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The world is so unpredictable. Things happen suddenly, unexpectedly. We want to feel we are in control of our own existence. In some ways we are, in some ways we are not. We are ruled by the forces of chance and coincidence.- Paul Aster
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"Play with this," Andy Barclay says.
It’s been years since he’s seen the boy, and he’s no longer little, nor innocent.He’s full grown, a beard on his face, giving away the years that have gone by. There is a different sort of spark in his eyes; when he had first met him those eyes were full of hopes and sweet dreams. They looked down at him now with an angry fire snapping across the irises. There are bags beneath them, tale-telling of many lost nights of sleep. There are frown lines between his brows. His mouth is turned down at the corners, and his jaw is twitching. His voice is much deeper, much rougher; the way he says his name sounds more like a bark than of another human calling to him.He doesn’t know why, but something suddenly causes his stomach to churn at the way the man says his name.He is surprised at himself for what is going on within him in this very moment. He is shocked, surely, but he cannot seem to place just how disorienting this is for him. The fact that tiny Andy Barclay is now grown and in front of him, with a shotgun aimed right at him, and not even a flicker or question on his soon to be made decision in any part of his body, is alarming. It is almost frightening.He isn’t sure how he feels about it.When Andy had been young, they had played cops and robbers once before. There hadn’t been any space to do it outdoors, so they had done it in the apartment that Andy and his mother had lived in. They’d only played it when Andy’s mother wasn’t around to scold Andy for running indoors, and when she could not see the boy’s little playmate come to life. Andy had always been the cop, and they would run through the little hallways and into the bedrooms and around the kitchen counters. Chucky would hide behind the couch or the doors and jump out just as Andy would run past, calling out to him that he had gone the wrong direction. Andy would be breathless with laughter by the time the doll would relent and let him win, but when it had come time for him to “shoot” Chucky, he could not bring himself to do it, even though the doll had explained to him that it was only pretend. He’d put up shaky little hands in the form of a gun, but he’d never make the sound of a gunshot. He’d just stand there and hold his hands out, staring wide-eyed at the doll.“Can’t do it, Chucky,” he’d whimpered out then, much to the doll’s bewilderment. “Can’t hurt you, you’re my friend.”Hadn’t he called Andy a pussy then, or something equally as cruel?Hadn’t he always pushed the boy around, as much as the boy had pulled him close and made his yearning for his friendship known? Hadn’t he not needed the boy’s attention to the point that he wanted to end himself whenever the boy held on tighter to him? Hadn’t he always used the boy, tore him down, broken him, done everything that would be done to keep the boy away from his heart?Small Andy Barclay had always worn his own heart on his sleeve, and he had taken that into his clutches and maimed it underneath his selfish claws, and he could see the scars in the way the man’s eyes wavered with anger and- or so he selfishly hoped- hurt.The apartment is spinning to him. He had seen the pictures, had slowly begun to place where he was before the man had arrived on the scene. He had heard a voice on the phone as he had fought his way out of the box he had been packaged into. But he hadn’t recognized it, the voice of this man now. He only realized who was there in front of him when he looked up and saw his eyes.He had always tried to keep away from him, and yet he had always chased after him. What an ironic situation he had always put himself in, shoving the boy away but appearing in every moment of his life. Time had proven, again and again, that somehow, and for some reason, they were undoubtedly intertwined now, and he could not escape it anymore.He isn’t even sure he quite wanted to escape it anymore, from the way he can only stand there, dumbfounded, at how much Andy had changed. It is such a stupid and infuriating thing, but suddenly he cannot think of anywhere else he’d rather be than right here with Andy, even as his life is on the brink of being terminated in just a fleeting moment. Even with all the differences, he can see the little boy in the man now, and he wants to live in that memory again, wants to be with that boy again. He feels cheated, as if he should have been there to watch the transformation from boy to man, and he wants to make someone pay for his absence, but there is no one to blame but himself. Nostalgia hits him suddenly like a wave, and he cannot not push out the memories of being with the boy from his mind, and he cannot not stop the realized need for this moment to freeze and stay this way, even if just for a mere second. He cannot stop his head from spinning, or his eyes from prickling. He cannot stop the panic rising from his throat, a scream forming deep in his larynx. He cannot not stop his heart from tearing open underneath his ribcage and bleed beneath his flesh. He cannot stop the heat from leaving his body, and he feels so terribly cold, and he aches so violently, and suddenly a familiar embrace has never been so wanted, and suddenly he feels so desperate-“Andy…” he chokes out so suddenly, so pleadingly, feeling as if he cannot breathe, and the man has not even pulled the trigger yet.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
And then he does.
There is a loud and terrible noise, and a whistling flying by. The doll is sure this is his temporary end. He had already shut his eyes and, quick as lightning, ducked. But it wouldn’t have mattered, even if he hadn’t. The man’s shot is off by a good several inches, and the bullet flies on its own course into the wall just above the picture frame of the boy and his mother. In the silence, the television blares on without a care in the world.
“Ah,” Andy laughs, along with the track on the television. As if he is watching what is on and laughing at the joke. Just a relaxing sort of everyday routine.
That is when Chucky looks up again.
His laugh, Andy’s laugh, starts out small, just a short escape of breath. It grows, and it seems to devour the place, but instead of light, the place seems to darken like the shadows that grow long in the evening. There is an empty and dry ringing in the sound. Andy’s hands are shaking, and as the rifle clatters to the floor, he leans forward into the table and pounds it once with his fists. His laughter gains on to the point that he is in hysterics, and then he takes one step back, only to collapse to the floor with his weapon of choice, his knees to his elbows and his hands to his face.
“So you’re here,” he’s saying now, breathless. His cheeks are flushed. His eyes are crazed. “After all this time. I always knew.”
Chucky continues to find himself at a loss for a response.
Andy has laid his head into his knees now, groaning, “I’m so dizzy,” he whispers, as if they are still friends, and he is merely sharing a secret. A fraternity brother speaking of a wild deed he’s done in confidence. He is still laughing, but it is broken up by sudden and violent coughing. His hands reach for his mouth to stifle it, but his body still quakes with the intensity of it.
There, on the counter. Chucky sees it now, the culprit of the man’s insane behavior. A bottle of four roses lies at the edge, opened and empty, the lid nowhere to be seen. Next to it stands generic cough syrup, also showing signs of being consumed. It is a recipe for disaster.
He is still clutching the knife in his hand.
This is his moment, it dawns on him suddenly. He has dreamed of this before, of finally finding himself in a position where he held the upper hand, and Andy was utterly at his mercy. The time is now, and he becomes aware that it is now he must strike. He steps out of the box, the package insulation crackling against his thigh as he climbs over the side. He walks across the table and hops down, relieved to see that the man is too inebriated to notice the effort it took him to make the jump.
And then he crosses to Andy’s side, and the man still does not move.
The doll is annoyed to hear the television continue with its fanfare, as if nothing is wrong. He is annoyed with Andy’s laissez-faire behavior. Something is wrong. Everything is wrong. The setting, the timing, the moments leading to this one- there is a cog missing in the machine. There is something leaving him unsatisfied with what is presented to him. He cannot simply do away with the man while he is feeling so unsettled with the picture before him.
Andy must have known what he was doing. He must have known the danger of mixed medication and alcohol. He has known Andy for a while by now, and he knows with a certainty that Andy Barclay is not an idiot. The state he is currently in was premeditated. But the why is not there; he can’t seem to fathom what would make the man want to put himself at such a risk just before a showdown he was anticipating. Had he planned to take down the both of them in one melodramatic blow?
Nonsense. It could not be. Andy would have wanted the last word, the final blow. Chucky thinks to himself that somehow, Andy has merely miscalculated the effects of his erratic consumption in an attempt to brave this moment. Perhaps he had thought that the intoxication would assist him in racking up the courage to end it all, once and for all. “Well, well, well, Andy, it seems that this is the end, friend,” he mocks, repeating the boy’s words from so long ago.
He had hoped it would have awoken the right sort of feeling in him. A good ending to the cycle between them. But it feels hollow coming from his chest. He blames it on his vessel.
Andy laughs again, and it startles him. It alarms him. It seems to echo the empty feeling he feels inside, and this is a disturbing connection. His grip on the knife tightens as he tries to steady his hand.
Slow or quick, how should Andy go? The years of torment he had been through because of this boy- this man- deserved a proper vengeance, so perhaps a slow and torturous death equal to his own suffering would suffice. But on the other hand, he had lingered in finishing the boy off before, and it had never gotten him anywhere at all. It had only continued the cycle. A quick death would get the job done. He cannot decide, there are pros and cons to either way, and even as his mind screams that he wants Andy dead, somewhere he feels a persistent not yet! screeching in his ears. His hand hesitates, uncertain which sound he should heed.
The man drops completely to the floor, hands to his head, his fingers completely intertwined in his hair. His forehead is damp, and his breath is rattled and labored. He coughs, and coughs, and coughs, and blood spatters out. For the first time, the sight of it leaves the murderer nauseous, and Chucky has to look away in the attempt to regain himself. He knows this is highly unlike him.
There is not a doubt about it now. There is something terribly wrong, and he does not know how to fix it. He only knows that he must.
The empty bottle’s mouth is still wet, but just one drop hangs at the edge. Chucky stares at it for the longest time in a deep concentration before realizing he is hoping it does not fall. He is almost praying that it stays there, and somehow miraculously fights it way back into the mouth and slides down the neck, where it will remain until someone drinks it and enjoys the lingering warmth it gives.
“If you want me so much, why don’t you just take me already?” Andy sputters just as his eyes slip shut.The drop of whiskey hits the floor with a silent splash, but to the doll, it is the loudest sound in the room.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
He doesn’t end the man.
He simply cannot do it. Just before Andy had shut his eyes, his body still shaking in pain, the doll had seen a flash of it. Just a glimpse, but it had been enough to sway his intentions in this very moment. It had only lasted one mere second, but it has left him starving for more. There is a sudden insatiable thirst burning inside him, and he tosses the knife from him and screams. He curls himself against the floor and beats it with small and frustrated fists.
He had seen Andy Barclay, pure and unscathed, in those eyes, just before he was cut off from it again. It is as if he has been wandering in a dark room and for a brief moment, could see an open door ahead of him, only to have it shut again just as he reached the frame.
Time can’t have what I didn’t give, time can’t take away what is fucking mine, he can hear his anger erupting; he can feel the seething heat spreading inside him. Mine, mine mine, he is screaming.
Ashamedly, he is screaming it aloud in the otherwise mum apartment. Something is wrong with him.
Now, it is he who is laughing, on his knees and clutching his hair in a dazed and confused manner. “Fuck,” he croaks, hoarse from his earlier unexplained tantrum. “I am so fucked, I am so, so very fucked…”
What is his, at any rate?
Andy?
Andy has never belonged to him, he knows this now. Suddenly, he comes to the epiphany that it is he who has belonged to Andy all along, and that is why he is still here, unable to end the man’s life and rid himself of him for good. Suddenly, he realizes. But suddenly comes often too late. He has already done the damage now. Whether he killed Andy or not, he would never truly be rid of the boy. And that is the penance for his crime.
And while he suffers, Andy sleeps beside him, unaware and in a state of bliss.
He ought to kill him that very minute for the audacity. But he recalls that the only reason for Andy’s comatose state is the fact that the man had overdosed and intoxicated himself just minutes before their reunion. So it is not entirely true that Andy is such a lucky state. Any minute he could wake again, retching and quivering on the floor, praying that the miserable effect of his poor choice will end soon. Ah, but if he’d beg for death. The doll could give it to him then, and then it would be the right sort of ending.
For now, however, he would let Andy sleep.
Now that his own life was not hanging on the line, and Andy was not a present threat, he had the time to contemplate just how he had arrived here. He had not thought of the boy for a long time now, although he had mentioned him many times to his ex-wife. During the days they had been together, in between the constant struggle and spat between them, he had told her of him, of the boy Andy Barclay, and how this small child had momentarily destroyed his life time and time again.
“Sounds a little more than momentarily to me.” She’d given him lip, as she always did. “Sounds like you’re still a little fucked up over it, to be bitching to me about it so much.”
“Shut up,” he’d growled at her, and she’d laughed. Then they’d kissed, and in the throes of passion, he had momentarily forgotten.
That was when he had thought he’d loved her. Momentarily, he could have seen himself with her for a lifetime. But, as had always been done before, they’d fallen into a rut. They would fight and separate, then run into each other again and try to work some sort of situation out between them, only to repeat it again. Each time, a disaster.
The very last time they’d fought, it had been about Andy.
“We have a family, Chucky, in case you hadn’t fucking noticed,” she had hissed at him. The kids were out in the backyard. He’d left her before, and he was back at her door again. This time he’d ruined the twins’ birthday party by showing up as one of their presents. The son’s, Glen’s, in particular. “Your obsession with killing is too much for them. It’s too much for me. How many times are you going to pick that over us?”
He made a gesture to the maid on the floor. There was a small paring knife hitched into her side. “And I suppose she’s just lying there for a goddamn nap?”
“I’m trying!” she’d cried. She’d pointed a long finger at him. “You did this to me! You ruined me!” Her mascara had been running, and momentarily, he thought he could love her again.
“Babe, it’s gonna end, I promise,” he’d said. Empty words, empty phrases. He was just so used to the idea of her that he hadn’t known what else to do, or where else to go. “Just let me have one more. Let me get Andy…”
“Andy, Andy, Andy, when is that going to end with you?” she’d screamed then. The girl, Glenda, had looked up for a second from her vicious romp with her brother. He caught a flash of her green eyes, and saw her mother in them.
“That’s all you ever talk about. You’re going to get Andy, you’re going to kill Andy, you’re going to make Andy pay for what he did to you. You know what I think? I think maybe you don’t want to kill him anymore. I think you just like the thrill of the chase with him.”
He’d opened his mouth to argue. His hands had curled into fists, and he would have tried to hit her, but her hands caught his first.
“I think,” she’d whispered then, and her voice had turned from a boiling heat to an icy cold so quickly he struggled to catch his breath again. “Whether you like it or not, you’ve become his little bitch. That’s what I think.”
“Say that again, you stupid whore!” he’d spat. He hadn’t meant it. He didn’t think he did. He was just so angry at her for daring to make such an accusation. What was worse was that, looking back, he realized he was angry at how dangerously right she had been.
That’s when she’d packed him in the box.
“The next time you show your ugly face here again, I’ll blow it clear off,” she’d threatened, even through her tears. She’d stuffed the packing peanuts into the box around him, pushing back into it anytime he began to try to fight his way out. Just before she’d taped the box shut, he’d felt the cool of the metal from the sharp end of the knife rub against his skin.
“I’m doing this because even after all this, I still fucking love you,” she’d said, just as she closed the flaps over him. “Love is a strange phenomenon, isn’t it?”
“Tiffany!” he howls suddenly. There was no other explanation. She had sent him here. Somehow, she had found Andy’s address, and she had sent him here, to be killed. She had hoped that the man would kill him for her.
No, that wasn’t quite right. She had said she’d loved him, after all. Tiffany was vicious and could be wildly independent when she needed to be, but if she was planning anything close to that, she would have told him. She would have flaunted it in his face if that had been her plan. In fact, she would have killed him herself.
She’d wanted him to face the fact. He was a prisoner to his nostalgia.
“Well, I’m fucking facing it, Tiff!” he screams to no one in particular. “He’s right here! You happy? You were right, and I was wrong. I can’t do it. I can’t kill him. I’m not ready for it to end.”
The only response is Andy groaning softly against the floor.
“Shit,” Chucky mutters.
But now what was he to do? He’d come to terms with it; there was just no other way around it. It would never matter what the timing or the mood was, he would never be able to kill Andy. He begrudgingly admitted he looked forward to his routinely bout with the boy-now man. So what was he to do instead?
He could always just leave.
No, he realizes. Andy is in a critical condition as of now. He could die here, on the floor. There had to be a way to stop that without putting in too much of a physical effort. Chucky glances at the phone, his mind reeling. But who could he call that he knew would come? Andy’s mother? She’d recognize his voice, along with that nosy son of a bitch, Mike Norris.
Tiffany?
No. His pride wouldn’t allow himself to let her come sauntering back in just now, to wave around I told you so’s in his face. Besides, the amount of time it’d take for him to find out where she’d relocated herself to would take entirely too long. It could be much too late by then.
Andy’s body begins to twitch.
He’d poisoned himself, the idiot. Somehow, he needs to get Andy to regurgitate what he’d violated himself with. He re-positions himself at Andy’s side again. He opens the man’s mouth, clenching his jaw open in his hand.
“Sorry,” he apologizes, completely insincere, before jamming his fingers down the man’s throat. He feels a tightening around them, and then Andy’s breath hitches.
He removes his hand just in time.
The sounds of Andy vomiting would, in normal circumstances, be a thrilling sound. But now he is only repulsed and impatient for it to end.
“I’m not fucking cleaning you up,” he says.
He cleans him up anyways.
He doesn’t really know why he does it. It isn’t necessary for him to do this; the man should be completely fine and on his way to some rough sort of recovery, unless there is more for him to expel out of his body. Yet he is here- after digging through piles of clothes scattered all over the apartment and scraping stools across the floor to reach the kitchen sink to dampen an old t-shirt in lukewarm water- wiping Andy Barclay’s mouth and neck, cursing the entire process.
He tosses the t-shirt aside. It was dirty to start with, so in his mind, it is still not his responsibility to clean. None of this is his responsibility to begin with.
Somehow, he can’t convince himself this enough to stop himself from continuing as if it were.
He can cover him with a blanket, perhaps. No. The floor beneath them is chilled, and he doesn’t want to go through the humiliating process of finding something to climb on again to reach the thermostat. It taunts him, just close enough to the counter top that it is still just out of his reach. He tries anyways, only to fail. There’s only one thing to do.
“Damnit.”
He’s becoming one-worded.
But that doesn’t matter presently. What matters is that he needs to move the man from the floor to the couch somehow, or the bed. Either place means he has to drag him.
He decides on the bedroom. He can fulfill his debt and leave in peace and let the cycle continue on, just after he finishes this final task. That’s all that whirs in his mind as he inhales deeply and tugs at the man from beneath his armpits. He will finally be at peace after this final task.
Dragging Andy Barclay is more work than he’d expected. He pulls for what feels like hours, only to drop the man and see he’s only moved his unconscious body an inch, give or take. By the time he has reached the doorway of what appears to be Andy’s room, he is out of breath and more than a little frustrated.
“How is it,” he’s huffing between drags, “that you manage to be such a fucking inconvenience to me even when you’re passed out you little…”
He doesn’t finish his insult, because the top of his spine that connects to his skull bangs against a sharp cold frame.
His irritation inflames, and then cools when he realizes he has reached the bed. This is the most difficult part.
He climbs up onto the bed first. Then, hanging off of the edge, he grabs ahold of the man’s head to gather some leverage, and slides his hands beneath his arms again. His breathing becomes labored just from holding him there; he knows if he doesn’t pull now he will run out of strength and have to regain himself.
He hoists him up. The hardest part is over. The top of half of the man is on the mattress; now he must muster one last portion of brute force to push the other half. It is easier to do than pulling the first half up.
He fixes the man’s position, settles his head against the pillows. “It’s over,” he pants, watching as the man sleeps on, oblivious still. “But I’ll be back, you little shit. And this time, we’ll be ready to tango, what do you say?”
He watches for much longer than he plans, much longer after he has recovered his breath. He feels his eyes begin to droop, closing.
And, frightening and terrible as it seems to him, the idea of leaving now strikes a pain into his chest.
He does not need sleep. He does not long for sleep. But there is indeed some sort of longing inside of him, and it pulls at him so heavily that before any other thought can penetrate his mind, his mind is clouded; he can only feel the need for warmth, for rest. He feels sluggish and dizzy, and then, he sees nothing but black.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
He feels nothing but a steady and comforting rhythm. Minutes, hours even, go by.He wakes before Andy does.He is still sprawled out across the man’s chest from all his previous heavy lifting. He pushes himself upward and away, rolling over and dragging his hands across his face. He should have left hours ago.But then Andy hums, waking, and as he stirs, the doll sees them. The scars.He hadn’t seen them before, when he had been preoccupied with putting Andy to bed and trying to make a hasty escape. He hadn’t been paying attention. But in his sleep, Andy had managed to rumple his clothes just so, and now he sees them, the scars.They are criss-crossed, just below his palms, every which way: some a bright, irritated red, others an inflamed purple, and some even a recovering brown, but they are all across from left to right- or right to left. He doesn’t know. He knows they are there- deep and shallow ones- and that some are old, and some are new, and that some are in between. The tell-tales of a bad habit.A self-inflictive sort of bad habit.The man blinks himself awake, and he gets just a glimpse of those eyes again. And it is too late.Andy turns away and vomits over the side of the bed. Chucky sits there, frozen, and waits as the man dry-heaves for the next few minutes, and slowly sits up and leans against the bed frame, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. Andy’s hands are trembling as he rests one on the mattress and rubs the other across his temple. He looks over for a second, and his brows furrow.“You’re still here.”It’s said as a question more than a fact. There is a soft groan, and a softer sigh.“I’m still here.”The bed squeaks underneath them as Andy weakly attempts to stand, only to shake against the bed post and fall back down again. Oddly enough, the doll almost feels queasy with him, as if Andy’s intoxication is contagious. As if Chucky had drank along with him. His mouth feels dry and there is the most infuriating rushing in between his ears.When Andy tries to rise again, he finally speaks.“Don’t.”Andy gives him a look of confusion, and stronger than that, repulse. But he sits anyways, clutching his stomach in the crook of his arm and pulling his knees up and his head back. He shuts his eyes, and he’s breathing softly, and then he’s reaching into the drawer on the side, pulling out a small flask.Chucky is incredulous. “You really think that’s a fucking good idea, after that stunt you just pulled out there?” he snorts.There’s the look again. “And?” the man grunts, trying to unscrew the lid. It takes several tries before Andy seems to realize his hands are not quite coordinated enough to get it open, and he tosses it against the floor, frustrated.Their eyes meet when Andy turns. “Why are you still here, then?” Andy questions. His eyes appear sharp, calculating. It’s the coldest expression the doll has seen on the boy’s face. The man doesn’t even give him a chance to respond.Not that he could think of anything to say in the moment, anyways.“You didn’t off me when you had the chance.”“Like I’d let you go that easy, Andy,” Chucky leers. “That would be all too good for you, wouldn’t it, to just be able to escape like that. Wouldn’t it have so fucking nice for you, to leave this poor, suffering life of yours?”He crosses his arms and gives the man what he thinks is a threatening once-over. “I’ll never give you the fucking pleasure.”Andy is not impressed, nor does he appear intimidated. “Huh,” he mutters. Then he shrugs, only to groan in pain and lie back again. As he lifts his arms to cover his face, Chucky sees them again. The scars.“I didn’t know you were a cutter.”Andy scoffs at that. “Oh, right, sorry I forgot to tell you about that at our last intervention last week,” he snaps, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “Thanks for all your support, by the way.”It’s a biting tone. Chucky swallows thickly, and grows strangely and increasingly angry.“I’m not… listen, I don’t give a shit, Andy.” It’s defensive, too defensive. He bites his tongue. “I always knew you were a little bitch. I’m just a little surprised, is all. Didn’t see you as the type to take the pussy way out.” He gives a small laugh. It’s condescending.He can feel Andy bristling on the bed, the man is so readable. Andy has always been this way, trying to keep a good face on, but masking it so unprofessionally. He’s sloppy, even after all these years. But masked underneath the cool, the doll can only feel resentment. And something about this perturbs him. It shouldn’t. After all, he feels the same about the man, does he not? Shouldn’t their cyclic relationship be symbiotic?“I don’t have time for this.” Andy is scowling.Chucky laughs loudly now. “Oh, what? Did I hurt your feelings? Are you going to cry to your mother now, or have you finally grown out of that phase?”“Wouldn’t you love that,” Andy retorts. “You’d love to hear that I’m suffering over you after all this time; that I can’t get you out of my head. You almost need to hear that, don’t you?” He’s panting heavily, and he stops in the midst of his outburst to catch his breath.“Well, that’s not how life works. I’ve got a lot more to deal with than you. You’re just the daily routine, the run of the mill. You’re deluding yourself to thinking this whole,” he gestures to his wrists, “thing of mine is a dramatic cry for your attention. It’s just a relief to let somethings out sometimes. As if you could even remotely judge me. It’s not like I’m hurting anyone, unlike certain other addictions.”It’s a stab at him, and Chucky knows it. He can hear it in the man’s voice. Andy appears bitter, tired. He sounds as if he’s been worn out. There’s no fear, no bark, no fight. Almost as if the man had surrendered his life for a long while now. Chucky hates to admit it, but Andy is right: he would have loved to know that he had been the cause of Andy’s torment. But it is evident that this is not the case.He doesn’t know why this bothers him so much. He doesn’t know why he feels the need to know why it does. All he knows is that he replies, just to contend for himself.“You’re hurting yourself.”He knows he’s screwed up by the way Andy stares at him.“Dumbass.”He adds it. It is a weak attempt.Andy lies down again, and rolls away from him. “Get out,” he demands, his voice low and graveled. “If you’re just here to play games with me and flake out like you always do, go.”Chucky wants to ask what he means by flaking out, but Andy has regained enough strength to forcefully shove him off the bed with his foot.“Get out!” Andy barks.He does, the sting still resounding on his skin from where he hit the floor.He leaves the bedroom, and then he leaves the apartment. The door shuts behind him with a heavy thud.What provoked him to say such a thing? He is an idiot. He just needed to be in the right so badly he had to reply with something, and it was the wrong thing to say. It was a strange thing to say, and he doesn’t like what it could entail if taken the wrong way. It is not what he meant to say.Was it?He is wandering the back alley now, unsure of what he’d meant, unsure of where to go. He is still trying to learn of his surroundings. Andy hasn’t moved far from his home town, or so it would seem. Some of the shop names he recognizes, and it brings him back to days before, when he was in his own skin, and could run through these streets in the dark of night, a threat undetected.He still has the knife in his hand, and his fingers curl tighter around it at the memory. He can almost feel the warmth of warm, red blood pooling around his hands. The adrenaline of the quick slicing of a well-sharpened knife, cutting deep into soft, helpless flesh.Making tiny crossing scars that will leave a pattern engrained forever.He feels queasy. He leans against the back wall of what seems to be a more upscale Italian restaurant, his chest heaving. When he puts his hand against his forehead, he’s sweating. He curses under his breath angrily. Human qualities are slowly taking over more of his routines as the days go by, and slowly, very slowly, it is turning into an inconvenience.It has to be the waste bins in the area that are making him feel so repugnant. It has been a while since he has been forced to an odor so strong and offensive, and now here he is, less than a few feet away from several. He sits next to a rusting generator and breathes deeply, slowly. He has already seen the result of vomiting once today. He does not need to see another.Andy.There’s a bird chirping somewhere in the back alley. He groans at the shrill sound of it.He’s just seen Andy, and already he wants to see him again. To aggravate him, to frighten him, to elicit some sort of emotion from him. Something. Anything. But he has already just been there, and he has only just left a little over an hour ago. Andy will need the rest, anyways.Not that he cares much about what Andy needs.The bird chirps on. Chucky snarls.It’s there, right in front of him, plump and bright, unaware of the pain it’s causing with its piercing voice. It hops back and forth, plucking at crumbs on the ground with its tiny beak. Every second or so, it cocks its head at him, almost as if daring him to approach it. He tries to ignore it, but taking his mind off his hatred for the bird forces him to return to his persistent yearning to see the man again, and so it is back to the insufferable bird. It tweets, it twitters, it screeches- and he thinks he will go mad if it makes another chirp.And of course it does.He does what is only natural.Taking up a palm-sized stone, he begins to toss it in between his hands, dropping the knife with a clatter against the ground. The bird carries on, flitting closer and then farther, almost as if teasing. He can hear the voices of people laughing and chattering in the outside pavilion of the restaurant, but he doesn’t have the mind to do anything about them. It’s only about this bird.No matter how hard he tries to ignore it, he cannot, and it seems that it only gets louder the harder he tries. He winds his arm back, and then the rock springs forward, just as the bird flies upwards. The stone crashes into it almost instantly. The bird falls to the ground with a soft thudding, and it is all too similar to the way his heart his thudding in his chest, as it has been thudding in his stomach the moment he had left Andy’s apartment.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It’s the telephone that wakes Andy up again. It was the noise that woke him up this morning as well. He groans and rubs his eyes, sitting up slowly. His back is aching. He can’t remember right away, why his entire body seems to move in such slow motion, and then he feels something warm rising up his throat, and he’s retching over the edge of the bed again, and then he remembers. He had drank. He had mixed an over the counter drug with strong alcohol. He is not supposed to be here anymore. The plan was for him to just slip out of existence, to no longer be. But then- his mind stops. What happened? He rubs his temples and drags his hands over his face, trying to regain enough consciousness to think through his morning. The telephone is still ringing. It seems to grow louder and louder as he tries to recall the events before now. He had been drinking, the television had been on- it is still on, he can hear it- and he had been speaking with his mother on the phone. Then he’d hung up. He’d had a shotgun in his hand; why had he had a shotgun in his hand?He remembers. The phone goes to voicemail. “Chucky,” he growls. His throat is burning, and the moment he speaks aloud, he is coughing into a clenched and shaking fist, his body rendered helpless to it until it mercifully subsides. “…we’re calling concerning your mother, Karen Barclay. Due to a sudden severe episode, she will be held for further observation until a later date…” He tries to feel pain. But there is nothing there. It’s happened so many times by now, he expects nothing less, nothing more. It’s as mundane as writing his shopping list every week, or showing up at his job every morning. It is another normal occurrence, and he wishes that it still hurt the way it did the first time, but he is so tired of aching all the time, and so instead, never aches for anything. He will visit her and bring her flowers, and talk to her to try and lift her spirits. She will pat his hand, tell him she loves him, and for him to take care of himself, and he will return the sentiments. They will go on like this, small talks and words thrown carelessly back and forth until they have neither use nor meaning again. Then he will leave, saying he has something to do, somewhere to be- whether he truly does or not. She will act as if she does not know that he just wants to leave the place, the white walls and the white beds and the plain, endless hallways.She will pretend that she does not yearn for the same freedoms, and he will pretend he does not notice her pretending. But for now, he stays seated on his bed, tilted forward just enough so that if he does need to vomit again, it will not fall on the sheets.It hadn’t gone the way he’d planned. He had seen Chucky coming, of course, he always did. But he hadn’t tried to end his life, or at least, had done a piss-poor job of it. Andy thinks to himself that it has always been this way, that the doll had never really been very competent at such a simple task. He had always spit threats and come with some strange fire in his eyes, but it had always been snuffed out. What a waste that must be. He is not supposed to be here. He stands, very slowly. His head is pounding, and now all that he wants is to clear the noise and eat, or drink water from the tap, anything to make it stop. He keeps a firm grip on the bedpost until he is certain that he can maintain his balance, and takes cautious steps out from his bedroom into the kitchen. Where it had all gone askew. The box is still on the table. He doesn’t touch it.He finds a glass, somewhere in the cabinetry, and runs more than likely lukewarm water into it. Or around it. He isn’t entirely too sure, and at this moment, does not care, so long as he can get some small portion of liquid to erase the soreness of his cottonmouth. He lowers his head and slowly pushes the edge of the cup against his lips, taking in the coolness of the smooth rim before slowly, slowly, tipping his head back to drink. There is a surprising amount of water in it, and he sloppily takes it in. Some water dribbles out from the corners of his mouth and down his chin, down his neck, into his shirt.He puts the cup down and makes some sort of grunt in displeasure. The television is still humming away. He makes his way to the couch across from it and sits down, every muscle in his body sore. The couch creaks beneath him as he sinks into it, and he rests his arms across his stomach and stares into the blaring screen. He mutes the sound, just watching the pictures move across it and thinking of nothing. He will have to go to work soon. He can see the time on the clock just above and to the right of the television set. In fact, he will have to go to work very soon. He should be getting dressed this very minute. His shoes are in the corner. He would only have to slide them on and change his shirt.But the fact of the matter is, he does not want to. And in reality, he does not have to. He owns a small shop just below his apartment; no one is in charge of him and he is in no danger of losing his position. His is the only position. He makes good enough money through it, although that amount is small, and it will not hurt to miss. But he will feel like a failure if he doesn’t. And this is why, at four thirty in the afternoon, with the television still blaring as it has been for the past several hours, he finds himself leaning over the couch with trembling hands, one clutching his knee and the other clutching sharp metal.There are a swarm of thoughts stirring in his mind as he sits there. He’s wondering when he should call his mother again, or if he should visit her this week or the next. He’s imagining how angry customers must be just now, having come to the store- maybe driven hours- only to find it close. It is close to Thanksgiving, people will want to hunt turkey, and he has the ammunition and the guns for it. Maybe someone will rob the store. He wonders how long he will not have to work if someone does rob the store. He even entertains the curiosity as to where the doll went. But nothing about what he does now, in this moment, is in his thoughts. The blood running down his arm does not faze him. He does not cry over it. He does not flinch at the sharpness of the lines he draws in his skin. It is the same as if he went to put gas in his car, or put a letter in the mailbox. It is a mundane, necessary task- something that must be done as a housekeeping requirement. He’s done this for years now, and somewhere, he knows that it is wrong, but he does not think about this. As the television roars a showing of stand-up, he even laughs along to the echoes of the punchlines, all the while digging deeper. He is the most relaxed in this moment. The hours click away. It’s relieving. It is the same as how others will have a punching bag in their basement for their anger, or how they will eat more or buy more things to fill some sort of empty void. Only he does not have an empty void. He does not feel empty, merely feels the need to have some sort of routine. Something that he knows for sure will always occur. Something constant. In a strange way, he enjoys it, sitting here and marring himself for a scheduled five or ten minutes. It’s the closest to happy he ever is. Although, happy is not the word to use to describe his emotion- or the lack thereof. He is not happy. He was happy when he was a child and he lived with his mother in their old apartment- torn down and behind on rent as they were. He had no worries, no fears, no doubts. The world was a place of opportunity, and he remembers he’d had such hopes and dreams of who he could be. He cuts particularly too deep when he remembers the source of his rise and downfall.He swears aloud and cups his hand against the wound before swaying his way to the sink. He rinses his arm and watches the water turn to the offending coppered color. He doesn’t like it, but now he’s forced to come to terms with the fact that he has an addiction, and a horrid one at that. An inclination for the knife. He laughs bitterly at the thought. It seems hypocritical of him to hate the other when they are drawn to the same glittering damage. In contrasting ways, they are the same. He sighs and slides down to the floor again. The bleeding has receded, and his heart races away within his chest. How different of a monster is one from the other? The telephone rings. He groans, knowing that it is someone wanting him. His mother. A doctor from the hospital. His therapist- who he has avoided for weeks now, not because he particularly hates going, simply for the fact he does not have the time nor the energy to make the trip. Kristen. Mike. A customer. Someone.
