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Tony Redgrave sits at the bar, staring at the empty bottles lined up sloppily in front of him. His finger trails the wet rim of the shot glass, drawing out a long, low note that shivers against his skin.
He is 15, and today is his birthday (and something someone your soul is missing) At least he thinks it might be. It's hard, remembering things. Ever since.
Well.
It's hard remembering things.
Around him the bar dips and sways, the low background murmur of real, living humans a comforting buzz in his ear. Noise, he's learned, is good. Chases away the ghosts rattling around his skull. He waves his hand in the vague direction of the bartender, who to his credit hesitates a moment before sliding another bottle his way.
He'd saved someone during the hunt today. A boy, little younger than him, eyes still too big to see the things he'd seen (hadn't even seen him couldn't see him just saw a little closet lit by a single shaft of light the same one you see every time you smell smoke on the wind)
Thought it might make him feel something. Pride, maybe? Satisfaction? Justice well served?
Something.
He pours himself a drink, mesmerised by the way it glitters amber gold in the dim light. It's fine. Maybe if he drinks enough whiskey. He likes the way it burns, the way it spreads a cold warmth through his veins, from the tingling in his scalp to the itching in his feet. The way it makes him feel. Anything
(a live)
Another wave, another bottle. The bartender frowns. Tony flips him off.
He likes this place too, sanctimonious jackasses and all. He likes that they know enough not to ask enough, that they keep the jobs coming steady and the liquor flowing freely. Likes that they don't ask him how old he is or how much he can handle (more than you should but less than you pretend)
.
Night wears on and little by little the bar empties out. Seems even dives like this sleep eventually – not everyone is blessed with a superhuman (inhuman subhuman) constitution. The people leave, the chatter leaves with them, and silence drives an ice pick into base of his skull.
His body is burning.
Lately he's been feeling all wrong, trapped inside his own skin and desperate to claw it off (did it once peeled it all off like a lizard but there'd been only bone and sinew where there should've been scales) He's not drunk enough for this. There's not enough booze in all the world to drown it out but he tries anyway, night after night after night after night after-
The sound of nails tapping glass breaks him from his train of thought. A woman leans against the table, all calculated disinterest as she studies the bottle in her slender hands. He latches onto the distraction and swallows the scream in his throat.
.
She calls herself Scarlett. It's not her husky voice, her smokey eyes, her glossy lips that catch his eye. It's not even the black blouse cut almost to her navel that sets his heart skipping, or the blood red push-up bra that has her full breasts threatening to spill over.
Oh no.
It's her hair, hanging long and golden down to kiss the small of her back. He remembers the scent of roses, a sun-kissed garden filled with love, and his heart is an old and aching wound. It's enough that when she takes his hand and leads him out the back door and down some dingy alleyway he can't help but follow, chasing the fading memories of someone singing lullabies into his (our there were two of us together always together) hair.
But then her hands are on his body and the melody warps an d sP.LI TS a nd
s
h
a
t
t
e
r
s
.
Buzzzinggg filllls hhhhis eaarrrssss
ssssssssstatic in sssspaccce
.
It's a little like drowning.
He's done it before of course. Didn't die (can't die doesn't matter what you try can't even do that right fucking pathetic) but he'd felt the water fill his ears and flood his lungs, his limbs at once too heavy to move and too light to control.
.
He floats on the edge of consciousness, a stranger in his brain and him outside with no invite to the party. If he concentrates he can watch it playing out below him. Scarlett pushing Tony against the wall. Her kissing him. The stranger in his head kissing her, clumsy and sloppy with inexperience. Nausea churns in his gut. He wants to run away.
And why not? Just hand the wheel over to whoever's driving this thing and find that garden again, the grass green and warmed by the sun. He can feel it tickling the back of his knees, the gentle rustle of wind in his hair. It's more real than anything happening to him now, but he knows if he stays there he'll never get out. There's something (someone) important waiting for him, some memory he has to find. A reason for it all. If only he could remember what it was
(you can't forget not ever not again REMEMBER WHY WON'T YOU )
He crashes back into Tony's skull, and when he does it's to Scarlett pulling at his hair, her mouth hot and wet against his. It's. Nice? He guesses? It's not -
It's fine.
Her hands are trailing further now down his stomach, brushing the snowy dusting of hair that has yet to thicken into any real growth. She raises an eyebrow. “Eighteen, huh?”
He shrugs.
Something flickers across her face, some internal war that vanishes as quick as it arrived. And then Scarlett's scarlet stiletto sharp nails are working at his belt. Some dark part of him longs for her to (rip you tear you gut you with one slice feed on your beating heart) get a little rough.
It isn't human, this hunger (neither are you)
She is though, and her touch is light and her hands are soft (too soft) and then she's sucking him off and it's. Well. It's better. It's not mind blowing. It's not special. But it makes his head feel fuzzy almost as good as the whiskey, so he (wants to break her neck to gouge her pretty blue eyes out drive a sword through her cunt and) buries a hand in her hair and lets it happen. It'll pass the time. His gaze slips past her, past the steady bob of her golden head and the concrete and dirt and down, down, down past bones and corpses and red red blood on the green green grass and-
The stranger tries to slip back in, but he shakes his head, rakes a hand through his hair. Focus.
He turns his head away and catches a a glimpse of his reflection in a broken window and
(is that?)
Stops.
His hair is sweat-slicked back away from his eyes, drawing attention to the sharp cut of his cheekbones, the crease in his brow. He doesn't know what he sees but it feels. Familiar.
Memories stir in his head of a mirror distorted, of white hair brushed back but it's not his, he keeps his long and shaggy and wild, wild because he never did, always insisted on keeping it up because it made him look older sterner colder different different the only difference between them-
He jerks back, slamming his head against the brickwork. Scarlett falls at his feet with a shriek, tears and semen smeared across her face. There is a clump of bloodied yellow hair in his fist and as he stares at it his skin begins to crawl and burn (wings there should be wings vast and black as the night and burning with hellfire) She is sobbing but he cannot hear her over the buzzing in his head as it grows to a dull roar, a thousand locusts swarming in his skull. He runs his tongue along his (fangs as sharp and long as knives) blunt teeth, feels them itch in their gums.
She scrabbles away from him, the stink of lust now a heady scent of fear. He reaches out, grabs a fist full of that pretty yellow hair and
.
.
.
When he comes back to his senses he's alone in the alleyway. A pale morning light crawls across the floor, catching on broken glass and setting it aflame. Someone nearby must be smoking - the smell hits him sharp and acrid, stinging his eyes.
He blinks.
There is
splattered against the wall and
his hands and
and
his mouth he
taste it he can oh fuck he can
fuckfuckfuckfuckfu
He swallows, feels something slide thick and slippery down his throat, and tries not to scream.
It might not be-
maybe she-
what did he-
Dante runs, the stench of burning flesh choking his lungs.