Chapter Text
Rachel absently shuffled a worn deck of cards in her hands, sitting with her legs crossed on the hardwood floor, and her eyes locked onto her fidget-y black-haired companion sitting across the small coffee table.
Sounds of heavy rain penetrated through the poorly insulated walls. The steady dripping of water from the leaky roof and faucets echoing through the vast halls of the place they had been staying in, adding to its eerie aura. Rachel was rather fond of their shabby new dwelling though. It’d been about 2 weeks since they stumbled upon what they thought was an old, abandoned mansion isolated in the middle of the woods, but someone was still paying the utilities. The lights and water were all still in working order, which were luxuries they weren't accustomed to. The rooms were huge, filled with antiques and intricately carved furniture. The large foyer had a stunning chandelier looming over its center and the curved staircase was her favorite feature. She thought surely there had to be a groundskeeper of some sort for a place as grand as this one, but if a keeper of sorts existed, they were terrible at their job. If the blanket of dust covering everything wasn’t evidence enough, the property wasn’t overly well-kept, and nobody had bothered them the whole time they'd been there. If the owners or someone did happen to spontaneously return for some reason, Zack would likely just kill them. She hoped that wouldn’t happen because then they’d have to move on to a new place after that, and she would be lying if she said she wasn’t growing rather comfortable there. In the meantime, it was where she and Zack called home.
As much as she enjoyed these calm moments with Zack, it was becoming too much of a routine and admittedly, she was getting bored. She was sure Zack, who had an even shorter attention span and only a fraction of her patience, probably felt the same. If this kept up, he'd likely storm off into the night to go find his next victim. With that thought, Rachel abruptly got up, abandoning the cards and disappearing into the nearby kitchen.
"Hey, where are you going?" she heard Zack protest from over her shoulder, but paid him no mind.
Rachel soon reappeared with a bottle of liquid in her hand and returned to her spot on the floor.
"What the hell is that?" Zack questioned incredulously, eyeing the strange-looking glass container.
He watched Rachel use some sort of strange contraption to pull the cork from the spout of the bottle while she answered, "There’s a cellar door hidden under a rug in the floor of the kitchen. I found this in there the other day. I thought it might make the game more fun."
On their third day staying in the mansion, she found the floor plans in a desk in the second story study. Since then, she spent a fair portion of her spare time exploring the abundance of nooks and crannies of the house. However, the secret wine cellar hadn’t been in the plans. She only discovered it because she noticed that the floor sounded slightly different in one area of the kitchen and the rug over that particular area had struck her as suspicious. She lifted the bottle and attempted to wipe the thin layer of dust off its label with her sleeve. “I think it might be really old and expensive. An old house like this likely could’ve been used as a place to store and smuggle contraband.”
"Gimme that," Zack snatched the bottle away from her to examine it, bringing it to his nose to sniff it's contents. A disgusted scowl appeared on his features when the strong smell of fruity floral alcohol assaulted his nose. There were words on the label, but of course he couldn't read them.
"It's wine,'" Rachel provided, as if sensing his thoughts.
"You think I don't know that?," he snapped out of reflex, despite the fact that he actually hadn't known. He knew it was some type of liquor at least. He wasn't sure how potent the clearish-yellow colored alcohol in the bottle was though. It wasn't like he was particularly experienced with drinking; The most he'd ever had was beer, but it was enough of them to know what being mildly intoxicated felt like. However, seeing as she was petite and likely never drank even a beer before, any level of alcohol would probably knock her on her ass. "Yeah, you ain't drinking this. You're not old enough," he concluded and ruffled her hair, before any more images of an inebriated Rachel could infiltrate his thoughts.
"I'm eighteen years old, Zack," she argued in monotone as she tried her best to straighten her blonde locks back out, "I'm not a child anymore."
"Maybe not," he acknowledged, "But still not old enough to drink."
"Close enough," she persisted. "You aren't that much older than me."
"What?!" be balked offensively, "I'm way older than you."
"Seven years, Zack- I did the math. That really isn't that much older. My parents had a larger age difference than that; They say the older people get, the less an age-gap like that matters."
He found it a little awkward that she would use her parents as an example. He grumbled, running his hand through his hair, looking exhausted of this conversation. "Look, I don't give a damn if you're eighty. It ain't gonna happen," he said stubbornly, not budging.
His tone hinted that he was getting a little aggravated, but she was used to his temper and it had little affect. In fact, lately his anger only made her feel more bold. She... maybe was beginning to resent him. "Since when do you care about breaking laws?" She challenged, a bit passive-aggressively. "You murder people."