He lets it ring. If someone really needs him so desperately, they will leave a message. And of course they do not. Because no one in particular needs him so much. He is fine with this. He does not have what it takes to be what anyone could possibly need from him anyways. He is fine with this, but he feels heavier when the ringing dies away and he is alone with the television and his thoughts once again.He should open the shop. It is late, but it is better than never. He is good at pretending when he is at work. He has been trained all his life to perform, and he can pretend he would not rather be anywhere else but there, answering repetitive questions or offering small talk. This decided, he finishes cleaning himself up at the sink. He puts on a fresh shirt, a long-sleeved opened button up over top it. He puts on shoes and ties the laces. He does not think of the doll, does not think about how close he was to death merely a few hours ago. He eats something from the fridge, warming it in the microwave. He is out the door in less than fifteen minutes. He is down the stairs, even whistling on his way there. He remembers his keys and unlocks the store, changes the sign from closed to open. There are a few people passing by, a middle aged man walks in, and he is fine. He says hello, and the man responds in kind, asking a few questions before browsing the shelves. The man asks about the hours. He replies that he has been slow today, he is usually open earlier. He’s had a rough night. The man chuckles, makes a gesture with his hands signaling drinking too much. He laughs aloud, and he is not lying when he admits that this is exactly true. He hopes the man does not pry further, and the man does not. It would be difficult to explain the past few hours to any passing person. It always has been difficult to explain himself to any person. But that does not matter, because the man does not ask, and he is fine with this. He does not want anyone to ask. He wants everyone to be like the man, just offering the small talk to get them where they want to be, and he can be where he wants to be, in his own solitude again. At peace. He runs this store, and he is friendly, and people like him well enough to come back once in a while, even if it is merely for the items in the store. He is good enough. He does not have what it takes to strive for anything more. That is all he needs to be, anyways. It is a short shift, and he feels strange when he arrives at his door again. There were not many people in and out, and they were kind enough. No one asked too many questions, no one caused a riot, no one complained. There was not a mess to clean, or an item to restock. No one made a fuss about the shop opening so late. He was able to smile and greet people as he had every day since he’d opened the place. He even made several customers laugh. The time went by quickly. He looks at the clock as he comes in. It ticks away. Constant. He loves the clock. Except for when he needs to give it new batteries, it always works. It never fails him. He can depend on that clock to do what is expected. What it was meant to do- no more, no less. He used to think he could depend on the bottle, but it had failed him just a few hours ago. Almost twenty four hours ago by now. He scowls at where it lays at the edge, any drop left in it dried out from the passing time. He takes it by the neck and tosses it into the trash, which he needs to take out. He decides he will do that tomorrow. He has been deciding he will do that tomorrow for a week now. But the smell is bothering him. He will take it out tomorrow. For now, he will shower. He will change. He will sleep. He will forget everything that occurred before he came home from his shop. But he cannot forget. He thinks of it, replays it all over and over again, while the hot water pounds into his neck and runs down his back. It is mildly frustrating how he cannot seem to think of anything else. He cannot even train his mind to focus just on what he is doing in the present. He is in the past. He is always in the past. He thinks of what he could have- should have?- done differently. He can never seem to think of what he needs to do now. He eyes his razor. It sits comfortably, nestled between the shampoo and the body wash. He doesn’t remember putting it there, but he is glad to see it. The bite, the shine- they are his euphoria. He picks it up and turns it over in his hand. He can sit here and enjoy himself for a while. The water continues to pour. No one needs to know. He is not hurting anyone. He is not hurting a soul as he relieves himself. He sits on the floor of the shower and as the water pours, he himself pours along.He pours and pours until the water turns cold, and he turns cold with it. Then he turns off the water, bandages himself, and slips into comfortable clothing. Soft fabric that will not itch and tear at him at night. He swallows medicated pills from his bedside table before lying his head down on his pillow. The clock is ticking out in the living room, as it always does. He closes his eyes. It is not long before he is asleep, as if nothing had happened to him merely a twenty-four hours ago. He sleeps, and he does not dream.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It has passed day two, and she hasn’t heard a thing.She hopes it means it all went well. She knows she hopes foolishly. She knows him too well; she has been with him too long. There is not a single possibility that he managed to not ruin something, somewhere along the way. If it wasn’t his foolish pride, it was his calloused way of communicating. Especially in the delicate situation she put him in, she highly doubts he passed with flying colors.She inhales through the cigarette once, twice. She has been lounging in her couch for a solid half an hour. She had meant to relax for the afternoon before her Gemini came home and caused the ruckus they always did, but here she is, thinking instead.“Chucky, Chucky, Chucky,” she mutters between drags. “How you fucked up this time, I can only wonder.”She also wonders why she even bothers to help him. It isn’t as if he has given her a reason to care for him anymore. She pretends it doesn’t hurt, the way he had treated her, and she likes to think she still sees the value in herself, but it is hard to believe it somedays. He had left scars inside her, wounds that sometimes still reopened and festered. She wonders, if she cannot even keep a crook like Charles around, how can she possibly hope that she is anyone good? Her posture slumps against the arm rest.Her mother had warned her about boys like him. Her father had been a boy like him. She laughs, as she thinks that it must be true. Girls really do grow to marry a man like her father. She’d never imagined the day she’d admit her bitch of a mother had gotten something right, and that was her mistake.Charles must be so angry right now. If she has messed up in making this decision, he will come back for her with a hunger for vengeance. And she will not be able to blame him. She will have to apologize. She groans; she hates admitting she is in the wrong. Especially when her opponent is him. But then she remembers the exposed way he behaved, as if he was missing something around him- some sort of covering, or ring. She remembers the raw, silent inconsolable void that became so apparent. And she is strengthened in her resolve once again.“Mommy!”It’s a chorus, and it snaps her away from her thoughts, her quiet and dizzying thought process. Her vision blurs and clears as she slowly regains consciousness and looks at her two, darling children in front of her, a painful reminder of what she thought she had and the hopeful promise of a brighter future. The door slams behind them and the house is filled with song, all her ghosts flying away for the moment.“My sweet, little darlings,” she coos, crushing the butt of her cigarette into the ash tray as she rises to meet them, her arms coming around them. They wiggle in her arms; Glen has a science project that he is eager to begin, and Glenda has bruises and scratches from a fight. She is proud to tell her mother that she won said fight, and that it was for Glen’s honor.“Alicia Sparks in third block called Glen a fag, Ma, I couldn’t just let her go without beating her ass!” she explains.“Don’t curse,” Tiffany reprimands. “It’s fucking rude.”She and her daughter share a harsh glance before Tiffany breaks first, giggling mischievously and pinching the little girl’s cheeks. Glen chuckles nervously, and she turns to embrace him again and steady his trembling body.“Glen, baby, you know I’ll never be angry if you decide to do the same. Don’t you let those little brats bully you like that,” she murmurs into his ear before kissing the top of his head. She can feel him nodding into her armpit.“Alright, gremlins, homework!” she declares. “We can’t be the baddest bitches on the block if we don’t do well in school.” Glen seems satisfied to rush to the computer and begin his research, but Glenda groans and rolls her eyes, throwing her backpack on the floor in disdain of what is in there waiting for her.An hour later, the twins are hard at work- Glen typing away furiously and Glenda scribbling with the same energy on algebra equations. Tiffany has already started dinner, but as she stirs the sauce, her mind is still spinning. She still is curious as to what exactly occurred, and what is conspiring now, as she continues stirring the wooden spoon. The sauce is boiling. She wonders if how it all boiled over where Charles is- or was. If he is even still there.Dinner time rolls around, and there is still nothing. No call, no sudden mysterious text or strange package. She is beginning to think that possibly, things had gone the way she’d planned.“Come, darlings,” she calls to the twins in the living room. They are very invested in their video game; Glenda is winning and she is not about to let her brother forget it. Tiffany stands at the arm of the couch for a solid two minutes before deciding they’ve had enough and she must interrupt. She stands in front of the television, much to the dismay of her two young ones.She waves them into the kitchen, and it doesn’t take long for their disappointment to return to an appeased and eagerness when they smell the food on the table. She can’t help but flare with pride at how happy they are to eat what she has prepared for them, and she takes the time to memorize every little praise they give as she serves them and they dig into it, forks clashing against the plates and against their white, sharp teeth. If nothing else, she is a damn good cook. A damn good cook indeed.“Did you finish your homework, Glenda?” she asks.Glenda grins and nods, still slurping food from her fork into her mouth. Her eyes glint gleefully and she motions with her elbow to where her backpack is leaning against the couch arm.She turns to her son. “And what about you, baby-face? How’s that science project coming along?”Glen shrugs. “I found a lot,” he starts. “But there’s so much I want to say about electromagnetic transmitters that I don’t know where to stop, and…”Glenda chokes on her food laughing. “Please. Stop right there,” she’s giggling too hard to complete her sentences. Tiffany can hear Charles in the way she laughs, in the same way she throws her head back. She feels a bitter twist in her stomach, and tries to focus on Glenda’s eyes, the same green as her own.Glen just frowns. But, God, she can see Charles in him too, in his dark and silent insecurities, in his academic potential. She shakes her head, her mind dragged back to the plaguing issue.“Alright, settle down,” she says. “Glen, I’m very excited to hear about your project- when it’s done.”She claps her hands. “You know what time it is. Get your teeth brushed, your hair tamed,” she stops to pinch Glen’s cheeks and to ruffle Glenda’s mane of curly hair. With a pat of her hands on their shoulders, she sends them off to get ready for bed, dismissing their pleas to stay up for another hour or so. By eight-thirty, they are in bed, the doors closed and the lights out.That’s when she hears it, on the news. There’s been a murder. Upon further observation, she discovers that it is a nurse who attended to a Karen Barclay.“Aha, you little bitch,” she sneers, triumphant, and it’s a good thing the kids are in bed. “I knew there’d be a slip.”Is this his way to get Andy’s attention? She wonders. After all, Andy Barclay will probably hear about this, and he will probably know at once who did it. So her suspicions were right, after all. Charles Lee Ray had gloriously mishandled the situation once again. As if it could have been any other way. He was always one to mess things up, even when they were of dire importance.She lights a cigarette, and she knows it’s her fifth of the day, and she has been trying to cut back, but she can’t help herself. She’s caught up in the moment. She turns up the volume slightly on the television, enough to hear better, enough to not wake the twins. But all the details of the case are not enough to tell her why, outside of Chucky attempting to lure Andy back into the ring. She exhales, the smoke clouding her vision, and she wonders.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It is not his fault, that he killed her. It isn’t as if he’d lost his temper. There are some individuals who simply deserve to go, and he had taken the liberty to decide that she was one of those. It was precise, and clean, and he got away with it. That is all that matters, really. It doesn’t matter where he’d done it, or what his weapon of choice was, or even his motive. Especially not his motive. After all, his crimes are merely his hobby.There is no real reason behind his mindless choice of entertainments.She had just finished a disgustingly rude one-liner about Karen Barclay and her son when she’d come right into his clutches. He couldn’t stop himself then. She’d looked so smug from the laughter she’d provoked from the other nurses. He’d wanted to kill them all there, on the very spot, but that would have been too risky, and although his form made it easy for him to not be caught, he was still cautious.He knows Andy will hear of it soon; the hospital will most likely call his house to let him know of the circumstances. He wonders if Andy will pick up the phone, or let it ring until they are forced to leave the sad news on his voicemail. He tries to imagine what Andy’s face will look like, when he hears. Would Andy cry? Would Andy become angry? Would Andy come after him then?Surely, Andy would know it was him. There is no one else who would do what he’d done, and Andy would know this, considering their recent encounter.Perhaps they would fight then, and then it would be the right time to have their final showdown.It would be nice, to snub that in Tiffany’s face. More than murder, he did love being right very much. It holds the same rush to him, and he feels it now, imagining himself staring her in the face with Andy’s corpse between them, declaring:“I’m nobody’s bitch, bitch.”And Andy’s body would be bleeding on the floor, the dark red pooling around him until it reached their feet. He suddenly, so suddenly, compares the scars on dead Andy Barclay to the ones he already bears now, angry and red, on his arms. And suddenly, so suddenly, he feels the illness from when he was trapped with the stone and the bird.He has not eaten, and while it is usually not a need, it grows within him now. An inconvenience, and surely the cause for the way his stomach turns.It is no matter, as he wants to stay for a while to watch as the other workers soon discover their fallen co-worker, eyes blown wide from her final moments. The first sees her and kneels at her side immediately, checking her pulse and affirming her dead. He waves the others over, and at once there is a cry for 911, the group a swarm of hysteria and panic. It is clear that she is murdered, as there are multiple stab wounds across her belly.It is the most satisfying kill he has done in a while. He ranks it at the top, near when he, quite literally, frightened the old bastard Cochran to death. Even now, he cannot help but to grin thinking of it.His stomach is growling. He cannot wait any longer. As much as he would like to stay and enjoy his victory, he must now attend to less pleasurable things. Such as finding something to eat.He sighs bitterly and leaves the chaos behind him, unnoticed in the midst of the uproars.The sunlight is too bright, and the noises of the street too loud. Just across the heavy traffic, he can see several options for where he could sustain himself. He is not completely hidden, just at the corner of the building he had just exited, but everyone around him is too focused on their own needs to look down and notice that he is there. For once, he is grateful for his diminutive stature.He is grateful for it again as he slips in and out as he pleases, stealing doughnuts from their glass cases, or sneaking various snacking items from countertops or shelves. Rinse and repeat, until he is momentarily satisfied.He is alarmed to find that his stomach, though clearly full, still hurts terribly. But he doesn’t have time to worry about that right now. He has to head to Andy’s house to see, to know. He has to know what the reaction is. He absolutely must. Somehow, although he hates it, he knows that going to Andy will be the solution to his problem. He hates it even more when he feels his stomach calming immediately at his decision to go. He hates it, he hates Tiffany for sending him here, and he hates Andy worst of all, for merely existing. He hates him and yet he is still walking in the direction of his house, because he has nowhere else to go. And here he’d thought he was in more control of himself.Nevertheless, he finds himself at the door of Andy’s apartment again, only this time, to sit in secrecy and observe. It is for his own personal pleasure, to watch Andy become angry. Or sad. He does not care. All he needs is a violent and sudden emotion from the man.He finds none of those things, as Andy is not there. He curses aloud, and suddenly he is sick all over again.It is all very well, then, he decides. He will wait here until Andy returns and his stomach settles. It isn’t as if he has anything else to do at this point. He makes himself at home on the couch – this includes moving some of Andy’s clothes and wadded up papers to the side – and fishes around the sofa pillows until he retrieves the remote and turns on the television.It’s too quiet, and he turns up the volume as he wonders how Andy can even hear it most of the time. He wonders if perhaps Andy really watches it after all, or if it is just a white noise in the background. Perhaps Andy is lonely; as far as he can see, it isn’t as if Andy has anyone to talk to besides his mother. He hopes that this is true, almost as if his life depends on it.After all, he flourishes in the man’s misery. It wouldn’t do to know that Andy is better off than him. Not that he is lonely in anyway. He does not desire the company of others in the way he is sure that Andy does.The news is consistent, at least. It is already running headlines of the murder of the nurse at the psychiatric hospital. There are already witnesses and testimonies of her life. She was sweet and caring, according to her co-workers. She could always bring a smile, according to the patients. Even Mrs. Barclay has a moment on the screen, and has nothing but good things to say about her.He grits his teeth, his jaw stiffening. Mrs. Barclay does not know. She is unaware of the terrible things that woman said about her and her son. He doubts she would have such a positive review of her if she’d known, if she had only heard the things he’d heard just before his blood had boiled to where he could hardly see in front of him.Not that he cared much about what she’d said. It was more of the fact that she’d said it as if it elevated her to a better status. As if the condition of the Barclays made her a deity amongst men. He hated her pride, her condescension – especially to Andy, as if he could help that his heart was shattered. As if he chose to live like a broken man.“I don’t know that he even is broken,” he muses aloud with a laugh. He’s amused at how he’s sympathized the man, and made stories about him as if he knows. Andy certainly has not shown enough to prove one way of the other, save for the spark of anger near the end.No, he is wrong. Andy has shown brokenness, in his own quiet way. He has noticed that much, at least. He remembers that Andy slowly became softer and softer as he grew, softer and softer until he was almost faded.He remembers that the nurse labeled this as boring, and feels vindicated all over again. She did not know how to observe people, like he does. Andy is the complete opposite of boring, he is aggravating, abstruse, and frustrating. Andy is a lot of things, but he is not boring. He has simply built a wall, and Chucky is well-versed with wall building.He hears steps just outside the door, and for a moment, he suspects it is Andy now. There is a rush of adrenaline, and he’s ready for Andy. He is ready to fight, and he is excited for it. He feels his blood rushing already, and his heart beats a little quicker in anticipation.But it is not him, because the steps pass, and he is chagrined. Disappointed, even. But he shoves it aside and turns back to the television, where the police attempt to divulge the nurse’s murder, and he feels alright again.He would kill her over and over again, if it was remotely possible. He goes through his actions in his mind again, the way she’d turned the corner, unaware. Her curling lips and wide laugh as she’d made her final jibe. The look of shock and horror just before her life passed because of him. It was at his hands, and he feels powerful.Andy does not know how powerful he is. He thinks that perhaps Andy has never really understood just how powerful he is at all, even though he has shown him, time and time again. Maybe that is why he can never leave him alone. Every time he and Andy clash, Andy wins. Somehow, Andy always wins.Not this time, you little bitch, he thinks. Not this time.He settles comfortably into the couch, and his heart-pounding anticipation from moments ago is so suddenly forgotten. The television continues on with a commercial break.He takes this time to look around. Andy is not here, and he has not been watching the man long enough to know what his current routine is. He does not know when Andy will be home. The news is back, but it has lost his interest. He has another distraction on his agenda now.The living room is a mess, to start off. He doesn’t remember seeing any room that is clean. It isn’t that it is particularly dirty, but there are things left where they do not belong, and there are some crumpled wrappers or other various papers scattered throughout the apartment. He looks through each, finding receipts, bills, other various pieces of mail. Things that will give him an idea of who Andy has become. How he can tear Andy apart.But he finds nothing. Andy, he discovers, does nothing. Nothing that tells him how to crack the man anyways. He works, he visits his mother, he shops for her, he comes home, he does it again. He doesn’t seem to have a girlfriend – or any friends, for that matter; there is no evidence of him out and about buying dinner or drinks for anyone. He has a camera with no photos saved on it, notebooks with no writing in them, and no music anywhere, save for some albums he is sure were gifts that Andy has not listened to.He comes to the conclusion that he should have hurt his mother. She is the only one close enough to him. He curses himself for not doing so when he had the chance.But I couldn’t, could I? he reasons. She is too guarded, and there were too many people there. He would have no problem doing so otherwise. It is because she is guarded.Andy loves her, he is sure. It would break him if he took her. He is stupid for not thinking of this earlier.But she does not deserve it. He remembers the nurse and her scalding words, and he cannot bring himself to even think about killing her. Not her. Not after what has just happened. As much as he would love to use her death to finally conquer Andy, he cannot use her. It will have to be another way.Thinking of the nurse makes him angry again. How dare she say things as if she knew either of them. He thinks to himself that this is his general problem with everyone around him. Saying and doing things that they should not, that they have no place to be doing or saying. What did she know of Mrs. Barclay, anyhow, outside of her small paid fifteen minutes with her? What did she know of Andy, who she probably saw and spoke with even less than that?He crumples a receipt he’s been holding and tosses it. It lands in the waste basket. He finds this amusing. So much so, he continues to do so with the other garbage lying around, seeing if he can reach it from farther off, feeling validated when he makes it, and feeling angry and wronged when he does not.He ends up in the bathroom this way, kicking aside shirts and socks and other various clothing items to see what else he can find, and that is when he finds the razor.It’s lying on the outer ring of the sink, and caked with rust. On closer inspection – his hands clutching it in curiosity, what a small razor for shaving – he sees that it is drying blood, and that there is more of it in the sink.So this is it. This is Andy’s instrument. He wants to laugh, that a blade would be the man’s hobby, in the end. If it did not seem so deranged, he would say he felt a kinship with Andy just now. But Andy takes from himself, with his own consent, and he takes, with no permission.He holds the blade against his wrist, and he sees them again. He angles it, lets the sharp end dip into his slowly softening skin, and a strange curiosity fizzles inside him. He pushes and he slides, and he feels the sting, and he bleeds.He’s forgotten how it can hurt. Andy cuts deeper than this, he can tell by the scars, and so he digs deeper, and lets the blood spill over the blade and run down his arm in veins. Suddenly, he thinks of Andy, and suddenly, he thinks of them, and everything that he has done to Andy. He thinks of this as he cuts through his flesh, and there is a strange redemption in it. How he must have hurt him! Even as Andy does not show it, the man’s pain must have been his doing. Andy is not there. His eyes are dulled, because Andy is gone. He has already, in a sense, killed Andy Barclay.The cut is too deep, and he doesn’t know how he let it happen. He hisses and drops the knife back into the sink with a loud clatter, and he cannot tell between his blood and Andy’s now. It all runs together into the drain, sharp and nauseating. He feels dizzy, and then he is doubled over, retching and cursing.When he is done, he feels not better. Instead, there is a hollow pit in his stomach. The sickness has only dulled, and he rushes out of the bathroom, knowing only that he does not want that terrible copper stench near him for a long while.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“They have no idea, Andy, it’s terrible,” his mother says, and she is blowing her nose. It is red and dry, because she has irritated it from crying so much.He knows, immediately, what’s happened. He does not know how to tell her he knows, nor how to tell her he can only feel relief that the nurse is gone. It is wrong to speak ill of the dead, but no one ever said anything about thinking it. So think it he does, and he does not tell her either of these things.“That is terrible,” he lies, and he tries not to think about how horrible that nurse has made him feel, whenever he came to visit before. He tries not to think about how forced her smile was, or how she would glance his way in an almost disdainful way, so that he nearly lost his courage and ran out of the building to hide in the comfort of his own home. It was terrible. She was terrible. Terrible was a good word to use.“…don’t you think, Andy?”He has missed what she said, and when he asks and she repeats, he wishes he hadn’t. Truth be told, he does not care about what happened to her, as horrid as that is, and had he had the chance, he would allow it to happen again, more horrid as that is. Or perhaps he wouldn’t. Maybe he would attempt to save her.But that would mean opening a Pandora’s Box. And he’d kept it locked for years now. No, he probably would have done nothing about it.“You can always ask to come home, you know,” he says, his mind still in another place. He rubs her quaking shoulder and this is genuine, his love for his mother. “You could always come stay with me, if they’d let you.”Karen Barclay’s eyes are shining with tears, and she sniffles again. Her crying seems to have calmed. “You know they won’t, Andy,” she replies softly, a tender hand on his cheek. It is cold and shaking, but he welcomes it all the same.He knows. He and his mother know the truth, and to the world, it is a crazy declaration. He does not have enough friends to worry about them finding out his past, but as long as his mother continues to fight for him, they will keep her here, locked away equal to a rabid animal. It is unfair, and he wishes he were here instead of her, but he knows it would only cause her more pain to say it. He does not mention what happened in the apartment, knowing that would cause her more pain as well.“I know,” he says, finally, and she leans her head in the crook of his neck. They sit like this for a while, the hospital slowly clearing out the press and the police, and falling back into the routine that it knows and loves. Andy watches them all walk by through the open door, just hearing the voices without the words.It is hard to leave her when he does. The nurses and the clerk assure him his mother will be safe, but their placations are unnecessary. He knows already, that Chucky will not be back here again, at least not for a while. He is hardly surprised that Chucky had been here in the first place; it was just like him to try and attack the one person Andy held dearly still.However, it begged the question as to why Chucky did not take his mother’s life. Andy shrugs it off as incompetency, and heads for home, his eyes focused only on the path ahead of him.He is nearly home when his phone buzzes in his back pocket. He pulls it out after it rings for a third time, hastily sliding open the lock screen. He doesn’t bother to see who it is.“It’s Andy,” he says, still making his way to the door.“Andy, hey- I just heard what happened. Are you both alright?” It’s Kristen. She doesn’t even have to say. He hasn’t saved her number, even though he should. But it isn’t as if he would ever call. He does not need to anyways; she is always there to initiate conversation, rendezvous, and the like.“We’re okay,” he says, and there are things he does not say. He feels as if he should. She has been a good friend for a good amount of time. He owes her honesty, at least. But he cannot think of where to start, and so he says the things he does, and does not say the things he does not.“I’m at the little café just down the road,” she says, and he knows that she has probably been there for a while, waiting for the right moment to call- to provide comfort or companionship, whatever it is that he will need. More guilt weighs on him. She deserves a much better friend than he can provide her.“Why don’t you come on over for a bit and join me?”He knew the question was coming. He doesn’t want to do anything but hide in the small space of his home, but he owes it to her. He knows that she would let him be alone if he told her that’s what he wanted, but he doesn’t tell her this.Instead, he tells her, “Alright. Give me a minute; I’ve started walking home already.” Then he hangs up the phone.She’s sitting at one of the outside tables, legs crossed and typing away into her phone, and he thinks for a moment how strange it is, that with a devastating crime taking place across the street, the sun continues to shine, and life has gone on without a care. He reaches the gate, and her head tilts up just as he enters, the latch clicking behind him as the gate closes.She’s hugging him before he’s even reached the table. He hugs back. It’s the right choice.“Sit down, sit down,” she insists, and she’s pulling out a chair. Her energy is overwhelming, he can feel it hit him in buzzing waves. But he sits, and Kristen, satisfied, finds her place again across the table, for which he is grateful. He doesn’t know if he could be right next to her. He supposes she already knows this, and for that, he is also grateful.“So, what happened?” she asks. Then she waves her hands apologetically. “I mean, unless you’d rather not talk about it. We can talk about something else.”He hasn’t even responded yet, and she’s calling the waitress over, asking him, “What do you want? Do you want anything? I’ve got it, so don’t worry about the check.”He stares at her until she stops talking. She flushes. He watches as she visibly settles down, the energy levels in her receding to a more tolerable level. If you asked him, he’d describe it as dimming a light in a room just before bed, or before a performance.“Sorry,” she says. He nods. It’s alright. She means well, and it is not her fault that he cannot keep up with her. It’s not anyone’s fault he can’t keep up at all.“I’ll just start with water,” he tells the waitress, who nods and clicks her pen. Then he says, “I don’t mind talking about it,” to Kristen, who folds her hands over the table. He waits until the waitress leaves, and he tells his story.“They don’t know who it is then,” Kristen says, when he is finished. The waitress brings the water, and he nods. He and Kristen make eye contact. Then she says:“But you know, don’t you?”He doesn’t respond. They both know.“So he’s back then, is he?” she asks, continuing the conversation as lightly as if they were discussing the weather. “How many years has it been? Five? Six?”“It’s been a decade, almost,” he replies, sipping the water. His hands are shaking, and he hates this. He hates how it makes him feel. He hates that it makes him feel. He hates the buzzing beneath his fingertips, the race of his pulse, the nervous energy in his legs. He hates he could sit here and talk and feel nothing, except that they are talking about this.He hates that of all things, it is this that makes him feel so alive.“Why? After all this time?” Kristen presses, and he is grateful she does not pry into the way he is trembling at the table, knees bouncing against the metal legs that are too close for comfort. He pushes his chair back and clears his throat, and the buzzing fades.“I don’t know,” he says, and he means it. But there is something he does not say.She doesn’t seem to notice. “Did he attack you yet?” she questions him. She puts a hand on his, and it’s gentle. He should want this. But all he wants is to be home.She glances down when he is silent, and he hears her breath catch before he sees what she has seen. He follows her eyes to his wrist, which has been exposed by his treacherous sleeve. The marks are raw and irritated, and he cannot hide them now.“Andy,” she starts, softly. He shrugs his sleeve down.“Don’t,” he says. “Just don’t.” He crosses his arms and leans back in his chair. He’s irritated. “Everyone makes it seem like it’s a big deal, but it’s not. I’m not sad, or depressed, okay? It’s just something to do because I’m bored.”“Come out for drinks with J and I and some of my co-workers tonight,” she suggests. He feels terrible, snapping so suddenly at her, when it’s not her fault. He knows who he’s frustrated with, and it is not her. She does not deserve his anger. “It will be good for you to meet some of them. They’d like you, I’m sure of it.”He is sure they would not.“I can’t,” he says, even though somewhere he knows he could, and probably should. “I’m busy tonight. I have a lot of work.”She looks bewildered. “But you just said you were bored!” she protests, but he’s already pushing back his chair further, the legs scraping against the floor. He is sure everyone is watching them by now.“I’m sorry,” he tells her, and he is, but he does not want to go out. That will mean noise, and energy radiating from several other people. Energy that he cannot match. Just thinking about it is leaving him overwhelmed.He leaves her behind, confused and trotting after him, purse strap barely making it over her shoulder in her precipitance. “Andy!” she calls after him, and he stops, if only to not be rude to her. Kristin is kind, and she does not deserve backlash from him.He turns, and she’s catching onto his sleeve. He bristles immediately. She does not notice.“Just tell me you’re alright,” she says, out of breath. Her cheeks are flushed. Her eyes are hopeful. She does not pull his sleeves up. He should have known she wouldn’t. She is too good. She is too good to him.“I will be,” he says. She lets go of his arm, and he turns to leave her standing there. The thought of walking away like this crushes him, because she deserves better. So he turns back, and gives her a quick hug, and he feels the tension leaving her. He holds her until he feels her energy back at a vivacious state, and he cannot contain it anymore.Then he lets go and heads home, waving to her calls of good-bye. He knows she will call him later, and he knows he will probably not pick up the phone, and he knows she will not leave a message. It is alright.He walks home, and he remembers that he did not tell her that he has seen Chucky again already. But it does not matter. He heads up the stairs to his apartment. He will be alright. He did not want to talk about it, anyways. Of all things to talk about, this is the last thing he would choose. He hopes he does not have to think of Chucky again for a very long time.He knows that is an impossible wish, and he faces the fact of just how impossible it is when he finally opens the door to his apartment.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Someone has been in his apartment. Or, rather, someone is there now. Andy starts, and he should have known, and he feels the anger boiling inside of him, as badly as he wants it to simmer and die. He takes a deep breath, tries to look for the apathy that had been his longtime friend, but he does not find it. It only makes him panic further.He will not face him like this. There is just no way it will end well, especially for him. Of all the people in the entire world, he is the last person Andy wants to see him like this. Falling apart suddenly.He would know it was his fault- and that would please him too much. Andy is not here to please him.He hears a shuffling noise from his bedroom- cursing- and he decides that perhaps he will have to deal with his anxiety and face Kristen and her friends instead. As much as that frightens him, he is not prepared to see him again so soon. Not yet.He shuts the door as quietly as possible, but he knows the damage has been done. Chucky will know he has been here. He makes his way down the stairs and back into the street with haste, in effort to reach the sidewalk before the other catches up to him. He knows Chucky will not make a move in public. Incompetent as he is, Chucky is not outright unintelligent.Out in the streets again, he tries to steady his breathing. He tries to recollect his thoughts. A deep breath in, and a heavy breath out. Repeat, repeat, repeat.It isn’t that he is afraid of dying- no, he is ready for it. It isn’t that he’s afraid of dying- no, he knows that Chucky has tried and failed, and will do so again. It is a cycle. The only steady constant in his life, and he hates it- oh how he hates it. It is that very burning, living, seething hatred, hot and sharp in his chest, that he is afraid of. He is not accustomed to feeling anything so passionately. The opposite of Chucky – who feels and acts immediately and impulsively, akin to a rocket suddenly taking off in a blazing fury – Andy is more like the clock that hangs on the wall in his apartment. Steady, always ticking per second; no more, no less. No sudden chime, no noise.He does not like how Chucky awakens a wild passion. The passion frightens him more than Chucky himself. After all, Chucky, in the end, is merely a doll, a physical body that can easily be move and dealt with. Andy’s emotions are an entirely other entity; a monster that lurks and has reared its ugly head once again. And Andy does not know how to face that.Another deep breath in, and another heavy breath out. Repeat, repeat, repeat.He feels his heartbeat returning from its flight. He takes out his phone. He ignores the way his hands are shaking. He calls Kristen.He lets himself be distracted by her voice.“Where did you say this get-together was at? I’ve changed my mind,” he says, and he tries to keep his voice steady, as if this was a casual decision. He knows she would know that it wasn’t, and he doesn’t know why he hides it. But he does, anyways.“Oh, Andy, I’m so glad you changed your mind!” she nearly shouts into the phone. She is in a loud place, and he feels himself shriveling away already. But he cannot even go home. His one place of sanctuary has been invaded, and he has nowhere else to go until he can settle the strange fire in him.“Me too,” he says, although he does not mean it.There is one good thing from it, he decides as he walks there, and that is that there will be a good drink to drown in. Everything will be dulled; the music and the talking will not be as loud, and he will be able to settle down and let each person pass by. He may even give a nod or smile, or a word or two.He laughs bitterly at this. Living has become so hard, almost like trying to pick up an old hobby and finding that you are not good at it anymore. He has fallen out of the habit of living. “Sad,” he says to no one in particular. “Mom would be heartbroken if she knew. Just sad.” He shakes his head at himself, but he knows he is no miracle worker. He cannot raise the dead.It is evening, and it is cool. The wind is blowing, and he tries to make his breathing follow it. Deep breath in, heavy breath out. There is no heavy traffic, there are not even many people walking beside him, or behind him, or in front of him. He will be okay. He will make it to Kristen’s apartment, he will stay until he gathers himself, and then he will face Chucky. He will get rid of him for good.He’s still thinking this when he gets to the door, and he’s starting to feel sick.He rings the doorbell- quickly, before he can change his mind and run home. Another deep breath in, another heavy breath out.Someone he does not recognize opens the door. It’s a petite girl, pale and wide eyed, with piercings and short, red haired curls. It startles him.“You must be Andy!” she says, and gives him a hug. This startles him more.She senses it, he knows, because she backs away and looks him over in concern. “You don’t remember me, do you?” she asks. He feels guilty. He should, shouldn’t he? He should remember who she is. She seems so kind. He feels so guilty.“I’m sorry,” he says, and he means it, but he does not say just how much he means it. He doesn’t know how.She pouts. “Kristen didn’t tell you anything about me, did she?” she asks. She might have. More guilt weighs on him. Had he not been listening? Had he missed something?“Jess Ivers, remember? We were at Kent together!”He remembers now, vaguely. It’s coming back slowly. He sees it in her eyes. She’s changed. But he supposes he has as well.He makes a grin. “I do remember now,” he tells her. He shakes her hand. “I’m sorry- it’s been a while, you know?”“Do I ever!” Jess responds. “Kristen tells me you’re MIA all the time- you know how long I’ve been dying to see you?”She stands back and opens the door. He can see that Kristen has several other guests already. It isn’t as loud as he’d thought it would be; it seems that it has calmed down since he had been on the phone with Kristen. There is no one he knows, and it still makes him uneasy, but anything is better than what is waiting for him at home.He shivers. The feeling is still there. He looks to Jess, who is chatting away, not noticing. He follows her deeper into the apartment, feeling lost already in a place he has not been to as often as he would like. As often as he should have been.“So, Jess,” he starts, and he needs a drink. He needs it terribly. He needs to bleed, but that will not happen here, and he knows it. A drink will have to do. He does not see Kristen, and he does not know what to ask for first, the drink or Kristen.“Please, call me Jivers. Everyone does,” Jess- Jivers- says. She waves a hand dismissively. “It’s a band thing, and it’s kind of silly, but you’re welcome to it- you’re close enough to Kristen that I consider you an honorary roadie, you know?”He wants to ask for Kristen then, but he does not need to. She appears, almost as if Jivers’ mention of her name summoned her. She already has a drink in hand, and he can tell she is already a little under its influence.“Oh, Jeeves, you found him, you angel,” Kristen praises her, and pecks her cheek, and the pieces fall into place. He hates that he is here, but he is now slightly glad. Of course Kristen wanted him to meet Jivers- or Jeeves, now he does not know.He is glad he is here. He just hates that he knows just who he has to thank for being here.Kristen and Jivers squeeze hands, and then Kristen shuffles to his side takes his arm. He tries not to flinch. But she is too lost in a dull euphoria that she does not notice. “Come, I’ve got a glass of Old Jack that has your name on it,” she says, pointing her finger into his chest, and he feels relief. Even drunk, she knows. She knows what he needs.He thinks too late to wave to Jivers, but she is already preoccupied with talking to someone else. He feels less guilty.She brings him into the kitchen, leaving the crutch of his arm for the island. “Here,” she says, and he takes the glass before she can pick it up. He gulps it quickly, and it is gone before Kristen has even taken another breath.