Work Text:
awake.
room full of light / nobody in it / clean walls clean sheets no blood no familiar smell (copper, salt, rot) instead sickly-sweet (flowers? honey?) and something artificial that rasps (bleach, citrus.) traffic outside, dull roar / a sound that eventually resolves itself into language
“Bart?”
tv a good size to swing and smash against a skull / plastic knife with the cutlery on the mini-fridge should be strong enough to get through a throat / glass lamp on the bedside table would shatter well / use the string hanging from the blinds as a garrotte oh hang on it's him
Him
cuts a strange shape out against the world this one for all that he's the usual pressure-patterns of fear and hope and panic and fear and fear and fear, sweat / rapid pulse / darting eyes, there's something about him anyway, Universe Says
put down the lamp unready the strike, like unloading a gun like blunting a sword, unnatural direction, entropy reversing
“Bart?”
much made of that syllable, the name-sound, there's been a few but they all wash off, same as blood same as bruises
summon the sawblade in the throat force out the sound
“What?”
“Can I come in?”
“Yeah.”
in he comes, body and limbs all twisted up with fear and his dark eyes seeking something / wanting something / needing something, it's an odd kind of work she has to do around him, to remember her own edges, to try to form a shape in the world that communicates. bare the teeth like this is threat, bare the teeth like this is kindness, bare the teeth like this sometimes, just sometimes, makes them laugh. the hair must be pushed out of the face. he gets scared if he can't see her.
he's got his hand over his eyes while she's thinking all this. she is thinking a lot, a lot of words grinding through. clouds / cotton wool fingertips / gauze across her eyes / muck on the windscreen. already fidgety, already been still too long. the obstacle in the room, panicking with his back against the door despite no weapon at his throat, no violence to speak of. staring.
“Bart I asked if I could come in.” that's the stringy sound that his voice does when she kills.
“You did come in.”
“You're naked.”
long stare. hate this, hate the borders of the flesh, the weight of wielding this body against anyone not about to die. suffocating the same way words are / the same way speech is / the endless intricacies of the baring of the teeth.
“So what?”
“You don't care about me seeing you naked?” his eyes on her now almost the same way they were when she killed the biker. “Where are your clothes?”
raise the shoulders, hold them there, let them go. “Give me your clothes if it's a problem.” people are always moving for no reason, talking for no reason, acting for no reason. he makes her be people. she hates being people. feeling the rewiring, feeling the short-circuiting as power's drawn from the essential (blood / breath / muscle / kill)
“Then I'd be naked.”
“I seen bodies before.”
“Not mine.”
“You're not dead yet.”
he flinches and she stares a little longer.
“You know that sounds like a threat, right?”
shoulders up, shoulders down. “I don't make threats. Why tell someone you're gonna kill em? They'll be dead either way.”
what she hates is that there is a long white fluffy robe on the bed and she is putting it on and making sure it covers her. what she hates is looking at her own self from the outside while she's inside it. what she hates is that her skin makes a line between her and the universe, that he is looking at that line and seeing something separate from the rest of everything. that what she is has a shape and a name and a set of expectations.
“Hey, what's wrong with you?”
“What?” he always seems to be trying to catch his balance.
“You're scared. Scared of me killing you, scared of me killing other people, scared of dying. You're still here. I see a lotta scared people. They wanna run. I stop 'em. I haven't stopped you. What gives?”
“I don't know.” his eyes are on the ground again. thinks too much. too locked inside his own self. if the dressing gown is a dotted line between her and the universe, his has a brick wall, a steel gate. she gets closer to him. what does he do in there all day, locked inside his own body, staring through the bars at the object he's made of himself?
“Bart, what are you doing?”
it's unfamiliar, touching a body slow, no weapon no reaching to kill, searching not for arteries or bones to snap but something else. his limbs go brittle and his breath strangles out of his throat. soft skin, blood drumming under the surface.
“You don't gotta be like that,” she tries to tell him, but the telling is in her hands, really, rough swipes of her hands down his shoulders and across his chest, chasing the rigidity out. clumsy as the words are, really. “You don't gotta think so much. Slows you down. Seals you off from what's real.”
“This is weird -”
“Shut up. Stop thinking. Wake up.”
“Is this like meditation or some- ”
The strike is effortless, precise – the crack of her hand across his face rings in the air like a bell, residual sting on her palm. feels real. his body flinches but it's twice more she hits him before he moves, really moves, and for a second there's nothing in the room but chaos. when it settles he's holding her wrist above her head and her lips are pulling back from her teeth, not to threaten. he lets her go like he's pulling his hand out of a fire and the walls are back up.
“I knew you could do it.”
“Could what?”
“Tell the truth.”
time to go. ground to cover, blood to spill, chaos singing in her ear.
“Where are you going?”
“Work to do.”
the door slams shut behind her but he'll be along soon enough, she knows that for certain now – knows it like she knows the target is ahead. knows she is in perfect harmony with the universe, that it has folded around her like this fluffy white dressing gown, and that it has sent her a Friend.
in each mirror along the hotel corridor, bart sees someone bare their teeth, and knows what it means.