#post-eos

“Please.”  But you know I’m the kind of deity that listens to prayers only to shatter them.  ‘Sides, I’m torn between prayers of my own.  Between Don’t let this end, let me have this, let me suffocate in this memory, and begging you to Break, break, break.  I want to feel you crumble.  Just once, just this time–I want you to break, want to feel your shards slicing under my fingers as I piece you back together.

Your fingers curl into my hair.  Pulling me closer. “Viktor.”

Please, I pray.

God takes a page from my book–wraps his hand around my throat.  Plucks me right from the only memory I still have of you that doesn’t taste like the shrapnel of my heart.

Memories of Jackal spiral nonsensically from that first conscious ache when I wake up, spidering out along my body, coating me in the sticky webbing of cold sweat.

Remember that? the memories taunt.  Or the time in Pistol Beach, with the ocean salt still in his hair, the endless abyss in his eyes?

Funny thing, really. Pistol Beach wasn’t so far from Ashland, where the whole wreck started.  Like we hadn’t gotten anywhere at all.  Like we’d only been a dinky tornado spiraling towards the sink drain, a disaster that doesn’t spin far at all.

Pistol Beach, the memories coo, where I woke up with no blood circulation to my arm because of his damn heavy head, where his eyes were sticky and overcast, where I kissed him and kissed him and–memories spiraling nonsensically.  Where I said “I’ve wanted this since the moment I saw you,” where he laid on the sheets and traced the rose thorns printed on my throat, where everything was rushed and possessed and tasted like blood and morning rum and blurred together, still half-drunk and blinded by the dawn-light.

“Start as you mean to go on,” I chuckle.  I swallow ash in the silence that answers.

A shower, lukewarm and rattling the motel pipes, washes away the cobwebs. Brandy, a self-medicating dose, washes away the taste of ash.  Nadege stumbles out of the motel room next to mine, wrapped in a tattered pink hoodie.  The midmorning sun glares down while I smoke, daring us to speak.  Dege only hands me the carkeys and waits for me to unlock the truck so she can clamber into the passenger seat and ignore me for the next fourteen hours, arms crossing over her chest when I climb in, only breaking her silence to assure me that she’s still pissed as hell.

“You’re a dumb, selfish bastard,” she snaps.

Jackal’s ghost sits between us, unspoken.

There’s this thing about Jackal.  The rest of us, we’ve got our pride.  We clutch our masks to our faces until they meld with the flesh, half-phantoms roaming the opera house ashes, scavenging for the things that might makes us feel human again.

Jackal, though.  He wears his pride like he wears his clothes: tightly, but he isn’t afraid to peel ‘em off if he thinks it’ll benefit him enough.

Ever seen a crustacean without its shell?  The fleshy insides, the exposure–uncomfortable to look at, impossible to look away from.  That’s Jackal–shamefully shameless.  

That’s Jackal–mine, a voice whispers. Shame and all.

No.  That boy ain’t worth the trouble, I tell myself.  Everything he’s done to you, all the killing, all the misery.  What’ve I got to show for it? No coin–only scars, and memories of prayers to Gods that despise us.

The road thumps in agreement.  Nothingness stretches forward: abandoned fields overgrown and razed by fires, roads bursting with roots suffocated by the concrete.  All that civilization from the people before Dawn, and now they’re all dead and gone, and all that’s left to show for it is this nothingness.

See–that’s our problem.  All this hurt and nothing to show for it.  What is there to gain by being with him?  Coin, at first (a clever lie, the bait of his frightened eyes, luring me on by pressing cold quarters into my palm).  Then, just trying to survive (cell bars and conspiracies, brothers who prove relation through their bloodlust). You go through that, course you’re scared to leave each other, even if you aren’t happy, even if there aren’t promises keeping you locked down.

How do you love someone you can’t take from?  Me, I take and take and take.  And Jackal, for his all his broken edges, for all the undone zippers on his pride, is only a half-concept, still digging for the pieces he’s missing within himself. How do you love someone who isn’t someone?