“I’m so glad you came,” she tells him again as she did on the phone. She pats his arm. “There’s some new friends I’d love for you to meet, but there’s some old ones too. From Kent, you know, like Jeevie. There’s just one problem- for you, I mean.”She leans in, and tugs at his sleeve, and he leans down to where her lips meet his ear. She points out to a rugged man on the loveseat. He’s chatting with some other people he does not recognize, but he knows that this man is someone he should recognize. Something in the way he grins, and the way he laughs- the curve of his mouth. His eyes.“That’s Brett,” Kristen says, and his heart finds its way into his throat.“Shelton?” he starts, slowly, but he feels sick again. He puts the glass on the counter, and sits on one of the stools next to her. He turns away and looks at the fridge, and the pictures are spinning. He feels as if he is spinning, but he knows it’s not from the alcohol.“Why?” he asks. He feels her hand on his arm, cool and steady. He can’t look at her.“I know- he was a dick. And I don’t use that word often.” It is true. She does not. But he still feels betrayed somehow. Kristen is free to have whatever friends she pleases, and yet it still hurts, that she would let someone like Brett here, and then invite him to come as well.“Andy- Andy, listen. I know,” Kristen is grabbing both of his arms, and he has to face her now. He looks at her, blankly. She lets go of him and puts her hands up apologetically.“I promise, Andy, he’s changed. He really has. And,” she stresses, guiding his face back to look at her. He forgets when he started looking at Brett again. He can still hear him, can still see him through the side of his eyes, laughing and running his hand down someone’s arm. He can see it already, a different aura about him. A kinder one.“He wants to talk to you,” Kristen finishes her sentence with a crook of her eyebrows. She’s insinuating something. He doesn’t know what. He looks at the bottle on the counter, and then at his glass. He reaches over Kristen’s arms and fills his glass. He drinks it. Then he takes the bottle itself and drinks.Kristen laughs. “Andy- it’s not like that. He wants to apologize. Do you honestly think I’d let you near him if he wanted to hash it out on you again?” She punches his arm, but it’s a light tap, and he is beginning to feel numb enough that it is alright.He knows she wouldn’t let anyone hurt him. But for a moment, he thought she’d forgotten.“Just let him talk to you. If it doesn’t work out, I won’t have the two of you in the same room anymore, promise.” She holds up her pinky. He almost laughs.“Aren’t we a little too old for this?” he asks, even as he appeases her, and she grins. She leans forward and gives him a push.“Just go,” she insists, and when he steps forward only to hesitate, she waves him along. “Go talk to him.”He turns. He walks slowly. His breathing is steady. The noise around him is already dimming, and he knows that the whiskey is taking effect. He crosses the rug to where they are, the group that seems to be enchanted with someone Andy knew to be a monster.He wants to say something, but his mouth feels dry. He gives a quick look to Kristen as retreat, but she and Jivers have reunited and are laughing and giggling into each other’s necks. He does not want to bother them. He is stuck here now, standing awkwardly just outside of their circle. It is a nightmare.But then he hears his name. “Andy? Andy Barclay? Is that you?”The constriction tightens. “Yeah- I’d say it is,” he replies, and he doesn’t mean it to sound sarcastic, but he feels that is how it comes out. He feels his eyes widen in apology, but he does not apologize for it.He means to put his hand out, but once again, he is surprised and terrified to be caught in a sudden embrace when Brett jumps up from the couch and throws his arms around him. Different from Jivers, Brett has the same energy, but his arms are stronger, and while Jivers had her arms around his waist, Brett has his arms trapped in the hug. He tries to give a small return, some sort of pat on the back, but his arms cannot move in that second.“Well, I’ll say- look at you,” Brett says, and Andy can only manage a small grin. It hurts to move his mouth. Brett finally backs up, but his hands are still on him, fingers wrapped around his arms. “Look at you!”Andy shrugs. He has no words. He can tell Brett has also been drinking. There is a wild fire in his eyes.“How’ve you been?” he asks, and it’s as if there is no one else there but them. The room is getting fuzzy, and he feels everyone around them shifting to start new conversations and make space for he and Brett to start this new one, but it all feels far away. They feel far away.Only Brett feels close, and he supposes it is because he is still holding his arms.“I’ve been,” he says, and that’s all he replies with. Then, “How’re you these days?”And then Brett has his arm around him, and they are catching up, as if they were old friends. As if there had never been any bad blood between them. Andy tells him about his shop, and Brett tells him about his service in the military.“Until my accident, of course,” he explains, and pulls up one side of his pants to reveal a prosthetic leg.“I’m sorry,” Andy murmurs, because it’s something he should say. He isn’t sure if he is truly sorry or not. He thinks maybe he might be, a little bit.“Don’t be,” Brett responds, and then he looks serious. He nods toward the glass doors. “You wanna sit out for a bit? It’s stuffy in here.”It’s a seg way, and Andy knows this. He feels this. But he follows Brett anyways, this time catching Kristen’s eyes as he touches the door handle. She gives him a thumbs up before disappearing into her conversation again, and he is walking out onto the small deck. Brett is waiting against the railing, his eyes watching the skyline.“I’ve been meaning to see you again, Andy,” he says, and his voice sounds heavy. If the noise of the party seemed dim before, it seemed almost non-existent now behind the closed door. Andy watches Brett’s fingers as they toy with a bottle cap. Brett’s hands are shaking.“I can’t help but think…” he starts, just as Andy begins to say, “It’s alright.”“It’s not alright though, is it?” Brett argues, and Andy cannot argue back. It is the thing he wanted to say, but did not. But he does not have to say it- Brett said it for him. It was not alright. He feels queasy. He doesn’t know how to deal with confrontation. He hangs his arms over the railing and looks out into the world, like Brett. He thinks that maybe if he is not looking at Brett’s face, it will not be so bad.“No,” he finally says, and he wants to vomit so badly. But he doesn’t. “It’s really not alright at all.”“Don’t feel bad, Andy- I was the bully, remember?” And then Brett punches his arm, and they let it go. They talk some more, for an hour or so. And that feels alright.They stay out there on the deck, watching the sun disappear behind the skyline, drinking away as if neither of them had worries. And it seems almost as if they don’t. Andy is feeling himself grow comfortably dizzy, and he forgets that there are others inside. He begins to forget how he even found the chair he sits in now, and then he begins to forget how his arms move.“I can’t feel my body, Brett,” he says, and they are laughing, and it all happens so fast. Too fast.Brett grabs Andy’s arm, and Andy hears his voice, but he doesn’t hear the words. He leans closer to hear him, but it is still so far away, and then they are kissing.And then Andy moves back so quickly, he feels as if he is sober already. His body is still limp against the chair. He does not know if it has been hours or seconds that have just passed, and everything is spinning.“Shit,” Brett groans, and Andy feels the same, although he can’t say it. “I don’t even like guys.”“I do,” Andy says, and then he regrets it immediately. He looks away, but even the scenery is spinning, and it’s worse. He closes his eyes, and he is sure he will vomit now. He’s never drank so much so quickly. He wishes Kristen was nearby, and he silently hopes that she will come, for whatever reason need be.But she does not, and it is Brett who grabs his arm, and it is Brett who says, “It’s okay.”“I’ve never told anyone,” Andy says, and he hates how drunk he is, because he has now told Brett several things he usually does not say to anyone. He has not even told Kristen many of these things, although he’s meant to.“It’s okay,” Brett says again, and Andy slowly realizes that Brett means everything he has just said.“I need to throw up,” he rasps out, trying to breathe without vomiting right then and there, and Brett moves surprisingly fast for someone who is nearly as intoxicated as Andy is. They stumble back into Kristen’s apartment, and Brett leads Andy to the bathroom. Andy finds relief over white porcelain, and it isn’t long before he hears knocking at the door, and he knows it’s Kristen.“Andy? Andy, I’m so sorry- I’m the worst friend ever, I didn’t even check on you,” Kristen is moaning outside the door, and he hears her slide down against it on the other side.“I’m fine,” he says, and then he vomits again. But truly, he is the closest to fine he’s ever been. “Kristen, I have to tell you something.”“I know,” she replies, and he barely hears her, she says it so softly. “Brett told me.”He vomits once more, and he’s rinsing himself off before he hears her again, this time opening the door to put a steady hand on his shaking arm. It feels cool and inviting against heated skin. He is scared to look at her, but he does anyways.“You know I’m not okay with that, right?” she asks, and he almost does not catch the jest in her voice. He watches her grin, and then he remembers, and he feels so silly.He feels himself grinning with her, and then they’re curled on the floor against the wall, giggling as if they were teenagers again, worries once again forgotten for the time being.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Andy leaves the party much later than he expected. He had had more fun than he expected. He had said a lot more about himself than he expected. There were a lot of things that had happened that he had not expected.He still feels his lips tingling, and he doesn’t know if it’s from the alcohol or from the kiss.It isn’t that he likes Brett. He’s only just seen Brett again for the first time in a long time, and when they’d parted ways, it wasn’t on good terms. But Brett is the first man he has kissed since he has discovered his personal attractions, and there is something new and exciting about it. Some other kind of passion that also scares him, but unlike the passion he feels when he is near Chucky, this one intrigues him at the same time.Brett Shelton, of all people, was the one he had kissed. And Brett was not angry about it.He touches his lips again, rubbing thoughtfully. He is still a little dizzy, but the air is cool, and everything feels so pleasant to him. He does not remember the last time he felt so at peace inside, all the anxiety and conglomeration of emotions silent for once. All he can feel is the way his heart seems to beat in his throat, and the way his hands shake, and shake, and shake.He tries to think of anything else now, thinking it is shameful and silly to dwell on something so quickly passed for so long. But as he waits to cross a street, or as he passes a closed down shop, his mind wanders, and he thinks of it again. He replays it in his mind, and thinks to himself that it really isn’t so bad if he should think of it a lot. After all, it validated much of his feelings that he had been internalizing for the past ten or so years of his life.He feels so cleansed by this that he almost forgets why he had left in the first place. Almost, but not quite. And as long as he had been avoiding it, he knows that he must face it at some point, and he decides that there is no time quite like the present. He is more ready to die than ever, finally having found peace with some corner of his life.So he is very expectant to still see the doll there, in his apartment. What he does not expect is how immaculate his apartment looks since he’d last seen it. While this does not mean all too much, seeing as he has not brought himself to fix his apartment in anyway in a very long time, it is still a noticeable difference, the way everything has been moved around to a more presentable manner.He sees Chucky rounding the corner from the hall to his room towards where the living room meets the small dining area, and Chucky has already positioned himself for a fight. But Andy beats him to his words.“You cleaned,” he says, although that is not what he had wanted to say. But it perturbs him so much that this is what the doll had taken time to do in his absence that it immediately finds its way into the open. Why has the doll cleaned his apartment, of all the options he had in his hands? His simple statement begs the very question.The doll has the grace to look chagrined. But it’s gone with such a quickness that Andy does not know if the look was even there to begin with.“I know a lot about you, Andy,” he says, and he has the audacity to grin, as if he has the upper hand. He leans against the wall, crossing his arms. The smirk reaches his eyes, and it makes Andy feel a growing heat inside, despite himself. “And I know that you’re late.”Andy will not allow himself to feel the need to rise to the challenge, and yet his heart pumps steadily faster. A traitor.His heart had beat quickly like this, but in a different way. Now he feels himself heat up across his cheeks at the memory. He touches his lips, feels the itch of a grin, anger already forgotten in remembering. He forgets that Chucky is there, and it is too late when he remembers.“What’re you grinning about?”It’s much too late.“Why did you clean?” Andy asks, threatened. He does not plan on telling Chucky anything about himself. He did not want him to know about the way he mutilated himself, and he most assuredly did not want Chucky to discover anything about the evening so far. It isn’t that he is particularly ashamed of it, merely that he has not even told his mother, or anyone else, or everyone else even- because anyone and everyone else is who he would choose to tell before telling Chucky this particular facet of himself.“Never mind that,” Chucky replies, but it is too quick, and Andy knows he is hiding something as well. The feeling of being threatened grows. There are personal things in this apartment, memories and scraps of reflection that he had buried deep into the shambles of his other things, and now that Chucky has cleaned, they are exposed. And he knows that this is what has happened. Somehow or another, parts of him have been exposed, against his consent.“Well,” he responds, coldly. “You never mind what it is I’m grinning about, then.”He hears Chucky growling. The sound is deep and low, and he knows that, somehow, he has turned the tables on his adversary. The question is how. The feeling of being threatened remains, and he swallows thickly, and tries to remain with the upper hand. The adrenaline is rushing through him again, as it always does when they reunite. It is an inconvenience, he decides, because Chucky always seems to appear when he wants him around the least.Not that there is ever really a time he wants him around.He wants to ask him to leave again, but he knows that it will not happen, or that even if it does, they will find each other again. It always happens. He does not know how to cope with the idea that they are both in such a close proximity and there is no violence, no blood shed. He wishes there was. He wishes Chucky could, at least, do the one thing they both wanted. He wishes for death more than anything else.Or perhaps not, now that he feels so warm inside. But he knows that the warmth will only last as long as whiskey does when it settles in your stomach, and he knows that it will be all over in the morning, and his head will ache and he will regret the night.And speaking of whiskey, he wants it now, even though mere hours ago he had emptied himself into a toilet bowl because of it. He ignores the way Chucky is still there, ever present, watching his every move, and makes his way into the kitchen, finding his solace where he always leaves it, standing steadfastly in the corner of his countertop amongst other items.He has already drank past the neck of the bottle when he hears Chucky again.“Are you really sure you wanna be drinking that after your little fiasco on the floor here just the other day?” Chucks asks. There is condescension in his tone, and something else he cannot place. Something he does not care to place.He drinks again, not taking his eyes off of Chucky. He sets the bottle on the counter and wipes his mouth. “Are you really sure you actually care?” he asks, almost mockingly, and watches as it is Chucky who swallows hard this time.“Fine,” Chucky says, and puts his hands up. “But I’m not fuckin’ taking you to bed again. This time I’ll let you get what you deserve.”“Didn’t ask you to take me anywhere the first time,” Andy almost bites back. He manages to keep an even tone.He has been dragged across too many emotions in such a small amount of time, and it leaves him weary. He remembers instantly why he has stopped trying to care. He simply does not have the energy or the stamina for it. He almost tells Chucky he is going to bed on his own, without his help, just to be spiteful. But he doesn’t even have the energy for this, and he does not really care to let Chucky know of everything he does. He is sure Chucky will know anyways, the way he watches him now. The way he has always watched him.He finishes off the bottle, and drags himself once more, this time down the small hallway to his bedroom. He can faintly hear Chucky still talking, but they are incoherent sounds, and he cannot care what words they make. He only cares to find the door to his room, and to sloppily find his way into the bathroom.He sits at the floor, reaching around the edge of the sink just before he does. It seems that Chucky at least had the decency to not move everything around. He clasps the razor in his hand and leans against the wall, breathing as steadily as he can. He can feel the swirl of emotions inside him swell and push against him from inside. They are filling him to the brim, and he knows that they must come out somehow, or he will burst.He draws the first line, and the relief immediately follows. He draws another, and another, and then he feels nothing at all.Or so he thinks.The door to the bathroom slams open, and he jumps at how loud the doorknob sounds against the paper thin wall. All his serenity drains away so quickly, and the anger is rushing back, the anger and the pain and the need, and everything that he had ever wanted to put away.Chucky stands in the doorway, and Andy draws another line. Two, for good measure.“You’re…” Chucky starts.“Don’t,” Andy interrupts. “We’ve had this argument before- although for the life of me, I don’t know why we did.”He draws another line, and in the strange light of the bathroom, it almost looks like it pains Chucky to watch him do it. Andy thinks to himself he needs to get new bulbs. He’s always hated the awkward coloring it gave the room anyways.“You can’t do that.”Andy sighs, and draws another line anyways. If anything, now it is simply a way to aggravate Chucky in the same way Chucky used to aggravate him. A spiteful masterpiece. He draws an X, watches it drain down his arm and feels how warm it is. Warm like when Brett kissed him. Warm like his cheeks are becoming just remembering it.Chucky is still here, he remembers. And his heart stutters, and he is angry all over again.“You mean, only you can do this?” he asks, and he isn’t even looking where he is drawing anymore, his eyes are dead set on the doorway and the figure standing there. “You mean, only you decide what happens to my body and when?”Chucky steps back, his jaw seemingly unhinged, but before he responds, Andy continues.“You never finished your strange little ritual, Chucky. You don’t own me. You never did.”He keeps drawing the stripes, and he does it faster now. The more anxious he gets, the faster he cuts, and the more he relies on the way the blood flows. He wishes he were as calm as the bloodstream.“All this time,” he seethes, and the blood is dripping on the floor. Chucky looks almost pale. He doesn’t know why. It unsettles him. It’s as if the he’s draining blood not from himself, but from Chucky instead. He pushes forward anyways. “All this time, I was thinking that you would come and you would get the job done, and yet, I am still here, and you are still here, and you are still failing.”“Are you getting mad at me right now?” Chucky snaps, suddenly back to life. His eyes are sharp and his scowl deep. Andy does not care. He is beyond caring.“I went through all this trouble, and here you are, once again, not able to do the one thing you always threaten to do. What are you here again for, anyways, if not to kill me?”He cuts too deep. He had made a mistake. He hopes otherwise, but the look that crosses Chucky’s face seals it. He suspects. He knows.“What trouble?” Chucky asks. He takes a step into the bathroom.“Why? Why do you keep coming- why do you keep coming back?” he carries on. His voice has not changed the entire time. He feels lifeless and unhinged.The lines are running deeper, and deeper, but he is too focused on Chucky in the doorway, even as the edges of his vision are beginning to blur. He is so angry, so incredibly angry, and he knows, suddenly, that this is what happens when anger is pushed away and ignored. But even now, he cannot seem to release it, even as it pushes against him from inside and screams to escape.“Stop! Stop it- are you fuckin’ crazy?” Chucky screams, and Andy feels those small, cold hands in a tight grip around his arms, and for a moment, he stills. He can feel his heartbeat all the way to the palms of his hands.He pulls out of Chucky’s grip, bloodied arms slipping out of those tiny fingers so easily. The only sound he hears is his pulse, and it seems so achingly loud.“What trouble?” Chucky asks again, and he can’t seem to tear his eyes away. The anger and the pain and the need are at the base of his throat. He swallows, and counts each beat he feels under his skin.“Please leave,” he says. “Just please, please leave.”Chucky doesn’t say anything. His hands are stained with Andy’s blood – which Andy finds amusingly ironic in a dark sort of way. He steps back towards the doorway, only to sneer at him before disappearing behind the frame completely.It is only then that Andy can seem to breathe again, and only then that he looks at what he’s done. It’s a mess, and he had found no relief after all. His heart is still pounding away, angry and unattended. He stands, slowly, trying to regain his senses, trying to find the calm again.He tries to think of Brett as he washes himself off, but even this has been tainted. He tries to feel upset about it, but he can’t seem to. Not anymore. Because of course Chucky would ruin it, in the same way he tended to ruin every good thing he ever found. He can’t find it in himself to care.He can’t even seem to care that he can still hear Chucky inside his apartment, because he’s never left – why would he leave, it would be doing Andy a favor, and Chucky would do no such thing – and probably would not leave for a long time. He can’t seem to care at all.He can only care that he finds his bed, and when he does, he crawls underneath the covers and hides in the blackness, enjoying what small amount of warmth he has left before it completely melts away.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
I know it’s a strange request, but could you please do it soon? We both want this, so you’d be helping him as well. Please consider it.“Mom, can we get ice cream? It’s Friday!” Glenda is at it again, pulling her out of her thoughts. She looks down at her daughter, who is currently tugging at her hand and pointing at the colorful display of differently flavored sweets. Glen is on her other side, saying nothing, but she can see him looking longingly in the same direction.She sighs fondly and shakes her head. “Why not- only the best for my babies, after all,” she complies, and Glenda squeals in glee, jumping around the aisle before reaching for one of the containers closer to the top.She hadn’t had ice cream on the grocery list, but the kids have been in school all day, and they were so good, even while she took her time through every item on the list while browsing aisle after aisle. Even Glenda, who would sometimes antagonize her brother if she became idle for too long. Besides, there was nothing wrong with a little sugar once in a while.So she reaches over Glenda’s head where her outstretched fingers are barely nudging the Rocky Road, and plucks the container from its shelf. “There,” she says, handing it to Glenda. “Now tell me which one you want, Glen.”Glen is staring at each one, meticulously deciding which flavor he should get. He was always so meticulous, similar to herself.Life has been very peaceful, she realizes, since she’d sent Charles away. She sees a nice therapist once every two weeks, and she’s started a hair salon just down the road from her home where she’s able to cut and burn and then wash and dry all that she wants. She drinks her favorite wines and she paints just for the fun of it, and she can cry at all the movies she wants without being made to feel stupid for it.“This one, Mom,” Glen’s quiet voice says, and she reaches out again, this time for Birthday Cake. This one will give all of them cavities, she thinks, but she puts it in the cart with the rest of the items anyways.It isn’t that hates Charles, or that she thinks he ever hated her. At one point, she knows that they truly did love each other. But in the same way anyone can fall in love, she supposes that they can fall out of it too. She’s not entirely sure who fell out of love first though, Charles, or herself. Or perhaps they had both fallen out of it at the same time.She stands in a checkout line and her eyes glaze over the magazine covers and random assortment of last minute items to buy. She hears the children’s voices faintly in the background, and wonders what if would have been like if Charles were here with her. She knows instantly that it would be a mess.They loved so passionately, and they fought with the same vigor. Like a flame, warm and then chaotic and damaging. She had thought she would never get over him, but it seems time was like aloe to her blistering wounds. The more time she had to think on it, the more she began to feel quite alright with the fact that they would no longer burn each other.“That’ll be $86.74, ma’am,” the cashier says, and it isn’t that she doesn’t still love him, and she’s sure he still loves her as well, but it isn’t the same anymore. They’re different people now. She loves him in the way she’d love a brother she’s had to bail out for the fourth time.She takes the receipt, calls for the kids to come along behind her, and they head to the car.She is curious as to why it’s been so quiet. After the nurse had been killed, she had been expecting a little more. But nothing seems to have come up lately. She hasn’t heard from him at all.In a way, it could be good. But she still worries, as she always does. She can’t help it.
“I’m doing this because even after all this, I still fucking love you. Love is a strange phenomenon, isn’t it?”
She almost misses the red light.“Mom, do you think I have enough marshmallows for my school project and to eat later? We can have ice cream and s’mores!” Glenda has not noticed the car tires screeching as she halts just in time for the red light, but she can tell it startled Glen. “I can make little chocolate marshmallow men and then burn them and eat them!”Glenda has the most impish grin on her face. Tiffany laughs. “We’ll see when you’re done with your project, won’t we, sweet cheeks?” she responds, turning down their street.Charles has no idea, and she would never tell him. She promised she wouldn’t say a word. Why she gave this promise to a complete stranger, she’ll never understand. But then again, it wasn’t quite like promising anything to a complete stranger at all. As much as Charles talked about him, Andy Barclay might as well have been a close friend of the family. She laughs at the thought.She parks just outside the garage door and slides out of the car to a cool breeze. It’s fall. She can feel it coming. It is her favorite time of the year. She can see her neighbor outside, already raking stray leaves in his yard. She waves, and he waves back, before continuing his mission.She loves the leaves. She couldn’t bring herself to ever rake them. If they wanted to be where they fell, she’d let them. Why pull them away from where they wanted to be most?“Help me bring in the groceries, kids,” she says, and Glenda immediately tries to carry every bag possible, while Glen quickly grabs the eggs and protects them in shaking arms. Tiffany has to take some of Glenda’s load, but between the three of them, all the groceries make it safely to the kitchen table.She had honestly hesitated, at first, but when Andy had written her she became aware that it was the right thing to do. In truth, she had thought about doing it for a long time before she read his letter; the letter itself was merely the last push over the edge. A sign, if it must be called something. That letter told her that it wasn’t only Charles who was aching for the bitter cycle once again.She hopes it was the right thing to do. She puts a pot of water on the stove eye and hopes very hard that it was.
Tiffany:
I don’t know if I should have said “Dear Tiffany” or not. I also don’t know if you’d want me to use the name Ray or Valentine- so I left it as is. I hope you don’t think I am being rude. I would never want to come across that way to you. You do not deserve disrespect of any kind.
He worried so much over it, she could tell. Strangely, she couldn’t help but love him for it. She almost wonders how Charles could have ever been so cruel to such a gentle creature, but then again, Charles was cruel to everyone. She knew better than most.She hears a crash towards the back of the house, and she immediately stiffens. But then Glen’s voice chirps out, “Glenda, that’s my Lego house!” and she calms again. A false alarm. She pulls out some ground beef from the small freezer and lays it in the microwave to thaw. The letter is still running through her mind.It had struck her as odd that of all people, Andy Barclay would write her. How he would even know how to find her address was already beyond her. But what really had boggled her mind was how he had gone through all the effort to find her, just to write her this letter.
Please don’t tell him. I’d like to die without him ever knowing. The last thing I want to give him before I go is something to inflate his ego. Or worse, something that will cause him to let me live and suffer with the consequences.
And he would, she knew. Charles would never let Andy hear the end of it, if he knew. She takes out the garlic and the onions, chops them neatly on the white board, and suddenly realizes that this is probably why she chose to not tell Charles at all. With Charles, it was a poor decision to let him have the upper hand.But she wonders if she should have told Andy, if perhaps she should have written him back. What would he have done, if he knew.“Three Blind Mice, my ass- I’ve got two blind men. How’s that for a story?” she asks to no one in particular, tossing the diced onions and garlic into a pan to fry. She watches as it sizzles and pops in the oil, bound to a long and merciless torment. But something good would come out of it- in the end, it would make the meat taste finer.Wouldn’t it?
Please let me go in peace.
He was so polite, or that was the way she read it. Andy Barclay has been waiting to die a long time, she thinks. She knows Charles was probably not happy with that at all, when he found out. What was the point of a chase if the hunted no longer ran?She touches the beef, and it’s satisfactorily thawed out. Soft, ready to be changed into something indescribable. She slides it out of its package into the pan, and can immediately smell it. She lowers the heat of the stove eye and slices the beef with her spatula, letting the onions and garlic sink into it.The phone rings, and she picks it up. A customer wants to come in for a hair appointment. It sounds exciting, and challenging, and she is already so eager to begin that she schedules him as soon as possible.She lives a good life now. She doesn’t know why she continues to worry about Charles, or Andy Barclay, when should be none of her business now.And yet, browning the meat on the stove, she can’t help but wonder how things would be different if she told Andy. If she should tell Andy- or if it would only make things worse. Perhaps she had already made things worse by sending Charles his way. But he had asked for it. He had wanted her to send Charles to him.I need it to be him. I hate to admit it, but it wouldn’t feel right any other way. Nothing feels right when he’s not around- even though nothing really feels right when he is around. What would he do- how would he feel?“If only you knew, Andy Barclay,” she mumbles to herself, tossing salt and basil into the pan. She can still hear the kids upstairs, playing and screaming with glee. She is the only one who knows, and she supposes that unless one of them decides to raise the white flag, neither of them will ever find out.In a disgustingly sadistic twist of fate, Chucky needs Andy just as much as Andy needs Chucky. And from the way things look, she thinks to herself that she will have to take this secret to her grave. She sighs and sprays another pan down, opening a package of hamburger buns.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Andy is sitting across the table from Brett, watching the way he hangs his arm over the back of the chair, and wonders to himself how it was possible that they are here now. If even a year ago he had contemplated Brett Shelton, he would have held the same bitter resentment towards him that he had when they had first met so long ago at Kent. But in a strange twist of fate, they are here instead, waiting on lunch inside a Steak n’ Shake diner while Brett recalls how he first moved into town.“Kristen saw me first, I think,” he says, thoughtfully. He frowns. “She’d thought I’d been seriously injured- killed, even- after that old supposed paintball war. Remember that? It turned out to be real bullets in there.”Andy remembers, but he says nothing, he just watches. He pretends he doesn’t feel anything when he remembers everything about Kent. He swirls the straw in his glass, and Brett goes on.“I barely made it out. I was legally dead. But I fought through.” Here Brett pauses. Andy watches his entire body stiffen. “I wish I could say the same for Whitehurst.”Brett is silent, and Andy’s heart pounds wildly. He doesn’t think much about Howard anymore, but everything comes back now, whether he wants it to or not. He seems to be having trouble getting ahold of his emotional composition as of late. He takes a sip of his water, swallows slowly. Tries to calm himself down.“I was the worst to him,” Brett is still musing, and he sounds very far away, and very melancholic. “I wish …”But Andy never hears what Brett wishes, although he’s sure he knows. Brett seems to snap himself out of his trance, and leans forward, his hands dangerously close to Andy’s. Andy leans back a little bit. It isn’t that he hates Brett, but he does not know him all that well yet. Even with Kristen he flinches if she touches him too carelessly. He hates it, but it’s true, and so he leans away, just subtly enough that Brett does not catch it.“But, anyways, she’s actually the one who helped me find an apartment around here. I think she and Jivers had just started living together, you know, and so they’d been apartment hunting not too long ago.” Brett sighs, and the waiter comes by and brings them their food. Brett immediately grabs both and places Andy’s food in front of him before he can even think about moving. He wonders how anyone has so much energy.But everyone around him seems to have so much more to give than he does, if he’s completely honest with himself. He shrugs it off.“So how about you?” Brett’s asking, and he tries to stay focused. “Kristen tells me you have a little ammo shop right underneath your apartment. That’s kind of nice- something to keep you busy. You get a lot of regulars?”“Yeah- there’s always something to do,” Andy says, but he’s thinking about who is still in his apartment instead. Now that he’s sure that Chucky will not be ending his life anytime soon, he’s wondering how to get rid of him. If Chucky is not there to end his misery, what will he do now?He doesn’t quite understand why though, and this bothers him. It bothers him because he had been counting on it, and now it has fallen through. It bothers him because he – while he hated to admit it – he depended on Chucky to come around again. It had happened so many times before, and always when he seemed to be at his lowest. Worse still, he looked forward to it. Even as a child, he knew that even if nothing else in his life was stable, this one thing was.“Doesn’t matter where I go, or what I do,” he’d told his foster sister, Kyle, once. He remembers so clearly sitting on the bed and calmly telling her. “Chucky will always find me.”She had looked horrified, and he remembered feeling as if he should have been as well. And he was frightened, to a point, back then. But there was also a sickening twist of relief. It was something he had dealt with before, after all; it was something he was used to. A safe kind of danger.But now, it seems that even Chucky is failing him, and this angers him. He doesn’t understand why it angers him, and this only grows the anxiety that tightens and twists inside him. There is a new kind of danger, and he is not sure what it is or how to deal with it.“The distance is a little hard,” he tells Brett, and gives a dry smile. It takes a moment before Brett realizes he has made a joke, and Andy watches the recognition light in his eyes. He likes the way Brett laughs. It’s full, and it has a kind of life in it that he wishes he had. It seems like Brett puts his whole body into it, almost as if every single part of him is amused. His hands are clutching the edge of the table as he leans forward, and even though his foot nudges Andy’s, it’s an accident and Andy just feels a little warm because it’s been a long time since he’s made anyone laugh. And it feels good to have done it again, after such a long time.“You had me for a second there, Andy,” Brett says, and he leans back in his chair. “You said it so seriously that I really had to think about it for a bit.”Andy doesn’t want to think about Chucky anymore. He wants to just focus on Brett, and the plans they’re making to meet again, but let’s invite Kristen along next time. He wants to think about what they will do, and how he needs to invite them over to his place so they can listen to music and catch up and enjoy each other’s company. He wants to be lost in thought on how he and Brett have been meeting up for a while now, and he hasn’t run away from this intimacy with another person yet. He wants to just think about how he and Brett can be friends, good friends even, and to remember to look up addresses of outings on his laptop at home.But Chucky is still there, in the back of his mind, and it bothers him. He tries so hard to listen to Brett talk, because it feels so nice to be out with someone. He always forgets how nice it is to have company. If Chucky were not here, he would just accept the idea of living and have some sort of hope that he could be happy again.Then again, had Chucky not been at his apartment that night, he would have never gone to Kristen’s party, and he would have not seen Brett again. This would not be occurring, now, had it not been for Chucky.How Andy hates it. He hates the way Chucky has somehow, ironically, made him live a little again.“Is this together or separate?”Andy looks up at the waiter.“Together,” Brett says.“Separate,” Andy says, but it’s just a little behind Brett’s voice. He feels himself shriveling inside. The waiter is already gone, and he doesn’t have the courage to call him back. Brett is watching him, a small frown on his face.“Sorry,” he apologizes, and now he looks concerned, and Andy wants to die all over again. “Let me cover it this time. You can get it next time.”“Okay,” Andy says, but what he doesn’t say is I don’t want anyone to take care of me. He doesn’t need anyone to cover for him. But Brett is just being nice, and he cannot be angry with him for it, even though he wants to yell and demand he pay for himself. Instead, he satisfies himself with drinking the last bit of his water.“Andy, you’re not- I don’t want you to think I’m trying to out you, if you’re not, you know…” Brett is trying to explain himself, even as he’s holding the door open for Andy. The wind is sharper than Andy expects, and he pulls his coat closer around himself.He hadn’t even thought of it that way. Brett looks downright guilty. “Don’t worry about all that,” Andy mutters, pulling the collar of his coat up around his chin. “I don’t care what people think one way or the other. I just didn’t want you to have to pull my weight is all.”Brett snorts, and there’s relief evident in his eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he replies, punching Andy in the shoulder, and Andy remembers the first night that they saw each other again, and now he feels hot. He sighs and pulls his collar back down.“Where did you say you work again?” he asks Brett, if even to just change the conversation. Brett perks up.“I never told you,” he says, and Andy lets Brett ramble on comfortably about his physical therapy office, and his different clients. Brett seems very passionate about his work, and Andy is happy for him, but he is feeling numb inside again, and he doesn’t know why.It always works like this, it comes and goes again. He thinks that he is beginning to feel better, and that his days will be brighter, and then suddenly, everything falls apart. He can hear Brett’s voice, but it’s very far away, and he can’t seem to catch all the words. Suddenly, so suddenly, he wants to be home, and it doesn’t even matter to him that he is not alone there anymore.In a strange sense, he almost prefers it that way.“Andy,” he hears, and Brett is very close again, his hand on Andy’s arm, like he’s trying to stop Andy from falling. Andy has to look around to make sure he isn’t falling at all. Brett is watching him, concern on his face, and the guilt creeps in, and Andy remembers why he doesn’t go out anymore.“Sorry,” he mutters out, his breath coming out in small puffs. He gives a wry smile. “I got lost in thought, I think.”Brett pats his back, and he says it’s okay, but Andy feels like things are not okay at all. He tries to offer Brett anything and everything on the way home to make up for it, but he can’t seem to say everything he wants to say. Like why he wants to help Brett at his job, or with finding new locations to hang out right now. Brett doesn’t seem to want anything, and Andy knows that it isn’t true, but he can’t help but to feel that Brett is angry with him now for not listening.This is why he doesn’t go out. This is why he is a terrible friend.“Andy- I promise I’ll let you show me around next time. I’ve got to head back to work,” Brett says, jingling his keys into his car door lock. He’s grinning just the same as he had been when they’d first met, but Andy feels sick inside. He looks down at his shoes and thinks about his job, and tries to calculate how long the hours will feel before he can finally go home and sleep.“Andy,” Brett says, and Andy isn’t prepared at all, but Brett hugs him right there on the side of the street. Andy doesn’t move for a long while, he just lets the warmth seep through his jacket and stands there.“It’s okay,” Brett says, like he had the first time, only this time, it’s a little more believable. He finds the strength to move his arms and return Brett’s embrace just before the other man gets into his car, waving a little before cautiously backing out onto the street, leaving Andy still fighting the biting cold of the wind.He doesn’t know when it starts, but even though he’s cold and numb, and ready to fall into unconsciousness for as long as he can, he grins a little to himself. He catches himself humming a little to himself, even though he’s shivering and has a long walk to get home.He doesn’t know when it starts, and he doesn’t know that even now, as he walks home, he is not alone. He does not know that he has not been alone for a long time. He is not aware that he is being observed, quietly, behind building corners or benches or in back alleys or trees.He is unaware of the sudden anger he has caused, or how suddenly, so suddenly, his small moment of joy will be snatched away, as quickly as someone could blink.
