LET'S KILL TONIGHT !

‘     who the fuck told you  that  ?    oh,   wait,   let me guess   —   that’s one of the valuable life lessons you got while you were all shacked up with that sack of meat,   right ?    here’s a newsflash for you  :  normal doesn’t exist.    and even if it did,   we’re not it.    jesus christ,   you disappear for a few months and come back talking like they gave you a fucking  lobotomy.    what the hell’s gotten into you ?     ’

anger,   where he has no right to feel anger.    bitterness over things that he wasn’t there to witness.    he’s possessive in a roiling wave,   all resentment and teeth and corrosion  ;  why ?

because she left.

attachment isn’t love,   but it’s probably the closest he’ll get.

‘     whatever.    you wanna go play house,   fine.    be my fucking guest.    just don’t come crying to me the next time you’re choking down some half - rotted stiff ‘cause all of a sudden you’re too  good  to do this  right.     ’

                    ‘ mr. campbell. ’ pencil drops on desk, lean back in leather chair— appears thoughtful before indifferent, the only indication of disapproval being the twitch of his mouth. ‘ you didn’t stop by my office hours. considering your performance on last week’s quiz, i thought you might have seen it fit to be in your best interest. ’  [ @deadhunger ].

      he talks; she continues.   it is cyclical, this bait and intent and bad, bad blood.   in the past she has had the mind to bare teeth, a small, plain thing that had worked its prescient wonders on many others   ——  the lesser monsters that collected around their mutual acquaintance.   but it had become all too clear that without any weight to what she truly was, without a name to it, julian could not sway at a threat alone.   not from her.   but, from alexander   ——

      it takes a second, maybe one too many, to click in the number.   blood smeared over the touchscreen makes it all the more difficult, as if somehow nobody had planned for that in the design.   but the second attempt has her hitting call and as the phone rises to her ear.   her free hand comes up with it, outstretched between them like a barrier, like she is shushing a child, and the white cast of her gaze meets his as the phone starts to ring.   the crooked turn of bow lips is the closest she has come to a smile, thought still a far cry from it.   ‘   let’s find out, yes?   ’

‘     let’s  not.    let’s not and say we did.    gimme the   —     ’     he makes a grab for the phone,   at first without standing and then a second time utilizing his full height.    a good fifteen inches above her,   if he took a second to do the math.    ends the call with a press of his thumb,   device held well out of reach,   eyes glinting.    the surrounding air  reeks,   heavily metallic,   like iron  ;  distracting,   just not so much that it wavers his smile.

gaze flickers greedily toward the blood on her hands,   lingers for a beat before he’s reining it in.

      it isn’t as though there is no consideration put to reprisal.   taking a snap at him, physically or otherwise; it suits the room, that violence.   but the colour of his flippant disregard is specific, it fractures in the light, and raynne has come to know the flare of an argument she is never equipped to win.  words suit her ill; violence is too pleasant between them still.

      so, as her palm itches, stained fingers pulling free of her work, a pause settles.  short lived though, the turn of her attention back on him comes with an uncanny wash of her tone, velvet as ever, bereft of cutting thorns.   though slick with gore still, her hand makes a grab at the pocket of a jacket, slipping the sleek line of her phone into a palm.   a gentle rock backwards takes the girl a step away from him as she transfers her gaze down to tap out a number.   ‘   well, it would be arguably easier to ask him, so   ——   ’

in hindsight,   he really doesn’t know what he expected.    maybe it’s her tone that threw him off   —   something deceptively smooth,   like the surface of a swamp,   and lacking the dry vitriol that usually comes standard.    it makes him  hungry,   and that’s never a good thing.    then she’s drawing back,   issuing a threat with easy composure and prompting the slow spread of a devious grin.    well played  ;  he’ll give her that.

      ‘   mhm.   ’   it’s flat; if she believes him, it does not show there.  she’ll let him talk though, fill the space with something other than the heady tone of copper he has drenched the world in, while she settles into preoccupied silence.   nothing new, but for now it’s a tactic   ——  something to clamp her jaws around.   it sets her teeth on edge, this sort of thing, the white heat in the back of her throat, all want and want and want.   but this isn’t her night.

      ‘   did you ever ask him.   ’   rattled off with all the tact of a broken bike chain, the girl doesn’t even look up from where she now crouches   ——  sleeves cuffed, hands busy.  for now it’s the mundane work of pulling all the bits back together.   ‘   or are you asking on the bet that i will tell you more?   ’

‘     would you believe me if i said you’re the better conversationalist ?     ’     that’s not an answer.    he’s surprised that he made it this far,   without raynne putting his head through a wall just on  principle.    the curiosity,   though,   is genuine  :  unrefined and grating,   but genuine.

she probably  won’t  tell him more.    won’t tell him much of anything,   and that might deter someone with even a sliver of common sense.    he falls pretty short of that category.

change pronouns as desired.

