Chapter Summary: Ethan and Karl share a moment of connection before Ethan's trust in Karl is shattered once again.
X
Ethan.
They had spent most of the evening arguing back and forth over who would take possession of the fourth and final flask - specifically, the flask containing his daughter's torso which had been given to Heisenberg by Mother Miranda.
It's my daughter-!
How do I know you won't take the flask and go gallivanting after Miranda on your own!?
Were you not listening? I told you that I need your help to get close to her. I'm not going to go 'gallivanting' anywhere. I don't have the fortunate option of leaving you behind.
Surprised a man like you knows the meaning of the word 'galavant.' I thought all you Americans were good at was studying pot, protests, and pussy!
Well, you thought wrong. Add that to the list of your annoying habits.
Oh, here we go again with yer fucking insults!
MY insults-!?
Y'know…y-you and Miranda have a lot in common. I'm still not convinced that you're not one of her little playthings sent to cheat me and usurp me of my goddamn throne. Take the flask, kill me in my sleep, prove that you're worthy-!
For the last time, Heisenberg, I don't care about your personal issues! I couldn't give a damn less about what you're convinced of or not! For all I know, you'll just use me to help you kill Miranda and then get rid of me so you can take all of the flasks. Christ, Heisenberg, how about a little insurance on your part?
You have my word. And that's a helluva lot more insurance than you deserve-!
You word?! Coming from the man who tried to kill me not once, but twice!? Last time, Heisenberg. It doesn't take a genius to see that you're scared shitless of me. If you continue to try and withhold my daughter's flask, I will prove to you that your fears aren't unfounded.
It wasn't the first nor was it to be the last time that the two men stared each other down in heated silence. Ethan had a sneaking suspicion that Heisenberg had expected him to crumple beneath his glare. But Ethan wasn't some scared, powerless villager with nothing to his name. He was a man on a mission to save his daughter. If it took proving to Heisenberg that he wasn't the type to break eye contact first then so be it. He'd play the man's silly little mind games. At that point, he was willing to do anything to get the ball rolling.
Heisenberg had relented and handed over the flask. But of course, the man had to have the last word if only to save face. Heisenberg had gruffly demanded that Ethan spend the night in the factory and informed him that they'd embark upon their quest the following day. Ethan wasn't overly fond of this plan. If it was up to him, they'd go storming Miranda's stronghold that very night. But he was tired - so awfully god damn tired - and, besides, he was finally in possession of all of his daughter's flasks.
Heisenberg's servant had led him to a room in the factory where he had promptly propped up all of the flasks upon the window sill. The sight of his daughter's dismembered limbs had unnerved him severely and several times he found himself in the corner of the room, heaving up bile from an empty stomach. But he had to stay strong and maintain hope. If he didn't, he'd lose his mind. And he couldn't afford to go crazy. He'd already lost Mia. He couldn't lose his daughter, too. Besides, he was long overdue in finding Chris Redfield and wringing his neck for what he had done. If there was one man that he hated more than Heisenberg, it was that boulder-punching asshole
Every second, it seemed Ethan's list of people to destroy grew larger.
But sleep eluded him that night. He sat curled upon himself on a pile of moldy bedsheets, staring at the flasks on the windowsill and cradling his pistol. Several times his eyes fell shut but he was quick to wake with a jolt and glance around the room. The shadows within felt creepy and fetid, as if they were cradling unseen horrors: Lycans, mutated beings howling with the wind, blood leaching from the snow and curdling around his shoes, a saw grinding back and forth against his daughter's neck…
PTSD was something that he always thought happened to other people. But, sitting alone in a room with the severed parts of his baby girl's body suspended in glass jars, he knew he'd have one hell of a time trying to reel in some sense of normality when he returned home. How the hell was he going to raise Rose without her mother, he wondered. How would he explain to her what had happened? He'd never been a particularly attentive husband, he knew that, so what gave him the right to think that he'd be a suitable father without his better half beside him?
He still vividly remembered the night that Rose had been born. He had been driving along the freeway at night, one hand on the wheel and the other clutching his phone to his ear. On the other end of the line, he had heard Mia cursing and crying out as the doctors told her to push, just go on ahead and push. He had felt so helpless then and his words of encouragement had been drowned out by the sound of chaos in the hospital room. Not that it mattered - his words had sounded pitiful to his ears. Tears had bunched up along his lashes, blurring his vision as he tried to navigate through the wriggling rain pelting his window. Headlights blurring into one, the sound of windshield wipers swishing against the window, some late-night talk show playing softly from his radio, and Mia screaming over and over again on the line. Where are you, Ethan? Where are you!?
He had been at work, staring distractedly at the flies buzzing around cups of lukewarm coffee when he got the call. He remembered this clearly: the brief, treacherous moment when he had picked up his phone and simply stared at the number on the screen. Considering not answering it, considering letting the call go to voicemail, and dealing with the consequences later. Which would be worse: the wrath of his boss or the wrath of his wife? No matter what he did, wrath seemed to crowd around him. Wrath, misfortune, chaos.
He had taken the call and found himself on the freeway only a few minutes later with tears dribbling down his shirt, swerving madly through traffic and trying to make sense of the noise on the other end of the line. Where are you, Ethan? Oh God, it hurts! He had slammed his fist against the center of the wheel, startled the other drivers with the blast of his car's horn, and frenzied driving.
And then, like a miracle: the sound of Rose's wailing on the other end.
He had pulled over and flung himself out of the car, tramping through the sparse thicket lining the edge of the freeway. Cars honked as they drove past him with his arms thrust out towards the heavens, rain splattering his upturned face as he smiled into the flailing glare of the passing headlights. Rose, he had said into the phone, it's me. I'm here. I'm here.
