once more with feeling
i. your little boy meets him and there's something like fire
Her story had not gotten a happily ever after and yet she so foolishly told fairy tales to her little angel with Chris Joseph. She had always seen the twisting, writhing, the longing in their eyes. Even once they had confided their overness with the subject, it remained. It didn't take words for her to know. All it had ever taken was their eyes.
Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun are no different.
From the moment they meet, Kelly Joseph can see it. Burning. Blazing. Thriving.
(She winces when she sees the ashes flash by.)
These stories never end well.
"Mama, what does love feel like?" whispers the Angel from the dinner table.
"It feels like fire from behind eyes," murmurs the Tender Shepherd before she wipes crumbs away from curious lips.
ii. the pencils they break with the heartache
She can hear the pencils snapping from the kitchen as she cuts up a snack for them. Her Angel has done nothing but talkandtalkandtalk of some Silly Little Girl he says he loves.
With the pencils, she hears the cracking and fracturing of the taller brunette's heart. Her eyes force in images of fresh, beating, pulsing pink and she can almost swear she hears Patrick's whisperquiet sobs and Chris's pillowmuffled tears.
The knife slices through her palm and she doesn't flinch at the blood. She flinches at her pity for the Other Little Boy.
That knight, singing a soft lullaby to the Angel, she feels her throat crack at the thought of telling him how the Other Little Boy feels the same, how their eyes share the fire.
She finds that she cannot find the words and so she merely tucks her son in and sighs at the door frame.
Ifonlyifonlyifonly.
(Why does she feel more helpless than before?)
"Mommy, what does love feel like?" whispers the Angel from his bedspread.
"It feels like pink beating lines," murmurs the Tender Shepherd before she shuts the door neatly.
iii. demons hide in locked hearts that hide in shut closets
Her lips itch to spill all she has known to Chris. YoubothstillloveeachotherJoshandTylerloveeachotherIcandonothing. Instead she watches as the Angel skips through the door and hums of feelings that are tucked in his eyes.
He says he thinks he loves another Silly Little Girl.
His eyes say his heart is sewn into the sleeve of his best friend and sealed with a chaste kiss.
Those starry doe eyes are tootoo familiar and she recognizes the nights Chris still had those. (Sometimes, her mind believes Patrick had them once too before they broke and shattered.) They shine with feelings for another but still burns brightly the feelings for him.
It's only a few years before the Angel announces she likes girls and girls alone (as the Shepherd had much suspected in the way her eyes glistened). The Angel sobs that night and she knows now that her little boy doesn't know what to believe about his feelings.
She scrambles to find the key but she's misplaced it (it's between the teeth of her really) and the little boy's heart stays locked up too tightly for the entire night. Fresh in his eyes are the reflections of his scratched up heart with the Demon's claws bleeding from the wounds. It occurs to her that she shouldn't be checking the closet for monsters.
All she'll find is an Angel with a crown of confusion and big starry eyes asking why they've built him inside such a small space.
(There's a single loose brick he could push out of place but he doesn't ever see it.)
"Mommy, what does love feel like?" whispers the Angel from inside the brick closet.
"It feels like torn up insides and hidden away keys," murmurs the Tender Shepherd from just outside.
iv. he keeps his feelings boxed neatly on a shelf
Sixth grade is the first time she suspects the Angel is only pretending to like a Silly Little Girl.
Her eyes aren't quite glistening the way they should. Chris's eyes were still pure starlight at this age (Patrick's were halfway dead as she recalls and she'd tried to help but really she couldn't do a damn thing). The Angel's eyes should be worn but starry, not forcing themselves toshineandshinebright.
His room is too neat and his everything is color coded and in perfect place. The Angel is beginning to learn how much that word means. He doesn't like what it does.
Questions are exchanged and answers are given too formally (to everyone but the Other Little Boy she suspects) for his heart to truly leap at the Silly Little Girl's smile.
She briefly believes Patrick reached this phase once but can't be sure.
(All she really remembers is being helpless to save anyone.)