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He does not need to look long. He knows where Andy is. It has never made sense to him, but he has always found the boy- now man, he supposes. It has always been convenient. The same as a scent is to a dog, Andy is easy for him to find, with a little sniffing.Tiffany had called it something else, but he does not want to think about it. He can only think of the fact that Andy is long due his time to return to the apartment, and this piques his curiosity. His mind is distracted with the idea that for the past week or so, Andy Barclay has not been coming home when he usually would, and it perturbs him. He feels his pulse racing just a little more now as he comes to his conclusions as to where Andy could be.It isn’t as if they have made any progress. Other than Chucky antagonizing Andy to the best of his abilities and Andy simply ignoring every attempt as if he didn’t exist, nothing has occurred. Chucky has had ample opportunities to lift the blade and carve into Andy’s sleeping and seemingly lifeless body. He has been there too, with his hand poised and his aim ready.He just could never stop his hand from shaking.It’s the fact that Andy wants to give his life away. That is what stops him. It is the fact that he looks down and sees Andy so peaceful, and those cannot be his final moments before death. He wants Andy to fight for it- oh, how he wants him to fight for it!It is the sickening fact that he looks down and sees Andy’s red angry lines, the artistry of his self-mutilation, and he can’t seem to bring himself to add any more.The nausea is back, and it is stronger than usual. Chucky has never felt so vulnerably human, and this only makes the nausea worse. He claws at his stomach through the rough jean of his clothing uselessly. He knows it will not go away.He has to find Andy, and he has to kill him. He has to make Andy want to live again, first and foremost, but ultimately he has to kill him. It is why they run into each other over and over again, he knows. It is because fate draws them back again and again until he can finally finish his task, and move on.He ignores the subtle and sudden way everything seems so hollow, so destitute, and leaves the apartment behind, only for a fraction wondering if Andy will be home soon and if he should wait instead. Only for a fraction wondering if he should even go after Andy at all.He does have an idea where Andy is, and he is not surprised when he sees Andy embracing Brett just next to a parking meter downtown. He is not surprised to see Andy’s arms embrace someone so tightly and with so much need. He knows that Andy can love like this, fully and with a tender intensity. He remembers. He was once the object of Andy’s affection, even if it was Andy as a child, and not as the adult he is now.He cannot ignore the nausea now, it crawls up behind his ribs and into his lungs, threatening to make him implode.This is worse than the time he saw Andy kissing Kristen. He does not know what is worse, Andy feeling nothing or Andy feeling happy. He watches Andy, watches the way this boy – now man – stands along the road, his back turned to him, and he cannot begin to fathom why, but he wants Andy to turn around more than ever.More than ever, he wants to fight Andy Barclay. He wants to push him into the dirt and smash his face against the gravel until he bleeds. He wants it so intensely that when Andy does not do this, and instead walks away, possibly towards home at last, he has to bite into his hand to stop himself from screaming.Andy Barclay is only miserable when he is with him, and so, more than ever, he wants Andy Barclay to be miserable. He wants him to be miserable and distraught for the rest of his pitiful life.He scuffs his shoes against the gravel, and makes his way for nowhere. He does not know where he wants to go now, he has no aim and no objective as of now – except perhaps to find a place to vomit whatever it is he has been holding in for the past month or so. But instead, like everything else, he holds it in, even as he feels it building up. It worries him, and the more he worries, the more it builds.He had thought that this Brett Shelton had been killed by his own hands, and he wonders just how Brett has survived and just why he has decided to reappear into Andy’s life, and how he did so as easily as he did. He wonders if Andy even fought him away for a minute, or if he accepted him right away, inviting him for coffee or lunch similar to this one he just witnessed.He's appalled at the way he cares about this, and once again, he cannot find the source of why. He does not know why it bothers him that Andy Barclay has let this tormentor of his past back into his life. He pockets fisted hands and tries to steady his sudden heavy and short breathing.Truthfully, he does know. He does, he does, he does. But he is afraid to open this thought from its locked up box and discover he is right. He does not want to be left alone with the aftermath, shaking and broken and covered in his filth.He had noticed the way Brett’s car had sped off from where it had been parked on the side of the road. He had noticed the way this man drove too fast, living too carelessly, and passed others on the road without a second thought. He does hear the screeching back and forth of tires as cars drive in their same careless way.He hears the horns of the street, and the voices of people, hushed and raised, full of life and awe and fear and anger. But he doesn’t think much of it, his thoughts are still on Andy, they stay on Andy, they are always about Andy, and they always come back to Andy Barclay.And they remain so fixated there, on Andy, that when he hears his voice, it is hard for him to decide whether it is still just a figment in his mind, or if it is truly Andy in front of him now, calling his name. He has the audacity to believe for a moment that Andy has come to talk to him out of his own will. Because he wants to.“Andy,” he says, and he’s still cradling his stomach, but his focus has zoned in on Andy’s figure walking towards him, and he can feel the nausea subsiding. His muscles relax and his vision clears, if only enough to see that Andy appears angry, livid even. He does not even seem to care that anyone could hear him yelling at seemingly no one, as Chucky is behind a wall and Andy is still out on the sidewalk, exposed to the public.“You,” Andy growls, and Chucky feels a shiver at how the man’s lip curls, and how his voice scrapes his ears. Like the gravel he had just been fantasizing about scraping this very man’s face against.He smirks, just a little, even though things are not going as planned. He is a little caught off guard that Andy is so suddenly full of life in a way he has not seen in a long time. He is a little envious even, that Andy seems to have found this life on his own, and without his help.“You did this, didn’t you?”Chucky, at last, is able to pull himself out of his haze, and stands upright, despite the fact that his stomach is still ripping apart. “What do you mean, I did this?” he asks, and he is not aware of what has happened, but the guilt is felt nonetheless. “What did I do this time?”Andy does not seem to care that he is innocent of whatever he is being accused of, because the next minute becomes the closest Chucky has been to Andy in a long time, with Andy knelt in front of him, and them at eye level. Chucky cannot back away from him, even though suddenly, he wants to. He is face to face with those eyes again, and forced to face who Andy has become now, and how it makes everything inside twist up and tangle on itself.Andy doesn’t say anything, and when Chucky finally tears his eyes away, he sees him. He sees Brett on the pavement, just next to them, lying on the pavement while someone is dialing the ambulance.He had heard the noises. He should have known. But he was thinking about Andy, and now that Andy is here, everything is all wrong. It is all wrong, and the most fallacious aspect of it all is that he feels hurt. He feels wronged. He finds himself angry that Andy thinks he is the cause of this, although he normally would be, and Andy should think of him first. It is all entirely wrong and not the way he’d planned it to be at all, and the nausea is now back again, uglier than ever, and he has to cover his mouth, despite not wanting to in front of Andy.“What is the point by now, Chucky?” Andy asks him, and he scowls, no longer able to hide his frustration. His hurt. He shoves at Andy’s shoulders, surprised by how much broader they are now. How much stronger they are. He cannot push Andy over anymore. Andy can easily push him over now.“What do you care, anyways, Andy?” he quips, snapping. It is not even the question he wanted to ask. It is not what he wanted to say in the slightest. “That’s the angriest I’ve seen you, and it’s for someone who didn’t even care about you- or did you forget how he used to torment you?”Andy stares at him, perplexed, and he knows that just like that time they first reunited in the apartment, he has said the wrong thing. He has only made everything worse- as he usually does. But this time, it vexes him that he has ruined things so much.“You mean like you always have?” Andy is asking him, and there is a strange light in his eyes. Chucky cannot pinpoint what it is, and that bothers him, because he knows how to read people, and he especially knows how to read Andy Barclay- and yet here he is, lost in his eyes. Unknowing.“Why do you care what I think, anyhow? Don’t you want me to be upset? Isn’t that why you’re here, still after me, after all this time?”He has no answer. Or rather, he has one, but he is afraid of what it will mean. He is afraid he will say the wrong thing again, and Andy will stare in that way, and he will feel. He will feel something. He almost feels the answer escape his throat. He swallows it quickly, because he does not know that it is the right answer. He is scared it might be. And whether it is or it is not, he knows that it will only ruin things more than he already has.There is a screeching out in the street, and a honking, and yelling. There is loud conversation passing by the entrance to the alley. Neither of them hear it. Brett’s body lies near them, his blood soaking into the pavement.Chucky feels himself growing weary. And queasier. The blood reaches his shoes, and he gags. Andy does not seem to notice, and Chucky makes the mistake of looking in his eyes again, and he sees that the anger is gone as quickly as it came.“Never mind, actually,” Andy sighs, and Chucky is deflated, defeated. This is not the way he had planned this to go. This is the furthest from how he planned it to go.Andy is turning away already, and he finds himself unable to breathe, just how he did when they first met again in Andy’s apartment. It is that moment all over again, and he feels so heavy and so empty all at the same time, as if the emptiness inside has a weight of its own.“I don’t know what else I expected,” Andy says, before he can say a word. “Do what you want. See if I care.”Chucky is falling apart, and Andy is leaving. He is realizing now that this is yet another pattern. Every time, somehow, Andy defeats him. Every time, somehow, Andy tears him apart. Only this time, he feels like there will be scars inside him that he can’t see. Scars that will never heal.Scars like the ones on Andy’s arms.He wants to vomit so badly. And when Andy is gone, and it is only him and the corpse before him, he does, groaning and howling the entire way, his voice only unheard because it is chorused by the screams and shrieks of the people witnessing Brett Shelton wheeled away to the nearest hospital.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Brett Shelton’s hospital admittance was the last straw for her.She has tried to give him patience. She has tried to give them both patience. But she cannot take this any longer. Worst of all, she cannot take the way they continue to hurt each other like this. She knows that this only has come to pass because either Chucky has finally confronted Andy and Andy has rejected his proposal, or because Chucky has not confronted Andy and has become frustrated. Either way, now she is frustrated.Glen notices when she picks the twins up from school, her finger tapping the wheel and her impatience with the other drivers a clear giveaway. She sees him looking at her through the rearview mirror, and she gives a soft smile, but she knows he can see it in her eyes. Glenda doesn’t seem to be phased in the least, prattling on as usual and digging through her backpack for some gum or candy or a toy she most likely pick pocketed from a classmate.She doesn’t talk much, driving them home, but Glenda does most of the talking for them anyways, as she always does. Tiffany listens, but she mostly hopes to herself that Glenda never loses this passion, and this vivacity in life. She hopes that the spark stays for the rest of her little girl’s life.She also hopes that she can find Charles quickly, if only to smack him hard enough to knock the stupidity and stubbornness out of it.It’s a Friday, which means the kids will want to put off homework until Sunday. She’ll order pizza for them to eat for dinner. The girl down the road has offered to babysit before, and she seems like a nice enough person, and strong minded enough to manage twins. She can leave money for anything they’d need, and then she can take the road trip she needs.Glenda jumps out of the car, already ready to play and feel the freedom of the weekend, but Glen stays behind. Tiffany feels his hand slowly snake into hers, clutching onto it in his usual vice-like grip.“Why are you leaving, Mommy?” he asks, not even doubting the idea that she was thinking of leaving. His hand squeezes tighter when he says her name.She squeezes back. “It’s time to go see Daddy, that’s why,” she responds. “He needs a little help.”She feels Glen shrink inside, and she knows that he hates it. She doesn’t know if Glen will ever love or trust his father again, after what he put them through. She will never blame him for feeling the way he does, but it still hurts sometimes, when she thinks of what they could have been.She can only pity Andy Barclay. It’s a sad life for him, being the only one who can undo Charles- and so, is the only one who must.She knows she needs to go now. That man probably resists, even as he is compelled to stay close. Just from observing from afar, she already knows that Charles is spiraling, and she cannot wait anymore.“I’ll be back soon, baby,” she tells Glen, leaning down to kiss his forehead. Glenda is calling for him from inside the house. He doesn’t say anything back, but he lets go of her hand and runs towards the door, shouting back at his sister, and she knows that he will be alright. She sighs and follows them into the house.She digs through her purse on the counter and searches for the girl’s name and phone number. She crosses her fingers in hopes that she will not be busy or out of town. The phone rings, once, twice, and she is ready to give up when she hears the familiar click and a voice on the other end.“Hello? Yes, it’s Ms. Valentine. You remember how you said you were willing to watch my little angels for a while? You don’t suppose you’re still up for it, do you?”A quick kiss good-bye to her kids and one more expression of immense gratitude to the babysitter, and she is on her way, the engine roaring over the sound of her thoughts and the radio. Traffic is atrocious, as she could only expect it to be, but she tries to keep her patience by consistently reminding herself that she is always one step closer, even if the driver in front of her seems to think that the I-94 is for cruising and enjoying a slow pace.She knows that it could take a while to find Charles. She also knows that if she makes just the right move, it won’t take long for him to know she is here. And he will come, when he knows. She knows he will come almost immediately. He is possibly going to be the angriest she has ever seen him. She sighs and brushes the growing bangs from her eyes.She had promised herself she would never dirty her hands again, but she is in a desperate situation and in desperate need of a beacon. And the cake decorator had hit his wife too many times with a dusty rolling pin in the kitchen; she can tell from the bruises on her arm when she stops by a small bakery for a quick snack.She leaves the body just near where she knows Andy Barclay lives, a limp carcass that is mostly unmarred, save for the fatal and still gushing wound and her trademark lipstick stamped against his brow. She washes her hands in the sink of the bathroom in the bakery, the wife still unknowing.“I love your shoes,” the woman says, just entering the bathroom to run into a stall. Possibly to try and hide the new forming bruises- the last bruises she will ever have, although she does not know it yet.“Lori’s,” is all Tiffany says, with a wink. The woman doesn’t say thank you, but Tiffany walks out the door shouting, “You’re welcome!” and it means more than one thing.She continues along the sidewalk, waiting. She’ll peruse shops and she’ll ignore the sudden sirens of police rushing to the scene of the crime, where she will no longer be. They will not find her DNA on the lipstick; her kiss was dry.She laughs at how it reflects her so well- a dry kiss for a dried love. Although she supposes it isn’t so dry if she still loves, and does so with the same fierceness that she had when she first began to love, even if it is not quite in the way she had thought it would always be.Her phone has not yet rung, so she assumes that all has gone well with the babysitter and her children so far. She wishes she were home with them now, Glen piled up on her lap and Glenda stealing the entire pantry of snacks away to the living room, where they would argue over what movie to watch until they would rock-paper-scissor for it. Somehow, Glen always managed to win. She laughs at the thought, and wonders if they have dragged the babysitter into the same situation. She wonders, if so, if the babysitter has won and broken the cycle, or if Glen has won again.She shakes her head, finding that she has been inside a small shop fingering the rough cotton of a jacket sleeve for far too long, having been lost in thought. There is a woman and her friends who are watching her, possibly wondering if there is something wrong. They appear concerned, frantic whispers and furrowed brows.She smiles. They return the silent greeting, and carry on with their business, the crisis averted.She has an idea of when Charles will come for her. She doesn’t, however, have an idea of what she will say when he does. She is incredibly angry at how stupid and hard-headed he is. One of the qualities that she did like about him sometimes, she admit to herself, but at the moment, it only frustrated her more. She is not altogether sure why she cares. She supposes that it is because she still cares about him, and so wants him to at least try to make decisions that will benefit him.But when it’s come to Andy Barclay, it seems that he’s always tripped over himself and made a mess of everything. It seems he’s made a mess of everything now. Again.She steps out into the street again, the wind whipping her hair over her face, cold and merciless. It is only autumn, but today is a particularly cold day. She shivers and buttons her jacket before digging into the pockets for her lighter and a cigarette. The flame warms her face instantly, and she lights the end of the cigarette and takes a long, comforting drag. She’s warm inside, like a giant brooding dragoness. Or at least she hopes, as she still cannot seem to control her shaking, which she cannot decide if it is a result of the cold or her frustration.She remembers the first time they had fought about Andy Barclay. Their last fight had been about him, but it had not been the only fight they’d had about him. The first one they’d had, they had just finished making love, and she had stretched out across the bed, waiting for him to put his arms around her, in the way he did sometimes, when he felt affectionate. She would not have been surprised if he had not held her, but rolled over instead, snoring and muttering into the pillows. But what he had done did take her by surprise.She can still feel the way he had pulled her arms around him, curling his arms into himself and tucking his head into her chest, as if he were hiding. Her heart still beats so quickly at the thought that for the first time in her life, she had seen a vulnerability she had never seen before.“Chucky,” she remembers gasping, and he had looked up at her, eyes glazed, unaware that something had changed. That something was different. But she had noticed.“What happened to you?” she’d asked.“Nothing,” he’d said. But she didn’t believe it for a moment, and with enough poking and prodding, she put the pieces together.“What did that boy do to you?”He’d gotten so angry then. Initially he feigned ignorance as to “what boy” she was talking about, but when she’d only cut through his continuous and ridiculous lying, he’d lost his temper. They hit each other so much; she had bit him particularly hard while he’d had his hand in her hair. Still as passionate as when they’d made love, but in making war instead.Andy Barclay had changed something in him, and she had known it for a long time. Worse still, she had known it was a good change. Parts of him that she had wished were not there had softened, and became more bearable. If anyone were to ask her now, she knows she would not be able to begin to explain how it was, just that it was good.She sighs and inhales deep smoke again, turning the corner behind the store, where there’s only the garbage and the back of another building. She can still hear his voice, angrily shouting her name, from so many different times that they had fought. It rings in her ears, and worse, it echoes in her heart, and it hurts. She closes her eyes and tries to breathe. She is so incredibly angry.“Tiffany.”She opens her eyes. She looks over, and sure enough, here he is, almost as if she had conjured him with her thoughts. She’d forgotten how short his new form was; the doll only barely – if even – standing to three feet. He is as malevolent as she remembers. There is poison in the way he talks, and he’s only said her name so far.“I knew it was you, bitch,” he growls, and for a moment, she is so angry she cannot see. Even now, he continues to remain so thick, and so disrespectful. The longer she has been away from him, the more she has been able to understand, and now she sees what her love had blinded her to before.Charles Lee Ray is a piece of work. And she is glad that he is not her chore anymore.“Manners, Chucky,” she says, and silently thanks the fumes in her throat for keeping her voice steady.He kicks at the rocks, and she watches them fly in all different directions.“What did you kill the baker for? Thought you’d moved on from your little addiction,” he sneers. She knows that he is trying to get a rise out of her. It is something inside that she wishes more than anything she could cut out, but the thirst for blood still runs, whether she likes it or not. She had called it an addiction, because it is, and like any other addiction, needs tending and a continuous fighting – even when it leaves her weary at night and playing with the knives in her kitchen drawer, watching the neighbor’s house in dark thoughts.“I had a little slip,” she replies, flicking the cigarette butt towards him. He flinches, but only slightly. “Heard you had a little slip too. A slip named Shelton.”She turns her whole body now, and he is shaking. She feels at the advantage now, above him, not even a pinky quaking, and he is already losing his temper. She doesn’t know why though; it isn’t as if he had ever really tried to leave his own dark habits behind.Or perhaps Andy Barclay had already changed something in him again, even now.“I didn’t touch him, although I wish I had,” Chucky tells her. She laughs.“I mean it!” Now he is already losing control of his voice. She studies him now, almost more curious than angry. There is something else that is bothering him; it is not just the fact that she is here. She cocks an eyebrow at him, and waits for him to gain his bearings and look at her again, because even now, she decides to be merciful. She doesn’t know why.“What are you so worked up about, anyways?” she questions him. “It isn’t as if you wouldn’t want to slit someone’s throat.”She leans down, just to let him feel how close she is. He will not look her in the eyes, although he looks in her general direction. “Particularly a certain Barlcay’s throat, or did I mishear you all those years when you promised me that you would end him and then be a part of our family?”He’s breathing heavily, his arms crossed and his hands clutching his sleeves. He still brandishes the same knife he’d had when she’d packed him away, and she cannot help but find it endearing, the sentimental way he holds onto things.“Well?” she asks, a little harshly.“Do you need to fuckin’ hear it, huh? Is that what it is?” he snarls suddenly at her. He tosses the knife on the ground, and it clatters, and it is the loudest sound she’s ever heard. It’s as if he never wants to touch that knife again, from the way he seems to back away from where it lies. She notices now that there is no blood on it. There is no blood anywhere around him.“I couldn’t kill him. I haven’t done it. I’ve failed.” He spits out the last word, as if it were a poison. For someone as prideful as he, it very well may have been.Tiffany stares at him, mouth agape. She is surprised, almost as dumbfounded as when he’d betrayed her for the first time. The idea that he still has no idea is beyond her comprehension She straightens herself, the look of utter shock still evident in her eyes.“Why, Charles,” she gasps, “I never meant for you to kill him.”His knees quiver beneath him, and she is reminded of the ugly truth of his impending mortality. Of how weak he is becoming, the longer he wastes away his time in this body. Wasting away his time, avoiding the things he ought to do. She wonders which parts will fully transform first. She thinks it will be his eyes. They already glaze over as if he is sick or exhausted, the most human trait if she ever knew one.“What do you mean?” The words come out slowly, carefully. His voice sounds so small.Her eyes well up with sadness – pity, even – as she lowers herself to his height. She doesn’t want to scare him off. Somehow it only alarms him more. She reaches for his hand, but he quickly backs away, angry and confused.“Don’t you see?” she whispers, and even as the tears slip from her eyes, she smiles. She cannot believe that he still does not understand. She is sure that he must understand, but that he denies, and denies. “In all our time together, I’ve never seen you with such passion.”She cannot let him deny any longer.“It’s the most alive you’ve ever been.”He laughs then, and she watches as it finally dawns on him, but it’s a skittish and frightened laughter. It’s the laughter of defeated at the weaning hours of a long and tiring battle. It’s the laughter of surrender. She hears her heart breaking for him, the way he cannot accept himself. The way it only destroys him further. “Well isn’t that just fucking great!” he’s screaming, and this time Tiffany is the one who does not understand. She stands again, distancing herself.“What is it?” she asks, even as backs away from him as if he were a rabid dog. She has never seen him like this, and she is more glad than ever that she has left their children at home. She hardly recognizes him. It is as if his ends are fraying, and suddenly the true person within is emerging in front of her for the first time. “Now it’s you who doesn’t see. You don’t know anything, Tiffany,” he barks. She doesn’t flinch, but the wide-eyed confusion remains.“I can’t touch him- he doesn’t feel anything. There’s nothing there.” he growls. “It’s all too late now. “Andy doesn’t care what I do, Tiffany!” he shouts. “Andy wouldn’t beg for death, but he would welcome it. He’s a broken, pathetic excuse for a man.”Somehow, someway, Chucky is broken, himself, because of it. She can see it in the way he talks, and the way he moves. He knows that there is nothing he can do. She watches as he falls apart in front of her, and she knows that there is nothing she can do. His voice is hoarse when he speaks again.“I can’t kill him- he’s already dead.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“You realize that this is the second time you’ve narrowly missed death.”Andy tries to say it as a joke, but he is in no laughing mood. He manages to keep himself together, even though seeing Brett as mangled and bandaged as he is makes him quiver inside. He had run over as soon as he could, closing the shop midday and taking a taxi instead of walking like he normally would. He can’t remember the last time his heart beat so fast; or, he can, but he doesn’t quite want to think about it.Brett just snickers. “It isn’t worth it, man,” he says, and Andy wonders how he can genuinely be so unbothered, with the position he is in. “The hospital food is awful. I think I might actually go this time.”Andy knows he is joking, but he still feels his throat constrict. He tries not to show it, for whatever reason, and pretends that there is something lodged inside his shoe and leans over while Brett picks at the so called awful food on his tray.The nurse comes in for a little while, just to check his vitals, and Andy watches. He knows that everything is fine right now, and that Brett is alright, but he still can’t help but panic inside. He watches and finds it hard to breathe until he hears the words everything seems normal, and even then, he waits for there to be a mistake. He holds his breath, and he waits.He waits until Brett starts talking to him again, prattling off without a care in the world, and he wonders how Brett lives like this, with no worries, no inhibitions. He fusses with his shirt sleeves and tries to listen, but his mind is still whirling so quickly. Brett may have survived now, but he is still in extreme danger. If Andy knows Chucky at all – and much to his disgust, he thinks he knows him somewhat well – he knows that Chucky will not be pleased to see that Brett has survived. He may come back with a vengeance, and an ugly one at that.He’s trying to listen to Brett, but he can’t help that creeping worry. He can’t help a lot of feelings these days, disappointingly enough. He’s not as dead inside as he’d hoped. It hurt much less when he was.“I just wasn’t looking, you know?” Brett is explaining, his eyes wild. Andy snaps back into the conversation, suddenly, and there is a strange white noise in the back of his mind. Brett hasn’t seemed to notice. He carries on with his story, Andy now aware and alert. “I don’t know, I guess I was so excited, thinking about starting here, with you and Kristen, and everyone else, and I didn’t look at the streets. The streets are a terror here, by the way.”“Yeah,” Andy gives, half-heartedly. He’s trying to piece Brett’s story with Chucky’s, and things start to click where he does not want them to. The streets are a nightmare, he knows. They’re too dangerous to wander out into, and too dangerous to drive without a clear head. It’s why he doesn’t drive anymore. He can’t stand the thought of such a loud and busy death, with people trampling all over like they do in life.When he goes out, he wants to go out quietly, like a candle snuffed into the dark. Alone and silenced, and at peace.“… and then, this flatbed, just,” Brett pauses, and Andy noticed the way Brett’s cheeks redden a little. Almost embarrassed. “Well, he wasn’t breaking any rules. I was. I ran a red, and this guy had no way to stop.”He sighs and lays his hands on the bed, flattening the sheets. “They told me my car is totaled. I scared so many people. I wasn’t thinking, and I caused such a mess.”“You didn’t do it on purpose,” Andy tries to encourage him, but now the pieces are all connected, whether he wants them to be or not, and he feels sick inside. Twisted and sour, and he wants to vomit. Everything, as he had feared, feels wrong. He remembers so instantly why he hates to let himself live. Everything always turns sideways and backwards until he’s so dizzy he can hardly breathe.But he breathes, just for Brett. He can suffocate when he gets home.“I know,” Brett says, and Andy forces himself to make this about Brett. Now is not the time to drown. Later, he promises himself. Later. He just has to make it through now. It won’t be too long. “I just feel terrible, still. I can’t believe that at my age, I still did something so stupid.”Andy feels dry in his mouth. He doesn’t know how to provide words of comfort; he never has been able to find the right things to say. It never comes out the way he wants it to, and it always feels wrong, when he thinks about it again and again afterwards, picking apart each sentence and trying to find how it could have been better.He just settles for putting his hand on Brett’s shoulder, and to Brett, that seems to be enough. He gives a sigh of relief. He thinks of how with Kristen, she only ever wants ears to listen, and it’s another reason why he gets along with her so well. He’s relieved, so relieved, to find that Brett also wants that similar, silent comfort. A steadiness. Andy can relate to it. He is just the same. He wants a routine; he craves something that has dependency.“Have they told you when they’ll let you out of here?” he asks, trying to shift Brett away from guilt that Andy is sure is eating him at the moment. In a way, he is also trying to shift himself away from his own strange feelings, shoving them deeper and deeper into his gut until he is sure they are buried for good. Somewhat sure, at any rate.“Doctor says maybe in a week, maybe less,” Brett responds, only too eager to not dwell too long in his own thoughts. He gives a haphazard grin and raises a heavily casted arm. “But if I know me- and I think I do…” and now Andy is grinning, despite himself, “… I’ll be out of here before then.”“I bet you will,” Andy replies. He almost reaches out to cuff Brett gently on the shoulder, but he doesn’t. He wishes to, but he does not. Instead he settles for leaning back in his chair, physically willing any unease to just be gone for the time being. There’s a slight humming just under his skin, an itching – more accurately, a longing, but he is so detached from his own emotions he cannot accurately label them anymore – but he ignores it, pushing it down, swallowing it. Scratching his arms, unintentionally peeling healing wounds. He hisses under his breath, but he covers it with a laugh only in time to leave Brett with no suspicions.They talk like this for a while; Andy updates Brett on the comings and goings in his store, and Brett listens patiently and eagerly to every small and frustrating story on different customers that pass by.“And he wanted a refund? Because he couldn’t aim?” Brett interjects, in disbelief. But Andy can only nod and confirm it.“In his mind, it was the bullets that were faulty, not his aim,” he responds, and shrugs. “He was very vocal about this.”“God, Andy, I would have shot someone myself by now; I could never work like you,” Brett sighs, his eyes still blown wide with shock. He sinks his head further into the pillow, lost in thought for a moment. “Though I suppose that even I will deal with impatient and hurt clients.”“Just not with any guns to tempt you,” Andy interrupts. Brett chuckles at this.Brett appears to not notice the time pass, but Andy does. He hears each second on the clock go by. He attributes it to the fact the clock is positioned just above his head. There are points where it seems that the clock ticks much louder than Brett talks, and each time a second passes, he feels it echoed into his skull. Harshly enough that it almost hurts. His arms continue to itch, to call his name. But then these moments pass, and it feels as if he had only imagined it all, and it is only Brett’s voice.It continues like this, the pain and then none at all, until Andy’s phone begins to ring. It’s invasive, the way it springs to life in his back pocket, and his whole body wants to shudder from the effect. But he holds it in, only jumping slightly to reach for it and read a telemarketer’s number running across his screen.Brett is watching him, waiting for an explanation. Andy shrugs it away.“It’s nothing important,” he says. But he checks the time on his phone anyways, and sees that he has been here much longer than he’d thought he’d been. For much longer than he’d plan to be.“I’m sorry, Brett, I …” he does not know why he feels terrible saying it. But while he aches to be alone to breathe, he is not eager to leave Brett so soon. Not when the last time he’d left him it had resulted in this chaos.“You have to go, don’t you?” Brett says, and he continues before Andy can make excuses, can try to apologize. He’s already waving it off. “Andy- don’t let me keep you. You can come back tomorrow, you know.”He knows. He’s aware.“Besides, it’s not as if I’m going to crash anywhere around here anytime soon.”It’s a joke, and he smiles, but inside he panics. He knows. He’s aware. But he’s also aware that although Brett was not harmed in the way Andy had thought this time, it does not mean there will not be another time. A time when Brett is suddenly snatched away from him, leaving him alone. It will be Kristen next, he supposes, perhaps Jeeves as well. Then his mother.Will Chucky take him then, after all this? Is this what he is waiting for? To prolong his suffering to the point that he breaks, and begs for death itself?Is Chucky not aware that he already begs for death, every day?“Yeah,” is what he says, standing on too stiff of knees and too shaky of feet. “I have to go visit my mother.”It is not a lie. But he does not say what he is feeling inside, does not talk about the tumultuous situation rising within him. He doesn’t talk about how it makes him feel ill, or how it makes him wobble towards the door, hands trembling and the world spinning too fast – it’s always been too fast but just now, suddenly, it seems unbearable – for him to keep up.He does need to see his mother. He has not seen her since the day after Kristen’s party, when he’d told her about Brett. He had been meaning to go and see her, but things had been too strange for him to come. He didn’t know how to tell her about his current living situation. In truth, he doesn’t even know how to tell her now.Still, somehow he finds himself clinging to the hope that his mother will make the world pause for him again. He supposes that in the same way all children look to their mother for guidance and protection (or some sense of security), he does so now, as is only natural. He isn’t sure quite what it is he expects from her, but he is sure that he needs to talk to her. She must know that he is back. She must know that she is in possible danger. It is impossible that she does not know by now“It’d be impossible for me to not know, Andy,” is precisely what she says when he sees her, bursting through her room door, not even waiting to feel the burning glances of passing staff. She’s sitting up on her bed and patting the comforter on her right side, smoothing it out. He doesn’t know if she means for him to sit there, or if she’s merely smoothing it to give her hands something to do. He pulls the chair close to her, his heart still racing, but she appears unbothered. As she has appeared every time he has visited her. “It’s been very obvious for quite some time now.”“I’m worried for you, Mom,” he says. He grabs her hand, the one that had been lying on the comforter, smoothing it. She looks up at him, as if she is seeing him for the first time.“Why?” she asks, almost confused. “I’m not. Worried for me, I mean. Now you,” she places her free hand on his cheek, and he wants nothing more than to freeze time, if only for a minute to breathe, “I’m a little worried about.”His arms still itch. He’s aching for a moment. But he has to talk to her. He doesn’t understand why she’s so calm, when his heart is racing like this. He can feel the way it pounds in his ear, the way it makes his blood pulse, rush through him so quickly he wishes he could let it all out, and end it. Make it stop.“I had a wonderful meal today, and I got to speak with my new caretaker- she’s very nice. Even nicer than the first I think. She helped me find the most wonderful mattress, and I can sleep as if I were in heaven, just now,” Karen goes on, and he knows that she was aware that first was not kind at all. But his mother would never say any such thing. She, herself, was a true kindness of her own, with a gentle and determined spirit, and always with the right thing to say. He is searching for the right thing now.“You know that’s not what I mean,” he says, ending her small talk. She appears a little impatient for a moment, as most mothers are when interrupted, but she knows. It is time to discuss other matters besides her sleeping patterns or her diet.“He killed that nurse before- the one that was watching you. You know that means he’s coming for you next.”He waits for her to respond, to give advice. He waits for her to ask if she should move rooms, or ask for more security. At the very least, he expects her to thank him for warning her, or to comfort him and let him know that they will be safe, if only they stay together.“Oh, well, he’s already been by,” is what she says, and he nearly chokes. “I just saw him, a few minutes ago. In fact, he left just before you go here. We had a little chat, we did.”The pulse inside him is only increasing in speed, and he hates it. Oh, how he hates it. He can feel his entire body pulsing now, and the part that pushes him closer over the edge quicker is that his mother mentions this in the same tone that she had mentioned the mattress and the new nurse.She’s clearly not hurt, or frightened, and so now he does not know what other options he has to think through. He does not know why else Chucky would be here. He clearly cannot seem to end him, he hadn’t come after Brett, and now his mother has encountered him and has been left unscathed.“What did he want?” Andy asks. Because he realizes now that he can no longer sit and wonder, when his mother is here, and she had seen him. She would know- he hopes. She knows.His mother looks at him then, and he cannot tell what is in her eyes. There are so many emotions, and he has kept all of his hidden for so long he can no longer recognize them in others very well, and the mere fact that she has so many welling before him now bewilders him. She reaches out for his arm, and despite the fact that she is his mother and he has never flinched from her before, he does so now.He sees hurt pass through her eyes. He takes back the thought that he cannot recognize emotions; he knows and understands hurt very well, whether he would like to or not. “Andy,” she says, softly, and he feels the air thicken. Something is rising within him.“What did he want?” Andy asks again, and this time, he is gripping her arm as she holds him. He holds on as if it’s what steadies him. In a way, it is.His mother smiles at him. Karen Barclay smiles at him, but it is a sad smile. One of pity, one of sorrow. One of a mother whose heart is breaking for their child.“That I can’t say,” she whispers, and touches his cheek, and her hand feels so cool. He doesn’t understand at all; her hand does not tremble, and she shows no sign of danger. He feels her pulse in her palm, a steady, lulling beat. Everything tells him that all is well. But he has never known it to be, and he does not understand why his mother seems to have fallen for whatever trap it is that Chucky has set this time.“You’ll have to ask him yourself,” she finishes, her hand patting his cheek one more time before she lets him go, and he backs away, more perturbed than he had been before.He will not fall for his trap. He will not. More than ever, he wishes he were gone, all the while hoping he does not leave, and he does not know why, and it only leaves him more overwhelmed and confused, lost and at a loss.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
He has never felt so dizzy. Karen Barclay’s words are still ringing in his head, and he is tired. He is tired of walking down the streets, he is tired of hiding from passersby, he is tired of fighting anyone, of fighting everyone. Somewhere inside, he had hoped Tiffany would have stayed for a little while, but after he had emptied himself in front of her, she had left, their children as her excuse. He had wanted to call for her, ask her to stay, but he couldn’t find the voice. He couldn’t find the strength. He couldn’t swallow the pride.He feels so dizzy. Something is wrong, everything is wrong, and he does not know where to start to fix it. He does not know how to end it all. There is only one accursed word, ringing in his head, over and over and over, until he wants to scream it, let it out somehow. One name, and nothing can distract him from it, not the innocent mailman, or the child who shouts too loud, or an unsuspecting mother.Each time he attempts to regain his bloodlust, the remembrance of its metallic smell brings a nausea to him, and he cannot follow through. He cannot do anything. He hasn’t felt this weak since the night that Eddie Caputo left him, alone in the dark to cower and hide. For some unfathomable reason, he cannot bring himself to feel angry this time. There is only an unbearable, ringing pain.Over and over and over, he can only hear one word. He can’t make it leave. He isn’t sure he wants to. He tries to assure himself that he does, but just the thought of it only makes his blood run colder, and everything hurts.He wonders, for a brief moment, if perhaps this is the ultimate result of using this plastic shell as a host for too long. Perhaps, in turning human, he is undergoing all this pain and disequilibrium, and he is only confusing this natural process with something more. He hopes he is making this more than it needs to be; but then it begs the question as to why he would make it so in the first place.“Andy,” he growls, and beats his fist against the brick wall besides him. It hurts more than it used to, and it hurts more than he’d care to admit. “Andy, Andy, Andy- you cock sucking mother fucker …”He keeps hitting the wall besides him, even though he feels the pain, and he knows that he will probably regret it later. He keeps hitting it in hopes that he will make it come out of him, this strange expanding monstrosity inside of him, and that he will be freed at last. He doesn’t know if he has ever felt anything this violently before, and it only leaves him angry – an ugly, pulsating type of anger that rises in his throat in the same way bile would. For a moment, he feels as if he could actually kill Andy this time. He hates the way Andy turns everything out of sorts for him, and if could only end it, everything would be back to as it should be again.He had gotten rid of his knife, and for a moment, he wishes he hadn’t. He thinks to go back and look for it, but even now, he wants nothing more than to find Andy Barclay as quickly as he possibly can. He needs to see Andy just as torn apart as he feels, shredded on the ground and demolished. He wants Andy to burn, even if it means he will burn with him – burn until there is nothing left but ashes and smoke, as bitter and blinding as the well of emotions engulfing him now.He will fight Andy with his bare hands. He will annihilate him.This is what he thinks as he pursues Andy once again, the cycle turning as it always does. He keeps this idea in his mind, and forces himself to pump it into his heart and let it course through his veins. A steady and sizzling anger and determination. He goes first, to Andy’s apartment, but no one is home. He checks the bedroom, and the bathroom, but no one is there, and his eye catches the razor on the corner of the sink again, and the nausea returns. It only makes his anger burn brighter.“Where are you, you little bitch?” he shouts to no one. As if Andy can hear him. He wonders if somewhere inside, Andy can feel how angry he is with him, and if he does, if he would even care. He wonders if Andy feels anything at all anymore.He felt nothing once, and Andy had felt everything. Now he feels as if the positions were switched, with Andy the player and he the pawn. Again, the anger rises.He searches the apartment for any signs, any clues to where Andy could have gone. But there is nothing; no paper trail, no address attached to the refrigerator or phone number taped to a door frame. He had only just seen Karen Barclay, and Andy had not been there, and he knows that he does not have the strength to go back and see her again.You’ve always done that one thing so well, she had told him, and he doesn’t want to think about the thing he’d always done so well, does not want to think about what it means. He wants to marinate in this anger and hatred, let it soak in so that he is ripe with it when he finds Andy and tears him apart.It dawns on him, suddenly, that Andy might have gone to see Brett Shelton. After all, Brett had survived the crash, and Andy seemed to have grown close to him. He does not know why, but it is this thought that makes it easier for the anger to fester and spread inside him. He does not know why, and that only causes the anger to grow more. His hands are shaking, and he curls them into tight fists, demanding a control that does not come.He is out the door, still shaking, and the autumn wind does not cool his anger.He storms silently behind buildings and beneath bushes. He slides by the large glass doors of stores and restaurants, and even feels brazen enough to walk amongst people from one end of the street to the next. It is a busy city, and they are a busy people, and in the same way he does not notice them, they do not notice him. Everyone is preoccupied with their own lives and their own problems, and for once, it works in his favor.Except for in the case of Andy, who is so preoccupied with so many other things that he does not seem to be preoccupied with him.You just wait, Andy Barclay, he thinks, kicking at leaves that have just started to fall. I’ll be a preoccupation of yours soon, whether you like it or not. And then, he will be dead. Because Chucky will end him. He does not know how it will happen, but he knows that he will make it so, and he will make it so quickly and without any sort of stalling. Not this time.He puts his mind to the task of drawing up a variety of scenarios, of different ways that he can accomplish this task. If Shelton is on a higher floor, perhaps he can shove Andy out of the window. But Andy is much bigger, and it will be impossible to do so with brute force. But if Andy should trip near the window, and the window has been previously opened, he could fall out naturally, or so it would appear. But what would he trip on? Rope? Wire? Where would he acquire those things.He goes on like this, his mind reeling and spinning, adding and removing and editing variables, until every possible angle he can conjure has been thought through. Oddly enough, he cannot seem to bring the image of Andy’s actual death, but he assumes that he will see it fine enough when he goes through with this task. His final task. He does not care if he can never kill again, if only he can kill this one last time.However, he comes to the hospital to find that Andy is nowhere to be seen, on any floor, and especially not on Brett Shelton’s floor. His plans are thwarted, once again, and he feels frustration and anxiety building up inside him.It is no matter. He will just wait for Andy to come home then, and let his anger simmer for a little while longer. And that is just what he does, sitting on the back steps of the store just underneath Andy’s apartment. It is evening, and he knows that Andy will not be out for long; Andy is a homebody sort of creature, and he will come home. And when he does, he will be waiting, and he will be ready.He sits on the steps for what feels an eternity, and he feels it for a moment – a cold, lingering heaviness. He doesn’t know what it means, and he doesn’t know if he wants to know. The sun has set, and the steps are cold, and he blames the chill inside on the steps. He feels his joints begin to stiffen, and a rising impatience inside of him. He’s suddenly desperate, and although he knows that he has not been here so long, it feels as if he has, and he feels his resolve weakening.He stands up, his mind wandering and far off, and has just headed for nowhere in particular when he hears shuffling steps behind him, and there Andy is before him, unaware. He turns, and he expects his anger to release, and for his tireless planning to at last come to fruition, but his anger seems to have evaporated with the very sound of Andy’s heels against the pavement, stamped out and quelled.He does not hear it, but he inhales loudly enough that it catches Andy’s attention, and when Andy turns to face him, the evaporation is blown away, and he is only cold and empty, with a tugging inside him that is unfathomable.“You,” Andy says. He steps forward, closer to him. “What are you doing here again?” Chucky wants to hear something in his voice, some sort of emotional quiver, but there is none. Only that same, monotonous and tormenting tone, giving away nothing.“Andy,” he begins, horrified at the way his voice shakes, unlike how Andy seems so numb and far away. There are different ways to say what he wants to say, and he frantically searches for the right words. “I have … a bone to pick with you.”“Save it,” Andy interrupts. He even holds his hand up, as if wanting to push him away, and that is what Chucky should want as well, but he cannot seem to find any joy in it. If anything, it only seems to make the tugging grow, gnawing at him impatiently. “I have a question for you. And you’re going to listen, and you’re going to answer.”Chucky finds himself breathing heavily, and he is still so dizzy. You’ve always done that one thing so well. “What did you talk to my mother about?” Andy asks.
You’ve always done that one thing so well.
