I have no idea why this chapter went blank, but here it is again... oO

SOME AN FOR YOU:
:smacks self: Bad, Lainny! Bad! I’m sorry for taking so long to update. I have no excuse beyond my own laziness. Badbadbad.

NOT BETA-D. CHAPTER TITLE FAILS.

Chapter Sixteen
Release through Remembrance

It was decided that Alice would start moving in to Sin’s apartment that night, so while Sin got ready to go to Release, Alice ran back to Van to break the news and grab his backpack. Sin could sense some trepidation from Alice before the redheaded finally left the apartment and headed back to the café. Sin himself was torn between nervousness an excitement as he hurried to Release, ignoring the screeching siren song of a toothless prostitute along the way.

Chris gave him a wave as he stepped in behind the bar and hung up the threadbare coat he scavenged during one of his nights at the dump. Rei sidled up beside him as he hurriedly and carelessly smoothed down his hair and gave a loud yawn.

“You’re looking pretty tired. Wild night last night?” she asked with a wink and Sin let himself laugh as he shook his head.

“No… No, I just had a friend over today. They woke me up kind of early.”

Rei frowned, leaning closer to sin but careful not to touch him when she noticed the blonde tense up. “Speaking of which…you’d better be careful. Mercy came in incredibly pissed off about fifteen minutes ago. He’s been in a total rage backstage ever since. Chris has tried to calm him down, but all he’ll say is some intelligible garbage about you and Izzie. I don’t know what you did to make him so pissed, but you really should watch yourself.”

Sin frowned back as Rei left him to wipe the bar clean, thought it already looked it. What was that all about?

He barely had time to contemplate it before a scream rang through Release and pain was exploding through Sin’s face, centering in on his lip as liquid heat gushed free and spattered over the front of his shirt.

As much as he wanted to figure out what the hell happened and how bad his injury was, he’d learned an important lesson in The House: Be alert or be beaten, so he quickly shot out his arms, shoving the warm body of the human torpedo away from himself.

Mercy hit the bar much harder than Sin would’ve intended had he known whom he was pushing. The singer let out another strangled, savage war cry and flung himself at Sin again.

“You son of a bitch! Where is he, you mother fucker?” he screamed as Chris hurried over and pulled the boy away from Sin, but not before Mercy landed a few blows. “What’d you do with him, you fucked up piece of shit?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mercy,” Sin calmly protested, gingerly touching his fingertips to his rapidly swelling lip. He tried to focus on the pain in his lip instead of the sting of Mercy’s words. It surprised him, this pain. He thought he’d gotten used to insults, his mother making him numb and immune to such bothersome hurt, but there it was nonetheless and it would not go away.

“Don’t you lie to me! Izzie was at your apartment today, damn it! I heard him! You think I don’t know his voice? I know his voice! What the fuck’s wrong with you, huh?”

“I… I haven’t talked to Izzie since we went to your apartment. Alice came over today. Not Izzie. What’s the matter? I don’t… I don’t understand…” At that moment Sin realized just how amazed he was at the fact that people were such complicated beings. They never meant what they said and never said what they meant, and when they actually did it was even more confusing than the lies. Mercy had been being nice to him but had meant to be mean and now here he was, baring his true feelings and it was terrifying, the panting, growling boy.

“What’s going on?” a voice came, at a safely detached distance from the mess that had unfolded behind the bar. Everyone’s head slowly turned to see Alice standing in the doorway of the bar, gripping onto the straps of a backpack, his eyes wide. “What…what’s happened?”

Mercy relaxed in Chris’s grip and he glared at the newcomer. “I thought he was supposed to be at your place, Sin,” he growled. “Isn’t that what you just said? Do you want to lie to me one more fucking time? Huh?”