But he hadn't been there, though. He had been forty-five minutes away, spinning around like a drunkard on the edge of the freeway as his wife cradled their newborn baby girl in a faraway hospital bed. He had been so ecstatic that he had screamed into the night. I'm here! I'm here! I'm here! Daddy's coming. Just hold on-
But, just like now, he hadn't been there when Rose and Mia had needed him the most. Somewhere between screaming on the edge of the freeway and curling himself up in a dingy room in Heisenberg's factory, he had lost. First his wife, and now his daughter. If Rose could speak, what would she have said as the knife was leveraged against her limbs? Where are you, Ethan? Where are you? Oh God, it hurts!
It wasn't enough to say that he was 'on his way,' because he had been too late. While he was trudging along the village snow like a madman, someone had taken a knife and cut up his daughter. Forgiveness was too good for him, he didn't deserve it. The rest of his life would be spent making up for what he had so clumsily fumbled, trying to atone for his hesitancy and inattentiveness: that one moment, staring at his phone in a muggy office, knowing that Mia needed him and yet realizing, deep in his heart, that he was a man who had considered not even answering her call.
Truth hurts, don't it? That's what Heisenberg had said to him only a few hours earlier.
God, yes.
These were the kind of thoughts that he could not bear any longer. There was no use trying to sleep anymore. Judging by the moon's slow trajectory past the window, it must have been past midnight. Failing in his attempts to fall asleep only served to infuriate him, and he needed a clear head for his coming battle against Miranda. And so he pushed himself off of the floor - careful to keep the pressure from his recently reattached hand - and wandered into the hallway.
There was an odd omnipresence about Heisenberg's factory. Though he assumed that it had long since been abandoned by its previous workers, he felt as if the very factory itself had a certain soul: a faceless sort of spirit that was both watchful and calculating. A vibrating hum reverberated through his shoes as he stumbled through the hallway. Every once in a while, the humming was punctuated by a clang or clatter from the various machinery hard at work deeper into the factory. It was comforting in a way, this ambiance. From what he gathered, Heisenberg was a recluse who spent most - if not all - of his time in the factory. And now Ethan understood why. The whole setting felt very peaceful, if not eerie. Any second, he figured, a strange mechanical being could spring from one of the doorways. But better them than a human the likes of which he had encountered in the village.
That was the thing about humans - their ability to act upon foresight made them much more frightening than any other creature on the planet.
On and on he walked, simply taking in the setting. There were many levels to Heisenberg's factory as well as confusing twists and turns. Ethan barely even noticed as his intuition guided him upwards, towards the higher levels of the factory. His shoes knocked disjointedly along the staircase as he watched the pulley system roll past, carrying limp bodies upon rusted hinges. The bodies were in various states of decay, way past the point of being viable vessels for Heisenberg's experimentations. But at least they were dead. He couldn't help but feel that they were lucky, those men and women with ramshackle metal snouts meshed into their fish-belly gray cheeks. The only thing that the village had to offer to the living was chaos upon calamity upon disaster. He would know. He had been there when the last of the villagers had been mauled to death by Lycans.
He stopped at the top of the staircase and looked around. Several doors were standing adjacent to the hall. All had been boarded up except for one. For no particular reason, he wandered towards this door and peeked inside. Beyond was a small room swathed in darkness. He flicked a lighter and held it inside, the dancing light from the small flame blasting the shadows from the walls. Every inch of the walls within had been plastered with sheaves of paper that looked suspiciously like pages from the bible. In the center of the room sat an overturned chair, the tail end of a noose snaking over one of its legs. It took him a moment to understand what he was seeing, but when the realization finally hit he gave a low whistle.
"I guess every dog has its days," he muttered to himself before flicking the match and closing the door to the room. Everybody was entitled to their own secrets, and if Heisenberg's was enough to drive him to attempt suicide then Ethan had no intention of getting closer to him than was strictly necessary. Though, seeing what he had, he couldn't help but feel a spark of pity for the man and wonder just what it was that had driven the village Lord to reclusion.
Finally, after another hour of wandering, he found himself in an attic situated at the highest level of the factory. It was then that he realized that he had been gravitating towards the rooftop where he could get a bit of fresh air away from the cursed village grounds. He climbed a ladder and pushed open the window leading to the rooftop. It was unlatched, surprisingly, and the chilly air that greeted him was enough to temporarily clear his mind of all worries.
He clambered bodily onto the rooftop and hunched his shoulders as he emerged from the ramshackle shelter space that had been built upon the roof The crumpled metal tiles slipped beneath his feet as he stumbled across the roof, his eyes on the misty gray landscape on the horizon. For a brief moment, he felt comforted by the moonlight even though the chill had made its way into his lungs and caused his breath to turn a frolicking white before him. He shoved his hands in his pockets, closed his eyes, and let out a heavy sigh. Until a sudden, uncomfortably familiar voice broke through his serene thoughts.
"Do you mind breathing any louder?"
He groaned inwardly and then opened his eyes. "Do you mind being any ruder?"
Karl Heisenberg sat some ways away, hunched over himself with his hands pressed against his face. Small rivulets of snow cascaded between his fingers as he stared back up at Ethan with reddened eyes. It was hard to tell if he had been crying, or if his eyes had always been that particular shade of bloodied red. Ethan was more inclined to believe the former.
It would have made the most sense for him to turn away and go back to his small room in the factory. But he was no punk and refused to let Heisenberg's presence deter him from the fact that he was entitled to a bit of non-fetid air as well. They stared at each other for a moment in silence before Ethan walked a few feet away and settled himself down into a seated position. There were several glass jars surrounding Heisenberg, some of them still half-full. Even from a distance, Ethan could smell the sickly-sweet scent of alcohol rising off of the other man's body.
"Mind if we forgo any future pleasantries?" Ethan asked, already annoyed by the way that Heisenberg was staring at him.
The man sucked his teeth. "Fine by me, E-than Win-ters."
