Sometimes your body is a skein

unraveling.

Sometimes you carry your heart around like a jar of cats in heat or crying.

Aracelis Girmay, "Portrait of the Woman as a Skein," Kingdom Animalia

So, the only times he'd ever been in Worth's office was for the obvious reasons, bloodbags handed out with some meager conversation. Or moreso confrontation, words always in the form of a high-pitched squabble or a low-tone, smoker's-voice drawl. Stupid skirmishes; bad impressions. He'd never known the doctor to be anything but loathsome, crude and cruel, but he was Hanna's most trustworthy friend somehow. The boy came out okay each time, had even discussed him with some admiration despite confirming that he was nothing but sleazy. And yet there is still something else about him, something somehow valiant about setting up shop in the middle of nowhere and actually trying to heal his equally-suspicious patients. He doesn't exactly want to delve into that, though. His fascination is endless, but he's scared to do more than scratch the surface, because there are consequences to things like that. Maybe someday he'll just stab him with a scalpel, he doesn't know. You really can't predict that sort.
Now they sit alone in the white light of the grungy tile room, Conrad presently subject to the horrors of the fairer man's practice. Fixtures flicker as they buzz above with a tune adding white noise to the din - to the almost hushed and urgent struggle that goes on at the table, shining with tiny spots of something. Maybe rust, probably blood, or a combination of both. Conrad had nearly shied away, but then remembered the blood pouring out from him, the acidic shit gnawing at his skin.

He wheezes regretfully as Worth returns with all sorts of sharp mechanisms. The other continues to stoically - or just downright angrily - ignore his pain, though in the back of his mind he's glad the doc is at least being professional. That's another thing for him, although he still wonders why he didn't graduate. He could have an actual office, work in an actual hospital, or something. The man is just about as bootleg as you can be.

And his mind is slowly beginning to clear, enough for growly bits of words to sound more coherent. Doc Worth dumps half a bottle of peroxide on a cloth and sticks it to his insides.

"Nnnmmm," he protested squeamishly. "Fuck you."

Conrad's still working on being coherent.

The other squeezes his shoulder, but he's sure it's less of a comfort and more of a, 'hold still you little shit,' sort of thing. The more the vamp writhes away, the tighter the grip becomes. He can see every speck of dirt existing on white, fur-lined sleeves.

"'That what you sound like in bed?"

Conrad breathes sharply. "Oh my god."

The doc looks at him as though he's proven a point. He works on cleaning bloody slush as the other makes faint noises of unappreciation, and it goes on like that for several more seconds. Worth becomes aware of the fact the other is still half out of his mind, and if he continues to inflict pain he may as well decide to deck him. It wouldn't take long to beat him down, but it would mess up the procedure, and he really doesn't feel like scuffling at 2 in the morning. Not with something supernatural, not with someone Hanna knew. Not with someone spilling blood and guts all over his office along the way. He sits in cold silence a while longer, before deciding the taste it puts in his mouth is too unpleasant. The other's suffering fucks with his system, pisses him off. Feels like a hospice room, would almost be one without the roaches. The bottom line stands that he doesn't appreciate it.

"So how'd y'get into this mess?" he questions finally, the vamp opening one eye previously squidged shut. He looks back at the wound, wondering silently which bubbling is the peroxide or the vamp poison guzzling his guts.

He shakes his head, pressed against the grimy wall. Briefly, he wonders if he'll get any bugs in his hair. Cockroaches sneak into vaginas, lay eggs inside you; what else can they do, where else will they lay? It almost makes Conrad shudder, but miraculously he keeps it down. "I don't...know," he says.

He shifts very slightly. Immediately, a ripple of disgust streams through him: "I didn't get into it. I got pulled into an alley on my way to the store."

His voice is ragged and tired, doesn't carry the usual bite. Worth pauses, squinting up. He looks back to his stomach, peeling back parts cut open and peering into the glittering trove of organs. Nothing else seems to be fizzling. No more blackish blood pooling. Worth grabs for the sewing supplies to stitch him up, questions swimming in his brain. He picks out the most important in his mind.

