It was deceptively easy to fall back into old habits. The smell of stale cigarette smoke, the strobe lights, the throng of dancing people in the middle of the club, all combined to create one familiar sensation to Edge as he seated himself on an unoccupied bar stool. Though tempted to drink himself into oblivion and hope a kind soul would drop his unconscious body on Gangrel's doorstep, he waved the bartender away and set his chin in his hands.
"Hey! Hey, is that you?"
Edge cringed and ducked his head, trying his best to hide from the voice. It was a vain attempt at best, since the owner of the voice sat down beside him, totally disregarding his obvious disinterest.
"Holy shit! I didn't think I'd ever see you again!"
With any luck, Edge commented mentally to himself, forcing a small grin as he turned to face one of many people he'd hoped never to run into for the rest of his unnaturally long life. Maybe there was a time when Sarah Lawson was attractive in any sense of the word. As long as Edge had known her, she had always been a small twig of a girl, always with tight clothing that really did nothing for her other than show how very thin she was. Her dyed blond hair failed to cover her dark brown roots, but that didn't stop her from passing herself off as a natural blonde anyway. Even aside from all that and her vacant, dull blue eyes, Edge had always thought she had all the personality of a doorknob. As long as someone was around willing to take advantage of her and slap her around she would worship their feet and the ground they walked on. He'd even tried to talk some sense into her on a couple occasions, giving the worn-out empowerment speech to make her see she didn't have to put herself through all of that. That, obviously, had failed. Now she looked even worse than the last time he'd seen her.
He couldn't recall exactly how they had met, only that he'd kept her around because when all else failed, she was always available for a good hit of something and a quick lay, both with no strings attached.
"What're you doin' here?" She asked, leaning against the bartop and giving her greasy smile in a miserable attempt to come off as being charming.
"I could ask the same."
She laughed, a shrill sound that was vaguely reminiscent of nails scraping a chalkboard. Out of sheer courtesy and a display of his willpower, Edge choked down the urge to cringe in response. "I work here, silly."
"In the bar or on the street?"
She seemed disappointed at having been asked that, but then shrugged it off and unfolded her long arms to rest across the counter. "In town. It's just a temp job until I can find something better."
Edge nodded, wishing violently that she would just leave him to wallow in self-pity peacefully. He glanced casually over at her, noticing for the first time the dark, ugly scars lining the insides of her arms, and he couldn't decide if they were track marks or proof of a botched suicide attempt. Knowing Sarah, it could easily have been both. "You're still using," he commented idly, gesturing to her arms. She self-consciously pulled them back into her lap.
"Yeah," she admitted in a quiet voice a child might use when accused of breaking something. "I-I never quit." She looked up suddenly, surprise clear on her skeleton-like face. "Aren't you?"
"I quit a long time ago." Not voluntarily, but he kept the rest of his comments to himself. "Wasn't worth it."
Sarah smiled to herself and absently twirled a strand of hair around her index finger. "Must've met a girl, huh?" Edge shook his head but didn't make any other effort to reply. Instead, he sighed quietly and traced an invisible pattern on the wooden bar top. "You look awfully sad, sweetie. What's wrong?"
"Just have a lot on my mind right now."
Before he knew what was happening, Sarah was grabbing his hand and leading him through the crowd, out the back door, and out onto a dimly lit side street. He made no move to resist her, just leaned against the wall of the building and watching her with half-lidded eyes while Sarah dug through her purse. After a couple minutes of frustrated cursing and digging she finally brought up a short plastic tube and a syringe filled with some sort of substance Edge couldn't even begin to identify. She clutched his arm with her bony fingers, pressing the sharp point of the needle against his arm and leaning up to brush his hair from his neck.
"Whaddya say, babe? One more just for old time's sake?"
Under any other circumstance, Edge probably would have pushed her off and walked away without a second look behind him. This, however, was not exactly a normal night, and it made him hesitate. That slight pause was enough to make Sarah grin up at him and start moving her fingernails along his chest.
"We had somethin' before you ran off, baby," she announced in a low voice, already tying the plastic tube around Edge's arm and giving the inside of his elbow a few hard flicks.
"We never had anything," Edge corrected with narrowed eyes. "We fucked a few times and shared needles. That's it."
Sarah pouted for a moment, then shrugged and pushed her hands up beneath the bottom of Edge's shirt, toying lightly with his belt buckle. "Alright, fine. Wanna have another go-around?"
