Seam:. Hey kid! Was wondering if you were ever gonna show!
Captain Kris: Just had a long night, Seam, had to fight just to pull myself out of bed.
S: Well, hey, you won. Letâs celebrate. You want the usual?
CK: Just a few additions, get me a pack of the St Nicks
S: St Nicks? Thought thatâs what the lollipops were for
CK: Not for me; itâs for Noelle. She helped us make a big breakthrough on the case weâre working on, and I thought Iâd pay her back.
S: Ah, fair enoughâŚyoung folks like you shouldnât smoke.
CK: You acting like I canât see that pipe in your mouth?
S: Ehh, Iâm too old to give up the habit. You want your butterscotch pop too?
CK: Two of them this time, gonna be a long day today.
S: Whatever you say, kid. Better rotting your teeth than your lungs.
CK:...didnât just come for that though.
CK: I need to know more about that alloy we talked about last time.
S:...thatâs treading on very dangerous territory kid, kinda stuff you donât talk about even with the curtains drawn in the middle of the night.
CK: I need to know what Iâm dealing with. Berdlyâs around that stuff, Noelleâs around that stuff, I canâtâŚI canât risk them getting hurt cause it was affecting them and I didnât know it.
S:...flip the sign to âClosedâ will you?
CK: Seam, I don't have much time.
S: Shit, it's not the kinda story that takes all day, but it's the kind that I don't want to be interrupted forâŚyou get it?
CK: I just need to know about the alloy.
S: Just flip the damn sign kidâŚokay goodâŚ.You know when I pointed you in the direction of that killer a while back?
CK: Yeah, that old friend of yours?
S: HehâŚfriend? Was he a friend? I suppose so, maybe. Anyway, I ran with him when we were both still in the Spade gang. Just some two-bit hustler running scams and magic tricks for the mooks down at the boardwalk. He wasnât anything to anybody but meâŚbutâŚGod, on some days I could look in his eyes and see the whole world turning, just in a lookâŚI was young then, everybody was.
CK: Seam it wasnât that long ago.
S: You donât know what Iâm talking about, kid. Thatâs good; itâs good you donât know. AnywayâŚword gets around about this new gang thatâs been kicking out a space for itself, not by whacking folks or taking territory but justâŚflowing into the cracks, taking up all the shadow, the roots of the whole damn city. Anyway, my old friend gives me a call about how the boss told him to keep an eye on that particular gang, and while he was snooping he found something that belonged to one of them, a shard of some kinda metal, or a crystal, or glass. Said it was something bad, something that couldnât be, that shouldnât beâŚI listened to him talk about it for a loooong time; some of it was nonsense, and some of it wasnât. SoâŚI packed up my stuff, and I headed over to his placeâŚonly to find our twoâŚmutual FRIENDS stuffing him into the back of that old Coupe Deville of theirs.
S: I ran after that car until my feet bled, I thought I could catch it kid. I got a layer of resin on my lungs thicker than my thumb but I swear to all the angels in the sky I really thought I could catch that carâŚbut I didnât.
S: Right as I fell down on the asphalt, I heard the two of them laughing. Goddamn hyenas. They drove offâŚdidnât see my friend for a week, and when I didâŚIâŚ
CK: Seam you donât need to tell me what you donât want to say
S: I ainât gonna cry kid, too old for that tooâŚnext time I saw him he wasnât himself. Theyâd taken him away, hollowed him out, made him into one of them. He told me nothing matters, that life was just chaos and he could do whatever he wanted. I tried to make him see sense, he took that as a threat. I fought him, had him on the pavement just as the cops rolled by. I tried to look him in the eyes one last time, try to see that whole world that Iâd seen beforeâŚbut it was gone. Just midnight between those eyes now, and he took out that knife of his and he stuck it in my left peeper, so I could keep that piece of midnight forever. I was bleeding into the concrete while the cops were clapping the irons on him. Then he started laughing, just like those two hyenas in the car, laughing and laughing. They booked him, stuck him in jail, he broke out andâŚwell you know the rest, you got the medals to prove it.
CK: SoâŚit wasn't the shard that did it.
S: The shard is some bad juju on its own, and Iâd recommend your friends use gloves and not stare at it too closelyâŚbut it's not what turns you into something like that. Itâs when those two come to visit and they take you to where they lay their headsâŚ
S: you know what the worst part of it was?
S:...they made him think he was FREE. That his eyes had opened and he could see further than he could before. Not realising that he was still just some clown in a circus, just a puppet attached to their stringsâŚ
CK:...He was happy, they let him be happy. Doesn't sound so bad to me
S: It's always better to see your chains.
CK: MaybeâŚI just wish theyâd stop rattling in my face. Either way I'm out of time, thanks for the info. You take care of yourself okay?
S: Best as I can⌠hey wait, just a second!
CK: What? Seam I really gotta-
S: The girl youâre grabbing that extra lollipop for, that big girl right? I see you two around.
CKâŚyeah, I care about her. I didn't think I still could, but I do.
S: Thought soâŚwhatever you do, you keep her away from those two hyenas you hear me?
S: Good. Leave the sign on closed, would ya? I need a minute
S:...Shit, kid, not as old as me, but older than you should be.
Semi sequel to this post. I actually wrote this story not long after I made my last Deltanoir post (AU by @thelostmoongazer), couldn't get it to flow and so it sat as a WIP in my back files. Found it again during my Google Docs purge and decided to finish it!
