Disclaimer: I don't own any characters except Irbis and several innocent short-lived bystanders; everything else is Marvel's only.
18. Fifth Lesson: Monsters
Her intense gaze burnt through his body and fired it up. Long dark locks flowing freely over her naked shoulders, the woman's blood red mouth twisted prettily in a tempting grin. The blood dripped daintily from her lips to her tanned chin, and her tongue – the tantalising tip of her tongue – swooped over the lower lip, tasting the fresh blood and inviting him to do the same. Her brown eyes beaconed to him and she opened her legs, her body leaning forward, both hands slithering down her perfect stomach to rest on the rock where she was sitting, to rest on the wide space her legs had just vacated.
Fire coursing through his blood, his entire body alive and throbbing, Creed didn't approach the dreamy body. First, he was aware it was a dream. Secondly, as much as the face was the girl's, the body wasn't, not with those exaggerated breasts, those long legs, that elongated torso. She'd be a full 6 inches taller than the real thing. Thirdly, a river of fear separated them, strong and disheartening.
But the eyes were hers, strong-willed and mesmerising, ensnaring. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the stench of the fear separating them, and then forced himself up. He sat up before he had completely left the dreamscape, and once he opened his eyes to the darkness of the motel room he knew that particular dream was in his memory to stay. He looked at the twin bed a foot away from his and felt the fear pulsing from the girl's sleeping body.
Shaking his head, Creed inched backwards and leaned his back on the wall. What he needed right now was a good lay. He didn't recall most dreams he had, which were often just entagled memories not worth recalling anyways. Yes, he often recalled the sense of déjà vu, the pain, the fear, the frustration he had experienced in the dreamscape – or nightmarescape – but he hardly ever remembered the events or the actions that caused them. A handful of dreams escaped that rule of thumb, though, and Irbis now starred in two of them. He recalled that first one, which his pine scented bedsheets had conjured because her scent was mingled in them, while her brown gaze from the most recent dream nagged him.
Irritation bubbling up, he decided he'd go out and see if he could get himself an appropriate party-girl. The moment he swung his feet aside though, Irbis got up with a start, her breathing suspended for a couple seconds. She gasped and tried to quiet her pounding heart, then she noticed him.
"Ah, desculpe!" And her cheeks reddened even in the dark. "Sorry. I don't want wake you."
He didn't correct her. For a moment he was curious about her nightmare – did it include the water and the swimming that she dreaded so deeply? But then he decided he didn't want to know and got up. He grabbed his jeans and put them on. He heard her sigh then breathe out with decision, and he looked back as he grabbed the shirt to see her kneeling on the bed, her right hand fingers pounding the bed furiously and expertly, dancing left and right as if extracting a very definite melody from a piano.
"Whatch'ya doin'?"
She looked up and hesitated a moment. "Vôo do moscardo. I don't know in English... Is part off an opera but is played independent. Is very fast and difficult, so I can't think about oder things when I play. So is good to forget bad dreams. But I'm not playing well..."
The Portuguese moscardo was close to the Spanish moscardón, horse-fly. He couldn't recall any classical piece with that on the name, though. However, there was a famous and very fast piece with an insect name, the flight of the bumblebee, which he had heard her play before, and he supposed it might be the one the girl was talking about. Her hand was playing something else now, though; her eyes vacant. Creed finished buttoning the shirt and left, closing the door with a dry thud.
"I'm so tired of being here."
He froze. At first it sounded like a simple complaint, but the deep, low voice from the other side of the door included a very definite melody.
"Supressed by all my childish fears."
Creed recognised the song, but he had always thought those first verses had a sad tinge to them, not that revolted anguish he was hearing.
"And if you have to leave
I wish dat you would just leave"
Anger, really.
