𝙲𝙾𝙳𝙴𝙽𝙰𝙼𝙴

bio.   rules.   meme tag.   starter  call.

                living  isn’t  much  of  an  issue  for  her,  as  it  so  happens,  and  evelyn’s  moral  code  isn’t  what  keeps  her  here,  rather  it’s  the  certainty  of  malignity  /  it  exists  and  so  must  she.  everything  else  is  irrelevant.  that’s  a  privilege,  perhaps,  for  she  never  turned  to  killing  out  of  desperation  —  she  was  never  made,  never  broken  (  just  unleashed  ) …  there  were  options.  she  chose  this  life,  to  feed  that  beast  inside  her,  and  she’d  choose  it  again.  others  didn’t  have  that  opportunity,  the  choice.  but  that’s  an  excuse  that  can  only  be  stretched  so  thin.  among  others.           

                ❛   comparing  yourself  to  a  high - ranking  politician…  strong  start  on  getting  me  to  change  my  position.   ❜   how  many  of  those  had  made  it  on  her  list  over  the  years?  truth  be  told,  it  never  crossed  her  mind  to  keep  count…  to  write  down  names  and  neatly  cross  them  out.  it  still  doesn’t.  does  that  make  it  better  or  worse?  what  matters  more  —  whose  blood  you’re  coated  in  or  the  fact  that  you’re  coated  in  it  at  all?  

               in  any  case,  she  accepted  herself  a  long  time  ago.  perhaps  he  has  too.  doesn’t  mean  they  have  to  accept  each  other. 

               her  tongue  clicks.   ❛   it  really  isn’t,  at  least  not  for  the  job  you’re  being  paid  to  fail  at.  i’m  fairly  certain  the  lower  end  for  a  hit  these  days  is…  fifteen?  probably  not  enough  to  pay  off  whatever’s  making  you  walk  around  with  a  stick  lodged  up  your  ass.  maybe  you  should  take  the  rest  of  those  rocks.  buy  yourself  something  nice.   ❜

‘   if a single conversation had a chance of changing your position,   it isn’t much of a position.   ’          it is laughable to talk about morals with a man who has cloaked himself in the brutality of death   [   other children had learned their numbers in the classroom,   a friendly teacher swathed in smiles,   while he had been counting bullets,   kills   --   did the number matter anymore?   he curled their truth around his hands,   number blending into time blending into a life defined against murder,   and squished the unripe peach of his history   ].

arms cross across his chest,   eyeing her as if in search of some lie   --   if there ever was one,   he wouldn’t be able to pick up on it   ...   the study of her face,   a portrait captured in endless disarray.   this has never been his language.   if she had been a gun,   he would hold the barrel to his ear and hear the twitch of secrets.   if she had been a knife,   he could read the blood smeared across its pointed edge.   but she stands before him as a human   ...   and he stands to the side as a monster,   uncertain as a young child would be.   youth is a sin that one can never shed.

his tongue carves and curls. in truth, he plays as if he knows you, as if he has seen behind the mask (not even natalia truly knows her own face … she is the woman that time cast out, the clock ticking backwards upon her bloated skin, the cracked mirror of a woman). perhaps he has glimpsed below the shadow: voyeuristic intentions made flesh, he has watched her intimately for quite some time … but the veil is always shifting. those shadows are merely reflections.

‘‘   only a very bad spy assumes they know anything about their target.   ’’        and that is where weakness will attack him … he lives in his assumptions, dies with their names wet upon his lips. she is another rifled chest to him, a drawer cracked open: you take one look through the filthy contents of someone’s life and believe you know them entirely, don’t you, samuel? she closes the chest with quick fingers, allows his assumptions to fall lazily around her shoulders.

‘‘   maybe worry less about my target and more about your own.  ’’        her glass, sparkling with the tease of moonlight, tilts towards the duke. he fades through the scene, his hand resting too low on a stranger’s back (poor girl, caught up in riches and dreams that would amount to nothing – men like him don’t last).        ‘‘   go fetch, samuel. i surely can’t be more interesting than your job.   ’’  

‘   he’ll be back soon enough.   you shouldn’t worry too much.   ’        his target was a predictable case,    every movement calculated with a finesse that could only be wrangled free from his own rose - bud fingertips   [   blushed,   pinkened,   the floral array of his hands   ].   twenty minutes outside with a cigar stuffed between his lips,   gaping mouth spread to accommodate the weight of his incoming death,   before slinking off to bed one of the blonde beauties placed around the room.   carefully placed,   one might say.   cash splashed upon pretty faces,   dresses bought,   the night designed to capture the man in his own filth and squalor.   he was a tooth meant to rot   --   consider sam to be the dentist.   there was just a single complication   ...   nudging at his elbow,   all decaying warmth.