“Me?” Alice asked. “I… I was at Sin’s all day. I went over to visit him, but now I’m moving in with him… I just had to stop back at Imagine and talk to Van and pick up my stuff.” He reached over his shoulder and patted a backpack to prove it. “That’s all… Did something happen? Did I do something wrong? I… I can go back to Van’s if…if you want me to…”

“No…” Sin softly protested. “Don’t do that. There was just…” He glanced over at Mercy and shrugged. “There was just a misunderstanding. That’s all.”

Mercy wrenched away from Chris and slid around to the other side of the bar, but he didn’t make it three steps before Chris called his name. “Mercy… You…you go home tonight. I don’t want you here when you’re like this, okay? I’ll play some discs and I’ll tell Izzie that you guys aren’t needed tonight.”

“Are you kidding me?” He shook his head hard. “That’s fucking bullshit! Izzie and I need the money, Chris.”

Chris shrugged helplessly. “You should’ve thought about that before you went ape-shit. Get the hell out of here. I don’t want to see you till you’ve calmed down.” He pointed a finger toward the door that Sin was normally keeping watch over. Mercy stared at him, his eyes hard and defiant and Sin watched fearfully, afraid that he’d say no, afraid that he’d turn his anger back on toward Sin, but instead the singer quickly turned and exited Release, shoving Alice out of his way.

As soon as he left, the tension slackened and Sin took a deep breath, wondering if he’d ever make things right with Mercy.

Alice sat behind the bar, his arms around his knees as he watched Rei walking back and forth to serve drinks, her grubby tennis shoes and fishnet stockings turning into a blur.

The whole night had been a blur, really. Talking over the arrangements of moving in with Sin were just distant echoes in his mind. He knew that they’d agreed that Alice would be making his bedroom in the living room, and that Sin was really set on getting one of those folding screens set up for some type of privacy. He seemed really concerned about whether or not Alice would be getting enough privacy. He remembered promising that he’d get a job as soon as possible, and wondering if Van would let him keep his job at Imagine even if he was moving out. And that’s when he’d remembered that he’d have to go back and tell Van he was moving out that night and where he was going on.

But talking to Van had gone a lot smoother than he’d expected. Van seemed hurt and the whole time Bosco paced beneath the kitchen table, rubbing against Alice’s feet and then Van’s as he wailed in high-pitched meows as though he understood what Alice was saying. Although he didn’t seem too pleased to hear about Alice’s already decided plan, Van didn’t deny him a real job at Imagine, nor did he try to stop the boy from walking out the apartment door.

Alice sighed and let his forehead fall down onto his knees.

“You okay, kid?” He looked up to see Rei looking down at him through her coal-black eyes. She had the eyes of foreigners in Himmel, but he didn’t want to think about that world right now. He had enough trouble going on in this one that he had to figure out first.

“Yeah… I… I guess I’m just kind of…” He shrugged. “I don’t know. You know… I just thought things would get easier once I moved here… But they haven’t really been – maybe they’ve even gotten a little worse, to be honest – and I can’t go back. I guess I’m hoping things will get better at Sin’s apartment…” He shrugged again and tried to ignore the concern in Rei’s eyes.

“Sweetie, I’ve never been that great at giving advice. I’m just here to supply the drinks so you don’t need any advice, butlet me tell you this at least: I’ve been living here all my life and things weren’t any easier for me living here at your age than they are for you. You can’t blame it on one place or the other. It’s just life, hun. It’s not always a pleasant thing, but we all have to go through it. And besides, Sin needs someone in that place with him. It might bring him out of his shell, so it’s a good thing you’re here instead of…wherever you came from. Where’d you say you’re from?”

“I didn’t…” Alice smiled meekly and she grinned back.

“Hey, bartender! C’mon and do your job! I’d like a refill here!” A gruff voice slurred somewhere above them.

Rei glanced over her shoulder. “Wait one goddamned minute!” She turned back to Alice and rolled her eyes. “Men. Seriously. Give me a beer, give me this, give me that while I sit on my lazy ass and do nothing… Thank god I’m a lesbian. I don’t think I could handle it.” She shook her head. “So, where are you from?”

