The Crying Game
By Mady Bay
March 27, 2007
I used to be able to count on one hand how many times I have cried in my life, or at least in the last twenty-three years of it.
I remember the first few nights after Mom died; crying myself to sleep, after crying with my Dad… It wasn't long, though, before he told me that we couldn't cry anymore, that I had to be a good little Marine and that we Marines didn't cry.
I cried after the Shtriga came. I locked myself in the motel's bathroom and cried quietly, upset with myself for disobeying Dad's orders; for almost getting Sammy killed. I needed to cry then, so that later, when Dad yelled at me, I wouldn't.
The night Sammy left for Stanford was the next time. Five minutes after he walked out the door and headed for the bus station, I left and went to the bar. I remember ordering shot after shot of JD… and then seeing my tears falling into the barmaid's hair and down her back as I fucked her against the bar after closing time.
That's three times, if you lump all the tears for Mom together, in eighteen years. Hell of a record I had going.
But now, in just six months, I've cried three more times. Sammy must be so proud – I've gone all emo.
When we burned Dad I figured it was understandable. Hell, how often does your father, your hero, die? Though I think I was more pissed than sad, then. I didn't care about being a good little Marine anymore. Fuck the Marines. Hell, fuck Dad, too. I knew what he'd done. For me. To me. To us.
How fucked up are we now, that we can't even tell good from evil anymore? That my dad, the one who taught me to hate that yellow-eyed son of a bitch, went and made a deal with the bastard.
And here in San Francisco I'm crying once more, because my baby brother is going to kill a werewolf. Again, how fucked up is that?
In the past six months I've saved vampires, called up and made my own deals with a demon, sent a fellow hunter to jail, watched more innocent people die because of this crap of a job…
I've been told that if I can't save my brother I'll have to kill him… Or maybe, like this werewolf asked Sammy to do, the only way I'll be able to save my brother is by killing him…
Yeah, I think I should be allowed to cry now.
A/N – thanks to November's Guest for the look-see/beta job and to Winter for giving me the real count…