He'd been watching him for years, waiting for the perfect moment. The boy was a leader – he admired that. The boy was a fighter – he approved. The boy was a friend.
He was confused.
If you were a leader, if you were a fighter…why did you need to be a friend?
Something unsettled him whenever he looked into the boy's desperate, furious face. It was delicious and raw, so raw, like a splash of blood and dew. In his profession, he was allowed to do nothing but hide. He had to ice his voice and wear a mask and every sweep of hand had to be no more than an act of violence. Raw emotion sent his mind whirling. He felt cleansed in its presence – here was something real after so many years in his stimulated video-game fantasy. And this reality was brought about by…friends.
He yearned for it. Deep down, in the part of him that could still bleed, he wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything before. To have someone call his name and the Friends called the boy's. To have someone to die for you. To have someone to live for.
The part of him that bled was small, though. He was able to staunch it with the rest of his calloused self. He had business to attend, after all. Bleeding acted as nothing more than a distraction.
He told the boy that they were alike. Because they were. They were both leaders. They were both fighters. And somewhere inside them, they were both hurt and human, in their need to have someone to call die live for.
Somewhere in the dusty corners of his mind, he could hear his name being softly caught and sweetly let go, instead of spat like venom. Somewhere in the dusty corners of his restless self, he reached towards that sound and tried to hold on, hold on, hold on to the fast disappearing echo of "Slade…"
A/N: Everyone thought I was doing Math. Secretly I was whiling away time spouting out dramatic Slade thoughts.