A/N: Sorry, no Dean or Sam here. Just a brief look into the mind of the shape-shifter of 1x06 'Skin'. Twisted? Yes. I know.
...
It's best to kill at night, as the ground is dampening and the smell of the city slowly overwhelms. When piss, vomit, and grime fill the air. When people stumble out of bars or walk purposefully home from work. That's when it's the best. People are afraid in the dark. They're afraid of what lurks around the corner or in a stranger's eye. People are afraid of the unknown, of what they don't see or understand. Every night people are afraid.
Or at least they should be.
Fear is delectable; it is an emotion that is practically edible. I can taste it on my tongue in the dark. The smell curls around my nostrils, iron, like blood, tough, like tissue. I breathe it in at night. It is delicious.
But there is nothing like betrayal. Betrayal fills me up for days. It oozes from the pores, slick like sweat and tastes like heaven in a touch. It is harsh. It is angry. It is hurt. Nothing turns purity to depravity faster than betrayal. There is nothing more exquisite than watching a love turn into hate, into fear.
People are so fickle. Give them a reason to doubt, and all faith is wiped away; give them a reason to hate, and they will. People forget to rely on themselves when they rely on others.
But no one should be able to trust. There should be no such emotion; there should be no such belief. Trust is fucked. Trust is bitter and sweet, it tastes like hope, and it rises the bile in my throat. There is nothing more sickening than hope.
The first time was the best time. I watched him drop her off at her house. I watched the way her lips lingered on his through the car window. I watched her unlock the front door and wave at him before he disappeared.
It wasn't hard to become him, he had a simple enough mind. It wasn't even hard to get her to let me inside. She liked to be touched underneath her chin, I remembered, his experiences slowly melting into my mind. I placed two fingers at her jaw and felt her heart speed up. She was looking at me curiously, and I could smell it on her–hope, desire, and something else, something weary.
I killed her slowly, suffocating, dissecting, pulling skin from tissue, tissue from bone. Oh, she had tasted so good, her fear, her betrayal, her hate. And her pain. As the last of her life was slipping from her I called him from her phone. Then I called 9-1-1.
You see? It wasn't hard to frame him, to return to my home, licking blood from my fingers, satisfied with the taste of someone else's hatred.
Nothing could have beaten the prison visit though. I went as her, rearranging my bones and skin till I was a perfect match. I could remember her beauty then, and I had to fight the desire to pull off her skin again. He sat behind glass, staring at me for a long time. His confusion, his betrayal, his fear, but still he was silent. I wanted him to scream. I wanted to taste it. But he just sat there, still, tears sliding down his face. I smiled wickedly at him before leaving.
The first, yes, that was my favorite.
After that, there were no women as beautiful, no men as broken, no betrayal as delightful. But there were others. Curly-haired women. Women with blue eyes. Or green, or gray. Tall and skinny women, women with curves, flat-chested women. They are all so beautiful. No one deserves beauty. No one knows how powerful it can be.
Their beauty is something to be worshiped, cherished. Taken apart, dissected. Their flesh revealed, their insides red. Their pieces torn away, their emotions destroying them, their trust giving me license.
People are puzzles. They fit together, a million strategically placed fibers, all held together by life and skin. Take them apart, see how they fit. It is tragically delicate, the human body, but not so delicate as the human mind. I love it, just as I hate it.
It is when I shed that I am glad to no longer be like them. Glad to have been forcibly removed from that legacy. I have no image anymore, nothing for people to shudder at, nothing for people to fear. The only thing that they can fear now is the people that they trust.
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