No! his mind screamed at him, kicking him a few times for good measure. Rather than listen, he tried rationalizing and weighing the good against the bad. The bad thing was that he had been drug-free since that fateful first meeting with Gangrel and he fully intended on keeping things that way. The good things, though, were that with a big part of his body not working anymore he would be open to experimenting again and not have to worry about becoming hopelessly addicted this time. And, of course, there was also the fact he really didn't think Sarah was going to let him go easily.
The faint nod he gave was enough for her; she grinned yet again and slipped the needle into his arm seconds before dropping to her knees in front of him. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the building, wondering how much trouble this was going to cause just as soon as news of it got back to Gangrel.
******
"Good evening, Edge. How nice of you to finally decide to show up."
Edge looked up sheepishly from where he stood fumbling with his keys, surprised to see Gangrel standing at the door and not looking at all pleased. "I --"
"You smell like cheap liquor and perfume. Whatever excuse you have, I don't plan on listening to it." He motioned for Edge to come inside, pierced eyebrows arched high in his brow. "And just out of curiosity, when might it have occurred to you that you don't have a key to my house?"
"After I went through all the other ones," Edge answered, rubbing the back of his head and wincing. There was a dull pounding in his brain, no doubt due to his brief high fading, and he just wanted to find somewhere to quietly pass out and die. "So, uh . . . what're you doing back so early? Thought you had a dinner or something."
"Incase you haven't noticed, it's almost one a.m.," Gangrel pointed out with a look to the clock on the wall for emphasis. "Dinners typically are over by now."
"Smartass," Edge growled under his breath, making his way to the stairs. He managed to make his way to the second floor without too much trouble, his high steadily dying and disappearing completely once he opened the bedroom door and saw his brother curled up in the bed, small form visibly trembling even though the light was off.
"Chris?" He called softly, stepping into the room and frowning as he neared the bed and realized the reason the light was off was because it was in pieces on the floor. "Christian? Are you --"
"Get away from me!" Christian screamed sharply, turning and tangling the sheets around himself. He looked up at Edge with wild eyes, mouth working as if to say something but no words would come out. "J-Just don't touch me."
"What's wrong? What happened?" Edge asked worriedly, sinking to his knees beside the bed so that he and Christian were at eye level with each other. The terrified glimmer harboring in Christian's eyes was hauntingly familiar, but Edge pushed the thought to the back of his mind. "Christian, what happened?" He tried again, stunned by how his brother shrank away when he tried to touch his cheek. The look, the reaction, it was all too well-known. Without warning, Edge grabbed the thin sheet covering Christian and pulled it back, not greatly surprised to see Christian completely nude. He was, however, more than a little startled to see the ugly purple bruises lining Christian's hips, standing out against the pale skin. Disgusted at the knowledge of what had likely happened, Edge forced Christian to turn over, nearly gagging at the sight of blood dotting the sheets beneath him.
"Who did it?" He demanded an answer, torn between the need to calm Christian's violent trembling and the intense desire to go kill something in anger. Christian didn't answer, so Edge let out a low snarl and rushed out the door, bursting into Gangrel's bedroom in a mess of vengeful fury.
"You son of a bitch!" he cried, launching himself across the room and wrapping a hand around Gangrel's throat, lifting him up off his feet and pushing him harshly against the wall. "I *told* you not to touch him!"
"I've touched no one. Now I suggest you unhand me, boy."
Enraged to the point of blind madness, he shook Gangrel so that the back of his head connected viciously with the wall. "You're a liar. You took advantage of him just like you did with me." It had been years since he'd brought it up, but he still remembered his first night in Gangrel's home. He had been scared out of his wits, hundreds of miles from home or even anyone he knew, and convulsing because his body was trying to adjust to not only the changes Gangrel had inflicted but going through withdrawals as well. Gangrel, not sure of how to calm his new ward, lured Edge into frenzied sex to aid him in dealing with the shock.
The idea that Gangrel had done the same to his unwilling little brother drove Edge totally out of control.
"You know what I told you earlier about what we went through and you used that . . . used him!"
Gangrel's eyes narrowed to deadly black slits. "I'll only tell you this once: I didn't touch your brother. Now take your hands off me."
"Liar!"
Edge hadn't been expecting Gangrel to break away from him as easily as if pushing away a leaf. He went sailing backwards from the force, crashing through a solid wood dresser and moaning from the pain that followed. He looked up through the hair hanging into his face, suddenly feeling incredibly small and helpless with Gangrel looming ominously over him.
"Would you mind telling me what's going on?"
"Someone . . . someone forced him to . . . to . . ." He shook his head, wrapping his arms aroudn his knees and rocking slightly like a small child.