Not like that was the only problem.  But the rest, they aren’t worth discussing, because I, I have all my pieces, and I like them how I have them arranged.  If Jackal doesn’t like my cards (even if my cards are a little bloody, and half the deck’s up my sleeves), we can’t play the game.

The truck bounces hard over the road.  Punishing my thoughts, my defiance.  Dege shifts in the passenger seat, cherry bomb screeching out of her earbuds.  Studies me for a moment, that gentle, pitying look she has, warm brown eyes and freckles bunched together curiously.  A different kind of silence than this morning, when she was punishing me for my insolence.  This time she reaches for me.  Puts her hand on mine, where it rests on the empty seat between us.

“I miss Smalls,” she sighs.

I snap my hand away.  Fire snaps and burns on my knuckles where she touched and spoke my thoughts for me.  “He’s fine where he is.”

“He’s hopeless.  Kal survives only cos that boy acts so strangely, no one can pin ‘em down enough to get a bullet in him.”

“Maybe.”  But you can’t love someone who calls you a monster and lies about love, and I, I want love. “But you and I, least we’ve got each other.”

“Sure,” she snorts, rattling off.  “That is, till you spot another wealthy rancher and leave to drain ‘er pockets, or till you get hired off to go shoot some important fuckface.  Ah! No,” she jerks a finger at me, shuts me up before I can form thoughts, “And I love ya, Giant, but I don’t touch anything below the belt. I can’t be that for you.  Even if I could, I wouldn’t.  You and I, we’re more family than friend, more blood than not.”  She sniffs, crosses her arms back over her chest. “Jackal was family too.”

“Family loves each other,” I snap.  “Jackal is fascinating because he’s heartless.  Apathy doesn’t make a family!  Apathy makes misery.  I–I’m better off without him. We are better off without him.”

She slams a fist into my arm, the force burning, stinging, spider-webbing up my shoulder.  “We were family, and then you left him behind. Now I’m stuck here, caught ‘tween losing Neda and Kal–I’m suffocating.  I love you, Vik, but right now I’m ‘bout as close to steering us into a ditch as I am to forgiving ya. You and I, we’ve got each other just as closely as we’ve got our miseries.”

She looks at me for a moment but seems to think better of the words stacking between her open lips.  She pushes the pink bud into her ear, right back to glaring out the window.  

I think about telling her the truth.  I try.  Try to form the words, try to form them into something that might make sense.  I try to tell her that I’m tired, tired, that I wanted to stay, that I would have if only Kal had asked me to.

But he didn’t ask.  Not because he has his pride, but because he didn’t see the benefit.

Kal’s probably made the right decision, not wanting me to stay.  If you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, then you probably can’t teach a swindler to put love before profit, either.  

And I was probably right to leave.  If you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, then you probably can’t make a man like Kal grow a heart, either.

The words crack on my lips, a higher pitch than I intended. “I miss him too.”

But Dege is lost in her own world, mourning her surrogate brother abandoned far behind us.  

Let the record show that I spoke the truth, even if silence and misery are my only witnesses.

“I’m leaving.”

He looks up at me, overcast eyes still holding themselves together.  My heart runs like a Harley, heavy thrumming, ready be chewed up and spat out, trying to wriggle out my throat so it doesn’t have to leave with me.  He’s watching me and I’m here praying to Gods that probably ain’t real, to Gods that I’ve never prayed to before, praying that Kal’ll say what he’ll never say, something like I want you to stay or Take me with you.  But he shrugs, indestructible, looks back down at the scraps on the table in front of him and says “Okay.”

“I mean I’m not coming back, Kal.  I’m leaving.”

“I know.” His fingers wrap tight around the red screwdriver I got for him a thousand lifetimes ago, back when debts and brothers seemed like the problem and not us.

My heart’s already pushing on my tongue, trying to leap off.  It finds its way out in my sobs, crying, “That’s all you’ve got to say?”

He doesn’t look at me.  His curls look like smoke clouds, smothering the space between us, dizzying the thoughts.  “Always knew you’d leave.”