He doesn’t want to talk about that. He doesn’t want to think about that. “You won’t get a thing out of me, Andy,” he growls, even though everything inside screams that it’s wrong, this is wrong, and he is making the wrong choice again, as he always seems to do when it comes to Andy Barclay. “Not a fucking thing. I owe you nothing.”He wonders why Karen had not told him. It wasn’t as if he’d asked her not to say anything about the conversation they’d had, with her reclined on her bed, reading a book and tearing him apart at the same time. It was almost impressive, the way she seemed to handle both tasks in such a nonchalant and yet gentle, motherly sort of nature. He can still hear each and every word they shared with each other, can still feel each and every moment that had occurred, up until the point that he had left, cursing bitterly.“Then we’re through here,” Andy replies, and he’s jerked away from the past and into this very present and very painful moment. “Don’t come around here anymore. I don’t care what you do, or where you go. Just leave me.”He might as well have aimed a blow to Chucky’s windpipe, he feels the air stolen from him so suddenly. Chucky cannot seem to find the words to say, nothing to drag Andy back into the cycle, and it is terrifying. He is nothing without this cycle, but it seems that Andy is everything without it. He cannot find his anger that he had been building; all of his hard work and determination obliterated in a matter of seconds. And all Andy had had to do was appear in front of him for it to be take away like this, suddenly, so that he is only left with the one thing he had not wanted to face at all.Andy is spinning on his heel to walk away when he musters the courage to scream at him. But in the end, he says nothing that he had wanted to say. Or perhaps, he quite actually says everything he had always been dying to say, after all this time, and it comes all at once, violently, and suddenly, suddenly.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Andy!”Andy feels his heart fall through his feet. Chucky sounds angry; the power in his voice as he says his name seems to fill the alley. It’s enough to make him stop, and turn, despite every part of him not wanting to at all.“I can’t fucking lie to myself about it anymore, Andy, I…” Chucky pauses for a moment, and then for a moment, it appears as if he will continue – but nothing except a whimper comes out of his mouth instead, and Andy feels sick to his stomach.“In the end, it’s always you,” Chucky finally chokes out, and Andy almost swears he can hear Chucky’s voice shake. He does not know if it is from anger, or something else. He forces himself to assume the former. “It’s always fucking you. I hate it. I keep running, and running, and I always end up right back here, with you, standing right in front of me, and I…I can’t run anymore, Andy. I’m so fucking tired of running!”Andy swallows. Something grows inside of him. He wipes his hands on his jeans. Suddenly, suddenly, his throat hurts, and he’s covering his mouth, and he wants to vomit. But he doesn’t.“You can feel however you want, but I won’t lie about it anymore. I can’t. I fucking can’t…” Chucky is looking wildly everywhere, as if wanting so badly to look anywhere else, but his eyes keep landing on him, in the end. Always back to him. Wide, wild blue eyes against brown, and it’s too intense, it’s much too much. “Don’t you get it by now?”“No, don’t…” Andy tries to stop him, because the moment Chucky starts, he knows everything will come crashing down, and he will not have control anymore.But it’s too late. Much too late.Charles Lee Ray, also known as Chucky, his betrayer, his nightmare, his adversary- has fallen to his knees in front of him. And, as he tries to bury his reactions into a cold and numbing silence, Chucky speaks, his voice so shaken it nearly brings Andy to his own knees, to join him in complete surrender, cold and numbing silence be damned.“We need each other, asshole.”And he says the things Andy has always and never wanted to hear, all at the same time.“I … I need you.”And so Andy does the only thing that he knows to do in a situation such as this.He runs away.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
He runs, and then he runs until he can feel his heart pulsing in his ears, and then he keeps on running.Chucky may have said he was done running, but he is not. He will run, and run until he gives his last breath, and he runs now, in through the back door of his store and up the stairs and through his apartment door. He shuts it and locks it, and unlocks and locks it again, and runs into his bedroom, into his closet, and slams the sliding door behind him, every part of him trembling wildly and uncontrollably.He slides down against it and runs his fingers into his hair, pulling at it. His hands, his body is shaking. Everything cannot seem to stay still, and nothing can seem to fall into the comfortable numbness he has known for years.That’s when he finally allows himself to cry. And cry he does, suddenly and violently, as if a hand had reached in and yanked all of his cries out through his throat, with no warning and without his consent. It does even matter that at any given moment, Chucky could walk in and find him this way. The dam has been broken, and nothing has the force to stop the rushing water now.He can’t remember the last time he’d just torn apart this way. He remembers crying when he was separated from his mother. He remembers being alone in new and dark and frightening foster homes and crying himself to sleep, but those memories are foggy in themselves, and he’s unsure of when the last time was. Years, probably.And it isn’t so much that he had never allowed himself to cry; it simply would never come to pass. He would lie in wait, breathing harshly and on the edge of tears, only to never be relieved of the pressure that lie in the crooks of his throat and just behind the whites of his eyes.But at last, the pressure is relieved. And it is a lot of pressure to let go of.He isn’t ashamed of it; in fact, he is proud of it. It’s therapeutic. He is exhilarated and devastated all at once. To feel such intense pain is a miracle, and even as his heart breaks on the carpeted floor he feels himself truly breathing for the first time in a long time, heavy gasps in between sobs and stuttering cries. He can feel the numbness of his heart thawing out for the first time, and it prickles, and it hurts, but the warmth of feeling returning has never felt so welcoming, and he does not want to let it go, even though the process of it all hurts so much. He’s falling apart and mending simultaneously, and to him, it is beautiful. A silent cry of at last, at last is ringing somewhere inside him.He had not wanted it to happen this way, but he is just glad that it has happened, finally. Now that he is here, truly feeling for what feels like the first time, he does not care that it happened this way. He only cares for the tears that won’t stop streaming down his face. He cares that finally he cares again, and that it feels so good to care.He reaches for his phone, and he calls Kristen.“I’m crying,” he sobs into the phone, with no greeting or explanation, and she is reasonably alarmed. “I’m crying and I can’t stop.”“Andy? Are you alright? Should I come over?” she asks, the panic evident in her voice. “What’s happened?”“I’m wonderful,” he says, and he says everything he wants to say this time, and he holds nothing back. Every moment of his emergence into feeling again is described to her, and she listens, and she does not interrupt.“I’ve never felt better. Please, come see me.” He is surprised that he has the courage to say it, and that the courage remains for him to continue, “I think… I might need company.”It feels good to say it. He needs something. He needs someone. And it is okay to ask for it. Nothing went wrong when he asked for it. The world does not end; he is not gawked at or made a spectacle of. He is not seen as a burden or a nuisance, nor abandoned or told to leave.Instead, he hears Kristen knocking at the door what feels like merely a few minutes later, and he has the company he needs, even if she is a little suffocating when she hugs him too tight. She lets him cry, and she lets him talk, and that is what he needs. That is what he had asked for- and as a result, he gets it. She is a good friend, as she’s always been, but now he seems to see it more clearly than he ever had before. Everything seems such a strange miracle to him.He tells her why he is crying. He tells her everything, every last word, and he does not hold anything back this time. He says everything he has ever wanted to say, and some things he did not know he wanted to say, and even things that he did not initially want to say at all. He says so much that there is nothing left to say when he finally stops. There are no secrets.He waits for her reprimand, for her judgement, but it does not come. She does not reprimand him, or tell him that there is something wrong with him. She does not stare with disbelief, nor does she try to talk him out of anything he has said. Of anything he has admit.“Of course, Andy,” she says, and she holds his hands tightly. He doesn’t even mind that she can see his scars, fresh from recent mistakes. There is no heavily dosed pity in her eyes, only a deep and genuine empathy. “You are allowed to feel it. Feel it.”And he does, on her shoulder, and she does not complain if his head is too heavy or his tears too wet. She is silent, offering small comforts as he slowly tears himself apart and rebuilds himself, on a bathroom floor, for a second time. “What will you do now, then?” Kristen asks, when his sobs have finally subsided. It is the question that he knew she would ask, and it is the question he has been asking for a while. She does not ask with a preconceived idea of how he should answer, but instead watches him with a genuine curiosity, and a genuine faithfulness. It is clear that she will not waver from him regardless of how he chooses.“Well I know what I shouldn’t have done,” he says, quietly, still regaining his breath. A small embarrassment settles in as he takes himself in, sniffling and still trembling slightly. But it doesn’t last, as Kristen is more preoccupied with drawing a resolution, and following through with a plan of action.“You shouldn’t have run,” she says, finishing his thought process, but not as if she was telling him what he should have done. As if she knew. As if she’d known for a long time – and now that Andy is seeing her truly for what feels like the first time, he would not be surprised if she had known for a long time. “You should have stayed, faced him off and come to a conclusion. A compromise of sorts.”“I don’t know what I would have said if I stayed.” He says it to her, but he also says it to himself, now that he is able to think clearly again. “Maybe I would have said something I shouldn’t have.”He feels his heart racing again, and he wonders if feeling was such a good idea. But he can’t go back to how he’d been, comfortable as it had been. Kristen just continues to watch him, waiting. Almost intimidating. But she doesn’t leave his side, as he continues to fear she will. As he continues to fear everyone will.He’s holding her hand without noticing. But she doesn’t mention it, and even when he does notice, he doesn’t pull away, and she still doesn’t say a thing.“Like what?” she asks, and what he wants to say is, “I don’t want to talk about it.”But instead he tells her about the first time he saw Chucky again. He tells her the whole story, from the beginning, and he doesn’t keep anything out. He tells her about the first time he started to feel again, and the way it crept in so slowly he didn’t notice until he was on the back porch with Brett at her party, drunk out of his mind and kissing Brett like he had some kind of courage. He tells her about how everything connects, and how everything goes back to how it started, and then he tells her again about how he’d run, and just why he’d done it, although maybe, just maybe, he shouldn’t have.“After all, he came to me. I didn’t go after him,” he says. “Maybe it would have been okay, to say it, right? It would have been safe, right?”He sounds like a madman. He sounds desperate, and he sounds like he needs a drink.And like an angel of mercy, Kristen hands him one. He thinks she might have had it the whole time. She doesn’t say anything still, only listening and offering approval as he swallows the warming liquid, swallowing much more than he’d planned, and saying much more that he will regret when he is completely sober again. He feels a numbness settling back in, but it is a warm and soothing kind, different from the cold and stale numbness he’d had before. Kristen just pats his arm, and waits until he stops babbling, and she looks at him for a long time, trying to discern the situation. “So, you’re not alright at all, are you?” she asks, after it seems she’d given it some thought, and he shakes his head, and he cries again, and this time, her responsive hug does not feel too suffocating at all, but rather, just the right amount of pressure, and he welcomes the warming numbness that comes with it.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
He has never felt so numb.Anger - it is a constant. Jealousy, red hot hunger, a drive for vengeance, a tense growth of lust - all of these he has felt. Moments of intense joy, of swelling pride, of accomplishment, the adrenaline of the night, meticulous frustration and triumphant victory - these he has felt. Immense power and invincibility at his fingertips, strong and buzzing. The cold heat of a grudge, the itching call to spill blood, the panic of evading guilt and blame. Vivid and sudden feelings. He has felt them. Even fear and hurt - although he would not be quick to confess to it.But he has never felt nothing at all before. Not like this.He wonders, briefly, if this is what it would be like if he were dead. This empty nothingness. There is no cold, nor hot, creeping up his fingers, no shivers or aches. The nausea is gone, the dizziness, the fever. Nothing exists for him. The noise of the streets nearby sound far away, like an echo. Faded. Unfortunately, his heart still beats. It should make him angry, but he cannot muster it up. He cannot give anything at all.He is still standing where Andy had been, merely a few feet away. Only minutes after Andy had run away from him, left him with his heart on the ground. In any other situation, he would have run after him, would have found a way to hold him prisoner, because no one ever leaves him, not without his consent. But the last time he had followed his selfish obscenities, he had lost a wife and two children - and despite his stubborn nature, would like to think that this time, he is learning. It does not change the fact that he is hollow.This had always been a game for him, this cat and mouse tag he played with Andy. But the game has ended now, and he has lost, and now he is in reality, discombobulated. It is something he does not understand, and he would say he is tired of finding things he cannot comprehend, but even that tiredness he cannot feel. There is only one thing he knows, and it is that Andy left him there, and took everything as he did it.It is so hard to move.He has to get everything back. But he has never been more faced with the realization that Andy does not want the game anymore, and he does not care for the reality either. That, or he does not need him the way he needs Andy. Either way, he is left empty handed. And he must retrieve what was taken from him.Still, he does not run after Andy Barclay.Instead, he finds himself curled against the wall, seated. Watching. Waiting, perhaps. He does not know what for, but he sits, and he waits, the cold of the concrete base seeping in. He does not feel it. He does not feel the hours slip by, does not see the setting sun, giving into the night. His mind is wrapped up in one moment, in one plan that did not go as it had been planned. He runs it over and over in his mind, from the moment he screamed Andy’s name, to the moment that Andy runs away, slamming the door behind him.Presently, he hears a sound, stepping shoes. Someone running. He looks up from his shroud, temporarily drawn out of his blank mind-made room to see a woman with a sloppily tied up ponytail opening the door he could not open, entering the building he could not enter. Something about her is slightly familiar, and he cannot place why, but she has caught his interest. The numbness is thawing away, just enough for a small but bright curiosity.He waits now, but with a purpose. He waits, and even though he now feels the bite of cold, he ignores it. He clenches and relaxes his fists, and moves away the numbness in his feet, and he waits. He waits, but she does not reappear, and his eyes are heavy. He rests against the wall again, telling himself that he just needs to settle in comfortable, and lie patiently until she opens the door again. He decides that he will busy himself with creating a plan, and an entirely new one this time. He falls asleep instead.He does not know he is asleep until he awakens to the sound of steps creaking, and he starts suddenly. The woman is rubbing her eyes at the door, stretching as one has when they are still waking up. Her ponytail is not as high, worn down from sleep. Just around the corner, he can see the shine of the rising sun. He has slept through the night, and he has no plan, and the woman is walking away, tapping on her phone. So he does what is only natural, and he follows her.He feels stupid. How had he not have known that Andy had a lover? He had been so careful to watch Andy’s every move, to keep track of his habits and his whereabouts. He had known about Andy’s mother - where she was, her care schedule. He had known about Andy’s work hours, about his frequent customers, where Andy kept inventory. He had known about Brett, and the way Andy seemed to warm up with life again ever since then, and how angry it had made him. But somehow, he had missed this girl.She has a stereotypical small and clean sort of car, a little silver honda civic, parked on the side of the road next to the storefront, where a parking ticket is tucked neatly under a windshield wiper. He hears her groan and rip it out, checking it over before tapping at her phone again and unlocking her car and settling herself inside, starting the engine. He does not know why she has a car when they live in a small city to start with, but now he must find a way to follow, her while on foot.He is still trying to configure the next step when she steps out again, appearing frustrated but amused. Still with the parking ticket in tow, he watches as she runs towards the back again, and he sees a golden opportunity. She has not locked her car.He hastily opens the back door and crawls in. If he sits just right, behind her seat, she will not notice him on the floor. He hopes, at any rate. If the worst comes, and she does see him, he will play inanimate, as he always has, although now his heart beats, and his blood runs, and he is more and more human by the day. He hopes he is not human enough to give himself away.It does not matter, at any rate, as she does not see him, in her rush to get home. Although he does not know why. If she is Andy’s lover of sorts, surely she does not mind seeing him again, or seeing him for longer. But he keeps behind the seat, knees crushed against his chest, and he waits the entire ride, surviving through her playlist of songs he has not heard of by bands he does not recognize. It is hard to hum along to some; they are catchy and repeat words enough that he learns a good portion of them. But he stays silent, not wanting to give himself away, not even tapping his foot on the floor.She arrives at her destination, and he wonders if he is crazy, following her here. What if she opens the door because she needs something? He looks around him, searching. There is a sweater, a bag from a store, a folder - any of these things could make her reach back. Could get him caught. He holds his breath when she opens her door, and the echo of her shoes against concrete lets him know they are in a parking garage.Even if she does not open the back door, he now has a new problem. She lives in an apartment complex; any of the rooms in this building could be hers, and judging from the parking garage, it is a large building. Now he must discover how to find what room is hers.She closes the door, and she is on her phone again, this time calling someone. He hears her voice, talking to someone. There’s a joy in the way she talks to the other person. He assumes it’s Andy. But it is of no matter who she is talking to. What matters is where she goes, and as he finally feels assured enough to glance out the back window, he sees her heading towards the elevator, pushing the third button. She is on the third floor. A deduction.The elevator slides open, and the moment she gets in, he opens the car door on the other side, away from where she can see, and as the elevator slides shut, he shuts it, making way for the stairs. He knows that there is a chance he will get caught, and a larger chance that he will be too late and still have to lie in wait to find which apartment is hers, but it does not stop him from going anyways.He walks quicker than he’d like to admit, climbing the stairs and finding that it expends much more energy than he’d originally intended on spending, and he is bent over by the second flight, holding onto the railing.He hears footsteps echoing above him then, and he thinks to leave, but he is too late, and there is already a young couple, watching him as he makes a spectacle of himself.“What?” he gripes, with no way to turn back. He’s sure he’s a sight, angry stitched scars and tattered clothes, and short stature to boot. “You’ve never seen Little People Big World before?”The man stifles a laugh, and the woman apologizes quickly, hitting his arm and dragging him down the stairs, the man arguing, “I wasn’t laughing at him, I was laughing because he was funny!” while her harsh and embarrassed whispers bounce off the stairwell and they disappear into the parking garage below.He sighs, a temporary relief. But judging from the woman’s more calculative nature, he knows that she will soon suspect and wonder why a dirty person such as himself would be crawling around the stairway, and he knows he does not have much time before she begins asking questions. He has always found it hard to get along with women; they always read between the lines and discover things that men never come close to. And he hides much between his own lines. He can lie to men; but women will find his truth every time. And he hates them for it.But a woman he must face now, if he wants to get any nearer to Andy, or at least find a hope of getting near to him again. And if she decides to read, he will not tear out the pages. Not this time. And he’s sure it is a stupid idea, but he cannot stop himself. He is already on the third floor, and up ahead, he can hear the high pitched singing of the elevator, and he is just in time to follow through with a plan he has not made.He slides behind the wall as he hears her, still on the phone. He leans around just enough to see her unlocking her door, leaning down to pick up a package and smiling into the receiving end of her phone, and disappearing behind her door as it slams shut behind her.The moment is here, and he finds it hard to move. Uncommon for himself, but by now, he is no longer surprised at these sorts of things. He wills himself to just move one foot forward, and then the other steps follow, and they come easier than he expected, although a strange knot is beginning to twist itself inside his throat.And like an imbecile, finds himself standing at the door, and knocks. As if he were a guest, and not someone trying to intrude on yet another part of Andy’s life.There is no answer, and so he inhales, once. Twice. He does not know why he is so nervous. Then he opens the door, on his own, and it does not creak. It is a nice place, he can tell the moment he walks in, just from the island in the kitchen and the wet bar on the counter. It certainly is much cleaner than Andy’s place, with everything in its own place, neatly washed and tucked away.“So you are real, then,” he hears her say, and he whips around from his investigation to see her there in front of him, hair down and makeup washed off. There is the sound of running water in the background.“Oh,” he says, more cotton mouthed than he can ever remember being before. “Am I … interrupting something?”He wants to kick himself from keeping his usual, biting tone, but it is out before he can stop it, and her arms are crossed, and she is angry. He can see it in her eyes, although she does not make any sudden moves. It’s a cold and calculated anger, as if she’s had something against him for a long time. She moves to the counter, starts coffee. But something is off again, the same it had been when he’d first reunited with Andy in his apartment.“So … you’re what, now? His girlfriend? His fucking fiancee?” he asks, the questions all wanting to come at once. He hates how irrational he suddenly feels, and he tries to focus on her coffeemaker instead.“His what? Wh-” she starts, but then she smirks, and a small laugh erupts from her. She leans on the counter, her hand reaching for a pen. She starts clicking it. Quickly, he notices, a calming mechanism of her own. It frightens him, the way something is crawling just underneath her skin.“Of course,” she continues. “I forgot.” She sits at the counter now, crossing her legs, the pen still clicking. “The last time you saw me, Andy and I still had a lot of waking up to do.”She flips a framed album around, and he sees a photo inside of her passionately embracing and kissing another woman with short and fiery red hair. Things click in place for him, but there are still holes left, things he cannot find their place for.“How do I know you?” he asks, bewildered. The pen clicks slower for a moment, and then the speed resumes, as she stares at him, contemplative, a wildcat preparing to pounce. He can feel her already starting in on the reading."Kristen, remember? I was Andy’s friend - or at the time, somewhat of a girlfriend, so I get your confusion,” she responds. The coffee is almost done; he can hear the last stages of percolation. “You know, I wanted to believe him this whole time. About you. But there was a small, ugly part of me that doubted. Just like everyone else.”She points at him then. “But here you are, live in living color.” She squints her eyes at him, scrutinizing. Calculative. “What I can’t figure out is why. Why here? Why me?”He swallows. The numbness has thickened in his throat, and all the fear and anxiety he’d temporarily felt is gone. There is only a dull thudding at the back of his skull, steady and faded. There is only one thing that he wants, and even as it is more and more out of his reach, he still makes a grasp for it.“Listen, lady, I don’t have time for all this small talk. I’m gonna cut straight to the chase here,” he says, and he wants to think he sounds blase about the entire situation, but in truth, his voice sounds smaller. Weaker. Everything he never wanted to be - everything he refused to be. But he cannot bring himself to any state of discomfiture. It is what it is, and he wants what he wants, and has he not always gone for what he wants before?“You’re my ticket to Andy.”She laughs. “Of course. What it has always been, huh.” She says it as a statement. The clicking of the pen is so violent. “And why should I help you with that?” she asks, and in truth, he does not know. Cannot begin to know.There’s a light ringing in his ears, and when he opens his mouth, it feels dry, tight. Constricting him, and keeping the words from coming, as if subconsciously, he still fights to admit it. He does fight it still. And he almost fights her in his response, almost challenges her. He doesn’t know why he wants to so badly; perhaps it is the way she is perched up on the countertop like a queen, legs crossed in a regal disparagement. The pen still clicks in her hand, waiting on his response. Taunting him to make the next move.He wants to tell her not to ask. That it’s none of her business. He wants to threaten her, back her into a corner, but he feels so small.“I…” is what comes out instead. He cannot make the other words come behind it.It turns out that he has no need to say anything at all, as the woman Kristen deems it upon herself to answer.“Oh, I already know,” she says, and the pen clicks are slower, but they are there, just below her voice. She sounds resigned.“There’s a little something that isn’t right when he’s not around, and a little something wrong when he is, and you can’t decide which is worse, the not right when he’s gone, or the wrong when he’s here, but you keep coming back. In the same way the sun can’t help pulling the earth, or the earth can’t help revolving around the sun, there is an inescapable gravity.”He did not realize he had been standing there, so focused on what she had been saying until she stops and sighs, and puts her pen down. He swallows, but the cotton remains in his throat, almost suffocating. A part of him hopes he does. She waves her hand.“Or something like that,” she finishes, and he’s staring at her again, and really seeing her. She’s grabbed a coffee mug at some point and is stirring it now, and she is not looking at him. She stares at a half drunk bottle on her counter instead, he can see Blue Label written across it. “I’ve heard it all before.”He still doesn’t say a word. Nothing will come. Instead he waits, still hanging on her every word, waiting on an ultimatum, perhaps. His comeuppance. He knows he is far beyond the point of deserving it now.But instead, she sips her coffee, and points at the bottle, pen in her hand again. “That’s his favorite brand, you know. I get it only on special occasions, because it’s expensive.” The clicking starts up again, and he sees the twitch in her jaw, and it’s rising again, the anger inside of her. He does not know what causes her to keep it at bay.He keeps watching the pen in her hand, and he imagines that the way she presses on it reflects just how harshly she fancies bashing his head in. He flinches when the clicking is more violent, but other than this, he does not move. He cannot. Somewhere inside, for some unfathomable reason, he feels safest this way, watching. Waiting. Frozen and numb. He wonders if this is how Andy feels, always.“I would get rid of you, if he’d only let me,” she says, and he shaken from his trance at her words. She is staring at him again, her eyes finally torn away from the bottle, and her coffee, and her pen. All of her energy is concentrated in his direction, and it is intense, almost more than he can handle. And he finally seems to break away, even if only in cowardice at how much she looms over him, reminding him of every ugly part of himself.“But you can bet,” she continues, and he stops in place, and turns back to her. He can feel his heart somewhere, loose inside his body. The pounding is everywhere, almost in time to her pen. “That if you hurt him again, I will not hesitate to hunt you down and destroy you, and damn the consequences.”The clicking stops, and for a moment, he thinks his heart does as well. He only nods at her, his breathing a little heavy, and he has not moved enough to have an excuse for it.“Right,” he says, the word barely scraping out of his throat. His hands fidget at his sides, and he wonders if he should have even come. He can’t think of what possessed him to come, only that Andy did not want him, and for some reason, he thought she could change his mind. That she would change his mind. A stupid sort of thought.He heads to the door again, and she speaks again, and stops him once more. But it’s the tone of her voice that stops him, and then it is what she says that catches him off guard. “Here,” is what she says, and her anger seems to have cooled, now that she has spoken her piece. She is holding the bottle out in front of her, just low enough for him to reach. He reaches for it, slowly, and when she does not move, he takes it, holding it in both hands like a newborn. She is not looking at him again, but he can sense the change around her. Something inside him lurches, and he bites his tongue, willing himself to not ruin anything with his usual churlishness.He steps towards the door once again, and he waits for her to interrupt, to call him back. Even in the silence, outside of her twirling the spoon in her mug mindlessly, he waits for the cock of a gun, the slamming of a drawer. Any sign that she is making her move to pounce, to attack. But none comes, and when he gives her a last glance before closing the door behind him, she is staring at her coffee again, drawn into it in a deep thought of her own. Numb.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Three days later, Brett Shelton is released from the hospital. Just as he had said, he was released earlier than the doctors had anticipated, and was back on his feet, out collecting more clients to grow his small clinic for physical therapy. Every once in a while, he’d stop by Andy’s store, just to say hello, and Andy found those moments to go by the quickest.Six days later, Brett has a promising business beginning, and he and Andy meet up with Kristen and J. Ivers quite often. Andy finally learns to call her Jeeves instead of Jess or Jessie, and they swap ideas for lyrics in her band’s new songs. They seem to have similar tastes in music, and it brings them closer. Jeeves also has scars of her own, and although she has moved on and Andy is still drawing - she understands, and he feels safe showing them to her.Kristen invites Andy and Brett over to the cafe she works in, and even though it’s not alcoholic, Andy finds himself enjoying coffee. Or perhaps it’s just the company that comes with it. Either way, when he has the time, he is often there, sometimes with Brett or sometimes on his own.“You know, this is how Jeeves and I first reunited,” Kristen tells him one day. Andy has just discovered that he likes a lot more sugar in his coffee than he’d thought he would. The subject of conversation, Jeeves, is on the small stage on their right, crooning into the microphone and strumming her guitar to a rock ballad, her drummer and pianist behind her.“I’d only been working here for a couple of months when her band asked to book us for one night. We weren’t a popular cafe then, so it was a simple yes.”She’s topping off someone’s drink with whipped cream, and her eyes have that same, foamy dreamlike look.“I was just a part timer then, but I happened to be working that night, and the moment she walked in, I knew I had to get to know her. I hadn’t recognized her at first- she’d cut her hair, she wasn’t as skinny, she had all the piercings she has now - but I was star struck. And then she’d sang, and I was weak.”Andy laughs into his mug, but he listens. He wonders what it would be like, to feel that way. He never has quite felt the things that Kristen is describing, as she goes into detail about the way Jeeves moved off stage, and how her palms sweat when she introduced herself. The closest he’d ever felt to it was after he’d kissed Brett, but it wasn’t the same. It didn’t stay, the way Kristen and Jeeves stayed together, enjoying the other’s company in their apartment. Kristen hadn’t drunkenly kissed someone and then moved on, she’d fallen head over heels and kept tumbling. And from the way she is speaking now, it seems she hadn’t stopped tumbling yet.“But once I recognized her, the nerves kind of just, went away. We talked for a long time and I felt like I was coming home for the first time. I fell into that weird familiarity and I didn’t want to let it go.” Kristen is gazing over where Jeeves is at the moment, and Andy watches their eyes meet. Jeeves grins slowly and winks, and Kristen smiles back for one quick second before turning back to her job, handing off another drink to a young girl sitting next to Andy.He thinks about how, normally, this would have been overwhelming, being out in public among so many strange faces, in a strange place he does not normally go. But the lights are dim, and the music is not overwhelming, and he’s decided that coffee shops might be the one exception. Even Kristen seems to move at a more tranquil sort of pace, although that may be her quiet and steady love for her girlfriend talking. Whatever the case, he is almost more at peace here than even in the comforting solitude of his apartment.His apartment has been empty for all six of the days that have passed.He wishes that he felt immediate relief when he did not see Chucky return after the first day, or the second, or the third, but instead it left him more on edge than before. He has found himself expecting Chucky to round a corner, or open his door when he hears a creak at night. The worst of it all is, he feels no fear, just a simple expectance, and then a simple disappointment when there is nothing.There was no closure. That is why he is unsatisfied. There was only a strange and terrible confrontation – and it seemed to explode, and there was no damage control, no cleanup crew to come behind and deal with the aftermath of it all. Everything fell apart and it remains unfinished.He doesn’t tell Kristen this. He broods silently over his coffee instead, and curses himself for letting Chucky continuously ruin moment of his life, and feels the numbness begin to creep in again, slowly thickening in his veins.Two weeks later, Brett has a new client. She’s a paraplegic woman, with a fighting spirit and a similar burning energy to Kristen, but it is still uniquely her own. While she has no control over her lower body, she continues to keep her upper half healthy, and doesn’t seem to let much inconvenience her. Brett speaks well of her often, and when Andy meets her, he immediately understands why.“She came to me and said, ‘if anyone knows how to keep me moving, I think it’ll be you’,” Brett tells him, and Andy laughs. The woman just grins and holds out her hand to introduce herself, as a Nica Pierce, and then continues to her routine. There’s something familiar about her, and he feels as if he is closer to her than anyone he’s ever been with, and he decides that he likes her as she rolls away.He continues to run his shop, and business keeps on, steadily, but he feels himself drawing inwards again, and he is unsure how to stop it. He blames it on one particular customer who always complains about the price, or the items, or his service. He feels himself physically shrink any time the man comes in, loud and shouting everything, as if he is entitled to every space he comes across.Sometimes he invites Kristen over to his apartment, when he is overwhelmed and unsure of what to do with himself, and he is learning to ask for help, but it is still hard. There are still days when cannot reach for the phone – the itch too great and the need too deep – and he is curled on the edge of his bed, or on the floor of his bathroom, releasing the pressure inside himself in thick, red streams.He is not as alone anymore; Jeeves and Kristen come over often, and sometimes they spend the night, drunk and laughing at late night shows, all waking up hung over on the floor of his living room on a Saturday morning, Jeeves walking down the road to grab pancakes or eggs. He stays over at Brett’s place late while they play video games or smoke out on the deck, pulling all-nighters so they can watch the sun rise just over the ashtray. Sometimes the four of them spend time all together; the places they meet always change, but he enjoys it all the same.He is not as alone anymore, but sometimes, he is still lonely.He visits his mother more often, now that he is used to leaving the apartment. Sometimes being alone in the apartment actually bothers him, which is unusual. So he visits her, and she is visibly happier. She tells him that Michael Norris visits her as well, which she clearly enjoys, and he catches the way she’ll brush her hair behind her ear and look away whenever she mentions him – which she does often. He’d never really had a father figure in his life, outside of the ones in his various foster homes, or Cochran, but he’d never really liked any of those. He thinks that Norris is one that he will like, from the way Norris seems to make his mother feel. He just wants her happy.None of his changes, however, means that everything has changed. He still finds himself unable to sleep some nights. He still struggles to shower every day, or always keep his apartment clean – which, now that a certain someone isn’t around, is now growing dirtier much faster – or eat as often as he should. There are days he doesn’t answer the phone, or invite anyone, or go anywhere at all, save for work. There are days he stays in all day, and doesn’t leave his bed, except to use the bathroom. Days that he’ll lie there, alone, and feel as if he’s wasting his time but cannot find the energy to get up and do something, and so instead, continues to lie there and feel as if he’s wasting everything.He still bleeds, and bleeds, and bleeds. Sometimes he tells Jeeves, but sometimes, he tells no one at all. There are days he feels as if no one wants to hear about it anymore, that they care but that they are tired. He knows what it feels like to be tired. He doesn’t want to be the reason anyone else feels that way.A month later, he finds himself standing on his apartment deck, and watches the city below, and he wonders what all would happen, if things ended here. He is done waiting for someone to do it for him, and he is done waiting for himself to feel a sudden urge to live. He looks at the bottle in his hand for a long time, and then again to the city. Then he calls Kristen. He talks to her a long time, and even though he doesn’t tell her how his hands shake, or how his sleeves are stained because he bandaged himself too late, he finds himself in bed instead of somewhere else, and he wakes in the morning, still existing.“I’d wanted to be a psychiatrist,” Nica tells him. He’d come to see Brett so they could go out for lunch, and she happened to be there, finishing her routine while Brett wrapped some things up in his office. Andy can hear him through the door, on the phone with what seemed like a potential future client. He can tell the client already likes Brett, from the way Brett laughs and carries the conversation as if it were with an old friend.“What happened?” he asks, instantly regretting it. He holds out his hands before she can answer. “No, wait, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to talk about it. I’m sorry – I shouldn’t have pried …”“Wow, Andy, no. You’re completely fine,” Nica tells him, concern rising in her eyes. She places a hand on his shoulder. “The space you take is valuable, you know. There’s nothing sadder than an empty corner.”“What?” he asks.Nica sighs. She stretches her arms up and lays her water bottle down on the bench where he is sitting and fiddles with her chair wheels. “I couldn’t complete my thesis,” she says, the shame evident. “I had an idea, and I knew with everything inside me that it was what I wanted to bring to the world, but – I couldn’t bring it to the paper. Everything I wrote wasn’t good enough for me, and the more I fought with it, the further I fell behind my peers. Eventually the stress to keep up just discouraged me completely, and I dropped out.” She has not answered his question.Now it is Andy who sighs, because he does not know what to say. What he does say, finally, is, “I’m sorry.”“Don’t be,” Nica replies, grinning. The dark cloud in her eyes is gone, almost as quickly as it had come over them. “I was in a different place then. A darker place. Where I am now is completely different, and brighter.” She punches him in the arm, dragging him out of his thoughts. “We all have those deep tunnels we have to crawl through before we reach that sunlight, right?”Andy thinks to himself that he has more tunnels than sunlight, but he just nods.Two months go by, and he wishes that he has stopped thinking about Chucky by now, but he hasn’t. If he’s honest with himself, there has never been a moment since he’d met Chucky that he hasn’t thought about him. He still feels as if he’s there sometimes, in his apartment or in his store. But nothing ever comes to fruition, and he knows that his mind is wandering again, and that he is alone, save for when there are customers in the store.He hates it, but he cannot ignore it, and he talks about it with Kristen, sometimes with Jeeves, if they are together. He tries not to bring it up to often; he can see the way Kristen bristles with a low, simmering anger whenever he mentions his name. But he cannot stop from talking about it sometimes. “So, you haven’t seen him since that day I came to see you?” Kristen asks. Andy can hear something growling at the bottom of her throat, but he doesn’t quite know what it is, and he doesn’t quite know how to ask her. He’s afraid of opening something he cannot close again, and what will come out once it is open. He sees the way Jeeves holds her hand, like a sort of emotional anchor.“No, he hasn’t,” he grits out, and he wishes his voice doesn’t shake, and he wishes that he had an emotional anchor of his own. But it is him, and him alone, who must anchor himself down, and so he does, swallowing hard until every last emotion is forced down his throat. A case of indigestion for later.“That’s …” Jeeves starts, but she stops herself. The air is thick. Kristen seems to have a hold on herself again. “How do you feel about that?” is what she asks, and she reaches her hand across the table where they are sitting, but she doesn’t grab his hand, because she knows how he feels about sudden physicalities, and he is grateful that she is aware. As he always is with her.“That’s what’s important,” she says, and he swallows again, because he way she cares about him means so much, and yet it suffocates him, and he wishes it didn’t. But it does.“I don’t know how I feel,” he tells her, and it is partially true. He may have an idea how he feels, but he doesn’t quite believe it yet, or he does want to accept it, he’s not particularly sure which. “I just know that I think about it more often than I’d like to.”Neither Kristen nor Jeeves say anything, and the conversation switches after a time. They drink, and they laugh, and for a while, Andy forgets. But when the alcohol wears off, as it unfortunately does, he remembers again, and he is silent, almost brooding, and a little bit lost.His business stays steady, and he tries to focus in on it. He hasn’t seen the customer he fears in a couple of days, and he cannot help but feel a little bit more relieved every time the door opens and the bell rings, only to reveal someone else. Anyone else. He never learned the man’s name, although he knows most regulars by heart. He tries so hard to focus on pleasing them, and he must do alright, because his business stays steady, and the regulars come back, but he always feels so far away. Almost as if he’s only watching himself go through the motions, but he is not really there, going through them. His voice sounds like an echo, far away from where his mouth is. He is a puppet, and the ventriloquist is unknown. He wishes he held the strings.A week later, he almost calls a psychiatrist. But as soon as he hears the dial tone, he hangs up. He and Brett have plans, and he feels okay, and it seems as if all the problems he’d ever had never really existed. He leaves the phone on the counter, and he doesn’t call again.He still goes to the café to see Kristen, and to watch Jeeves and her band play, and he still brings Brett along, but sometimes, Nica comes now too. She doesn’t whoop and holler for Jeeves, the way Brett and Kristen do, but he can see how she appreciates the music in the way her lips twitch and her hands clasp against her chest. Her silent wonderment is endearing and dangerously attractive, and he wishes he saw life the way she did. Her energy is not overwhelming, but he can feel it. It’s warm in the way a small fireplace or a room heater is warm. The kind of way that makes you want to reach your hands towards it, and thaw out after being cold for so long. Too long.He visits his mother one day during the same time that Michael Norris does, and he sees the man for the first time since years ago. Norris is much older now, with graying hair on the sides of his head. It shows just how much time has passed, and how much time he has been wasting away, doing little to nothing with his life. He wishes he had some sort of passion, the way Norris is passionate about detective work, or about his mother.At one point in his life, he’d wanted to be a writer. But all his writings are unfinished and in a box under his bed, collecting dust. He sells guns instead.It doesn’t mean he stops writing. Contrarily, he writes more now than he ever has, full of strings of words and phrases. Things that keep him up until late nights and early mornings, and leave him wishing he could stay there, scribbling away, rather than rushing down the stairs to work. With people, he lies as he must, but with his writing, he is truly himself. There is nothing held back – no white lies or pretty ways to avoid the ugly truth. But he never shows it to anyone, and he does not try to get it published.Sometimes, he drinks to be inspired. Something about his mind having no inhibitions helps him to let everything flow out. In the morning, he can edit and revise as he pleases or needs, but for the raw emotion, inebriation allows for its full passage.Two weeks after he did not call a psychiatrist, he’s up again, scratching away in his notebook. It’s crumpled, as if it’s been messed with too much, but he’s always erasing or flipping through the pages to recollect all of his thoughts. He thinks to himself he should be more careful, to be gentle with the paper. He can’t have it ripping. These are the only ticket to his sanity some days. He doesn’t want to lose a single page.It’s a quarter past two in the morning when he feels the urge to drink, to keep himself awake. He makes his way into the kitchen, searching through the cabinets for a glass. He’s committed himself to adjusting his alcohol intake, per Kristen’s request, and he finds that pouring it first into a glass helps him to keep tabs on himself. Clinking one against the counter, he turns to grab one of the bottles when his eye catches one in particular.Blue Label. A bit pricier and favorite of his. He never buys it, but Kristen had gotten one a while back, and he’d drank some when he was at her place. She must have brought it here for him, at some point, and he’d never noticed. Guilt settles in for a moment, and then he reminds himself that there is tomorrow. Tomorrow he will tell her. Or at least, in a couple of hours, when she wakes to open her café. Tomorrow he will tell her, and she will laugh that it took him so long to notice, but it will be alright.He pours some of it into a glass, and forces himself to only drink from it twice. Kristen will be proud of him for working on at least one bad habit. Then he returns to his writing.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Karen does not like the hospital all that much. The walls are all the same color, which are the same color as the bedsheets and curtains, which are the same color as the blinds and her furniture, which at this point, she feels is the same color as her life.She sighs and swallows down her medication.It’s a dull off-white, as most psychiatric hospitals are. She wonders, briefly why they never bother to put up posters or framed pictures in her room, or anywhere else much for that matter. Schools had them all the time- motivational quotes, sweet and loving photos of children and families- but she supposed that it wasn’t the same for adults. They were the kids that should have grown up by now. They should have had all their problems solved already. There are no stickers or encouragements for those who lag behind.She hasn’t told Andy yet. She doesn’t know if he’ll have the strength to hear, or if she’ll even have the strength to tell him.“Good morning, Mrs. Barclay,” her nurse calls from the door. A sign to another start of her day. Her new personal assistant was sweet and attentive, but it was strange, having someone to have to look after her. As if she were a child. Mothering her as she should have mothered Andy.“Good morning,” she says instead, and swallows the guilt and the shame.She lets the nurse busy herself while she stays deep in her thoughts, only responding when required. She’d like to think that it’s not her fault – and truly, it is not her fault at all – but there were things hidden away inside of her that even she did not know until the first day she’d been taken, Andy ripped away from her as if she was a danger. As if she had been the one harming him.Looking back, she realizes that even he had never hurt Andy. Not in the way some had. Not in the way they continued to, although he’ll never admit it to her. She can see the hurt in his eyes, the scars that still affect everything he does.After several weeks of heavy therapy, she held on to her story. The truth that she, Andy, and Mike Norris knew. No matter the medication dosage, the exercises and the charts she was given to complete, she did not change her story. She would not deny her son, ever. But after several weeks of therapy, they did find something. They caught it, but there was no guarantee they could completely cure it. The beginnings of dementia.They would not have caught it so early on, had she not been admitted when she did. She spent the first week after the realization bitter, and angered. It wasn’t fair that a wrongdoing against her had actually turned out for good. She did not want to find herself grateful that any of this had happened. She had violent fits and bursts of outrage, lashing verbally – and sometimes physically – at the attendees, the other patients, and once even at Mr. Norris. For some reason, she’d been particularly angry at him too, as if it were his fault that things had happened the way they did. She’d slapped his hands away as he’d tried to calm her, seeing him as patronizing and unsympathetic.She remembers, with another flitting pass of guilt and admonishment, the way the hurt had sparked across his eyes. He hadn’t reached for her again.“Did you sleep well?” the nurse – Stacia, her name was Stacia – opens her curtains and blinds. As if she wanted to see the outdoors, gray and dreary as the inside. But she doesn’t say this. She smiles and thanks her, and is genuinely grateful for her care, at least. She could be worse. She’s heard plenty of frightening stories from some of the other patients who had been transferred to this hospital. Stories of ill treatment and neglect and abuse.“I did, thank you,” she replies, and she doesn’t talk about her nightmares. The ones where Andy dies in varying and brutal ways, and she stands, frozen. Watching. Allowing it to pass. She always wakes in a cold sweat. It should bother her more, but she knows she won’t remember them soon. She forgets more and more as the days pass.Stacia sets out a cup of tea on her bedside table. She can already tell by the its soothing scent that it is her favorite. She remembers because she had written that down as well.She cannot remember their apartment address anymore. She’s begun to start writing information in a small notebook that she keeps under her pillow, just to memorize every night. Her maiden name, her late husband’s name, the nurse Stacia. Her birthday, her favorite food. The list grew so quickly. She wanted to cry about it, but she couldn’t remember these things with an emotion. They were just things she needed to know now, things that she memorized like a school girl and her vocabulary.She almost cried when she had to write Andy’s birthday down. How much longer until she does not remember him, either?She has not told him yet. She does not know how to tell him, but rather reviews all the information she needs before he comes to see her, so that he does not suspect. Every time he calls or tells her anything, she writes it down when he’s gone, so she will remember. She reads his pages the most, even on nights she cannot remember at first why they are important to read.Stacia tells her that breakfast will be ready soon, and she can make her way to the dining hall whenever she feels up for it. She doesn’t know if she will at all. Her appetite is smaller today.Her anger and resentment at her misfortune only worsened when Andy began to write her letters.Stacia leaves, and that is when Karen opens her drawer, just to read them again. She tries to feel some spark or surge again, but the anger is gone. It’s as if she’s forgotten anger itself, making it no longer an emotion, but just another word to write in her notebook.Andy was a writer. She saw it from even his young age. He articulated everything better on paper than he did on tongue, and she sees it again now, watching his penmanship improve from letter to letter, his vocabulary advance, and his sentences grow longer and more complex. His standard English morphed into an almost poetic style of his own, and she wonders if he’d ever considered it. Writing. But he’s never mentioned it, and she’s never asked. Andy does not like to be questioned too much, she sees the way he starts to squirm in his chair and change the subject if he feels she’s prying too much.She’d fight for more information, as a mother, if she did not know so much how it felt, as a patient in a psychiatric ward. It feels as if someone is splitting you apart, stitch by stitch, until everything sacred has been exposed under a harsh, white light, useful only for study, when to you, it was so much more. It’s a harrowing and undignified feeling, especially if the information is ripped away without consent. She will not be to Andy what the doctors were to her. She cannot do that – she refuses to do that – as a patient, and a mother. Especially as a mother.But the letters were a small piece each, and piece by piece, she learned enough. And she hated every bit of it. And then she felt guilt over it. And then she was disgusted, and she hated it, and she hated herself most of all, because she believed she’d allowed it to happen.And then one day, she’d read them again and, crying, accepted it.She doesn’t leave to eat. She sits instead, and writes in her notebook of things to remember. Today she adds that sometimes she is not hungry in the mornings, and that is okay. She also adds that she needs to call Andy today. She hasn’t seen him in quite a while, and it’s worrying. She has not seen him since they had last talked about her unexpected visitor.She hadn’t thought of him much, the doll, before he’d shown up in her room, snarling and angry and full of intent, and empty of action. As soon as she’d seen him she’d known at once that he was the reason her previous nurse had died, and believed for a moment he’d come for her, too.Instead, he’d asked for Andy’s whereabouts, but that was not all so surprising either. She was more surprised that he’d taken so long to come ask, if he’d been searching and waiting with no results for so long. But even if he’d threatened her – which he hadn’t, and she found that stranger still – she did not have the information she needed, as Andy never told her much anymore. Her insight to her son had stopped with his last letter.
