Healthy individuals don't bottle emotions. They find outlets, creative or otherwise, so they don't just sit around shoving their emotions deeper and deeper, until they have basically carved out an intenral storage basement for nasty thoughts. Unfortunately, you aren't a particularly healthy individual - and there's a lot of space in your metaphorical wine cellar of feelings.
Problem is, you cannot bottle things forever.
The first champagne bottle of anger smashes along with a glass at work, slipping through your fingers as you furiously try to dry your bruised reflection out of its surface. "Maybe you should go home early," proffers your shift manager. Reluctantly, you agree.
A minor fight on campus refreshed your black eye, the swollen socket almost sooty with how dark the bruising is, ringed with yellow from where the previous ones were healing. You can try to put make up over it as much as you like, but it still blooms loudly out of your face, a fierce reminder of other people's distaste for you. Unavoidable. Lately, you have been avoiding mirrors (and the color purple in your clothing).
Lately, someone has been offering you a silent, uneasy ride home - maybe they're trying to be friendly, but more probably they guessed what happened to your face and your stiff, patched up hand, and felt some kind of guilt. Maybe. Either way, there is no ride home tonight, and you hang around inside long enough only to brush glass dust off your hands, shrugging a coat around your shoulders before you leave.
Halfway home - in a foot of snow, you might add - a tingling overtakes your jaw. The cold, maybe, working into the gum where your tooth was reset, whistling through the small gap where it had been set slightly wrong. The ache claws its way up to your ear, and you tug your hood up, rubbing numbing fingers along your jaw line. A sharp pain stabs up through your teeth before you spot him, the pained jerk of your head swinging him into view.
You would recognize that coat anyway. You would recognize those boots anywhere, and your whole arm flinches in remembrance, the healing bones of your hand still tender (and very unforgiving). Safe by your side, the other hand clenches into a fist.
He hasn't spotted you - you know that much, otherwise he would be other here now - and he's alone. Slowing a little, you cross the street to walk a few paces behind him, eyes fixed on the back of his next. Blinking furiously to push snowflakes off your lashes, you tuck cold hands into your pockets and follow him as he turns down a side street, then another. Then an alley. Back out to a street, the snow crisp and silent, flakes fluttering down between you both. He doesn't look back.
In the weak light of streetlights and faint stars, your black eye glows like an eclipse. Inside, the pain and residual fear becomes anger, bubbling sloly, boiling towards fury.
You would have your revenge.
Trotting a little to keep up, you follow him up the path of a house and round the side, ever quiet in the shadows. Hanging back a little, you let him unlock the door of a garage, leaving it slightly ajar behind him - just enough for cold fingers to clutch at, pulling it open just enough for a slimmer form to slither in with the winter chill, clinging to the wall in the dark. Slinking behind boxes to watch, you feel the hurt froth up inside you, choppy seas of ire roiling furiously - almost making you sick inside.
You wait until he turns to look at the garage's centerpiece (an old, battered pick up) before grabbing the largest spanner to hand and almost leaping on him.
The crunch of metal on bone almost echoes.
He crashes to the floor, spitting blood and chipped teeth and curses, but not for long - you drive the spanner back down on his jaw several times, dark ringed eyes narrowed to watch it crumple beneath your hands. Letting the spanner go - a breather long enough to hear him wheeze out one last slur - you snatch up something larger (likely a part of an exhaust pipe) and repeat the exercise, each dent in his skull accompanied by a hard exhale. Down, you rear back your head to avoid a bright red spurt which splatters across your pants anyway, down, one eyeball pulverizes into gelatinous mush that dribbles over the rest of his face, down!, you're barely looking any more but you see two molars skid across the garage floor and disappear under the truck.
You don't stop until the cold and the slippery surface looses the pipe from your grip,and it clatters to the ground. Heaving in air, you clutch the tattered shoulders and look down at where a head used to be. Sad and flattened, a tongue nestles in the midst of the mess.
"Don't," you raise a shaking hand to wipe spittle and cheek tissue off your face, "go calling people faggots."
Legs with the same consistency as jam preserves, you stand. And then you leave.
No one sees you. Everyone is questioned when the police come round, motiveless and clueless after you burn all the clothes involved. When you next go back to work, you offer service with a smile.
It's a sunny day, and you wake up to sunlight shining across your face. It's a beautiful day. There's a strange smell that you notice as you sit up and stretch, but you don't pay it any mind as you get up and pad into the kitchen.
Normally, your granny is awake before you, making breakfast, but this morning the kitchen is empty. You stand in the doorway for a few moments, head tilted, confused at your grandmother's absence. Maybe she went to run errands or something, you reason. Your stomach growls, so you go the fridge and pull out a package of bacon. You're not allowed to use the stove, so you sit at the table and eat it raw. Granny still isn't back by the time you're finished, and being alone in the house is making you nervous. You get up and and head in the direction of the living room, planning on watching one of your anime dvds to distract yourself until your grandma comes back.
On the way, you pass your granny's bedroom, and the smell you noticed before hits your nose again, stronger this time. You pause, tail twitching. The scent is familiar but you can't quite place it. Without thinking, you dart out your hand and turn the knob, pushing the door open wide enough to stick your head in. The room is dark, curtains drawn, but your eyes are sharp enough to notice a person-shaped lump under the blankets on your granny's bed. Is she still asleep? "Granny?"
The lump on the bed doesn't answer. A sick feeling of worry gnaws at your stomach. Why isn't she answering? Is she ill? You push the door open all the way and move to stand next to the bed. Your grandmother is still beneath the covers. Too still. Hand shaking, you reach out and touch her face. Her skin is cold. You realize what the strange scent is.
Death.
You stumble back, eyes wide and breath coming in sharp gasps as you try to fight back tears. No no no no no. This can't be real. She can't be dead. People aren't meant to die on beautiful sunny days. This isn't right. A choking noise escapes your throat and you can't hold back your tears anymore. You fall to your knees next to your grandmother's bed, clutching the blankets as you sob.
