Disclaimer: : The only thing I own is the story idea and only some of the witty remarks. I own so little; so please don't steal.
Background music: Sarah Smiles – Panic! At the Disco
[=]
He cleans the blood off his hands calmly. It has been what seems like lifetimes since his first hit, when he forced everything that had entered his stomach out, but now he can do it without batting a fair eyelash. Blood looks awful under fingernails, especially on an individual with such white hands – then it looks damn noticeable. For this reason, he now wears gloves, gloves that sadistically are paper white – but he just doesn't feel comfortable killing in black, not since then.
Morphine floats somewhere near his peripheral vision, but Lyserg doesn't look at her. He knows the expression she gives him with the darker pink eyes she has now, stained with his brand of justice and what she has seen in her lifetime. She can never die. She will see him go, just like she saw his father. Sometimes Zeruel is better in this aspect afterwards – it stays it a state of dormancy in the derringer against his hip, never speaking, never judging.
"Well," he says, in the collected way he has. He is past the childish immaturities of bursting out and wearing his heart on his sleeve; it won't do for a detective to give away his position before he steps into the spot. "Time to clean this thing up."
The thing in question is a bloodied carcass – for, it cannot really be called a body. What used to be a fully functioning torso is riddled with bullet wounds and charred fabric. A limb is missing and Lyserg doesn't care enough to look around for it; the warehouse rats will probably find it eventually and thank him for it. The face has been burned off, each tooth melted into something indefinable. Hair and skin have since combusted and the heap of flesh and body parts have been messily placed on top of a tarp to prevent further blood from seeping onto the concrete floor. There is still a dark stain that is looking less and less wet under the plastic.
Lyserg hates calling his third spirit. It reminds him of everything he works against. But, admittedly, it is a useful spirit and he uses useful things. Dropping his soiled gloves (he will have to order another pair from the tailors later that week) into the pile of blood and organs, Lyserg snaps his fingers and a flash of flame from around his shoulder darts over and consumes the body until even the ash curls up upon itself and disappears. Morphine glitters down to his arm and he allows her to rest.
He checks the watch around his wrist. At seven-fifty, he chased this man into his abandoned warehouse. The man in question was guilty for theft and attempted rape and avoiding the authorities. Lyserg is ten steps ahead of the police force in this city and did his own investigating with his own methods. The man refused to admit to his crimes and refused to turn himself in; so Lyserg killed him. The tarp is burnt and crisp. The blood beneath is a dark spattering piece of evidence. All within a ten minute period.
"Bloody hell," he murmurs, frowning slightly and wrinkling his brow. "How much blood did that chap have?" He rubs the sole of his shoe against the stain and makes a face. Burning the concrete would draw attention to the place and it would be unbecoming of the mysterious force behind the unexplained disappearances of criminals to be discovered. They couldn't trace him nor could they claim someone was killing people – no bodies were found; they had apparently dropped off the face of the earth. Lyserg takes a deep breath.
"Alright. Let's move some boxes."
When they find the blood later (much, much later, Lyserg will make sure of), they will think it just another dirt stain. Zeruel lifts crates with relative ease and before long, there is a pile of these on top of the ugly sight. Lyserg checks his watch again and stares at the face and its skinny arms. "I was sure I'd miss it tonight," he says, more to himself, as Morphine looks up at him. He is disappointed, she knows, by the murkiness in his eyes. "Let's go."
[=]
"…and I said, 'Yeah, it's cool, isn't it, playing with the ice machine, so that it spits out diamonds'…haha…get it?"
The comedian is dry and dull and only elicits pity giggles or drunken chortles. He sits on a pathetic wooden stool clutching for dear life at a dark microphone that buzzes at certain points in the night. The spotlight is a bad color against his skin, which is dark and now pasty in the light. A blatant scar stretches from where his eyes are obscured by shades to where his hair line begins.
"He's awful," Lyserg tells the waiter who fetches him his order of gin on the rocks. Employees are not supposed to be biased toward acts, but this comedian is that bad; the young man nods sympathetically and totters off to the bar again. Morphine sparkles at his shoulder, his trusty companion no one sees.
"…when she said her mother was larger than life, I didn't know she meant it literally…"
The patrons are bored. If they had water bottles, they would be thrown. A cheaply dressed young man flirts shamelessly with a disinterested redheaded young woman at a table. A couple college students continue to order beers. No one is looking at the stage anymore, even when the jazz band comes on and the comedian says, "Thank you, thank you…I'm Chocolove McDanields and I'll be here all week!"
Lyserg watches the cellist tune his hefty instrument when the comedian comes up to his table with a beer in hand. "I thought you said you weren't going to be here."
Lyserg glances up at him with critical green eyes and turns back to where the pianist is practicing some rifts. The frat boys in the corner make catcalls at the waitress. Chocolove doesn't ask when he sinks down into the chair across from Lyserg's tiny, cocktail table. "It's a tough crowd here."
"It doesn't take much to make them laugh," Lyserg replies rudely. He figures Chocolove is offended but he can't see his eyes so he doesn't know and it doesn't matter. Morphine waves at the man from his shoulder and Chocolove nods at her.
"Where have you been?"
