Realistic or Modern The Ugly New Houses (Closed)

[manicpixiedreamtarantula]

"I touched you at the soundcheck/you had no way of knowing/in my heart I begged 'take me with you, I don't care where you're going'" - Paint a Vulgar Picture The Smiths

THE UGLY NEW HOUSES
ACT 3, SCENE 12: THE END
​

SCENE: My bedroom. The end of the play. I'm not going to be there for this part, but I imagine it will go like this. Lights up. Center Stage. Me. On the floor. Dead. Maybe this is my bedroom and maybe it's not. Maybe it's heaven. Or hell. Fuck if I know. The thing about an afterlife is that it happens after life. Hence the name. At the time of writing, I'm still alive. So I don't know what afterlife looks like. Yet. Give it time. Anyway. Lights up. On me. There's someone else there. This is the climax of the play, a murder mystery where you find out everything that led up to the person's death. You get to find out who killed me.

Okay. That's not fair. I killed myself. And I'm not pulling some 13 Reasons Why shit where I send this out and blame everyone else but me. Then again, I guess you can do that when you're dead. Who's going to stop you?

Anyway, this is the part of the play where you find out why I died. Lights up. Me and someone else. Maybe they're God. Like I said, I don't know yet.

ME: Is this hell?

THEM: No. It's just the end of the play. You took a bunch of sleeping pills and slit your wrists. It's not a happy ending.

ME: Suicides never are. Was I high at the time?

THEM: Yes, but you were coming down. You hadn't slept in three days.

ME: Amphetamines do that. I remember this. I remember when it became perfectly clear that I had to die. To stop the cycle.

THEM: You played Mozart's last sonata before you died. It was perfect. Tomorrow there will still be salt on the keys from where you cried.

ME: Then I wrote the end of this play. Half-diary, half-screen play, full bullshit. No one will find it.

THEM: You don't know that.

ME: I can hope.
​

(The lights fade. End scene. End play. End life)

Andrew looked down at the computer screen in front of him. It was finished. What had started as a dumb project for a class he had taken for an English requirement had ended up his masterpiece. He thought it ironic. He attended The American High School of the Arts for piano. Classical piano. By all accounts, his final masterpiece should be a piano piece. Something like Mozart of Beethoven that young pianists would audition with and professionals would play in concert for centuries. Instead, he had written a script. A shitty play that detailed his life (and death) he supposed.

He had written about it all. Being gay. The fear of being gay. The pressure to be the best; best pianist, best student, best son. The amphetamines he took so he could live up to all that pressure. The people he had met (and loved) that gave him the amphetamines. The pain of addiction, of not fitting in, of feeling so alone, even when he was laying in bed with the man he loved. The decision to end his life. And now the play was complete. Three acts, a beginning, a middle and a definitive end. He saved and closed the document. It was just as well. The sleeping pills he had washed down with vodka were taking effect. He stumbled away from his computer and walked into the bathroom. He had planned to do exactly what it said in the script. But he was so tired. The idea of walking all the way to the bathroom to fill up the tub and slit his wrists and get inside seemed like too much work. He just wanted to sleep.

He curled up in a ball on his bed. It occurred to him, for a moment, the idea of his father reading his play. The thought was unbearable. But he couldn't get up and delete it now. He was too tired. His body was too heavy. Being drunk was different than feeling high. His brain felt fuzzy and he couldn't quite think. It was like crashing after a three-day coke binge, but worse. Hazily he took out his phone, typing in the first name he could think of: Shawn. His older brother. He typed out the text message quickly. He could feel his eyes drooping. He was running out of time. Running out of life.

when im dead find the ugly new houses and delete it

He pressed send on the text message, unsure if it would reach his intended target. Unsure if it made sense. It didn't matter anymore. He dropped his phone on the bed next to him and fell into a deep sleep. The only thing he was certain of as his eyes closed was that he wasn't going to wake up.

 

[Beutelwolf]

This happened to be his favorite part of a case. A day, three weeks, a month, a year, it didn't matter. He always loved the precious moments before a verdict. Why? Because he knew which way the jury would turn. Not because he's that confident in his job, but because he knows people all too well. In this world, the world bows down before him and even the hardest of criminals want mercy. That's something neither of his older male relatives have ever achieved. Sure they run and own the business, but who put them on the map? Do they know how many offers he's gotten that would nearly triple his salary?

