Somewhere further down the corridor, a metal door slammed; the sound reverberated down the silent hallway as loud as a gunshot. Sheriff Vash Zwingli heard the echo from his office, and pressed his mouth into a thin, angry line. Interrogation room 3. The thrice damned son of a bitch was waiting for him. Vash got up and walked to the kitchen of the station. He'd have a cup of coffee first. Make the son of a bitch wait. It wasn't until he lifted the pot of coffee from the hotplate that he noticed his hands were shaking. Badly. With seemingly impossible determination, Vash pressed his lips together even tighter. Against his will, his expression still echoed his nerves, taunt and angry. His mouth was a pencil thin slash across his face and it didn't suit him at all. He decided against the coffee after all, and taking his cup back to his office, rummaged to the back of the last drawer of his filing cabinet until he found the bottle of bourbon hidden there. He took a healthy nip, then a second before reluctantly capping the bottle and putting it back. Vash waited until the tremor in his hands had stilled, and then left his office, shoulders squared and a look of determination in his eye.
XxXxX
The two men stared at each other for a long moment. There was no need for introductions; both of these men knew each other very well. A hundred little moments flashed in the back of Vash's memory as he stared at Gilbert sitting across from him. Those moments didn't mean a thing now. Not after what Gilbert had done. The handcuffs clinked quietly as Gilbert fidgeted a little, breaking the unearthly silence in the room.
"Make it easy on yourself, Gilbert. Tell us why you did it."
"I didn't do a damned thing," Gilbert replied back, his voice a soft rasp rather than his usual coarse yelling.
Vash felt a stab of anger rising at Gilbert's denial, and he fought hard to control it. This man wanted to sit here and play innocent, even as he wore the crime on his shirt in thick, rust colored stains. Vash scoffed at the man's impudence. "I've been to the crime scene," Vash said, channeling the all-business sheriff's voice he had spent several years perfecting. "I've seen the body. I can't even begin to tell you how hard that was for me. Everything points to you. Footprints at the scene, motive, opportunity—hell, you were seen fleeing from the scene. The why is the only thing we don't have. To be honest, we don't really need it. We have a solid case. You'll fry either way. But goddammit, Gilbert," here Vash's voice broke. "Why? Why did you do it? Tell me."
"I told you, I didn't do it," Gilbert said, as if explaining something to a forgetful child. "But I heard a story in town this morning. Sounded an awful lot like your case. Care to hear it?"
Vash sat back into his chair with a sigh. This was typical Gilbert. Give him a chance to show off or jockey for attention and he'd take it in a second. He was the only one who knew what happened this evening. He had a story that Vash was burning to know, and he could take it to his grave if it suited him. "Fine. Tell your story. But if it isn't about what happened in that house—"
Gilbert waved Vash's concern away with a short flick of the wrist. The handcuffs jangled along. "Are you listening? Because I'll only tell the story once…."
XxXxX
"Once, there were three kids growing up in a small, sleepy little town. The town was alright, in its own way. Plenty of friendly folks and fertile land. But by nature, little towns tend to have big opinions. Often, the status quo is a good decade behind the rest of the country. I only mention this because it's what brought those three boys together. They didn't pal around much when they were young 'uns. They went to the same grade school, but they had other friends to pass the time.
"No, it wasn't until well after their voices broke and lowered that they began to notice each other. See, they had something very important in common. Unlike the boys they'd palled around with for as long as they could remember, those three discovered that they had different…tastes. Like I said, little towns have big opinions, and they had sense enough to keep their perversion to themselves. Still, they noticed each other. This story's already long enough without going into how they met, but let's say those boys found each other and leave it at that. And they weren't so alone after all. Maybe that meant that they weren't so perverted after all. Maybe some men are just born fancying other men.
"They forgot their other friends quickly, and those three began spending a lot of time together. They didn't always get along—hell, two of the boys fought like cats and dogs while the third trailed behind a little nervously and tried to make peace, more often than not—but they appreciated the fact that they were there for each other in the type of town that didn't take kindly to their type.
"They grew into young men together, and, well, wasn't it inevitable that there would be feelings growing as well? But three's an odd number and no good could come out of it. The two boys who fought all of the time—they found themselves becoming sweet on the third. Caught up in the waves of first love, they didn't notice they had a competitor until their feelings were hitting them full force. Maybe if one of them had noticed earlier—before all that affection took hold in their heart—everything would have turned out okay. But who's to say—speculation's for the birds.