They sat in awkward silence with Ethan glancing off to the side and Heisenberg cradling his face in his snow-covered hands. Ethan could feel the tension riding his brow, and the stiffening curl to his lip despite his efforts to remain calm. He simply couldn't believe that the success of his mission was hinged upon an overly-jovial showman type with an affinity for cocaine, judging by Heisenberg's mannerisms. But then Heisenberg gave a small sniff and Ethan cast a surprised glance his way. The man really had been crying and was failing in his attempts to hide it. Ethan watched in surprise as Heisenberg curled tighter into himself. Soon, his shoulders began to quake as he pressed his hands harder against his face, and Ethan's mind bounced back to the chair and noose that he had seen on his way to the rooftop. Everyone was entitled to their own secrets, sure, but at that moment Ethan couldn't help but wonder just what sort of secrets could have made a man like Heisenberg break down.
There was a small picture frame laying beside Heisenberg's thigh. Ethan leaned over slightly and craned his head at him. It was a woman with dark skin and narrow eyes. Fuck it, he figured. He wasn't completely without manners, thanks to Mia's southern hospitality influence. He wouldn't just sit there and watch Karl Heisenberg cry.
"A friend of yours?" He asked. Heisenberg gave one last ungainly sniffle before looking at Ethan and then drawing his eyes down to the picture frame. Ethan was familiar with social nuances. He was giving Heisenberg time to collect himself by refusing to acknowledge that he had seen him crying.
Heisenberg wiped his sleeve across his nose before giving a small huff. "Closest I ever got to a Mrs. Heisenberg."
"Huh." Without waiting for permission, Ethan leaned over and plucked the picture frame from the snow. Upon closer inspection, it revealed a photo with curling, burnt edges. At the center was a woman that he assumed was of Ethiopian descent. There was a vacancy in her eyes that reminded him of the mannequin doll heads that he had seen in beauty shop windows back in LA, the ones that collected dust day after day and stared out at the world with painted and eerie eyes. It was strange to think that Heisenberg would find such a woman attractive. He would have pinned him for a man more into the rambunctious, bombshell types that populated after-hour bars in leggings and smeared mascara. The woman in the photo just seemed too plain, and hauntingly serene: the kind of woman in a crowd that inspired a second glance and nothing more.
He wouldn't lie and call her pretty. That sort of clumsy deception would have been obvious. So instead he said, "Where is she now? I'm assuming if she's your friend then she's probably waiting in some dark cellar to try and kill me, too, right?"
Heisenberg shook his head. "Miranda killed her," he mumbled.
"Shit. How'd you let that happen?" Ethan asked. Heisenberg had a strange way of pronouncing words. Miran-der killed 'er. Sometimes his accent sounded more American than it did Romanian. Ethan wasn't sure why he noticed this.
"I didn't! The damn bitch took on my woman's form. Went and fucked my brother, made me think that my gal was unfaithful." Heisenberg sniffed again. "Then she convinced me that killing her was for the greater good."
"The greater good doesn't always feel so good, does it?" Ethan ruminated. For some reason, this made Heisenberg look up at him with an expression akin to interest. Then, after another beat of silence, Heisenberg took one of the jars in his hand and slid it over to Ethan.
"Have a drink," he ordered in the same voice that he had used when he had told Ethan to take a seat. Ethan assumed that this was Heisenberg's best attempt at being gracious, and so he took the jar and held it to his nose. The smell that hit him was strong enough to bring water to his eyes and make him look away with a gag.
"The fuck is that?" He asked and Heisenberg snickered.
"L-let me guess. You Americans haven't yet figured out the proper way to brew moonshine?"
"We don't need to. We have good old-fashioned IPAs. Just as strong, and disgusting." God, he really did need a drink. Just something to take the edge off for a bit. He wrinkled his nose, took a deep breath in, and then downed whatever was in the jar as fast as he could. The first hit of moonshine against his throat made his vision blur over and his fingers feel heavy. He put his hand to his face as his mouth twisted into a puckered grin of its own accord. Through the space in his fingers, he could see Heisenberg's small smile of amusement.
"Well, shit," the man said. "I'll admit, I've never seen a man take a shot of moonshine to the throat and come back grinning!"
"I'm just full of surprises, aren't I?"
"You're full of a lot of things, aren't you, Ethan?"
"You still trying to figure out what I'm really made of?"
"Believe me, Winters, I know exactly what you're made of. The question is…do you?"
"Something you wanna tell me, Heisenberg?" Ethan was careful to keep his gaze aimed at the dredges of liquid swirling around the jar. Though his question had come off as light-hearted, he was admittedly curious. He had his own suspicions about his biology, ever since the Incident. But whether they were unfounded or not was hard to tell. Perhaps it was futile, trying to get answers from the likes of a man like Heisenberg.
Karl had shifted himself slightly and was regarding Ethan with open curiosity. The maliciousness of his presence seemed to have faded away completely, only to be replaced by something else…something friendly and uncomfortably desperate. This new demeanor reminded Ethan of something but he couldn't figure out what, not with the rancid moonshine clogging up the thoughts in his brain. He swirled the liquid around in his glass harder, trying to figure out a way to wipe that raw look from Heisenberg's eye. "Y-your brother," he finally stuttered. "You said your woman slept with him. And then Miranda killed her. So what happened to him? Did you kill him, too?"
"There was no need. You carried out the task quite admirably, Ethan!"
"Huh?" Ethan said, looking up at him in confusion. Heisenberg's grin widened.
"Why, Sturm! That old rusted bastard of a machine whose metal reactor core you threw so graciously at my feet!"
It took Ethan a moment to make sense of this. "Shit," he finally said. "That was your-"
"-brother. Twin, to be exact. May God rest his ugly-ass soul." Heisenberg picked up the pendant hanging from his neck and gave it a swift, crooked kiss. Ethan did not feel it appropriate nor necessary to mention the irony of this last comment, considering the fact that Karl and his brother were twins.