I feel like I’m drowning, and I have to learn all over again how to swim. I’ll breathe again soon, I think. You just keep pushing up until you hit the surface.
That was after Kent. She hasn’t asked if he’s hit the surface yet. “He’s your son,” Chucky had snapped, bitingly, and she knew he was frustrated and not necessarily trying to weigh her down with her already existing guilt, but she felt it all the same. She’d held her tongue and watched him pace, anxious. Unprepared. Desperate, even, although she could not really understand the reason for it. “How do you not know where your own son is?”“I suppose I could find out if you could get me out of here, since you put me here to begin with,” she’d finally said, reaching for her tea on the side table. Stacia had brought the tea then too, because she knew it was her favorite. She’d hoped he did not notice the way her hands shook. In favor of Lady Prosperity, he did not, as he was too vexed with his own problems. His hands were shaking as well, she noticed, and it comforted her. It eased away the threat of his presence.“Why do you still want to find him, anyways?” she’d asked. She couldn’t help herself. If there was any way to end this torment, she supposed that discovering the source of it could be a start. He did not look at her, and there was a heavy tension settling over her. It was as if he could not look at her. As if he was afraid to.He didn’t answer that.“Why did you kill my nurse?”He didn’t answer that either.In fact, it seemed she’d only caused his brow to furrow more, his hands to tremble more, and his general behavior worsen. She’d kept sipping at her tea – partly because it was a little too hot to swallow all at once, and partly because she’d needed to prolong the small distraction as much as she could.She has tea now, right next to her, in the very same mug. The very same flavor of tea, a nice honeyed chamomile. She’d almost asked Chucky if he’d wanted a cup, and she laughs thinking about it. She blames it on the fact she is forgetting everything these days. Perhaps she’d had a momentary lapse then, and confused him for a regular visitor passing by. He certainly no longer had that look of a toy by the time he’d come to see her; she could see the sweat on his brow and the way his pupils had dilated when he’d asked her where Andy was. But she’d remembered, and she felt the anger all over again, and she’d held her hand over the desk drawer where she’d kept all of Andy’s letters. But she’d kept her cool, and as a result, she’d still held the upper hand, and Chucky had left, seemingly chagrined and penitent.Andy had wanted to know what they’d talked about. She couldn’t tell him. She still cannot, or at least, she thinks she cannot. Andy cannot hear those words from her mouth. She is sure he would find it utter betrayal, even though she would only be relaying the messages.“Andy had written me about you, when he was growing up,” she’d told Chucky, while he was there, pacing, possibly trying his hardest to deduce where it was Andy had gone, and where he could be going next. “He mentioned everyone who had died because of you.”“So you learned that I have blood on my hands – a startling fucking revelation, was it?” he’d snapped, in the midst of his thoughts. His steps seemed so heavy in the room for someone so small. She wondered at the source of the weight.“You listen to me at once,” she’d snapped back, with equal hostility, ever so tired of his rudeness. His audacity. She’d even physically snapped her fingers in his direction, and she’d remembered the time she’d held his once doll-like shell over their fireplace, the same threat and motherly protection pumping her adrenaline. “It took me some time, but I’ve pieced it together enough to begin to piece you together as well. They all had one thing in common, these people you did away with.”He’d pretended not to care, but she saw it in his step. They’d slowed, just a fraction, but they’d slowed nonetheless. She had his attention the moment she’d claimed she could expose him. It only strengthened her resolve.“Every one of these people – Andy had mentioned them before. Foster family members, teachers, neighbors, therapists – even a colonel. I didn’t think there was a pattern about it until my nurse.”His step had come to a complete halt then, and she’d watched as his fists curled and uncurled, and she’d felt it. An epiphany, a eureka. She’d set the tea cup down, folded her hands over her lap, and leaned forward, even as he’d backed away, as if distance could protect him from words.“You’ve always done that one thing so well, haven’t you?” she’d said, and then he’d looked at her. She couldn’t tell if he was waiting for her to say it, or if he was silently begging her not too. Not that it’d mattered. She’d said it anyways.“What a contrary little thing you are,” she’d told him, and even as he bristled, she’d continued. “To so violently torment my child and protect him, all at the same time.”“That is not …” he’d started, but she’d pushed forward, surer than she’d ever been.“You didn’t like the way my friend Maggie spoke to him,” she began to list off. “The owner of the company that made your shell and dismissed my son’s claims so that he could gain more revenue. Andy’s foster parents were dismissive and impatient with his trauma. The teacher who put him in detention for something that was not his fault. The colonel who’d mistreated him. Brett Shelton – although it seems you’ve failed in that department, and it turns out it was a good thing.”Chucky’s eyes had brightened with anger, and with something else she could not describe. She didn’t care to stop and try.“The man who wanted to put Andy through electroshock therapy. The nurse who did not treat me quite the same and Andy as if he were human refuse. Even the Tommy doll which Andy hated that his foster parents had gotten for him. Do you need me to go on?” she’d stopped for a breath, but the list was long. There were many letters in her drawer.“It’s not…” he’d tried again, and again, she’d cut him off. There was such an intensity about him as she stopped his defenses once more, but still, he did not make a move towards her. By then, she’d known he would not.“It’s not what, Chucky?” she’d asked. “Go on. Try to tell me that I’m wrong. In fact, prove it.”She’d held out her hands in front of him, and looked at him straight into his eyes, and watched as he’d – although ever so slightly, almost overlooked – flinched. “Do it now. Kill me.”“I …” And for a moment, she’d thought that perhaps she’d calculated wrong, and that this was to be her end. He’d moved a step forward, and she’d prepared to defend herself, feeling foolish for even challenging him.But one step was all he’d taken. “I can’t.”And before she could gloat – not that she’d wanted to – he’d run out of her sight, leaving her alone.She takes one more look at her cup again before picking it up and sipping the tea, now cooled. She cannot remember what flavor it is, and she forgets to call Andy.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Okay, Michelle, you’re about done,” Tiffany says, wiping off the remains of dye on her hands before rinsing the woman’s hair one more time. “I’ll dry you off.”The woman stands with the towel wrapped around her head and follows Tiffany to the styling chair. Her phone rings in her pocket, but she ignores it, mostly because she is on shift and does not answer for anyone except her children – and for that, she has a separate ringtone – and she also knows that most likely, it is Chucky who is calling her.It had probably been a mistake to leave her new number with him. She knows it is a mistake. But she could not help it. At the end of the day, despite every flaw and ugly angle of him, she still loved him. She still loves him. She still wants to help him, and even if it is better for the both of them that they forgo their once Bonnie and Clyde romance, she wants him happy.But unfortunately, this means that now her phone will go off almost hourly. Apparently, Chucky is much worse at amending his mistakes then she’d anticipated. Not that she wasn’t aware that he was a general nuisance when it came to any emotional framework, but she was surprised that he had seemed to even lose his pride. He was not the type to come crawling for help, even from her. Especially from her, considering their last conversation.“Thank you so much for this,” Michelle says, eyes closed as Tiffany dries and curls her hair to perfection. “I really needed a new look.”“Bad breakup?” Tiffany asks, and it’s probably because she is still going through a bad breakup, but it was a potential possibility for this woman.Each of his voicemails sounded angrier as they came, with more aggressive and graphic threats, but she knew it only meant he was becoming desperate. She does not see the point in picking up the phone, when she’s told him everything she felt she could tell him. She’s not a psychiatrist, and she never wanted to be one.She’d thought she wanted to be a wife and mother, but after tearing her heart out and swallowing it again, pulsating pain and all, she found being a single mother and hair stylist was where she was the happiest.“Not quite,” Michelle responds, with a little laugh. Then she sighs. Tiffany pulls away the towel.“You’re all done – go ahead, take a look.”Michelle stares into the mirror, and Tiffany catches it. The smile that makes her job worth the struggle to get here.“It’s wonderful,” Michelle gasps. She fingers through her hair, still grinning. “You know, I want to start my own styling business soon. That’s part of me needing a new look. A fresh start.”“Oh?” Tiffany asks. She doesn’t want to pry, but she doesn’t want to seem disinterested. “Well, I hope you got what you needed.”Michelle looks like she wants to say more, but her phone rings again, and this time, it’s the ringtone she uses just for her children. She apologizes quickly and answers it to hear Glenda’s loud and vivacious voice on the other end, impatient and on the bus. She can hear the other voices of students in the background, all yelling and most likely behaving like barbarians. She does not miss her pubescent years.“Mom! I need a poster for my project tomorrow and Glen says he has a stomach-ache! I think he just ate too many of the popcorn shrimp, but he says he has a stomach bug. Tracey Hickman was sick last week and she threw up all over her desk in third period …”Tiffany begins to hum, the way she used to when Chucky would ramble about – well, whatever it is he likes to ramble about. There were so many times she just tuned him out simply because he talked so much. It was more humorous now, with his short stature, that he retained such long and winding sentences when he got into something.It doesn’t hurt much, but her children remind of her of parts of him, and for a moment, she wonders if maybe, she should have tried to make it work again.“We have posters here from last time – you know I have a supply closet,” she tells Glenda, while writing out Michelle’s ticket. She hands her the paper and mouths cash or credit. Michelle digs through her purse and Tiffany listens to Glenda ramble a bit longer before cutting in.“Alright, sweetheart, I’ll see you when you kids get here. Mommy’s at work now, so I’ve got to get off the phone,” she grins and Michelle laughs softly, handing over a small wad of cash. She mouths my daughter to Michelle and counts the money, opening the register under the small countertop for change. “Bye-bye, Scary Spice.”At Michelle’s face, Tiffany shrugs as she hangs up the phone. “She really likes the Spice Girls. Don’t ask me why, I didn’t tell her to listen to them.”Michelle laughs. “I used to love them,” she says, and Tiffany used to as well, when she was younger and less burdened, but someone had made her feel guilty for it. That someone had made her feel guilty for a lot of things about herself. That someone is making her phone vibrate as of now. She holds in a heavy sigh.“Well, you have a lovely day,” she says instead, to Michelle, and tries to ignore the way the phone buzzes in her back pocket. Michelle grins, and something about her looks fresh and new. Full of hope.“I think I will,” she replies, fingering her hair. “I’m going home.”“Where is home?” Tiffany asks. She didn’t mean to. She asks because she herself does not know. What is home, really? She wonders as she has for a long time now, even though she often feels she is so close to finding it. She hadn’t even meant to ask it aloud, but it came anyways.“Oh!” Michelle gasps. She gives a soft grin, the kind that Tiffany wishes she felt inside. “Texas.”And then she is gone, and all Tiffany can think is that Texas is a very far away home from where they are now. She wonders if maybe that is why she sometimes feels homeless, because she has not gone far away enough yet. She can always go back to her hometown, similar to what Michelle is doing, but there is nothing there for her now. Not even the dream of something.Only the phone, consistently pestering her and reminding her of a past she keeps desperately trying to evade. She runs her fingers through her hair and finally picks up, wondering if she will regret it. “What do you want?” she asks, and it’s harsher than she’d meant it to be, but she is so frustrated and confused, and already questioning her own choices. The last thing she needs is someone to continue to confuse her more.“Do you know how many quarters I’ve had to nick off people’s bodies just to get you to fuckin’ pick up? You whore.” His voice is already jagged and ugly as he spits out the last word, and she feels herself swooning and cowering at the same time. She hates how he still has a hold on her, and for a fleeting moment, wonders again if she has done the right thing. Isn’t it selfish to force Andy Barclay to face these problems rather than take them on herself?”“You’re going to draw attention to yourself if you keep giving into your addiction every time someone makes you angry,” she says, despite that doubt. “You’re such a moody little bitch, you know that?”Andy Barclay is the only person she’s known to ever make Charles Lee Ray doubt himself for once and crumble, and that is why she does the things she does now. She is afraid, and she cannot fight Chucky anymore, but she cannot end him either. It is cowardice, she knows, and she prays that Andy will forgive her for it. Not that he will ever realize the gravity of what she is doing. Of what he is doing.This only makes her feel more terrible, but on a positive note, she’s missed most of whatever Chucky has said on the phone in a vindictive response to her comment.“I … I stole them from a water fountain,” he’s saying, and she snaps out of her penitence. There it is, that voice she only began to hear after Charles Lee Ray and Andy Barclay had crossed paths. That something different she cannot describe, but the jaggedness is gone, smoothed down by something. Or someone.“What?” she asks. She has no idea what he is going on about, the way she usually doesn’t. She wonders if she ever really did, or if she ever really cared.“The quarters, Tiffany,” and he sounds so tired, and she wants to ask if he hasn’t been sleeping, or if he’s seen Andy recently, or if he’s still wandering in back alleys, killing innocent bystanders or at least maiming them so that they could not walk alone at night anymore. But she doesn’t ask any of those things. She doesn’t say anything at all.“C’mon, Tiff,” he says, and she recognizes this. The way he talks when he wants something from her. “Just … can’t we try again? I can be a good guy – no pun intended. We can be that family you always wanted.”“Don’t …” she interrupts, but her heart is already pounding in her throat, and it seems so easy. The old American dream with the white picket fence is right in front of her.“The kids would have their old Dad. You want that, don’t you, Tiff?”“Oh, Chucky,” she sighs, and she tries to hide how hard her voice shakes. She holds the phone away long enough to sniff down the sensation of a heartbreak’s reprise. “You don’t realize how badly I’ve wanted to hear those words.”But she knows why he’s said them, and she knows she cannot accept them. He says what he needs to say to get what he wants, and she almost began to fall for them again. Charles Lee Ray is attempting to evade his inconveniences again, and he is using her as his crutch. But she refuses to be dragged into it this time. Even if sometimes, she is so desperate for what she once had that she would play pretend she has them again. It would be only that, a dream – and it is time for her to wake up.She speaks up before he can continue to try to convince her. Before she finds herself convinced.“But that was years ago. You can’t run to me this time, Chucky. Not anymore.”She hangs up before he can hear her cry, and then she cries so hard, she’s almost screaming, tears pouring out hot and fast. She hadn’t even said good-bye, and he’s calling her again, but she declines it, turning her phone off. She goes to the back of her store, locking herself into the employer’s bathroom, and sits against the door, unable to stop. In the back of her mind, she can only think that her children are coming soon, and that she needs to end this emotional madness at once, but another part of her knows that the faster she allows years of hurt to come out, the faster she can piece herself back together.By the time she finally can breathe again, eyes red and swollen, the front door bells are chiming, she can hear Glenda loudly calling for her, and her neck hurts just above her collarbones. She tries to swallow down the pressure and dabs at her face in the mirror, calling out to her children that she will come out from the restroom soon, and that, “Mommy’s had a little allergic reaction to something.”Glenda, calloused and unaware as she is, does not seem to notice anything is off, and immediately rummages through her things in the shop. She can hear the way Glenda digs through the supply closet, chattering to Glen the entire time. She cannot hear Glen if he responds or not, but she knows from instinct that he knows something is wrong.She finally crawls out of the bathroom, her face acceptable enough for herself as she knows it going to be. Glen is waiting just outside of the bathroom, already reaching for her hand, just on cue. She steels herself, and holds him, letting her sudden breakdown rebuild again. She walks out with him to where Glenda is holding almost more than she can carry in her small, but unnaturally strong, arms.“Alright, you little Wonder Woman, let me get some of that before we make a mess somewhere Mommy has to clean,” Tiffany warns, letting go of Glen’s hand to reach out and steady Glenda’s high pile of crafting supplies. She is going a little overboard, considering she will most likely put minimal effort into the project and will absolutely not need a hot glue gun or craft scissors.She marches the twins out the door before locking up her shop, flipping her sign to Closed, Call for Emergencies. She ushers Glenda up into the back of the car, while listening the best that she can to whatever it is she is saying, and leans over to kiss Glen on the forehead, causing Glenda to temporarily stop chatting – if only to tease Glen.“Don’t worry, sugar, you’ll get one too,” Tiffany assures her, only to have Glenda duck and dodge her, exclaiming, “Eww, Mom! I don’t want kisses! Kisses are gross!” She laughs and licks the palm of her hand and wipes it on Glenda’s arm, and Glenda squeals and giggles, appalled and amused at the same time.She doesn’t look at her phone.She hops into her seat and looks back at her children, making sure the buckle themselves in before driving out towards their house. It’s only a few blocks away, but in dense city streets, she does not want them wandering anywhere alone. Glenda can argue with her as many times as she wants about how she can defend herself. Tiffany does not want to ever put her children in that position.“Mom, don’t forget my appointment with Dr. Simpson tomorrow,” Glen says. Tiffany swallows hard, but she looks back at him and grins.“I know. Four-thirty, right? I’ll pick you kids up straight from school, and then I’ll take you there.”Glenda groans and throws her arms up. “Mo-om,” she whines. “What am I supposed to do all day? Wait next to you while Glen talks to his therapist? It’s so boring in that office! They don’t even have anything to play with!”She crosses her arms and pouts. “Plus, you said I can’t bite the secretary anymore.”Tiffany tries not to laugh. It’s hard. “No, you cannot bite anyone, it isn’t polite. How would you feel if someone bit you?”Glenda says nothing to that, but she still scowls and kicks her feet. Glen looks out the window, feeling guilty for something that is not his fault, and Tiffany begins to feel guilty for something that is. The short drive is silent, and lengthens unbearably.She could have done the same thing that Charles did. Abandoned them. She could have left her children to fend for themselves, and chased after him, forever bound. A Bonnie to his Clyde, a ride or die girl. Wild, and reckless.“And unappreciated,” she sighs aloud. The longer she is away from Chucky, the more clear her vision becomes. The way he spoke to her, the way he treated her. The way he hurt her, and then tried to cover it up with kisses and words, only to bruise her again in an instant. She wonders if there had ever truly been any remorse.She feels the tears coming back, but she swallows them down. Many people are hurt because of him. Andy Barclay is hurt because of him. Her children are hurt because of him. She is hurt because of him. He was a poison in her life, and she is still bleeding it out. But every day, she is healing. She almost thinks she should join Glen tomorrow, and see if it helps.She looks back at them, a lump still in her throat. But she feels more sure now than she had been before. There’s only relief. She laughs under her breath, despite the pressure in her suprasternal space, and turns the corner into their driveway. Her children immediately jump out of the car, Glen shouldering his large backpack, and Glenda squealing and dragging her own schoolbag behind her, yelling out every fun thing she is going to do before she even thinks about homework. Tiffany slides out of the car at her own pace, and watches her children, her heart full of too much. “We’re home,” she says, and for the first time, she actually feels as if she means it, the soreness of her heartbroken soul be damned. She follows her children into the house, and leaves her cellphone in the car.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The Blue Label has still not all been drunk yet. Andy is proud of himself for holding off for this long. In other aspects of his life, he is not quite as proud.His apartment is a mess all over again, clothes littered on his bed, on the couch, and across the floors. There’s even a t-shirt crumpled up on the kitchen counter a little too close to a stove eye, and he almost burns it trying to make breakfast. He decides he does not really need to eat so badly. He has not left his apartment in weeks, save for work. The trash is piled again, and he needs clean clothes. But he’s slept in until just before having to go to work again, and he could have gotten up and done laundry and gone back to sleep, but he never left bed, and now it is much too late. He feels as if he’s already failed.But he has to go to work.So he picks up the cleanest clothes he can find, and he doesn’t bother to look in the mirror, because he knows he will detest what he sees, and he does not need to go to work wallowing in self-loathing and pity. It isn’t good for customer service.He tries to tell himself to eat, and that he’s hungry, but even before opening his pantry, he decides he is not, and sits on the couch instead, staring. Waiting for the time to pass. He feels the itch, but he does not answer it. Not now. He does not have time to clean the mess, and he does not want customers to notice anything and ask any questions. If he’s lucky, no one will notice him at all, outside of being the man behind the counter, to give them what they want.Kristen has called numerous times, but could not bring himself to answer. He tells himself he will call her after work today. He has told himself that every day.He leaves his apartment and heads downstairs. He does not lock the door, and he does not bother to think about why he doesn’t. He knows why. He just does not want to face it. Instead, he pushes the thoughts away, and tells himself he forgot, and he’s close enough from his job that it should not matter, whether he locks his door or not.Fortunately for him, the first hour or so is slow, and he does not have to face anyone. He never likes it when there are already people standing outside, waiting at the door for him, as if he’s incompetent at his own job, or forgot the time he needed to be there. Their impatience overwhelms him. Days like this, when there is no one seemingly demanding something from him, he feels as if he has a moment to breathe. He stocks things that don’t particularly need stocking, he reorganizes his counter, he cleans windows. He tries to feel normal.There is still a dull pressure hiding underneath the skin of his face when his first customer walks in, and he knows instantly that it is going to be a long day. He’s already angry that they are here, and he hates himself immediately for being angry, and it’s a continuous, self-destructive cycle, while the hours slowly tick by.He wishes he was not so restless. He feels terrible, and everyone who comes through the store gives off an aura of disgust and disappointment with him. Kristen has told him before that he is only projecting his own feelings onto others, but he cannot help thinking that, most likely, they truly do not like him. He finds it hard to see why they would like him to begin with. He does not even like himself, when he cannot seem to even shower, or clean his place, or do anything that any self-respecting individual would do.Someone asks him a question and he does not hear it right away, and apologizes profusely when he realizes what is occurring. It only makes him feel worse, and he apologizes so loudly he’s sure they think he was using sarcasm. The clock is mercilessly slow.The doorbell has rang for what feels like nearly one hundred times when a familiar face walks in, and it looks upset.“Andy,” Kristen says. She’s pouting. She does not appear angry, but she is clearly hurt, and Andy knows it is his fault. She walks over and puts her hands on the counter, while a customer walks in the back, meandering through the items. Andy highly suspects they already have what they need, and are only taking their time to overhear their conversation.He gestures for Kristen to keep her voice down. “Now’s not really a good time to talk, Kris,” he mumbles. He scratches his head, and it is so hard to look her in the eyes. Her initial intimidating mood seems to die down, as she sighs and leans down on the counter, rustling her hair anxiously.“When, Andy?” she asks, her voice almost a whisper, and again, he is so grateful to her. “When can I talk to you, then? You never pick up the phone, you don’t answer when I knock on your door.”She looks as if she is going to reach for him, then thinks about it and stops herself. The customer seems to have found what they wanted, and comes around to the counter. Kristen walks away, her arms around herself, and Andy feels his heart sink.“How can I help you?” he asks. He tries to focus on the customer, his eyes, his hands. The box of ammo and the sights he is holding. He tries to care about the small talk, but the conversation seems to drag, and he can see Kristen just outside of his peripherals. He feels sick. He just wants to fix this one thing.The customer pays in cash, and drops the coins, and Andy wants to scream. But he smiles and helps them pick up the coins instead, and he waits for them to leave. There is nothing more relieving than the sound of the doorbell signaling that he and Kristen are finally alone.“I’m sorry,” he gushes, and his hands are shaking. “I’m sorry, I’ve been a mess, and I meant to call you back, but then I forgot, and it got harder every time I thought about it, and…”“Andy,” Kristen interrupts. She reaches for his hands, and she is so quick he does not have time to react. He is glad of it. He hates how he flinches when anyone touches him, and he especially hates how he flinches when Kristen touches him. He tries to steady himself, but she can already feel the way he’s shaking. She looks at him, and her eyes are gentle.“I’m not mad – okay, I am a little frustrated. But I’m just worried, Andy. I’ve been worried about you. None of us had heard from you. I hadn’t even heard from you. I…” Kristen halts, her voice shaking, and she is trying very hard not to cry, which is all the more terrible for two reasons: it makes Andy want to cry, and it makes him loathe himself all the more. Why, he wonders, does he always hurt the people he cares about the most?What kind of a monster does that?“I’m just glad you’re okay,” Kristen continues, and she’s wiping away the few stray tears that have escaped. She gives a dainty frown and nudges his arm, but not too hard. Never too hard. “Don’t you ever do this again, or I’ll actually break your whole arm bone.”“You hit me in my humorous, so only that bone would get broken, technically,” Andy replies. He can feel the stutter in his heart finally finding a steady rhythm again when Kristen looks at him with a playfully judgmental spark flashing in her eyes.“You only know that because you’ve been hanging out with Brett,” she mutters, but there’s a small smile in the corner of her mouth. She taps her fingers on the countertop and raises her eyebrows at him.“Close up shop, won’t you?” she asks with a begging look. “I want to get you out of here. You look like you’re suffocating.”He is. He was. But the fact that she is here makes it suddenly a little easier to breathe, even if there is still something of a large boulder lodged inside his lungs. He looks out the door, watches as people go by. No one walks in within the next couple of minutes, and Kristen gives him a look as if to say that it is a sign.“Come on,” she says again, pulling on his shirt a little. “I’ll only take you away for an hour or two, and it will just be the two of us. I promise. No new people, no loud parties. Just you and me, catching up.”Something inside him wants to rip-split right through his middle. Nothing sounds better, but he still feels the shame of being dirty, disorganized, and fallen apart. He does not feel right, talking to Kristen about some things that he is trying so hard to be rid of. That he should have been rid of now. He wants to go home, curl away, and forget that there is such a thing as existence, and he wants to bleed.But if he does not go, it will be one more thing that he will hate himself for.“I haven’t showered,” he mumbles, and does not say everything that is screaming inside him.“So go shower,” Kristen says, giving him a push. “I’ll wait right here. I’ll even close up for you.” She tugs at him again and again, until he walks slowly around from behind the counter, still scratching behind his head sheepishly, nervously. She, in turn, jumps over the counter and stands behind it. It’s so strange how it looks like she belongs. She’s always so easily adjusted to her surroundings, while he still does not feel at home in a place he’s lived for years now.So go shower, she says. He wishes it were that easy. But he trudges up the steps, at her continuous encouragement, and he walks into his apartment, wishing and not having his wish granted. Fighting the urge to just down the rest of the bottle and forget.He turns the water on and lets it run over his fingers, and it’s a long time that passes before he actually enters, the razor sharp addiction clenched in his hand. He’s still shaking. The water runs, and he does as well, even if only for a little while, and he breathes while he can. Before he has to go out and wheeze through the smog of everyone around him.He walks out to Kristen sorting through his clothes, and he is only in his towel. Kristen does not seem to notice, nor does she notice the fresh marks running along his arms – or if she does, she does not mention it.“Andy, I’m washing these, okay?” she says, picking up a pile of clothes. “I’m doing these darks so I can wash jeans with them, and you’ll have a complete outfit. I don’t think you want to wear minimally clean clothes when you’ve just showered. That’s the worst.”She keeps picking around his bedroom. “I closed up down there, so don’t worry. I locked the door and pulled down the grate and all that.” She leans under his bed, and he freezes, afraid she will find something too personal, ask too many questions, but she stands back up, grunting as she drops some of the clothes in her arms.“Don’t you have any black or gray underwear?” she asks, and he wants to disappear into the floor.“I can do that,” he almost whispers, but he somehow manages to find a small voice. Kristen has already found what she’s looking for, however, and has already made her way to the washing machine in the side closet just near his front door.“I see you haven’t drunk all of that whiskey yet – that’s great!” she’s exclaiming. Her last few words are a little muffled by the sound of the machine turning on, but he hears the excitement in her tone. The mortification of his state of personal living fades a small bit. “I’m glad you’re holding off on that. I’ll forgive you for not calling me back.”She leans out and winks at him, and he gives a small grimace.“Thanks for giving that to me, by the way,” he says. He wraps the towel tighter around himself. “I have been trying to hold off it, but sometimes it’s nice to settle down with, you know?”He wants to talk about how he is writing again, short stories. They’re not all dark, although most of them are, riddled with muddled nightmarish descriptions and dizzying words that rattle around in his head. He thinks she would like some of them though. He wrote one about her. It says everything he cannot seem to tell her out loud.But at his mention of the Blue Label, Kristen makes a strange face. Almost as if she has forgotten that they had been talking about it.“Oh, I …” she ducks behind the door to put the last of the laundry in. He hears her fidgeting with the soap and the lid of the machine, and then she pops back out again. “Yeah.”She’s a little too quiet. “Yeah?” Andy asks, cocking an eyebrow. “Yeah, what?”Kristen flushes a little and laughs. She twirls her hair uncomfortably. “I had a hard time deciding whether you should have it or not, that’s all,” she answers finally. She is not quite looking at him. “I feel bad thinking that, but I just, you know…”“Worry?” Andy interjects, with a small huff. He’s grinning though and it’s a genuine grin, even if he is still shriveling inside.Kristen laughs. “Yeah,” she says. She walks over to him and puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it gently. “Let’s have some coffee or something while we wait. I am ready to kill for some caffeine.”They sit on the couch – after Kristen has organized it to her level of cleanliness – and sip on coffee in silence, while the machine whirs in the background. Andy asks Kristen about Jeeves, and Kristen passes on some music recommendations. Andy temporarily forgets that he is only in a towel while she is fully clothed, until the laundry is done and Kristen is handing him clothes to put on.“This doesn’t bother you?” he asks, gesturing to himself.“Don’t worry – I don’t need anything in that department,” she jokes in response, which makes him choke a little on his own laughter.Kristen does not ask about Chucky, and while Andy is glad she does not, a part of him wishes she did.They don’t go anywhere particularly special, but it is as Kristen promised. Kristen takes the bottle of Blue Label with them, and they walk to a nearby park, and Kristen takes him down a path where it is not near as populated, and they talk for a long time, dodging low hanging tree branches and skipping around overgrown bushes. Andy catches Kristen up on the state of his mother, and Kristen shares news on Brett’s physical therapy.“Nica was asking about you,” she mentions, and Andy feels a little hot under his collar. “She was wondering why she hasn’t seen you in a while. I think she liked you.”“Right,” Andy replies. The concept of anyone liking him is foreign. The fact that Kristen still likes him after all this time is inconceivable. Kristen scoffs.“She does,” she insists, and elbows him. She takes a small sip from the bottle and passes it to him.Andy finds himself enjoying where he is a little more than he had thought he would. He wants to tell Kristen something, show his gratitude somehow, but all he can manage is reaching for her hand as they walk back. He misses and they only tangle their fingers barely, but it’s enough. He does not flinch this time.The sun is setting by the time they make it back to the entrance. Kristen lets go of his hand, and suddenly, he feels colder.“I gotta go home – Jeevie is waiting on me,” she explains, pointing towards the direction of her house. Andy nods, and finds himself wishing he had the same responsibilities calling him. She gazes at him for a moment, almost waiting on him. “You coming?”He contemplates it. But something inside him wants to stay here. He tells himself it is the coolness of the evening air. Something about it lets him inhale the world in a way he usually cannot.“No,” he says, after giving it thought. He smiles, so she knows he is okay. “I think I actually want to stay out here a little longer.”Kristen gives him a small hug, and he holds her for just a second longer. But for the first time, it is not because he feels a responsibility to, but because he wants human contact. And she is the closest friend he has ever had, save for one.“Bye then,” Kristen tells him, with a small wave, and he focuses on her, and the bottle in his hand, and he waves back.He watches her walk out of the entrance, pulling out her phone. He sees the smile flash across her features as she talks to who he can only suppose is Jeeves. As soon as she rounds the corner, and he cannot see her anymore, he turns and walks back through the park, going off path and drinking his whiskey with no inhibitions.He sits down after wandering for a few minutes, and feels his head start to spin and his tongue fizz from the intoxication, and settles down against a mostly broken rock wall. There’s moss against it, and it is slightly damp, but he welcomes the way it seeps into his clothes. He is amazed at how everything feels significantly better from the simplest things. Even the way his shirt clings to him, smelling like laundry soap and coffee, calms him down. The Blue Label is empty, but he is fuller than he has been for a little while.He can hear people in the distance. It is calming. He is alone, and he is enjoying it, because he does not feel lonely, like he normally does.It does not last long. He hears a rustle in the bushes, which he ignores at first. He is in a park, and there are bound to be squirrels or birds. But the thicket keeps on struggling, and he finally sits up, and his heart turns in his stomach in ways he does not want to describe. He blames it on the alcohol.“Oh …” he starts, but Chucky finishes the sentence for him.“Shit.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Chucky looks sheepish for one passing second, and Andy does not know what to do about it.“What are you doing here?” he asks, which is not what he was planning on saying, but he says it anyways. He wants to get up and leave, but his smallest movement causes vertigo, and he stays put, against his will. Or so he thinks.“Don’t you fuckin’ start with me, you little pain in my ass,” Chucky grunts. Andy can tell he has been hitting the bottle as well, from the way his voice slurs. He hobbles over the last of the brambles he had been fighting through and dusts off his overalls, the most human thing Andy has ever seen him do. It is disorienting, and the slightest bit disturbing to him. “You’re comin’ to me this time.”Chucky stands up again, hands on his hips, and he’s breathing heavily. The tiniest of a smirk plays at his mouth, even though his eyes are just as sharp and harsh as always, sparkling ice.“So, you missed me, did ya?” he asks, and Andy wants to hit him. Oh, he wants to hit him so badly. But he’s never been so content with that feeling, that dirty anger and coursing rush of life surging inside him, and he has. He has missed it. It only makes him angrier, and the cycle starts again.“Don’t you wish,” he replies, and takes another swig of the bottle, only to find it lacking. He’d forgotten he’d drank all of it. With a frustrated grunt, he tosses it to the side and it lands in the cool dirt, rolling to Chucky’s feet.Chucky, to Andy’s surprise, sits beside him, sliding his back against the old broken wall. For a moment, as Chucky just closes his eyes and doesn’t say much else, he wonders if Chucky is feeling the dampness seep into his clothes as well. He hates that he thinks it, and he hates that he is next to Chucky, painting him as anything but a monster.“You drank too, didn’t you?” he asks, and Chucky just nods, his head moving in the most lopsided manner. Andy leans back against the wall, and he does not ask how Chucky got the alcohol.Chucky says something, but he doesn’t catch all of it. He isn’t sure why he cares, and he almost begins to let the anger and hatred rise up in him and growl all over again, but he is so tired of fighting it. He is so tired of fighting himself.“What?” he asks, feeling his heart flip over in his stomach. The alcohol is making everything run together. He has to blink at Chucky once, twice, and a few more, just to get his shape to be a solid again.Chucky looks positively mortified and enraged. “I said,” he exhales loudly, and puts his hands in his hair. He does not look at Andy. “I do.”Andy does not know what Chucky is talking about. He feels his mouth, dry and parched from the alcohol. He should have brought water. Kristen would kill him, he knew, if she had any idea what he was doing right now. If Chucky does not kill him now, in this moment, Kristen will, if just for not bringing water. If just for sitting here with Chucky, instead of attacking him instantly or leaving him immediately.“You do what?” he goes on, despite all of this. He wants to hit himself now. For a moment, he vaguely thinks of just swinging his skull into the wall behind him. He wonders how hard he would have to throw his head back to do any severe damage. As of now, he would love to crush his own head and pass out instantly.“Goddamn it, Andy, you stupid, aggravating, little bitch,” Chucky pummels the ground with small fists. It is so strange, to see him like this. “I hate you, how’s that?’“Hate you too,” Andy mutters, with a small snort. He picks at his own shirt, wondering how something that was clean only moments ago is ruined all over again.Chucky leans over and grabs the bottle, picking it up and studying it as if it is some sort of vintage rarity. “I see you haven’t changed since I last saw you,” he observes, setting it down gently so that it stands up. Andy can almost swear he sees a smile on Chucky’s face, but he is so dizzy and when he blinks again, Chucky’s face is the same, scowling glory that Andy knew. “You really do like this Blue Label stuff, don’t you?”Andy hiccups. Something clicks in his mind. “Wait,” he starts. He looks at Chucky, while the cogs of his brain whir frantically. He points, almost accusingly, and Chucky pales, even if just by a fraction. “How did you know …”“I’m just reading a label, Andy,” Chucky stops him abruptly, waving it off. “Don’t overthink it; you’re drunk as shit.”But Andy knows it was not just reading a label. There is something about this bottle that has rattled Chucky, and there is something hiding. But Andy is too drunk to chase it, and he does not really want to, anyways. He does not want to talk much at all.It’s getting cold. Andy knows the sun is probably almost completely gone from the sky by now, hiding on the other side of the world until it returns in the morning. He should care, because now there is little to no one in the park, and it is he and Chucky, alone, next to an old, torn down, mossy wall. A testament of something that once was, and now is broken.“Here lies our friendship,” he mutters aloud in drunken stupor. “Dead, dead, and – before I forget to mention – dead.”“Funnily enough, I’m good at reviving dead things,” Chucky retorts, and they stare at each other. Something strange crosses Chucky’s eyes – it looks like regret to Andy. Somehow, he knows that Chucky has said something he did not want to say, but he cannot figure out what it is, and why.“I …” he starts, and he wants to stop himself, but he’s so drunk his tongue is loose. It’s another reason why he never likes to be drunk outside of his own home. Kristen would most definitely have his head. He starts to talk about something else, instead.“Remember when you saw me outside of my apartment last?” he asks, and he sees how it makes Chucky visibly uncomfortable, how he shifts away from Andy, looking off to the side. He does not leave though, and Andy does not want to admit he cares how Chucky feels and he is too drunk to stop talking anyways. “You said you needed me. That we need each other.”Chucky growls lowly.“You cried.”“I’m going to kill you,” Chucky interrupts him, standing suddenly. His hands are held out as if he is going to throttle Andy, and for a moment, Andy believes he will. He almost wants it. He does not make a move, at any rate, and watches as Chucky shakes his hands in a choking motion, and then sighs in frustration and some sort of reluctant surrender. “You don’t know how much I want to just end you, right here. Just tear you to fuckin’ pieces.”“So do it,” Andy says, waving his hands. He isn’t sure how he’s waving them, but he’s sure he looks stupid. “I wish you would.”“I can’t,” Chucky exhales, loudly, and he looks angry and vaguely threatening, but Andy can see the same bewildered feeling in Chucky’s eyes. The same confused and upsetting acceptance that he has been feeling for a while. The same feeling he’d run away from, that very day Chucky had said those words. It is such an ugly and humiliating reality, but Andy is facing it for the first time. Perhaps it is the alcohol, weakening his resolve and poisoning his resilience. “You know I can’t. I wish I could but I just can’t.”“Then why are you still here?” Andy asks. He points around to the park. “Won’t you go home? Just leave me.”Chucky sits again. He pushes his hair back. Andy can finally focus on him without feeling dizzy, and he can see that Chucky is shaking just slightly. Possibly because it is cold; Andy can feel his own skin begin to prickle with goosebumps from the night air. It is so strange, to see him so real, so human. For a brief second, he flickers with the curiosity of if Chucky’s clothes are too thin, and how long he has been out here, and if he has been shivering and cold every night since the last he’d seen him. And then his eye catches something, just where one of Chucky’s sleeves has begun to slide.“I ain’t got a home right now, Andy,” Chucky spits. He looks at Andy like he should have known. As if Andy keeps up with his whereabouts. “You’re the stupidest person I’ve ever known. I fuckin’ hate you.”He had thought Chucky was still plastic, for the most part. But there is no denying what he sees, just where Chucky’s palm connects with his wrist. He recognizes them instantly. He stares at them. The scars. He does not know when Chucky got them, or why. He cannot stop looking, and suddenly – if even for a fraction of a moment – suddenly, he cares.There is a long, drawn out silence, one so loud it pulls Chucky out of whatever reverie he was undergoing. He looks up and locks eyes with Andy, and realizes immediately what has occurred. He hastily pulls his sleeve back over his exposure.“Stop – don’t look at me like … it’s not like that!” he nearly yells, immediately. He crossed his arms, scowling at him. “I just wanted to see what the fucking appeal was.”“And did you find it?”