CBITH: (B): Catching up on old times

[jack_babalon]

Catching up on old times
January 14th, 2007
~Rob M.

Continued from CBITH(A)

Adam's Grandad, in the little bit of time he got to know him, laid it out simple one day. There are only three things in this world a man should ever run away from: The Law, Luck and Love. There's no reasoning with either of them and it's a sure sign of a fool the man who tries. There's no fighting them either, though the stuff of poetry is often made of such attempts. There's no hiding from the last two and a life hidden from the first ain't no kind of life at all. Nope, your best bet was to run and try to buy yourself as much time away from them as possible.

Make no mistake. Love, luck and law are some serioulsy bad shit!

And Sarah K. was all three rolled into one.

Adam scrambles to get up on his feet. The result is an ass splash back into the dirt and an accidental misfire that ricochetts xylophone music into the shadows. The ghost roaches, with their tiny little human faces crawl off him, scattering into the cracks and trash, hiss whispering subaudible curses before vanishing.

Yep. Even his demons were scared of her.

"I don't want to hurt you..." He tells her, focusing on keeping his trembling hand from firing again.

"Well it's a good thing that's not really an option for you then." She smiles innocently

"I'm serious." he pulls the hammer back. Sweat stings his eyes. He can feel the nausea wrestling to come back up the throat. Hard shakes showing in the hand.

"Nooo... you're drunk and mines bigger." She flashes her jacket open revealing the handle of her own piece hanging there heavy and patient as death. "Really, where we going with this, huh? You can't shoot for shit on a good day.. and todays not really a good day is it?"


He scans around desperately, he just needs an image, a picture, a map, something and he can use to 'shift' his ass on out of here. He spots a clumsy tag Sharpied across a pipe. It's small but it might be enough. He looks back up.

Sarah's gone.

An empty patch of moonbeams sitting like a jail break spotlight. He strains to form vision out of the darkness. Nothing. He arches his head up to try and catch something off the ear. Nothing. He steps back slowly away from the light and remembers his Grandad's words now: RUN! He spins around and she's standing right there. She winks and before he can release a startled little scream, a blur of motion waves before his face as the flat of her palm smashes directly into Adam's nose.

The pain shoots minature fireworks behind the eyes. He reels back. He can't see for shit now. He can feel her delicate little hand wrap around his wrist, twist it at an unnatural angle and the soft thud of the earth meeting his gun.

She releases his wrist and steps forward. Her right heel lands behind Adam's left. It looks for a second like they're dancing with her taking the lead. She pushes lightly, he goes down again and this time he stays down.

"Alright enough already! If you're gonna kick my ass some more, then you're gonna just have to come down here and do it!." he cradles his nose and can feel the blood seap through his fingers.

"Oh stop being such a pussy." the words come cold. Detached.The well rehearsed routines of enemy lovers.

"You broke my fucking nose!" the words come burnt. Live. The fun house mirror echo of a man who keeps making the same mistakes twice.

"You used to like it when I was rough."

"No you used to like it when you were rough. I was usually happy if I was able to limp out of there alive the next day.".

"I don't remember any complaints."

"You never gave me permission to talk." he playground winks her and despite herself she answers with a muffled chuckle.

"Well that's alright. As I recall you beat yourself up just fine on your own." She crouches down next to him, she reaches into her jacket and pulls out her cigarettes. She shakes two loose and plucks them out with her lips. The cherrys light up on their own. She offers him one. His eyes tick suspiciously towards her and after a long moment of hesitation, ( performed more for her benefit than being due to any internal consideration of his own), takes it.

How Adam has always seen Sarah: "A beautiful monster of a woman".

How Sarah has always seen Adam: "My Knave ov Windows/My Knight of Cups".

"So whaddya wan'from me then?" he leans his head back in an attempt to slow the flow. A terrible headache rises slowly from the mists of his buzz.

"You know what I want", she takes a seat down in the dirt next to him "the Tulpa."

"Don't you mean 'The Hearts Beautiful Lie'?" he snorts. Small flecks of dried blood fly off his nostril.

"You did your homework." added only to imply that she wasn't impressed. Luckily the only thing Adam picks up on slower than a hint is the check.

