Work Text:
Sometimes Matt thinks about things they aren’t supposed to think about. Things that are gross and ugly and sincere.
They know they’re going to kill the Dirties. They don’t know what they’re going to do after. They don’t care. They’re riding on the high of what they’re about to do, of finally being free of these people, of becoming a hero.
Usually, when people do things like this, they don’t survive. They kill themselves or get shot by the cops. Matt knows this. They’ve seen pictures- bodies oozing brains and blood and cerebrospinal fluid onto the floor, guns dropped from limp hands, pools of blood in taped off crime scenes. And though what they’re about to do is better than anything anyone's done before, more perfect, more subversive, with far more artistic prowess, they can’t help but ache when seeing pictures like that.
That should be me.
When you die, you stop being a person. You can become a symbol, a martyr, and you can live forever. Matt wants that. That power, that influence. They deserve it more than anyone. They can’t help but fantasize about it. The blood flowing out like a halo around their head, mouth agape, eyes rolled back and glazed over, immortalized in horrific bliss.
They think about Owen.
They love Owen. It hurts when someone you love more than anyone else in the world chooses something else, someone else, over you. Seeing Owen hanging out with the same people who’ve been bullying them hurts. Seeing Owen choose Chrissy over them hurts. Matt tries to pretend not to feel it, but sometimes it feels like being gutted and Matt starts to worry that they aren’t enough, that nobody could ever love them enough, and they feel like they could just scream forever and ever and ever.
They imagine Owen screaming as he watches them die. Imagines him running to them, cradling them, imagines their blood soaking into his clothes. Owen would be sorry for it all, then. And he’d cry and beg Matt to come back, cling to that angelic corpse, kiss their face, let their blood smear across his lips. And maybe he, curious and despairing, would reach into that wide open exit wound, and somehow, somehow it would- It would be like Owen could feel their soul. Could know them, truly. What could be more intimate than knowing what the inside of someone’s head feels like?
And then the paramedics would put them in a body bag, and they’d be taken away. To be autopsied first, and then returned home. And their parents would clutch them, their baby, always their baby, despite knowing nothing about them, and would bury them in some suit that looks dull and ill-fitting on them. And it would suck, but maybe Owen could toss himself into the coffin beside them and make it alright.
They roll over onto their side, clutch their pillow, let a few tears soak into it, moved by the fantasy of their own death and all their loved ones in mourning.
They don’t want to die. They know they don’t want to die. Sometimes they want to, but… really, they just want everything to be alright. They want to be loved. It feels stupid and girly and gay to admit, but it’s the truth. All they want is to be loved and cared for and to not feel like shit anymore. And to make movies.
Specifically, a movie about killing the Dirties. And that’s where the problem lies, because if they do that and they live then they’ll go to prison, where they’ll be worse than dead because they’ll be separated from Owen, and they’ll be bored, and they won’t be allowed to watch or make movies anymore.
They could just not go through with it. Not die, not go to prison, not kill anyone. But then what would they be? They’d already set up what they were about to do, they’d be a disappointment if they couldn’t follow through with it. A coward, unwilling and unable to take what they want and do what they must. A pathetic loser who just sits around and takes and takes it and does nothing. What happens when you don’t do it? How do live with not doing it? With having this perfect dream, this vision, and having to let it go and live with that? And having to return to normal everyday life, to the pain and the beatings and the humiliation and the shame. Nothing would change in their life without drastic action. If an ordinary life meant suffering every day, why not kill? Why not die, even? Why not become a star, a hero?
And that thought made them loop back to what they did have to live for, all the things they wanted to do that they wouldn’t be able to do in prison or dead, the life that they’d grieve if they didn’t get to live it. And maybe that life wasn’t beyond reach, it was just… difficult to get to.
Every option makes them feel bad. Every option seems to mean losing something, compromising some part of themself.
Crying into their pillow, they allow themself to indulge in a nicer set of fantasies. Ones involving being Owen’s pretty girlfriend, being cuddled and cradled in his arms. Being desired and protected and held. They let those thoughts lull them into a fitful sleep.