Cupid - A Shot Through The Heart

[NishiUrban]

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Me? I'm an emissary of love, and understanding. And a straight razor, if you cross me.

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Tommy "Cupid" Vitucci

[align=left][spoiler=Entries] Entry 1  Entry 2

[Ender]

Cant wait for some entries would love to see more info on this character of yours Nishi

[oklama]

This is going to be good!

cannot wait Nishi!

[Guest Roach]

Nice Need to keep an eye on this thread cause I know it'll be good!

[Guest Callie]

I cry every time I read this. It's beautiful.

[NishiUrban]

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"Did you hear?"

[align=right]"An accident?"

[align=left]"Must have been..."

[align=right]"How awful...and the son?"

[align=left]"Well...I hear-"

[align=left] All of the vague whispering was really...unnecessary, to say the least. Honestly, all those ambiguous words, all the carefully veiled conversation. It's hard to say exactly what was ever said, or rather, how much being recollected was just his brain filling in the blanks. Thinking back, picturing it from some sort of, outside perspective...like watching something on a television. So many unfamiliar faces, although even if he heard the names now, it's not as if he would recognize them. 

[align=left] "Tommy....honey, the grown-ups are talking sweetie...just...play over there, ok?"

[align=left] Some abstract visage of a woman crouched down momentarily, her long blonde locks of hair draped over part of a face just out of sight. Her fingers were much longer than his, there was something along one of them, a ring perhaps. He could feel the outline of it along his shoulder, along with her mildly sympathetic gesture. The young boy standing there, head cast down, eyes trying to see anything except for the faces of the strangers all around him merely tucked his lips backward until they were firmly between his teeth and walked in a different direction.

[align=left] 

"There's just...nothing to be done about it."

[align=right]"At such a young age though..."

[align=left]"I know, I know...I'm, he'll be better off this way."

 Walking through the grass, the boy couldn't help but have one urgent thought constantly in the back of his mind, how utterly uncomfortable these clothes were. His small fingers fidgeted with the buttons of his suit, they were so round and slick. The fabric felt soft, but somehow the whole thing was...stiff almost, clearly lacking the comfort of having been worn before. If you were to ask him now, he might say, maybe he was just trying to distract himself from what was really going on. But honestly? At that age? Even though he couldn't shake the feeling that something was 'bad', that the empty feeling in his stomach wasn't just being hungry, or thirsty. He was none the less oblivious, ignorance is bliss, as they say.

"He hasn't cried once you know..."

[align=right]"He's such a brave boy."

[align=left]"Shouldn't he be more...remorseful?"

[align=right]"Shouldn't he be with the other children?"

[align=left] Moving past all the adults was easy, rather, they moved out of his way when they noticed him. Although he refused to look up at their faces, he could feel their eyes...just bearing down on him. It made his cheeks flushed, warmer and warmer until they felt like they were on fire...embarrassment. He never really thought of himself as being shy, was he easily embarrassed as a child? Nah, that thought was quickly shaken away, and excused. A kid that young? He's just looking for a familiar face. That kid needed to see his mother, or father. Needed to hold their hand, and feel secure. Without all that? He was just lost in a sea of strangers, everything about them foreign and repulsive to his senses.

[align=left]"You heard...about the driver?"

[align=right]"Yeah...what a shame."

[align=left]"I hear there was bottles, just laying around his truck."

[align=right]"Must have happened so fast..."

[align=left] Before he knew it, the boy had broken free of the sea of strangers. Taking little steps forward, one after another, he drew closer and closer to something. It wasn't until he could just barely see it before him, hints of it, his head still tilted downward and eyes avoiding what was right in front of him. His hands nervously interlocked with each other, over and over again, and his body felt like it was...vibrating, shaking of course. A cold sweat started to build up on the back of his neck, and his mouth became dry, hurting each time he swallowed back the fear of just...looking up. He wanted to call out, mom? Dad? But the stranger who dressed him in these horrid clothes, the strangers and their repugnant words, they were all precursors to one simple action...just, looking up.

[align=left] He didn't know what he was going to see, he just knew it was going to be 'bad', whatever that meant for a child. Slowly, but surely, his eyes trailed upward until his brow was obscuring his view. Closing his eyes hard, so tightly that they started to hurt. He finally opened them up, and tilted his head backward, taking in the sight before him. Two...long, wooden boxes lay on display before him, handles at their sides...they looked, nice? And between the two boxes, on a table with flowers decorating it...well, he's pretty sure it's pictures of his mother and father. However, no matter how hard he tries to look at the pictures, he just can't seem to see the faces. They taunt him, blurred beyond recognition, daring him to remember something he's forgotten much too long ago.