" 'cause your presence still lingers here
And it won't leave me alone"
He also knew that the singer, Amy Lee, had a mezzo-soprano voice, holding a wide range from low to high register; a very well controlled voice of someone who has had singing lessons, at times breathy, at times sharp, but always smooth and powerful. Irbis's voice was darker, heavier – a contralto. She had the same control, though, the same smoothness and power.
"Dis wounds don't seem to heal
dis pain is just too real
Dere's just too much dat time cannot erase"
Or would have if she weren't holding back, dropping a slight hoarseness at the highest notes. Creed had the sudden feeling that she could raise the dead if she let that voice of hers boom freely.
"When you cry, I wipe away all off your tears
When you scream, I fight away all off your fears"
Her voice creacked and became hoarse at the points where it should flow freely and she instead lowered the volume, forcing it into husky nothingness at one or two points.
"And I held your hand srough all off dis years
But you still have
all of me"
Creed opened the door silently and entered. The thing was that she wasn't immitating Amy Lee. Just like he'd noticed when she had been singing in the car, she meant every word. She sang them at her own pace, with her own feeling, her own anger and pain. She was looking down at the bed, at her hands playing the piano only she could hear, inside her head. A grin wormed its way onto his face. She looked like such a crazy nutcase. If it weren't for the intensity of her singing, he might have burst out laughing at it.
"You used to captivate me
by your resonating light"
Her voice recaptured its sharp strength with the calmer melody.
"Now, I'm bound by de life you left behind"
She sometimes closed her eyes, but mostly she seemed to be looking through her fingers, through the bed. Creed had actually caught some tears shining in the darkness, but not quite trickling down her cheeks.
"Your face it haunts
my once pleasant dreams
Your voice it chased away
all de sanity in me"
She raised her head as she wrung the last two words from deep inside, teeth clenched with resentment, and opened her eyes. Her voice suspended itself and Creed couldn't help a chuckle at the shock playing on her features and that had stopped her very breathing. She stood petrified, looking at him, caught red-handed. And now red-faced.
"Ya were sorely out of tune," he said, mocking her. Not that it was a complete lie, at least not in the chorus, when she should have let her voice fly and instead sounded hoarse, failing even. Although her emotional state might also have influenced those few failings.
Irbis blinked, finally closing her gaping mouth, and the shock morphed into something else. However, it wasn't the hurt he had expected.
"I didn't warm up," her voice was a whisper but then she blinked again and shook her head to bring her normal voice back. "You're… sim, a terceira. You're de third person dat critiques my singing."
Her tense shoulders loosened up and a chuckle rumbled noiselessly through her frame. She looked into his eyes with an unconscious, deprecating smirk half-spread on her face. "Everyone always says 'oh, you sing so well', 'oh dat was perfect', 'you should be a singer'… Only my music teacher and my grandmoder… and now you. I stop singing in public because off dat, you know. I promised: I never sing in public again. Only to my teacher and my grandmoder and… Thank you for critiquing. Yes, dat was bad. Very bad."
Creed lost the grin. He hadn't meant to be nice when he had criticized her. And why did she speak with that tense intonation, almost as if she had meant it to be bad? Why was she bestowing on him that gaze, so intense and passionate, so riveting?
"Quit yer thanks, ya moron!" His voice had become hard and hostile, causing her relaxed face to morph again, now into a picture of guarded seriousness. "Ya know I'm a psychopath monster who enjoys killin' lil'kids and old ladies. So quit the damn nice, friendly act once an' fer all!"
"What is sychopat?"
Creed took a step towards the kneeling woman, her back and shoulders having casually straightened themselves. "Psychopaths are folks who don't give a damn 'bout no one an' nuthin'. People who kill without regret. Animals, other people… they're all worth the same fer a psycho: an' they're worth nuthin'."
Despite the dimness of the room, he noticed the reaction in her eyes. Her lips met in a thin line.
"You're a sycopat," she said it in a low, husky voice and Creed nodded. "And so? I'm a sycopat too."