"The situation came to a head soon after they graduated. God, there was so much shouting and arguing when all those feelings came pouring out. The quietest of the three now had to choose between his two best friends. Choosing no one wasn't an option. He had his own feelings that he'd been tending silently, and now they were ready for harvest. Eventually, the boy made his decision.
"Now there was a happy couple, an odd man out, and a whole mess of hurt feelings. The odd man out couldn't take seeing his friends together. It was too much on him. With no one to talk to, and no better outlet, he threw himself into his work. He was tired of being at the whim of others. Damned if he didn't set out to be his own boss. Maybe the success could fill the hole in his heart. Turns out it couldn't, but he did succeed in becoming the best he could at his job, and was dulyrewarded.
"A couple years passed, and a lot of the anger and the jealousy faded away. Hesitantly, the trio began to hang out again, and at first everything went smoothly. The man who had been forced to choose between his two friends had been living with the guilt of breaking up their group for some time, and was ecstatic when the three began to tentatively speak again. His happiness was enough to drive the other two men to bury the hatchet. It seemed this story would have a happy ending.
"But the story doesn't end yet. If it did I wouldn't be sitting here. Let's go ahead and jump forward a little. See, the lover and the quiet man—let's call him Roderich—lived together. Everything seemed to be going good for them. They had a home and a life together, and the lover couldn't be happier. He was also under the impression that Roderich was happy too. After all, what evidence to the contrary did he have? None, until the jilted man came back into their life. Then all of a sudden, the lover couldn't help but notice how Roderich's hand seemed to linger on the jilted man's arm, or how they argued playfully across the table as the three waited for their food.
"Jealousy made the lover more observant. At first, he worried that he was over reacting. Unfortunately, his fears became justified. He had evidence, see. Evidence that the love of his fucking life was fooling around on him with that damned jilted man. The lover was beside himself. He was livid at that jilted man for stealing his love—but then a thought occurred to him. Wasn't it Roderich's fault, then? Roderich had both of their hearts in the palm of his hand. Roderich was the one who had all of the power here. The lover had only been fooling himself in thinking that he was Roderich's equal. It's a terrible fact of life that if you love someone more than they love you, they have you at a powerful disadvantage.
"Suddenly, the lover wasn't feeling much like a lover. He walked around with that terrible secret rolling around his head for a week—maybe two weeks—before he couldn't take it anymore. It was like a sickness growing inside of him. The lover had it in his head to spill some blood."
XxXxX
"That's why you killed him," Vash interrupted with numb lips. "You killed him because you found out we were screwing around behind your back? Dammit, Gilbert. Why did you have to kill Roderich. Why? It was all myfault; I should have just stayed the hell out of your lives—we were all better off that way. God, why couldn't you have killed me instead?"
Gilbert glared at Vash's outburst. "I told you not to interrupt my story," he admonished coolly.
"Dammit, Gilbert. You son of a bitch. You cut him up. They called me to the crime scene and I couldn't—I could hardly identify his face after what you did."
"Me?" Gilbert burst out. It was the first time he'd raised his voice all evening. "I cut him up? You really are crazy after all. Just like the doctors said. Besides, I told you not to interrupt my story. I'm not done."
"I don't want to hear any more," Vash said, anger and sickness were washing over him and he couldn't control himself any longer. He pushed his chair back with a loud scrape, and rose to his feet.
"I'M NOT DONE WITH THE STORY!" Gilbert roared. "You'll sit until it's all done," he commanded. Against his will, Vash felt his legs crumple beneath him and he sat down heavily in his chair.
XxXxX
"The lover had it in his head to spill some blood. He'd been watching carefully these past two weeks. He knew the time and the place to go in order to catch those cheating bastards. The last few days before he decided to confront them, the lover sat at work and did little more than imagine how he was going to do it. There were so many wonderful ideas floating around his head, but most were too impractical, or too risky. Eventually, he worked out that he'd take his knife and his gun and decide which to use when he got there. He felt better now that he had a plan, and even managed to cheerfully kiss Roderich as he came in the door that evening.
"The rest of the week passed like a dream and finally, finally it was Saturday. Saturday was when the lover played poker with his friends, leaving Roderich the perfect opportunity to slink out unnoticed. That Saturday, the lover kissed Roderich goodbye, got in his car, and left. He didn't go far, though. Waiting around the corner until he saw Roderich's little car pull out of their driveway, the lover trailed his unfaithful love straight to the jilted man's house. The dirty cheaters couldn't even wait until they were inside of the house to embrace, and the lover felt sick as he watched from his car.