“But I told you,” I plead, going about this all wrong, “I told you I’d stay.”

“Yeah.” He looks, looks, stares right over my shoulder, indifferent.  “But not forever.”

“Kal.”

“I won’t make you stay. If you wanna stay, stay.  If you don’t, go.” Gray eyes catch mine.  Less like rain, more like thunderstorms, heavy, suffocating.  “I won’t be your victim.”

“I’m not asking you to be!”

“You are.”

“No!  Dammit, Kal, I’m asking you to—” to say you want me to stay, that you need me, that I protect you—that I keep you warm, keep you loved, that I and I alone have delivered you through hell, that your life is as good as mine—I’m asking you to love me, to promise, to be a victim of your heart—not mine.

I can’t say it. The words crash against my teeth. Air struggles to finds its way around the traffic jam.  

“Asking me to hurt,” Kal answers.  “And I can do that for free.”

“We could go back,” Nadege pleads.  “We could go back and take him with us.”

“We’re too far.  We can’t have wasted all this gas money just to go back.”

Her eyes suggest violence, but her hands only tighten on the backpack in her lap.  “We’re stumbling aimlessly like a kicked dog–ya kicked yourself, Giant!  The hand that feeds you is back in Dakota.  We should go back.  We’re family, and family stays together, lives, thrives, dies together.  You can’t just—just feel hurt and leave.  So your past caught up with you.  That doesn’t mean it gets to swallow ya whole, to suffocate the future!”

I open myself.  Can’t say the words I should say.  I should tell her yes, but I’ve already imagined it–crawling back.  Imagined a future where he opens the door and I plead Let me stay, let me stay, it might not be forever but it can be more than now.  But Kal, the Kal in my head, the Kal in my heart, he has no sympathy. Nor should he. Like every abandoned lover before, there are no open arms to go back to.

“He wouldn’t want me,” I grind out.  “Why would he?  I left him.  Abandoned. You and I both know how that tastes.”

She slams a hand on the dashboard.  “Yes! But what about me, Viktor!  What about me!  I’m part of this too—he’s like my brother, and you, you ripped me apart from him!”

“You helped,” I say, and I taste hysteria rising on my tongue.  Saying things I don’t want to say.  Is this how Kal felt, when he spat that I was a monster, that love meant nothing? Hysteria in his eyes, in the way his hands trembled?  “You helped.  You told him he had every goddamn reason to want me gone—”

“I did, ay!  I told him, I told the boy, told ‘em straight to the face: Viktor’s a swindler, a murderer, a fool, a drunkard, a gambler, a whorish ass who cheats everything he loves, even himself.  I told him! I told him your flaws, I ripped you apart for that boy, because I love him and he deserved to know.  If you weren’t a fool with sins longer ‘an the sun’s rays I wouldn’t ‘ve said a peep.  But listen to me! I told him, told him all the things you could never say.  I told him you loved him, you’d die for him if he asked. Each day you were free was a day you chose to stay with him.”  Her nails dig into the dash, her eyes warm, warm, burning, like gunpowder’s swimming in her tears.  “I told him love is a misery shared ‘tween hearts, and misery was what he chose.”

“That wasn’t your place,” I whisper, the steering wheel veering, knuckles white on the black leather.  “Telling him my sins when I never intended to cheat him, not by then.  He said I was a monster because of what you went around telling him, Dege!  Told me each kiss tasted like a countdown!”

She slams her palm again, a noise scraping up against her throat, pulling itself out angrily.  “And he was right!  Because you, you went and left!  If you had a sense better than a fool’s I wouldn’t have said shit, now would I?  But I, I’m not you, I ain’t such a fool.  I know how you looked at that boy!  I know how you looked at him, Giant, and it’s been a damn long time since you’ve looked at anyone like that.  Looking at ‘im like he’s more than prey, something more fascinating than a man on the other side of a scope.  You looked at that boy like he was a bottle, like you’d be scared of your own thoughts if he weren’t there when you woke up. Like your whole damn reason for living was to press your lips against him.”

