VG Ficlet: In the Stars (1/1)

[curtkenobi]

Title: In the Stars
Author: Curt Kenobi
Summary: The stars are the soul shining down.
Genre: Angst (of course) and Spiritual (surprisingly)
A/N: I wrote this a while back. Lost the notebook. Found it last week. I had written as something to fill time while I was bored, but with events of late, it's come to mean more. Anyways...onward.

When I was little, I used to look to the stars. When I was in over my head, they were always above, twinkling pin-pricks of light upon that canvas of inky black. The fact that the black trackmarks on my yellow-white skin was that night sky inverted wasn't lost upon me later on.

I used to pray to the stars. Appeal to them to save me. To take me away, to give me oblivion. Just give me freedom, if only for a moment -- but forever would be better. Eventually, I did get away. Eventually, I found oblivion could come from a needle's liquid shot into my veins instead of just death -- not as permanent, and the bliss that came was wonderful, if it only was a few moments. The stars twinkled above me all the while, a silent witness.

I used to lay beside him and stare at the stars. "That's the Gods staring down at me in envy," he said, so casual and self-assured. I looked into his aquamarine eyes, and I saw the stars. That's the Gods blessing me, I thought.

I looked to the sky the night I stormed out. Couldn't really see the stars then. The sky was black like my heart. Cold and lonely. A void. I did find stars -- but they were behind my eyes as a barstool crashed into the back of my skull and streaking across my mind when the sun's evil, cruel light stabbed me in my nasty hangover.

I stopped looking to the traitorous stars for a while after that.

And then came the night with the boy. I looked to the stars once again. There they were, shining and magnificent, welcoming. I told him to make a wish on a falling star -- maybe he made a wish for this falling star, me. We saw something extraordinary that night in the stars. He was extraordinary to me. So wide-eyed, but at the same time so knowing. So...healing. So loving. He was what I had thought I had in "true love". But no -- this. And as we lay together, content under the stars, I thanked them blissfully.

But then morning, harsh morning came. And brought along harsh reason. I liked this kid -- he was all I'd never been. He was all I desperately, truly needed as far as human contact went. The drugs took away everything...for a short while. And then real life bitch-slapped me. But I couldn't keep him. I couldn't. He deserved better, better than me. Better than the broken, fucked-up, fuck up, junky cynic that I was. Sure, I used him and seemingly threw him away -- fuck, I did throw him away. But I couldn't deal with his innocence, and didn't want him to deal with me.

Years passed while I refused to look at the stars again.

Finally, after having to deal with those pesky bastards telling me what I could and couldn't say and this journalist who had the most damnable timing, I went out and looked to the sky. The first stars were beginning to shine.

"Make it right, you fuckers. Do...something."

I met a journalist in the bar. Something about him spoke to me. I finally realised: he was the boy, my boy. I gave him that pin -- that pin that had meant me and my "true love" -- "for his image", as it had been given to me. I gave it to him whether he wanted or not.

I am the stars now. I see Tommy, ever the famous one. I see Arthur, busy with his articles, the shadows that have gathered even more in his eyes. I see the frown mar Tommy's face, so unlike that one that I knew, at the mention of his past life and how Arthur has unveiled it. And I see the tender smile on Arthur's face as he gazes at that green pin.

And I shine free. Finally.