"He waited until the pair had gone into the house and shut the door before scrambling out of his car. He had the gun tucked into the waistband of his pants and planned on—"
XxXxX
"STOP," Vash yelled, banging his hands on the table. "I don't want to hear anymore—"
"You'll hear it, alright!" Gilbert thundered back. "You'll hear what you've gone and done, you jealous, cowardly man."
"I haven't done a damned thing," Vash shot back, unaware that he was echoing Gilbert's exact words from earlier. Panic was beginning to mount on Vash's face as he realized that he couldn't stand up. He was prisoner to Gilbert's story and in his heart he knew that since he had asked for it, he couldn't leave until it was done.
XxXxX
"You walked up the pathway to the house and broke the window pane in the door. You stuck your hand in and unlocked it before—"
XxXxX
"No, it's you who did those things," Vash insisted, gripping the edge of the table until his knuckles were white. "You. You. It was always you."
"I told you," Gilbert said, starting to lose his temper. "I didn't do a damned thing."
"You did!" Vash insisted, unaware that he was now yelling at the top of his lungs.
"You know I'm right," Gilbert continued in a booming voice. Vash covered his ears with his hands—the last ditch effort to keep Gilbert's words out—to no avail. "If you were the jilted man you would already know the story. You would have been there, sitting on the couch, kissing Roderich. You wouldn't need me to tell you what happened."
It sounded logical, but Vash knew it was a lie. It had to be a lie. Roderich loved him. Roderich had loved him in the end. He was going to leave Gilbert for him. Vash tried to convince himself, but another track was running in his head—for years it had been Roderich Edelstein and Vash Zwingli, then that bastard Beilschmidt had come back into their life and—"NO!" Vash railed aloud against the thought. No, no, no, that isn't right.
Roderich Edelstein and Vash Zwingli
Roderich Edelstein and Vash Zwingli
Roderich Edelstein and Vash Zwingli
Roderich Edelstein and—'I'll kill them. I'll kill them both. If I can't have Roderich, nobody will.'
"You came into the living room pointing that sheriff'spistol at us and Roderich gasped. He tried to speak and you told him to shut up—"
"No," Vash said weakly. "You're lying. Trying to trick me."
"You want proof?" Gilbert stood up and the chair grated against the cement floor as it was pushed backwards. Vash felt a ting of fear creep up his spine as Gilbert towered over him. Methodically—dispassionately, really—Gilbert began unbuttoning his bloody shirt. He pulled the halves of the shirt open, revealing the bloody, gaping wounds on his chest. "The gunshot's what killed me," Gilbert continued in an oddly flat voice. He stopped to point out the little hole where the .40 slug had pierced his chest. "You shot me first, I lost consciousness I think, then you went to work on Roderich. After you killed him you came back and stabbed me, again, and again, and again as I died."
Vash could no longer talk. Scenes flashed and jumbled in his head. He couldn't sort the truth from the lies anymore. In one memory he was the lover, in the next the jilted man. In one memory he kissed Roderich on the couch, the sound of tinkling glass causing him to break the kiss and look towards the kitchen. In another he pulled on thick, black leather gloves before driving his fist through Gilbert's kitchen door's window. It was all so confusing, so awful. With dawning dread Vash realized that the memories of being the jilted man had a flat, vacant recollection to them—he hadn't experienced them; he'd made them up.
"No!" Vash cried out in agony. "Why do I have so many memories?"
"Because you're crazy," Gilbert yelled back. "You're fucking out of your looney mind. The doctor's all say so. You've always been crazy. That's why he left you. He couldn't take instability, the mood swings. He wanted someone to take care of him, not the other way around. When he left you, it pushed you over the edge and you went postal. You're crazy. The doctors say you're fucking crazy…..!"
XxXxX
"How long is he gonna be out like that," the lieutenant—now acting sheriff—asked.
"Difficult to say," replied the doctor. "Sure, the sedatives will last another two hours at the most, but when he wakes up we can't guarantee that he's not going to have another fit like he had last time. We've had a heck of a time keeping him restrained since you brought him in."
"They're gonna bring the wagon down yonder from the state hospital and haul him up there tomorrow," the new sheriff said, "that's fine with me. Those state boys can figure out if he can stand trial. Doesn't matter. He's guilty as a jay and they ain't gonna cut him loose either way."
The sheriff gazed through the window at Vash lying in the ward bed a moment before turning away with a frown.
"Looney bin or 'lectric chair, I reckon he'll suffer plenty for what he did."
XxXxX
[A/N Huuuge amounts of thanks go out to my lovely beta, Kay the Beta. Seriously, she's wonderful and super helpful. Thanks, Kay!
Please review!]