               ❝  ——  i  did  when  i  was  young …    i  was  terrified  of  it  :  i’d  never  been  told  of  the  creative  ways  humans  invent  to  kill  each  other.    we  don’t  have  landmines  where  i  am  from.    i  was  near  death  almost  daily  in  the  war  in  those  four  years,   but  after  that  my  fear  depended  on  whether  or  not  i  welcomed  it  or  not.  ❞

briefly,  he  wonders  how  odd  this  must  sound  to  someone  with  a  normal  lifespan,  who  lives  a  shorter  life  and  thus  knows  their  first  death  will  likely  be  their  last  one.    men  with  blood  on  their  hands  always  have  a  strong  opinion  on  their  own  end,  and  namor  can  almost  smell  the  old,  stained  red  embedded  in  this  man’s  palms.      ❝  i  wanted  to  get  a  drink  seeing  as  i  am  already  here.   you  are  welcome  to  join  me  to  continue  this  riveting  back-and-forth  interview,  provided  you  are  old  enough  to  drink  in  this  country.  ❞       namor  knows  he  is,   but  he  wants  to  test  the  possible  reaction.   this  is  usually  the  point  where  obviously  adult  men  take  offense.

discomfort had never been his language of choice.  he was a man - made oddity   [   fear the child and his bladed tongue,  his crimson mouth,   a stain brought to life   --   there was no reason for him to judge when he flowered into his own strangeness:   it is easier to surround yourself with horror than to play at normality   ].   though he has never died,   and certainly didn’t plan on it,   he held the aura of a walking corpse   ...   rotting in reverse,   from the inside out,   his stomach and lungs the first to fall under the attack of his moral failings   --   each of his breaths seemed sewn up with rot,   the shivering retort of a dying tongue.        ‘   not all of us have the pleasure of coming back.   ’

creative ways that humans invent to kill each other   ...   ah,   how well i know of those terrible ways,   a human weapon made to kill   [   how soon is too soon to share the blood upon your hands?   he thinks that a few more drinks might be needed before he sweeps his hand across his dull past and paints it shiny   ...   there is nothing good left inside of him to shy from this stranger   ].        ‘   we’re a creative species   --   and any creative species tends towards violence.   primitive,   and yet terribly advanced.   do you welcome death now?   ’

‘‘   you’re the one who supposes we’re after the same target.   ’’        her mouth is cut-glass, her tone quick [soften yourself, a deep breath, politeness settling over her tongue]. her impression is one to be made upon the entire dance hall   -   one slip with him would reek of carefully placed disaster. he longs for a reaction, too. she can read these green - swollen eyes like a dedicated narrator, his story unfolding before her. oh, tender hands, rip into that face and pry out what wants to consume her most. he does not deserve the taste of her.        ‘‘   you’re going to escort me out of here, samuel? when we could both enjoy the night?   …   what a rash decision. surely you’d rather wait to see how this plays out.   ’’

‘   are we not?   ’         she consumes.   if he is to be the last exhale slipped free from empty lips,    then she is the brutal inhale dragging in his every breath   [   even still,   her gaze refuses to linger on him   ---   she dances it across less deserving strangers,   drinking in water when wine stood beside her   ].   as if her waning gaze plagues him too deeply,   his hand flies upwards to land upon the edge of her arm   ...   scars rise to meet him like the open kisses of wandering mouths   ---   an entire sketchbook worth of pain decorating her,   little knife marks hidden away.   you had to touch to know   [   the eye could never pick up what the eye could   ].   

‘   you know that you’re intruding.   i thought you had a code of conduct   ...   what was it that you said last time?    you had rules,   natalia?   ’        her head snaps towards her,   the deadly scent of sprawling perfume following the movement.   sam drinks it in,   the lemon - scent of a woman who was trying too hard to be anyone but herself.   the lemon was not her,   too shiny and bitter,   forgetting herself as a wolfish creature.   am i prepared to be eaten whole?   ...   oh,   yes,   i definitely am.        ‘   don’t make me escort you out of here.    that’d look bad for both of us.   ’

a  quick,  harsh  laugh  comes  from  his  mouth.   it’s  not  one  of  amusement  or  joy :  it  sounds  cruel  and  hard.     ❝  — indeed!  the  wound  is  painless  by  now ;  though  it  will  never  fade.   you  can  still  see  the  old  stitching.  ❞    he  pulls  the  skin  up  tighter  against  his  throat  with  two  fingers,  as  if  checking  his  own  pulse.  it  almost  looks  like  scarring  from  a  quick,  messy  surgery.   one  could  almost  forget  that  this  was  to  undo  a  beheading.

perhaps  the  other  man  is  simply  morbidly  curious.    namor  has  met  his  fair  share  of   what was it like?  and  did it hurt?  since  his  return.   he  does  not  mind.

