forthedog | (no subject)

Entry tags:

darrow,
neil

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As it turns out, he still likes doing the dishes.

They have a dishwasher, of course. And of course it works just fine. But there's something about doing them by hand, standing there in the kitchen with his hands in the warm water, looking out at the night. Something quiet on the radio. He remembers doing this as a kid, doing them as a favor to a mother who was always tired after her drunk husband finally up and left her, doing them and finding a little peace at the end of a day.

Strange that he remembers things like that now.

Neil's late, but he has a little time before he actually starts getting worried. No call or text, it might just be traffic. He sets the last dish in the drainer, pulls the plug, dries his hands. A small glass of blood on the counter fresher than a lot of what he's been drinking. Better vintage.

He leans back against the counter, lifts it to his lips, inhales before he sips.

He's lost the ability to do a lot. But appreciating Neil in this whole new way... That's something he's not sorry he has now. Not sorry at all.

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When I pull into the garage, it's late and I should be bone-tired, but I can't seem to shake the clatter of adrenaline under my skin. I drove a little too fast on my way out here, and I'm lucky I didn't swerve off the fuckin' road and into a ditch, with how my mind was wandering all over the fuckin' place.

I half jog up the stairs and in through the kitchen door, huffing out a laugh when I see him, standing in front of the sink and sipping from a glass of blood, like it's fine wine.

"God, you're such a freak," I say, careful not to slam the door. Keys on the table by the door, jacket on the hook, and I cross the room to grab a beer from the fridge.

"I got... I dunno, I think I might've found somethin'," I rush out with, popping the cap on the beer and taking a swig.

Edited 2014-02-28 05:02 (UTC)

He turns to follow Neil's progress, arches an eyebrow. "You know when you call me that now you're just literally describing what I am, right? Like, God, you have legs." He huffs a laugh as he realizes why what he's just said is funny- and then his laugh dies away as he processes the rest of what Neil's said.

"The hell you mean, you've found something?"

"Remember that fuckin' psycho from the other night? The one that said you should walk into the sun or whatever?" I say, taking another swig of beer and walking closer to him.

"He wasn't suggesting suicide by inferno. It's... I talked to somebody who says they were like you. Were, but not anymore. And yeah, maybe they're just a nutjob, but he said that the fire does something... it burns the virus out or it kickstarts the heart or whatever, but maybe this doesn't have to be a permanent thing."

"He..." He trails off, staring. It's actually a long time since something literally shocked him to silence - and this isn't even so much shock as it is a total failure to process.

"Neil, I... You're saying... Hold on, let me get this straight. You're saying I actually need to set myself on fire." And what washes through him isn't fear. It might be, if that part of him wasn't so completely broken, but it's also deeper than fear. It's the feeling of time folding in on itself.

"Yeah, that's the thing. The timing has to be right, the fire's gotta be put out, otherwise..." I trail off, lips pressed into a line. He's got an imagination, he can figure it out.

"It's... I'm not sayin' you should step out into the yard at dawn, but it's the first real lead we've gotten this whole fuckin' time."

And I'm not fuckin' stupid, I know what this means. Time is a fuckin' circle we just keep going 'round and 'round in. He was never able to escape losing his eye, never able to escape fucking up his leg, and apparently, fire's gonna follow him wherever he goes. If I didn't already believe in fate, it's be pretty hard to deny that shit, now.

First real lead. He nods, slowly. He supposes that's so. He's toying with the idea, thinking about that first morning, sticking his hand into a shaft of morning sun and seeing it sizzle, hearing the hiss of his own burning flesh. It had healed fast, only a few hours, but...

"How did he look?" Maybe it shouldn't matter, but he has to know. He takes a step closer. "This guy. What did he look like?"

It's an awful moment of weakness, where the black steel in his spine is failing him, but he can't find the words to ask what he's really asking.

"You mean did he look like he walked outta the burn unit?" I say, leaning back against the counter, fingers tapping against the neck of my beer bottle.

"He looked okay. Good. He had a scar, here," I say, touching the side of my throat. "Had all his hair. He... didn't talk about it like it was a fuckin' picnic or anything, but he said it was worth it. He'd do it again."

"A scar," he repeats. He has scars. He has lots of scars; his body is covered in them. They no longer worry him, and he's grown to love more than a few of them. If that's all it is, this might be conceivable. Doable.

But worth it.

"How did he do it? He tell you that?"

"Waited on a pier until the sun came up, and then jumped into the water," I say, "He'd heard it secondhand, too. Apparently nobody really knows who figured it out first. I... it sounds fuckin' crazy. It probably is crazy."

"Yeah, fucking right it is." Crazy, but it's not like any of this isn't, so at least it fits. He guesses. He drains the rest of the glass, not looking at anything in particular.