[align=right]"He'll be moving sometime this week..."

[align=left]"It's for the best."

[align=left] The boy's head slowly sank back downward, his eyes moving back to those small hands before him, nervously and quietly resigning himself to the hand he was dealt. And boy, were the cards stacked against this kid...

[Ronan]

Very nice first entry Nishi! Awaiting more

[Ramsay888]

Nice story, keep up the good work.

[Guest Roach]

Great first entry Nishi!

[Nocheluz]

Oh my! Ivy just might feel sorry for Cupid if she knew all this. Maybe....

Good job, keep 'em coming. You and Alex are really putting pressure on Ivy to get on the stick and get hers posted.

[NishiUrban]

Thank you everyone for the feedback, I'm glad you are enjoying it so far.

 I'll hopefully get around to the next part soon, maybe...tm?

[Sofie]

Really nicely written Cupid!

Wanna read moooore...

[NishiUrban]

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One,

two,

[align=right]three,

[align=left]four,

five,

[align=right]six,

[align=left]seven...,

And Tommy, made eight.

 It had been a few years now, the little, six year old boy who was stranded by the world one fateful day...how many years back was it exactly? The time in that home all sort of, blurred together, in one sickening mesh of day by day. Looking back on it now, how could he have been so naive? So...childish, that he just couldn't see what was really going on inside that house. Well, not just him, the world around them seemed pretty fucking ignorant. The kind of memories that make the hair on the back of your neck stand on edge, visualizing that walkway to the front steps, those cold...stone steps to the front porch. Reflecting on the glass doors, towering before him when he was first introduced to that husband and wife living on that lonely offshoot of a street. Down some quiet road, where neighbors were too preoccupied to venture.

[align=right]The husband was a taller man, even from a child's perspective. He wreaked of, some sort of cologne.

[align=right]It was repugnant to the nostrils, nauseating, although in hindsight.

[align=right]That's probably not what made him feel nauseous.

[align=left] The wife wasn't much better, there was a distinct stench that clung to her for dear life.

[align=left]The boy had no idea at the time, that it was of cigarette smoke, a smell he would become accustomed too.

[align=left]She dolled herself up proper however, unlike the brute of a husband she had. All that make-up did well to hide,

[align=left]just how ugly she was underneath.

 The world can be a funny place, just a few papers signed, and your life is just...given away to someone else. Someone owns you, like a piece of property. They are the deciding factor on who, or what, you might become later on down the line. Just like property, there are people who take very good care of their belongings, but. There are also those who allow those belongings to fall into disrepair, break down...hell, even break their precious property down intentionally. The boy had no way of knowing, the adults, he presumed they had no idea. But the man, that broken, dysfunctional property that was left to rot but is still standing? Oh, he knows.

 The boy was introduced to his new family, and stood there in mild awe, mostly still lamenting the loss of his parents. Counting in his head, while his narrowed eyes glossed over the unamused children who would become his older brothers and sisters. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven...and that made him the eighth child of his household. Tommy was the youngest, at the time of his arrival, while a few of the other children shared the same age there was one oldest sister who stuck out from the rest. He couldn't put his finger on it at the time, frankly the reason just went over his head. But there was something in her forced smile, something...friendly, inviting. Her name, was Charlotte. Tommy quickly took a liking to this older sister, she always made him feel...warm on the inside, made that sinking pit of despair in his stomach subside if only for a short while.

 In no particular order, Tommy slowly started to learn the names of his new, brothers and sisters. Sarah, Taylor, Claire, Lawrence, Dennis, and Jackson. The other children were always, distant toward him. Perhaps it was because he was the youngest of the bunch, or maybe it was just the fact that he was the newest addition to this 'family'. It wasn't exactly a question that ever came to his childish mind, but the exclusion was definitely something he could feel, something that drove him to isolate himself more, and more. The only one who made an effort to drag him back from that isolation, was Charlotte.

 A number of years had gone by, and life became a routine. The husband and wife collected money from the state for their foster children, the wife sat at home chain-smoking and watching her tv shows. The house was prone to erupt in her bickering at the tv, when the talk show host would reveal an answer that she was right, or wrong about for that matter. Meanwhile the husband would work during the day, granting a reprieve to the household...until he came home that is. The boy didn't see much of the husband, even now, refusing to think of that bastard as a 'father'. Not on the days he worked, not until...late at night anyway. He didn't know, for a long time, exactly what was going on. The wife would usually have settled all the children into bed, and gone to sleep herself, probably having taken one of the assortment of pills that she kept locked up in the medicine cabinet. After a few years, the boy learned there was a routine. The jangling of keys at the front door was just the start, fumbling fingers causing the husband to curse under his slurred breath before the sound of the lock coming undone could be heard downstairs. 

