FIC: Mirror!Pinto Chapter 4g

Nov 02, 2010 16:30

MIRROR!PINTO SERIES: Dark Desires
CHAPTER 4g: Karl - The Fugitive or I am become Death Part g

Summary for Chapter 4: Chris gets a new assignment: hunting down a man named Karl Urban. He is hesitant to accept it, because Karl is an important part of Chris' own past. What will happen when Karl realizes someone is after him? And what when Zach finds out Chris and Karl were lovers once? Plus, there is someone who really wants Karl dead - will Chris follow this order?
Rating: Explicit/NC-17
Warnings: language, heavy angst, violence
Word Count: ~ 2.100
Disclaimer: I neither own nor know ZQ or CP, this is merely a work of fiction. Nothing in this is meant to be an insult, I only play with them a little.
Betaed by my mirror!beta wolfhaton, thank you so much bb! Any remaining mistakes are mine, especially since English is not my native tongue.
More notes etc. can be found in the previous parts.

Series Masterpost with all previous and following chapters and summaries for all parts.
FANMIX byangelrox040  is here.

How they met Karl: The Fugitive or I am become Death - Chapter 4g

Now

Karl can’t move, can’t look away, can’t even breathe as he stares at the figure in the doorway. In the long moments while Chris is frozen and simply looks at them, at Karl, at Zach trembling beneath him, Karl can only stare, heart beating in his throat. Chris. Chris.

He got a glimpse of Chris earlier, in the backstreet behind that fucking club, but now, in the harsh light spilling from the outside he can see him properly for the first time. Chris looks… different.

Chris is no longer the sunny golden boy with the open face, who blushed and ducked his head when Karl asked him out for the first time, who had a ready smile for everyone and whose eyes glowed when they looked at Karl. The man standing there doesn’t smile, his eyes are cold as steel, his grip on the gun doesn’t waver. Faint lines around Chris’ mouth and eyes belie the things he’s done, penetrating eyes, still so blue but somehow less… bright, speak of all the evilness he’s had to see. Chris looks serious, grave, he looks older now. And he looks dangerous. Lethal.

Karl remembers sunny smiles and happy laughter, he looks at Chris and his heart is heavy. His ex-lover doesn’t smile at him now. Karl thinks about wide blue eyes that watched him with anguish and resignation while he put the handcuffs around Chris’ wrists, he remembers about a slender figure with slumped shoulders in a dark cell, he thinks about a man with a hard face and hard eyes walking back out of prison months later. He looks at Chris, not his Chris anymore, almost a stranger now, and wants to weep.

He remembers the last time they saw each other, back then, after Natalie and the kids were taken from him, when Chris had found him, and he knows the man his Chris has become today is his fault, too. The man looking at him in fury, murder in his eyes, the man who’s pointing a gun at him. The man sent to kill him.

Then

Gone, they are gone. Natalie, the kids.... Taken from him, killed. Murdered. Gone.

He sits in a corner of the hut he’s fled to, one hand clamped around the bottle and tries to breathe. He feels as if he were underwater, weighted down by guilt and grief, he can’t move, can’t breathe, there’s no air left in the room, in his lungs. They are gone.

Karl Urban, no longer a husband, no longer a father, sits there and is drowning. No more smiles and laughter, no more lazy mornings spend in bed, with Hunter making them breakfast and carefully carrying the tray in while Indy brings his favorite puzzle for them all to work on. No more picnics in the park, playing Frisbee and stealing kisses from his girl who laughs and shoves him away, scolds him for getting grass stains on her clothes and kisses him back when he pretends to pout. No more, nothing left, never again. He’s alone now, alone.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, trying to drown himself in the bottle, trying to forget white faces and empty eyes, that horrible phone call. When he found out de Luca had taken his family, taken everything, when he realised it was his doing, his fault, if he’d never went after de Luca, if he’d never heard about the man, if he’d just accepted the bribes like his colleagues did, if he only had… his fault, his goddamn fault.