"It's none of your concern." He knows Morphine is sending Chocolove messages with her eyes and knows the shaman knows what he means because he is silent. "If you don't like it, don't sit with me anymore." Don't keep my company. Don't look for me. Don't follow me. Don't wait for me. Don't kiss me. Don't touch me. "Talk about me. Drop a tip over at the station. Do whatever."
Chocolove says nothing. "Pascal doesn't come anymore because he knows you'll be here," he says eventually.
Lyserg snorts. "And he used to be saying I was quite the prodigy."
"Well, you are still nineteen, you know." The bottle clinks against the table, which only has one coaster. The ice in Lyserg's gin shifts.
"I don't see them anymore," Lyserg reminds him. "I haven't contacted them since the Event. I haven't visited Japan either. I haven't seen him at all." He does not want to associate with those lost, weeping souls. He had been one of them once; he had sympathized and lived with them. And he had loved them, just like he loved the idea of revenge and the idea of making the long-haired bastard die at his own hands. But just as he had fallen out of love of all those ideals after Hao's death, he had fallen out of touch with the X-Laws. He had thought he was the happy medium between them and Yoh's gang, but looking back he was sorely mistaken and outcast.
"Come with me," Chocolove says after a while. He gets up without waiting for Lyserg to follow him and walks out the door without even looking back. Lyserg listens to the first stanzas of the song before getting up and following the comedian out into the chilly night.
Chocolove knows he treads on thin eyes with Lyserg. He knows he had been treading thin ice with everyone at the Tournament. He has to be careful not to say the wrong thing, not to do the wrong gesture that will set off the match in a room of gunpowder. So he shoves his hands in his pockets and pretends he's just walking next to a well-dressed young man in a peacoat. It's like a start of a bad joke.
He knows better than to say you shouldn't do that and they have people to do that for you. He believes in leniency with his friends (and lovers) because they all know better and he is not the condescending sort. The cold captures his breath in a white puff. He feels Lyserg shiver next to him.
"I can't stop myself," the young man whispers. "I just look at them sometimes and I wish somehow they would understand why they shouldn't do what they do but I never get through to them. I don't want to kill them, you know. But I can't help myself." It is like he is in a line of a buffet and he is waiting to pluck someone out of the bins and bite their head off, savor their anguish and tasting their consequence. A cyclist at night makes him walk closer to Chocolove and he doesn't return the distance between them even when the bike bell can be heard off in the distance. "I'm becoming like him, aren't I? Oh god, I'm turning into him."
A part of Chocolove wants to agree. He knows a bit of Lyserg is already insane, but frankly, he doesn't know a shaman who isn't a little unhinged. He glances over at Morphine, who nods at him and returns to her home in the pendulum around his neck. "Come on," Chocolove says, putting an arm around Lyserg, loosely. "My place's free, like always."
[=]
It satisfies Lyserg's ego to be on top, and Chocolove doesn't complain because he thinks it's a beautiful sight, to watch the green-haired Brit swear and twist and ride him, flushed and angry, because it's always angry sex with Lyserg. There's always something that makes any passion between them red hot and dangerous. Once, Chocolove woke up and realized with the second-degree burns on his arm that Lyserg did indeed try and burn the bed.
Paschal grumbles when they tumble into bed and he turns the television louder but it's not loud enough because Lyserg is vocal and he shouts and cries and Chocolove is left to ride the waves of his moods, trying to calm him down, trying to stop himself from bruising himself and marking his white skin. He kisses Lyserg's forehead and hopes it will be enough to soothe him for the night, but it never is.
[=]
When he wakes up, Lyserg is gone. His clothes are gone, Morphine is gone. Paschal is sitting on top of his dress, looking angry and says that has to be the last time, he does not want to handle this again. "I keep telling you that boy is bad news for you," he scolds as Chocolove gropes for the sheets to throw over his head. "I am centuries older than you and I know things like this. I want you to keep him out of this apartment. Didn't I tell you this place was open to everyone but him?" When Chocolove doesn't reply, he pulls a low comment. "There are better holes to fuck, you bastard," Paschal says, and storms out of the room.
There are better people out there, like the pretty blonde grocer who always gives him free produce every time she sees him. There is the girl from the coffee shop who thinks he's a catch and is funny (like she should). Yoh knows some nice Japanese girls to introduce him to. He doesn't need to keep living in the past. He doesn't need to keep reminding himself of what happened years ago.
It's stupid, really, what he's doing. It's getting in the way of his humor. He can't come up with good material because he is always thinking about someone and it's hard to come up with good yuks when you're obsessed with something else. He takes a deep, long breath and lets it out slowly and painstakingly. The clock reads nine-thirty.
Some days, he wants to lie in bed and never get up. He wants to roll around and pretend the world is still a wonderful place where there aren't killers or vengeful boys. No ghosts, no shamans, no hurt feelings. He throws the sheets off and places his feet on the floor, a cold hardwood ground. A moment later, he gets up.
[=]
Note: I have a love-hate relationship with this fandom. I have not touched this since about two years ago. I don't know why I do this to myself. I make Lyserg moody and violent and Chocolate a mellow whipping boy. I have indeed come this far. Thanks for reading.