"Mom, what does love feel like?" whispers the Angel from his pretty little boxes.
"It doesn't feel like neat organization, it's chaos," murmurs the Tender Shepherd from the derailed fairy tale.
v. they lacklacklack that burning in their eyes
The Angel finds a Princess instead of a Silly Little Girl this time. She's charming as can be and everything she could ask for for her little boy. But she doesn't quite see the fire in their eyes or the ripples in their touches.
(Perhaps this empty thatsnotright feeling ached in Patrick's bones once upon a time.)
She doesn't want to imagine how tossed aside the Other Little Boy feels behind that pearly little smile. But it flickers in her bones and she almost cries for her Other Little Boy. Instead she burns the proud smile on her lips that kills her just a tad.
All the Angel wants is Mommy and Daddy's approval, she knows this. It had been all Chris wanted when he'd had those starry eyes with the white hot burning. (She'd never gotten to ask Patrick what he had wanted. She'd only seen the hurting in those burning eyes at the sight of welded hands and fingers.)
She gives the heavens and the constellations her prayers for a happy ending this time.
It hurts them both that the Princess won't grant it.
"Mom, what does love feel like?" whispers the Angel from under her arm.
"It feels like what you two have," murmurs the Tender Shepherd from the bottom of her heart.
vi. it's all sparkles and tears
He's back to another Silly Little Girl (but this one is not so little and not so girlish). This one the Shepherd can see is only going to bring heartbreak and ruin though she can still say nothing. The Angel will not listen and the Other Little Boy will not hear.
All her silent warnings have fallen on deaf ears.
She waits in silence, her hand gripping and clinging to Chris's. Patrick tells her not to worry so much, sheseemslikeanicekid. A nice kid with no luster to her eyes, no fire to her veins, no heart to her chest. The Shepherd can only see the ending of this story as she watches the door for her Angel's return (she prays it will be with the Other Little Boy).
It's not the fairy tale ending either of them deserve. Hers has not been the fairy tale ending she had once imagined. She knows how badly this will hurt the Angel. She knows not how much this will kill and torture the Other Little Boy. She still has not asked Patrick.
(She keeps forgetting to remember how to speak when she wants to.)
It kills her when she's right and the Angel is sobbing into the Other Little Boy who is bloodied and bruised from acts he will not speak of. Their eyes are both fiery and broken tonight.
But there is the slightest trace of hope in the Other Little Boy's as the Angel nuzzles into him.
"Mom, what does love feel like?" whispers the Angel from the back of his choked throat.
"It feels like fire and hope," murmurs the Tender Shepherd from the center of her weighted heart.
vii. she's almost familiar until she sees her eyes
His next Silly Little Girl is close. Not close to the Princess but to the Other Little Boy. She's much too tall and broadened but she is close. Welded in her is the same inferno as in him. But her eyes are not right.
Her eyes do not burn. Not even a little. They have intentions she does not wish to see in anyone's eyes. Intentions the not so girlish Silly Little Girl had had.
Screams of warnings are lost in her throat quickly though.
Grandma is dying.
When she is dead, the Silly Little Girl does not come to comfort the Angel or show her respects to the Other Little Boy. She knows the Angel has asked her. She knows she promised she would. She knows she will lie as to why she didn't.
Her voice will not let her warn the Angel.
The angel clings to the princess and the other little boy and Lynn. It's more than just Grandma and grief and heartache. It is betrayal and confusion and loathing and past broken hearts and urges to kiss the Other Little Boy. Still she can say nothing.
Instead she prays the Other Little Boy will know and they can be happy.
(It doesn't work that way and even when the Silly Little Girl cheats she is granted a second chance because she is almost like the Other Little Boy.)
Patrick and Chris were the same way.
"Mommy, what does love feel like?" whispers the Angel from behind a closed door.
"It feels like always being there," murmurs the Tender Shepherd from the floor.
viii. he goes far far away to find his kingdom
The Shepherd only receives messages about what is happening while her Angel is away. Lynn Gunn has grown to be a Princess (she is not surprised, she had seen it the day they had gone to prom together). She has had the fire in her eyes for quite some time.