The alcohol burns a path down his throat, his stomach turns and rebels, but Karl barely notices. They are dead, why should he feel anything? Sickness, pain, anger, nothing matters anymore. He’s dead, too.

The sinking sun makes the bottle appear orange, the liquid inside red as blood, and Karl feels bile rising in his throat. He throws it across the room, it shatters against the opposite wall, and he buries his face in his hands and whimpers. They are gone.

He doesn’t hear the door open, doesn’t hear soft steps coming towards him. He barely notices when someone touches him, hauls him up and maneuvers him over onto the bed. He ignores the hands pulling his outer clothes off, draping the blanket across him, doesn’t open his eyes when warm fingers card through his hair. He buries his face into the dusty comforter, smelling faintly of mothballs, and cries until darkness claims him.

When he wakes up Chris is watching him.

Sitting in the armchair, hands stapled, a sombre look on his face and looking at him. Karl stares back, expressionless. His head hurts, his face feels numb. His heart feels numb. Chris watches him, and Karl stares back. He doesn’t even have the energy to ask Chris why he’s here.

Chris cocks his head at him. “Welcome back.”

Karl says nothing.

“Do you want to know how I found you?”

He doesn’t answer. Why should he care? He turns his head away. There’s a spider’s web in the corner, looks like it has been there a while. It’s dusty, though, apparently deserted. No spider there to collect the flies still stuck to the strands.

Chris clears his throat. He fidgets a little, Karl can see it out of the corner of his eye. “I came as soon as I heard. Karl, I’m so sorry.”

I’m so sorry. He’s heard these words a lot during the last few days, during the funeral, after he’d watched dark earth rain down onto the coffins, a big one and two smaller ones. Meaningless words told by people who have no idea how he feels, who give some random empty phrase to make themselves feel better, not because they really are sorry. Not one of them has even the slightest idea how it’s like, the grief, the guilt, knowing it was you that caused this, that it was your own fault. And you’re sorry, so sorry, you wish you could turn back time and fix it, make everything alright again, but you can’t. Karl chokes on a sob, they are gone, forever, he’s alone, and it’s all his fault, if he’d never gone after de Luca, if he’d just, and he’s sorry, so sorry.

“Karl? Can you hear me? I’m here, okay? I want to help you, I know what you are going through, and I want to help you any way I can.”

And suddenly Karl is angry. No, no, Chris doesn’t know what he’s going through, because he hasn’t had his heart ripped from his chest, he hasn’t been torn to shreds, he’s still breathing and feeling and warm, he’s still alive, and they are not. They are not, and how dare Chris tell him he knows what he’s going through?!

Karl barely feels it when his fists hit Chris’ face. His anger nearly blinds him, it burns white-hot and bright, he hits Chris again and again, easily dodging the other’s defensive blows or, if they connect, he doesn’t notice. He pummels him mercilessy, relentlessy, without pause or break or hesitation, barely hears the gasps and moans and screams, barely sees the blood staining his fists now, in his ears is screaming a faint voice. The voice sounds vaguely familiar, yells insults and promises, calls for Natalie and Hunter and Indy, calls for de Luca and promises him he’ll pay. There’s another voice, too, crying and pleading for him to stop, but Karl doesn’t stop. He doesn’t.

Not until the body beneath him has stopped moving, until Chris is lying there silently, eyes closed, face splattered with crimson blood over pale pale skin, and he doesn’t even make it to the bathroom before he retches, again and again, throws up violently and curls into a ball and weeps.
He wakes up with a crystal clear head. He barely glances towards the body lying on the floor, spares merely a glimpse to see if Chris’ chest is moving. When Karl sees the other is breathing he turns away and walks towards the door. He knows what to do now, he sees it clearly. De Luca took everything from him, and now it’s Karl’s turn. Time to return the favour, time to make his family’s murderer pay. Time for revenge.

Karl closes a hand around the gold locket hanging from his neck and breathes in deeply. His lungs fill and expand; he can breathe again, now that he has a purpose.

He opens the door and steps out into the sunrise.

