sob sounds from within her breast . there are no tears to be seen – quick and shallow breathing . he’s alone , he’s alone , he’s alone .

He doesn’t know whether or not he’s lucky to have made it home alive when he was barely watching the road. His phone kept buzzing and he kept being startled by it, sickened by it, thinking that there must be some more bad news he would have to face if he looked at the screen. He just wants to get hazed, he wants to go to another place and fall asleep; the needle was always good for that, the needle never let him down. Never once.

If he weren’t so exhausted, so out of it — if he weren’t in shock — perhaps he would have understood his own thoughts. Perhaps he would have been more able to control them, to push them away and remind himself that it’s been six years and his whole life has been fine up until this point.

At home, he sets everything up first, then he looks at the phone. Glazed-over eyes scan over the words over and over, trying to make sense of them. Call her? Why does she want him to call her? She’s worried, of course, she must be worried, but it’s like she said — everything is fine. Except everything is not fine.

[ text : giosanti ] don’t worry i’m ok

It was hard to type out, but he managed. He sets his phone down, feeling dizzy, and returns to something old and familiar, something that will keep him sane until morning.

you dont fix this shit . giovanna knows you don’t – knows that there’s no kind of soothing , no kind of tenderness that could ease his pain . the minutes she waits to receive his text are agonizing – fear is instilled in her , an inability to leave aiden completely and totally alone has her anxiously peering at the clock , waiting , waiting . she wants to go back to los angeles . she needs to be with him – even if her presence is useless , she needs to hold him , she needs to have him close .

thoughts of her family are lost . a hand flutters – grasps at the golden cross at her throat , and she’s quick to seek out her own rosary in the woven coin purse within her suitcase . she trembles , feels her breathing caught in her throat – but she knows better than to weep for him . her tears would do nothing for him . she could do nothing for him , nothing for his mother . it wasn’t about her suffering , to assert that through tears would be an act of selfishness , disloyalty for her partner .

she finds her rosary .turquoise beads , fat and heavy , she holds them flush against her breast and looks to her phone the moment it vibrates .

oh , no .

her teeth are caught in her bottom lip , and she finds herself sinking to the ground . she feels the scratch of carpeting against her bare thighs , pushes long locks of hair from her eyes and breathes in a short breath . oh ,no . oh no . oh no .

he had heard the steady decline of his mother . could he picture her swallowing down those little white pills slowly ? her brow furrows , bottom lip quivers as she combs slender digits through her thick hair . she pulls . hitches in a breath . fuck , fuck – why can’t she be with him ? SHE NEEDS TO BE NEAR HIM .

[ text : aiden ] baby, everything will be alright . i promise [ text : aiden ] where are you ? please take care of yourself [ text : aiden ] aiden ? i am sorry

His coat is on. In his pockets, there’s his keys, his phone, and the wad of cash he had been keeping in his safe, slowly collecting more and more, to get his mother some professional help. As he steps into the hall and locks his door, he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket. He doesn’t reach for it.

The descent down the stairs — not the elevator; perhaps he’s willing himself to fall and crack his head open — is a long one, but he’s almost entirely unaware of it until he reaches the last three steps. He leaves the building and he makes his way to his truck, his loyal truck who has seen him through the wasted days and the sober ones. He gets in and turns the key, starting up the engine.

The liquor store is first. It’s the easiest. The man behind the counter recognizes him, even after all this time, and looks almost unwilling to sell to him, but he makes the transaction. Four bottles of whiskey, a bottle of cheap wine, and a six pack of beer — then it’s back to the truck, and off to an old alleyway he hasn’t been to in quite some time.

It’s all the same. Nothing has changed. His dealer’s still there with his dead eyes and his cheshire cat smile, pushing and dealing and making himself rich, or so he says.

Heroin. Right now, that’s what he needs. As he’s paying, he thinks of the phone in his pocket, how it had buzzed earlier — but it still waits, pushed to the back of his mind until he’s back in his truck once more.

he takes an eternity and a half to get back to her . but when he does , she almost wishes for something else – a shift in the fabric of fate , a tear in the cloth that kept them so tightly bound . a faint , chilling understanding that being born beneath la muerte had kept her cold , but being near a boy with such pretty blue eyes had softened her in ways that she was not prepared to be softened .

his mother is dead .

her digits go cold – chapped , holding her phone awkwardly as dark eyes scan that little blue bubble of text over and over again . mom’s dead . mom’s dead . mom’s dead .

wasn’t his father beating on his mom again . wasn’t aiden going to break up a fight and getting punched in the process . wasn’t something that could be repaired with a little kiss and sweet hands – something damaged , permanently fractured . mom’s dead . mom’s dead .

and there was nothing anyone could say to make that better . she had known loss , but it was always detached – the dead lived on through candles and extravagance , filthy wealth that flanked ivory tombs . wreathes of dahlia , poinsettia – calaveras painted with vicious , bleeding color . her brother lived on in this way .

and then there was the blood that stained her own palms . bathed the streets of culiacan – watered the gardens of death and corruption in the country she loved , the country she would die for . and yet , she killed it . she watched her blooming country die before she was even conceived , when the white spaniard came to her home to rip it apart – rape it the land , rape the mothers . the daughters . giovanna presses a hand to her forehead – she feels cold , cold .

this wasn’t repairable . his mother is dead . the boy’s mother is dead .

she doesn’t know how long it takes for her to text back . maybe they both lost a certain concept of time .