"What the hell did you do to him?"
"Only what he deserved. Don't look so surprised! If you knew that he was my brother, would that have stopped you from killing him?"
Ethan thought about this for a moment and then shook his head. "Nah. Guess I got something against people who call themselves your siblings."
Heisenberg chuckled at this, surprisingly. Ethan was right in assuming that the man had nothing but residual loathing for the rest of the Lords that had been slain, even if they were his so-called siblings. Heisenberg leaned over and held a glass jar towards him, which Ethan tapped with his own glass. The moonshine was beginning to wreak havoc in him now but he didn't care. It felt good to be out of control, just for once. For too long it had felt like every facet of his fate had been hinged upon his decision-making capabilities. It was nice to just let go before he came crashing back to reality.
He put his hand to his head and giggled softly, trying to sort through the muddled onslaught of thoughts crowding around his head. The burning sensation from the alcohol was making him feel nostalgic for his college days, and one night in particular. Heisenberg was still watching him with that strange grin lingering around his lips. Ethan was inclined to wonder if the man had any actual friends. Most likely not. Heisenberg's ego was flashy, and nothing more.
"Something funny, Mister Americano?"
"It's nothing. It's just…" Ethan chuckled again and shook his head, not even sure why the hell he was sitting on a rooftop getting drunk with Heisenberg in the first place. He swished the moonshine around his glass, for some reason unable to keep the smile from his face.
"Back in college, I dated this girl. Not Mia. Her name was Angelica Walkers. Studied anthropology or something like that. She had this….big ol' pink heart tattooed on her ass.
Anyway, we went to this party out in the hills. And all our friends were getting drunk and high on whatever they could get their hands on. At some point, she ended up across the room. And I remember she gave me this look. This-"
"Come hither look?" Heisenberg offered and Ethan nodded.
"Yeah. Come hither. And I knew exactly what she wanted from me. She pulled out her phone and sent me a text that said 'meet me in the guest room' before walking away. I waited a few minutes, had a few more beers before finally mustering up the courage to go and find her." Ethan ducked his head beneath his arm to try and stifle the coming laughter. The memory of what happened next still made him feel awkward and giddy. Heisenberg might as well have not even been there anymore, so lost was Ethan in his own sense of soft inebriation.
"So I wandered upstairs. Come to find out the house had a lot of different guest rooms. So I just went to the first one I saw that had the door cracked open. And I walked in and it was dark, so I couldn't see shit except for Angelica lying face-down on the bed, naked, kicking her legs around."
Heisenberg had gone completely still. Ethan could feel his eyes roving over him, curious and appraising. Waiting to see where the story would go. There was something about Heisenberg that just felt too big - something beyond his physical presence was reminiscent of a balloon filled to the point of bursting. It was creepy and unnerving and yet, at that moment, there was a serenity to the man that made for unexpectedly pleasant company.
"Anyway," Ethan drawled on, tilting the jar back and forth. "I thought to myself, 'oh yeah. This is what I came for.' So I started to unbuckle my belt, pull down my pants a little. And then I noticed something. I walked up to her and took a good look at her ass. Remember how I told you she had a heart tattooed on her ass? Well, it wasn't there." Ethan felt his body suddenly wrack with uncontrollable chuckles and he struggled to say the next part. "So I turned the flashlight on my phone and shined it over her. And you know what, Heisenberg? There was no tattoo in sight! It was the wrong woman!" Ethan couldn't help it. He howled with laughter and fell back on his hands.
"Oh my god-" he whimpered as the moisture built up along his lashes. "I said sorry and then ran out of there so fast, with my pants tangled around my ankles and everything."
His laughter was so loud, then, that it echoed around the land. Several nocturnal animals howled in response but he could barely hear them. He was too busy clutching his face in his hands as he bent forward upon his knees and broke down in a fit of cackling.
Then, a sudden noise caught him completely off guard.
He looked up to find Heisenberg staring straight at him. The man never broke eye contact as he giggled at first, his hands laid out flat on either side of him. Then, Heisenberg threw his head back and began to really laugh. The sound and sight of it was so unexpectedly genuine that it made Ethan laugh harder. Heisenberg had a particular way of laughing - a dry ha ha ha ha that betrayed the fact that once, at some point in his distant history, his voice must have sounded completely different. Pleasant, possibly, and less scathing. It only fueled Ethan's suspicions that Karl Heisenberg was constantly putting on a front.
"Well shit," Heisenberg wheezed before sliding another jar of moonshine Ethan's way. "Ethan Winters! I really like you!"
"Mia didn't when I told her the story years later. After we had gotten married," Ethan said before throwing his head back and taking a long pull from the jar.
What he didn't mention was that night, after he had relayed the story to her, they had gotten into yet another fight. For some reason, his tales of his past college debauchery had twisted their way into a heated argument about his obsession with his work and his inattentiveness as a husband. He had ended up on the couch again. 3 AM. Hands between his thighs, staring at the mute advertisements flashing across the screen as tears pricked at his eyes. Despite being old, the memory was still potent enough to make him crave a stiff drink - something to blast him straight to oblivion. Because Mia was dead. He had never gotten his chance to atone.
He finished what was in the jar, reached over clumsily, and helped himself to whatever the hell Heisenberg was sipping on.
The man didn't stop him and instead watched with something akin to pride as Ethan downed his third drink of the night. There was something on Heisenberg's mind. Ethan could see the cogs turning in his head and the distracted shift in his gaze. Finally, Heisenberg sighed and shook his head with another small laugh.
"Ah, shit."
"Ah, shit is right," Ethan sputtered back before spitting over the edge of the rooftop.