"Wha's the other guy look like?"

And he shouldn't have said that, because Conrad is silent for so long that he's a little worried. His eyes wander back up again, and if the vamp's face was pale before, it'd reached its maximum now. Haggard, shooting glances at the wall. The echo of mental scarring dances across the room, whispering even you're better than that in the doctor's ear. He hadn't expected for him to do the same, the guy was scrawny and timid. But other factors line up perfectly, and he knows the answer is obvious before he says it. Everything is suddenly very, very still, and Doc Worth shifts very, very slightly.

"Need me t'go get him, too, ask 'em what 'is damage is?"

"I killed them."

He looks immensely ill. If he didn't know better, the doc would move to get him a trashcan. It isn't like he really hadn't thought that, but Conrad wasn't the most likely to be some bloodthirsty murderer. Not like the people he'd killed weren't just as bad, nay, blatantly worse. They were just doing their job, but they usually turn out twisted from all the, er, experience.
Conrad had been gutted like a fish.

"Doctor," he chokes.

"Worth."

"Doctor I killed them, I don't know what to do, their blood is all over my goddamn clothes, I drank both of them fucking half dry, I just-"

"'Ey, didn' know y'had it in you."

The vampire regarded him sickly for several seconds, mouth not entirely shut, the tiniest gap in his lips that says he'd like to curse him out again, screech, get off the table and attack him. Go take the Hunters' blades and chop off his own damn head, do everything himself even. But it also held such a key of exhaustion that he knew, easily, he wouldn't do anything. The doc ignored it, taking the thread and the needle he'd gathered before and pressing his hands against his side. After a moment of annoyance, he tugs the shirt that keeps falling over the wound up, glaring pointedly at Conrad. Weakly, hesitantly, the vamp sheds it with a painful noise at the movement of muscles near the wound. It slithers lamely to the ground, and the doc goes back to work.

He twitches continuously while he sticks him, but only slightly, for the most part relaxed - or resigned. The nothingness between them is so silent they both hear the clock tick in the other room, wrong time, but the steady tick, tock, tick floats on through. Red-flecked eyes watch ants crawl across the floor with occasional grimacing, expression absent, coming to terms with the terrible fact that he is, truly, a monster. Those kinds of ailments don't just go away. He pities him.

He doesn't let him know that.

As soon as he finishes the stitches and cuts the thread off, it seems it's time to go for Conrad. He reaches quickly to grab for his shirt, almost automatically, and the other stops him dead in his tracks. A pushy hand presses firmly to his chest, along with a sharp, annoyed, "Ey!"

The doc continues. "You think I'm gonna let you pop them stitches right out again y'r fuckin' crazy, sit up 'n sit still, I ain't done."

The vamp regards him weakly.

"You are fucking done," he murmurs, along with spitting and squabbling something along the lines of not having all day, while Worth is halfway bent to pick his bloodsoaked item from the floor.

Vertebrae of Worth's spine slowly click as he pauses, and then rockets back up in an instant. The other isn't quite sure he's ever seen his back so straight before. From his stance above the vamp sitting smallishly on the table, he looks ten feet taller, and a bit like a cruel, ravaging vulture. He inches so close the other sees the blood vessels of his eyes, thinks he can see one go pop right as he gets in the vampire's face. His breath tastes like smoke and bitterness, gritted through his teeth. Conrad could count the number of molars that are crooked, if he wanted to be extra rude.
He looks nearly like a father hearing his kid say 'fuck,' though Conrad's sure if he ever reproduced - a horrid thought indeed - he'd teach the changeling thing the word himself. If he were still wearing that shirt he'd yank him by the collar, but he settles for slinking and staying dangerously close to his face. It merits the same effect.

"'Scuse me?"

