"I can't explain myself," said Alice, "because I am not myself, you see."
~ Prologue ~
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
There should have been silence. There should have been darkness. There is neither.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Vegas' mind should be comfortably black. Like the untouched surface of a lake during a warm summer day without even the slightest breeze. Tranquil. Yet his runaway thoughts skip over its surface like the flat river pebbles he used to collect with …notgoingtherenotgoingthere … skip... skip... skip… leaving disruptive ripples in their wake.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
There should be silence yet there is noise. Something is dripping, a never ending monotonous sound that feels like a fingernail slowly being drawn over a chalkboard, with the chalkboard being his raw exposed nerves. And in between…frantic panting? …definitelynotgoingthere … moving on…
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The dripping is eventually drowned out by a rhythmic thudding.
…Thud… Thud …Thud…
ThudThud… ThudThud…. ThudThud…
Faster and faster it goes. Like rotor blades slashing through the blood-red evening sky. Vegas can feel the sound with his whole body, with his chest. Within his chest. Vibrating. Thudding. Pumping. And it takes him way too long to realise that it is his own racing heartbeat he is hearing.
He does not know where he gets the energy from but somehow he yanks himself right back into the soothing white noise flooding his brain that drowns out every other sound. Shutting out everything else. Blissful silence once more.
There should also be darkness. But even with his eyes tightly closed, blissful darkness evades Vegas. There is no escape, the lights shining through the thin skin of his eyelids paint his inner sanctuary with a rose-red tinge. Red. Fucking red everywhere.
Skip… more ripples.
I see a red door. And I want it painted black. No colors anymore. I want them to turn black. Black. Black. BLACK!
Vegas tries to inhale but the air is hot and moist and it feels as thick as molasses which makes breathing a constant battle. Every cell in his body is screaming, he desperately needs air. Oxygen, he needs oxygen!
Skip… more ripples.
He watched a movie once, something about deep sea diving using oxygenated perfluorocarbon, and this must be how it feels like to inhale a breathing fluid, he is choking like that rat in the movie and…
Skip… more ripples.
"Breathe. Just breathe," the calming voice of Luke Skywalker says through the darkness. Great. Now he is channeling his own inner Jedi? What a damn joke.
Skip… more ripples.
"Come to the Dark Side. We have cookies."
The lack of sufficient oxygen is clearly becoming a problem. Vegas. Cannot. Breathe. He is going to pass out (Yes please). He is going to die (Please, just let me die already). He is going to die in this sea of endless rolling crimson madness, going under, drowning in liquid iron that leaves such a metallic taste in his mouth that it makes him nauseous.
Tap.
There is a shadow of a touch, right between his shoulder blades. Light. Cool. Tiny. The size of the tip of a finger perhaps. It barely touches his bare skin. For a moment he wonders if he is just imagining it, just one last spark in the encroaching darkness, a last hallucination while his brain is dying from lack of oxygen.
Tap.
Goosebumps spread like an avalanche down his back, leaving icy numbness in their wake. Vegas holds his breath and waits… and there it comes again.
Tap.
He exhales painfully. There is something he is supposed to remember but he draws a blank. Something important. Something he is not supposed to forget and yet here he is, scrambling after his skipping thoughts, chasing after the ripples to remember.
Tap.
This time the finger comes to rest against his skin and stays in place. Vegas shivers. Breathing once again becomes secondary. Is he standing? Sitting? He feels so lost, he has no body awareness at all. Instead it feels as if he is just drifting in space. A universe drenched in vermillion. Floating.
Skip… more ripples.
… Free Fall… No safety nets, no regrets, no hesitation…
The pressure between his shoulder blades increases ever so slightly, bringing a hint of pain with it. Like a sharp fingernail digging steadily into his already overly sensitive skin. Pressing down down down only to withdraw without breaking contact. Resting in place, unmoving, a blunt icicle poised to stab him, impaling him like a butterfly pinned to a board in the natural history museum.
Skip… more ripples.
