Jagged Edges
It's blood that motivates him, and you can tell, you can see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice and taste it on his lips. It's in his genes, he tells you; the blood of a ravenous beast, it flows through his veins, it encompasses his entire being. He tells you this with a wolf's smile, with a laugh that's guttural and low and cold, all kinds of uncomfortable ways to back up his statement. His spirit, it was haunting. It was spit-fire, embodied.
It was admirable.
You once knew a man so dangerous and so finite that he might have been carved out of steel. He had edges that cut, they were jagged and unwelcoming, and you'd nicked your fingers more than enough times when you'd gotten too close. There was no doubt in your mind that what coiled beneath that skin was anything less than hazardous to your health. He had fangs; sharp and laden with poison. You longed to be like him. You strove to be like him.
That's not to say you wandered aimlessly, dwarfed by him, shadowed by him. The two of you were equals, at the least, a constant give and take, a push and pull. Tug of war. You don't know when that line started shifting. When push started twisting to shove, when it wasn't about friendship and keeping alive; it was blood and scars and war. He might have argued that it had been there all along. Just went to show that he didn't know everything.
But he was always one step ahead of the game. A step ahead of everyone, a step ahead of you. You never asked him what he was thinking; but then again maybe you were too afraid to hear the answers. He just had these plans, these outrageous ideas, these... false senses of reality. When one had a skewed perception of those around them, sometimes that started to seep into the pores, get really ingrained into one's system.
You don't know why he kept you up on that pedestal, that trophy shelf. You were human enough - you bled like one, you fucked like one. Broke like one. You didn't ask to be put there. You didn't want to be put there.
Maybe he just got lost up on those clouds. He'd stand and he'd stare and the rain might've hit his skin like any other person but you weren't sure how aware of it he was. It took nudges, pokes and prods, had to tug him back into the real world sometimes. Had to drag him, kicking and screaming.
Mary O'Donnell, after all, had not been earning her keep. Mary O'Donnell had been dealing under the table, and Mary O'Donnell had attracted quite a bit of unnecessary attention, wasted quite a bit of unnecessary funding. The syndicate was, first and foremost, a well-oiled machine, and a financially rounded one, at that. Syndicates existed to make money, so everyone said and so everyone was rather fond of believing.
He didn't have to tap the kids too. That wasn't part of the plan.
By the time you'd gotten your arm around him, started screaming his name to get him back into present day, back into that real world, there were more problems on your hands. If Mary O'Donnell had attracted quite a bit of unnecessary attention, a couple of four-foot coffins were certainly going to follow suit.
Three and seven, so you'd heard. Jesus. Barely enough time to let their balls drop. But you didn't come back from a slit throat, not as a general rule. "Finish the job," he kept muttering at times like this, and you worried, you cared so deeply for this cracked soul, this goddamn freak of nature with blood staining his fangs, with red encrusted around the outline of his face and getting tangled into his hair.
He was laughing by the time you'd started dragging him out of there, by the scruff of the neck, by the back of his jacket, so much pent up and boiling under his skin that you didn't think anything would bring him down, at times like these. You leave him in that bed, and you're pretty sure he didn't notice the cigarette you manually put between his lips after, just sat for a while and watched the paper burn and curl, sift onto the sheets in a flurry of forgotten ash.
You admired him. You looked up to him, you cared for him, wouldn't dare to say you loved him, but that might've been on the pile too. It didn't mean he didn't scare the hell out of you.
It's four hours later when he finally emerges again, hair still damp from the shower, smelling vaguely like soap and smoke, but anything's better than copper. You're midway through burning dinner. Grilled cheese sandwiches, like you're eight again. Like you want to succumb to your naivety, just for a little while.
"Thank you," is all he offers in return. He's only clad in green flannel pants and not much else. A sad, lonely drop of water runs from his hair and down his bare chest, sluices downward, and you almost watch it, but you're burning the sandwiches. You always ruin this.
You make a noncommittal noise in return, around your cigarette, flipping the sandwiches another time. Practically charred. Just like always. You guess you lose yourself, forget what you're doing for long enough that you can't even make a damn sandwich right. You pluck the cigarette from your mouth, mashing it out in a makeshift ashtray, a discarded beer can. Of course you forgive him. You always forgive him.
"Don't do it again," you reply after a long pause, shoveling the sandwiches onto a curled paper plate on the counter. A fruitless effort; you know his nod of assent means nothing. But it's worth the try.
Even you can't cage a ravenous beast with your bare fucking hands.