Conrad coils into an angry hunch on the table, glancing firmly away from the doctor and at generally anything other than him. His expression is livid, though mutely, and he really isn't up for any fights. The sparks of his anger aren't strong enough to cause a wildfire; they're only that, just embers. Worth, however, is fully willing to rattle his teeth, and stays, leaning into his personal space just for spite. The other man coughs quietly, tasting a morsel of blood as he does so. He tries very failingly to avoid the gaze, tucking his face into crossed arms like an angry two-year-old in trouble. He peeks up once the doc dangles his shirt in the air, unraveling enough to reach and snatch it.

Worth yanks it away just as fast. The first syllable of protest on Conrad's tongue is beat down by his monologue.

"'S what I thought. Listen, y'ain't leavin' yet, you got blood to drink an' things for me to rail you about 'fore you go. Haven't come here in weeks, where you gettin' your blood at? Huh? Nowhere."

It's at this point that Conrad begins to shrink back.

"It's your own damn fault y'bled two people dry to death, y'fuckin' idiot! You need t'see Hanna after this."

He turns on his heel and marches into another room, but not before launching the balled-up shirt toward him blindly. Worth snaps his gritty gloves off and slaps them in the garbage as he storms off, blue eyes cold as Hell frozen over. Conrad watches him leave, a creeping feeling crawling up his spine at the simple prospect of having to interact any further. This is why he never came over in the first place, too nerve-wracking, only shouting and blowing smoke in his face, invading his nostrils whether he voluntarily breathed it or not. It seeped in just like the headache he inevitably gave him, aching at his temples. Conrad puts his shirt on, but the stickiness of the blood makes him sick. Doc Worth wanders in with a bag of blood and a cigarette pressed firmly between pale, chapped lips. And he finds him in that familiar almost-fetal position, rubbing gently at his forehead, eyes closed but popping open as soon as footsteps approach him.

"Why do I have to speak to Hanna?"

"Got a problem with 'em?"

The doctor's face is absolutely glowering, ripped into a snarl. He takes the blood gingerly.

"Don' act like you don't got 'is number."

And he does, but he hates for Worth to be right. He'd admitted to his mistakes earlier, when his assailants had shanked him, but he won't admit them now.

"Why do I have to get involved with him again? I just want to go home. They're dead, there's no reason to give a shit now, right? Just let me go, I'm tired, it's going to be daylight by the time you let me out of here!"

The doctor sniffs, leaning against another table and observing him loathsomely. He seems as though he's wondering if he should dignify that with a response, but after a while, he does. It takes a bit of time, however. He strides around the perimeter of the dingy room, eyes mapping out dustbunnies in the corners of the walls. He has some cleaning supplies somewhere, in the closet he never touches, along with boxes and boxes of other untouched things. Why clean up if he's comfortable just the way he is? He counts the cobwebs seemingly peacefully. They're good where they're at. Conrad gives him an almost simpering look.

"'Don't think they're human," he starts. "Knew you were vamp right off the bat. Might be lookin' for someone they can smell on you."

And Conrad knows exactly what that means.

He has no clue what to make of it, but he can tell exactly who he's hinting at. Tonight is going wonderfully.

With that, he's shooed away, but not after several quips and squabbles before he gets out the door. The doctor viciously reminds him to drink that blood he'd gifted, and Conrad is glad that it's night because he's got a red-stained shirt and a bag of plasma in his hand, and he's obviously going to take the backalleys and walk fast. At least the shirt is dark? Doc Worth bitches him all the way to the door and then some, and then tells him to get the fuck out, acting as though he's been lingering the entire time. He slinks back to his front desk and crashes in it, propping his feet up and glaring and likely not moving from that position all night. His hawk gaze probably stares at the door accusingly far after he's gone. Conrad doesn't know; he's out of there as soon as he kindly asks.

'Keen on him' his ass.

And so he finds himself having walked a mile back home somehow having dodged the sight of suspicious passerby. That, or they were too scared to interrupt his journey, all blood-soaked and unpleasant and obviously vampiric. He really didn't expect to get home after his escapade, but here he is now. Watching Hallmark movies trying desperately to feel normal, after wiping every speck of his body of his dead attackers' residue.