"And you automatically assumed I did it?" Gangrel shook his head incredulously. "I'm disappointed. I know we have our differences, but I thought you had a little more faith in me than that." He knelt, pulling a broken piece of wood off Edge's leg. "I didn't even get home until well past ten. Perhaps if you hadn't been out feeling sorry for yourself . . ." Edge gave a low, miserable groan and flinched as if he'd been hit. Gangrel rose to his feet and, after a fwe moments, looked away. "That was uncalled for. I apologize."
He didn't have time to go on; Thomas and Michael rushed into the room one behind the other, frantic and obviously panicked.
"Yes?"
Thomas looked about the room in confusion before responding, nervously eying the board still in Gangrel's hands. "We heard noises and thought you were in danger."
The board snapped in half. "I'm quite capable of taking care of myself, thank you." With lightning quick movements he flew across the room and rammed one section of the board deep into Thomas's chest, hard enough to pin him to the wall. "As you can tell." He then turned his attention to a shell-shocked Michael. "I could smell the fear and guilt on him," he explained easily, nearing Michael's petrified body. "So I'll give you a chance to save yourself. Thomas raped that boy," he went on, pointing out the open door and down the hallway to imply Christian's room. "My question to you is did you have anything to do with it?"
Michael gulped. "N-no, of course not!"
"Liars make me angry, Michael."
Desperate, Michael nodded. "O-Okay, fine. I didn't want to but . . . but Thomas needed someone to hold the kid down and . . ." He trailed off as Gangrel's eyes darkened considerably. "Gangrel, please! I can redeem myself!"
"Maybe in your next form." Gangrel impaled the other man on the second piece of wood, clutching Michael's chin with his free hand. "When you meet him, tell your maker I don't appreciate him sending me scum who betray my trust."
He moved away once the body had stopped twitching, turning to see Edge's wide green eyes watching him warily. "I never really trusted them anyway." He paused, carefully removing one of the rings from his eyebrow. "Edge?"
"...Huh?"
"Let me make one thing perfectly clear to you. If you *ever* manhandle me again like you did a few minutes ago, it will be you hanging on my wall. Understood?" Unable to find the words to reply, Edge simply nodded. "Good. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm rather tired and would like to sleep."
Edge gestured to the two dead vampires fixed to the far wall. "Aren't you going to . . . uh . . ."
"Tomorrow," Gangrel answered, waving his hand in dismissal. "I'm sleepy."
Edge left the room as asked, wondering how even Gangrel could put sleep above removing two corpses from his room on his to-do list. He walked into Christian's room, useless heart breaking to see his brother still hadn't moved.
"Chris . . ."
"Grel didn't do it," he mumbled almost inaudibly. Edge nodded to himself and once again knelt by the bed.
"I know."
Christian whimpered meekly, face hardening in anger. "God, I feel like such a pussy, Edge. I didn't even try to fight back!"
"He would have killed you. They," Edge quickly amended, touching Christian's shoulder in something he hoped would be seen as a comforting gesture. "That's why I never really tried to fight back against Dad. I knew if I did he'd just go after you. I would've slit my throat before I put you through that." Edge sighed helplessly. "Figures you'd have to go through it anyway."
The bed creaked as Christian pulled himself to his feet, wrapping the sheet around his body and heading for the bathroom adjoined to the room. "Are you all right?" Edge asked worriedly, getting up to follow and narrowly avoiding have the door slammed into his nose. "Chris, if you wanna talk . . ."
The pounding noise inside the bathroom was a pretty good sign he didn't. Edge was willing to let him beat out his frustrations until there was a loud shatter and the unmistakable sound of glass hitting the floor. "Christian! Open the door!"
Despite his fist beating against the door, Christian pretended not to hear his brother. Rather, he picked a piece of the broken mirror off the ground and sat down in the floor, leaning against the cool porcelain of the bathtub. He barely had a second thought about his next move -- he brought the glass down and dragged it across the inside of his arm, delighted at how the flesh opened and dark red blood rose to the surface.
Then he started laughing insanely when the blood just barely oozed from the cuts. "Fucking great," he announced as the door burst inward and Edge broke into the room. "I can't even kill myself right." He looked up, turning his delirious grin to his brother. "It didn't work."
Edge offered a tiny sympathetic smile while lowering himself to his knees, dabbing at Christian's arm with his shirt. "We don't have blood of our own. It can't work. Don't think I haven't already tried it." He turned his arms over to reveal the long scars that served as eternal reminders of one last desperate escape attempt. Christian snorted in response.