"It's called a Papilio memnon, Vegas. Lovely, isn't it? Only the males are ink black like this. You can look, but don't touch, alright? Never touch a butterfly's wings. They are very fragile."
This time the pressure is more pronounced when the fingernail once again digs into his back. Right between his black wings. Black wings that are black no more, they are drenched in blood, so very red….
Skip… more ripples.
"Cymothoe sangaris, Vegas. They are not native, they do not belong here." Just like me.
…and the pressure becomes so unpleasant that it snaps him right back into his oxygen deprived nightmare. He tenses automatically, instinctively leaning forward, any from the contact. Only to freeze just a second later as he remembers that he mustn't move. He cannot remember why, but a growing sense of distress brings with it the realisation that he messed up. He should not have moved. And so he leans back until he once again feels the fingertip making contact with his sweat-drenched skin - and then some more, impaling himself on that fingernail until he can feel it slicing through his skin, sinking into his flesh. Making up for his mistake.
Skip… more ripples.
"Are you listening?! Are. You. Listening?! Such a fucking disappointment, just like your mother!"
Vegas' breath hitches. His heart stutters and then picks up with an even faster pace. It shouldn't be humanly possible, surely sooner rather than later something has got to give and everything (his heart) will come to a screeching halt.
The pressure withdraws, the fingertip coming to rest gently against his skin. Something trickles down his spine. Sweat? Blood? He is starting to feel seriously dizzy, the sound of his racing heartbeat even invading the white noise with its persistent frantic throbbing.
And then, without fail, the pressure increases once more, the edge of the fingernail finding the open wound it previously left behind without fail and then it is grinding into his flesh, deeper this time and the pain it brings cuts through the dizziness and carries him straight into….
Skip… more ripples.
"Begin by slowly exhaling all of your air out. Then, gently inhale through your nose to a slow count of 4. Hold at the top of the breath for a count of 4. Then gently exhale through your mouth for a count of 4. At the bottom of the breath, pause and hold for the count of 4. You can do that, right? Detective, I know you think this is ridiculous but please, let's give it a try. Just once, okay?"
The relief is so immense that he almost accidentally sways forward again, but he catches himself at the last second and just freezes in place. Like the pinned bloody butterfly he is. He remembers. And despite his racing heart, despite being on the very edge of passing out because he is hyperventilating like hell, some of the tension drains from his body. It must have been noticeable because the fingernail stops drilling into his muscles and retreats to its resting position.
Skip… more ripples
A voice like liquid silk. "Use your words, Vegas. What color?" Garnet. Maroon. Burgundy.
And the pressure increases again but this time is is not only expected, he is welcoming it. With the pressure comes the pain and on its wings it carries a growing sense of calm. Thankfully the fingernail isn't especially long or it would be scraping along the bones of his spine by now. At least that is how it feels but he is hyperventilating right through the pain. This is nothing. He can do this.
When the pressure lessens he is ready. Clinging to the last shreds of his sanity. It is difficult to think when he is drowning on dry land, his body in full survival mode. But he forces himself to exhale sharply. He can do this.
Tap.
He inhales through his nose as slowly as he is able to right now. It isn't perfect. It is far from gentle. It is far from slow. It sounds plain wrong, more as if he is being strangled. His nose seems to be partially clogged but he just snorts inward and swallows convulsively as the taste of iron spreads in his mouth. The urge to move is nearly impossible to resist. But he can do this. He does not move. He continues to inhale.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
After the last tap, as expected, the finger rests between his shoulder blades. Vegas cannot run but he can control his breathing, he can hold his breath while his heart feels as if it is going to explode any second now and there are small explosions of lights on the inside of his closed eyelids. He is going to die. This is it. He holds his breath in defiance. As big fat FUCK YOU to the world while the nail digs into his back once, twice, thrice and a forth time. Fuck everything.
Tap
His breath explodes outward, he is wheezing and coughing at the same time, he is not doing well, he is messing this up again, of course he is messing this up, he is such a loser….
Skip… more ripples.
"You stupid boy! You only cause disaster! You aren't even worthy of being my son."