Conrad sinks ever-so-miserably into the chair in front of the t.v., and sometimes the weather makes the screen flicker, 'cause he can hear a storm somewhere in the distance. And he sits there thinking he hates rain, it makes him depressed, even though he's mostly always depressed. Especially nowadays.

How can you be happy when you get the urge to drain people for a living? How can you be happy with the baggage that you've killed a man?

The blue light of the night shines onto his face like a cold hand trying to comfort him. It doesn't do any good. The volume on the t.v. isn't even up enough to hear what they're saying, because he doesn't really care. He still feels sick. The tempest of mistakes he's made swirls inside his stomach, and he's likely going to be healed by tomorrow, but that doesn't keep it from stinging. That doesn't keep it from being in his memory. It doesn't keep the guilt from settling so heavily he feels like he needs another shower, and another, and another, and -

His doorbell rings in the almost-silence, quiet 'cept for the static of almost-words to his ears from the television.
It breaks the moment and pulls him out of his thoughts. Hell, maybe Worth didn't stay at his desk all night, maybe he'd followed him home. Maybe he'd called Hanna up just for spite and knowing he was thinking of not doing it - he wouldn't put it past the kid to have been awake at this hour.

And then there's the other culprits.

Terror.

The doorbell is pressed repeatedly about ten or eleven more times, consecutively, one after the other.

He looks through the peephole. Two familiar faces stare back at him. He feels as if he's going to pass out for the third time today.

Casimiro stares pointedly through from the other end, and presses the doorbell once again. Conrad opens the door, quite against his will. He looks between him and the stouter, more stoic man beside him, and both look generally pissed off. He's quite sure that in his time knowing him, Cas has been nothing but pissed off and raucous, likely his default emotion. The fact that Finas' expression is the same, albeit muted, is the more worrying thing, although it could be purely from his partners' own dismay. God bless him, not like Conrad would be able to deal with the high-strungness.
Both still unnerved the shit out of him. They'd said they'd kill him. He believed it.

"'Ello, Conrad. It's been a while!"

"I suppose it...has," he says weakly.

"Have you found out where your girl's been recently?"

The other's sentence is to the point and the undertone is accusing and knowing. The abruptness of the situation makes him pause considerably, brain churning. He doesn't know exactly how to respond. The warm glow of the hall hurts his eyes, even though it's too soft to burn, makes Conrad's head pound when it'd only just begun to stop.

Faint silver beams still seep through the crack in the door, from the window and its thin curtains spilling onward underneath their feet, battling the light. He takes an entirely unnecessary breath.

"Adelaide? I-I haven't seen her. Hanna hasn't been that in touch with me, so I-"

"Wait, you're not working with Hanna?"

Well, shit.

"I - Uh, no? Ever since he turned me we haven't spoken much, and-"

"Okay, wait. Adelaide's the one that fuckin' turned you, and what's so bad about that? Why do you gotta complain while we go on living?"

He hisses the next few words. Casimiro creeps exceedingly close, and he looms worse than Worth had back at the office, when he'd let one too many things slip, but worse now because he knows just how much harm Cas can do:

"You're the same as us."

Worth only talks, only punches, only quarrels; the vampire is a vamp, and he's been alive long enough to have his unique and bloody way of dealing with things, all quick-like. Conrad has a feeling that this time even Finas won't stop him. Besides, they both have the same goal. He stands with an eerie prickle running up his spine; the air is vibrating slightly like a swarm of bees in his ears, and he wonders if the others hear it. If the others are causing it. If it's just the auras or the heat that Cas' general presence gives off, moreso than a few snappish words.
He's not even as bad as he could get. But it's easy for him to reach that point.

"...We just didn't think I'd be of much help. I don't know how to use our 'link,' or whatever it is. We tried for a while." He tries to avoid that last accusation as much as he can.

"You tried for a while," the other repeats.

Conrad inwardly cringes.

"You tried," he snaps, volume raising to a shout within seconds; it echoes down the hall. Finas seems to stiffen more behind him, immediately, and Cas' eyes sweep around. It lowers to almost a whisper, pressing Conrad into the room behind him. "For a while."