She's almost pleased.
Almost.
(But the Angel does not return the fire to her and the Other Little Boy is broken in pieces with the Other Princess.)
From what she is relayed, they are happy and perfect and dancing and smiling. From the Other Little Boy's eyes, it is all true. From her Angel's eyes, he is still inloveinloveinlove and he thinks he understands now.
The Shepherd knows he doesn't.
He would be with the Other Little Boy if that were true. The same way Patrick and Chris would have been together if they had understood they both had (have) the fire in their eyes. (Briefly she wonders if they see the fire in the little boys' eyes.)
Her thoughts leave a bitter taste in her mouth. She drowns with a bottle of Patrick's favorite liquor. A drunken haze of rights and wrongs and wishes that it was black and white and moments she should have said it and moments she lied by omission swirl in the bottle.
It leaves her wondering where she would be left if Patrick and Chris had. Where she'll be if the Angel and the Other Little Boy do.
Nowhere.
She is nothing without them. They will leave her. Of course, they will leave her. She will be nothing. She would've been nothing. Alone. Loveless. On her own, with just a bottle of liquor to soothe her.
On second thought, it's not all that soothing and she can't see why it's his crutch.
Fairy tales, she decides, fairy tales are much better.
(The angel has been using them for far too long.)
"Mommy, what does love feel like?" whispers the Angel on the phone in a giggling fit.
"It feels like your kingdom," the Tender Shepherd murmurs with alcohol in her veins.
viv. the look in his eyes is that of his all those years ago
It's his wedding day. The Shepherd knows this is meant to be the happiest day of his entire life. It's supposed to be his fairy tale ending. Isn't it happily ever after from here?
I wish, I wish, she muses. Hers hasn't been. Even though she thinks she can see the burning in Chris's eyes for her.
The Shepherd still sees the Angel’s longing glances at the Other Little Boy. The Shepherd still sees the sadness in his eyes. The Shepherd still sees the burning. In both of them. Princess Cinderella, the one she never thought was a Silly Little Girl, doesn't notice.
(Or she does like she did and pretends not to.
She'll hate herself later, if that's the case.
She suspects it is.)
There's the briefest of broken fire in Chris and Patrick's eyes as they look at each other. It almost breaks her. But it's her little boy's big day, she can't linger on the past. Or the present.
Or the tears her Other Little Boy is biting back.
Princess Cinderella and the Angel kiss and all should be well now. Why isn't it? Why couldn't the Angel see the Other Little Boy loves her too? Why couldn't Chris and Patrick be happy? Why couldn't the Shepherd be enough? All she ever had to do was speak now.
"Forever holding your peace, Josh?"
With a tear stained shake of his head, the Other Little Boy breaks down. It's only a second and then it's gone.
"It's okay, I'll never know how badly it hurts you but I know you just want him to be happy. Don't you deserve happiness too?" She wishes she would shut up.
"I dunno. Maybe. With Lynn, if she still likes me. Or Ashley. I still like her," he admits softly.
"You do. My little boys both deserve the world. Go get it, hon. You're pretty fierce," the Shepherd says with a sort of finality. The Other Little Boy is quick to lose himself in a hug, or maybe in the memories. The Shepherd can never tell.
Later, as they dance, as they have something like happiness (she prays it won't be the last bit), she walks to Patrick. She asks him how it felt. How it hurt. She thinks it's for the Other Little Boy but maybe it's for her.
"Like having my heart ripped out . . . And giving it to him. To both of you," he murmurs over a cup of champagne.
"Put the drink down, honey," she pleads. It clinks against the table. His head falls in place on her shoulder. They both cry. "Do . . . Do you think Jenna will hate herself too?" She whispers.
(They both know the answer.)
"Mama . . . What does love feel like?" whispers the Angel in his wedding tuxedo, with tears in his eyes.
"It feels hopeless," murmurs the Tender Shepherd.
"Oh," the Angel says. The Shepherd can hear his heart breaking.