Title: Void
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters
Rating: PG-13
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Courtney thinks she knows what he wants. Thinks she can read him better than the Cosmo that sits between her thighs while she massages his back. But she
doesn't know. Could never anticipate the dark, unnatural way he aches for understanding.
And when he leaves her at night, she can feel the warmth drain from their bed, but she doesn't know he is gone. In fact, he is never there. He lives and
breathes and has sex with her, but he is never really there.
When he goes down to the docks, basked in shadow, it is to get away from everything. He can't stand people. He doesn't like to listen to nonsensical chatter.
And when he looks at you, you'd better get to the point or he may dismiss you without a second thought. He sees through people and makes them feel uneasy.
What they don't know...what they'll never know...is that he's uneasy all the time.
His gloves are filthy with gunpowder residue and they smell more like metal than leather. And she'll never know. She'll never see his eyes when he pulls the
trigger again and again and doesn't even blink.
When she sent him for ice cream late one night and he came back with blood on the paper bag and a scrap across his forehead, she knew not to question him.
Knew she'd be afraid of the answer if she had.
Courtney knows one night when she gets a craving for ice cream and sends him out, he may not come back....just like Elizabeth knew before her...and before
her, Robin.
It's better this way. Better because she's getting too attached.
He waits the days until she leaves him. Not because he'll be sorry, but because he can barely hold the act together anymore.
He reads travel books to pass the time. He can't imagine the places that he reads about, but knows the exact amount of rain Italy and Thailand, and a dozen
other places, get each year, their population and their longitude and latitude on any map.
Sometimes he thinks he's going crazy. At the oddest times, he catches a glimmer of a sports car or the flash of green money and wonders why it seems so
natural.
Why does he feel like two people and noone at the same time? Why is he so empty and so full?
Some people think he's dumber than an infant and sometimes he feels that way, too. A lot of things don't make sense to him and so he uses his fists and gun to
rectify his confusion.
He doesn't mean to be this way, he just can't help himself. There is no impulse that he hasn't thought of following. Not even the things that will hurt him make
him turn away.
He craves that rush he gets when he rides his bike hard....craves it all the time. Maybe that's why he became a hit-man, so he wouldn't have to just crave it...so
he could obtain it.
When he finally has that rush, it's insta-fast and over before he lets it seep through his skin and so he still does not know what it is to feel.
He knows the sensations that coat his skin. Metal bullets. Humming gears. The first time he touched a woman's breast...soft, faintly arousing. Warm bath
water and baby shampoo. He knows how they all feel, but can't make out the feeling that should be matted to his heart. They should matter, but they don't.
There is no connection.
His debt for living when he should be buried in the ground is to have no remorse. To have no feelings. To have fake attachments because no matter how hard
he tries, he just doesn't care.
He mimics other people...he's a mime. It's what he does best.
And no one understands why he does the things he does or why he can't see past tomorrow...and neither does he.