“Yeah,” I swallow. “And now look.  Waking up every morning with only the bottle.”

“He deserved the truth. And then you left, ran away–I let him get one step ahead of you and you cashed out!” She shakes her head. “I ain’t saying you’re good for each other, that you’ll be espousing vows or sharing tender looks or shit.  I’m just saying, as miserable as you were together—all your sins and fears combined—you’re even more of a miserable bastard without.”

“Yeah.  I’m a monster and a miserable bastard.” The truck feels small, curling in on me. “I haven’t forgotten.”

“You whimper and whine but it was your dipshit decision to leave, and your decision to ruin our family. You are a monster, Viktor.  Doesn’t mean yer beyond love, but damn if you don’t make it harder than it needs to be.”

Jackal—the Jackal I love, the Jackal I miss, the Jackal in my head greets my wandering thoughts of what if I went back? with a rusted screwdriver and simple indifference.  “Didn’t think you’d be back,” he says in my head, peeking from around a hotel door.  His voice, the odd formation of his words, choppy and small, like a replacement for the voice of my sanity.

“Neither did I,” I’d say.  With a smile, I offer, “Guess it’s a surprise party.”

He wouldn’t think that was funny.  His fingers would curl around the screwdriver, clinging to it for comfort, half-prepared to dig it in my chest.  “Why?”

“I missed you.”  No–too simple.  “Couldn’t get you out of my head.” Better.

The way his eyes would rake up me, curious, hands loosening. “You aren’t staying,” he accuses.

No.  I don’t want to stay, to be always haunted by his rain-eyes, to only kiss blood.  But then… Yes.  I want to stay, want to taste his kiss in the morning sun, want to hear him beg, want to unzip his pride-suit and poke at his shame until there is less shame and more me.

“Nothing’s changed,” he says, and it sounds like an invitation.  If I’m still leaving then I’m still me, and if I’m still me I can go back.  Does this make sense? He and I, we circle one another, vulture and prey.  Our endings are terrified of our beginnings.

“Well, can’t say nothing’s changed.  Dege is pretty pissed at me.  Staged a coup till I came to my senses.”

“Found them at the bottom of a bottle?” He sighs, voice melting, like mist when the rain won’t commit.  He steps back from the door–a real invitation.  Something about his face is off, like I’ve forgotten the flaws in his skin, or the sound of his laughter.  What… what did his laughter sound like?  I called it music, once, if the harsh, shocking cry of a rifle and the way it melts into silence can be music.  

“Why try?” he asks me, his fingers on my chest, my shoulders, crawling up my neck. “Why?”

“Tired of leaving my heart behind.  I was born a human, not a swindler.” My hands on his, inked hands on calloused ones.  “Guess it took missing you for me to remember.”

“Can monsters shed their fangs?”

“No.  You’ll have to train me, teach me to kiss you, rather than to gnaw on your bones.”

Hesitation.  You’re a swindler, his eyes would say.  I won’t offer you anything to make you stay. I know your tricks.  I won’t fall for them.  I won’t be your victim.  This affair is just an affair—not a promise.

“Okay,” he says.  His fingers curl around my throat.  Smother, asphyxiate, stifle. Suffocate.  “You asked for it.”

Somewhere in reality, Dege pokes me in the arm.  She shouts over the music, eyes tired.  “Pull the damn truck over.  You’re weaving so badly—are you sobering up or somethin’?”

Grunt, scraping against the back of my throat, where his fingers should be wrapped, wringing me of my independence. “Tired.”

“Let me drive.” Her voice, soothing, a maternal coo. “We ain’t going anywhere in particular anyway.  How lost can I get?”

She hops out of the truck and I shuffle into the passenger seat.  By the time she pulls onto the road and meets the next bend, the cold glass of the window has already lured me away from the truck, back to where my heart always wanders, right back to you.

“You want me to hurt,” Jackal accuses.  The screwdriver in his hand trembling.  “To beg. I won’t.  Not for this.  I don’t waste breath on prayers—I won’t waste it on you.”

