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Yes, this is a rather old fic that had been sitting dead in my folder for a long while now. Decided to polish it up a bit, and post it here, where it most likely will not get read. lol. Anyway, thanks to my beta-who is floating around somewhere out there...
Afterimage
He takes the pictures on grainy film so the end results always look old and faded. He doesn’t know why, but it feels more real this way, personal. Sometimes they’re even in black and white, but only rarely. Joe never took the time to learn how to use a camera correctly with black and white film, doesn’t know how to get rid of the greenish tint that always appears afterwards.
There are little snapshots of Billy; Billy laughing, Billy in mid-sentence, Billy scowling. Scenes taken when Billy wasn’t watching, the pictures stashed away in Joe’s bag. Down at the very bottom, beneath the few pairs of clean underwear and dirty socks, beneath his lyric book and guitar picks. On the left side, right there, Joe knows precisely where. Three fingers width from the corner.
He takes them out on rare occasions, like when he is sick as a dog and feeling up his gun, toying with the prospect of blowing the fever out of his brain.
He needs celluloid Billy when the real one isn’t there.
And Joe remembers.
There was once a time when everything was fine, when there were no pages ripped out of his lyric book and no photos. The torn out pages were too soft among the rest of his words; they’d cut through the rejected songs with razor sharp teeth and too obvious, way too obvious to actually keep. No one was supposed to find the crumpled up papers, snatches of forbidden songs that had no chance to be born. No one was supposed to go looking through the trash or the hidden wasteland underneath the carpet of their van. Billy did, though. Claimed he had been looking for his ring, a skull with little horns set in ruby. Bullshit. The fucker didn’t wear rings, much less expensive ruby shit. Not then, anyway. Joe had complained it’d scratch up his face when Billy would punch him.
Joe thinks about their relationship, the mechanics of it, the bare boned truth that he would never dare seek out sober. And he isn’t sober, not entirely. There are two bottles of scotch on the table, next to the pictures, one empty and the other half full. He thinks about their friendship, the love, the hate, the hate. Them, in a nutshell. And he can’t quite wrap his brain around it.
They can be something together, but they’re not. They might’ve wanted to at some point in time, but they can’t now, never fucking could, no matter how hard Joe tried, how hard he’d hit to get his way. Isn’t allowed, isn’t what fate has in store for them. It’s like they could be something great and unstoppable and unparalleled, if it was meant to be. But it wasn’t, isn’t, never will be. Joe Dick and Billy Tallent have two very different paths, two very different destinations and Joe has come to realize this. All that bullshit about fate and destiny and fucking soul partners, theirs do not involve each other. It was like, for the longest time, trying to fit the wrong pieces into a puzzle. Joe still doesn’t understand why not, why they can’t ever fit together.
And fate, destiny, their pre-ordained fucking existence, has been nothing more than tainted highs and abysmal lows. For Joe, anyway. Billy was stuck in that little niche with him for a while there, but soon he learned how to crawl out of it, out from under Joe’s wing, his shadow. He was going to do things for himself, and Joe was supposed to just disappear like a nice fucker and give Billy his space. Not the first time Billy tried to leave him, and it wasn’t the last. But of course, Joe can’t be Joe without his other half, and the same is true for Billy. Joe’s still learning that now, as he drinks away, and it’s one of those moments where he contemplates what Billy might be doing, where he might be. It’s fucking annoying, that even worlds apart Billy can still affect him so profoundly.
He picks up a picture of Billy smiling, soiled and dog eared from years worth of handling, and runs his fingers across the now dulled face, the grainy, fading color of Billy’s flannel shirt.
Then Joe tears the once glossy pictures into squares and arranges them on the tabletop, small ringlets of damp scotch wetting the corners of the occasional scrap, and pushes them around with deft fingers. Mixes Billy’s face up, Billy’s clothes with his hair, his sunglasses with bits from his guitar. One giant puzzle he won’t ever be able to solve. At least he has fragments, though. He’ll always have his fragments of Billy. Doesn’t mean he’ll stop trying to have all of Billy.
He’s too far past coherent thought, however, and his brain is too sluggish to actually pick up the phone and call Billy, to try and get a little more of him. So he sits instead, lulled to sleep by the warm fizz of alcohol and the scattered Billy faces watching him from the chaotic mess all over the table. He’ll do anything to have the real Billy again.
He’ll make it fit. He’ll die trying.
But in the end, it’s the afterimage that keeps coming back, Billy with his fucking charm and his fucking luck and his fucking fate, spitting in Joe’s face and leaving him in the lonely, dusty wake of Billy’s thunderous ascent.