He looked a little taken aback by her retort. She'd usually always just went along with things and let him have his way, but she was actually protesting. Was she rebelling against his unspoken authority? She'd never done that before. And why was her tone so accusing when she said, 'you murder people.' Come to think of it, she'd been gradually becoming more argumentative with him over the last week or two.
Much to her surprise, he didn't retaliate. Her eyes which had been narrowed at him, reverted back to their usual passiveness. "Alright then, how about we make a deal; I win, we drink the wine. You win, I'll pour it down the kitchen sink." She decided to omit the fact that there were many more cases of the stuff in the cellar.
Zack still didn't look convinced, his brows drawn together in hesitance.
"What's wrong? Afraid you'll lose?" She taunted calmly, knowing exactly how to get under his skin.
"No," he retorted offensively. He scoffed, "Alright, fine,” with a light, arrogant tone, “Like I'd lose to you anyway." He'd been winning their games pretty consistently so far, this hand would be no different. Worst case, if she did happen to win, he figured she’d take a small swig which would at least satisfy her curiosity and get the urge to drink out of her system.
A tiny, almost non-existent smile upturned the corner of her lips. He didn't know that she'd been letting him win the majority of the few hands they’d played so that he wouldn't lose interest with the game or rage-quit. She shuffled with an effortless ease and swiftly dealt their hands, proceeding to set up the cards. Only moments later, the hand was over and Zack found himself staring at the cards in disbelief. She won!? "How the hell did you-" He cut himself short, baffled as to how she managed to win. He scratched the back of his head as he tried to wrap it around her victory. If he didn't know better, Zack thought she looked a little smug.
"You counted cards didn't you?" He accused, folding his arms over his chest. "No deal, it doesn't count because you cheated!"
"I didn't cheat." she defended, thinking he looked a little like a child throwing a tantrum. "I thought you hate liars; A promise is a promise, Zack." She sounded a little more agitated than expected as she added the last part which made him wonder if she was only referring to the alcohol or hinting about their other 'promise'- Their first one that he’d been procrastinating to fulfill. They stared at each other a moment before Zack exhaled in surrender. His chest and pride deflated. He did promise, and he couldn't exactly prove if she cheated or not.
"Fine, but you're only getting a little," he warned, wondering why the hell he ever agreed to this. "This is a really bad idea, Ray."
"The deal was, 'we drink the wine'," Rachel corrected matter-of-factly, emphasizing the 'we.’ "You have to drink it too. And since when has 'bad ideas' ever scared you before?"
He threw a glare at her. She knew him too well, he mentally noted. Maybe they'd been spending too much time together? Zack snatched the bottle from her hands and took a quick swig and gave it back, unable to keep the disgusted look from his face. It tasted bitter and had a zesty acidity about it. "There, ya happy?"
"You barely even drank any," she commented dryly, observing the bottle.
"You've gotta be kidding me," he grumbled under his breath as he snatched it again and took a bit longer drink before thrusting back at her and wiping his mouth with the inside of his arm.
Finally satisfied, she took a drink, tipping her head back to take a deep gulp. If the taste bothered her, she didn't show it. Zack watched in anxiety and the seconds felt like an eternity, his mind thinking up bad scenarios in which they were both very intoxicated. His face was already beginning to feel a little hot and numb. If he felt something with just the small amount he'd drank, he sure as hell knew she would too.
"That's enough," Zack suddenly snatched it from her mid-drink, causing a little to spill on her white shirt and into the crease of her cleavage, but he didn't seem to notice. "We're dumping the rest down the drain." He quickly stood with the bottle but her tiny hand grasped the loose fabric of his jacket to stop him.
"Wait," she pleaded momentarily, before managing to compose herself again, "Play me again. If I win, we finish the bottle. If you win, you can get rid of it."
His first instinct was ‘hell no,’ but Zack hesitated, unable to find words. He was stunned by that strange pleading look that flickered in her blue depths. In that brief moment, her eyes hadn't looked dead at all. The angle however, allowed him to see straight down her shirt, which was practically see-through in the places where it'd gotten wet. He was quickly becoming weary of his thoughts. He knew he shouldn't, but he already knew he was going to let her have her way anyway. He'd win this time he assured himself, the last round was just a fluke. He reluctantly sat back down, wordlessly and she dealt another hand. He'd become uncharacteristically quiet, avoiding eye contact.
"Looks like we're finishing the bottle," she concluded moments later, revealing her cards. Not-so-surprisingly, she'd won again. "Here," she said holding the bottle out to him, "you go first."
