Keep the Faith

Neon flashed and danced upon his features like flitting, colorful fireflies, making his pale skin seem more luminescent and glowing in the soft darkness. He looked like some slumbering, wicked, distorted crazy angel, which was probably what he really was in the first place.

The lights came from the peak of the party that was ongoing outside the bunker they shared, and the music that blared from several speakers were loud enough to make slight vibrations in the ground, but the moment he left the stage he had stumbled his way to the trailer and collapsed from sheer exhaustion on the bed. She didn't have the heart to wake him so that he could change out of his sweaty clothes or to persuade him to at least take a bath. It wasn't as if she smelled any better than he did.

His inhales and exhales are full and secure; coming one moment after another. Occasionally his eyelids would flutter from semblances of dreams, but other than that and the timed rise and fall of his chest, he was as still as the aftermath of a party nobody wanted to clean up. The only time anyone would see him in a state that almost comes close to the peacefulness of this is when you catch him alone, his brow furrowed and eyes intently focused, an image formulating in his mind that his artful fingers gave life to, the rough sound of the pencil scratching against the paper the only sound you'd hear in the room. He seems to forget everyone around him when that happens, but even though she was a different kind of artist, she understood why. He breathes like a prayer, silent and alone, like a small dancing flame on a candle's halo.

She was suddenly overcome with severe barrage of tenderness as she watched him like that, vulnerable and unaware, but also so peaceful, so here. It assured her that he is still alive.

She did not see the imperfection they saw.

All they say are the same, all she hears coming from their spiteful mouths are two words spoken with malice and contempt.

He changed.

They say that he has turned into a monster, a usurping king who cares only for himself. They accuse him of being arrogant and selfish, that all the fame they themselves are bombarding him with had gone to his head and twisted him, that he had lost all his ideals and failed the expectations of the very things he used to stand for. They criticize the inevitable madman he becomes on stage, the songs he now writes, his wavering battles with vices they thought he already triumphed over, and goes as far to say that the woman he married wasn't good enough for him.

She laughed to herself, because even if she seems to be oblivious and choose to act like a fucked up little girl, she wasn't stupid. She knew what people write about her, his wife, on the internet, their jealousy and outright loathing seeping through those glowing letters, and she was aware of the glares and scowls she receives from teenagers, girls and boys alike, when she performs. They've decided that it was his mistake, his marriage to her that began his downfall, and utterly corrupted him. Apparently she was the little spot of oxidation that made his flawless golden exterior rust.

He has no more spark, they mutter as they shake their heads. No more inspiration, they'd hiss as they tear down his images from their walls, staring into his eyes ruefully, as if to imply, It's your fault. You brought this on yourself. You changed."

Like it was a crime. Like they hadn't and wouldn't themselves.

And perhaps the worst of it all is that he knows what they say about him, they who used to call him hero, they that he apparently let down. Like anything he does isn't good enough. They didn't see how much he fucking cares about them, that he does so so much that his heart aches as their belief in him dissipates. They cannot fathom what makes him go onstage every single night and give his everything to them, for one night, and do the same the next. Even if he knew that many of his followers had already deserted him, that their screams were actually questions that he couldn't answer.

She brushed sweaty strands of hair from his face, lightly fingering his features as he dreamt deeper into sleep. She brushed her knuckles over his pallid skin, flawless and transluscent, and then lifted her hand to his chest, feeling his heart beating beneath her fingers, set deep within flesh and muscle and blood and bone. She had sworn to protect it until the die she died, the day she married him, to love him until time wouldn't allow her any more. She wonders if it was possible not to love him, despite vows they'd made that bounds them only on earth. She loved him.

He cares so much for such a hateful world; it was why he created the band in the first place. To make a difference, to help those who could no longer turn to anyone but music, to show how much influence a few right souls can have when everything seems so wrong. It hurt her to see what they've done to him; now he is left a broken shadow of a man that used to mean so much, but whose worth was forgotten and abandoned. As much as she loved him, loved him so much is was beautiful and terrible at the same time, loved him more than she loved her own life, she had to concede that he was a ruined man. His heart, once so whole and pure, was cracked and yellowed at the edges from being worn out, and reddened at the center by the betrayal that struck the hardest.

He tries, oh how he tries so hard, but it is harder to restore a faith than it is to destroy it.

She wants to curse them and beat them to a pulp, for all the actions whose gravity they cannot ever even try to comprehend, but he merely puts his hand on hers and unclenches her fist. His eyes would shimmer with tears he'd never shed and his smile is laced with sadness and tasting of bitterness when she tries to kiss the pain away.

No matter what they say, he is still as gentle as when she met him, as he was years back, despite the haunting past and the anger that should have eaten away at a person's goodness, but not his, not his.

He was gentle, even when they made love. He was ever so careful, touching her as if she was terribly fragile, like he was afraid to break her.

Maybe he was already used to that.

Of things breaking the moment he touches them.

Perhaps that includes his life too.

And it is unfair, so very unfair, that he is only living his life and getting punished for it. It was true that he wasn't who was before, but did he have to be? The world is spinning and it is changing, yet they single him out for doing something that makes him happy. He is happy, he is. They do not see the light that shine from his eyes or the brightness of his grin, the carefree tone on his laugh or the contentment in his melodious voice in those few moments they granted him before launching their heinous attack.

Her eyes clouded with mist, stinging with crystalline acid and salt, as she bent down to press her lips to his chapped ones, stroking his dark, unwashed hair. He stirred slightly, awakening half of his consciousness.

"Lyns?" He murmured, voice thick with lethargy.

"Go to sleep, Gee," she whispers cautiously; she fears her tone would shatter and she would have to explain her tears, the tears that were for him. "I love you. 'Night."

A soft smile graced his face, and she felt her heart tear itself apart again. It was half-real, half-pretense. The best he can do, even for her.

"Love you too," he breathes out as his eyes close once more.

They had sought after blood, were hungry for it, lusted for the sight and smell and sound and horrible wet feel of his heart bleeding as their words pierced him like a glass arrow, wishing for their hero to bleed (that's the only way they can live), and bleed he did, so that his teeth was streaked with blood and his lips stained whenever he attempted a smile. Now he is ashamed for his weakness, and tries to hide. It doesn't matter how or where, because all they wanted was the man he used to be.

It was a pity, and maybe a punishment that they would never have that man ever again.

"I won't let them break you, any more."