A/N: Not many BC fics out there. I like the series well enough (although ok, it's a blatant copy of Trigun/Cowby Bebop/etc.) but can't seem to write anything good. Probably lacking inspiration. TT
Well, anyway, enjoy. A Creed one shot. He's about... 8-10 here?
BTW: I just saw Creed's past, and this fits both manga and anime, such as it is.
Brutality
He steals candy from the glass boxes, breaks the surface with his fist until blood runs down his arm. The shards are sharp against his skin, making paper-thin cuts as he reaches inside to grasp the colorful bags and cans. He runs before anyone can stop him, grabs as much as he can carry in his coat and hat. This food never goes bad, never becomes stale or moldy. It's comforting, so he keeps a bag of chips or two in his pockets in case of emergencies.
Creed climbs up a fire escape ladder he's learned to pull down, settling on the rooftop where he's safe from being seen. He is hungry, digs into the stolen stash with relish. Chips and chocolate and little colorful fruits are shoved into his mouth without discrimination, washed down by pop the color of an insanely clean orange that burns as it goes. It disappears in minutes, until only a few bags of Skittles and a can of coke are left to be hidden in coat pockets. Creed is still hungry, will always be hungry, so much so that he no longer feels it. He eats because he knows he must more than any real sensation.
When he's finished it's off across the rooftops again, to the next candy machine, down the block or across town or wherever it might be. The endless cycle of wanting and taking continues without pause for thought. There's very little to think about anyway, Creed's world is made up of hunger and cold and thirst, simple necessities. He goes about gaining them with the obsessive single-mindedness of a child, cares nothing for the rest of the world.
Someday the cycle will break. Someday Creed will have everything he wants, a hot meal three times a day, wine or water whenever he wishes it, clean, warm cloths. As soon as he is satisfied Creed will forget the desperate life on the street, leave it all behind with the carelessness of a child. The desperate need to survive will be replaced with something else just as desperate. The need to die, or kill, or hurt. The need to touch and tear and take for himself.
This need is equally violent, because violence is within Creed's nature, a brutality that comes from living in a world where everything must be stolen and won. There is no place for compromise in his world, kindness is only bait, love is violent and fleeting.
A brutal, honest world. He cannot accept anything less.