In those few seconds of time, it all ends the same. He sits comfortably in his chair and sips a glass of water to pretend and hide nerves. He'll look over at his opposition and smirk internally. A nervous creature chosen out of 12 stands up and looks over a piece of paper. They're rarely deadlocked. Guilty. He finally let's go. The persecution congratulates him and sometimes family rush over to give him a hug. The judge dismisses the court and everyone pours out. Sometimes he has another case, other times he gets to go home. Not today. Today he's loaded. Today he should be loaded.

He quietly walked out into the hall and turned his phone on. The first notification to pop up was. Andrew? What did he need? Shawn scanned over the text message but it made close to no sense. Maybe he just didn't know the kid well enough to understand the meaning. So he pressed another button and called through. It rang for a minute or so and shot straight to voicemail. "Hey, kid. Sorry I missed your text. The jury was out all morning. If it's urgent, call me back when you get a chance. If not, just call dad." Click. He hung up and continued out the doors of the courthouse.

His stomach rumbled a little reminding its owner of their exact plans this break. Silver keys rattled in the wind and with each step. Footsteps echoed off sidewalks and voiced conversed back and forth. The walk was only about five minutes or so, but it was an eternity. He crawled into the driver's seat and cranked the ignition before seeing the screen of his phone light up. Assuming it was his younger brother possibly needed to be bailed out of school he answered. "You're on speaker." Even though he was alone, he liked to make it known that their conversations weren't exactly private.

"Are you the older brother of an Andrew *insert last name*" not Andrew?

"Who is speaking?"

"Sir, just answer my questions."

"Yeah it's me. Is everythi." He quit listening as the woman cut him off. He just hung up the bluetoothed call and froze there for a matter of moments. Moments that felt like an eternity. This time though, he's not waiting on the jury. He slammed the car into gear and peeled out of the parking lot. Shawn didn't bother checking his speed because who cares. He took the closest parking spot at the hospital and made a quick exit. After exiting the courthouse he had removed his jacket so the plain red of his tie bounced in the wind as he sprinted towards the large sterile building. The nurses at the desk seemed to recognize him from his work on previous cases and they led him back through the halls to a room. A room he didn't think he had the gumption to enter. The women were explaining his condition, but his heart still was pounding in his ears. "But he's alive?"


(Sorry I am awful at first posts)

 

[manicpixiedreamtarantula]

Michael Jones was not good at emotions. He'd be the first to admit it. But he knew, in this case, he should be feeling something. In reality, he just felt numb. He couldn't bring himself to feel anything but a sort of numb disbelief at the sight he had come home to. His youngest son, collapsed on the bed, an empty bottle of vodka and sleeping pills exactly telling him exactly what Andrew had done. Mikey, his oldest son, sat next to him, nervously tapping his fingers on the edge of the chair.

"They called Shawn," Mikey said. Michael just nodded numbly. He wasn't sure what to say to that. All he could think of was the day twelve years before when he had sat in a hospital just like this one, just as nervously numb, being told that the cancer had spread to his wife's brain and her entire body was infected, that it was only a matter of days. He remembered her, just days before she died, holding his hand and making him promise to protect the boys. Protect Mikey from his workaholic tendencies, Shawn from his need to please, and Andrew from the cruelty of the world. Even at four, their youngest son had been different. Sadder than most children. Maybe it was from his mother dying. Maybe it was just his way. Either way, Michael couldn't help but feel like he failed.

He saw Shawn walk in and stood up. "Shawn," he said, walking over to his middle son. "Your brother is alive. They've pumped his stomach. We're just waiting for him to wake up now. He... He's going to be fine." Fine, if you considered a weeklong stint in a mental hospital on suicide watch "fine," he guessed.

Mikey stood up as well, putting an arm around his little brother. "Dad said that Andrew texted you before he..." Mikey couldn't finish the sentence. "Do you know what it meant?"

 

[Beutelwolf]

Shawn may have looked stoic on the outside, but inside he was panicking. Let's just say he's not a person that has ever panicked. Even as a student in his first case, he hasn't panicked. He couldn't say he was close to his brother in the traditional sense, but just in the protective sense. He looked up at his dad and then back down at the white blanket. How long had it been since the two of them had this conversation? The bitter conversation about ruining names and throwing away futures? This could have easily been him. He was around 16 or so when their dad pulled him into that room and blessed him out. The same age as Andrew.

