Never expect anything. Gast told me that. All I could count on from him was advice, though he gave me a great deal more, his advice was always the only certainty. Never expect favours from people, never expect your mark to die from one bullet wound, and never, ever expect your car to be empty if you left it that way. My ride is never locked, simply because nobody in this neighbourhood has the balls to steal it from me, and I, in my infinite wisdom, broke the central locking circuit while rerouting the power distribution cables. Meaning if I locked it I'd have to climb in through the trunk and manually pop all the locks from inside. The trunk of my car is not pleasant, considering the amount of corpses it has housed without cleaning. One of the first policies Reeve axed was courtesy valets, the self-important shit.
The bundle was easily the same size as the front passenger seat it occupied, slumped against the dashboard amid swathes of black and violet fabric. Something greasy was dripping from the deep folds of rough cotton into the footwell, too dark to be anything of comforting ease to explain away. Rapping gently on the opposite pane of glass was enough to wake the pile of cold and bleeding rags, making it squirm and stir and recoil from the daylight. I realised then that I'd forgotten how much I hate living up on the plate, but it beat a three-hour train ride every morning. Sunlight, Mako millionaires, Shinra…the list was truly endless. But in my reverie I had digressed from the heap before me, and it seemed eager to remind me so. Clearly human, it fumbled with the door catch until the effort became too much and it abandoned its ministrations, still and fearful.
My firefly eyes darted up and down the street, seeking out accomplices or threats of which there were none. Just a person stuck in my Shinra Spitfire. I couldn't leave him in there without an explanation at least, namely what in the hell did he think gave him the right to sit there bleeding in my car. With little recourse should I gain any form of an answer, I sat beside him in the driver's seat. The door closed behind me with a soft click, like a cough in shallow water.
He turned before I did. I'm not sure why that was so important to me, but I couldn't look first. Perhaps I would have considered it defeat. These situations breathe silence into the air and birth colours somewhere inside my mind, smudged pictures and ethereal patterns written in sound. This picture, this masterful artwork rendered in steel and blood, turns as dark as his hair when the mask of sincerity is withdrawn. When the cape's hood falls to rest on his shoulders like so much heavily woven snow.
Why here? Why now, when I let him run with such shameful chivalry? Part of me already knew, and the other could not ask. The blood had started out somewhere between his neck and lower abdomen, and was no doubt being emitted by a shallow surface wound. I can't say I was terribly enthusiastic about treating it for him. From this thought comes a memory, and I can see myself clawing at it from underneath a pane of swollen glass, not quite close enough but unwilling to desist before every bone in both my hands was crushed.
"You can't stay here all day. Follow me."
I exited as gracefully as one can from a Shinra sports sedan, and let my eyes trawl the sculpted body beneath its putrescent regalia. I want him even more now I have seen him so vulnerable. I feel no sympathy for him, and no desire whatsoever to exact vengeance on his part. I am in fact being paid handsomely to murder him. What bothers me is that if I am to provide the medical assistance he clearly needs, Zach will have to disrobe in my presence. I can't even think it. I hate him, I always will, and I thought nothing of him until his name was thrust into my world. And yet now I can think of nothing else.
The bundle was easily the same size as the front passenger seat it occupied, slumped against the dashboard amid swathes of black and violet fabric. Something greasy was dripping from the deep folds of rough cotton into the footwell, too dark to be anything of comforting ease to explain away. Rapping gently on the opposite pane of glass was enough to wake the pile of cold and bleeding rags, making it squirm and stir and recoil from the daylight. I realised then that I'd forgotten how much I hate living up on the plate, but it beat a three-hour train ride every morning. Sunlight, Mako millionaires, Shinra…the list was truly endless. But in my reverie I had digressed from the heap before me, and it seemed eager to remind me so. Clearly human, it fumbled with the door catch until the effort became too much and it abandoned its ministrations, still and fearful.
My firefly eyes darted up and down the street, seeking out accomplices or threats of which there were none. Just a person stuck in my Shinra Spitfire. I couldn't leave him in there without an explanation at least, namely what in the hell did he think gave him the right to sit there bleeding in my car. With little recourse should I gain any form of an answer, I sat beside him in the driver's seat. The door closed behind me with a soft click, like a cough in shallow water.
He turned before I did. I'm not sure why that was so important to me, but I couldn't look first. Perhaps I would have considered it defeat. These situations breathe silence into the air and birth colours somewhere inside my mind, smudged pictures and ethereal patterns written in sound. This picture, this masterful artwork rendered in steel and blood, turns as dark as his hair when the mask of sincerity is withdrawn. When the cape's hood falls to rest on his shoulders like so much heavily woven snow.
Why here? Why now, when I let him run with such shameful chivalry? Part of me already knew, and the other could not ask. The blood had started out somewhere between his neck and lower abdomen, and was no doubt being emitted by a shallow surface wound. I can't say I was terribly enthusiastic about treating it for him. From this thought comes a memory, and I can see myself clawing at it from underneath a pane of swollen glass, not quite close enough but unwilling to desist before every bone in both my hands was crushed.
"You can't stay here all day. Follow me."
I exited as gracefully as one can from a Shinra sports sedan, and let my eyes trawl the sculpted body beneath its putrescent regalia. I want him even more now I have seen him so vulnerable. I feel no sympathy for him, and no desire whatsoever to exact vengeance on his part. I am in fact being paid handsomely to murder him. What bothers me is that if I am to provide the medical assistance he clearly needs, Zach will have to disrobe in my presence. I can't even think it. I hate him, I always will, and I thought nothing of him until his name was thrust into my world. And yet now I can think of nothing else.