He was not in a mood for word games, and even less for mockeries. He closed the small distance separating them and grabbed her by an arm. "Ya're tryin' t'be funny, ya ass?"
There wasn't even a hint of apprehension as she continued. "Maybe you are more sycopat dan I, but…"
"No, ya ain't!" He shook her some to try and get some sense into her head. "Ya don't know what ya're talkin' 'bout!"
But instead of making her think twice and retract herself, her eyes grew incensed.
"I killed my grandmoder." Her voice was still soft, and Creed relieved some of the pressure of his grip on her arms. "And I was happy."
He was stunned. The slim arms in his grip were warm and unresisting, but he still let go of them.
"She had Alzheimer, but she didn't want to leave her house. I leave school and take care off her, but she don't want to… to lose her dignity. Her independence." Was she trying to make a parallel between the independence-loving grandmother and his independence-loving person? "So I study… I don't let anyone notice what I study… search. And den I kill her. I put a… a… almofada, raios… pillow. I put a pillow on her face when she was sleeping and I killed her."
"That's a mercy kill," his voice became less menacing, though still hard, under her passionate eyes. That damn intensity attracted him like a flame attracts moths. "It don't make no psycho out of ya."
"I killed dat man… in de forest when you… when we met. I was happy I kill him and den I saw you kill de woman and I didn't…"
"The guy attacked ya," he explained with impatience. "'Course ya were happy ta waste him! An' the woman didn't mean squat t'ya… ya were in a state of emotional shock, fer cryin' out loud. How the hell d'ya wanna feel sorry fer anyone dyin'? Nobody does when they're in shock!"
She didn't seem convinced. "And de people I see you kill, hun? De woman in New York?"
Creed took a deep breath and gazed at her for a silent moment.
"A psychopath don't care 'bout no one. Ya do."
A mocking smirk twisted the corner of her mouth briefly. "I care more about music and horses dan people."
"Bullshit!"
"Maybe I exaggerate a little. I care very much to my family. My friends. But de oders... Dey can all die." She shrugged. "De difference is dat you don't care so you kill… I don't care but I don't kill."
"Ya still ain't no psychopath." He was close enough to see the glint of annoyance in her eyes.
"I tortured a man!" She hissed, hitting her chest with a closed fist. "I feel nothing."
"Again, ya was in shock. When ya're in shock, ya don't feel… ya either freeze or ya act, but ya don't feel."
She shook her head and looked away.
"Look, girl, psychopaths are monsters, ya understand? Can ya kill kids and get a kick out of it? And don't bring up mercy kills or self-defense. I mean, seein' a kid hoppin' down the street an' just havin' t'kill it. Could ya do it?"
She nibbled her lower lip with her upper teeth only as she pondered, making their moisted redness glimmer in the shaded room. Her frown intensified and then she looked up at him. Her face was so close to his.
"Now, no. But maybe in de future." He growled at the aggravation. "I care less and less, Mister Creed. A sycopat is a monster? Maybe I'm not a monster now, but…"
Growling harder, he grabbed her neck. But her hands came up to his wrist and he felt such a powerful shock burning through his body, pushing him towards those stubborn eyes and her red lips, that he flung her backwards and got up.
She looked up angrily, now. 'I'm gonna gauge 'em out,' he thought, but knew he wouldn't just yet.
"Everyday I feel less for people around me! One, two years… and yes, maybe I don't import if I torture kids!"
The sorrow behind the admition softened Creed's previous anger. The girl hadn't been mocking him or even aggravating him on purpose; she was as confused as she could get and she actually believed all she had said. She believed it beyond simple stubbornness.
He rested a knee on the bed to approach her and he grabbed her chin pulling her face until it was inches from his. She caught her breath for a moment and Creed's hand slid from her chin to her neck, and held the nape securely. She blinked, her heart pounding a bit too slowly for her present circumstances.