He shook his head shrugged. "It wasn't anything worth bringing up." Something said that maybe this time he shouldn't bring anything to their attention. If he wanted everyone to know, wouldn't he just have left a note? "I got out of court and checked my phone. I had a couple missed calls from some unknown number and then a text. I checked the text and just it seemed normal." It was anything but normal. He stuck his hands in his pockets and tapped the glass screen a couple of times second guessing himself, but still not saying anything. "I honestly thought he needed to be picked up from school or something."

He looked up at the door, then to Andrew, then to his family. Was he trying to say what they wanted to hear? He toyed around with whatever was in his pocket and let out a deep sigh before sinking back into one of the chairs. Dad should have noticed it. He lives at home with the kid. Shawn doesn't even let things off yet somehow he got caught!

He hated hospitals. There was no doubt about it. His life fell apart in one and he's seen too many others do the same way.

 

[manicpixiedreamtarantula]

Michael nodded. "Right... This... Your brother is going to get better. We... We're going to get through this." Michael could feel tears pricking at the corner of his eyes. He hadn't cried in front of his boys since their mother had died. He wiped at his eyes. He could feel the lump in his throat and wanted to cringe at the way it made his voice crack. "We're not going to lose him. I'll get to the bottom of this."

Yet he couldn't help but think, that somehow, he had lost all control over his boys, his life. Where had he gone wrong? How had he not seen? Michael reached out and grabbed Andrew's hand, a rare moment of physical contact.

Mikey watched his father and brother, feeling uncomfortable at the situation. "Shawn, can I talk to you outside for a moment?" He asked. In part, he wanted to give his father some privacy. He didn't want to watch his brother look so tiny in a hospital bed. He didn't want to watch his father cry. But mostly, Shawn needed to know the full extent of the situation. The parts his dad wouldn't, or couldn't say. Mikey was keenly aware that their family had just drastically changed.

 

[Beutelwolf]

How did he forget he was supposed to meet Stephanie for lunch. She's going to kill him. The Jones family is going to have two patients. She was probably sitting there at the cafe angrily sipping on a glass of water while calling up her old sorority buddies.

"Don't forget he's still your son and in the end that will do more than this yelling." He clinched his jaw and trailed off the end. Shawn was left wondering how he himself had missed it. The text probably came in right as it happened. Why couldn't he have told him sooner? "Sometimes this is all just a cry for help, dad."

He also obliged to Mikey's request and stood up as he had just sat down. "You said it yourself, he's going to be fine. The rest depends on us." Not waiting on his brother, he walked out the door and leaned against the wall just outside.

 

[manicpixiedreamtarantula]

Mikey followed Shawn outside. "Sorry. I just can't see him like that. And dad all broken up," Mikey said, taking a seat in one of the creaky waiting room arm chairs. He ran his fingers through his hair. "God... What a mess right?"

Part of him couldn't believe it was happening. This all seemed so wrong.

"They... They found amphetamines in his system, Shawn. Dexedrine, Ritalin," Mikey ran his hands through his hair again. He didn't want to have this conversation. He really didn't. "And Ecstasy. The same drugs you used to take..." Mikey bit his lip. "I... I'm not accusing you of anything. I swear I'm not. But... is there any way that maybe.... maybe Andy got the drugs from you? Or someone you know?"

 

[Beutelwolf]

Shawn just scoffed and ignored most of his brother's comments. Maybe he actually was that cold. He just silently stared at the floor and thought about the text message. What could it mean? Maybe he does need to go home or at least check through Andrew's things.

"Do you think I actually remember what happened back then! Don't blame this on me." He snapped back before returning to the silence for more moments. "Look, I'm clean. I've been clean. Dad got rid of everything after he found out." Was he actually sounding, defensive? That probably wasn't suspicious at all. It wasn't his fault though. He was clueless in all of this.


(Short and rushed)

 

[manicpixiedreamtarantula]

"I'm not blaming you!" Mikey insisted. "Look... I'm sorry. I'm just worried. But that's not an excuse. I didn't mean to imply that this was your fault. I shouldn't have asked." Mikey ran his hands through his hair again. He was pretty sure that if he continued doing it, his hair was going to end up a greasy mess, but honestly, he couldn't bring himself to care.

"I'm sorry," Mikey said again. "It's just... he's a mess. 20 pounds underweight, with drugs in his system, and scars all over. I'm scared. We all are." He bit his lip and sighed. "Look, I need to get out of here. Do you want to go back to the house with me? I thought we grab some of Andy's things for when he wakes up. Maybe shower and change our clothes while we're at it. Get something to eat? What do you say?"

((OOC: No problem! Sorry, I'm really bad at remembering to add OOC replies at the bottom of my posts.))