Never be Normal- Fic for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
rp_shadesofgray
Aug. 6th, 2009 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
open_flameNobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. - Albert Camus
I kicked the door to my apartment closed and leaned back against it with a soft thud.
“Crap.” I said out loud and let out a whimper. My face twisted and quivering, my stomach in knots, I just stood there for at least a minute. Tears threatened, but I held them back.
I move slowly into the bedroom, stopping by my bed and sat down. The two boxes of things sent from my room at BPRD were stacked neatly, a little tower of cardboard, all my life crammed inside them. I hadn’t opened the boxes yet; I wasn’t ready to face what was inside. Not until now.
I cautiously opened the first of the boxes. Stuffed hastily inside were some papers, some dead flash strips for my old Polaroid camera, a half eaten box of chocolates, some other random things, and finally way at the bottom, pieces of a dried Japanese Lily.
I let out a pained sigh as I pulled the chunks from the bottom of the box. My lily, it was gone, in pieces. I remember the day Red gave me a handful of them. We were in Japan, it was my 29th birthday and he had forgot. He’s so bad with remembering dates. So, he pulled a few red lilies from a plant and handed them to me. “You like ‘em?” was all he said.
I loved them. The most thoughtful thing anyone had ever done for me save Professor Broom. The Professor was always doing thoughtful things. It was just his way. God, I miss him.
I dropped the flower shards back in the box and closed it with a huff, moving to the other box. I pulled the tape off and raised the flaps to reveal my picture collection, also hastily thrown into the box. Some of the edges were bent up now, but everything looked okay other wise. I dig in with both hands, pulling out hand fulls of photos and quickly flipping though them.
Red and me at the Great Wall of China, Abe at Loc Ness, Manning sitting on the floor of the lobby at the Bureau after Red punched him in the face, again. Professor Broom and Red next to a Pyramid in Egypt. Meyers, looking at me, cold from the fall air, a puzzled look on his face.
I sighed and dumped the photos back in the box and shuddered. All I was, in 2 little boxes. Everything I am was shaped by BPRD, I grew up there, I made friends there, I became an agent. Everything in my life, BPRD had its hand in.
And now, they didn’t. Sure, I had left before; went to Russia to study control with the Monks, gone to Bellamie, even got a job as a waitress for a few week, but I always came back. Always.
I knew I wouldn’t be back this time. I was out for good. Broom was dead, and my friends had turned against me for the way I felt, or rather, for the way I didn’t feel about Red.
Don’t get me wrong; Red has plenty of amazing qualities. He’s kind and sweet, he’s a bit flirtatious in his own sarcastic way. He cares about people, protects his friends when they need protecting. He’d go to the ends of the world and risk his life a hundred times over to protect the people he cared about, and even those he never met. He was a hero.
All wonderful qualities, all things any woman would hand pick if she could build someone just for herself. It was hard to find that in a person, really hard.
I stood up and pulled my bathrobe from the stack of laundry and headed to the bathroom. I need a shower, to clear my head. I turned the hot water all the way up, steam billows from the tiled shower. I wince under the hot water as I step in. The water burns, it always burns. Lets me know I’m human. Sort of.
I set down and wrap my arms around my knees, shaking as I think about what’s happened to me since I left BPRD. All I wanted was to be normal. All I wanted was to have a life, a real life. No secrets, no monsters, no freaks, no fighting, no running. Yet, here I was, working for another secret organization, working with a whole different class of freaks, fighting an entirely new kind of monster, and running from…I don’t even know what.
Where is my white picket fence? Where is the someone to love, flaws and all? Where’s my 9 to 5 job with a 401K and the most annoying thing is my co-workers perfume. Where’s my normal?
I start to shake with sobs as I bury my head in my knees. I can’t have that. I will never have that, never be normal, and never be ordinary. I’ll always be a freak. It’s all I ever was, and it’s all I ever will be.
I can feel the steam get thicker and thicker in my lungs. I raise my head to see I’m engulfed in flames, the water vaporizing around me before it can even hit my body. I take a deep breath and look around at the bottles of shampoo and soap melting down the tiled shelves. I don’t care if they melt, I don’t care if the tile never comes clean, I don’t care about anything. I just want to sit there and burn.
The fire will die out, eventually.
I kicked the door to my apartment closed and leaned back against it with a soft thud.
