HESITANCE SHOWS EVIDENTLY IN THE SLIGHT PART OF HIS LIPS . the water bottle is thrusted into his hands , & he takes a loose hold on it , only staring at the man – now , isaac , with a hard swallow of his throat .
❝ —-why are you so intent on helping me ? what will you get out of it ? ❞ he asks after length , the former guard finally released to reveal the uncertain trepidation of the 18 - year old boy within himself . the knife was forgotten now , & he presses the cold surface of the bottle against a bruising cheek , wiping at the dribbled blood by the corner of his mouth in a slap - dash matter .
it wasn’t often that another body would come forth so willingly to offer him help . his mother was kind , but far too weak to oppose against his father . mary anne had been there for him sometimes , but she was most often not than she was . the moment she’d hit the hard age of 18 , she was gone , a jail - bird girl pursuing out of her cage for the free world .
for a while , he had been resentful of her as well . but that was how it was with the tyvers , always & always . live for yourself . his father had told him countless amount of times , words reworded & retold in different tales : in the wild , the lions abandon the weakest cubs to die . this world is always the survival of the fittest . are you a lion , elliot ? or are you a weak , helpless thing ? his mother had raised him to be a boy with trembling hands , & his father had raised him to be a terribly cautious , daring , & dangerous creature . there was nothing , no one else to blame .
❝ you say that i’m interesting , but you . you’re hiding something . ❞ rolling the bottle down the side of his face , he flickers the cold gaze up towards isaac . what’s a once high - academic kid doing here now ? what kind of cliff were you pushed off of ? were the hands pushing you of someone else’s , or was it your own ?
he wasn’t a stranger to tragedies , & he didn’t find that he found sympathy for them within himself either . it was to merely identify another thing of his own kind , —— alex had once said that it had felt good to realize that he wasn’t the only one leading a concoction of everything fucked up in his life . you , tyver , i say that i’m a fucked up bastard . . but you’re really a riot , you know that ? what’s it like living walking on knife edges all the time ? not scared that you’re going to fall & cut yourself up one day ?
he pauses a moment , as if to contemplate isaac’s silence . then without waiting for the reply , he wipes the sweating condensation of water down his face , & digs deep into his pockets to pull out a rolled up wads of dollar bills .
❝ here , i don’t owe debts . ❞ tossing a wad towards isaac , he returns the rest of the money back inside his jacket , ——- the former guard against the other lifted back up once again . the fences were rarely placed down , &parrish was a rare exception , he was always an exception , & the only one .
❝ take me to your nest , junkie . –won’t be touching your stash , but make wrong moves , &i’ll cut your throat . ❞
His eyes widen for a moment,
gleeful expression evident on his clownish mouth. “Oh man, so you think I’m interesting, too? Gosh,
I’m flattered.”He
holds a hand to his chest in an exaggerated fashion, gripping Elliot’s wad of cash in the
other. He pockets the money, and then whips out a crushed carton of cigarettes.
He brings one to his mouth, then tips the carton over, allowing a small lighter
to fall out into his palm. Bringing the flame to the tip of the cigarette
alights it in a cherry red burn, and it isn’t until that moment that he speaks again, watching
Elliot through a plume of gray smoke that puffs from his mouth and nostrils,
and fades just as quickly as it’d come.
“Don’t we all have secrets,
Elliot? Mine, well, I’ll just tell ya straight up. Fuckin’ show you, more like.” He moves his fingers to the hem of his shirt, leaving
the cigarette to dangle between clenched lips. He lifts up the dark fabric,
revealing a vast series of thin, pink scars, criss-crossing across his abdomen
in a fairly aligned pattern. A methodical case of harm, drawn out literally in
a case of parallel carved-in lines. “Every time I didn’t do well in my classes, or was ‘disrespectful’ at home, I’d give myself one of
these bad boys. Misguided shame does that to a dumb kid. My parents were
fucking nutcases. They’d scream at me to high godforsaken heaven if I so much as breathed out of turn. Dad was a retired
military officer, mom, an active city cop. We weren’t poor or nothin’, there was no reason to push me like they did. Just… It’s all about the Ivy League legacy, right?”