“Not around here…” Alice replied, only being vague because it made it harder to remember the details like the wilting daisies in his mom’s garden and the oil spot on the driveway where his dad used to park his old truck. “Suburbs. Life’s perfect…only it really isn’t. That kind of place.”

“Yours was like that? Good on the outside but not really where it matters?” Alice nodded. He decided he liked Rei. He decided he liked having someone to talk to, someone that cared but not too much.

“My family was like that especially. We looked good going to church on Sunday morning but…I didn’t…really get along with my parents…” That was almost the truth. There were no dramatic teenage fights about curfew or being caught smoking, but maybe it’s because there were always bed checks and any cigarette smoke would’ve been tasted in Alice’s mouth.

“And that’s why you ran away?”

“Yeah… That’s why. My dad wasn’t exactly a nice…person.” He wanted to open his mouth and tell her everything. He wanted to tell her about the first time his father came into his bedroom and how afraid and confused he was during and after, and how he hated those morning-afters at the breakfast table when he was greeted with a smile and a good morning, son from his dad like nothing had happened the night before, and with blank eyes from his mother. He wanted to tell her about even more of his confusion when he went to a friend’s house and they were left alone all through the night, because that was the way normal families worked. That was the way his family didn’t work. He wanted to fill her in on the details of Himmel and Espen, of the brilliant sunrise-sunsets and Espen’s beauty. He wanted to tell her everything, but he’d begun to think about everything and it hurt him, somewhere deep in his chest where it made his lungs compress a little too far and his heart thud a little too fast. “But… But you’d better get back to work. I…don’t want you to get into trouble because of me.”

She gave him a half-smile before she nodded and stood up. “Hang in there, okay? You’re a good kid. Don’t lose that.” Without losing her grin she turned away and Alice watched her storm over to the other side of the bar. “So what the fuck did you want, huh?”

He smiled at her back. If he’d been more like her, he wouldn’t have had to put up with his father for so long. He wouldn’t have had to be in Stadt. But he was and there was no turning back.

End chapter.

D: Sorry again… Ack. I hate when I take forever to update so I’m sorry…

Thanks so much for those of you who haven’t abandoned me on this story. D:

Review Replies (If you remember what you even said to me…)

Lunar Chasmodai: lol My chapter titles blow… I always think of an idea and then go to upload it and realize I’ve already used it. D: Thanks again for beta-ing last time. :)

Rachizzle: Maybe Mercy’s just used to Izzie’s voice asking for “moar.” Y’know, man? ;D Just like I do for you every night, babyyyy.

Broken Bright Eyes: I am back! (Sort of… :cough:) Alice is pronounced like the Alice in Wonderland Alice. Alice in Chains. Alice Cooper. Izzie’s braces were mentioned in the first chapter, if I remember correctly. But it’s kind of stupid since they don’t exactly have a lot of money but oh well. Izzie and Mercy are…crap. I don’t remember how old they are. o.o I’ll let you know next time. xD

CatseyeRose: Alice and Sin are kind of jumpy… Like rabbits. And you know the phrase “screw like rabbits…” :shifty eyes: Did I say that?

Love Eternally: n.n Thanks. (xD Yes. All you get is a thanks:P )

mia5081: Sankyoo. :D

omg-wtf: macncheesewut?

The Intelligent Designer: Thanks very much. :)

Liviania: lol Thank you. n.n

HollyJolly4u: xD I’m glad you like my descriptions. n.n A well-needed confidence booster. :P Thanks.

Duzen Broken DreamZ: Hehe thanks. :D

magalina: Tight pants for hot boys, for the win. :P I’m trying not to quit this thing, but it’s kind of tough to update it… o.o Eck. But I’m glad you like it.

Blank Sky: Lainny likes your pen name. :D Thanks much for being nice to me. xD

narcissisticThanks. I’ll try harder to update faster in the future. o.o

Thanks again everyone. :)