Heisenberg chuckled again. His gaze rolled over his boots before he lifted a cigar to his mouth and lit the end beneath a cupped palm. "Y-you know. Back when I was young, I had no idea what the hell I was doing when it came to women. Believe it or not."
"I believe it, alright."
"Oh, shut your damn hole," Heisenberg said good-naturedly. "Anyway. I met this lady. Doll by the name of Mihaela. The type to put the shiver in your socks, you know what I mean? I mean a real looker."
"Did Miranda kill her, too?"
"No. No, no, no. Mihaela was a horse wrangler. Got drunk one night and rode her prized steed right over the edge of a cliff." Heisenberg hesitated. If mimicry was the highest form of flattery then Heisenberg's choice in swishing the liquid around his jar was quite telling. What Ethan didn't know was that Heisenberg had been there on the night of Mihaela's death. A few heated words, a ringing slap across Heisenberg's face, and Mihaela's look of shock as she was pushed backward off the cliff. These were the images plaguing Heisenberg's mind
"God bless her," Heisenberg said after a swift shake of his head. "A-anyway. One night we found our way into the cellar at the top of Miranda's church."
"Guessing you weren't studying the bible?"
"Ah! Well! With the way she was calling out God's name, we might as well have been. But - pay attention! I had her in one of those contortionist positions - knees where the Lord didn't design them to be, hands pulling out tufts of my hair. Back then, I didn't know that women could-" At this Heisenberg paused, took a sip from his jar, and spit out a small stream. Ethan knew exactly what he was talking about, thanks to the same college debauchery that had almost gotten him in trouble with Angelica. "So when she did, I…I thought-"
Heisenberg sputtered around his cigar and began to cough with laughter, beating at his chest with a closed fist. "Thought I had been pissed on! Aw, shit, Ethan! I just knew that I was going to go blind!"
The mental image of Heisenberg stumbling blindly around a room with his pants twisted around his ankles was just too much for Ethan to bear. He broke out in a fit of chuckles that soon devolved into laughter so heavy that it made his very eyes water. It could have been the moonshine that had made him find Heisenberg's story so funny. Or maybe it wasn't, maybe he was genuinely having a good time.
Ethan didn't even know that they had closed the space between them until he suddenly felt Heisenberg's heavy hand grip his shoulder. The scent of unwashed hair hit him, followed by the sweet pungency of Heisenberg's breath as he leaned down and braced his forehead against Ethan's shoulder. Heisenberg was laughing - that same robust ha ha ha from earlier that reminded Ethan of a 90s cartoon villain. This parallel was so unexpectedly stupid that it made him laugh harder. He was quick to grab onto Heisenberg's sleeve before he tumbled backward, and for a moment all social nuisances were lost as the two men held onto each other, their laughter coarse and dried out like the sound of two car engines revving
After a moment, the laughter died out and they sat there sniffling and wiping tears of mirth from their eyes. Then, they looked at each other again and burst out in rasping laughter again.
"You know what, Heisenberg?" Ethan finally said before giving a huff and wiping the moisture away from his eyes with both hands. "You're not half bad."
"Ha! I usually hear that one from the ladies!"
"The type to make you keep a bucket and a mop handy, huh?"
"What are you talking about, Ethan?"
Ethan chuckled, suddenly feeling very stupid. "I-it's from a song. Here, look."
He fumbled around awkwardly until one of his pockets unveiled his phone. He stared down at the black screen as he held his thumb against the power button, his reflection staring back at him distorted and blurred. If he remembered correctly, there was only one bar left in the battery meter. It would have made sense for him to attempt to do something more productive with the remaining power: rush around the factory until he found a signal, preferably. Call the police, call the American embassy, call the fucking FBI - hell, call his mother.
But instead, he squinted at the glaringly bright loading screen and clumsily navigated to his downloaded files. Buried amongst the voice memos and screenshots and work files was a single song that Mia had downloaded a little over a year ago. It had been a prank of sorts - whilst on vacation, she had used the file to change his ringtone to the song and then had promptly forgotten. Then, one day at work, she had called him and his cheeks had flushed in embarrassment as everyone in the office swiveled around in shock at the sound of the raunchy lyrics suddenly blasting through his phone. It was an honest mistake on her part and should have made for a good laugh between them. But no. It had all led back to the same thing - the conversation had twisted and snaked its way to blame-shifting centered around old arguments, ancient accusations, and a screaming match in the hallway preceding a door slammed shut in his face.
Life really was a full circle.
His hands were shaking as he pressed play and then held the phone out to Heisenberg. The man made no move to grab it, and so Ethan held the device awkwardly to Heisenberg's ear. Then, after glancing at the quiver in Ethan's fingers, Heisenberg eased the phone out of his clutch with a steady hand and then held the device on his own. His green eyes wandered away for a moment as he tried to decipher the lyrics through his drunken haze. The sudden crease in his brow aged him and Ethan wondered what he must have looked like as a child.
"And just what the hell is this?" Heisenberg asked. "Some sort of farmer's song?"
Ethan stifled his giggle with a quick swipe of his sleeve. "What gives you that impression?"
"Well, a man is talking about gardening tools that have made their way into his home or some shit like that?"
"Hoes in the house?" Ethan asked, raising his brow. "Keep listening."
"I-" Heisenberg's brows shot up as simultaneously his eyes widened at the following lyrics. "Oh-ho-ho. What? Hold on now - just hold on!"
Heisenberg jumped up with a smile and began to pace around the rooftop with Ethan's phone jammed against his ear. His grin grew wider and wider the dirtier the lyrics got, and soon his entire face was alight with devilish amusement. Seeing him that way was almost endearing. He looked like a little boy who had discovered curse words for the first time.
Heisenberg put his hand on his belly and leaned back with a full-bodied laugh that could have rattled the very stars out of the sky. "Is this what you Americans like to sing about? Well, god-duh damn! Looks like I've been missing out!"