He gives a grin, but it isn’t like the others he’s shown. It was stripped
of his smugness or cocky attitude, and all that was left underneath that, was
the shuddering, vulnerable, depressive boy he believed he’d left in the past. But
there he was, lurking underneath the surface, melded to him just as the
self-made scars marred his body.
“Shit’s fucked. That’s all she fucking wrote.” He takes another inhale of his cigarette, sucks in
long and deliberately, allows the smoke to billow from his slack jawed mouth. “Oh, and I don’t want anything from you. Just, when you see a kid in distress, you
have a lawful obligation to help them. Well, for me, it’s more moral than lawful… And that uh, throat
cutting thing is very much noted. I will keep my colorful comments and my hands… Mm, relatively to
myself. Sound good, champ?” Then he’s waving his hand over his shoulder, telling Elliot to
follow him to the entrance of his the apartment complex. He makes a point to
nudge a sleeping homeless woman on the front steps with the toe of his shoe,
for no reason other than his own sick amusement at watching her slump further
down on the concrete. Just like that, his emotional layers were pulled back
over his wounds, tightly sealed and not so easily pried apart.
“Aaaaaaall right, welcome to casa di Moreau!” As he opens the door to
his apartment, the first thing he does is unceremoniously drop his cigarette to
the floor and kick a piece of dirty laundry over it, snuffing out the flame
with the fabric. “Mind where you step, I haven’t exactly gotten around to spring cleaning yet. Even
though it is… Waaaay past due for that. I’m a bachelor, this is how we live. Manly traditions,
you get it.”
He leads Elliot past the
mounds of garbage and clothing, strewn in disarray all across the living room
floor. There’s a room to the left, with a sign on it stating in all capital letters,
“DO
NOT ENTER,” and the contents within could have only been Isaac’s infamous “products.” Other rooms with open
doors seemed to be bedrooms and a bathroom, each with their own unique level of
hygiene problems.
“Make yourself at home, bud! You can have that little bedroom to the far
right over there. Stay as long or as little as you want, I just ask you don’t eat all my fucking food
or drink all my beer. I know how you teenage boys can be, the little black
voids that you are. I was just like that myself.”
There’s a buzz at the door, and
he’s
a bit startled by that, the confusion momentarily in his eyes signifying that
he was not expecting visitors. He leaves Elliot to call down to the buzzer, and
a grainy, dark voice responds to him. Isaac all but bashes his head against the
wall, but tells the visitor to come on up. He looks over at Elliot, sighing so
heavily he nearly makes himself wheeze.
“Hope you don’t mind, but this fuckface I’m partners with just has to come up and drop off some
money he owes. We work together. Weird, freaky shit, but it pays well.” He smirks at how strange
that vague description must sound to a stranger who was not as in the know as
him, and just shrugs his shoulders when he should have been explaining more. “I’ll protect you from him,
don’t
you worry. He’s a creepier fucker than me, but just smile and nod when he talks to
you and you should be good.” He holds a finger to his mouth after some thought as
he adds, “Mm… On second thought, that might be a challenge for someone like you.”
And just like that, there’s a new man standing in
the apartment, taller than Isaac, blue eyes sharp and alive as they seem to immediately register
another life force besides Isaac, standing just a few feet away. Isaac holds a hand to his head,
sighing again as he says, “Victor, please, can
you not stare at people like a
fucking hawk? It’s weird. Look, the poor kid’s probably shaking in his boots. Either that, or he’s about to tear you a new one with his favorite toy…”
“It’s hard not to stare when I
come in here and find a strange boy in your apartment. I thought you were over this whole ‘save the children’ obsession.” The man named Victor
strides further into the apartment, movements fluid and without falter or lack of elegance in any of his steps. He comes to stand before Elliot, sizing him
up like he’s a predator scanning the potential of getting a good meal out of this new
piece of prey. He’s still watching Elliot as he calls over his shoulder to Isaac, “Where on earth did you
find such a pitiful little mutt? I hope you weren’t the one who roughed him up, Moreau. Tsk, he looks like a lost
lamb…”
He reaches forward, cool, silver ring-clad fingers intent on thumbing at the crusted blood droplets against Elliot’s cheek. It’s invasive and without care for personal space, but he doesn’t seem to be one who has much concern for those things. An immediate red flag if ever there was one. “Which dumpster did Isaac drag you up out of, hm?”