❝ TOLD YOU . BEEN CLEAN FOR OVER A YEAR NOW , DICKBAG . ❞ this is almost true , except he’d almost relapsed once , tried to take one too many happy pills than the psychiatrist had prescribed him . but it was only an – almost – . parrish had tugged on his clambering fingers & screwed the cap shut again , tossed the orange bottle away and beyond his sight . ‘ look , it’ll be fine . i’m here now , & i’m not going to let those nut - job doctors to take you away back to juvie again , i’m here , yeah ?’
———-except parrish couldn’t save him on the night of the murder . and elliot did not blame him either , even god couldn’t have helped him in the situation . or was he ever present in his life ? there certainly was nothing but terror that night . it had swelled , expanded , then burst into an ever - lasting maw of darkness that drenched at his ankles , attempting to drag him down until he would drown through it’s muffled silence .
( & for a moment , he’d seen it reflected clearly through the hollow stare of his father’s eyes . then he ran . ) ❝ —– &i’ve got a place to go to already . ❞ as if to understand the intent gaze settling over the scarred blood & ruins on his face , he swings his face away , raising a hand to cradle the cut of his jaw in quiet apathy . ❝ so , go away .❞ the man was extending a hand for help , something he might have been in dire need of now , but the glowering suspicion within him had already spiked , had its hackles risen like a threatened cat . there was nowhere to stay , no place was ever safe enough to stay for a long time . it would only be a limited amount of time before the cops would begin their searching & sniffing through the cities as well , & he would have to cross to another city — , another state maybe . tonight , he would find home in the empty chapel , glared upon by jesus on his crucifix , unwelcome & shunned from his home like a sinner . the next night , he could easily hijack some bummer’s car , & borrow it just for the night .
❝ you chase me down , demand for my story . know where parrish is — , but won’t tell me where . then offer to help . remind me why i shouldn’t pull my knife back out . ❞ it’s an empty threat , & he knows it too well . he was far too exhausted , fatigue burning though his muscles for another street - brawl or a dirty fight . but he continues on , thumbing for the switchblade again while keeping a steady , leveled gaze with the man again . ❝ your name . don’t care if you give a fake one , just give me something that i can tack to your face , — so whether i decide to gut you or trust you , i’ll remember you . ❞
“Dickbag, huh? Well, bitch face, while we’re exchanging insults, let’s keep that sobriety up, cool? You’re not fucking overdosing in my bathroom. Trust me, I’ve been burned before…” He gave a lop-sided smile, tilting his head to th eside and allowing the joints in his neck to crack with a series of pops.
“You can keep callin’ me dickbag if you want,but traditionally I tend to go by Isaac Moreau. I know, I know, my name probably precedes me, right? I used to be hot shit, way back when. Got my name in the papers, for good things. Scholarships and shit. Yeah, this guy was a fucking academic. Good at it, too.…Guess I buried that goody-two-shoes bastard in the ground.”
For a moment, the smile fades, and he’s staring off somewhere, just beyond Elliot’s head, but not looking directly at him. There’s the flicker of a memory, of a reflection he used to see in the mirror, a younger him, with skin clear of tattoos and his hair once neatly combed back and styled. His voice was unmarred by smoke, and he sat straight-backed at a family table, listening to his father lecturing,his mother pushing him to do better in school, you think you’ll get by with grades like this? If you don’t get those As, you don’t get dinner. Followed by a slap on the cheek when he dared open his mouth to speak out of turn.
He’s snapped out of the trance by a passing truck’s loud and obnoxious horn, and he remembers just why he’s here in the first place. Freedom. That’s what you wanted, right?
“You’re free,”Adam said to him once, when the lights were low and there was little to say between them that didn’t involve the shedding of tears or the reliving of past mistakes. “But are you any happier here than you were there? What’ll it take to make you happy again?”
“Look, Mister Stubborn-Ass McGee, wait right here for a second, okay?” He turns away from Elliot for a moment, watching the streets outside of the alley with a careful eye, setting his sharp gaze on a passing hotdog vendor, who was shouting something unintelligible and waving around a bottle of water. He fast walks over to the man, practically throwing a few crumpled dollar bills in the harried man’s face, walking away with the bottle, soundtrack of the man’s frustrated shouts accompanying him as he walked back to Elliot.