"Yeah well, somewhere around the time I got my ass handed to me at the Star Bar I started thinking that we're not just dealing with some supernatural fuck buddy that's gotten off its leash."

"No... well at least not anymore."

"Look Sarah. I know you got me by the balls here and I especially know you get off on watching me squirm... but c'mon it's 'Game Over' time... this shits gotten way too big for me now. Hell, IT's gotten too big for either of us. You and your roll party coven might wanna look into calling in some serious back up..."

"There is no coven anymore, Adam." she sighs out a long cloud of nicotine.

"What you guys break up all of a sudden?"

"They're dead."

"..."

"All of them. Jenn, Marilyn, Di ..."

"Gina?"

"Yeah, Gina too. I forgot you used to have a thing for her. But yeah, i'm all that's left."

"What happened?"

"What d'you think happened? That ... that fucking Things been picking us off one by one for the last two months while you've been running scared around the city with your head up your ass..."

"Well what the hell was I supposed to do?"

"Something. Shit, anything. But you got your ass kicked a little and you ran off and hid."

"Yeah well here's the thing. I got the law looking for me over some dead coke head I used to sell to." He gets up. Restless. Agitated. He's suddenly aware of all the dirt caked into his skin. He's suddenly aware of how he reeks of sweat and spilt Mad Dog. The words are bubbling over the lid of the mouth. It's been locked in too long.

"This means I got shit for connections right now because i'm too hot to deal with. Meaning no connections, no friends. Then I got your imaginary boyfriend hunting me down for shits and giggles then just to top it off I got you back on my case now. The woman who broke my heart, broke my nose and blackmailed me. So y'know what? You need to call in those people looking for me fine... call 'em. Just some more bullshit for me to deal with. Hell maybe they can do something about your Tulpa problem. Meantime i'll ask you again... What? What is it that you want from me?"

"Your help." She stamps her smoke into the dirt and picks herself up in one single fluid motion.

"Well i'm sorry Sarah but it's not like you've thought much of my help before."

"Well i'm asking for it now." The words grind up against the pride. You can hear it in the rattle of the throat. She lights another cigarette. She doesn't look at him. She stares straight ahead at something only she can see.

Adam sits there quietly. His self rightous high has crashed. The pain hasn't. He realizes that it's not too late. The moment still hangs open on the threshold of his possibilities. He can just tell her to 'piss off', get up, walk on out of here, drain an ATM dry, clean up his shit and walk out of Terminus a free man. Walk himself down to a Greyhound, pick a city at random, ride, get there, pick up on it's magickal signature, find the local hustle, find the scam. Blend in. Fake a life for awhile, throw it out when you get bored and start all over again.

Yeah just forget all this bullshit once and for all. Fucking Sex Tulpa's and Evil Ex's constantly getting in your business. The instincts are calling from down deep in the blood: Run Adam! Run and don't look back!.

He gets up. Ridiculously he brushes off his pants. He turns to her with an apologetic shrug... and she looks up at him with something he's never seen in her eyes before.

Need.

"Look ummm... I want to help..." he pauses. He wants to add 'but' but that look just won't let him. He swallows back a gulp, closes his eyes and gives in to the inevitable.

"I want to help." he repeats the words solid. Honest.

"But we gotta talk here Sarah." He adds in quickly, his common sense coming back to.

"Yeah, okay. Well what do you talk about then?" she says knowing exactly what Adam wants to talk about.

"Well i've been dying to know for years now. Why'd you leave me, Sarah?"

Comments

[esmio06.livejournal.com]

"...You can't shoot for shit on a good day.. and todays not really a good day is it?"


best line ever!!!!

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it. Maybe one day you'll get to say it to somebody ... hmmm wait, no that wouldn't be good would it? Well cheers anyways.

[esmio06.livejournal.com]

and we all know I wont get to say Mine's bigger to anybody....snicker

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

What with the Eros Society meeting this weekend. I'd be surprised if that's all you say.

[esmio06.livejournal.com]

hehe I'll be there

[catwalk.livejournal.com]

i was gonna vote for
"you're drunk, and mine's bigger."

;-)

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

You'd be surprised how many times I heard that in the Navy (answer: 23 times during Desert Storm alone!)

;)