“No.”Andy sighs with a small, bitter smile. He looks up at the sky, now a dark blue. Somewhere, there’s an owl or some other animal crying into the night. “That’s because there is no appeal. The same way there’s no appeal to buy groceries or have to stop and put gas in your car, or filling out paperwork for taxes, but you still do it. Because you just have to.” He’s rubbing his own scars now, although he is not entirely aware of the fact. He is vaguely aware of Chucky’s eyes on him as he does, and he eventually stops, feeling all too self-conscious.There’s another silence. Then Chucky mutters, “I never paid taxes.”Andy huffs in amusement. “Well, now you’re a murderer and a tax evader,” he responds.Chucky is not looking at him, but even looking at the side of his face, Andy can see it again. There is something between the words that Chucky says, some unspoken thoughts encased between his pauses, his jibes. He can almost read them, the fine print, but it is just barely out of his reach.“I can’t evade taxes forever,” is what he says.“I’ll have to pay my dues at some point,” is what he says. But Andy feels something in his voice, something long-lost and almost sorrowful. And that is the strangest thing of all. He can feel the alcohol leaving his body, but the cold and the emptiness remains. The heaviness still blankets him. He feels a strong and strange sort of itch, and he does not recognize it. It is not the same that he feels along his arms. It is on the tips of his fingers, reaching, searching. But he does not know for what.“You were on your knees,” he prods again, trying to distract himself. He hates that he keeps returning to that night, but it has been burning his mind nearly every hour since it had happened. He’s running a finger over his scars again, feeling the way it has ridged his skin. The way he’s ruined himself. He hates it. He does not want to think about it, and for the first time, thinking about Chucky instead is a relief. He thinks about how torn apart he was, seeing Chucky in such a strange state. He does not know if he ever wants to see it again. He thinks he does not. “I didn’t know what you were trying to do.”“Well I wasn’t going to blow you, idiot,” Chucky huffs, clearly angry. Then he laughs, and it catches Andy off guard, for him to suddenly be amused. He glances over to see Chucky measuring something with his hand, raising it above his head. He is measuring a height. Andy watches him, not understanding. Chucky catches his eye and chuckles again.“It’s so stupid,” he says, and Andy can tell Chucky is drunker than he is. The way his body moves is almost fluid, instead of rigid and defensive. There is an openness to it. “But,” he hiccups, “if I wanted to blow anyone, I’d be the perfect height, just standing up.”Chucky is lost in his own inebriated amusement now, and Andy gives a short laugh, which he immediately halts by covering his mouth. He hates that he laughed, and he hates that it was funny, and he hates that Chucky is the one who said it. But he cannot help the way he wants to laugh inside. He cannot help the way suddenly, there is a change. The wind has reversed its direction, he thinks, and holds himself, keeping in what warmth he has.“You were right,” Andy murmurs, finally, after the laughter has died down. He just does not want to face it. But he has finally become tired of running away. He wonders if his is how Chucky had felt, in the alley behind his apartment. Tired, and ready to surrender. He feels as if he’s lost a battle.“Specify,” Chucky grins with his response, and his tawdry behavior has Andy almost standing up and leaving, and giving up the entire endeavor, “I’m right about a lot of things.”He did not want to do this to begin with. He could just leave. But he does not. He just finds himself in the position that Chucky had been, curled up against the mossy wall, looking anywhere but in the other’s eyes.“About you needing me,” he says it, if only to deflate Chucky’s ego enough to find the courage to say what he really wants to say. He sees the curl in Chucky’s lip as chagrin takes over him before he can brave the next phrase. “About me needing you.”He does not look at Chucky at all when he says it. He cannot bear to watch the smile rise on his face, cannot stand the thought of exposing himself and having to watch as he gives his greatest enemy an upper hand, a peek into his most contemptible vulnerability. He has this small, distinct and ugly feeling that Chucky will end him now, with this information in tow, and he will die with shame.But the daunting and terrible laughter never comes. Andy’s presumed fate does not pass. Instead, he hears a sigh that sounds as heavy as he feels.“Well, isn’t this just a shit-pile of injustice,” Chucky observes. “It could have been anyone in the world, and it just had to be you, Andy Barclay.”Andy nods. “Back at you,” he replies. He wishes he had a drink again. There is only one place to get it now, and every part of him can no longer ignore how cold he is. Chucky sneezes, almost as if to vocalize that they cannot stay here any longer.It is so strange. It is so strong. Andy sits there, knowing it is time to leave, but fighting everything inside of himself. There is something he wants, and he does not want to want to say it at all. But he wants it, nonetheless, he wants it so much. Yet another unhealthy addiction to add to his life. But he loves the fire inside him, and he does not care anymore where it comes from. He is so tired of being cold and the numbness that comes with it. He cannot fight the need for the flames anymore. He will not. He will take the kindling required to light himself on fire, if only to feel alive again.He does not say any of this, of course. Instead, he gets up, stretching cold and tired bones, and rubbing numb and sore muscles, and starts to walk off, digging his hands into his pockets. He has said what he needed to say, and he does not have the courage to say anymore, now that the alcohol has completely run its course. Now he is thirsty, and his temples hurt, and he wants to sleep.He does not hear Chucky coming behind him, the way he’d thought he would. The way he’d hoped he would. He almost hates himself for it, but decides it is not worth it anymore. He just turns and looks at Chucky’s almost forlorn figure, and catches the way Chucky is staring after him, and somehow knows that Chucky is feeling the same. He does not dwell too much on the hows and the whys of knowing. He just tilts his head a bit, jerking it upwards.“Well?” he asks, as if he has been obvious. As if it should be obvious. As if they are not about to make the hardest and most pitiable choice in the world. Chucky just continues to stare, and Andy realizes that Chucky will not make this easy. He never has. Andy will have to make the jump. And so he does.“Aren’t you coming?” he calls, over his shoulder.“Coming where?” Chucky asks, and Andy almost storms over to him, if just to pick him up and shake him out of anger and embarrassment. But Chucky has already stood, almost trotting to reach his side. There is a strange comfort to it. Andy files this away with everything he avoids for a later date. All he can think is that Kristen is absolutely going to kill him now, if Chucky does not do it first. Somehow, he has the strongest feeling that the former is more likely.“Home,” Andy says, anyways, and decides that if anything goes wrong tomorrow, he’ll blame his poor choices on the alcohol. “Dumbass.”He is already questioning himself on the way home, and he is grateful that it is so late. There is nearly no one out, and it is too dark for anyone to really notice or ask questions. He can hear the little pit-pa pit-pa of Chucky’s shoes scraping along the pavement as he follows behind. Otherwise, it is silent. They do not talk about anything, and there is a strong tension settling now that they are both completely sober. The cold air does not help, and Andy can feel his bones stiffen.They make it back to Andy’s apartment, and when he checks his phone, Andy can see that it is nearly midnight. He has several missed texts from Kristen. He decides he will call her tomorrow. He is sure she is awake now, and would talk to him if he did, but he is not entirely sure what he would say. There is no rhyme or reason to what has happened, other than an almost survivalist tactic. He looks behind him, and Chucky is still there, with a deep scowl now on his face. He looks the way Andy feels, reluctant but obliging with the circumstance before them. It is what it is now, and Andy is not sure they can go back, even if either suddenly decide that they want to. He unlocks the door and tries not to think too much about it.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
She’d like black, and she does now, but she remembers how Charles was so impressed with her for liking it and not pink like other girls. He’d told her he’d like her dark edge, the shine of a blade in the night, cool and untouchable, and yet, desirable.She liked pink too, but after he’d commented that, she hid that fact for a long time.She looks at the two shirts, and then grabs the pink one. She walks down a few aisles before coming back and grabbing the black one too, because she liked both of them, and she deserves it.There is a lock of Alice’s hair still in her purse, and when she realizes that this is yet another thing she’d hidden from Charles, she hurts. She doesn’t know which hurts more, the way she’d let herself be imprisoned to a so called love for so long, or the way that she still loved him now. She still felt that lingering desire when the night came. Sometimes, she holds her children at night, but soon they will be too old to want to sleep next to her, and too young to understand why she needs the company. Alice could have been a third child. But of course, Chucky had not liked that idea. He had made it clear from the very beginning. She had done her best to remain at a distance, to not open a motherly heart, but it happened, nonetheless, the way most things do. Naturally and yet so against the human will. Alice was a sweet girl, willing and compliant, and became such a comfort to her when nothing else seemed to help. And now she was gone. Another source of joy drained away from her in a desperate attempt to appease her true love. Love took commitment, she knows, but she also knows that it was always her putting in the work. There was only half of the commitment occurring. Glenda needs new shoes, even though she protested all week that she does not. Glenda loves those old things; she’s scribbled on them and dirtied them with many of her own wild adventures. There is a hole where the toe rubs up against the inside of the left shoe, and they are stained beyond repair. Tiffany does not want to take those shoes from her, but she buys another pair, just in case Glenda changes her mind. Glenda has been changing her mind about a lot of things. Glen has as well. Chucky – Charles- wouldn’t approve. He didn’t approve of a lot of things their children thought or said, and the more they argued, the more frightened she became, although she hid it well. Charles had always called her his missing piece, the only one worthy of him – but he rarely ever showed it, the longer they were together. In fact, soon even his words left her feeling not worthy at all, let alone worthy of him. She stopped taking the risks to bring it up; he never listened, and she always felt as if she had overreacted, had over thought. Had been weak, like her mother. He had never liked her mother, and she had never known why. She hadn’t cried when he killed her, although, to be fair, she never really let her mother die. She wonders if that is why Charles had begun to hate her too – because he’d seen her mother in her. She makes her way to the register, wondering what she will do today, the same way she does every day. She has an appointment later, but that is a couple of hours from now, and her children will not be home from school until later as well. The shopping trip is not long enough, and even though she left the house and got some fresh air, a part of her still feels like she has yet to take a breath today. “Cash or card?” the cashier asks. For a moment, it feels as if she is finally breathing, and she’s only speaking with a cashier, the same way any other person would, on any given day. And yet her heart pulses for the desire of something out of the ordinary to happen. Chucky – Charles, Charles – had always given her excitement, but it was toxic. She knew this, she knows this. But she still wants anyways.She’s packing her car, just throwing the few bags into the seat next to her, and she’s wondering if she should have gotten Glen something as well. But she certainly doesn’t know what to get him. She still feels as new to motherhood as if the twins had just been bored. She hadn’t had her mother to help her, she had no friends of any kind. She has no friends of any kind. She’d only had Charles, and she had pushed everyone away to be with him, and now she had to pay the price. Cash or card, Tiff? she asks herself, and she can hear his voice saying it, taunting her even now. She wishes she did have someone to talk to though. It would be nice to have a friend her age, someone who understood. Particularly another mother, although she knows she shouldn’t be all too greedy. Beggars cannot be choosers, and she is feeling her heart begin to beg.“We’re not having any of that freakish shit, Tiff,” Charles had told her the first time she’d brought up Glen and what he had told her about himself. “I won’t have a sissy for a son.”
She still cannot describe just how sick she’d felt that day. She had known then she’d made a mistake in picking Chucky – Charles – but then again, she had always known, hadn’t she? Every one she had had in her life had tried to warn her. Her mother, her sister. Her neighbors.She had fought with her sister so much, she remembered. And then her sister had left her, and they haven’t spoken since. She doesn’t know if she will ever find her again, and wonders if she is doing alright, or if she is in an equally as terrible of a situation as she is. A single mother with loneliness wearing her down more and more each day, its own quiet rheumatism. She parks behind her boutique, and leaves the things in the car. No point in carrying extra baggage unless it’s necessary. She plays music over her speakers in the boutique and finds something to do, finds anything to do. Charles would have never approved of her music choice. Charles, she is learning as she stays so far away from her, does not approve of a lot of things that she does. He would not approve of her calling him Charles, but that is her small crude gesture to him. Her mental reminder that he does not own her, and that she never should have let him. She hopes that Andy Barclay remains doing the same, and somewhere inside her, she knows that he does. Charles could never handle someone able to resist his demands, and that, from she has been told, is Andy’s profession. “I know who you are,” he’d told her on the phone, and he’d sounded harsher then. Not at all as docile and gentle as he had in his letter he’d written her later on. There was a bite to him. She hopes he keeps his teeth sharp; Charles has thick skin, but he can still bleed, with the right incision. She hopes that he is bleeding now. He has not called her in several days, and while part of her is relieved, a part of her hurts. It is all real now. They are over.She is not going to cry about it. She is going to enjoy her music, and she is going to give her children what they deserve, and she’s going to put glitter on her nails and wear a pink shirt. She sprays her counter and wipes it down furiously, despite the fact that it is already as clean as it will ever get. He killed Mom, and he’s going to kill you, if you don’t watch your mouth, bitch, she’d told her sister. She had been so horrible to her, and she is appalled at the monster she had become, all to please a man she knew little to nothing about. She deserves all this now - all this loneliness, this disparity. Her own personal purgatory. She supposes she can’t complain. Who has ever said Purgatory was an independently run shop that makes good business, and two children who love them with all their fierce little hearts? She goes back to the car and changes into her new shirt. Her appointment comes in, a woman just a bit younger than her – or so it seems – locking her car just before opening the door, the bell ringing behind her. She has ridiculously long hair; it is gorgeous, and Tiffany does not quite understand why she would want to be rid of it. Although, she herself cuts her hair quite consistently. Perhaps she should let it grow out. Perhaps people would stare after her, the way she does after this woman. Perhaps they would find her beautiful. There is something about this woman’s eyes though. Tiffany thinks she has known her before. They had had conversations before. Her heart skips a bit, racing to remember, hopeful for a desired outcome. The woman walks up to her counter, fiddling with a wedding band on her hand. “Hello, Tiffany?” asks the woman. Her voice is familiar too, and when they meet eyes and make small talk, Tiffany swears that the woman feels the same. As if they had met somewhere before. “Yes, I’ve got you here for three-fifteen,” Tiffany says, and then she puts the name with the face. “Jade Hillinger, right?” she asks, and her heart is flipping more than ever, but now it is an anxious beating. She thinks that she should have gotten a quick smoke before, but there was no way of knowing. There never is. She waits for the accusation, the blame, the tears. But they never come. She walks Jade to her seat, talks to her about styling options, lets her flip through a magazine, and begins to gather her required materials. She is not a bride anymore. She is not a doll anymore. But her heart still beats as if she is on a stand, and Jade is her judge, waiting for a reason to pardon her for anything. Were they in such a situation, she would not blame Jade, should she bang her gavel and send her out, shame trailing behind her. Innocent lives she could ruined, Jade and her significant other. She wonders if it is Jesse that Jade married. She wants to ask, but then it would give herself away. “So, why the cut?” she asks instead, returning to her initial question. Jade’s hair had been shorter when they had first met; she had been pretty then, and she is pretty now. Tiffany decides it is her personal mission to make it her magnum opus, Jade’s hair. It is the least she can do, after everything. Jade was the first woman who made her begin to think about her relationship with Chucky. Charles. “I can’t take care of it, it’s a lot of work,” Jade responds, and Tiffany is listening, she really is. Jade is moving into a new house, she is three months pregnant – and looking good for it – and her husband transitioning into a new job. But in the back of her mind, she is remembering about how Charles had almost hit her when she’d called him that.Don’t ever call me that again, he’d said. And she hadn’t. Until now. “I didn’t know Jesse was interested in being a paralegal,” is what she says aloud, because she is listening. But Jade gives her a look. “You know him?” she asks. There is that look again, and Tiffany cannot meet her eyes. She focuses on cutting her hair instead. A good length of a ponytail, a good length to just jump out of bed with. She knows a style. She knows a good fit for any look. “Oh, no,” she says, keeping her voice even. The scissors snip away, continuing her rhythm, and she thanks herself for the practice it takes to not waver, not for anything. “You mentioned it.”“Did I?” Jade asks, but her tone already suggests that she believes it, and the tension seems to ease again, even as Tiffany can feel her pulse lost in itself. “I forget so much lately.” “You’re a busy woman,” Tiffany says. “I understand that,” she says. But what she doesn’t say is that she wishes she could forget more. She remembers everything, and it keeps her up at night. She always has too much to remember; it keeps her from sleep. Jade does not seem to notice her lost in her thoughts, and she continues on, explaining how excited she is for this change. She loves Jesse, Tiffany can tell and this only causes a larger ache in her heart. She remembers Jesse. She wishes she had been with a man like Jesse. He was everything a girl could want; polite, hard-working, loyal. She had begun to nurse a small crush on him. She couldn’t help it. He was a nice looking neighbor, and he had always wanted to offer her things, his service and assistance or otherwise.
But her heart had been imprisoned to another, and Jade had moved in. It just was not meant to be. She wonders if anything good will ever be meant for her. “I have children,” Tiffany tells her, although she doesn’t know why. “They’re twins.”I could have had a third , she thinks, if I hadn’t been so blinded by a toxic love. Jade seems beyond interested to hear, and Tiffany hears herself in the naivety and excitement in Jade’s voice. Children are a blessing, Tiffany believes, but they are also so much work, and it is so despairing to raise them alone. It did not matter where she and Charles were in their relationship, she had always raised them alone. He did not care for them. As far as she can tell, he still does not care for them. “If you have any questions, I would love to give you advice,” she says, and there is a pause. She thinks to herself that Jade must know who she is. Her eyes gave it away. Or her voice. Either way, it is all over now. The game of farce is lost. But Jade glances at her thoughtfully, and then looks back into the mirror, tossing her hair and studying it closely. “I’d like that,” is what Jade says, despite what Tiffany believes should have occurred. “I really would.” She sounds as if there is more she would like to say, but the words hang in the air. Tiffany walks her to the counter and rings her up. Jade pays her in cash. They exchange numbers, and even make each other laugh. There is more small talk. Perhaps-plans are arranged. Nothing is concrete. But Jade begins to walk to the door, and then, holding it open, she looks at Tiffany once again. The wind is blowing in gently, and Tiffany feels as if she is in some old classic film, and she wonders where the flower petals are, despite the fact that it is early winter. “I meant to say earlier, but, I really love that color on you,” Jade says, and that is concrete. “Pink is the happiest color I know. It seems to have such gentle life to it, don’t you think?”Tiffany stares after her. “I do,” she says softly, and it means much more to her than she could explain to even herself, much less Jade. It would be too early to explain such a thing anyways. “Don’t forget I’m always here if you need someone to call.”Jade nods, and then she is gone, and everything feels surreal. The loss of the sudden and temporary excitement leaves her in a harsh state of longing. Jade’s car is out in the traffic. Tiffany watches through the window. She probably will not call. Most likely, she will put the number in a desk drawer and forget about it, only to find it later and think it is too late to call. Her other option is that one day, Jade will discover the truth, and this moment will only be another painful memory. But Tiffany had given her number anyways, just in case. She looks down at her hands, and rolls and unrolls the paper where Jade had left her own number, in neat handwriting and i’s that are dotted with little hearts, and she realizes that her hands are trembling so much. She almost feels tears, but they never come, and she does not feel sad. It is a different feeling entirely. She pulls out a cigarette and lights it, and looks out her large glass window, waiting for the school bus to come around.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
He sleeps the best he ever has in quite a long time, and when he comes to consciousness, everything feels as if it is in place for the first time. Then everything clicks, and he remembers. Andy. Andy had told him to come home last night. Andy Barclay had told him to come home last night. He’d told him to come home. And he’d done it. The thought rattles around in his mind for a minute, and he tries to remember all the points leading up to that one, that one pivotal moment. His mind is reeling, and he sits up from where he’d been lying, hands already in his hair. Nothing quite makes sense, but it is all here, in any case. He is lying on Andy’s couch, which was better than the last time he’d woken up here. The last time, he’d been on Andy’s bed, with Andy. He shook the thought away, disgusted at himself.Andy, for as much as he was in his thoughts just now, is nowhere around the apartment. At least, not in any of the common areas. He hops down from the couch, already familiar with the place, more than he’d like to admit to anyone, including and especially himself. He needs the restroom, yet another terrible side effect of him slowly becoming human again. He decides it’s not the worst of his transition, all things considered. He slides into the small guest bath on the side, not wanting to risk waking Andy if he is in his room. He doesn’t know why he cares. He’s stopped bothering a long time ago. He pisses into the toilet, and he does know why he cares. He knows more than ever. He knows now, especially after what had happened merely hours ago. He washes his hands, and tries to wash away the thoughts with it. For the first time in a long time, he had slept really well. And he hates this even more. It just adds to everything he wishes he could avoid for the rest of his life. He walks out of Andy’s guest bathroom instead, and walks through Andy’s hallway, on Andy’s floor, and into Andy’s kitchen, where Andy himself seems to materialize before him, finally awake, messing around with his sink and his dishes. He looks like he is suffering from a severe hangover. Chucky hopes he is. “Well, well, well,” he drawls, and he’s already grinning, and his heart is already pounding with the adrenaline that he always feels when Andy comes into view, and he hates himself. He hates himself. “Look who finally decided to come out and play.” Andy rolls his eyes and sets his cup down. He doesn’t even turn to look. “Get out,” he says, waving to the door. “Get out, or do your job.” “I think you already made it pretty clear last night that you don’t want me gone,” Chucky growls, and even though he says it with religion, there is no faith behind it. He grasps at the edge of one of the seats near the island, and clambers up against it, his breath already labored. He grunts and pushes himself upward onto the seat and then climbs onto the counter, and Andy sees him. He exhales angrily and turns away, walking over to the cabinets over his stove, pretending to be occupied with something. “Real mature, Andy,” Chucky says, and Andy ignores him. Chucky feels a childish anger rising in himself, and he’s a hypocrite to accuse Andy of any mental maturity, but he does so all the same. He just needs something from Andy. “If wasn’t looking at you, I’d say I was talking to the shitty little brat again, and not a man.” “I’m going to kill you,” Andy says, finally, and Chucky feels the wave of relief, and anger, and hatred, and a mixture of so many other things start to turn within him again, and he can’t help a grin from giddily spreading across his face. Andy slams the counter door shut and turns to look at him. Chucky sits on his counter, as if he belongs here, and he waits to see something in Andy’s eyes, and he is finally, finally, satisfied. He can almost feel the anger bubbling inside of Andy. “And this time, I’m going to make sure you’re not coming back.” Chucky laughs and throws his head back. God, how he hates Andy. And how Andy hates him too. Strangely, nothing has ever given him more immense joy. “Go ahead, baby boy, do it,” he challenges, putting his hands on the counter and leaning back. He cannot hold back the sloppy grin sliding across his face. He taps his cheek. “I’ll even let you take the first blow.” Of course, Andy does not do it. He does not even hit him. Chucky had known he wouldn’t, but he only feels himself swell when he finds that he’s right. Andy seems to find sudden interest in his cabinet again, rummaging around and seemingly uninterested in Chucky once more. “Pussy,” Chucky growls, but it’s a desperate attempt to gain Andy’s attention again, and it does not work. It’s as if the small flame he’d seen in Andy had flickered out as quickly as it had come. He hunches over on the counter in disappointment and watches as Andy continues to make his way around the kitchen, seemingly back into his shell, the one that Chucky hates so much. “Andy …” Chucky starts, but then Andy’s cell-phone rings in his pocket, and he huffs angrily, knowing that he’s completely lost Andy now. “Kristen, you got my message,” Andy says, his eyes immediately landing on Chucky. “I’m sorry I didn’t call…” Chucky zones out almost instantly, panicking. He hadn’t done what she’d wanted, or at least, not in the way she’d probably wanted him to do it. He doesn’t know why he cares, he could kill her in a heartbeat, if it was necessary. He gives Andy a glance over, and assures himself that no, not even under the influence of alcohol, did he hurt Andy in any way. At least not physically. She would have no need to come after him for that, at least. But he hadn’t given Andy the bottle of Blue Label. Well, he had. Just not so that Andy knew it was him. He knows why Kristen had entrusted that to him, and even from their small and nerve-wrecking conversation, he already had an inkling that she would not like to know how he had given it. Andy’s voice doesn’t seem to change, and he does not mention about any visitors he’d recently added to his apartment – very recent additions. Chucky swallows and he’s almost grateful, except that he loathes Andy with every bone in his body, and he knows that the only reason Andy seems to have his back is because they’re both stuck in this strange fixation, together. Andy scratches his back and he scratches Andy’s back. Only this method of scratching leaves wicked scars – mostly extrinsic, but some intrinsic. His eye catches the bottle of Blue Label, which is empty but Andy had not thrown it away. It’s lying on its side on the counter, much the way a bottle had when Andy had passed out on the floor, just beneath his feet. If he looks over his shoulder, he can see the very spot where Andy had been, so close to death. He could have let him die. He should have let him die. But here he is instead, sitting on Andy’s counter and watching Andy talk on the phone. There are a couple of things that he is doing that he never thought he would be, but in the grand scheme of it all, it only makes sense that he is doing it, after all of this time. He is so stuck in his own traditions that he will not admit to it and change, even for this own sanity. He will be strapped in a straightjacket and wheeled away before he allows himself to think any differently than he always has. But even in all his righteous determination, he is still here, swinging his legs and slamming his feet against the counter wall so that Andy scowls at him while still holding a conversation and is not allowed to forget that he is here. “I’m going to work,” Andy tells him, as soon as he hangs up the phone, and Chucky doesn’t know why he bothers to inform him of this, and he doesn’t know why it pleases him that he does. Frankly, it doesn’t matter, as he would know anyways. He always knows. “And what am I supposed to do?” he asks, only because he has to have the last word. He has to be the one left standing. It won’t do if he isn’t. Andy only lets him have it, which seems unnatural, and it leaves him less satisfied than if he hadn’t had it. He finds himself watching Andy’s back disappear through the door, the click of the lock deadening. He could have killed Andy, right here and right now. But it’s the fact that Andy does not seem to care, and is tired of his games, that leaves him not wanting to make a move. He feels as if he’s run in a large circle and found himself back at square one, more frustrated and agonized than ever. He growls angrily and pokes around in Andy’s drawers until he finds all of his knives and throws them into the walls, feeling only a temporary fix each time one sticks in. The time alone is torture. He’d left the bottle on Andy’s counter. He’d snuck in to Andy’s apartment and just set it gently next to the other things on the counter as if it’d always been there and it belonged. He’d hoped Andy wouldn’t have noticed and he’d hoped that Andy would, and so when he wasn’t immediately hunted down he wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved. He decides now that he was disappointed, and then immediately tries to change his mind, only to fail, and he slides out of the apartment. He tells himself that he is going to expunge his frenzied thoughts in someone else’s blood, but he finds himself sneaking into Andy’s shop down below instead. He is almost ashamed of himself, but he’s outrun this cycle so much he doesn’t even try to do it again. He just sits on the floor behind the counter instead, waiting for Andy to notice, and accepts the merry-go-round he is a part of. He contemplates killing Andy right here, in front of a customer. It would be entertaining to watch their confused face as Andy flopped over the counter, his lower organs spilling out. The register would still be popped open as the customer angrily shoved Andy around, probably calling him a drunk. Then Andy would fall to the floor, and the customer would scream. He imagines it’s some woman in her late forties, with short blonde hair and a face that clearly showed she’d been trying to hide her age. The bell above the front door of the shop rings, and he does not do it. But he thinks about it, and he finds himself fixated on watching Andy’s every move and listening to his every word. He is incredibly agile with words, Andy is, and he seems to effortlessly maneuver nearly every conversation. He shouldn’t be surprised. He’s read through Andy’s things. He knows just how well Andy works with words, how fluently he can use just the right ones so that they fill several spiraled and worn down notebooks and scraps of paper folded under books and in between manila folders. He knows. But it’s still almost fascinating to watch it come into play, in live action.He wonders if Andy knows he is here. A part of him is sure he does, and is merely ignoring his existence. A part of him hopes that Andy simply has poor peripherals. Either way, Andy does not acknowledge him, and he finds himself getting restless. Waiting had never been his forte, and the underlying bloodlust bubbles up, making the underside of his skin itch. He rubs his hands over the torn jeans of his overalls and lets his hands prickle, letting the low growl of hunger rumble at the base of his neck. “… and I’d tried to get them in today, but there’s a shortage at the company I order from. They should be in tomorrow morning. Why don’t you let me call you? I’d hate for you to waste your time.” Andy sounds terse suddenly, and Chucky’s interest finally has a place to resettle. He moves his eyes ever so slightly, in the case that this particular customer on the other side of the counter does see him. The words Andy continues to say seem kind enough, but the tone footnotes another meaning. The customer in question is a man in his mid-fifties, at the earliest. Chucky assumes this man must be close to his own age, and imagines he would probably look the same, if he’d stayed in one body. Deep set eyes, heavy with lines of age and no sleep and probably many bar fights. This man clearly intimidates Andy in a way that he seems to constantly fail at, and something about that makes him bristle territorially. “Well, I already drove here today,” the man snarls, and Chucky does not like the way he has tobacco juice coming out of the corner of his mouth. It makes his breath stink, and his teeth black, and his voice clogged, and every part of this man exudes a sense of entitlement, which is what Chucky supposes went into his system when he first put the disgusting thing in his mouth. “You’re seriously telling me right now that you don’t have it?” “I’m sorry, sir.” Chucky swears Andy spat it out, but when he glances, nothing on Andy’s face indicates disrespect. There is nothing but complacent subservience, from the climb of his eyebrows on his forehead to the way his mouth curves as he formulates each sentence. “I can only imagine how inconvenient this was for you. Won’t you let me call you when I get some in? Or I can recommend you to another store that may have some on the shelves.” It’s a good look on Andy. All the more to make him angry that it wasn’t him who put Andy in this position in the first place. All the more to remind him that he doesn’t quite affect Andy in any way at all the way he used to, and it leaves him with the feeling of incompetency. He can hardly hold in the wounded pride. The man gives a much un-needed huff, and slams his fist on the counter before storming off, announcing to every other customer in the small store just how disappointed he was in the ugliest of ways. His voice echoed even after he had slammed the door behind him, the bell being tossed from its perch onto the floor. Andy’s face is stone, but it is already beginning to redden. Chucky snickers under his breath. The more he sees Andy’s vulnerabilities, the more he realizes that there is quite a bit of ammo still, in his battle against Andy. The walls around the man are beginning to crumble, and he is peeking through the underbrush, infiltrating the castle. One small step at a time. The customers take awkward peeks at Andy, and the whispers make Andy visibly squirm behind the counter. His eyes lowered, he goes to the door, hanging up the bell, and returning to his space, meddling with every small item, just to keep himself busy. Chucky can practically taste his discomfort, and it is delicious. But he was not the one who had caused this, and that is unacceptable. The man must die. No one is allowed to hurt Andy, not even in such a small social slight. Not that he cares that Andy hurts. He does not care in the slightest. A customer comes to the counter. A gentleman and his wife. Neither look Andy in the eye. The man makes a tactless joke, no doubt in effort to try and lighten the mood. It falls flat. The wife coughs and looks as if she wants to not exist entirely. Chucky thinks to himself in amusement that he could fulfill her wishes. He does not care at all that Andy hurts. It is just the matter of who throws the blows. He slinks off through the back, and finds himself in the same spot where he had fallen to his knees, close to begging. He does not care about Andy. He shakes the humiliating memories away, and he rounds the corner, heading off in the direction the man had stormed off, making quite a scene. It is almost embarrassing to think that a grown person his age would throw a tantrum for some sights on a gun. It is almost as embarrassing as the fact that he is here, pursuing him, for no reason other than a petty jealousy or other darker obsessive qualities he would like to keep in the dark. He had known others like this man in his life; the same gaudy walk, the same overbearing mouth, snapping on anyone at will. He had never really been that man, although it is not because he has never wanted to. In truth, even as he hates it, he envies it, that easily garnered power. He has had to scrape for any last scrap of such raw dominance, struggling to assume authority over anyone. But succeed he has, and even as he judges and stalks this man, detesting every part of him from the way his shoes scuff against the pavement to the costly jacket over his shoulders, he cannot help but behave the same; cocky and exuberant to display his strength. He inhales deeply, the epiphany coming to him. This man had emasculated him, without even realizing it. The way he had so easily demanded attention and had everyone cowering with simple words made him a threat. The way he had rendered Andy so docile had been a threat. Andy Barclay does not belong to him, but he feels it nonetheless, a covetous anger. He grips the handle of his knife, feeling the driving pulse throughout his hand. This man will pay, and he will be a threat no longer. Not to mention that when he is rid of him, Andy will owe him a debt, whether the Barclay boy likes it or not. There is something deeply satisfying about this. It drives his hand. The man is easy prey, so self-confident that he does not think that anyone would dare to approach him, his presence too loud to hear footsteps in the shadows. He cannot be killed in public; this would draw too much attention, and although Chucky does enjoy a spotlight, he will never do so in the risk of exposing himself. Not that it matters much, as he slowly becomes mere human, just trapped in a body he daily convinces himself he was sanguine with. Soon he will be exposing nothing. He will not be able to hide much. With the way he has been feeling, it seems he will not be able to hide anything at all, when the time comes. He swallows it away and continues on, finding the man easy to track just by the mess he’s left behind him, the smell of the tobacco, and the chewed curd spit into the sidewalk, in some bushes, along the gutters of the street. Clearly this man believes he owns the world, and that the world is indebted to him, and that just cannot remain. If anyone owns the world, Chucky thinks that it is himself. It is a rather funny hypocritical notion that he should pursue this man, but of course, Chucky is so caught up in his own pride and narcissism that he does not realize this. There are other things that he does not realize, or else he chooses not to believe that they exist.It does not take long to find the man, and it does not take long to kill him. He does not waste time on formalities, he doesn’t play any games. It is a hit and run, a quick and clean end. He had wanted to drag it out, but the red of his angry and possessive hunger had overtaken his thoughts, and he could do nothing else but finish him, then and there. “Looks like I’ve got you in my sights,” he’d said, just before he’d shot the man. He always has to have a say. He does not even know his name. He does not care.Andy had told him to leave him alone before just last night, but he hadn’t done it, because he’s never done what Andy’s told him to do. Until last night, apparently. But he’d been drunk and Tiffany had not answered his calls and Andy had been a familiar face and it had all been just too easy. She still has not answered his calls. Something about that hurts, and he hates it. This is what he gets for opening up to anyone. It is a lesson he seems to consistently needs to learn, as much as he thinks he has learned it already. It hurts every time. Not in the way of love, he thinks, although with Tiffany he is sure he loved her. He is sure he loves her even now, in his own selfish way. Some would call it the desire of possession, that his love for Tiffany is akin to that of an object, a token or other trophy. The same as it is with his victims, except he had never laid a hand on her – although he had come close before. He wipes his hands on his overalls, staring at the body in front of him. He is going to have to figure out how to hide the body. Before her, it had been Eddie Caputo. Eddie and he had grown up together, two bums in a system that did not understand them. They commiserated and confided in one another, there was no stone unturned, no line they could not cross. Eddie was the one person he’d trusted the most; even now, he thinks, there is no one he had told everything to like he had Eddie. The body is going to have to come with him to Andy’s apartment. Andy is not going to like it much, he suspects, but he does not care what Andy likes or dislikes. In his mind, he has done Andy a favor, and has free range to do what he pleases. Eddie had been the first huge betrayal. He has never been the same since. He had thought Tiffany would heal him, in the way he had been taught women do, with their touch and their divine femininity, but it had turned out she was a useless bitch. Just as his mother had been. If he were fair or even somewhat remotely introspective, he would have seen how he was similar to her father. But he was no such thing, and his mind was also occupied with a current problem. Another burden to bear. Not that he would bear it alone; he has a partner in crime. A coerced partner in crime, perhaps, but a partner nonetheless. He is not surprised at Andy’s reaction. “What have you done,” is what Andy says – and does not ask – and although his tone does not waver for a moment, each word is punctuated so that Chucky can feel the pierce of anxiety and anger almost tangibly in his skin. Chucky is on his knees, waist up stained in his crimes, and a vigor in the way he takes a defensive stance at Andy’s minor aggression. “Well, it’s already done,” Chucky says. “You gonna help me get rid of the body, or are you gonna just let this blood fall on your hands?” Andy stares at him as if he has made the most bizarre statement in the world. “He’s in your apartment now.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
