HE DIDN’T WANT HELP . — he didnt need help . but victor was playing by clever cards now , dropping the illusion of offering the choice between accepting & declining . yet the only option was clear : accept , or he would pull out the dirty tricks hidden in his sleeves , cause elliot to accept . he didn’t want the money , he didn’t want victor’s help , & he didn’t want to play by other people’s games anymore . but did you ever have a choice ? it was only the matter of survival here , & victor was drawing out a way out , regardless of whether it was merely an illusion or not , it was something .
❝ i don’t want your help . i never asked . i hate unwarranted aid . ❞ he says in an apathetic voice , eyes hardly gazing against the thick wad of bills held in hands . perhaps other desperate street - rats would have leaped at the first chance to accept the money , & kiss victor’s shoes for helping them out . maybe they would shine his shoes for him too , & thank him for being their redeemer from the low - life of the streets . ———- fucking snake , a viper. he knew the method well , how victor guised himself beneath the veneer of offering hope , but . . the guy probably wanted something far more than to just help . whatever it was, he couldn’t understand fully , but he would find out whether he wished to or not . there was no choice for him .
❝ & i disagree . most kids have hard time even having to breathe in the same space as me .❞ but he could hold off for a while , slip past victor’s attempts at snaring him to the corner for as long as he could . until he could leave the shitty apartment - complex , & find his way through the winding streets of the concrete jungle & hide himself behind the hustling faces of mundane lives . he leaves the money unaccepted still , eyes cold & terribly blue , flickering up towards victor in an unreadable tilt of his head . ❝ today , i’m going to be jonah . tomorrow , maybe tyler . —– & today , i don’t feel like accepting unwarranted sympathy . ❞ he never did . even with parrish , the whole ordeal had always been a struggle between the two . parrish attempting to corner him to finally surrender & admit that , yes , he needed his help . & elliot always trying to slide past his attempts , always promising that everything was perfectly alright .
for a moment , he wonders if isaac has any firearms hidden within the grimy set - up of his apartment . maybe beneath the couch cushions , or somewhere behind the plastered walls . a hand is slid back into his jacket , but his finger carefully poises against the handle of his switchblade , & he only looks away , as if to be poured down in thought . ( but his mind was racing , recalling the routes taken to get to isaac’s apartment , & the way back to the old chapel by the 7th avenue . he would only need to distract the man for awhile if he wished to make a fast dash for it. ) ❝ but i’ll remember to include you in my books . just search for a sociopathic bastard in the story . ❞
A scowl replaces the friendly grin he once wore as Elliot rejects his offer. He’s stubborn, unbelievably bull-headed, and its charm was rapidly deteriorating. Now, what was once entertaining was just becoming plain annoying.
“How ungrateful of you,” His voice has been stripped of any playful formalities, facade after facade being ripped out of his tone, nothing left but the bare-bones acidity of Victor’s true self. “Do you know how many people would have thrown themselves at my feet for a chance to even look at the money I’m holding out for you?” He makes a slight “tch” sound as he shoves the money back into his pocket. “You’re smarter than most people, though, I figure that. You sure you don’t want to hear the requirements? I promise, they’d be an easy pay day…!”
That was, truly, one of the biggest lies ever spill from his mouth. “Favors” for Victor Chandler were rarely ever easy, and more often than not, were extremely dangerous and much more trouble than the money was ever worth. But, desperation coupled with a lack of fear for dying compelled many a person to take him up on his twisted games; and rarely did anyone ever escape his clutches all the way intact.
“I wonder how tough you are though, that will be the question, won’t it?” He glances to the corner kitchen, sees a drawer of which he’s been over enough times to know the contents. Kitchen knives, in various lengths and levels of sharpness. Isaac mentioned something of a weapon in the kid’s possession, too, but would he really faster if he chose to lunge for the weaponry…?
His thoughts of blood and gore are, unfortunately for him, cut short by the sound of the doorbell ringing for a second time, an obnoxious buzz that seemed to drone on and on without silence. Whoever was pressing in the bell was persistent. Isaac can be heard groaning from inside his room, yelling out for Victor to “just fucking answer it already before I bash my fucking brains in!”
When Victor answers the repeated buzzes, the voice he hears over the intercom begging to be let in causes his face to morph into what might be considered concern, at least as concerned as Victor was capable of looking for another human being. He allows the stranger up, and in what feels like seconds, as if this newcomer sprinted all the way up to Isaac’s floor.
Another man enters the fray as Victor opens the door to allow him inside, and in quite the strange turn of events, they actually embrace each other, Victor’s arms wrapping around this man who appears frazzled and shaken by something yet unknown. He’s of a shorter stature than Victor, less lean and more sturdily built, and when he speaks, there’s a rare, soft quality to his voice, so unlike the man he was hugging.
“Fuck, I’m glad I found you here,” He says, and pulls his head away from Victor’s chest to stare up at him with mournful brown eyes. “You gotta get home soon, I guess your idiot pet project discovered what pyromania is and is now currently about to set the fucking house on fire.”
“Adam, just relax.” Victor simply shushes him with kiss on the forehead, and to the untrained eye, the pair might have come across as a couple deeply in love, what with the way Victor preened him and cooed in his ear to try and get him to calm down. But with a second, more analytical glance, the way Victor held him was not only meant to provide comfort, but it appeared incredibly possessive, his arms winding around the man named Adam’s frame like greedy pythons waiting to suffocate their next meal. Every action this man did always seemed to have a much deeper, sinister intention lurking just beneath his murky surface.
It was then that Adam realized there was another presence in the apartment, and he managed to pull himself out of Victor’s insistent hold (albeit with great effort) to look at Elliot across the way. “Jesus, Victor, what did you and Junkie Mc SmokesAlot do to this poor kid?”
He steps just a few inches closer to Elliot, and unlike Victor, his eyes betray genuine sympathy and compassion, the raw emotion that was impossible to just fake. His eyebrows are furrowed and his jaw clenches as he examines the full picture that was Elliot, from his blood spattered clothing to the defiant hostility in his icy glare. He tries to show Elliot a smile as if that might ease the tension in his muscles, but when that seems to fail, he turns to Victor in an accusatory fashion. “Whatever you were trying to do with this kid, I can imagine he didn’t find it very fucking helpful, huh? Just look at his face!”
There’s a sort of warmth to his expression when he looks back to Elliot, trying his best to exude some ray of positivity in his direction. “I don’t know what he was trying to get you to do, but thankfully I’m here to put a stop to it… Sometimes he just doesn’t think before he starts speaking, you know? Look, I think Isaac might have a few bandages in his bathroom somewhere, if you wanna come with me; I can fix you up, or at the very least, clean you up a little. I was in the Scouts as a kid, I know a thing or two about patching up some wounds.”
He’s smiling again, a full on bright smile, trying his absolute hardest to appear friendly and personable so as to negate the cold sting of Victor’s own… difficult aura. Even more than wanting to take care of this boy, he figures he may be able to help him escape the apartment more quickly. So long as he has a helping hand to shield him from Victor’s taunts, Adam thinks he can give this kid a fighting chance.