No Love Lost, Chapter 4

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AnCatKatie

Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
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Can I say, finally?

This chapter was spurred on by some New Order and some very fun conversation. 'So, why would Ciarán go from point A to point B?' 'Oh I don't know, Katie, maybe if he had to?' 'Yeah, that's right.' '...this is kind of weird, brainstorming with myself.' 'Yeah whatever.'

***


Chapter 4. Achtung, Baby.

ciarán with the spinning head/ north and south and east and west, then and now/ on own


1997. 5 YEARS LATER.​


Each running footstep was a drumbeat he didn’t want to hear, shattering his vision into fragments he clutched at. Reasons. One for each impact of his feet on the ground.

In five years, his life had spun around. And not for the better.

There had been the day it rained…three years ago…he’d remembered because he’d been brimming full of energy, catching her on her way out of school. Raindrops crashing against his face her face his-her-their faces in an instant. He’d followed her home. Remembered the warm echoing feeling of her room as they’d sat there. And he in turn talked about his life, rubbing circles absently on her palm. And she’d turned white and shook her head and pushed him out. It had made sense suddenly, that he almost hated his da was a rockstar. Other people did too.

But that hadn’t been it.

There had been the day he didn’t remember when, he’d felt old enough to drink and had and the drink had shivered straight into his body and blurred the normally reliable edges of things. He’d walked into the city in a sideways world and watched some other boy pushing her around and she dragging the other closer.

But that hadn’t been it.

The birthdays, tantrums, photos, concerts, occasional acknowledgements that marked years passing for the rest of the family. Life had slowed down enough for Ali to notice the way he avoided her automatically. Life had sped up enough for Bono to assume his son was older and plunk him straight in the action. Backstage sometimes, peeking through, audience sometimes, Ciarán had felt the drums and the guitar and the words and even the bass pound through him and constrict his ribs. A man onstage with his face turned into a different man. Ciarán had watched him glitter and resound and wanted and pushed away all at once.

But that hadn’t been it.

He was on the East coast now of America this time. The opposite side to where he’d been going for the past five summers. And there was a reason for that, a reason that hummed and spat and hurt.

It had been like some sort of cosmic joke for something to happen twice the way it had. Not to him. But Ruth recognized it as soon as she heard about it. Ciarán remembered hollowly the reasons the girl from school had been avoiding him, and knew with a red tight certainty there was no way she could see him now. Remembered reading the lines of print that so often meant nothing, then seeing what the paper said, feeling everything slipping. He remembered hurling something against the wall, and Ali’s shocked eyes. And they’d asked as he sat outside with tight knuckles, and his words had passed eventually to Ruth and Oisín’s ears.

For that other generation, it was all too familiar. Ruth had been like…her. Her, she, with no name now because she no longer existed.

That…Ciarán came to a halt, breathing hard to steady the whirling of the airport around him…that had been it. Too much memory. Too much from too many people.

He blinked a long moment, head falling slightly, remembering, then took in a deep breath and opened eyes that carried a shadow of sad passing and then leaving. Took a look around—no one seemed familiar, good. Took a look at himself in the sea of thousands. He was just a tall winded teenager. Not even the freckles etched into his skin differentiated him, nor the accent, with the hundreds other accents splashed through the air here. Ciarán gave a short laugh and a wide grin, realizing his anonymity. He breathed in again, with satisfaction.

He’d done it. In the space of a minute at the Dublin airport, as soon as he was alone, he’d switched flights, and if anyone he knew had figured it out by now they surely didn’t know where to. He hadn’t been followed, anyhow. He looked around at the totally unfamiliar airport with relief, and began to make a line through the buzzing humming other language other slang other people chatter to the exit. A woman on the opposite escalator threw him a puzzled glance (but not because she recognized him). He choked down faintly giddy laughter (because she had no fecking clue and was puzzled about something else and it was great).

Eighteen meant he was done with school and even after the long flight wanted to walk around and explore. Eighteen also meant he had some idea of where to go. He started off following a few other people who looked like they’d also have to find somewhere to stay. Walked purposefully enough and hung back enough that he wasn’t noticed as anything odd. The city hissed and sighed around him, the bricks faint reminders of parts of England and Ireland. He crossed strong thin arms against the cold, having left his jacket on the plane. A buoyant euphoria at having almost arrived at his destination filled him: the group had stopped shards of conversation and halted at a large building. They went inside. Everything was going well. He’d go inside and pay for a hotel room for a few days while he figured out where else he could go, maybe a job to get…an accent to forget…

Leaning cross armed with his back against the old stone façade of the hotel, with the solid reassurance that he knew what he was doing humming through his mind, he was a second away from everything changing: he fucked up. Forgot where he was. He yawned a great yawn; he was tired, maybe that’s why common sense skipped his mind; and searched absently in his pocket, coming up with the next three days of shelter. Which in a blink of someone else anonymous was snatched from his hand.

“Fucking hell!” Ciarán cried in disbelief. No-one around to hear him. The tourists had entered the warm smooth bubble of their own sealed off world inside. Outside was just…a figure he could see a couple blocks ahead. Alarm bells went off. Ciarán tore after the figure, his bag whapping angry cylinder imprints against his back with every footstep.

