Advent Children
"The problems arose when I started seeing him in mirrors, over my shoulder, when he wasn't there at all. I began to resemble him, in my sleep I became more and more like him, every night I'd notice another similarity. They could tell, everyone could. You could."
His sweat-damp hands shook a little. Then a little more.
"I never met him". I lied.
"You've met me".
"I don't regret that".
"He will". My companion's symmetrical cheekbones flushed, his lips slack. He was another typically sickening example of everything I survived. Crumpled from having been slept in, his perfectly tailored midnight blue suit clung about him timidly, stretched in places by the pressure of a tense muscle beneath.
I raised the 1911 slowly, purposefully. The hammer fell and the bullet sprang from the chamber, spinning as it flew. It has always been my trademark to modify my projectiles, product of expert training and more than equal boredom. A dum-dum bullet is a regular hollowpoint cartridge, with an X cut into the tip so that the charge will explode on impact. Very painful.
"Rocha, you are nothing like him. For one thing, you're dead".
I felt like kissing him before I left. There's my thought, exact, unflinching and slightly perverted. I didn't touch his skin, it would have been colder than I'd like. Instead I took the lighter from his top pocket and left him mine, not that he would get much use out of it. Fucking Turk.
* * * * *
You are not my dream. And yet you haunt my nights, gently pushing inward and then retreating to begin again, as though I desired to become one with you. Not one, more half of one, a distinct being and still a part of you. I loved you, I suppose. It's the kind of love you had for Rocha, and you knew it could be nothing more. You're ugly, you know. Inside. Like me. Mine is a sickness and yours a choice, the mother of every cathartic compulsion. So maybe I could have healed you. I won't tell them of this strange connection, the words of which are barely worth hearing. This is truth, undiluted and a waste of all that makes it real. Just another scar, you're just another tear I'll never shed, another bullet marked for an angel I can't find. I love you still. Goodnight.
* * * * *
I hurled the lighter onto a polished desk, different from the one in his office last week. Usually he gets a new desk when he's killed someone on its predecessor. Must've been a woman, he's changed the carpet too.
"Who was it this time?"
"How the fuck should I know?" I slumped in the chair opposite him, reaching for the cigarette case next to a framed picture of his wife. Tolerant, accepting little Shera. I almost made it before he took hold of my hand. I know what he's looking for, and he won't find it. I was not a reject like that dead boy.
"You done?" I pulled my hand in shortly after claiming my prize. He lit it for me. I leaned back gracelessly and let his priceless chandelier blind me. I wonder what he did for that. Or who he did.
"Do you even have a name?" It's question after frigging question today. My head feels like there's a smackhead with a jackhammer in it and I haven't been laid for weeks.
"Emil Rocha". Reeve smiled. I hate that smile. Well, I would if I had the energy. If I had that much energy I would probably shoot him. They say you should always fire on an exhalation. Relaxes you, I guess. Or makes it easier to accept that you are the reason why a human being is about to die.
"Good. We should get his body some time today". He took the cigarette out of my mouth, dragged on it and offered it back. I stubbed it out on the back of my hand and flicked it at him. Obsidian eyes glittered, hovering parallel in a plume of smoke.
"Hojo was good to you"
"Damn right" I stood, satisfied that I had fulfilled my purpose. My commander shuffled through the stacks of yellowing documents in front of him, hopefully looking for the one I just stole. I knew his eyes were burning into my back as I walked out. I haven't been this close to laughing since I was a Turk myself.
"The problems arose when I started seeing him in mirrors, over my shoulder, when he wasn't there at all. I began to resemble him, in my sleep I became more and more like him, every night I'd notice another similarity. They could tell, everyone could. You could."
His sweat-damp hands shook a little. Then a little more.
"I never met him". I lied.
"You've met me".
"I don't regret that".
"He will". My companion's symmetrical cheekbones flushed, his lips slack. He was another typically sickening example of everything I survived. Crumpled from having been slept in, his perfectly tailored midnight blue suit clung about him timidly, stretched in places by the pressure of a tense muscle beneath.
I raised the 1911 slowly, purposefully. The hammer fell and the bullet sprang from the chamber, spinning as it flew. It has always been my trademark to modify my projectiles, product of expert training and more than equal boredom. A dum-dum bullet is a regular hollowpoint cartridge, with an X cut into the tip so that the charge will explode on impact. Very painful.
"Rocha, you are nothing like him. For one thing, you're dead".
I felt like kissing him before I left. There's my thought, exact, unflinching and slightly perverted. I didn't touch his skin, it would have been colder than I'd like. Instead I took the lighter from his top pocket and left him mine, not that he would get much use out of it. Fucking Turk.
* * * * *
You are not my dream. And yet you haunt my nights, gently pushing inward and then retreating to begin again, as though I desired to become one with you. Not one, more half of one, a distinct being and still a part of you. I loved you, I suppose. It's the kind of love you had for Rocha, and you knew it could be nothing more. You're ugly, you know. Inside. Like me. Mine is a sickness and yours a choice, the mother of every cathartic compulsion. So maybe I could have healed you. I won't tell them of this strange connection, the words of which are barely worth hearing. This is truth, undiluted and a waste of all that makes it real. Just another scar, you're just another tear I'll never shed, another bullet marked for an angel I can't find. I love you still. Goodnight.
* * * * *
I hurled the lighter onto a polished desk, different from the one in his office last week. Usually he gets a new desk when he's killed someone on its predecessor. Must've been a woman, he's changed the carpet too.
"Who was it this time?"
"How the fuck should I know?" I slumped in the chair opposite him, reaching for the cigarette case next to a framed picture of his wife. Tolerant, accepting little Shera. I almost made it before he took hold of my hand. I know what he's looking for, and he won't find it. I was not a reject like that dead boy.
"You done?" I pulled my hand in shortly after claiming my prize. He lit it for me. I leaned back gracelessly and let his priceless chandelier blind me. I wonder what he did for that. Or who he did.
"Do you even have a name?" It's question after frigging question today. My head feels like there's a smackhead with a jackhammer in it and I haven't been laid for weeks.
"Emil Rocha". Reeve smiled. I hate that smile. Well, I would if I had the energy. If I had that much energy I would probably shoot him. They say you should always fire on an exhalation. Relaxes you, I guess. Or makes it easier to accept that you are the reason why a human being is about to die.
"Good. We should get his body some time today". He took the cigarette out of my mouth, dragged on it and offered it back. I stubbed it out on the back of my hand and flicked it at him. Obsidian eyes glittered, hovering parallel in a plume of smoke.
"Hojo was good to you"
"Damn right" I stood, satisfied that I had fulfilled my purpose. My commander shuffled through the stacks of yellowing documents in front of him, hopefully looking for the one I just stole. I knew his eyes were burning into my back as I walked out. I haven't been this close to laughing since I was a Turk myself.