By then Joe will be gone, and none of it (all of it) will matter.
Afterimage
He takes the pictures on grainy film so the end results always look old and faded. He doesn’t know why, but it feels more real this way, personal. Sometimes they’re even in black and white, but only rarely. Joe never took the time to learn how to use a camera correctly with black and white film, doesn’t know how to get rid of the greenish tint that always appears afterwards.
There are little snapshots of Billy; Billy laughing, Billy in mid-sentence, Billy scowling. Scenes taken when Billy wasn’t watching, the pictures stashed away in Joe’s bag. Down at the very bottom, beneath the few pairs of clean underwear and dirty socks, beneath his lyric book and guitar picks. On the left side, right there, Joe knows precisely where. Three fingers width from the corner.
He takes them out on rare occasions, like when he is sick as a dog and feeling up his gun, toying with the prospect of blowing the fever out of his brain.
He needs celluloid Billy when the real one isn’t there.
And Joe remembers.
There was once a time when everything was fine, when there were no pages ripped out of his lyric book and no photos. The torn out pages were too soft among the rest of his words; they’d cut through the rejected songs with razor sharp teeth and too obvious, way too obvious to actually keep. No one was supposed to find the crumpled up papers, snatches of forbidden songs that had no chance to be born. No one was supposed to go looking through the trash or the hidden wasteland underneath the carpet of their van. Billy did, though. Claimed he had been looking for his ring, a skull with little horns set in ruby. Bullshit. The fucker didn’t wear rings, much less expensive ruby shit. Not then, anyway. Joe had complained it’d scratch up his face when Billy would punch him.
Joe thinks about their relationship, the mechanics of it, the bare boned truth that he would never dare seek out sober. And he isn’t sober, not entirely. There are two bottles of scotch on the table, next to the pictures, one empty and the other half full. He thinks about their friendship, the love, the hate, the hate. Them, in a nutshell. And he can’t quite wrap his brain around it.
They can be something together, but they’re not. They might’ve wanted to at some point in time, but they can’t now, never fucking could, no matter how hard Joe tried, how hard he’d hit to get his way. Isn’t allowed, isn’t what fate has in store for them. It’s like they could be something great and unstoppable and unparalleled, if it was meant to be. But it wasn’t, isn’t, never will be. Joe Dick and Billy Tallent have two very different paths, two very different destinations and Joe has come to realize this. All that bullshit about fate and destiny and fucking soul partners, theirs do not involve each other. It was like, for the longest time, trying to fit the wrong pieces into a puzzle. Joe still doesn’t understand why not, why they can’t ever fit together.
And fate, destiny, their pre-ordained fucking existence, has been nothing more than tainted highs and abysmal lows. For Joe, anyway. Billy was stuck in that little niche with him for a while there, but soon he learned how to crawl out of it, out from under Joe’s wing, his shadow. He was going to do things for himself, and Joe was supposed to just disappear like a nice fucker and give Billy his space. Not the first time Billy tried to leave him, and it wasn’t the last. But of course, Joe can’t be Joe without his other half, and the same is true for Billy. Joe’s still learning that now, as he drinks away, and it’s one of those moments where he contemplates what Billy might be doing, where he might be. It’s fucking annoying, that even worlds apart Billy can still affect him so profoundly.
He picks up a picture of Billy smiling, soiled and dog eared from years worth of handling, and runs his fingers across the now dulled face, the grainy, fading color of Billy’s flannel shirt.
Then Joe tears the once glossy pictures into squares and arranges them on the tabletop, small ringlets of damp scotch wetting the corners of the occasional scrap, and pushes them around with deft fingers. Mixes Billy’s face up, Billy’s clothes with his hair, his sunglasses with bits from his guitar. One giant puzzle he won’t ever be able to solve. At least he has fragments, though. He’ll always have his fragments of Billy. Doesn’t mean he’ll stop trying to have all of Billy.
He’s too far past coherent thought, however, and his brain is too sluggish to actually pick up the phone and call Billy, to try and get a little more of him. So he sits instead, lulled to sleep by the warm fizz of alcohol and the scattered Billy faces watching him from the chaotic mess all over the table. He’ll do anything to have the real Billy again.
He’ll make it fit. He’ll die trying.
But in the end, it’s the afterimage that keeps coming back, Billy with his fucking charm and his fucking luck and his fucking fate, spitting in Joe’s face and leaving him in the lonely, dusty wake of Billy’s thunderous ascent.
By then Joe will be gone, and none of it (all of it) will matter.