"But you seem like you think it could work."

"I don't know. I don't know, it's... What if it's our only shot?"

We're getting by, and we will, but I don't want to just get by. I want our life back, and I kind of hope he does, too.

He's quiet for a moment, looking down at the glass - slicked with red, red that still pulls at him even if the hunger is sated for the moment. He'll always want this. He'll want it more and more and more.

Even so.

"I dunno." He shakes his head. "I dunno, it's just... a lot to process."

"I know," I say quietly, looking down at the blood in his glass and knowing that it's mine. "I wanna look into it more, anyway. You don't gotta process it or whatever right away, you know."

"Yeah." Burning. It always comes back to burning. He turns away and moves over toward the sink, making as if to rinse out the glass...

And stops, still.

"You were right, y'know. The other night, what you said."

"Yeah?" I say, giving him a look, "You wanna be more specific?"

I've said a lot of things, on a lot of different nights, so that doesn't really narrow it down much.

"I like this. I like being a better hunter. I like being a better killer." He doesn't turn. He's not ashamed, but it still feels like confession. "I love how it feels. I think about losing it... losing it like that... And it's hard to just say yes."

He swallows. "It's harder than it should be."

I'm quiet for a minute, lips pressed into a line, arms folded across my chest.

"I know. I fuckin' know you do, man, and I get it. I'd be fine with letting you, I'd be out there with you, if I could be, but you know... you know that if it turns out you can't keep your shit together, if you can't keep it together for the girls, I can't..."

I stop myself, lip caught between my teeth.

"I couldn't let you be around them. 'Cause, man, this... the way you're talkin'? It's dangerous. And I know it's always been dangerous, but this is exponential levels of fucked up."

"I know." He looks down at his hand - the side of his finger, which has somehow gotten smeared with a drop of blood between the counter and the sink. He lifts it to his mouth, sucks it clean.

"This has to stop somewhere."

Letting out a shuddering breath, I say, "I wanna look into it, some more. See if I can find more of 'em that've tried it."

I take a step toward him, "Whatever you decide, I just... I need to know."

"Do that." He's quiet for a moment, eyes half closed. Facing the window over the sink, looking out into the darkness. Thinking about torn meat and screaming trees and blood falling from an ashen sky.

"Do you know what really happened down there? In the ash? 'Cause I'm starting to figure it out."

"You facin' up to the part of yourself that wants to tear out my throat?" I ask, arching a brow, "Yeah, I kinda get it."

"I didn't face up to it, I gave it exactly what it fucking wanted. And the kicker is it probably wasn't even real before we got down there." He closes his eyes and the world bleeds away into rust. "It was the shit I was afraid might be in me, but that's all it was. I was never that bad. I was bad, but..."

He makes a fist, his nails digging into his palm. "I gave it what it wanted, I became it, and that saved us. I don't regret it. It's part of me now. But I can only say yes to it so many times. And this thing... it's feeding it. I can feel it. It's getting stronger. And sooner or later..."

He opens his eyes, turns. "This is too much. I like it too much. Neil, I can do the worst fucking shit now and sleep just fine, but I know it now - I could never sleep easy with what I could become. So we find out what's involved, what gets this shit outta my blood, and we do it."

Edited 2014-03-17 03:20 (UTC)

"That thing down there? That's not what you are, so you can just shut the fuck up about that," I say, shaking my head. "You let it in, and I get that, but there's a balance. We just gotta find the balance again. If we can't do it by findin' a cure, we'll just have to find it another way."

He cocks his head. "You think so? Okay." More and more he's not sure. More and more he thinks the lines are blurrier than he even knew to begin with. But that's not an argument for now. That's not really even an argument at all.

It might simply be a matter of perspective.

He pauses, thinking again. "If it's... not safe. If it's the sun. If it's not as easy as he made it seem. Do you still want me to?"

"I think that you've always been fucked up. I think I remember what it was like, when you first got here. The things you did," I say, leaving it hanging, knowing that he knows exactly what I mean. What he did to me, to Sam, things that I've had to come to terms with, but it's not like that part of him was ever gone.

"You didn't become a monster down there. You just woke somethin' up, it was always there," I say, arms folded across my chest. "But I need this under control, and if we can't find some other way, than the not-so-fuckin'-safe way might be our only option."

"Or I just leave." He looks away - he can't think about this as a real possibility, because all of his imagination fails him and he's left staring at a black wall of nothing. There is no existence beyond that point that he would recognize.

So many different universes, and that's the one he simply can't conceive of.

"Which. Yeah. No."

"And go where?" I say, choking out a laugh. There aren't a hell of a lot of options.

"We're gonna figure this out. We don't got any other choice."

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