"We are one seriously fucked up family, you know that?"
Edge nodded wordlessly and went on cleaning his brother's wound.
"Hey! Hey, is that you?"
Edge cringed and ducked his head, trying his best to hide from the voice. It was a vain attempt at best, since the owner of the voice sat down beside him, totally disregarding his obvious disinterest.
"Holy shit! I didn't think I'd ever see you again!"
With any luck, Edge commented mentally to himself, forcing a small grin as he turned to face one of many people he'd hoped never to run into for the rest of his unnaturally long life. Maybe there was a time when Sarah Lawson was attractive in any sense of the word. As long as Edge had known her, she had always been a small twig of a girl, always with tight clothing that really did nothing for her other than show how very thin she was. Her dyed blond hair failed to cover her dark brown roots, but that didn't stop her from passing herself off as a natural blonde anyway. Even aside from all that and her vacant, dull blue eyes, Edge had always thought she had all the personality of a doorknob. As long as someone was around willing to take advantage of her and slap her around she would worship their feet and the ground they walked on. He'd even tried to talk some sense into her on a couple occasions, giving the worn-out empowerment speech to make her see she didn't have to put herself through all of that. That, obviously, had failed. Now she looked even worse than the last time he'd seen her.
He couldn't recall exactly how they had met, only that he'd kept her around because when all else failed, she was always available for a good hit of something and a quick lay, both with no strings attached.
"What're you doin' here?" She asked, leaning against the bartop and giving her greasy smile in a miserable attempt to come off as being charming.
"I could ask the same."
She laughed, a shrill sound that was vaguely reminiscent of nails scraping a chalkboard. Out of sheer courtesy and a display of his willpower, Edge choked down the urge to cringe in response. "I work here, silly."
"In the bar or on the street?"
She seemed disappointed at having been asked that, but then shrugged it off and unfolded her long arms to rest across the counter. "In town. It's just a temp job until I can find something better."
Edge nodded, wishing violently that she would just leave him to wallow in self-pity peacefully. He glanced casually over at her, noticing for the first time the dark, ugly scars lining the insides of her arms, and he couldn't decide if they were track marks or proof of a botched suicide attempt. Knowing Sarah, it could easily have been both. "You're still using," he commented idly, gesturing to her arms. She self-consciously pulled them back into her lap.
"Yeah," she admitted in a quiet voice a child might use when accused of breaking something. "I-I never quit." She looked up suddenly, surprise clear on her skeleton-like face. "Aren't you?"
"I quit a long time ago." Not voluntarily, but he kept the rest of his comments to himself. "Wasn't worth it."
Sarah smiled to herself and absently twirled a strand of hair around her index finger. "Must've met a girl, huh?" Edge shook his head but didn't make any other effort to reply. Instead, he sighed quietly and traced an invisible pattern on the wooden bar top. "You look awfully sad, sweetie. What's wrong?"
"Just have a lot on my mind right now."
Before he knew what was happening, Sarah was grabbing his hand and leading him through the crowd, out the back door, and out onto a dimly lit side street. He made no move to resist her, just leaned against the wall of the building and watching her with half-lidded eyes while Sarah dug through her purse. After a couple minutes of frustrated cursing and digging she finally brought up a short plastic tube and a syringe filled with some sort of substance Edge couldn't even begin to identify. She clutched his arm with her bony fingers, pressing the sharp point of the needle against his arm and leaning up to brush his hair from his neck.
"Whaddya say, babe? One more just for old time's sake?"
Under any other circumstance, Edge probably would have pushed her off and walked away without a second look behind him. This, however, was not exactly a normal night, and it made him hesitate. That slight pause was enough to make Sarah grin up at him and start moving her fingernails along his chest.
"We had somethin' before you ran off, baby," she announced in a low voice, already tying the plastic tube around Edge's arm and giving the inside of his elbow a few hard flicks.
"We never had anything," Edge corrected with narrowed eyes. "We fucked a few times and shared needles. That's it."
Sarah pouted for a moment, then shrugged and pushed her hands up beneath the bottom of Edge's shirt, toying lightly with his belt buckle. "Alright, fine. Wanna have another go-around?"
No! his mind screamed at him, kicking him a few times for good measure. Rather than listen, he tried rationalizing and weighing the good against the bad. The bad thing was that he had been drug-free since that fateful first meeting with Gangrel and he fully intended on keeping things that way. The good things, though, were that with a big part of his body not working anymore he would be open to experimenting again and not have to worry about becoming hopelessly addicted this time. And, of course, there was also the fact he really didn't think Sarah was going to let him go easily.