“Crap.” I said out loud and let out a whimper. My face twisted and quivering, my stomach in knots, I just stood there for at least a minute. Tears threatened, but I held them back.
I move slowly into the bedroom, stopping by my bed and sat down. The two boxes of things sent from my room at BPRD were stacked neatly, a little tower of cardboard, all my life crammed inside them. I hadn’t opened the boxes yet; I wasn’t ready to face what was inside. Not until now.
I cautiously opened the first of the boxes. Stuffed hastily inside were some papers, some dead flash strips for my old Polaroid camera, a half eaten box of chocolates, some other random things, and finally way at the bottom, pieces of a dried Japanese Lily.
I let out a pained sigh as I pulled the chunks from the bottom of the box. My lily, it was gone, in pieces. I remember the day Red gave me a handful of them. We were in Japan, it was my 29th birthday and he had forgot. He’s so bad with remembering dates. So, he pulled a few red lilies from a plant and handed them to me. “You like ‘em?” was all he said.
I loved them. The most thoughtful thing anyone had ever done for me save Professor Broom. The Professor was always doing thoughtful things. It was just his way. God, I miss him.
I dropped the flower shards back in the box and closed it with a huff, moving to the other box. I pulled the tape off and raised the flaps to reveal my picture collection, also hastily thrown into the box. Some of the edges were bent up now, but everything looked okay other wise. I dig in with both hands, pulling out hand fulls of photos and quickly flipping though them.
Red and me at the Great Wall of China, Abe at Loc Ness, Manning sitting on the floor of the lobby at the Bureau after Red punched him in the face, again. Professor Broom and Red next to a Pyramid in Egypt. Meyers, looking at me, cold from the fall air, a puzzled look on his face.
I sighed and dumped the photos back in the box and shuddered. All I was, in 2 little boxes. Everything I am was shaped by BPRD, I grew up there, I made friends there, I became an agent. Everything in my life, BPRD had its hand in.
And now, they didn’t. Sure, I had left before; went to Russia to study control with the Monks, gone to Bellamie, even got a job as a waitress for a few week, but I always came back. Always.
I knew I wouldn’t be back this time. I was out for good. Broom was dead, and my friends had turned against me for the way I felt, or rather, for the way I didn’t feel about Red.
Don’t get me wrong; Red has plenty of amazing qualities. He’s kind and sweet, he’s a bit flirtatious in his own sarcastic way. He cares about people, protects his friends when they need protecting. He’d go to the ends of the world and risk his life a hundred times over to protect the people he cared about, and even those he never met. He was a hero.
All wonderful qualities, all things any woman would hand pick if she could build someone just for herself. It was hard to find that in a person, really hard.
I stood up and pulled my bathrobe from the stack of laundry and headed to the bathroom. I need a shower, to clear my head. I turned the hot water all the way up, steam billows from the tiled shower. I wince under the hot water as I step in. The water burns, it always burns. Lets me know I’m human. Sort of.
I set down and wrap my arms around my knees, shaking as I think about what’s happened to me since I left BPRD. All I wanted was to be normal. All I wanted was to have a life, a real life. No secrets, no monsters, no freaks, no fighting, no running. Yet, here I was, working for another secret organization, working with a whole different class of freaks, fighting an entirely new kind of monster, and running from…I don’t even know what.
Where is my white picket fence? Where is the someone to love, flaws and all? Where’s my 9 to 5 job with a 401K and the most annoying thing is my co-workers perfume. Where’s my normal?
I start to shake with sobs as I bury my head in my knees. I can’t have that. I will never have that, never be normal, and never be ordinary. I’ll always be a freak. It’s all I ever was, and it’s all I ever will be.
I can feel the steam get thicker and thicker in my lungs. I raise my head to see I’m engulfed in flames, the water vaporizing around me before it can even hit my body. I take a deep breath and look around at the bottles of shampoo and soap melting down the tiled shelves. I don’t care if they melt, I don’t care if the tile never comes clean, I don’t care about anything. I just want to sit there and burn.
The fire will die out, eventually.
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-06 05:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-06 05:53 pm (UTC)I made this bed, I'll just have to lie in it.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-07 04:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-07 10:36 am (UTC)Maybe I don't deserve it.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-07 04:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-07 05:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-07 05:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-07 05:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-07 05:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-07 05:45 pm (UTC)I know, I sound like a silly teenager. *blushes*