Rain [Short Stories]

Sparrow

For days now, Ryatt had been pining for Hendrix. Though, he doesn't sit and wallow in his god forsaken feelings like some shy teenage girl. Nah, he just ignores them. That's more Ryatt's style. But Goddess Above, do they get in the way! He was different from when Hendrix had first met the mismatched eyes of the boy with a Sparrow's wings hanging like dead branches from his back. Mind you, he was still horribly depressed, but now he was irritable with the fact that the sun was Hendrix's lover and not him. He was overcome with jealousy, swathed in it like his arms were swathed in bandages most of the time.
He spent most of his time either in their tent when they broke for camp or swaying, not by choice, behind Hen as their horse carried them to their next checkpoint along with the rest of their group. A few other tents were all pitched in a circle around the campfire that the Seishin had started. Now, as the sun set, he was curled up on his cot chewing the skin away from his thumb nail.

He was going to kill himself.

He had been thinking about it for the past week and for the last few days it's been the only thing on his mind. He had nothing to get rid of, no belongings. No one to really say goodbye to except for Hendrix. No one else in the camp really cared about him. He was a burden, he felt.
No. He wasn't going to die because he loved Hendrix but could not have him. It was because he absolutely did not want to live in a world where Hen had seen the parts of him that had ruined him. He didn't want to be seen as flawed in the soft glare of someone he held to such high standards. He didn't want to be seen as the dirty, poor, peasant boy that he utterly and truly was. A proud reason, yes. But a reason nonetheless. He didn't want all these facts to rear their heads in Hendrix's golden eyes. Though, they were plain as day and his hopes were futile.
He'd stolen Vârdia's sleek black handgun, the only one in the whole of Eunoia, and had been fingering the rough edges of the handle under his pillow. The movement of his thumb under the pillow alerting him to the guns very real presence. It was cold, yet inviting and harsh all at the same time. So inviting, yet he felt the sharp, cloying fingers of fear needle into his spine. His other hand clutched handfuls of the scratchy sheets the Seishin had also supplied them. The rough cotton caught on his hard calluses, irritated the pink flesh of bulging scar tissue. Cream-coloured splotches took up most of his his hands and petered to a halt once they reached the crook of his elbow. He stared at them with a gentle hatred, eyes tracing the lighter scars building a crooked, many-runged ladder up his forearm. They scraped over his knuckles, flowed vertically with his slender fingers; smoothed scars, jagged ones that jutted were still an angry red; there were bone-white scars set soft by age.
He hated his hands as much as he hated his wings. Birdfolk take such pride and care in their wings but Ryatt grew up in Kogoii with a foster family. In a tiny two-story house with seven other children.
Those children had teased him, plucked his feathers, and the parents weren't much better. His foster father had been a drunk who's subject of abuse was Ryatt. His foster brothers and sisters had all been younger than him so, of course, he had been targeted as a worthy punching bag. The second oldest was a boy, and while Ryatt came to them as a twelve year old, he was only nine.
The foster mother was also a drunk, but she was violent in a different fashion. Sure, she made Ryatt do most of the work around the house the smaller kids couldn't do, she'd hit him with a broom if he were caught flying instead of cleaning. But those were things Ryatt looked forward to compared to others. She was horribly manipulative. She guilted Ryatt into stealing booze, cigarettes, pick-pocketing strangers for a little extra bar money, or lying. By the age of seventeen, he was amongst some of the better thieves of Kogoii.
He did not leave home at eighteen. He stayed right in that smog-filled city with the felons, beggars, and good-for-nothings. He stayed in that tiny house, fighting for food, a bed.
It did not help his situation that he was gay and knew he was from a young age. Not that he flaunted it. Anyone who knew would probably be too drunk or high to care or they'd have drowned him in the water well. But he was never really one of those flamboyant gays. He stayed quiet, rarely opinionated, and his anger was something silent that made his leg bounce when he sat down and gave his eyebrow a twitch.
That summer, the summer he turned 19, Vârdia, a terrifying twink of a man, raided Kogoii though it was a futile. The few wealthy families that still had the guts to live in a city full of thrives had been tipped off about the raid and packed their things a week earlier.
The city was charred and most of the damage was done to produce stands and storage area where food was kept. The houses themselves were built out of stone that became rust red over the years, but had turned black with the fire.
Ryatt's foster father had been killed, his foster mother and siblings had left him behind in the ruins of the smoldering city. Vârdia had found him. Found him wedged between two buildings, covered in soot and terrified. Thus, began the root of his depression, the PTSD that raged unadulteratedly ahead in his mind. He was so naive to think Vârdia would help him, that he wasn't the one that ordered the burning of the city. He was sorely mistaken.
For a year, an entire year, he was beaten down in the freezing depths of Vârdia's very-not-well-built dungeon. Chemical burns from lye accumulated on his wings, his mottled brown feathers unable to grow in the huge patches of scar. They were sliced up, the feathers were wrenched out, and the nerves were so badly damaged he wouldn't be able to hardly move them later. They stole away his wings and with it, the freedom that came with flying.
He was called racist slurs like "song bird" which was really offensive to Birdfolk. He was forced to sing, and was beaten if he didn't comply. He endured a whole year of this, and now he laid in a cot, scars on his wrist from the pain he came to crave, and his finger toying with the trigger of a stolen handgun. Four of six bullets remained. Which was more than enough for his untimely demise. He slowly slid from his cot, his feet melting against the cold ground.
Just as he pulled the gun from under his pillow, finger following the barrel, Hendrix walked into the tent while peeling his sleeves up his forearms. The two boys froze in that Spider-Man meme format, pointing at each other. Hen balked as he caught the other with the stolen weapon. He blinked, his feet shifting toward the brown haired boy. Ryatt went over his options. Lie! This was the first thing his mind screamed out. He licked his lips.