"Ya listen t'me, girl." She breathed in, shakily, and her irises grew wider. "Ya got hurt. Worse than ya realised yerself; so hurt ya stopped feelin'. This 'not carin'' ya're talkin' 'bout… it's just how it feels when ya're numb inside. Nuthin' else can hurts ya fer as long as ya're numb. That's why ya think ya can kill an' maim an' not have it all keepin' ya up at night."
His fingers snaked up, through her hair. "Ya can kill, yes. Ya don't lose no sleep over folks that don't mean nuthin' ta you, fine. But ya ain't no monster. Ya ain't like me. Got it?"
She blinked a nod and swallowed down the tears on her eyes. His fingers closed in a casual fist, pulling her dark hair and forcing her face upwards with a startled gasp.
"Got it?" His voice was harder, and he didn't let go of her until she pronounced an audible 'yes'. "Good. Now get back t'sleep. We're leavin' early."
Creed got up and turned his back on the woman, her scent full in his nose.
"Mister Creed." He stopped, a hand on the door knob, and looked back. Her eyes had regained their composed intensity and he wondered when they had stopped being simply stubborn to become soberly passionate. There was no smile on her face; nor even a hint. "I… you are right. I don't want to hurt more. Is only dat…"
She didn't continue. Her voice was controlled but it still revealed the apprehension of what she had thought she'd been on her way to become, and the relief of learning it was not so.
"Ya think way too much fer your own good, girl. It gets all sort o' stupid ideas inside that stupid head o'yers."
She smirked and looked down. But then her eyes rolled up, so that she could look at him without having to raise her face to him, and the smirk faded absent-mindedly.
"You say I'm untuned because you want to irritate me."
Creed couldn't help the grin. She was smart, real smart; yet insisted in acting like a dimwit half the time. "Ya was out o' tune. Singin' hoarsely. That ain't no way t'sing; not that song at least."
She lifted her face, the smirk completely gone, and her gaze shone so much more intensely he took a deep breath. "Say a song you like. I learn it… de letters and de music… den I play to you in de piano. And sing. Wid perfection absolute. Only to you."
Creed frowned but it didn't affect the girl's intense gaze, stubbornely serious. "Shut yer yap an' get back t'bed."
He closed the door with a bang and walked away from the motel. Irritation bubbling up and down his chest, he kicked a random stone. What he needed was to get properly laid to get over this ridiculous hunger flaming his insides. For crying out loud, she didn't even have half the womanly curves he liked on a woman! There were fifteen year-olds with a more feminine frame, moving like felines breathing raw lust, and yet it never meant he would be lusting after them. After any woman. What did that twenty-year old have? Passionate eyes and blushed cheeks. It might be acceptable if he hadn't touched a woman in weeks; otherwise it was plain ridiculous!
"Mister Creed."
His blood burnt harder even as he sniffed the air, searching for a club or a bar that might be open at 1 am. It was the dreams she kept sliding into. They were the ones firing him up.
"You want to irritate me."
Yet she was the one irritating him. Irritating him and provoking him, when he knew damn well the kid wouldn't give him what he wanted. And she didn't have to, anyway. Her job was very simply to keep his house ready for him at all times. Which she did!
"Say a song you like."
His heart pounding inside his brain, he registered cheap perfume soaring in the night breeze and followed it. There was no sense in mixing pleasure and business with women: they see the two side by side and immediately act like they're one and the same. No. You just don't mix pleasure and business with women you don't intend to kill immediately afterwards.
"I play to you."
He'd rather she screamed. Pain or pleasure; it made no never-mind. Both, preferably. He was willing to bet she wasn't a screamer, though. There were a few bikes parked by the bar, and a couple of women were puffing on cigarettes outside the battered down building. Irbis's stubbornnely blood soaked lips flashed through his mind. He didn't want her anyway. He preferred screamers, either cowering in fear or begging for more, and he decided the two women were screamers. Or would be, one way or the other.
"Only to you."
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