"That's not the worst of it," Ethan said. "Wait until the end. It'll change the way you see macaroni forever."
"And just what the hell is macaroni? Another euphemism of yours?"
"It's…" Ethan shrugged defeatedly. "Come to America. You'll see."
Heisenberg lowered the phone slightly, his eyes twinkling as he looked Ethan up and down. The music was still playing in a tiny buzz that sounded pathetic in the ensuing silence. "Y'know, you're not the first person who's asked me to go back with them to America," he finally said.
Ethan yawned. "If things don't go south, I'll be the last."
"You sayin' you'd take me back with you, pretty boy?"
"Sure," Ethan said with another yawn. "Call it incentive. Mind you, we won't be friends or anything. I could get you a place in a big city, set you up with a job. But after that? No offense, but I'd want nothing to do with you."
"You calling a deal?"
"Help me fix my daughter, and you have my word that I'll make it happen."
"Sheeee-it," Heisenberg said, drawing his gaze away from Ethan and holding the phone back up to his ear. Ethan held a glass jar up to his lips and watched with faint amusement as Heisenberg shuffled around the rooftop, his eyes on his boots as he hummed along to the lyrics. Ethan's offer must have excited him, judging by the small grin on his face that he had failed to hide. But why, Ethan wondered. If a man like Heisenberg wanted to go to America then surely he would have left a long time ago. What could have kept him shackled to the village?
An image of Mother Miranda's face flashed in his mind. It had only been a short while ago that Ethan had been trussed up before the council, listening in as the Lords debated over who would take control of his fate. Back then, Heisenberg's attitude towards Miranda had come across as overly polite and pressingly formal. And yet still there had been something to the way that they had looked at and spoken to each other: like the veins of their relationship ran deeper than anyone else knew. But Heisenberg wanted to kill her - that much was clear. So what was really going on?
Ethan felt suddenly sobered as he watched Heisenberg shuffle closer and closer to the edge of the rooftop. By this time, the other man had gotten the general hang of the lyrics and was muttering snatches of the song to himself, occasionally lifting his head and shouting the refrain at the top of his lungs in that rumbling baritone of his. Fringes of dawnlight were beginning to creep across the land, and far off in the distance, several birds had taken up their morning song. Ethan had gone an entire night without sleep, and perhaps that was why his thoughts suddenly felt irritable and poisonous. Just who was Heisenberg, really, he wondered to himself as he watched the village Lord swing his arms about in time with the music. At the end of the day, when all loyalties were tested, would he assume the role of Miranda's puppet or Ethan's ally?
So engrossed had he been in his thoughts that he barely even noticed Heisenberg tumble off the edge of the roof. One second he was there, and the next second he was not. Ethan roused himself with a quick shake of his head and bolted up in alarm. Heisenberg was gone - all six feet of him suddenly disappeared over the edge. Ethan cursed as he stumbled across the dislodged pieces of metal tile until he was a few inches away from the ledge. Fuck, he thought to himself as he fell upon his hands and knees, the damn drunk bastard had gone and fallen off of the roof. There went any and all plans of him rescuing his Rose. He was prepared to see the worst: Heisenberg lying twisted and broken in the mud several stories below when suddenly a gust of cold wind blasted across Ethan's face, knocking him backward.
There stood Heisenberg, levitating a few feet in front of him upon a slab of thick metal. The man was laughing uproariously as pieces of junk metal swirled around his head like a twisting halo. His hair flushed around him as he held his hands to the sky, the warmth of dawn illuminating him with its radiance. Or perhaps the radiance was coming from within: rolling along Heisenberg's skin like a sheen of sweat, melting away the years of toil from his face, lending him a Godly-like resplendence as he hovered in the air laughing his heart out. It was a sight that Ethan would never forget, one that rivaled the magnificence of the greatest wonders of the world. Now, finally, Ethan understood what it meant when people called Heseinberg a Lord. A vessel. A greater showman than God.
A single tear rolled down Ethan's face as Heisenberg opened his eyes and looked back down at him. For once, his gaze wasn't malicious or calculating: it was open, raw, and honest. But what Heisenberg was trying to convey Ethan did not yet understand. I trust you, Ethan wanted to say as the bits and pieces of junk metal swirled around Heisenberg's fists like minuscule angels with glinting winks. I trust you. And he needed to. Seeing Heisenberg hovering before him with a golden, sun-lit halo around his shaggy hair - his smile tepid and eyes like that of Jesus surveying his Last Supper - Ethan understood that Heisenberg could be the one to carry them along their holy crusade.
Heisenberg hopped off of his hovering platform and strolled towards Ethan. As his hair fell back into place, he ran his hands across the wrinkles in his coat and then handed the phone back to Ethan. Their fingers met, and Ethan shivered at the feel of Heisenberg's ice-cold skin.
"Any more parlor tricks you got up your sleeve?" He asked with some difficulty as he slipped his phone back into his pocket. Heisenberg gave a toothy grin and then shook his head.
"None that I'd be willing to show you. You see, my pendulum doesn't exactly swing your way."
"With your obsession with me, I would have never guessed."
They both grinned at this. It was nice, being able to exchange good old-fashioned locker room banter without the extra weight of venom or unconcealed loathing. Ethan couldn't remember the last time he had gone out for drinks with a male friend. But his time spent with Heisenberg on the rooftop that night made him feel as if he was back home in LA at a bar with a stranger, exchanging good-natured insults and sharing raunchy tales. Oh yes, Heisenberg would do just fine in America. In another time, and another life, he was already there: the grizzled usual fishing peanut shells from between his teeth, whistling at waitresses, squinting through the cigarette smoke with a smile that lit up his corner of the room, knocking his heel against the bar stool, waiting to tell his story to someone, anyone…
In another time and another life, they were already fast friends.