“Here, dumbass. At least take some water. If you still wanna stab me, go ahead, I see the way you’re just itchin’ to bring that fucking cereal box prize knife out again. When I go down, I’ll drop the key to my apartment, so it’ll give you some place to go. Because we both know you don’t have anywhere, at least not somewhere that’s not a shady, disgusting shelter where who knows what’ll happen to you. I know, how can a creepy stranger like me’s house possibly be safe, right?”
He pauses, watches a stumbling man in shabby clothes crossing the street against the light, nearly being hit by several cab drivers who all beep at him in unison. The man simply yells a few expletives and wearily holds up his middle finger, and finally comes to the sidewalk, where he promptly vomits, gripping a street sign for support.
He jabs his finger in the direction he’s walking (more like shuffling), saying rather frankly, “But it beats slummin’ it with the dirty bums and the fuckin’ whores who roam the streets and prey on desperate, homeless kids. Trust me, I know how hard it is out there. In the shape you’re in, you’re dumber than I thought if you think you’re gonna last another night facing the gangs that roam around, dying for some little angel-faced babe to sink their un-brushed teeth into.”
“What’ll make you happy again, Isaac?” he hears Adam’s voice ringing in his mind, faint, but still there, despite all the time that had passed between them.
“Helping kids like me avoid what I’ve done to my life. Guess you might as well start calling me Peter Pan.”
Breaking the newest experiment out of his confinement in Umbrella Corporation’s laboratory was an easy enough task for Jacqueline to accomplish. She had all the access codes, all the key cards, and had memorized every inch of the ultra-secret facility in which she worked. She was assigned to watch over this newest test subject, a young man who was not to be given a name, but simply a series of digits, taped to the front of his plexiglass cell. She would come to learn who he was each time she entered the room to study his behavior, feeling disgust from the fact that she was aiding in the torture of this poor boy. She couldn’t stand it any longer.
They developed a friendship, one that was kept under tight wraps and steeped in hushed secrecy for their safety. Jacqueline’s name was shortened to Jackie for simplicity’s sake, and she learned he used to be Carson, but preferred to be called Cross by his long-gone friends. They shared a commonality, the reality that they were both infected by viruses put out by the company, and their families were torn apart by the devastating consequences of biochemical engineering having been put into the wrong hands.
It wasn’t long before plans for an escape were put into place.
Unfortunately, Jackie underestimated just how difficult it would be for both of them to evade Umbrella Corporation’s workers, fully and tirelessly dedicated to their cause and not about to let a rebellious research assistant waltz off with their most important specimen to date.
Soon, they found themselves racing through the thick forests that encased the lab in a veil of underbrush. They were both severely out of breath, weary muscles using the last bits of energy they had to support each other as they ran, Jackie taking the lead as she knew the territory the best.
They were forced to skid to a halt, though, as Jackie suddenly couldn’t stop herself from keeling over, heaving and expelling the contents of her stomach. A substance akin to that of black tar spewed across the forest floor, and she continued to vomit the noxious, chunky liquid until she physically couldn’t anymore.
When she was finally finished, she looked up at her companion with horribly bloodshot eyes, shaky hand being raised to wipe her mouth, which only served to smear remnants of the black stuff across her face. “Maybe you should just go on without me. I’ll tell you which way to go, to get out of the area. But I think… I think I’d only end up being a dead weight to you. I don’t want to be the reason you get captured, again.”
YOU NEED TO LEAVE . oh , only if the solution was as easy as the statement , breathed out in a cautious feather of breath by parrish . he hardly bears a flinch when his wrist is tugged out free , and beneath the dimming sunlight , he too , finally examines the colors battered deep into his flesh like bruised plums . parrish’s gaze stung , a form of guilt prodding angrily against his heart as the boy turns his distressed eyes against him . it’s not fair , he almost wishes to say . ❝ just leave , huh . ❞ the words fall more colder than he expects it to , but the weight sinks like drowned stones against the steep silence between them .
❝ first , you’re not going anywhere near him . second , leaving , that’s just a pipe-dream . ❞ if he left , the beast would spin its way around his mother , tear her to empty pieces , her bones picked clean , flesh torn until there would be nothing to destroy . that was only how the system had worked itself to this point : elliot , the self - made barrier between his father and mother , a self - established role since the terrible age of 13 .