[ sms text : aiden ] everything will be okay [ sms text : aiden ] what happened , aiden?

It takes him a little while before he can respond again. He can’t process her reassurance, though something in the back of his mind tells him that he should be thankful for her kindness, that she would say that immediately before anything else. She’s a sweet girl, to say that everything will be okay. She’s a sweet girl. He doesn’t think anyone else would have the decency, the heart, to lie to him like that.

Aiden stares at the screen of his phone, reading and rereading the first text over and over until the words stop looking like words. Then, he moves on to the second text, which takes him another five minutes to process, and yet another five to come up with the answer.

It’s surreal. It’s surreal, typing out the explanation that his mother had killed herself. He almost feels as though he’s lying to her. He almost deletes the text and says that he doesn’t know what came over him, he just isn’t feeling well tonight and those were the first words that came out, but he catches himself and reminds himself that the events of the night were, in fact, very real, painfully real, guttingly real.

There’s a familiar itch on his arms, in his throat, in his head. He hasn’t had it in a long time, but he knows what it is. He knows the feeling, the feeling of needing a needle, needing to turn his body into a cocktail of chemicals. The thought feels so natural that it doesn’t shock him. It’s almost as if he’s forgotten all those years of sobriety, as though he was shooting up just yesterday. He’s wondering if his dealer is out tonight. As though no time has passed at all.

Bleary eyes blink. He looks at his phone again, seeing an unsent text, having forgotten he’d typed out a response. Pressing send, he leans back against the wall and shuts his eyes, thinking about how all of this could be a little better if he could have a drink, have a hit, shoot up, take a pill, find some good shit. Before it even registers, he’s already made the plan to go out. He’s already decided.

It’s so unreal. He doesn’t feel like himself. He doesn’t feel like Aiden. He is a boy in a dream, and boys in dreams do what feels natural and they don’t know consequence and they aren’t fully aware of life as it happens, as the dream happens. They don’t realize how deep they’re going, how farther away from reality, how unreal their situation is.

[ text : giosanti ] she took all her pills & left me 7 messages as she did it

#OUTOFNEON.#[ takes u into my arms ]

honeycraftsarchive

I like to pretend I’m not shipper trash, but I read coyoteuglied and neonisms like it’s fan fiction.

business has kept her from returning to him . heavy flow of traffic in san francisco – she had to exit quietly , leaving aiden without a second word ( knowing that it would be too easy to ask her questions ) .

she had called him three times already . no answer . by the third call , she hadn’t bothered leaving a voicemail – feeling an anxious turn in her stomach as she paces the span of her narrow hotel room . her phone is glanced at every so often , anxiously checking for his call . nothing .

she would fly back to los angeles tomorrow . but the very fact that he neglected to answer her calls has her anxious , volatile – agitated .

finally , she makes a reach for her phone – opens a text . with an anxious tap of her fingers , she writes to him .

[ sms text : aiden ] are you okay ? [ sms text : aiden ] let me know soon . i thought you would have closed the shop by now .

neonisms

The shop has been closed. Everything has been done. Before the night began — the real night, the dark that seemed to take over the whole world when he received those first eight messages — his phone had been out of battery; a stupid mistake, he had forgotten to charge it the night before. He had gone through the whole day, unconcerned, unknowing, ignorant as to what had been happening. By the time his phone was charged up at home, his mother was dead and his father was panicking.

He can still see her, lying in her bed, looking just as though she were asleep. Paler, though. No breath. He’s still processing it, trying to understand that she is dead and that this isn’t some surreal dream. Since the messages, nothing has felt real. Not the drive to the house, not the calls he had to make, not the screaming match he had with his father.

There will be no funeral. Nobody knew them. Nobody ever knows the Cassidys. She’ll be burned, her body turned to ashes, and he will keep the urn somewhere safe, somewhere far away from his father. He keeps trying to tell himself this, but he still can’t make sense of his own words. What are the point of words? Everyone dies. It all just ends in death, so what’s the point of the in-between? Speaking. No one needs to speak.

He hasn’t said anything to Giovanna because he doesn’t know how to. He doesn’t know how to respond to the things that she’s asking. It isn’t as if he’s trying to ignore her; he just can’t make sense of words at the moment, of socialization, of anything.

But he manages to text her back. After half an hour. And he doesn’t know how to say anything so he says the only thing he’s been capable of saying since he got home.

[ text: giosanti ] mom’s dead