The faint nod he gave was enough for her; she grinned yet again and slipped the needle into his arm seconds before dropping to her knees in front of him. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the building, wondering how much trouble this was going to cause just as soon as news of it got back to Gangrel.
******
"Good evening, Edge. How nice of you to finally decide to show up."
Edge looked up sheepishly from where he stood fumbling with his keys, surprised to see Gangrel standing at the door and not looking at all pleased. "I --"
"You smell like cheap liquor and perfume. Whatever excuse you have, I don't plan on listening to it." He motioned for Edge to come inside, pierced eyebrows arched high in his brow. "And just out of curiosity, when might it have occurred to you that you don't have a key to my house?"
"After I went through all the other ones," Edge answered, rubbing the back of his head and wincing. There was a dull pounding in his brain, no doubt due to his brief high fading, and he just wanted to find somewhere to quietly pass out and die. "So, uh . . . what're you doing back so early? Thought you had a dinner or something."
"Incase you haven't noticed, it's almost one a.m.," Gangrel pointed out with a look to the clock on the wall for emphasis. "Dinners typically are over by now."
"Smartass," Edge growled under his breath, making his way to the stairs. He managed to make his way to the second floor without too much trouble, his high steadily dying and disappearing completely once he opened the bedroom door and saw his brother curled up in the bed, small form visibly trembling even though the light was off.
"Chris?" He called softly, stepping into the room and frowning as he neared the bed and realized the reason the light was off was because it was in pieces on the floor. "Christian? Are you --"
"Get away from me!" Christian screamed sharply, turning and tangling the sheets around himself. He looked up at Edge with wild eyes, mouth working as if to say something but no words would come out. "J-Just don't touch me."
"What's wrong? What happened?" Edge asked worriedly, sinking to his knees beside the bed so that he and Christian were at eye level with each other. The terrified glimmer harboring in Christian's eyes was hauntingly familiar, but Edge pushed the thought to the back of his mind. "Christian, what happened?" He tried again, stunned by how his brother shrank away when he tried to touch his cheek. The look, the reaction, it was all too well-known. Without warning, Edge grabbed the thin sheet covering Christian and pulled it back, not greatly surprised to see Christian completely nude. He was, however, more than a little startled to see the ugly purple bruises lining Christian's hips, standing out against the pale skin. Disgusted at the knowledge of what had likely happened, Edge forced Christian to turn over, nearly gagging at the sight of blood dotting the sheets beneath him.
"Who did it?" He demanded an answer, torn between the need to calm Christian's violent trembling and the intense desire to go kill something in anger. Christian didn't answer, so Edge let out a low snarl and rushed out the door, bursting into Gangrel's bedroom in a mess of vengeful fury.
"You son of a bitch!" he cried, launching himself across the room and wrapping a hand around Gangrel's throat, lifting him up off his feet and pushing him harshly against the wall. "I *told* you not to touch him!"
"I've touched no one. Now I suggest you unhand me, boy."
Enraged to the point of blind madness, he shook Gangrel so that the back of his head connected viciously with the wall. "You're a liar. You took advantage of him just like you did with me." It had been years since he'd brought it up, but he still remembered his first night in Gangrel's home. He had been scared out of his wits, hundreds of miles from home or even anyone he knew, and convulsing because his body was trying to adjust to not only the changes Gangrel had inflicted but going through withdrawals as well. Gangrel, not sure of how to calm his new ward, lured Edge into frenzied sex to aid him in dealing with the shock.
The idea that Gangrel had done the same to his unwilling little brother drove Edge totally out of control.
"You know what I told you earlier about what we went through and you used that . . . used him!"
Gangrel's eyes narrowed to deadly black slits. "I'll only tell you this once: I didn't touch your brother. Now take your hands off me."
"Liar!"
Edge hadn't been expecting Gangrel to break away from him as easily as if pushing away a leaf. He went sailing backwards from the force, crashing through a solid wood dresser and moaning from the pain that followed. He looked up through the hair hanging into his face, suddenly feeling incredibly small and helpless with Gangrel looming ominously over him.
"Would you mind telling me what's going on?"
"Someone . . . someone forced him to . . . to . . ." He shook his head, wrapping his arms aroudn his knees and rocking slightly like a small child.