❝ —- i can’t . not now . ❞ his voice finally drops the tense blade - edge , and expression sinks back to a softer twitch of something like remorse . and he slowly snags the wrist back towards himself , pressing a careful thumb over the bruise , as if the action could erase the color . he keeps his finger pressed , wonders why parrish was so desperate to keep him afloat . often , his words meant the key to the bird - cage , his offers the climbing ladder from the sunken ditch that he’d successfully cornered himself down to . again , that was his defense mechanism .
sometimes , he was certain that if he searched hard enough , dug through the dirt viciously enough , the 10 - year old boy would be found again , crouched and quietly breathing the words of ‘ please don’t , i’m sorry .’ in a mantra , as if they were the saving grace . but it was different now . he’d long chosen to leave the boy behind , kept him buried beneath the dirt as he pushed forward towards life . to live , to live , it was to forget , and become a different creature for him . it was the only way at the time . ❝ i wouldn’t stab with the scapel , i would dig it into his throat . hard enough to kill him , ❞
His heart sinks like a stone in his chest, listening to Elliot’s voice, focusing hard on the darkened edges of his tone that had Parrish cringing. The way he exhibited little reaction from having been touched so forcefully sent shock waves down his spine. He’s giving up, he’s giving up isn’t he? It was always all or nothing with him, his black-and-white mind often unable to truly understand the demons with which Elliot grappled, the intricacies of his familial ties that he could never dream of having to deal with. His father was long dead; a brute, sure, but now just a corpse buried underneath six feet of dirt.
Elliot’s father, though, was alive and breathing, and had pushed his son so far to the cliff’s edge that he was now speaking of jamming a blade into his paternal figure’s throat.
He felt a spike in his blood when Elliot’s warning hit his ears. You’re not going anywhere near him.
“What, do you think I wouldn’t take him out right here and now if he was here? I have half a mind to go knocking on your door and tearing into him.” But he knew he would never, could never, go that far. It was all talk, as much as he wanted to deny that. He wasn’t Elliot, this wasn’t his fight, as much as he wanted it to be; wasn’t aggressive enough, wasn’t strong enough, supposed he wasn’t man enough to deal with this problem on his own (maybe dear old dad was right about me and my weaknesses all along).
“Well, look, would you at least come by and let my mom patch you up a little? I can see some cuts on your hands, and I know for a fact you don’t have any Neosporin in your medicine cabinet.” He lied about the cuts,but he couldn’t help it; he just needed to get any excuse to keep Elliot out of that house, if only for today, if only a few hours. He just hoped to god Elliot couldn’t notice the transparency of his fib, and he knew how unlikely that would be.
He tries to crack a smile, in turn attempting to put a crack through the tenseness of their situation. “If you get an infection and lose your hands, I’ll never forgive you. How’re you gonna hug me without any hands?” His voice lowered a bit as he added, staring into Elliot’s eyes that darted back in the direction of his home in a close to frantic fashion, “I know how much you care about your mother and her safety, I do. But I care about you, and you can’t protect your mom if you’re half-dead. I know it, you know it – don’t overestimate your strength, El. You can’t save her if you can’t even muster the will to save yourself.”
FIGHT OR FLIGHT , there it was again . he thinks about the switchblade sewn into the pocket inside his jacket as the fucker advances on towards him . and in tandem , one step forward , & he takes a step back , again & again , until his back finally meets against the wired fence . carefully , he digs his hand inside his jacket , considering the blade , lightly pressing against the sharped point of the weapon before his breath stalls by the mention of his . . boyfriend . now , there was no longer the tug of hesitation , but he cuts through the air with the switchblade , keeping it in a measured distance against the stranger before bracing himself .
❝ what’s he doing out here ? ❞ perhaps the right question should have been : who are you ? what do you exactly want from me ? or just fuck off . but the memory of parrish & alexandria catches him off guard , & for a second , a flutter of quick breath drains through his lungs . what was he doing here ? — how did parrish trace his footsteps ?
he ‘d managed to leave the town as safe as he could , no cookie - crumb trails left behind him or a pathetic mistake left behind for the crops to sniff him out . yet , parrish was here . he nearly forgets the blood welled dark against his face from the prior fight against a group of thugs , of which he’d avoided , but of course , not without a blood - struggle .
this man could be an enemy or something else , he wasn’t too sure . the first instinct was always to distrust , but he would need to play in with the man’s games if he wished for answers . the daring , lop - sided grin on the stranger’s face seemed to agree with his thoughts , & the blade is slowly wavered down from the threat - filled gesture .