And just like that, he feels the static he's conjured around them that triples with the fact he's in his space, and now he's in his apartment, and he doesn't have to keep his threats low when nobody can discern them anymore. When nobody can see the harm that may be inflicted. Conrad steels himself, his face dark, and both step further in and close the door behind them.
They're engulfed in utter silence.

He can hear his own heart beat, so in honesty it isn't completely quiet. The other two can, too, that's how vamps work. Hearing your fear and feasting on it and all that.

A hand alights gently on Conrad's shoulder if not for the claws that dig into his skin, the sting hot. In the moment, it's only three angry and feral monsters and the moonlight, civilization along with that glimmer of hope both shut out. The only thing left to reveal that it was there is the streak seeping from the inch of a crack above the floor, and that's all, as shittily symbolism-filled and thriller-esque as it can be. But it feels painfully real, and not an ounce like the bad writing you see in movies and discount novels.

The irony of how he'd tried to escape all this stings more than anything. It's like he's come full circle and then dove straight into Hell. There's a lesson in this, and he's about to learn it in two seconds, the vamp knows this as soon as the ashy thing opens his mouth with his null eye staring at him that way. Like he's talking to a rambly telemarketer but ten thousand times worse - and that's really saying something. The corners of Conrad's mind flicker with fire and it's almost like he can smell smoke, taste it on the tip of his tongue, and it's hard for him to be speechless. But he knows, for once, his place in the world. It's below creatures like this, even though in some ways they're alike, but they aren't the same and in their brains Casimiro and Finas both know this: You can't be that sort of demon till you've ruminated in purgatory for years and years.

"If you don't fix what she started," he seethes gently, "I will find the others we 'enlisted', and most importantly I'll find you, and I'll kill you just for being fucking worthless."

There it is. And the sad thing is, it's all true. What sweetens the pot is that they absolutely will get rid of him so quick that it makes him sick thinking about it.
He shoves him, vamp strength and all, so hard that Conrad doesn't even have a chance to gain footing. He just plops onto his ass hard enough to break it, and his stitches ache like a lightning strike down his middle. He sits, doubled over and yelping, until the two vampires close his door politely and leave the warmth of the hallway lights to keep him company. And like almost every night on the outskirts of daylight, he crawls into his bed miserably, terrified. He tucks himself in and curls in the blankets like a kicked dog, insides pinching. Like every new dawn, the end of the moon is met by pain and more pain till he falls asleep trying to think of good things, and his dreams are a reassurance that those good things are impossible anymore.
Most weren't plausible when he was alive and his heart was still beating, skin wasn't lukewarmly whitish.

And it's quite sad that's almost a relief, saying, "Nice things were never reasonable anyway."

Next step, tomorrow when the day has thoroughly run out: Confront his guilt face to face, more formidable than the rest of the things he's faced during the night. The most disgusting thing his deprecating ass can imagine is himself, after all. And he isn't looking forward to that, not the redhead's hurt hidden behind all his excitement, god damn his bouncy fake emotions, and not to the zombie's traffic-light-red eyes watching him like a warning sign. Knowing he's not any worse than the kid with his actual willingness to do this, knowing that he's left Hanna before. That he's ran away and made him feel the weight of the world and the death of somebody even though they're still well alive, if you could go as far to phrase it that way. The point is, he is well aware that he's made himself out to be an enormous, ignorant asshole. And when he sees him tomorrow, the other will be so glad to see him regardless.

Hanna is the worst form of torture.

It's as much of a torturous experience starting out as he had imagined, unsurprisingly. He'd gotten it right to basically every detail, especially those eyes that cause warning bells to go off in his head. Conrad smiles in what he hopes is an expression of politeness and reassurance, instead of what feels like a worming, ugly thing. He tries to control his breathing and his twitching, but those two things are impossible to do.

"Mister...Achenleck," Hanna says owlishly, blinking from behind his rigid partner. He holds the door and looks down at the vampire like a bouncer who knows that like hell you're eighteen.