I don’t need you to beg mixes with Break, break, break.  Prayers and words all crashing against my mouth, riding on red waves.  Nothing comes out but pain. A gasp.  “After everything I’ve done for you.”

“No.  After everything you did before me. You’re more monster than man.  You take what you can take. Swindling and baiting. Feasting on flesh: cattle and kin alike.”

And I am, I am, I am. What can I say?  That I need him, that he completes me, that his wounds and mine mirror each other? No.  What could I say that wouldn’t sound like lies?  I know all the lies, all the falsities.  They work because they sound just like the truth—they both bleed, indecipherable. 

“I love you,” I plea, and the words that have always meant too much suddenly not enough, “You swore you loved me too.”

His lips, blood and lies, purse. “Maybe I’m a monster too.”

My heart, leaping forward.  Then let us be monstrous together.  We’ve hunted together, you and I; we’ve bled together, survived together, my freedom and your heartbeat entwined.  

But he—he scoffs.  “How could I still love you?  We precedes end.”

And he’s right.  I know me. We precedes end. But, see, even when he’s long gone, abandoned one morning in a hotel in Dakota, I’ll always remember what his pulse tastes like on my lips, how it sings under my fingers. 

But, see, that–that’s love.  Wrapping your fingers around their throat, but never daring to take all you can take.

Rain pounds against the windshield, in harried tempo to match the memory of Jackal’s pulse.  The map spread on the seat between Dege and I is marked in pink highlighter, a path going north.

“Should’ve known you’d go back for him,” I groan, pushing up from where I’m slumped in the seat.

Dege gasps, playful, invigorated.  “Not fighting?  No threatening to oust me from the truck—my truck, by the way, friendly reminder—for my decision?  My, my, old man, yer losing your stubborn streak.”

“Not really,” I sigh. The window is cool against my fevered face.  “Just tired of leaving behind the things I want to take.”

She peeks over at me, shadows crawling on her face in the evening light.  Laughter and fright mirror in her eyes.  “What sorta dreams are you having that changed your mind?”

“None,” I whisper.  Tasting blood in my dry mouth.  “Only memories.”

“Like he’s your present,” she whispers, “Can’t imagine a future without him, so now you’re suffocating in the past?”

“When’d you get so wise, Dege?”

She smiles.  Gentle.  Reaches for my hand on the empty seat, patting it softly.  “You’re just a damn fool, Viktor. ‘s why you need me around, to keep your head on.”

I know.  I know.  “A monster, a miserable bastard, a fool.” 

“So greedy,” you whisper, long fingers roaming through my hair, legs shamelessly spread open without the cuffs on your ankles.  “I’m still here.”

“I know.” Bringing your hand to my lips, kissing the tips of your fingers. “I know.  Still–I want you to stay.”

“I will,” you say.  Your eyes have that sadness again, whispering instead, I’ll stay, but you won’t.

You’re right.  I won’t. I always leave, always pick up first, always trying to stay a step ahead.  But you, Kal, you’re pondering the wrong questions.  It’s not about if I’ll stay or if I’ll go.  The question to ask is if I’ll come back.

You let me kiss you. Blood. How do you do that?  So indifferent, completely apathetic to the taste of my heart on your mouth.  I trace bitemarks with my fingers, your tired pulse thrumming under my touch.

“I love you,” I admit, half experiment, half truth.

And you.  The look in your eyes, like you want so badly to taste the truth, too.  “I know.”

You close your eyes.  Are you thinking of praying?  Thinking of the Gods we never speak to, hoping one’ll take pity, that maybe I’ll stay? Because I, I am–I’m praying to every deity I’ve ever heard the name of and praying to some others, too, covering all my bases, praying that one day I’ll wake up and your soft voice will sound less like the wind and more like the truth.

You mumble something quiet, too low to catch.  It sounds a bit like I want you to stay.

And me. The words in my throat, trying so badly to swallow down the truth, too.  “I know.”

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