His eyes burning from withheld tears, Vegas coughs his way through the remaining three taps but somehow manages to hold his breath again as the relentless fingernail rams the needle straight back into the butterfly, four fucking times. And it hurts. And the urge to cough sits at the back of his throat but he holds it in.
And then it starts all over again. And again. And again. A seemingly endless cycle. And somewhere amidst it Vegas' heart does slow down. His erratic breathing stabilises. His world constricts until there is only the white noise, and his mind filled with the endless sea of blood and the ripples that his thoughts leave behind as they skip on and on and on over its mirror-like surface. Blessed tranquility.
Skip… more ripples.
"Give me a color, Vegas." The voice wraps itself around him like a caress. Mahogany. Cadmium Red. Carmine. Cinnabar
The heat is stifling in the room, or whatever the hell this place is and yet, Vegas still feels an increase of heat approaching his bare back and it makes the hairs on his nape stand up. Then he smells it, he is so attuned to this particular smell that he can even make it out over the cloying stench of blood that permeates the air around him. Rosewood. Cinnamon. Vanilla. Amber. He waits.
Soon enough hot breath is feathering along the damp back of his neck, sending a shiver down his spine. The heat intensifies and a whiff of air tickles his left ear. Close, so close. Still not close enough. Vegas has turned into a glorious statue of blood marble, unmoving. Just breathing slowly and biding his time.
The white noise fades into the background for a moment as a single soft spoken word slides to the forefront of his consciousness.
"Vegas...?"
There is an unspoken question in this word. A question he cannot pretend not to understand. A question he cannot ignore. Must not ignore.
God.
Damn.
Fucking.
Scarlet.
"Green."
Vegas exhales his reply with a shudder, he does not even recognize his own voice. It is his own voice, isn't it? It sounds so unfamiliar, so … raw? As if he has been crying?
At long last he opens his eyes and is blinded for a moment, blinking. The colors and shapes before him not making any sense, weaving and blending into each other. That is fine though. This is good. Better this than…clarity. His mind instinctively shies away from following this line of thought any further as the cacophony of colors bleed away to settle into the inevitable more vivid shades of red once again as well as the shape of…notgoingtherenotgoingthere … sonotgoingthere... so he simply refuses to make sense of what he is seeing before him as his vision becomes crystal clear.
"Such a good boy" the silky disembodied voice behind him croons into his ear. And it makes his heart expand, filling him with such overwhelming gratitude that he aches with it. Vegas sucks in a deep shuddering breath that sounds more like a sob. He is good. He can do this.
As his awareness of his surroundings further sharpens, he feels a weight in his right hand. Long. Hard. The metal already warmed to match his body temperature. Warm, so warm, and he is so hot. Perhaps, when he eventually combusts, the metal will melt, burning through skin and flesh, encasing his very bones.
Skip… more ripples.
Like the Terminator…or Wolverine…
Vegas' grip tightens. He is fine. Everything is fine. He is enveloped in a cloud of rosewood, cinnamon, vanilla and amber. It soothes his frayed nerves, filling him with serenity. It smells like home. It smells like safety. Heat meets heat, warm lips graze his neck playfully with the slightest scrape of teeth.
"Well, what are you waiting for? A written invitation?" The voice teases him mischievously.
Indeed, what is he waiting for? Vegas' dried lips crack and starts oozing blood as they curve into a genuinely happy smile of his own. Everything becomes natural once again, he does not even have to think as he reaches out with his right hand, reverently applies just the right amount of pressure and the sharp edge of the knife sinks into the flesh before him as if it were butter. Beautiful. It feels amazing. A bit more pressure and the knife hits the bone and he just slides it right along with the curve, like a dance, a waltz of blood and death.
There is heat.
There is the familiar smell.
There are words of encouragement.
Just what Vegas is cutting into, the hair-raising screams, the stench of blood and something other as death sweeps into the abandoned warehouse …notgoingthere … notgoingthere … DEFINITELYNOTGOINGTHERE… is ruthlessly filtered away by the small part of his sanity that remains.
He is fine.
Everything is fine.
Nothing ever happened.
He is just fine.