❝  do  you  want  to  know  what  it  is  like  to  die?    do  you  fear  death?  ❞

‘   i fear   ...   aspects of death.   the messiness of it,   the unknown   --   not the after,   but the who.   who will kill me?   ’        his name is pock - marked and scribbled out with running ink   [   he has never hoped for death to come with old age,   nestled in bed with his daughter at his side and her softened hand holding his,   a last breath drawn with a smile   ...   men with kill lists as long as his own do not get peaceful deaths,   every name crossed with horror,   he will die in untold agonies,   as an act of revenge   ].   the laughter that runs free from the other verges on cruelty.     sam cocks his head towards it,    considering the noise,    searching for implication.

a  hand  reaches  up  to  touch  his  neck  instinctively    and  trace  the  jagged  remnants  of  the  scar  which  cuts  across  his  neck.    it’s  a  welcome  reminder  of  the  divine  persistence  for  him  to  live :  the  god  of  death  will  not  take  him  until  namor  has  reached  old,  old  age  /  the  mother - goddess  will  breathe  life  into  him  time  and  time  again.    it’s  a  bit  sad,  sometimes,  to  never  be  allowed  to  remain  in  your  tomb  for  good.

          ❝  i  was,  once,  ❞    twice.    ❝  it  was  a  brief  affair.   i  was  murdered.  ❞      there’s  no  bitter  taste  to  those  words  anymore  ( murdered,  executed,  slaughtered )  but  they  sound  like  a  prelude  to  an  interrogation.     ❝  why?   i  should  hope  i  don’t  look  dead.  ❞

           “ They do, don’t they? ”    she murmurs, curling her fingers into damp soil, watching as sprouts burst from the land. She’s seen men respect the land. She’s seen them live off the land sustainably, much like all other creatures do, far from the grime and muck of Gotham City and Westernization. And yet whenever she steps out of her gardens, here — her Eden, here — she’s reminded of so many who don’t. She’s reminded of those who massacre their own home, the place meant to be their paradise, for nothing but little green papers. Nothing but little green papers — !

           “ I can’t understand it, ”    she says. And it pains her to know that she was like so many, once :  Trapped in a cycle striving only for money, because those same men who tear away at the earth force others to be enslaved to the same paper they hoard.    “ Their apathy, their self-destruction … If they just felt a second of the pain I feel, they’d be horrified from what they’ve done. ”

if they felt a second of the pain i feel   ...   his humanity has always been a trapped beast,   raging against the cage of bones and sinew that he had fashioned himself into   [   do we only ever learn from pain?   is that the single teacher that means anything to us?   dr. austen’s lesson had come from a bullet to the head,   spoken language too subtle for the devourer of ancient words   ...   harm has always been the softest comfort for him   ].   he has been torn apart ruthlessly,   callously,   the hands of man still rough against his newly grown skin   ...   he does not pretend to know the full extent of her suffering,   living nature subjected to a turmoil that can only be defined as unnatural,   but the little part of him that aches wishes to speak to the parts of her that seem to wither in the same horrid way.

❝   𝐃𝐎 𝐈 𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐊 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐘𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐀𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐌𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐒?   ❞       not necessarily the time for obnoxious rhetoric,   sure,   but it satisfying that boyish personality he carries.   his footsteps are heavy against the floor,   feet dragging against the ground with little care shown to pick them up and walk properly into the home he’d been so roughly invited into.𝐓𝐎𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐀𝐆 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐋𝐘 𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐀 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐂 𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑,   and makes himself a little too at home upon the couch:   draped over it with propped up on the nearest table.      ❝   why the hell would i know what’s in the bag?   i just work here.   ❞      he sounds a bit more annoyed than he’d meant too,   but his patience for these low profile missions is quickly running thin.      ❝   ’m just here to play delivery boy and get a progress report.   𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐍𝐄'𝐒 𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐌𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐓,   y’know,   so you better give me something juicy and worth my time.   what’s the buzz in the organized crime world now a days,   huh?   you find those missing vials yet?   ❞

                                     ˈˈ   it’s been taken care of .   ˈˈ  

never one to narrate  bedtime tales of horror ;  evading superfluous ramblings concerning  a dozen obstacles metamorphosed into another bodycount .  the invariable monotony of an ageless baritone voice  enunciates a disputable liveliness  &  an undeniable attention to the conversation  [  even if bloodshot eyes do not steer away from  the task of assembling the gunmetal puzzle pieces  ] .

death exists chiefly in exaggeration.   this man thrums with a quiet intent,   task at hand a consuming force meant to draw eyes   ...   sam’s preferred method of working   [   the silence   ...   he has always been fond of it   --   a conversation that is little more than a few words dampened by talented fingers forcing the mosaic pieces of a gun back into a whole shape   ].   but there were questions lingering unanswered upon his tongue,   the taste of them cloying and heady.   sam watches in absent curiosity,   a moment of distraction spared   [   one day you’ll die by these wandering eyes,   choked on your own tongue,   a casualty of your own body   ...   but,   for now,   there is a meaning to your distraction   --   he searches for wounds upon the other’s body,   as if he could sniff out every scar that had laid waste to his brutalised form   ].