He stared at it with dread. He wasn't sure how much more he could handle consuming if he was to keep his already-fickle self-control in check. "I can't," he admitted bluntly.
"If you can't, then that means I'll have to drink it all," her flat voice taunted.
"The hell you will," he grumbled as he begrudgingly took it from her but then hesitated. He didn't want to drink anymore, but if he didn't... Rachel seemed hellbent on finishing it. Still, he didn't really trust his stomach to remain stable if he were to force himself to chug it all at once.
Rachel silently noticed his reluctance. "How about, we can drink it gradually," Rachel suggested, as if predicting his thoughts. "We can play more games and the loser has to drink." She paused, "You lost this time, so you should still take a drink."
Her solution sounded slightly more agreeable. Reluctantly, Zack forced himself to bring the jug to his lips, tipping it back and forcing down a big gulp. When he stopped, the amount left in the bottle was noticeably lower. But even after a couple more card games, there was still a lot of the bottle left, as if the liquid inside of it was never-ending.
Zack's body was beginning to feel unbearably warm. He grumbled to himself, tugging at the collar of his black shirt that was underneath his jacket. "It's kinda hot in here."
"I'm still cold," she contradicted even though her cheeks were flushed now. He knew she had to be intoxicated, but she had one hell of a pokerface. She really wasn’t showing it much, at least not yet. She shivered a little and hugged her arms to herself, before a wad of fabric shrouded in Zack's personal scent smacked her in the face. "There, wear my jacket. You won't be cold anymore."
She pulled it off her head ruefully but gratefully put it on. It was way too big so it went to her knees and she had to push up the sleeves that drooped over her hands so that she could shuffle the cards again. She peered up at him and found herself appreciating his muscular but lean physic. Her already flushed face deepened. She thought if he'd lived a normal life, he had the potential to be a great athlete, maybe a soccer player as he didn't really have the bulk for football but he did have amazingly agile movement and speed. She rarely got to see him without his signature hoodie, so it was a pleasant change. It seemed like he always went out of his way to conceal his body. Maybe the alcohol made him not care so much and the thought made her secretly long for more moments like this. An idea suddenly bloomed in her mind. "I'm a little bored with our usual game. How about, we play strip poker?"
"Strip poker?" he echoed with a raised eyebrow. "What's that?"
She smiled a little at his naïve, finding it to be kinda cute on him. Even she knew what strip poker was. "I'll show you how to play," she said, not giving him an explanation or the opportunity to decline.
The game soon ended and Rachel had lost this time. "I lost, so I have to take off an article of clothing." She explained, kicking off her boots and then taking another deep drink of the wine.
Zack suddenly paled, as if the name of the game suddenly clicked; The 'strip' in 'strip poker' meant striping off your clothes. "What the hell are you trying to pull, Ray?" he snapped angrily. "There's no way I'm playing this."
She ignored his outburst and re-dealt their hands despite his refusal. "Come on, don't be such a poor sport. You're always calling me the wimp," she smiled softly, but also teasingly. It seemed as if she'd been pulled her out of her foul mood all of a sudden. He admired her smile briefly, marveling at the rare occurrence, but then bitterly disregarded it.
"You were just complaining about being cold, now you want to take off your clothes?!" He reasoned incredulously.
"I'm not cold anymore," she shrugged.
He sat there for a solid minute and she look at him expectantly. He realized she was waiting for him to start playing and suddenly he was finding it harder and harder to stay mad. He muttered curses under his breath and picked up his cards despite the foreboding feeling in the pit of his stomach nagging at him.
A few games later, Rachel sat casually in her white sports bra and shorts while Zack was scowling at her, clad in only his boxers. It wasn't fair that he'd unknowingly given her his jacket before they started playing. She had an advantage, seeing as he started with two less articles of clothing to take off. His shirt, shoes, socks, and pants were now in a pile beside them along with his jacket she'd been wearing, her boots, socks, and her shirt. It wasn't looking good for him. Between the both of them, they'd drank over half the bottle as a result of losing. How did she even manage to drag him into this mess?
"Looks like you lost again, Zack." he heard Rachel say, bringing back from his mild stupor.
"I guess that means you won then," he pouted, looking a little put out. He threw in his cards, believing that they were finished playing strip poker. He quickly took his drink of the wine for losing. He was really beginning to feel the effects of the alcohol now and he was certain she was too. She'd gotten increasingly clumsy with the cards over the coarse of their games and he noticed a slight slur in her speech. Her face had become permanently flushed pink as she leaned in and poked him in the chest.
