Work Text:
It’s hard to pinpoint the moment where the thoughts become normal. Francis remembers when it started. He must have been around twelve, the age where everyone started noticing how weird he was. They had always known, of course, but with the onset of puberty and his forever squeaky voice and sweaty hands and inability to know how to say the right thing, any sort of endearing parts of his weirdness faded into the black abyss known as the seventh grade.
It was after a particularly cruel day when the thought first popped into his head. Shane had given him a proper swirly, the type of thing he had thought only existed in movies. When he had told his parents about the situation they gave him reassurances and advice but he could tell that within their eyes was a disappointment. Of what he could not exactly say at the time. He had crawled into his bed after a long shower. As he began to fall asleep, his mind wondered and he thought “maybe I should kill myself”. The thought jolted him right awake because he did not want to kill himself, right? Of course not, no he had just had a bad day. His life wasn’t bad or anything. Once he had decided on that he went to bed without any more thoughts on ending his life.
Until the next day where Shane tripped him in front of the entire class. As everyone pointed and laughed while the teachers attempted to settle them down all he could think was “I wish I could crawl into a hole and die” and with the embarrassment spreading across his face, he was too preoccupied to fight back against the idea.
From there it snowballed. The thoughts went from occasional to constant, like an old ache, like an old friend. To lay in bed and hope against hope that God ends his suffering, to only wake up with a breath of disappointment the following morning.
So it became routine for him to daydream about the quickest ways he could end his life while chewing on his pencil during algebra. He honestly had stopped thinking about it, stopped worrying about it. After all, it wasn’t like he was actually going to do it. It was just a way to remind himself that he always had a way out should he really need it.
Then he joined a bowling team.
It felt innocuous to the point that the reasoning for him doing so seemed to slip his grasp upon reflection. Probably for the fun of it. A way to get out of the house and not have to deal with the general teenage population of Peachyville. The closest he had to dealing with that was Britannica Blue, who despite her pompous attitude and general disdain for him, was still an outsider like him. A more confident outsider but an outsider nonetheless.
In the beginning calling the group his friends would be far from accurate. Yet despite that he still kept coming back, week after week. He discovered something quite interesting about himself.
He was really good at bowling.
It felt a little silly, but when you spent most of your life being seen as not enough it was so good to actually be good at something. Maybe in no other place he was allowed to feel powerful but at the lanes his pinpoint precision finally brought him some form of good.
Of course, god forbid Francis be happy for longer than four seconds. Shane had taken note of his new hobby and decided that teasing simply did not get to the level of pain he wanted to inflict upon him. He had just left bowling practice where he rolled strike after strike and he couldn’t help but have a bit of a bounce in his step. It wasn’t until he turned into the alley he took as a shortcut home where he saw Shane Silva standing there, with two lackey’s to boot.
He tried to reason with them, of course he did, but his words were no match for their fist. He limped his way home, any previous joy stolen away from him like a breath after a punch to the gut. When he turned the key to his door he had made a decision. Maybe those thoughts had the right idea.
How he would do it was the real question. His parent’s gun felt like the best option but he did not know the code to the safe and it would be absolutely mortifying to be found fiddling with the dial and have to explain what exactly he was trying to do. So that idea was off the table. Pills would take too long, too much of a shot of someone finding him before the job was done. He didn’t want to risk jumping off a bridge and have some horrified kid find his mangled corpse.
He settled on slitting his wrist. It would hurt sure, but then it would end. There would be no more pain after that. God was generally against suicide but he’s pretty sure that he would understand. His parents had a various number of knives for cooking purposes and they probably would not notice if one was missing for at least a little bit. The first place he thought about doing it was the bathroom, easier to clean up that way. But then his parents might want to use the bathroom and that risks them finding him before the deed is done.
There’s a pit in his stomach at the thought of his parents. Their faces when they find his glassy eyed pale body. Probably not getting into heaven with that one, but anything is better than here, anything is better than this.
His bedroom would likely be the better option, harder to clean up for sure but that will probably not be the first concern his parent’s have upon finding him. Besides, it would take his parents a lot longer to look for him in his room than it would anywhere else.
Getting the knife wasn’t hard, neither of his parents questioned him as he slipped into the kitchen, nose freshly cleaned of blood. He cooly walked back up the stairs, trying to look as nonchalant as possible.
He looked out on the hallway, for what he figured would be his last time. He was almost giddy at the prospect. Once the door was closed he looked around his room as the drone of the electricity rang in his skull. He took one look at the knife and sucked in a breath. It would need to be deep for this to work.
He sat at his desk because even though his bed would be more comfortable, he did not deserve a comfortable death for what he was about to do. He aligned the knife along a vein in his wrist, pinpricks of blood dripping as he applied pressure. Just as he was about to commit to the cut, three firm knocks hit his door.
“Francis, dinner’s ready,” his mother said through the door. Dinner time already? He swore that it wasn’t supposed to be for another hour.
“Yea mom, I’ll be out in a second,” he blurted out maybe a little too fast because suddenly his doorknob was turning and his mother was standing in his room with her arms crossed. Her eyes zeroed in on the knife that he had thankfully taken off his wrist and was now limply hanging from his hand.
“What are you doing?” she asked, but it was really more of a demand and she could be kind of scary when she was demanding something so Francis did the only thing he could think of.
He lied.
“Oh I um wanted to try and get into knife throwing.” His mother raises an eyebrow so he tacks on, “Because my aim is good cause of all the bowling I’ve been doing.”
A slight smirk covers his mom’s face and for a second he thinks he might be caught.
“Well that’s wonderful, but you cannot use a kitchen knife for knife throwing, they make knives for that purpose,” she explained, her voice light. She looked almost, prideful, if Francis had to describe it. It had been so long since he had seen that look in her eyes. He might have to actually commit and get into knife throwing.
“Oh yeah, I guess you’re right,” he responds, a small smile on his face. This had to have been some sign from God. He could go on to do great things and make his parents proud. If he can’t live for himself, he could live for that.
And things go back to normal. Until he gets attacked by a giant moth and shoots off Shane’s leg and kills people and learns his parents are evil. When he tells his mom that he is going to kill them and then himself, he thinks about the cruel irony of the fact that if he had just committed to killing himself in the first place then his friends wouldn’t be in danger and several people would be alive.
So when he concocts his plan he was not worried about what God would think. Even if he hadn’t given up on God, he knew at this point that he had given up on him. He’s not worried about his parents anymore, in fact their distress is part of the intended outcome of their plan. Yes, his friends would be sad, but this was for the better.
When he walks out of Trudy’s room, he allows himself to hesitate for a moment. To think about Trudy’s plea to him. But he refuses to let a mother’s words save him this time.
And as he puts the gun to his temple he can find solace in the fact that he is not doing this for himself. This action stands as the only unselfish thing that he has ever done. After all, he’s doing what he was made to do. He’s killing a monster.