❝ —-killed my mother . that’s what they’re all saying , ‘course they all fucking believe what the press says , & i dashed out from that hell - hole before they could swarm over me like maggots . ❞ he pauses then , wonders if trading his truth is worth the risk of speaking to this stranger . distrust , elliot , distrust .no , for the first time , he goes against his instinct , grasping against parrish’s name as a tug of hope .
❝ my dad , the sonuvabitch killed her . sure did a theatrical job telling the cops that his drug - addict delinquent of a son finally went out of control , all because his mom didn’t let him take his pills . real fukin’ funny though , because i’ve been clean since last december . ❞
His hands go up, but not with
urgency; the action is slow and drawn out, and with the prospect of being
stabbed with a switchblade, comes a bout of laughter, the most inappropriate
action to such a potentially lethal situation. But he could see the exhausted
way in which this frightened boy’s chest heaved for air, the weariness in the muscles
of his arm that lifted the weapon. He was in no real danger, not from this kid.
He was running on stale adrenaline, and it was going down, crashing hard and
fast.
“You are quite the little character, aren’t ya? Got any more sharpened magic tricks up your
sleeves?” He laughs again, raspy and cackling, throat shredded from smoking
various things in pipes and bongs over the years. “And as for your adorable
boyfriend, Parrish, he’s lookin’ for you, of course!
What, you think you can just run away and no one’ll ever come after ya? Yeah, not quite. Been there,
rode that angry pony, nearly got kicked off and landed on my ass. No matter how
good you think you are at hiding your tracks, there’s always someone who’ll come sniffin’.”
He’s squinting now, emerald
halos brought to half their size as he fully took in the extent of Elliot’s features, the blood
caked against his face, some of it fresh, some dried and crusted against his
skin in thick maroon flakes. “Jesus, I’m inclined to think the kid just followed the blood
trail you’re leaving like paint on the sidewalks. You look like someone tried to
give you facial reconstruction surgery with their fists.”
A look of concern flashes
across his face, but he’s quick to hide it behind a chuckle. “Damn, they’re really trying to demonize you out there, huh? Media will do that. I don’t trust any of ‘em, no good fucking
dishonest reporters. Always trying to put out a shocking story, truth be
damned. If it means anything, I believe you. You wouldn’t have come all the way
out here, lookin’ as horrified and fucked up as you do, if you weren’t innocent. Guilty
people don’t have nearly as much sense of self-preservation.”
Looking at Elliot was
becoming almost painful, what with
the damage done to his body. Hearing his story was almost as rough. He couldn’t imagine it, his own father framing him for such a terrible
crime. What kind of fucked up bastard did such a thing? And that thought was
coming from a self-proclaimed fucked up bastard! A wave of empathy crossed his
heart, as he said, “Hey, why don’t you come in for a bit, get yourself cleaned up, maybe some water or
something? And honestly, I’m not taking no for an answer; you look like you’re about to pass out, and
trust me, better inside than laying out here, prey to god knows who or what. Daddy
issues are no reason to let yourself fuckin’ die on the city streets. Just, when you’re inside, don’t fuck with my stash, alright? Don’t need you messing up my business, or your sobriety. I ain’t in the mood to deal with a relapsed junkie today.”
“You just missed him, ya know.” His voice is not condescending, as it so often tended to be. Rather, it was simply matter-of-fact, and his expression was wiped of his oh-so-annoyingly-usual smirk. He scans Elliot’s form, giving him an analytical once over before nodding to himself, as if to confirm something in his mind.
“You look just like he said, not a detail out of place. But, if I may - I’d say you’re even cuter in person.” Then his lips break through into a wide grin,betraying his cool and casual facade. He couldn’t help it, the prodding, suggestive jokes and humor that some (99% of people) would consider crude and crass. It was simply in his nature. He didn’t come to be known by his friends on the streets as the Junkyard Dog for nothing, after all.
