Sound by Tchy

Two: Noise

Lyrics to The Bells copyright I:Scintilla.

He has brought a stranger home again. In the silence of the sleeping house, I hear the sound of two pairs of footsteps coming down the stairs into the basement, the soft thump as one body is pushed against the wall, and I know what is happening, even before he lets out a moan into the darkness. My light is off; my room is quiet. He doesn't know I'm still up: he never does. I don't sleep much, but he doesn't know that, either. He tries to protect me. He would be horrified to know that I'm always awake when he comes home in the middle of the night, and even more horrified to learn that sometimes I listen.

Right now, that thought horrifies me as well.

Tonight is a night that I cannot bear to hear it. Before they have even moved from that spot, I have settled headphones over my ears. They're stereo headphones, and they seal sound in well. I can turn my music up loud without having to worry about them hearing.

The fade-proof lines that define status and meaning are illegible, too thin to read...

The noise in my ears is pounding and rough: nothing like the smooth moans that slip from his throat when he loses control. I focus on the music instead of the pictures my mind is feeding me. I don't want to think about that. He's not with me.

I am sitting on the floor with my back against my bed, one knee up and the other leg stretched out in front of me. One of my arms is draped over my upright leg; both of my hands have clenched themselves into fists. I tip my head back, resting it against the mattress, as tears begin falling from my open eyes. I welcome them; I almost feel like they will cleanse me, will wipe away all the pain and sorrow and the memories I don't want to have.

Soon the tears are joined by ragged breaths, my chest heaving with the sobs that are soon to come.

I've lost radiance under petals and softer words...

My entire body is trembling; I have to hold myself tense and still to stop the sobs from getting loud enough to be heard, and the strain of it almost shakes me apart. I am used to this by now, but that doesn't make it any easier to bear. It's more than just wanting him, even though I do want him, more than I can possibly express. He's beautiful, but his body is only a small part of what draws me to him.

Not like those nameless men he brings home. They don't care about him at all.

The vine bleeds; divine screams.

There's something special about the way the light hits him. He looks otherworldly, almost ethereal, but no one else seems to see it. Maybe he really is extraordinary, and they're too blind to notice; maybe it's just my perception of him. Either way, I have always seen him that way, long before I realized I was in love with him.

The first time I met him, I told him he looked like a painting. I was young. I didn't know how else to describe it.

If I could redo that moment now, I'd tell him a thousand times over just how amazing he is.

Do your wings make a sound? Sometimes I swear I can hear them...

It's not that there's a glow about him: it's more subtle than that. It's like there's light mixed in with the substance of his body. It's like he was painted in slightly warmer colours than the rest of the world. It's like his eyes are more human even than human eyes, and they express both strength and vulnerability in that poignant way that only a painting can. It's like he's too miraculous, too precious, to exist in a world like ours. It's like he's so vibrant and alive that he shouldn't be real.

But he is, and that makes him a miracle.

Maybe I'm not the only one who sees it. Maybe all the men he sleeps with catch sight of it as well. But they don't know him like I do; they don't understand that they're seeing it, or what it means. So they stay with him for one night because his beauty draws them in and they want to have him, and once they've had him they stop caring about how incredible he is and they slip out, vanish, never to be seen again.

And he lets himself be tricked into thinking that they love him, just for one night, because he's more fragile than he seems, and all he wants is to be cared for.

You left poison mercury dreams...

A fresh wave of tears falls from my eyes and a heavy sob wracks my body before I can control myself enough to silence it. Sometimes I hate myself for feeling this way, and sometimes I hate him for giving me something to feel so deeply about. But I can't hate him for long, because I love him; I care for him already, and he has no idea. He can't accept something like that from me, because I'm too young--I'm too young, and he still sees me as a brother. He stays with my family because he has nowhere else to turn to for any form of love, but he still wants more.

I want to give that to him, but I can't. So I give him what I can, looking after him in so many small ways, doing little things he doesn't even notice, and I hope and pray that someday he will come to realize what it truly is. That someday he will look at me and understand that he has all he needs already. That someday I can have him.

Will you reveal what it means?

Until then, I block out the sounds of his vulnerability with the noise of my music, the noise in my own head, and the noise of my tears.