"You lost, you have to strip," she reminded him.
"Whoa, what?" he balked. Had his bandages not been concealing his face, she would have seen the flush of color in it. "But, I don't have anything else to take off."
"Well, there's still your underwear," she pointed out, somehow still managing to look so innocent as she glanced down at his said boxers.
He leaned away from her, obviously uncomfortable. "I ain't gonna get naked in front of you, Ray." He might have been pretty drunk, but he still wasn't that drunk. It was strange that he had to be the sensible one between the two of them this time when it was usually the other way around. Despite never really drinking his whole life, he still had a surprisingly high alcohol tolerance, as it turned out. He guessed it must've been just another perk of being so resilient to most things.
She appeared to contemplate for a moment. "Well, then... You could always just remove your bandages instead."
He hesitated, a sudden unease surfacing within him. He didn't need his bandages, his burns and wounds had long healed but... He wore them like a security blanket. Without them, he felt way too exposed. His jaw was tight and his fists had unconsciously balled into fists. He couldn't do that either; He'd never do that. He'd die first.
At some point during his panic attack, Rachel had crawled closer to him and cupped his face with a soft look in her eyes. He felt the immediate urge to pull away, yet he only flinched a little when he felt her cold fingers. Gently, he realized she was starting to pull away the bandages. He was incredibly tense. He instinctively wanted to shove her away from him, panic raising alarms in his head, but he didn't... he let her do as she pleased.
He watched her eyes roam over his features as they were revealed, feeling uneasy. His eyes didn't leave her, and he analyzed her every move searching for signs of shock, disgust or repulsion. He didn't find any, just a blank, yet somehow eager look. She continued to pull the wrapping from him, not stopping at his face. She loosened and pulled them from his chest, his arms, and his waist. He felt mildly violated and yet he continued to do nothing.
Venturing even further to the lower half of his torso, the brush of her small hands on his bare skin send pleasant shivers through his body and he realized it was getting a little too personal. His hand finally caught hers, his voice sounding a little off, "I'll do it." His eyes avoided hers all of a sudden, and she could tell he looked a little uncomfortable. She retrieved her hands bashfully, allowing him to reluctantly start removing the rest himself, letting them accumulate on the floor nearby.
He felt strangely self-conscious when they were completely gone, his severely damaged body bare for her to scrutinize. Her fingertips lightly turned his textured face to look at her, staring at him deeply. Her hand strayed from his cheek down his strong jawline and to his lightly muscled chest. His body had patches of smooth skin mixed with the badly scarred.
He turned away from her again, recoiling from her touch and pulling her hand away. "Satisfied yet?" he questioned dryly, though he actually hoped she wouldn't answer. He finally risked a glance at her. Her blue depths still held that strange, intense emotion but they soon strayed from his to investigate more of him. Even as he kept her hands in check from touching, it didn't stop her eyes from roaming.
Zack had scars on top of his scars, signifying all the abuse and injustice he'd endured throughout his life. She recognized a few of the extra marks, like the long scarred streak that stretched across his abdomen from when he hurt himself with his own scythe to spare her and the places he was shot by Cathy's mechanical guns. But there were plenty of healed wounds that she was unaware of. One in particular caught her interest, a deeply marred spot on his chest, very close to his heart, that she had no recollection to justify its presence. She lifted her hand to brush her fingers over it, despite his obvious distaste for touching. "Zack, what's this mark on your chest?"
Zack glanced down at the mark she was talking about. He looked as if he were contemplating not answering for a moment. "I tried to escape the orphanage once." He answered vaguely.
"You... didn't make it?" she shamelessly pressed for more information.
He sighed, realizing she wasn't going to drop it until she got the answers she wanted. "I got in trouble, so they took me outside and threw me into the yard. The headmaster had brought his rifle out with him. He told me, I had three seconds to run."
Three seconds? That was also how long Zack gave his victims to flee. She wondered if there was a connection, but remained quiet to allow him to continue. As she listened, she was tracing each of his scars with her fingers with feather-light touch, but he let it slide.
