title: how it sounds word count: 821 ship(s): parkbomb ( parker / hbomb94 ) warning(s): implied violence, mentions of nightmares and guns. a/n: it’s 2018 and ya boi really is out here writing parkbomb. anyway here’s some of my boy parker’s gta au backstory, focusing mostly on one (1) trash man.
White noise dances a circle around the dead, the dying, and he is all too aware that this partnership somehow exists as both at simultaneously.
The room bursts at the seams with laughter, with kindhearted jabs at insecurities just vague enough to wear at the ends of tear-stained sleeves; Parker sits on the couch, friends positioned on either side of him. He gestures with a glass of wine in one hand, the other resting gently against the thigh of a man he would spend the rest of his life with ( were he able to, were they not putting their lives on the line with each poorly staged heist, each robbery driven by impulse and adrenaline alone ).
“Don’t leave me,” he jokingly begs, words seeping with genuine co-dependence, with unadulterated fear of something he’s too intoxicated to recognize as loneliness. The man at his right leans in to press a chaste kiss against his cheek, a rush of heat washing across pale skin immediately thereafter.
“We won’t,” the man says, and Parker is either too naive, too drunk, or too stupid to peer just behind the facade he’s come so easily to read as fake; a bright smile, a polite gesture, the way shoulders brush up against each other on purpose --- Parker simply nods at the faux promise, heart locking the words away for safe keeping, for a rainy day.
“We’re --- wait, wait,” Parker rambles off, holding both hands out in a motion to pause the conversation; his friend wasn’t even saying anything, but Parker still demanded the attention, the center stage, the ability to have a little too much fun before something even more heinous arose of this less than legal venture ( to the local corner store, the gas station he’s so often stopped in to buy a drink, some chips, a little extra time ). “...are we really about to do this?” he asks, and there’s something about the way his best friend freezes where he stands, fingertips still against steel, gaze soft as it waits for further instruction; there’s something about this total and complete surrender, this willingness to listen, to learn, to adapt to the interests of his partner in crime --- Parker wishes he could live in this moment for the rest of his days, existing in only this small bubble of milliseconds, this space filled only with silence and understanding.
“Do you want to?” is the response given, and Parker can sense his own confidence faltering, his own walls beginning to shutter against themselves. He smiles, the action growing quickly into a grin as he nods. Before he can say something witty, something just funny enough to mention later to their gaggle of friends, their collection of misfits, the brief quiet is broken. “Okay,” his friend says, and the sight of him gathering his thoughts, of him mentally settling upon an itinerary, a game plan --- it fills Parker with a strange sense of hope; his friends had their lives so intact, so put together, so well prepared. He makes a mental note to someday strive to that level of togetherness; the thought is interrupted by motion, by his friend leading the way --- Parker follows suit, mentally checking actions off as they go along.
A gunshot whirring past his head, a shriek echoing down an empty hallway --- he jolts up in bed, sweat beading down forehead, gaze staring wide into a darkened room. The body lying next to him, warm and heavy at his side, grounds him, soft breaths slipping into the unseen shadows against the walls, the unspoken threats hanging from the ceiling by spiderweb doubt; he takes a breath, in and out, in and out. He glances to his side, reaches an awkward hand out to shake his friend a little --- once, twice. Again, and again, he does this until he hears a tired groan, a moan that sounds an awful lot like ‘stop’, or ‘what is it’, or ‘what happened, are you okay?’.
No, he wants to say, the word banging calloused fists against a door jammed shut. Over and over, again, and again; his friend only rolls over in his sleep, hazy concern resting among a bed of disconnected apathy, a web made of ‘I’m okay’ muttered softly, of ‘don’t worry’ insisted between messy romance and a future too foggy to predict. Instead, voice staggers tired feet along eggshell memories, blood staining palms red with regret he’s too afraid to think on for too long.
“I’m fine,” he finally mutters, syllables tied together with heartstrings he is too willing to give away; take them, he thinks, lace them endlessly around our ever entangled lives --- these knots are notches in your spine, he would say, though thought is too filled with static. White noise dances a circle around the dead, the dying, and he is all too aware that this partnership somehow exists as both at simultaneously; he settles back into bed, closes his eyes and embraces willingly this second silence, this familiar darkness. Maybe tomorrow will be different; maybe.