"And you automatically assumed I did it?" Gangrel shook his head incredulously. "I'm disappointed. I know we have our differences, but I thought you had a little more faith in me than that." He knelt, pulling a broken piece of wood off Edge's leg. "I didn't even get home until well past ten. Perhaps if you hadn't been out feeling sorry for yourself . . ." Edge gave a low, miserable groan and flinched as if he'd been hit. Gangrel rose to his feet and, after a fwe moments, looked away. "That was uncalled for. I apologize."
He didn't have time to go on; Thomas and Michael rushed into the room one behind the other, frantic and obviously panicked.
"Yes?"
Thomas looked about the room in confusion before responding, nervously eying the board still in Gangrel's hands. "We heard noises and thought you were in danger."
The board snapped in half. "I'm quite capable of taking care of myself, thank you." With lightning quick movements he flew across the room and rammed one section of the board deep into Thomas's chest, hard enough to pin him to the wall. "As you can tell." He then turned his attention to a shell-shocked Michael. "I could smell the fear and guilt on him," he explained easily, nearing Michael's petrified body. "So I'll give you a chance to save yourself. Thomas raped that boy," he went on, pointing out the open door and down the hallway to imply Christian's room. "My question to you is did you have anything to do with it?"
Michael gulped. "N-no, of course not!"
"Liars make me angry, Michael."
Desperate, Michael nodded. "O-Okay, fine. I didn't want to but . . . but Thomas needed someone to hold the kid down and . . ." He trailed off as Gangrel's eyes darkened considerably. "Gangrel, please! I can redeem myself!"
"Maybe in your next form." Gangrel impaled the other man on the second piece of wood, clutching Michael's chin with his free hand. "When you meet him, tell your maker I don't appreciate him sending me scum who betray my trust."
He moved away once the body had stopped twitching, turning to see Edge's wide green eyes watching him warily. "I never really trusted them anyway." He paused, carefully removing one of the rings from his eyebrow. "Edge?"
"...Huh?"
"Let me make one thing perfectly clear to you. If you *ever* manhandle me again like you did a few minutes ago, it will be you hanging on my wall. Understood?" Unable to find the words to reply, Edge simply nodded. "Good. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm rather tired and would like to sleep."
Edge gestured to the two dead vampires fixed to the far wall. "Aren't you going to . . . uh . . ."
"Tomorrow," Gangrel answered, waving his hand in dismissal. "I'm sleepy."
Edge left the room as asked, wondering how even Gangrel could put sleep above removing two corpses from his room on his to-do list. He walked into Christian's room, useless heart breaking to see his brother still hadn't moved.
"Chris . . ."
"Grel didn't do it," he mumbled almost inaudibly. Edge nodded to himself and once again knelt by the bed.
"I know."
Christian whimpered meekly, face hardening in anger. "God, I feel like such a pussy, Edge. I didn't even try to fight back!"
"He would have killed you. They," Edge quickly amended, touching Christian's shoulder in something he hoped would be seen as a comforting gesture. "That's why I never really tried to fight back against Dad. I knew if I did he'd just go after you. I would've slit my throat before I put you through that." Edge sighed helplessly. "Figures you'd have to go through it anyway."
The bed creaked as Christian pulled himself to his feet, wrapping the sheet around his body and heading for the bathroom adjoined to the room. "Are you all right?" Edge asked worriedly, getting up to follow and narrowly avoiding have the door slammed into his nose. "Chris, if you wanna talk . . ."
The pounding noise inside the bathroom was a pretty good sign he didn't. Edge was willing to let him beat out his frustrations until there was a loud shatter and the unmistakable sound of glass hitting the floor. "Christian! Open the door!"
Despite his fist beating against the door, Christian pretended not to hear his brother. Rather, he picked a piece of the broken mirror off the ground and sat down in the floor, leaning against the cool porcelain of the bathtub. He barely had a second thought about his next move -- he brought the glass down and dragged it across the inside of his arm, delighted at how the flesh opened and dark red blood rose to the surface.
Then he started laughing insanely when the blood just barely oozed from the cuts. "Fucking great," he announced as the door burst inward and Edge broke into the room. "I can't even kill myself right." He looked up, turning his delirious grin to his brother. "It didn't work."
Edge offered a tiny sympathetic smile while lowering himself to his knees, dabbing at Christian's arm with his shirt. "We don't have blood of our own. It can't work. Don't think I haven't already tried it." He turned his arms over to reveal the long scars that served as eternal reminders of one last desperate escape attempt. Christian snorted in response.
"We are one seriously fucked up family, you know that?"
Edge nodded wordlessly and went on cleaning his brother's wound.