[Gallagher]

It's no secret, I've been obsessed with superheroes as of late. It's not so much the idea of being able to do, well, practically anything you want that I find alluring. Rather, it's all the hardships those people face from just what they are, or because they choose to go out there and help others. So, the next couple of pieces are writings I did to get a feel for the changes my main OC has taken in fitting into this role that I've given him.

Not So Heroic After All

“Mr. Gallagher?” His fingers twitched, but his eyes remained tightly shut against the voices piercing their way into his mind. Just how long had he been on the ground? He couldn’t remember. Each of his breaths was getting to be more difficult, and accompanied by a sickeningly wet sound. He heard his name again, but gave no reply, hoping that, maybe, if he just kept quiet, they would go away. He focused on the pain filling his body, wanting nothing more than to let it consume his thoughts as it had for every nerve. As soon as one of the paramedics touched him again, it did just that, taking his consciousness with it.

Kier didn’t wake until long after he was in recovery. At only nineteen, he had broken his ribs for the sixth time, his leg for the third, his arm for the second, and his spine for the first. He would be told how close he came to becoming paralyzed for the rest of his life, but he would find that he didn’t care. He would even recover in record time, returning to work pain free after only two months, despite what his doctor had told him.

When he fell for a second time, he would go in with his other arm broken in two places, and a fractured scapula.

By the third, he would walk away with nothing but a few bruises and a hell of a headache.

This was the existence he was rapidly growing accustomed to, and it scared the shit out of him. Kier had learned quickly not to fear pain. In fact, if he weren’t forced to endure it, he might have never found out that he was different from others… or, more so than he thought. As it was, he already looked strange. While his two-toned hair was ignored fairly easily as a rather poor dye job, his mismatched eyes were harder to explain, and the random alabaster spots adorning his skin nearly impossible to lie about. These things, utterly impossible for him to have caused himself, were the exact reasons why he’d been treated as scum by so many of the people he encountered. After all, ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ never really applied to printing mistakes, did it?

As it usually goes, the boy’s powers didn’t appear until his early teens; even then, no one had a clue that anything was amiss, least of all Kier. If it hadn’t been for the far too common beatings from his so called ‘mentor’, an older young man that had decided to take advantage of the boy’s naivety, it might have taken him many more years to figure there was anything more to him to begin with.

He’d thought that he’d just been getting used to the pain. It didn’t seem like that strange of an idea. As the weeks went by, however, the bruises seemed to take less and less time to heal. He could still remember the first time that he looked in the mirror, knowing full well that he’d been ‘punished’ just the day before, but found that the only marks left on his body were the last remnants from the week before. Sadly, he was far from the only one to notice. Instead of questioning it like Kier had, however, the older boy only took it as a sign that more force was needed to get through to him. It started a downward spiral that landed the odd young man in the hospital more than once; it was only after the fourth time that he told the truth about what he had been going through.

His body would heal, leaving only a light scar on his left shin and a little finger that was straighter than natural for him, but the damage to his mind had already been done. Even when he was free from his torment, the young man became reckless, no longer caring for his own safety. It was no wonder then that during one of his hospital stays, not long after he had left his home and the country that witnessed his coming of age, he would let himself become addicted to one of the drugs he was given. It was amazing. It made him feel better than he had in years. The best part was how easy it was to get. With as many accidents as he had had, how many bones he had broken through the years, and as many surgeries he’d undergone, none of the doctors he visited questioned the legitimacy of his claims of pain. The rest that he needed to get his fix, he just bought off the streets; it was laughable how cheap they were compared to other drugs.

The more that his use went up, the less Kier cared about what happened to him. In fact, it was one evening as he prepared his next dose before work that he’d started to enjoy thinking about his next ‘accident’.

Take Me Home

"All my memories gathered 'round her, Miner's lady, stranger to blue water-" Kier paced the small stretch of floor beneath him, his heavy boots clacking loudly with every step, and his voice echoing off of the silver walls as he sang softly to himself. Step, step, turn, step, step, what floor was he on now? Smoothing his hands over his white shirt — white would look lovely with the red, like a painting, really, it was the perfect choice — he double checked that they were snugly tucked into his roughed up jeans, looking up to check the lighted display over the metal doors. Only five - no, six! It wasn't climbing fast enough. He should have just taken the stairs, he would have been on the twentieth by now. Step, step, turn.

It was alright, it wouldn't be long now. He just had to be patient. It was worth it."Dark and dusty, painted on the sky. Misty taste of moonshine-" He looked up again. Another floor. Only thirty-three left to go. "Teardrops in my eye-"

What was that next line? He couldn't seem to remember. As he paced, he started from the beginning, hoping that it might jog his memory. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. He ran his hands back through his hair, restlessly fixing it time and time again until, finally, he was just too frustrated with the just above shoulder length locks to even bother. When he looked up to the numbers again, he grinned; only one floor left to go. "I hear her voice, in the mornin' hours she calls me. The radio reminds me of my home far away-" Somehow, he couldn't help but laugh as the elevator dinged, its doors opening to the roof of the building. Without hesitation his gaze went to the edge.

He didn't move at first, simply grinning from ear to ear. When the doors tried to close, however, he lifted a hand to stop them and slowly stepped out. Kier didn't even bother looking around to see if anyone else was out on the roof. It didn't matter. Even if anyone had been there, he wouldn't have heard them. His mind was set on only one thing. He ran for it, his grin lingering all the while as his foot met the small ledge and past it. In the brief instant of utter weightlessness that he felt, he wondered whether anyone down on the streets would take notice. It didn't last long before fear gripped him once more; not for what was about to happen, but what might if it didn't.