LOVE, LUST, FAITH AND LIES (A Jared Leto Fairy Tale)

End Of All Days

"What's your favourite song Shiv?" She thought for a minute "of all time?"   Jared nodded "you'll laugh" He turned to her "why would I ever laugh at you? If the song speaks to you it does and no one should laugh at you" Shiv turned her head "yir a very special person ye know that?" He just smiled and said " you reckon?" Smiling back she said " I reckon. My favourite song is * love song for a vampire * by Annie Lennox. Made for the Dracula film ". "I honestly don't know that one" Jared answered "but I'd like to. If it's important to you, then it must be a beautiful one". Shiv sat up and rifled through her coat pocket, then her Jeans pocket, frowning she said "I've left me fecking phone in my bag back with me mates, can I borrow  yours?" Reaching under the pillow, Jared grabbed his phone, unlocked it and passed it over. Searching on you tube, she found what she was looking for and hit play. Jared lay silently, listening. When the song finished, Jared looked over at Shiv and her eyes glistened "you're right to love that song, it's beautiful, so deep" he whispered to her. Shiv coughed and cleared her throat. "It is truly special, I've never heard a song that touched me like that y'know? What's yours" Jared laughed a bit uncomfortably "erm, well, it's still a love song, but very, VERY different, do you know *closer* by nine inch nails?" "Of course I do, what self respecting metal head wouldn't?" She grinned.

"Well, to me, it's not just about sex. I mean, of course it is, BUT it's also about a relationship. How she/he makes she/he feel. How they fit together, How they complete the other totally and take each other to a higher existence. How they don't feel whole, until they're together. Joined y'know?" Shiv looked Jared right in the eyes "yer so perfect. That's what I read in it too. Alot of people I've talked to about it just say I over think everything and it's singularly about fucking and that's it. But I don't think so at all. So now I just keep me thoughts to meself". "Don't do that. Don't ever do that. A song is how you want it to be. How the songwriter intends it, no one knows but them. But you and your thoughts on it are valid. Don't ever let anyone take your thoughts away from you. If they want to be sheep and all think of the top layer of anything that's up to them. But YOU Shiv, You're special, You're different, You're...perfect. Don't EVER let people brow beat you like that. A lot of people take my songs at face value y'know? But they're a lot deeper than everyone thinks. Songs are like..." "onions" Shiv cut in "they're like onions at the top it just has skin. Underneath there's"..."layers" Jared finished. "It's like art. Peel the layers of paint and people will find that the artist intended it ti be completely different at the start. Different meanings..." "different layers"  They locked eyes again. Both of their eyebrows knitted. For one second they felt like 2 sides of the same coin but they had to shake it off. It made Shiv want to die. Her heart was taking over her head and she couldn't have that.