He comes closer to Elliot, green eyes vibrant and seeming to glow as a car passed by the alleyway, headlights illuminating the arguably cramped space they occupied, flashing against his irises and creating an eerie effect. “Ya know, I could just tell you which way he went, but that’d be too easy! I didn’t expect to see you just wandering around out here, it’s kinda a big surprise - I don’t get surprises much anymore. Life’s become a bit of, how you say, a goddamn big ass fucking bore.”
He’s leaning against the brick wall of his apartment complex now, arms crossed as he stares at Elliot with the gaze of a scientist overwhelmed with curiosity as he examines his newfound specimen. Behind Elliot is a wire fence jutting fairly high in the air, and by all impressions, the boy is cornered by Isaac. Whether it was his intention to make Elliot feel threatened was anyone’s guess. He simply had that effect on people, and sometimes he had no want to do so.
“Yer little boyfriend told me you were running from something big, but he didn’t specify what. I’m mighty curious as to what a scrawny little kid like you might have done. I don’t read the papers much, so enlighten me, mister man - just what kind of deep shit areyou in? … And if it’s profitable, count me the fuck in!”
❝ —LISTEN , I TOLD YOU . ❞ in recoiling defense , he shrugs himself away from parrish’s reach , digging the bruise - battered knuckles harder down the small of his pockets . here he was again , always evading & evading , —since when did running become a defense mechanism ? maybe it was from seven years back , & him , cowering behind the oak drawer , dodging the shattered throw of his father’s beer bottle . oh elliot , what happened ? nothing . absolutely nothing at all . it’s always nothing . ❝ the bastard started it , oh actually , he was fuckin’ asking for it . next time i’ll send him off to a month - long vacation hospital . i hate him . ❞ truthfully , he could have evaded that too . the fight . of course , in flight or fight , flight was always an option — , but not for him . silently , he falters into a long solitude of silence , waiting for the familiar phrase to fall from his boyfriend’s lips : well . . want to talk about it ?
He opens his mouth to speak, to offer some sort of
supportive words, you_’re not alone, you can
talk to me. Please, god, talk to me. _But he feels like a broken record,
like he’s running in circles in the same way a dumbfounded dog
chases its tail and doesn’t know what to do once it catches
its “prey.” He debates reaching for
Elliot again, part of him desperate to maintain some kind of physical contact –
that way it wouldn’t seem so much like he was losing
his boyfriend to the firestorm of destruction welling up around him, engulfing
him like an unavoidable natural disaster to which he could only be a trembling
witness.
“At this rate, you_’re
both _going to wind up in the hospital. What’re you gonna do then, El?
Stab each other with scalpels when you’re asleep in your beds?”
He’s running out of things to say,
he feels it in the pit of his stomach. Running out of ways to put an optimistic
spin on it, running out of ways to distract Elliot from the pain he felt. There
was only so many times they could go out to eat together before the lack of
money was noticeable, and road trips, no matter how far the distance they
spanned, had to end someday.
There’s worry creasing his face, and
his hands still itching to be anywhere but stuffed inside his own pockets,
longing to examine Elliot’s bruises, so only he could
convince himself the wounds wouldn’t, in fact, be permanent
this time.
“I love you, Elliot…
That’s about all I know how to say when this happens. God,
sometimes _I _want to land a few
punches on the bastard.” He dips his gaze away for a
moment, waiting for the tidal waves of emotion to retreat from the shores of
his mind and wash back out to sea. When he’s recovered, he looks
back at his love, the love that makes his heart feel like it’s
_burning _some days when he stares a
little too deeply into those blue eyes.
He isn’t about to back down from this,
not this time, not right now. He reaches forward, knowing full well he was
risking being slapped or kicked or whatever else Elliot was capable of doing
when he felt like a cornered animal, and takes hold of Elliot’s
arm, all but _yanking _one of his wrist’s
free and out into the open light.
“Jesus, these look worse than last
time…” He breathes, looking down at the purple and blackened
flesh stretched across Elliot’s knuckles. “This
needs to stop. I-I don’t know how, but – you need to
leave that house.” He pauses for a moment, eyes
alight with an idea. “Why don’t
you come stay with me? Doesn’t have to be for long,
but, just enough until you heal. Seriously, El, you need time outside of there.
Please.”