 There were two rooms, he remembered. The boys all slept in one, rather cramped room. While the three girls slept in an adjacent room, together. It took him a long time to notice, that on these particular nights, around the time that the clunking of boots against the wooden floors downstairs could be heard, that there was always someone who would wake up in the room beside his. Most of the time, half asleep, he wouldn't have known to even question it, the timing. But then he realized after a few instances of deja vu...there was definitely a pattern. As the creaking of the wooden stairs suggested something was impending, one of the girls from the room over always seemed to wake up, slowly open the door to the room, and walk across the hall toward the bathroom. As a kid, this didn't really phase the boy. But every time the footsteps reached the top of the stairs, it was always some inaudible slurring from the husband, proceeded by walking, back downstairs. He only started to realize it after a few years, of accidentally waking up at the wrong times, but he never heard whoever left the room...go back into the room.

 One particular night, the boy woke up feeling groggy and having to use the bathroom. Rubbing his eyes, he carefully got out of bed, and opened the ajar door quietly as to not disturb anyone. He knew better than to accidentally wake up his foster parents, they always made it very clear that they would be highly upset. After he had finished in the bathroom, on his way back down the hall toward the boy's bedroom, the boy could hear faint footsteps making their way up the stairs. They weren't loud, not like the husbands, although there was something...odd about them that he couldn't quite determine. A small, delicate hand resting on the rail, was then accompanied by none other than Charlotte. There was a brief pause, and although he couldn't see very well in the dimly lit hallway, the thought that she seemed more pale than usual crossed his mind. Her blank expression quickly turned into a forced smile, as she took the boy's hand and sat with him outside the rooms. She always enjoyed playing with his hair, for some reason. The boy usually fussed about it, but this time only offered silent squirming. 

 There was something, very strange going on. Charlotte embraced him, holding him very close to herself, in fact she was holding him so tightly that it seemed like she was shaking. No, that's not why she was shaking. The boy felt something moist fall down onto his hand, however when he tried to look up at the girl's face, she just held him in such a way that he couldn't see her. All he could do was stare down at his hand, puzzled, by the fact that there was just a drop of, water? No, that didn't seem right. Her body, vibrating, shaking the way it was...this was, silent sobbing. He was briefly reminded of that day at his parents funeral,  and he wrapped his arms around Charlotte as best he could given the positioning. They stayed like this for what felt like, forever. As the boy slowly drifted off into slumber, he started to realize what was so unsettling...there was this distinct smell that clung to Charlotte. At the time, he didn't know what alcohol was supposed to smell like, but one of the scents...without a doubt, was that same cologne he had come to despise...

 Like switching a light on and off, the morning came, and the boy found himself waking up inside his bed, tucked in as if the prior night had never happened. It wasn't until he was around the age of 14, that the household began to crumble. One day, Charlotte was just, gone. Her eighteenth birthday would have been in a few months, their foster parents accused her of running away from home. Charlotte just became some missing person, some lost child out there in the world somewhere. Meanwhile the husband had apparently taken up gardening, and became very strict with who was allowed in his private gardening plot in the backyard. It was a new rule, that was quickly enforced with hitting, lots of hitting. The husband and wife would argue constantly, yelling, swearing, throwing things. Practically everyday became a warzone that the children had to tread carefully in, out of fear of getting caught in the crossfire. The wife became very bitter, and angry, taking her violent anger out on the children. The boy, in particular, seemed to get the brunt of her aggression. The slaps across his face, with her ringed fingers, were bad enough. But it was the rare instance of burning him with her cigarette butts that really hurt. 

 This couldn't have gone on for very long, the foster parents were quickly losing control of their children. Tommy and his brothers and sisters were coming of age, where they could speak more openly with other adults about what was going on at home. When the abuse started to surface, the children were taken out of the home, the boy never found out what happened to them after that. He was assigned a new set of foster parents, said his farewells to the kids he called family for years, and hello to some naive couple who had little idea exactly who they were dealing with now. The next two years, before he emancipated himself from his foster parents, were filled with their failed attempts to help reform the boy into an upstanding citizen. Tommy often thought back to Charlotte, and where she might be now, why she abandoned him, like everyone seemed to do.

[align=right] If he knew what would come next, he wondered to himself. Would I still have left those naive foster parents?

[JoffreyRP]

I like it mang! Good work.

[Nocheluz]

Very dank second entry. That ending really piques my interest. Waiting patiently for moar