"C-Conrad." He feels like that stutter is strike one. "I'm sorry to interrupt you, I know I could have called, but I've caught wind that Adelaide is still - thriving. You remember my case, don't you?"

"Yes! Of course I do. We tried to get that settled about a month ago, even came to your house a time or two and called a shit ton of times, something wrong with your phone or something? Vamp life must be busy, though, so I completely understand. And don't worry, we weren't doing anything! Let him in, Birch, if you would."

The zombie's gaze stays steadily on him without a blink, which might be normal, but it is definitely pointed as a fucking knife in this instance. Nevertheless, 'Birch' drops his arm from the doorknob and steps dutifully away with a kinder look toward Hanna. The kid flounces toward a pile of things on the coffee table and shuffles through a ton of papers and files before he pulls one folder out, which has his name starkly on the front as he can make out from there, even sans his shattered glasses back in that alley. He flips through the contents of it, rambling on as he always does as his eyes catch things. He has actual files on people? More organized than he seems, that's for sure.

"I-I remember your case like it was yesterday, don't worry." Ah, yes. Guilt. "Adelaide was supposed to have calmed down some, though I've heard from Worth that she still, er, fraternizes with Lamont. Was it Cas and Finas who told you? Those guys seem to be even worse than her, I swear. I never even got what she was supposed to have done, either. I tried to locate some information on vamps and locating sires and all that, and I have some theories to test out, now that you're here and stuff. Nothing solid, but at least one method should work, right?"

Hanna skims over what seems to be a sloppy list of said methods before looking back up at Conrad, standing awkwardly and a bit stiffly in the middle of the drab living room. "How do you even know she's causing trouble again, anyway? Was I right?"

The vampire takes a breath. "I got shanked rather purposefully in an alleyway last night."

"What."

"You're right, though. They came to my place a few hours later trying to start shit, like they could just sense that I needed more of their mouths. Anyway, they reinforced the idea that they'd kill us if we didn't get our plan together and...cooperate."

Conrad sighs raggedly, glancing vaguely away with that last part. Hanna pushes all the important things from their stack precariously onto the corner of the glass, and sidles onto the coffee table to perch like a strange bird. He seems to swish his thoughts around in his mouth, and his companion moves to hover with his back to him against the couch's arm. He can see without knowing his expression that the zombie is worrying about the 'killing' part, and simpering as best as his body will let him at the boy for putting it off. The case had been a touchy one to begin with, and they were all stupid for letting it sit. Conrad already knows, however, that he is a complete and utter dumbass with only a smidgen of redeemable qualities.
He watches their shock set in mildly. Then he figures on continuing.

"I spoke to Doc Worth while he was, er, patching me up. He says he believes they weren't straight Hunters, with how they could sense me, or that's how it seemed."

"What happened to them?" Hanna asks, finally breaking from Birch's crippling stare. He can tell it's the same type he'd given him in the doorway, because under that chipper he's almost shuddering.

And there's the question that Conrad fucking hates.

"If they're still out there we could just hunt them down and ask them directly, that should be eas-"

"That's. Not going to work."

"Oh."

Hanna's eyes don't look scared, they just look pitying. He figures he's about to ask that whole 'have you been eating' question, but he's sure that either he knows Worth would've gone over this, or he knows for a fact that he hasn't been in for about a month. He'd been looking for him, he inevitably had to stop by the doctor's to ask him to pass on a message. And he hates that Hanna already knows he'd ditched him once and fallen off the face of the planet, into an abyss of dark space and wallowing till he was etched in black so far down it touched his soul. So far he couldn't care less about goring a guy when it came down to it, had starved himself to the point of immense counterproductivity.

Not counterproductivity.

Monstrosity. Something along those more heinous lines.

"Listen, how about," the redhead clicks his tongue. "How about you meet me tomorrow at the same time, and we'll start trying to test out these theories and stuff? We'll get you fixed up. And don't worry about all those vamps, I mean, they can't mean all that talk, right?"

"You know for certain that's a terrible underestimation."

Hanna pauses with a painful wince.

"Just...go home and rest, okay?"