Laying there together in silence, Jared on his back and Shiv on her side with her leg thrown over his v line area it was like perfection. It was like they'd been lovers for years. A groupie fuck would have ended by now and he'd politely thrown them out, his appetite sated and for the girl, well, she had a rung on the ladder story for her little groupie friends. Jared somehow knew that Shiv would keep this quiet. Her secret. Her memories for lonely nights. The reverse of the fans he had meaningless fucks with, in hotel rooms or the tour bus or up against walls or in the venue itself. Fans who just saw the skin of the onion, that is if they even saw that. He knew she'd probably never forget this when she got into a relationship. And the thought of her with another man hurt him in a way he hadn't felt in a long time, but he couldn't do anything about that could he? He was the frontman of a very successful band. He was an actor. A business man. Never at home. He couldn't leave her to her own thoughts, in L.A, with no friends, no job, no...no HIM. Couldn't he cut down though? Couldn't he MAKE time? His mom could be there for her? She could make friends? "Shiv"? "Hmmmm?" Asked Shiv, exhausted and sorrowful. Jared turned his body trapping her leg under his and wrapping his arms around her "what do you dream of? "Oh, I dunno, I can never remember them. Sometimes I wonder if i dream at all" she replied. "No, I don't mean like that. I mean what are your goals? Your aspirations? Your dreams?" " Oh that's easy. I want every day to be warm, not too warm yi know but medium between spring and summer. To play me fiddle. To have space that's all mine. And most importantly, ti concentrate on me art. Maybe, an art gallery to not only showcase me own art but, well, I'd like to help abused kids. Any kind of abuse. Maybe mental illness too yi know? Art therapy. Concentrating and applying your deepest, darkest thoughts use any media your comfortable with. Then you wouldn't feel so bogged down yiself" Shiv thought about it. But that was it. Her needs were simple. "I would ask ye Jared, but ye obviously worked very hard to get yours. Bet ye make ye mammy proud, don't Ye?" He looked at her again and huffed out a laugh " most people don't even recognise that we've worked out asses off. Say to me I'm lucky. Well maybe I DID get a lucky break but the rest was all work, work, work but you're not most people are you...why abused children by the way? If you feel comfortable telling me that is". Shiv said quietly " well me daddy was a miner but he lost his job. Things went  really, really bad from then on. I was about 10 and daddy turned ti the drink. He'd come home after the pub and he'd beat the tar out of us. It'd be constant in a circle. Me mammy, Connor, my brother then me. For nothing,like. He was so angry that he'd lost his job that he blamed us fi all the shite he felt inside and took all his anger out on us, every single night. Me and Con would go ti school with bruises but no one ever said anything. Catholics aren't allowed to divorce so we were stuck. One night daddy got so drunk that he said that he was gonna kill himself and jumped in the car, only thing was the garda were after him, he'd glassed the landlord at the pub. He just...he just accelerated. He killed one of the garda outright and paralysed the other. Daddy was killed outright too. Head straight through the windscreen. And ye know what Jared? Know what we felt? Relieved. Me daddy was dead and we were relieved" she huffed out a sad laugh as a tear ran down her face. "Me daddy died and I felt nothing. Me daddy who was everything when i was little. Me daddy who was me best friend, me hero, was decapitated infront of us and we were relieved. Oh, that went down brilliantly wit father Jack I tell ye. We did a LOT of hail Mary's fir  that. But I needn't have done those hail Mary's cus the bullying I went through cuz of it was hell enough, don't ye worry. Until I went ti st Joseph's secondary and I met Orlaith, me avenging Angel, me little saviour". Shiv finally smiled. "Her mammy was a psychologist and she knew I loved  art. She got me into art therapy course. My pieces were dark and full of pain. Blacks, greys, reds, dark blues. Like bruises on me very soul. Until one day, a chink of white and yellow appeared, then light blue. Like heaven's light was shining through. And I felt a little better and I've been sharing me soul ever since. I'd love to do that fi other kids who've suffered any form of abuse. Show them the chink of light." Jared looked deep into her eyes and said "Shiv, I think" he cleared his throat. " I think I love you and before you say *You can't make that decision after so little time* I don't know how I have but I have fallen..." "I love ye too" Shiv cut in bluntly. Jared grinned and said, carefully "what if I said I could give you all that and more if you come back to Cali with me?" Tears flowing freely from her eyes, Shiv whispered" I'd say no. I love ye so much. But it's here, in the now. In this bubble we've created. A bubble that's gonna be popped in an hour or so when Emma shouts fi ye ti go. I so wish we could stay in this bubble forever, but we can't". "So that's it huh? I got you totally wrong then huh?" Jared hissed frustratedly. Shiv laid one shaking finger on his lips and, her voice full of sorrow "No, hen, ye got me totally right. More right than any one ever has. But will this love last past this bubble? Who knows. I think it will but what if it doesn't, ay? I'll be left in L.A. with no one, just memories of the bubble and a broken heart. I'll go back home an empty shell" Jared's lip  trembled and his eyes glistened as he croaked out "well, what do we do then?" "You give me 3 months, that's all, 3 months of skyping and calls and if that bubble's still floating then I'll come, straight away to be with ye...forever, happily ever after, I promise ye...cinder fecking rella" They both laughed a sad laugh and Jared said "pinkie promise? The most bonded promise of promises?" Shiv laughed for real and held out her pinkie finger and magic was in the air as their little fingers joined and both returned to the bubble.