' no matter what, we fuck stuff up together. '

' you know what you're good at? being my bitch, because that's what you are. '

' i fucking love kites, in the fucking sky with all the fucking clouds. '

' negotiations went down so i just hit him on the head with the shovel. '

' are you high? '

' i love coffee. i mean, think about it, it's a bean that you drink. '

' you've killed twice as many people as i have. '

' take it from me, i was a monster in elementary school. '

' suck my fucking dick. '

' men can kill too. '

' did you also kill the man in our downstairs freezer? '

' we've already established that we aren't considerate people. '

' fucking dogs. they're the greatest. '

' i made killing seem normal but it's so not normal. '

' you never know when your neighbor will kill you with a shovel. '

' hey, murderers, let's go to the beach. '

' we are such assholes. '

' we've made a lot of mistakes as parents but we've never taken our kid to a murder. i think we should hold firm on that. '

' i'm so sorry, but i don't give a fuck about your problems. '

' i'm so glad we were going to stab you in the brain, we have so much in common. '

' sure, i did karate as a kid. '

' we've met twice and both times i was trying to kill you. '

' 1... 2... and i'll just put it right here. that's good. '

' it wasn't easy. i puked twice. also i think we should throw out the pasta maker. '

' what's with the door, man? you totally fucked up our door! '

' we have to kill him, we have no other choice. '

' at least we'll die together. '

' maybe i'll just have sex with my socks on. '

' get ready to have the opposite of what a boner is. '

' the fuck is that? '

' you don't have to sexualize everything. '

' hey, it can happen to any-- well, anybody is probably too broad of a category when talking about murdering someone with a shovel. '

' i refused to be defined by the one time i murdered someone. '

' he kept pushing me and pushing me and i just snapped. '

' the secret is i don't give a shit. '

' check it out, i got a churro saber. '

' nice job blending in, you handsome good-haired son of a bitch. '

' what are you saying, you're dying? '

' maybe we're both different people now. '

' kanye says never to apologize for your creative choices. '

' i get to make an elderly woman throw up in a bucket which might be somebody's turn on but it's not my thing. '

' you attacked me for not being emotionally available, imagine what you'd do to a cop! '

      victory, or dare near enough.   a small thing, certainly, but it is an easy balm to her temper for the time being.   the glacial edge of her attention peels away from him and goes once more over the space, over all the work yet in front of her.   tonight the beast has little stomach for charity, and it takes a bow of her head and a steady inhale to remember that this is the product of a promise.   alexander had asked, after a manner, and that was enough.   but the crooked bend of her aggression does not abate so easily, and as the girl pulls farther away that low voice rises again.   ‘   how do you get into these messes?   ’   teeth click, sharply. 

      she stops.   grinds to a halt, pulled into quiet stillness by the bravado of it all  —   the assurance.   it shouldn’t rise as shock from her, really.   after all, there is some notion of how she appears to… everyone else.   to the rest of the crowd, the company that seems to trickle around each other in steady circles.   perhaps she’ll blame someone else later; for now   —

      ‘   choose; i finish cleaning up this mess and you leave, or you keep talking and it’s all yours to manage.   ’

‘     keep your panties on.    or don’t.   either way’s   —     ’     her stare could be weaponized and sold on the black market for millions.    if she keeps at it much longer,   it might eat a hole straight through his head and out the other side.    decidedly tempting,   he can imagine,   and he’s  not laughing  by willpower alone.    she’s on alexander’s payroll,   after all  ;  or he can only assume she is,   but it occurs to him that he really has no idea  how  the relationship works.

‘     tease.     ’     flattery will get you everywhere.    unless there’s subtext of the  i need something  variety,   in which case   —   no,   he’s not surprised.     ‘     what’d you do ?     ’

they used to be inseparable.    attached at the hip   —   among other places.    but that was before she disappeared and reappeared and then disappeared again,   with the kind of people he’d very much enjoy eviscerating just because he  can.    so maybe that’s what this is about.    that  guy  she was seeing.

thing is,   she could still tell him  jump  and he’d ask her  how high.    he’s not soft  ;  he has a soft spot for regan,   but he’s not  soft.    even though he misses her sometimes.

he thinks that’s what it is.    that hollow feeling in his chest.

like something should be there and isn’t.

she hasn’t said anything.    looks  offended,   which means he’s probably on the right track.    he likes to think he knows her pretty well by now.    better than  that guy  does.

territorial.    not jealous.   there’s a difference.

‘     spit it out.     ’     a pause.     ‘     …  huh.    now  there’s  three words i never thought i’d say to you.     ’

      their banter is, so often, one-sided;  she has ever been a creature of few words.   him, less so.   there is some small harmony in that, though from where she stands now it seems the girl is hardly amused by it; a sidelong glance hits him hard.   the slim line of her shoulders moves with a inhale, held and flattened out for a moment, as if she’s counting out options in the quiet space of her head.   still, her expression never changes.

      ‘   is that something you want to try, really?   ’