Now

Karl remembers the last time he saw Chris, back then, when the other found him and wanted to help him, and he remembers his fists hitting soft flesh, he remembers washing blood from his hands and arms and face. He looks at his ex-lover, remembers what he did to him, looks at the gun pointed at his head, Chris’ angry blue eyes, and his heart is heavy, so heavy. He feels like he’s drowning again, lonely and alone, and Chris’ eyes flicker to Zach’s form briefly before he focuses back on Karl and steps closer.

“What have you done to him?!”

Karl closes his eyes. It’s over, this is the end. Chris will kill him, will end his life right here and now, and Karl doesn’t mind. He’s tired. He wants to sleep, finally sleep. Natalie and Hunter and Indy are waiting for him and he longs to see them again. He’s ready.

He opens his eyes again and looks at Chris. The other has taken another step towards him, closer to the bed, to Zach who is uncurling slowly after he has heard the sound of his Chris’ voice. To his lover, and Karl stands there alone.

“Do it, Chris. Kill me. That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? Do it, pull the trigger. Please, just do it, I want it to be over, I’m so tired. Chris, please, I want it, kill me, let me see them again, do it, shoot me…”

He’s begging now, Karl’s begging, and he doesn’t care, doesn’t mind doing it, not if this will get Chris to do what Karl wants, what he needs. But Chris is looking at him, blue eyes wide and brighter than before and then he drops the gun onto the bed. Suddenly his arms are around Karl and Chris is hugging him tight.

He’s pressed against Chris’ chest, feels soft hair against his cheek, wetness against his neck, Chris is clinging to him, murmurs “no” and “Karl” and “never”, tells him he’d never kill him, he won’t, never. Karl wraps hesitant arms around Chris, squeezes him closer, buries his nose in soft hair, breathes in the other’s clean smell and feels wetness on his own cheeks.

Then Chris pulls back, looks at him from impossibly blue eyes, he’s crying and smiling, and Karl feels a tug at his heart - this is the Chris he remembers, the Chris he fell in love with. Karl tries a smile, and Chris’ eyes are bright as he looks at him. Karl clears his throat and keeps his hands around Chris shoulders, looks at him and smiles.

“I missed you, Karl,” Chris’ voice sounds rough, but he’s smiling, a bit shy and sad, and Karl thinks he looks beautiful. He ruffles the kid’s hair with one hand and Chris blushes slightly. God, Karl has missed him, too. He’s just opening his mouth to tell him when a sound from the vicinity of the bed interrupts them. A gun cocking.

Both Karl and Chris flinch in surprise - Zach. They forgot Zach. They turn, and Zach is there, kneeling on the bed, eyes wide and dry, but oh so hurt. He’s shivering slightly, but his right hand grips Chris’ gun tightly in white-knuckled fingers.

“So it’s like that.” He says, voice soft and dull, and Karl cringes at the anguish in his face. Next to him Chris raises a hesitant hand towards his lover, but Zach shakes his head slowly.

“I should have known better.” Zach laughs suddenly, a harsh sound in the deadly silence of the room. Chris jerks and lets his hand fall, and Karl doesn’t dare to move. “But I really believed it was different this time.”

Zach smiles, twisted and ugly, then takes a deep breath and looks at Karl. He recoils from the fire in the dark eyes watching him and swallows around the lump in his throat. Neither Karl nor Chris dare say a word, not with Zach looking at them like that.

“I thought you were different, Chris, I thought we were different. I guess I was wrong, wasn’t I? Deathly wrong.”

And Zach raises the gun and points it straight at Karl’s head. His grip doesn’t waver, his face is serious and resolved, his eyes hard and burning, and Karl feels his stomach drop.

Chapter 4h is here.

(AN: this is where I would have stopped if wolfhaton hadn't gone on holiday. Aren't you glad she left? This way no epic cliffhanger, you can read right on at the next part... ;-P)

pairing: chris/zach, series: dark desires, mirror!pinto, fic, fandom: rps (star trek reboot)

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