Instead of memories this time, or relief, it was Ow, ow, ow, fuck, fucking thief, and then almost there!

When he reached said thief, though, something went horribly wrong. Something in a woman’s voice and a finger pointing at him and the policeman’s arched eyebrow at the money. Ciarán didn’t fuck up this time. He connected two and two and ran as fast as he could the opposite direction, not convinced he’d be believed. Thief and policeman were nowhere by the time he turned onto several slippery alleyways. He rested in the shadow of a questionable brick building and sighed, sitting down, his head against the wall.

I—he hit—amsuchanidiot.

Because it was him, because he couldn't help it, it made a brief angry beat all around him. He thought of the drums left behind in Santa Barbara. That. He'd left that, for this. And this was getting worse so bloody fast.

The luxury of finding a pay phone and dialing collect home and explaining everything wafted golden through his mind, then soured as he remembered, one, he hadn’t intended to come back anytime soon, two, he had no money and finding a phone would be a bad idea if he came across those two people again.

Ciarán sighed, looked up, and saw a stairwell. “What the hell,” he thought, and climbed, intending to look from above and see if—

A hand pushed him from the side. Ciarán looked around wildly. Men, women, kids, he couldn’t tell, but there were people nearby, and a rather nasty looking boy had just pushed him, and stood with one arm blocking him.

“The fuck are you doing?” Ciarán was asked.

He glared pure bluff back. “Walking,” he answered. “Going someplace I’m sure you don’t need to be.”

Someone with a cockney accent snickered something, and Ciarán felt offbalance. The jetlag was coming. Why was…

“Well, fuck that,” the local boy responded, and crossed his arms, glaring back at Ciarán. “Go. What’re you doing here.”

Ciarán gave a little laugh and opened his mouth, but the boy turned his head: “Leave it, Ace,” the British kid was telling the roadblock. “He’s obviously come from a fucking long flight with just that thing on his back. Tell me you’re not interested as to why he’s got so much interest in a place like this that he’d come from all the way a-cross like.”

“So? Why is it then?” Ace asked him with a bored scowl.

Well, Ciarán didn’t have to make things easy. “For your sake, hopefully, you’ll never find out,” he grinned, and pushed past him. He found himself at the top of a largish sort of apartment complex. Someone had obviously ripped down the bottom level and left only the stair. A blond boy with his fists in his pockets raised an eyebrow and revealed himself to be the other speaker, commenting, “ah, he is definitely Irish a’right,” upon seeing Ciarán. He was obviously taller and stronger than Ace, which explained the order of things, and probably about twenty. He stopped Ciarán from going any further and investigating the people-shaped shadows: “who’re you, then? You’re certainly not from here.”

“Long story. Neither are you,” Ciarán pointed out, not answering. He was given a long cool look. Both arrived at a stalemate. Neither was going to explain anything anytime soon, it was obvious.

“Okay then.” The man crossed his arms. “Introductions while you think somethin’ up.” He jabbed a finger towards himself. “I’m London, for obvious reasons.” Pointed at a girl of about seventeen covered from head to toe in black. “That’s Spider.”

Ciarán caught a look at her face and she at his and they glared murder at each other. He was about to open his mouth and explain that she had his money before she made a very obvious, very dangerous few signals with her hands in response. He rolled his eyes.

“Ah, you two are getting on great a’ready.” London continued, propelling Ciarán forward.

“This’s— “ Ciarán looked confused, asking back, “Loo? he’s called toilet?” London laughed and the shaved-head boy glared murder too a moment…great, that was three who would kill him in his sleep… “Lieutenant,” he was told.

“Uh, great.”

“Tommy.” An eight year old crayoning the wall. “Mats. Automatic.” A boy a little younger than Ciarán with enormous headphones and dirty jeans. “Helena. She’s mine.” Helena rolled her eyes, muttering, “yeah fucking right, love.” London stopped, giving her a look, and because they’d reached the window. Someone was balanced on the inside, looking out.

“Corinne,” London said finally. “Don’t even bother,” he added quickly to Ciarán, which left him confused, but to London’s surprised Corinne turned around, revealing herself not to be a shadow but a dark-haired girl of indeterminate age.

“Now, that leaves you,” the man said turning back to Ciarán, surprise still evident on his face. He didn’t look at Corinne, nor she at him.

“Drummer,” Corinne said succinctly and turned back around before either could figure out how the fuck she’d deduced that. There was a brief window of time where Ciarán could take a step forward and ask, and she responded in a low voice, “You were doing this downstairs.” Her fingers went tap, tap, tap, on the windowsill rhythmically as she looked out to the city sunset. He didn’t ask how she’d heard, he didn’t try to puzzle together why her thin body dark eyes London avoiding made him step back away after a moment. Where it was safer.

Or more numb.

The sudden dark as the sun fell down the horizon made everyone’s faces flicker into rows of type Ciarán stared at, mentions in a newspaper burned into his mind, from the day he’d made a decision he couldn’t stay with the people who loved him (or hurt) (or loved).

He didn’t know then, though he would two years later, but his decision to stay was the stupidest/best/most dangerous thing he had ever set into place.
 
I liked writing this one :)

Next one will probably be next week, when my stomach/waist/etc doesn't feel like it's being ripped into little pieces :crack:

I do know where everything's heading, though.
 
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