Ethan stood up on legs turned to jelly and dabbed distractedly at a damp spot on his shirt. Heisenberg had taken a seat in his old spot and had the bridge of his nose pinched between his fingers. It was the last time that either of them would indulge in moonshine. The hangover was already making its presence known, and would be a bitch to deal with in a few hours.
"No offense," Ethan said as he wandered back towards the door. "But I am never drinking with you again. From here on out, just consider this-"
"-business professional," Heisenberg finished for him. The man's high must have been fading away, judging by the way that he was now leaning back with his palm pressed against his forehead. Stress lines had begun to etch their way around his eyes, and already there was flushed dampness darkening his cheeks. But still, ever so faintly, Ethan could see the remnants of a smile hanging around Heisenberg's lips. "Fine by me, Mr. American."
"Yeah…" Ethan wasn't sure why he was hanging around. He knocked at the door distractedly with his knuckles, trying to figure out what it was, exactly, that he still needed to say. And then he remembered his daughter's severed limbs in the flask lining his windowsill, and his question came back to him. "Heisenberg. You wouldn't lie to me, right?"
"Scout's honor," Heisenberg growled beneath his palm.
"Then tell me something….who was the one that cut up my daughter? I'm assuming that since there was barely anyone left in the village when I arrived, it must have been one of the other Lords."
Heisenberg shifted one of his fingers, glared up at Ethan with a single reddened eye. "Miranda gave the order-"
"I could have guessed that much. But she wasn't the one who did this to Rose. She's evil, but I don't think she has it in her to dismember a…" Ethan struggled. The word 'dismember' had been too strong, the images that it invoked too graphic. "It wasn't Miranda," he tried again after shaking his head. "So who was it, Heisenberg? Which one of you sorry village lords put the blade to my daughter's neck?"
"What use would that information be now!?" Heisenberg hissed back, suddenly sour. The mood between them had become tense again, they could both feel it.
"That's none of your business."
"Y'ever heard of a 'give and take,' Ethan? If it's none of my business, then I have no business even answering your damn question!"
"Huh…." Ethan leaned back, suddenly very aware of Heisenberg's defensive body language and tone. For some reason, his question about Rose had nettled the other man. And Ethan was beginning to have a sneaking suspicion that he knew why. "You really want to know? Fine, I'll tell you. I'm going to find the sorry bastard who cut up my daughter. Make them look me in the eye before I blast a bullet through their head. You have my word on that. So, let's start at square one. Look me in the eye, Heisenberg, and tell me…did you do it?"
Heisenberg's fingers crumpled around his face. For a moment, the odd green of his irises disappeared as he closed his eye and then took a deep breath in. Then, he yanked his hand away and reared up with so much force that it startled Ethan. He watched Heisenberg totter towards the edge of the roof and stare down at the yard below. The sight of him framed by the dusky-blue sky was unnerving, invoking, as it did, an image of him suddenly leaping from the roof. But this time he wouldn't come hovering back. Having seen the overturned chair and noose in the back room, Ethan knew that Heisenberg had it in him to do something drastic and irreparable.
But then he turned around and fixed Ethan with a hard-to-read stare before giving his glasses a flick and setting them back on his face.
"It wasn't me," Heisenberg said in an unnaturally low croak. "You may be inclined to think of me as some low-down village bastard. But I got morals. Got that? I would never….i-in fact you're insulting me once again by insinuating that I would raise a knife to a damn kid!"
Relief flooded through Ethan, then. He had been through too much, fought, and clawed his way through hoards of enemies pitted against him. He couldn't afford to lose trust in Heisenberg. It would break him, mentally. And he was too tired to be broken again.
"You're right. Sorry," he said, putting his hand on his damp forehead. "Must have had too much to drink."
"Damn straight," Heisenberg cursed. "You Americans aren't good for shit."
"Back to your old ways, huh, partner?"
"And just what would you know about my old ways?" Heisenberg seemed to meditate upon this for a moment, his arms crossed tight above his chest as he observed the morning sky. Then, he flung around once more with his arms held wide and cried out, "I'm caught between a shoooooot-out and a sawmill!" for no particular reason that Ethan could discern.
"Salvatore Moreau," Heisenberg continued in a calmer voice. "My ugly, fish-belly skin bastard of a semi-brother. He's the one who sliced your dear baby girl to ribbons."
"You know this…how?"
"I was there!" Heisenberg exclaimed. It did not escape Ethan, the fact that Heisenberg had slipped back into using his odd stage voice. But for what? It was hard to tell. Maybe, if Ethan was in a clearer state of mind, he would have picked up on the fact that Heisenberg was putting on a front. "And, yes, before you ask the question on everyone's mind…I tried to stop him. I tried my damn hardest, Ethan! God, I don't think I've ever seen anything as terrible as your little Rose looking back up at me - ME, Ethan- as Salvatore made to cut into her like she was some birthday cake. I would have killed him to save her, you know that? I tried - I had my foot up on his neck before that slimy bastard even had time to react. But Miranda…that withering cunt…s-she got between us….used the mold that she planted in my body against me. Imagine having your very blood rise and boil in your veins, Ethan. Because that's what she did. She made the mold wreak havoc in my bloodstream, made me into a puppet while the other Lords laughed. I-" Heisenberg looked away, twisted his lips, and then gave a heavy sigh. "You think I just want to use Rose as a weapon, huh? Well, you're wrong. Ever since that day, when I saw her staring back at me as Sal lowered the knife to her neck, I just knew in my heart that I had a duty to protect her, to fix what they had done. You're not the only one trying to make amends."
It was exactly what Ethan needed to hear. He smiled lightly to himself as he watched Heisenberg standing there panting, his gaze leveled at his boots. I trust you, Ethan thought to himself again. I trust you. I trust you. I trust you.