"So I ran. The thought of freedom was good motivation, but... The orphanage was pretty isolated and there was nothing but fields and woods for miles. I only made it to the fence that enclosed the yard before one of the bullets hit me. I don't remember much after that. I woke up the next day still in the yard, bleeding out. Somehow I picked myself up and carried on, but they were angry I was still alive and made me do extra chores. I was lucky that it went straight through, so there was no bullet to dig out, since I never got medical attention. I'm fairly certain his aim was only off because he was drunk. I honestly should have died... plenty of times." His face darkened. "I think, something in me did." Maybe he was referring to his humanity, or maybe his faith in people... his childhood or his hope to escape... Whatever it was that he lost, even if he hadn't died in that orphanage like all the other kids... The owners of that hellhole were the true murderers. A dark gleam had developed in his eyes but disappeared when he suddenly seemed to realize he was talking and revealing way too much. He'd never talked about that aloud before. Apparently he had developed diarrhea of the fucking mouth now. He should change the subject.
"What about you, Ray?" he suddenly wondered, drawing her attention away from his long-healed wounds that she was still weirdly ogling. He really was genuinely curious about her past, even though he already knew a little thanks to Dr. Danny's VHS tape he was forced to watch. He wanted to hear it all from her own mouth instead of some shitty tape though. It was only fair for her to spill her secrets too so that he'd feel better about unintentionally confiding in her.
She shrugged, unsure she had anything happen to her that could compare to his story. "My dad hit me with a beer bottle once," she recalled deep in thought. "Although, he meant to throw it at the wall and I just happened to get in the way. He was fighting with my mom, like always." She pulled the blonde hair from her forehead to reveal a small scar on the right side, just below her hairline." She looked bashful for a moment, likely the effects of alcohol. "That's... the worst that's ever happened, really. I don't have any more scars other than... where Dr. Danny shot me."
He grimaced at the mention of the incident, but quickly put it in the back of his mind. "Were your parents always like that?"
"No," She looked thoughtful for a moment. "I actually used to have normal parents, and we were a happy family once," she began. "But, something changed. My dad started heavily drinking and my parents fought a lot, to the point it eventually started getting physical. They were too busy hurting each other to acknowledge me at that point. I guess that's how I learned to adapt and deal with things on my own," she noted to herself. "Most days I only had myself to rely on. But then, one of my classmates found my private journal and turned it into the school. I had written bad things in it and had drawn pictures that disturbed my teachers and made other people uncomfortable. They discovered I was hurting small animals and sewing them back together. On top of fighting over money, my dad's drinking, their past affairs... my parents began to fight about me too, blaming each other for raising such a psychopath for a daughter."
Zack vaguely wondered if it would be more cruel to have experienced such happiness and lose it like she did... or be like him and to have never experienced happiness at all. "So you killed them?" Zack concluded, though it was more like an uncertain inquiry. He couldn't quite piece it all together. Back when Dr. Danny forced him to watch that tape about her, he really only got the gist of it... That she was a killer like him. He had been under too much pressure and distracted by the situation he’d been put in at the time to pay attention to everything on the tape.
She hesitated, recalling that night. "Actually, I witnessed my father murdering my mother one night in a drunken rage. Then, he came for me afterwards. I killed him with my mother's gun in self-defense."
"So that’s when you sewed them up, and the police eventually found you and their bodies. That's why you started seeing Dr. Danny," Zack was able to piece the rest of the puzzle together on his own from there.
She nodded. "My parents blamed each other for my behavior but it wasn't their fault, it's mine... I chose to do the things I did." Her hands balled into fists and she felt on the verge of tears, "Maybe if I hadn't acted out, then..."
Zack placed a hesitant hand on her shoulder but didn't say anything, and it made her worry what he must have been thinking. The first time she killed someone was self-defense. But she'd killed a lot more people since then, and she wasn't proud of what she'd done. She was older now and knew the full weight of her actions. She knew now that the sins and crimes she committed were horrible and unforgivable. It ate away at her everyday and that's why... she needed to pay for what she'd done by losing her life. It was only fair she give up the thing that she took from others. Every day she put on a brave face to conceal the numbing pain or what she was feeling. She was growing tired of hiding behind a blank mask. Why couldn't Zack just put her out of her misery already? If she wasn't so boring and useless, he'd probably have done it by now. She just couldn't muster the courage to take down her facade long enough for him to do it, though the longer days wore on, she could feel her control and emotional restraint wearing thin.
In attempt to calm her nerves, she scooped up the bottle from where it'd been abandoned on the floor nearby. Zack suddenly noticed Rachel was about to polish off the rest. He thought about stopping her but decided it was a battle he'd already lost. She drank as much as she could until the bottle was emptied. She finally removed the bottle from her lips and gasped for air when she finished chugging. She didn't know why she suddenly felt like drinking when alcohol was the very thing that tore her family apart... Maybe she craved more of the chaos and pain it caused. She deserved it, after all.