"Alright," he said. "Alright. Then we're in this together. You and me, against Miranda. To save Rose. And I'll tell you something that I'm willing to bet you've never heard before. You're a good man. You know that?" Ethan paused, knocked absentmindedly on the doorframe with his knuckle. "You're a good man, Karl."
X
A few minutes later found Ethan back in his room. He let himself down onto the pile of bedsheets with a sigh, for once finding them comfortable enough to possibly carry him to sleep. Already, the morning sun had revealed itself with blinding brilliance unfamiliar to the village. His eyes narrowed to a squint as he stared at the flasks lining the window sill, each one casting a golden hue across the floor beneath the sun's light. It was metaphorical he supposed: the rays of sun shining through them were like a reminder that his daughter was still there and alive. All they had to do was put her back together.
His eyes fell slowly closed. They. No longer was Ethan thinking in terms of 'I' or 'me.' His fate had been intertwined with Heisenberg's and, when he thought back to their conversation on the rooftop, he realized that he was lucky. Heisenberg was a bit 'off', sure, but the man was driven and seemed to give just as much of a damn about fixing Rose as he did. Plus, he was the only other person in the village whose loathing for Miranda paralleled Ethan's. Then, as a bonus, Heisenberg had built an entire fucking army of mechanical-human abominations with the sole purpose of killing her. Really, Ethan had hit the metaphorical jackpot with their alliance.
He chuckled, softly. "I trust you, you magnetic cowboy bastard." His head began to fall back against the wall, pulled by the weight of sleep. "I trust y-"
His door slammed open. He immediately sprung to his feet, his hands wrapped around the barrel of his gun before his eyes had even opened. There, in the doorway, stood Heisenberg's servant. The one that had let him into the room only a few hours ago. Her gaze traveled over the gun before she looked up and cast him a glance full of pity.
"No wonder you two have a lot in common," she said. "You men just loooooove fondling your pieces."
"Wha-"
She ignored him and wandered over to the window. Once there, she stopped and examined the flasks with interest. "Creepy," she muttered as she lifted one and held it to the light. "So anyway. Did you fondle his piece or did he fondle yours while you were up on the rooftop?"
"Hey! Put that down!"
"Avoiding my question, huh?" She set the flask down and then leaned back against the window sill with one ankle tossed over the other. There was a small leather-bound book wedged beneath her armpit. He could have sworn that he had seen something just like it in Heisenberg's office. "You know…they say he used to be really good with his tongue. Not like that, you weirdo. I mean he used to have a really nice voice. Like a radio broadcaster or some shit."
"Then what happened?" Ethan couldn't help it. He was intrigued. The woman lit a cigar and took a quick drag.
"His brother fucked him up," she said, staring at the cigar's cherry with distaste. "Fried his vocal cords right out of his throat. He also had that electromagnetic bullshit power, 'cept he figured out how to use it before Karl did. I s'pose that's what old Heisen-boy gets for sticking his dick in his brother's girl. You men never learn." She sighed and crushed the barely-smoked cigar against the wall.
"Shit," Ethan said.
"And that's not the craziest part. You wanna know how Karl really got this factory? Him 'n that black chick - you saw her picture, right? The one with the creepy eyes? - they shot all the old workers. Massacred them right at the doorstep. It's kinda neat. If you really look, you can still see the bloodstains on the steps."
"Uh-huh," Ethan said tiredly. "Look, not to cut you off or anything, but I was just about to-"
"Oh. And did you know? The only reason why he hates Miranda in the first place is because he got high in Beneviento's garden and went on this super weird psychedelic trip where the ghosts of his past convinced him that Miranda had been using him. Freaky, right?"
"...how do you know all of this?"
"It's right here. In his diary!" She pulled the leather-bound book from beneath her arm and waved it triumphantly in the air. "There's some insane shit in here. Like, the guy is loaded with baggage. You wouldn't even believe it. You want me to read you some of my favorite entries by him?"
Ethan got the feeling that she couldn't give a shit less whether he said yes or no. God, he was so tired but a part of him was still intrigued about the inner workings of Karl's mind. He settled back against the wall, looking the woman up and down as she rifled through the small journal. He had seen her type before many times in LA: college, lesbian, protester. The type that wore blazer jackets with sneakers and could make a man piss himself just by staring into her eyes too long. Ethan wondered where the hell Karl got her from.
"Okay. Oooh, look. March 1960," she put her finger on the page and squinted at the words. "You were never the strongest among us…your promises like coke. The haunt of the mausoleum and blood that was soaked…through the linings of our pockets. Are we still youths in disguise? What I'd give to be the man who could withstand your goodbyes. Hmm. I think Shakespeare did it better."
"Would have never put Heisenberg down for a poet."
"Wouldn't you know it? Pussy could turn anybody into a poet. Ooooh, check out this one. February 2000. Miranda. Your beauty is unparalleled, your divinity unchallenged. There is nothing like you in the natural world. You arose in the face of God, a thorned rose that He did not create and could not trim. Tonight you sat before me with downcast eyes…your words feeding my addiction…your silence flooding the room with its music….your presence the hook dragging me from the destitute swamp of my own being. What will it take for you to truly love me like you did her-"
"He must have written that before he realized that she was fucking him over," Ethan said pensively. "Weird, though, that he was jealous of Eva."
"Told you the man has a lot of baggage. Oh, wait. You gotta hear this one. It's my favorite one. Looks like he wrote it only a few moments before you joined him on the roof! It says….Ethan's desperation makes him malleable. And stupid. All the better for me. I'll use his own obsession against him, let him wade through the clouds of his mind until I can take what I need from him. Let him think that we're friends. And then? Kill the sorry bastard. He's too unstable to be kept alive. Heh heh heh. Ain't that some shit? Right, Ethan? Right?" The woman looked up at him and ran her tongue across the corner of her lip with a devious smile. "Oh. You look shocked. Guess you should have fondled his piece a little harder, eh? Good night, Mr. American."