This is a mistake. That's all Andy can think. He has made a terrible mistake. He feels dark, and dirty, but he is secretly glad this man does not breathe anymore. As many times as he suffocated him while he was stuck behind a customer service smile, it's almost fitting that now, he will never take another breath. It is the worst thing he has ever thought since his dismissal of his mother's nurse's death, and he hates the way it creeps around him almost comfortably.Five hours later, the deed is done, and Andy's heart is buried just about as deep as the body, thudding in the pit of his stomach. The settling of the sun just outside his window seems fitting to the way the guilt sinks him down.It is almost ludicrous, what he has done, but Chucky has left him with no choice. He supposes he could take a moral road, call law enforcement, and take the blame. But it would not be honest, and the true criminal would run free again, and more people would be hurt. Or killed. No – it was better to keep outside bars, where he could try his best to keep Chucky reigned in.He knows that is not the whole truth, but the dark underbelly of it all frightens him. Along with his other emotions he has buried long ago, in order to keep himself safe, there are some that he has kept locked away to keep others safe. As long as he is fixated on fighting everything that Chucky is and stands for, in a way, he is victoriously battling over his own inner demons."Take off your clothes, asshole."Or so he'd like to think.He whips around in the midst of his reverie, facing his reflection. Chucky has hopped onto the bathroom counter, already in a shirt that is his. The way it hangs off Chucky's knees would be comical, even endearing, if they were two entirely different people in an entirely different situation. That being one that did not include parts of what was once a breathing life now pushing daisies."What?" he asks anyways, despite not wanting to talk to Chucky at all. There is a tight tension in his chest, and he feels as if he needs to vomit."Your clothes," Chucky reiterates, cocking his head to one side. There is the same scowl set on his face that Andy has always known, and he can never tell if the glint in his eyes is angry, methodical, or defensive. He gestures with a nonchalant head nod, but Andy cannot help but to feel that Chucky is sizing him up. It only sets him on a sharp edge. "Take them off."Andy scowls at him, that angry rush still deep inside. He can hear it roaring. "Why are you wearing my shirt?" he asks, although he does not care at all about that. It is the least of his worries when concerning Chucky. He sucks in a small breath, trying to count himself down, breathe - breathe - breathe."Because I'm erasing evidence, jackass," Chucky says, and now he is staring Andy down, more than likely wondering if Andy has truly lost all signs of intelligence. Andy scoffs, turns away, and exits the bathroom. He does not want to be near the doll-humanoid any more than he can help."Throw those clothes away!" Chucky's voice echoes thunderously off the walls of his small apartment. Andy feels his hatred for it and the way it reverberates through the marrow of his bones, and yet, left with his ultimatum, retreats into his bedroom, peeling of his clothes one piece at a time, searching through his overturned room for a fresh outfit.Kristen would be horrified that he had agreed to this, but he simply cannot think of what else he can do. Anyone would be horrified, but he is stuck. His hands are tied, by none other than a small child's plaything. It is a low and growling humiliation.He has his shirt half pulled on, bloodied clothes at his feet, when his cell-phone vibrates, electric shocks up his skin. He groans at the caller ID, almost rejecting it entirely.His mother would be horrified if she knew.He picks it up, regardless. The clerk at the psychiatric hospital informs him over the phone that his mother has shown "considerable improvement", and has been considered for temporary trial-release. She asks if he can come over early in the morning to settle her documents and temporary residency for her final observations and evaluation. They decide on a time, and he hangs up as quickly as she allows him, heart throbbing in his throat.He cannot have his mother here. Not with things the way they are now. It is a mess in more ways than one. He will have to talk to her tomorrow before anything is discussed with anyone else. It is not something he even wanted to bring up to her, this sudden living arrangement he has created over a drunken treaty, but he is against the wall with little to no choices. He finds it easy to decide where to place the blame.Exhibit A balled up in his arms, he makes his way out into the living room, where Chucky has already found a garbage bag and has presumably tucked his own ruined clothing in it."Well? Hurry up, kid, we ain't got all day," Chucky growls, an underlying impatience simmering. Andy almost wants to take his time, make him squirm. But it would not be wise, not with his own reputation at stake. Swallowing his pride and Chucky's belittling vocabulary, he keeps a furrowed glance at Chucky, steadfastly dumping his clothes into the bag, keeping his eyes on him. Watching. It is the least he can do, to take responsibility for this."Now let's burn it," Chucky orders. Andy does not like the tone he carries, as if he controls anything. Although, in a broad perspective, Chucky does hold his fate in his hands at the moment, seeing as he could find a way to pin the blame on him at any minute. Even though Andy can begin to see traces of humanity in the doll's body, he remains still overwhelmingly inanimate, and can escape into his facade at any time it is convenient.He sucks in any sharp remarks and follows suit, taking out a lighter, and then a matchbox, and he dreams of the day the doll can longer freeze into a facade for rescue. His penance will come soon. He begins to follow Chucky out the door, and with another crass statement degrading him, he returns to the kitchen and swipes up a bottle of gin.He hates and yet loves that there is a back alley to hide them. His eyes stay on his clothes, and thinks in dark humor that the part he is angriest about is that his favorite shirt is being burned. He'd always liked the material, and he'd grown attached to wearing it as often as he had. A habitual creature, he finds it the hardest to let go.There is a last desperate cry inside him to change what is occurring before him, but he does not move, and watches as his clothes turn to embers, the silhouette of Chucky in his peripheral. He does not flinch as the silhouette moves out of view, no words, no sound. He cannot honestly begin to explain if there is even a feeling. It is burned away.He can still smell the ash in his nose and taste the copper in his mouth, as if his tell-tale guilt shadowed him as he made his way to his mother. The walk had never seemed so transient, and this was a monumental concept, as he never enjoyed walking into the ward. But his steps feel heavier than usual, nonetheless, and he cannot shake the ever-present feeling that every eye could see, and that every mind knew, and every mouth would whisper it until it telephoned its way to his mother's room, and he would have no chance to confess to her on his own accord.If a soul knew, not one gave him away. His mother is resting at her side table, scrawling into a worn notebook. He knows better than to ask what she is writing.He knocks at the arch. She glances up, glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose, and he is reminded of how time has passed. How much time has been lost."I wasn't expecting you," Karen Barclay says, and he cannot shake the feeling that she knows. She smells it on him. She smells him on him. "It's a pleasant surprise. I do wish I could see you more often, but I know you are … occupied."Her breath had stuttered, and he worries for her health, but he also worries that it was a calculated stutter. A clever ruse. She knows, she knows, she knows. He cannot help the blood rushing through him, guilt its current."I know," he replies, his voice as even as he can hope for it to be. "I'm sorry. I've meant to come earlier. Things have been very hard for me lately."He swallows. She watches. There is a pause. Then:"Do they seem to be amending?"He looks at her, and she looks back, waiting. He shrugs, and takes a seat across from her at her little table. Her notebook is closed now, her hands folded over it. His arms are crossed. They are both protecting something. It should not be this hostile between family, and yet, he cannot help but feel unable to breathe.He could lie. Oh, how he wants to. But it would be fruitless. He wants to point his own fingers. He sighs, and looks out the window, grasping for any distraction to make the shame and humiliation any less."I don't know," he says, at last. He still grapples with the words in his mind. "It depends on how much I'm willing to compromise."He can feel her gaze boring into him, and he cannot turn around to face her. From a glance, he can catch her head cocking slightly, the wheels turning as she calculates the best way to respond. The most motherly way to respond. He can sense it in his mind, the way her eyes glass over."What is the expense?" she asks, and he knew the question was coming. She knows, he can tell, that his hands are already dirtied somehow. Her voice is soft, gently coaxing, but he can hear the fear nonetheless. "Who is the expense?He turns now, and looks at her almost desperately, silently begging clemency. He inhales, holds her hands, and says nothing. She does not need his words. He can see her visibly shrinking, her fingers clenching around his, a physical manifestation of their anxiety."I always…" she begins, but the nurse comes in then, and upon noticing he is there, immediately brightens."Oh, good! You're here," she chatters, and Karen falls silent. Andy grimaces. The nurse flips through papers on her clipboard, seemingly unaware. "We've got some papers you'll need to sign; we're in the process of rehabilitation for your mother."There is something about the way she speaks so flippantly of his mother that leaves a searing anger inside. Karen does not seem to notice; she has buried herself in her notebook again, and Andy wonders what she writes on now. The nurse pratters on the legalities, but all he can ruminate on is the fact that he does not want his mother in his home. Not with the infestations he has allowed to grow and thrive inside it. She will not be safe. He is admently sure of it."No," he hears, and pulls himself back to the present and it is his mother who has spoken. She does not look up from her notebook, but continues scrawling away, calm as ever. He admires the strength in her, and wishes he does not shake so much, and wonders if she shakes too, and is only good at concealing it.The nurse halts in her speech, cleary just as shaken. "I'm sorry?" she asks, her pen clicking."I have plans to stay with Michael Norris," Karen responds, and Andy can almost swear he hears slight irritation in her voice. "I have spoken about it with the staff and with Mr. Norris several times. Did you forget, by any chance?"The nurse, clearly taken aback, stutters in her response. "I… no, I just hadn't realized that was all finalized." She gives Andy a timid and worried glance now, and he takes back his harsh judgment of her from before. "Were you aware of this?"He hadn't been, but he is relieved to hear it. After all these years, the detective still looked out for his mother. How Mr. Norris managed to convince anyone to releases him from detainment - as his claims had been right alongside Karen's - is beyond him. He is grateful, feeling the weight of his shoulders come away. A little more time, a little more space. Another stint removed from his windpipe.And yet, another placed, because he is only reminded again of how he has failed his mother, who deserves so much more than he can seem to give her. He shifts in his place and tries to focus on the present instead."I am," he says, and hopes they do not hear the depressive weight in his throat. "I was."He catches his mother's glance. He does not take the time to try and decipher it. The nurse fumbles with the clipboard. There is something in her demeanor now that he sees himself in. He reaches out and takes it from her, along with the pen. "I need to sign this, then," he states, searching for the x and the bottom line. He does not look up, but he sees the nurse straighten up, feels her brighten. One good deed he's done, although this penny will not make up for the lot he has yet to pay.He scribbles a hasty signature, and hands it back to her. "My schedule keeps me… unfortunately unable to care for her in the way I would like," he says, and he feels his mother's gaze again. He does not meet it this time, but keeps his eyes on the nurse. He gives a small grin. "Mr. Norris has been a good friend of my mother's for quite some time now, as he has been a good mentor to me. I think it is the best decision we could make."The nurse meets his smile, but he sees the way it does not reach her eyes. One fellow undead to another. He wonders what shadows she hides behind. He knows better than to ever ask."I'll let the front office know, in that case," she says, and gives one more withered glance at the two of them before leaving, the door shutting behind her gently.Karen is waiting for his eyes as soon as the door hits the frame."So he has found you again," she says, and cocks her head to the side, "But this time, it is different than usual, isn't it?"Andy almost chokes. "What makes you say that?" He knows it is a stupid question; he can hide himself from nearly everyone, but not his mother. Even in all the time they'd spent apart, it is as if she had never left him.As he'd suspected, she does not respond in any way, save for the way her eyes pierce into him. "It is," he surrenders, and feels his whole body slouch. He doesn't know if this is from the shame of his admittal, or from the relief of sharing the burden.He jumps when her small, frail hand grips him suddenly, and squeezes his wrist with a strength he did not know she possessed. There is a knock on the door, and he can hear Mr. Norris' voice on the other side."He will not win," is all she says, and there is a strange energy in her demeanor. "It is easier than you know."She sits back and shuts her notebook just as Mike Norris' head peeks around the door, eyes lighting up at Andy sitting beside her. "Andy Barclay," he says, already reaching out a hand. Andy feels stiff, immovable, his bones almost cracking as he stretches out his own hand. Mr. Norris does not seem to notice the dark peculiarity in the air, age set wrinkles giving away a brilliant smile. "It's nice to see you around here, kid - I don't see you as often as I'd like, you know."The sheepish blush manages to pull Andy out of his seemingly hypnotic trance, and he chuckles under his breath, shamefaced. "I know," he says, his voice a bit rough. "I've been meaning to come around when you're here more often."It's all a ruse, this game he is playing. His mother's grip, the blood on his hands - everything in his live that is falling apart creeps through his mind, stinking and retching anywhere he tries to have a coherent thought. He cannot stand to be here much longer; he fears he will give his guilt away yet again, and he is not ready to confess to anyone else. But the thought of going home also fills him with pounds of dread. And yet...He gives Mike a once-over. "So, you'll be taking care of my mother?"… He almost hungers to go.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The paper with Jade's number is taped to the corner of her bathroom mirror. She sees it every time she gets ready in the morning, and just before she prepares herself to end the day. After the kids are all in bed, tucked in and visiting the sandman, she sometimes goes to the bathroom and runs her finger over the number, waiting. Debating. She wonders if Jade has trouble sleeping at night, like she did during her own pregnancy. Does Jesse aid her in this time? She can only imagine.Today, she is putting her lipstick on when she sees it again, dangling on the edge of the glass. She has taken it down and rehung it so many times that the tape has worn down, and the paper threatens to fall off on its own, to be swept away and forgotten.She pops the cap on her lipstick and sighs. She pulls the paper off again, wisps a hand through her hair, and crumples the paper in her hand, stuffing it in her pocket. She can hear her children in the background. She glances into the yard through her bathroom window, inhales deeply again, and takes the paper with her into the living room, where her phone lies on the couch, calling her. She picks it up, hands trembling. She wants to laugh at herself. There is no reason she should be nervous.She can hear the twins laughing carelessly. It hurts. She longs for a friend. Jade could be the one she finally confides in, but she cannot know for sure, and should she somehow have another disastrous slip-up, the consequences would be terrible. She is so tired of being lonely, and now that she has finally cut Chucky out of her life, she realizes she really had never created friends with anyone else during their time together. Chucky had never really liked her having friends; he had told her he was the only one she'd ever need."Guess you didn't count on being out of the picture, huh, asshole?" she muses aloud, tapping in the numbers as she did. She sat against the couch cushions, digging in her purse for a lighter and a cigarette. She shouldn't be smoking. She should curb the habit. What if Jade did not like smoke? She definitely would not want it with her coming child - or even after the child was born. She shouldn't have smoked around her own kids. She'd read somewhere that it heightened their chances of being addicted as well, and their risk for cancer."Hello? Who is this?"She almost hangs up. Jade's voice comes over so soft, so quaint. Tiffany drops her cigarette and curses under her breath. Jade speaks again, more concerned."Hello?""Jade," Tiffany finally stutters out, giving up on her smoke. The cigarette has bounced underneath the couch, and the lighter is somewhere in between her lap and the couch cushions. She huffs away from the phone, aggravated and anxious. It should not be so hard to make a simple phone call. But her hands shake nonetheless. "D-do you remember me?"Pussy, she can hear Chucky saying. Why are you even bothering? You know bitches are never good company. Almost as if he were on the couch next to her, watcher her every move. Making her feel small. She wonders if he was so adamant to tear her down because he truly despised her, or because he felt so small himself. His significance was never something he seemed to complain about, but there were whispers in the things he said and did that sometimes had her up at night, wondering about him. Worrying for him.Maybe, worse still, he just had never cared for her, other than an accessory. She pushes the feeling down, but from the beginning, she had always suspected he had never really loved her. More of the act of finally giving in to her persistent chasing. She doesn't know why she had always run after him and desired his companionship. Something about him, and his partner of the time, Caputo, screamed of a freedom and beyond that she longed for.Something about Jade is equally enticing, in a different way. A more heartbreaking way."No, I'm sorry," Jade replies, the remorse apparent in her tone. "Your voice does sound familiar though."For some reason, it hurts. Forgettable. She should know that Jade has probably met many others and probably given her number out since they'd met, but somehow, it still stings. It had meant so much more to her meeting Jade than the vice versa. An unrequited affair yet again. She almost hangs up. But something pushes in her to keep going. Masochism maybe. Or the throbbing loneliness she's had to bear for too long."It's Tiffany," she says, swallowing the pain. She really wishes she hadn't dropped the cigarette. "From the salon?""Oh!" Jade almost squeals on the other side of the phone. Tiffany can imagine Chucky still, rolling his eyes. Condescending. But the tension in the air has changed. "I knew you sounded familiar!" There is a clattering in the backdrop of sound over the phone. "I didn't think you were going to call."I almost didn't, Tiffany wants to say, but instead she settles with, "I've been busy. Kids, you know." She leans towards the window to look for the subjects at hand, and she can see them knee deep in the dirt, digging up treasures that she will probably make them keep on the back porch."Speaking of which, how is your little one?" she asks. Her nails are chipped; it's time for a repaint. Usually she would just do it on herself, but with Jade chattering away on the other side of the phone, she can't help but hope that maybe she could turn it into a trip instead. She tips her hand back and forth dreamily.Just to be with someone who understands. That is all she asks. She knows she hasn't been a saint in her life, but she's hoping the gods forgive her and grant her just this one mercy.One more prayer sent out, she waits for Jade to pause before she interrupts to invite her. Just a day out for the girls, she says. Jade almost immediately sounds intrigued, admitting it's been awhile since she has had time to herself.Tiffany can only laugh into her hand. Little does she know.They meet up a week after the phone call, going to a different salon across town. Jade is waddling heavily, but her smile is so radiant Tiffany almost cries. Tiffany calls the babysitter, and they spend most of the day together, just enjoying each other's company. It's the first time Tiffany has found herself genuinely laughing without a pit in her stomach in years. The intended one-time event turns into a weekly commitment, and they begin to follow it religiously.She's in the middle of a late night phone call with her when something begins to emerge out of her. The kids are in bed, and she's in the bath, a favorite pastime. She does not realize it, but she does not hear Chucky's grating criticisms of her pleasures and mannerisms anymore. The new voice in her mind is the one she hears on the other side of the phone, swapping recipes and the names of good soap operas and classic films with her.She has had too much white wine, and Jade has the most vivacious personality. An hour into their conversation, Tiffany slips just a little bit and talks about Chucky to her. No names, no details, but it comes out all the same. The light conversation becomes a somber one. Time goes by. They're at it again, making plans to watch the same movie together at the same time, just to feel like they are at each other's places, side by side.When Tiffany hangs up, it is long past midnight. The Barkleys of Broadway is fading out with the credits. She is crying, for some reason, even with the happy ending. She ties her robe and glances at her phone. There are several missed texts from Jade, the final one being a good-night. She sighs and picks the phone up.I almost unblocked his number, she admits.Don't do that. The reply comes quickly. You won't get any satisfaction from that.But she might, is what Jade does not know. Tiffany entertains the idea that if she only partly explained, that Jade would take part in - encourage even - what she wants to do. She puts her phone down, staring at it, heart racing. Debating. She can feel herself flushing with excitement at the thought of them together, committing this delicious crime against her ex-lover. She picks the phone up again, her fingers stuttering over the keys. She sends a three paragraph text.Jade does not respond for a long time. The dots flicker for a while. She holds her breath. Then:
Alright. I'll bite. But only because it's you.
Tiffany grins wolfishly and throws herself on the bed, giggling uncontrollably. She scrolls through her phone, unlocking everything. She does not take time to read the text messages; there are hundreds of them, along with several voicemails. She is sure her inbox would have been too full to take any other calls if she had not blocked him in the first place.She deletes the other messages, quickly narrowing it down to the most recent one. A part of her is afraid of what he will sound like. Furious probably, threatening her life. Degrading her in some way, shape or form. She sucks in a breath. Perhaps Jade was right. Maybe this would not bring her any satisfaction. But she presses the button anyways. The voice on the line is surprisingly soft, almost sheepish. Definitely broken."Tiff, I…" there is a pause. She can hear a frustrated huff. There are no slurs hurled at her, no fangs bared. Just his voice. "I know you're probably not picking up the damn phone or even listening to me anymore but, if you are… I… I'm fucking living with him right now…"
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“I don’t know, and I don’t really care anymore. I’m tired of fighting,” Andy says, for what feels like the umpteenth time. He’s staring down into coffee cup, avoiding Kristen’s scrutinous gaze.
Kristen just huffs at this, flicking her towel across the bartop. Jeeves’ band is not playing today, but there is that similar smooth jazz floating around them. A very contrarian setting. Andy leans against his hand and averts his eyes, still unable to meet her continuous glancing. He can see her in his peripherals, chatting up other customers and serving orders, all the while just
dying
to come back and reprimand him some more. He supposes. And which he absolutely deserves.
He quickly peeks over, just to see if she is looking, and when he sees her bent down to pick up something from the lower shelves behind the bar, he slips out his flask and douses his coffee with the contents. So much for sobriety. If Kristen knows about this or any of his other recent episodes she would be much more anxious.
He tugs at his sleeve, feeling another itch already lingering beneath his skin just thinking about it.
“And how many corp- how much
company
does he bring around to the apartment, and how much does he leave
you
with a mess to clean?” Kristen asks, and he nearly jumps out of his skin. He knows she is in the right to ask, but he cannot help the bristle of defensiveness tickling in his blood. Maybe spiking his coffee right now was not the
most
genius of eurekas. He can already feel an unjustified rage growing inside him.
And for who? Himself?
Chucky
? He forces his jaw shut. Kristen does not approve at his nonverbal admission; she makes it quite clear.
“Listen, I
know
about your whole complicated tie with him, but…” she stops, almost annoyed at the customer down the bar banging their cup for her attention. Andy watches her work, and sips at his coffee. The sting of the whiskey is almost welcoming. Like his awaited reckoning.
He swallows it down right as Kristen swings back around, empty styrofoam cup stacks in hand. Her hair is falling apart in every way that it can, almost as if the thick curls are runaway prisoners from their hairbanded cell. He almost wants to smile, but their tension is too thick for him to try and push down or brush away.
“
What
was I saying? Oh - listen, I just…” she pauses, her face wrinkling. It is endearing. He is so lucky to have a friend who cares for him this much. “I just don’t want to see you in the just busted because you’re still attached to your favorite toy.”
There is a bit of snide in her voice. He cannot blame her. He should feel the same way. But unfortunately - he
is
the kid with the attachment to said ‘favorite toy.’ He stopped wrestling that identity a while ago by now.
“Is he living with you?” she asks.
“No,” he says. “Just comes in and visits a lot. We argue, and then he’s gone again. It’s strange.”
Almost comforting
, he nearly adds. But he feels that Kristen has been frontloaded with much too much information as is, and the description he uses even now creates a pained expression across her features. She does not say anything of it, however, but instead busies herself some more. More than likely, she is trying to give herself time to think.
He does not understand it himself, and he envies her the time she has to ponder it, whereas he just has to accept it as the way things are now, between him and the other. He clenches and unclenches his fist, swallowing down his own self-loathing and disgust. There is nothing that he can do about it now, he has invited the devil into his home. He opened the door. Glancing up again at Kristen, he just hopes that she can at least understand his welcoming of the murderer because he has become so tired of pushing him away. Chucky will come, whether he wants him to or not. Over and over again.
The rest of it, he does not expect anyone to come to terms with. It is difficult for himself to grasp.
“Do you want to come over tonight?” Kristen asks, and she is searching for something. For more answers, perhaps. She is inquisitive, and detail oriented, and she does not appreciate what seems incomprehensible. She is trying to make sense of it all, even now, and she most likely will not stop until she can piece something together. Andy chalks it up to her protectiveness for him. “Jess is going to be home. We could spend some time together, just the three of us.”
He considers it. But he knows she will not be able to handle the answers to her questions. Not tonight, when he has just told her the things that he has.
“Not tonight, sorry,” he says, and watches her face fall. She covers it up quickly and shrugs, with a small attempt at a nonchalant, “Some other time, then.”
He leaves soon after, despite her attempt to get him to stay just a bit longer. He is avoiding her, and they both know that he is doing it because he feels
guilty
. He feels like he gave up and lost, the battle over.
Two hours, a half-pint, and two bandaged arms later, he’s on the couch, still thrumming, still contemplating, flipping through the television. Nothing catches his attention. He turns the volume up, but the noise does nothing for his head except make everything louder. He sighs and turns it off tossing the remote into the pile of clothes he has on his couch.
Maybe if he did something in the apartment, he would feel better. But he cannot seem to move off the couch. He glances towards the hall where his bedroom is. Maybe if he just got up and wrote something-
anything
- he would feel better. He still does not move.
And that is how Chucky finds him, his head laid back, staring at the ceiling. He did not even get up to turn on music or anything.
“Jesus!” Is what he hears. He does not move even then, although he is startled by the sudden break in his inattentive state. He feels his heart leap up once and then settle again.
“I didn’t even know you were in here- you didn’t think to turn on a fucking light or something?” Chucky asks. Andy had not even realized the time that has passed; he looks around to see that the apartment is nearly dark. His window is still open, but there is barely any sunlight left, as it is now sinking behind the city.
“You didn’t turn it on either,” he replies. He hears Chucky huff irritably.
“What did you do?”
Andy sits up now, unsure of what he means. He looks at Chucky’s face, whose eyes are fixed on him. He does not look approving. Not that he cares. He looks around himself, trying to figure out what he wants from him.
Chucky scowls. “Never mind, asshole,” he growls, and he looks almost embarrassed, if Andy didn’t know better. Chucky saunters off into the kitchen, muttering something under his breath, and Andy hears shuffling and clattering, as if Chucky is just… making himself at home? That is what it seems to be.
He cannot bring himself to care enough to get up and look. If Chucky snaps and finally decides to end him, so be it. He would be more than happy to let him. He leans over his littered coffee table to light a joint, taking a deep inhale and leaning back again, breathing through the smoke slowly. Floating. The noises from the kitchen seem farther away.
He is fantasizing in dark and deadly dreams when Chucky’s abrasive voice cuts through again, snapping him out of it. The final images before he returns to the present have him contemplating Kristen’s suggestion to see a therapist. He shakes his head to fall into blue eyes much too close for comfort.
He jerks back, a little quicker than he wanted to. Chucky leers, a little too proud of himself. “I still got it, huh?” he asks aloud, clearly taunting him. “I thought for a minute I’d lost you, kid.”
“I wish I could lose
you
,” Andy retorts, wishing he had a better comeback.
“You couldn’t lose me if you tried,” Chucky says evenly. He looks smug.
“Oh believe me, I have.”
At this, Chucky snorts. “God, I…” he starts. He doesn’t finish. There is an awkward tension, or just the weed cranking up Andy’s anxiety. Chucky grunts and settles into the couch, grabbing his plate and putting it over his lap. He nods his head towards the kitchen.
Andy’s head fogs. It has to be the weed. He stares at Chucky incredulously. “You want me… to…?”
“Oh don’t be such a
fairy
about it, Andy,” Chucky interrupts, but that tension is still there. “I might be an asshole, but my Mama raised me right. And I noticed you didn’t have anything all day today.”
He doesn’t give Andy time to overthink that either, shoving at him. “Go on, before I eat all of it,” he says gruffly, shooing him towards the kitchen. Andy stumbles upwards, feeling dizzy and in an out-of-body experience. Everything that is happening feels wrong, the same way it did when they had met up in the park, completely under the table.
At the same time, something feels right. He decides to go eat before too much of it gets into his head. He figures his mind is just too clouded to think straight.
He is almost suspicious; why would Chucky leave food for him? He leans into the pot and sniffs, unsure of what he is looking for anyways. He does not know how to sniff out any kind of hidden poison or other dangerous edible, and it isn’t as if he cares much anyways. He slowly stirs the sauce and its contents around before finally taking a spoonful and carefully dipping it onto a plate.
He takes a small bite. Nothing. It tastes fairly good, to his surprise. But he cannot detect anything else. Then he takes another bite. Then he devours it. He was hungrier than he had realized, and he has eaten it all before there is time for another thought towards what trap there might be inside it. He supposes he will find out either way now.
But nothing happens, even hours later when he is back on the couch, watching late night tv, Chucky beside him. The calm is too strange, and it is terse with Chucky right there, almost the way they used to be when they were younger. But other than being generally unsettling, nothing happens.
Ders makes a joke on the television, and they both laugh. They don’t look at each other. Andy takes a swig, Chucky takes a drag. Andy can almost feel a prickling sensation underneath his skin, as if something is going to happen. Something must come to a head. There are signs of danger everywhere. His mind is going crazy.
He takes another hit, and nothing happens. What happens is Chucky passes out on the couch before he does, sprawled out and open-mouthed snoring. Andy finds himself staring, more transfixed on this situation than he would like to admit. Still on edge, even now, he pats Chucky down, feeling no weapon - no knife, no gun. Nothing. Not even the tiniest of a threat on his person.
His head is spinning, and he knows it is partly because of the crossfade, but even sober, he knows that he would find something offbeat about all of this. He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose, mind still racing.
He could kill him right now. He could take advantage of this entire situation, and rid of Chucky entirely. It could end tonight. He has anything and everything he would need, and Chucky in the best of positions. He could do it quickly. He has done it before, in harder situations than this. He has a gun under the couch, fully loaded. He can see himself reaching for it, and pulling the trigger.
But he does not move. Chucky murmurs something in sleep and rolls over towards the arm of the couch, twitching his nose.
He is so very human. It is very possible that if he killed him, this time he would not come back. He contemplates that for a moment, imagining what life would be like, with Chucky truly and finally gone. He expects the relief and adrenaline to rush through him, with the thought of finally being free. Instead, he suddenly has to run to the toilet to vomit.
He washes his mouth and brushes his teeth. Chucky is still sleeping when he returns, cheeks pink with deep sleep. His heart is pounding again. It is now or never. Chucky is exposed, and vulnerable, and there is no better time to strike. He will probably never be given this opportunity again.
He covers him with a worn blanket that he has washed too many times, and pads off to bed, not even bothering to close the door behind him. The television is still on, voices muddled within the walls. His heart stops pounding so erratically just as he falls asleep.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Chucky wakes incredibly off of guard and indescribably hungover, arm draped over the side of Andy’s couch and drool clinging to the corner of his mouth. This will make it the third time he has fallen asleep here. He would almost be ashamed, but his stomach is full of wanting bile and there is a dizzying spell throbbing in his skull.
“Fuck!” he curses under his breath, swiping his hands over his eyes. He is becoming human enough to have the effects of alcohol - even the negative ones. He groans and curses again, shaking his head and trying not to expunge himself of the whiskey he intook merely a few hours ago. He does not even enjoy whiskey, truly; but it is what Andy had had on the table when he came home.
He freezes, a strange chill rippling through his skin.
This is not home
, he tells himself. And yet, he has found himself so comfortable here, despite it all. Perhaps it is because Andy Barclay comes with familiarity, although it is a malicious familiarity indeed.
Or perhaps not. Andy had all the time - and ashamedly, the opportunity - to take advantage of him and destroy him, and yet, he did not. That was stranger than most things Chucky had encountered. And he had encountered quite a bit.
His mind finally awakening, he sits up and listens for any stirrings in the apartment, any signs of the Barclay boy awake and about. There are none. Chucky thinks that perhaps Andy is still asleep, but one quick check in the kitchen on the stove clock and he knew that Andy must have been at work for a few hours by now. Again, so much time to have taken his life, and yet Andy did not do it.
He is almost mind-boggled by the fact, but then again, when he had been given the chance, he had not taken Andy’s life either. He catches himself grinning about it and he does not know why - or rather, he is afraid to entertain the idea of why.
The apartment is a mess. Glancing around, he can see nothing but the entire wasteland that Andy has allowed himself to fall into. It is a telltale of his mental decline; he would almost revel in it, but for some reason, it only leaves him wanting, although he is not sure for what. If Tiffany were here, she would scoff and scold the mess, tidying it up immediately.
His heart pains. He misses her, truly, and he knows that he must have gone very southward for her to completely shut him out of her life. That, or she has come to the realization that she is much too good for him, and always has been. He knows that this is true, at any rate. He did not deserve her love, beginning to end. He sighs and picks at the lint collecting on the worn blanket tangled around his stubby legs, self-commiserating.
This is a fucking pig sty
, Tiffany would say.
Must I do everything?
Oddly enough, his hands itch to expel the mess. He is unsure if it is in honor of Tiffany, or that there is actually a part of her now embedded in him, and he truly cannot stand his current environment. Yet he cannot leave.
He had never imagined Andy to grow up to be like this. It almost hurts to look at. The enemy with the fire in his eyes was burned out, not even a trace of smoke behind. He wants nothing more than to ignite it again, the way he can almost see it sputter sometimes. As if underneath, Andy is a phoenix in the wings.
He would love to see it. He would love to be the reason for it.
He picks up the trash around the couch, just because. And then he throws clothes together, stacking them in the hall just outside the laundry closet. At least now he can walk around the apartment easier, without tripping or finding even the smallest piles overwhelmingly towering over him. His stomach rumbles - an inconvenience - and he makes his way into the kitchen, only to be thrown aback by how awful that looks as well.
“Jesus, kid, don’t you love yourself?” he wonders aloud. There does not seem to be one clean dish to cook any food on whatsoever. His stomach seems to murmur in accordance, making him groan and roll his eyes, almost petulantly. He will have to do some work in here as well, if he wants anything to eat.
He truly understands, possibly for the first time, how Tiffany had always felt at home. This is why she had always asked him to help around. The amount of energy he exerts merely to clear an area to prepare food nearly overwhelms and exhausts him all on its own. If he were not feeling the strong pull of hunger, he would have not continued. But there is no chance that he can be as stealthy in public, now that his body is beginning to retire from its current inanimate state, and so he has no other option - save for maybe banking on the small chance that Andy would bring home or cook something himself.
Judging from the man’s other habits, he assumes that won’t happen.
He wonders if he should be be so quick to feel at home, seeing as it is not really his home at all. But he cannot help feeling already so familiarized with the place anyways, and his wondering does not remain too long. He becomes busy with finding whatever scraps Andy has lying around in his home, creating himself some sort of sustenance until the burning in his stomach ebbed away.
The thirst of the kill has also died down, and he is not entirely sure why. He knows that he had just polished off the man who had been in Andy’s store, and as satisfactory as it had been in a moment, the second that moment had passed, he had felt a dull emptiness inside.
Andy had not been pleased, and he had thought that would have been entertaining to see. But it was not. Perhaps it was the way Andy was so non-responsive to it; it was as if he could not even bring himself to be angry. As if he did not care at all. He probably did not, as Chucky had been a constant for so long now. He was old news.
He’s grousing about this to himself for quite some time, unknowingly tidying things up wherever he is. For himself - he needs a certain comfort level, and the Andy’s way of life is much too M.C. Escher-esque for him. Everything is all about the place, and nothing has an order. And as much as he loathes it about himself, he desperately needs order. A chaotic order, but an order nonetheless.
Hours later, when he’s satisfied, he flops on the couch and turns the television on, flipping through listlessly. He’s relaxed, but something is missing. It is not the same itch that comes when he needs to stalk the streets and leave blood behind. This one is different. It is unknown and unsettling.
He flips the television off and hops down from the couch with a huff, stalking off to Andy’s bedroom.
He has not been here since the day he had dragged a near dead Andy to bed. When he cracks the door open, it feels as if he has entered a forbidden cave. It is dark, with clothes strewn all about the place. There is a bit of a smell, as if the room had not been opened up in years. There is a dark aura about it. He grins.
“Now
here’s
some entertainment,” he chuckles under his breath, whistling lowly.
He steps over a dark lump, presumably dirty clothes, and creeps about the room, really taking in his bearings of the place. There’s the bed, same as it was the last time he saw it, the sheets no doubt not even washed since the last time he’d seen it. Under the bed is a menagerie of books, papers, and all sorts of other small things Andy just hasn’t thrown away. Whether it means he is sentimental or just a procrastinator, Chucky cannot say. What he knows is that there are piles of Andy here, little bits and pieces of a story he can uncover.
While he rummages along, a particular drawer has a neat stack of books, along with some pencils, and some green accompanied with papers and lighters that are nearly empty. They are plain looking things, but somehow, Chucky knows to open them. Perhaps it is because Andy himself seems so plain and he knows it to not be so.
He is not mistaken. There are a myriad of poems, short unfinished works, and some finished ones too, all dark or otherwise sad in some way. Even the ones where he can tell Andy is attempting to have some sort of lighter note, it is as if he can hear the words crying. A true call for help is within the pages. A call for other things too - things that make his chest burn. If he ever exposed himself like this for someone to find, he would be furious.
He grins. He can only assume that Andy will be just as furious, should he come to discover his heart had been outed.
You’ve got some talent,
he writes at the bottom of one particular page in red crayon. He thinks it is a nice nostalgic touch. He is sure Andy will not agree.
But you’re still a little bitch!!
After a while though, the joke has replayed in his head too many times to be funny anymore, and he is restless again, needing and itching to do something. His fingers twitch at the mere thought of it all. If Andy had something around the apartment, it would not be this way. But Andy clearly only has one hobby, or so that is all he can see as of now.
He is irate, he is irritated, he is bored beyond belief. He has never been in a position like this before. He thinks that perhaps scratching the itch will relieve him, but he cannot seem to make himself go anywhere, to even pretend he is going to map out a sudden killshot in the rising dusk. Surprisingly, lately the art of blood is more sickening to him than anything. He can only see red scars. He wants nothing, and yet, he hungers, and he does not know for what. He wonders if Andy lives in this madness, this yearning for something more while not being able to put a name on what that something is.
A shuffling and a rattling at the door, and his heart jumps. It has to be Andy. It has to be him. He depends on this. So much so that when it
is
Andy, coming toward him in the flesh, he feels as if he has been saved from a near-death phenomenon.
“So you’re here today, hm?” Andy asks, still as nonchalant as ever. But there is a quiet warmth about him. Chucky can sense that the man is happier. There is a glow about him that is almost pleasant - if he ever wanted Andy to be happy. Which he does not. Andy is already going in to the kitchen, humming under his breath, and it is maddening. He wants to follow the man in, and he wants to not go at all, and he wants to frighten Andy so that everything feels normal again.
But he trots into the kitchen, not frightening Andy at all, instead asking, “What are you doing?” like some sort of child who is infatuated with his older babysitter. It is madness. There is still a bite to his tone, and the way Andy turns to him is satisfying. He can see a slight glint in his eyes, almost as if Andy is about ready to fight him. His heart leaps.
“Cooking,” is what Andy says instead, and the hope dies. Chucky growls in frustration. Andy is still humming and whistling, and it is too pleasant, in a way that makes him sick. Something about the fact that Andy is so happy, so calm and content for once, makes his stomach twist. He wants to find the root and dig it out, hacking at it with a rugged shovel.
“Where did you go?” And he hates himself for asking, for being so obviously and vulnerably envious, but it comes all the same. “Who did you fuck?”
Andy flushes, his cheekbones and ears turning a dusky shade of pink. “I - it’s none of your business, who I fuck and who I don’t,” he replies, a little too quick and a little too snappish. “After all, why do you care? You aren’t looking for a fuck from me, are you?”
It’s coy, and it’s low. Chucky growls, heart in his throat. “In your wildest fantasies, maybe,” he responds, just as quickly. Maybe too quickly. The subtle confidence in Andy is stronger than he is comfortable with. He needs the source. He needs to snuff it out.
Andy is most assuredly cooking. He is pulling things off of shelves Chucky did not even know was there, and is putting more effort into everything than usual. He is already leaving off from the kitchen into the living room, tidying up and then freezing, looking at Chucky.
“Why do you keep cleaning up in here? It’s not like you live here,” he states, almost accusatory. Chucky bristles under his sharp yet dead as always gaze.
“I might as well be,” he spits back. For some reason, he thinks it should give him the upper hand, and for some reason, it almost does. Andy seems to lose his tone and shrugs, sighing out an, “I guess you’re right,” under his breath.
Andy retreats into the hallway towards his bedroom, and Chucky feels a slight desperation rising. He does not feel like the time is right to engage Andy in combat, but his pulse is racing uncontrollably nonetheless. Something has to come to a head. It must. And then he remembers something.
“Hey, Andy, just a quick question,” he starts, but then Andy appears again with a question of his own.
“Can you leave?”
Chucky swallows hard. It should not hurt, but for some reason, it stings, how casually Andy is asking it. No fear, no anger. Nothing. Just leave.
You’re unwanted,
without a second thought about it. It is so off-putting that he cannot even put up a fight.
“You say that like I want to hang around your sorry ass,” he responds. He throws his question to the back of his mind, this new situation now occupying his frontal lobe. “Matter of fact, I have an appointment of my own,
bitch
.”
It does not seem to sting Andy, as he gives a simple
ok,
and,
better get going then, huh?
He sneers, and struts off towards the door, only turning back to say, “Better check your notebooks, I think I saw some graffiti in there,” just to see Andy’s face lose its pleasant lilt. He is disappointed to find Andy does not seem to care. Almost as if he had expected it. He leaves, letting the door slam behind him.
He expects the bloodthirst that comes after. The thrill of chasing down some poor innocent in a back alley, strangling her on electrical wires that are loose from lack of care and attention. He expects the shower of blood splattering across his face to be a welcome distraction and relief, his anger temporarily subsided just so he can bask in the moment of glory and power. He expects the pure jubilee at seeing her eyes bulge and her mouth open in gasps for air, as her body dances in the air, as if expecting some sort of salvation.
What he does not expect is to turn and see none other than Tiffany, staring down at him, with a strange woman by his side, both looking as if they are beyond amused.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Grab my keys? I’m gonna pick up in the back office and then we’re out.”
Brett is already walking towards the back before Andy can respond. He eyes the benches before finding the key ring and plucks it from where it was laying, keys clinking softly. He shifts on his feet in wait before he sees Brett appear in the main lobby again, cheeky smile and sparkling eyes.
“It’s Friday, my guy,” Brett announces, clapping Andy on the shoulders. “Let’s get drinks at a bar. Tell me, where’s your favorite spot to get a pint?”
Andy blanches. “I…” he barely makes out, sheepishly, slumping a bit. “I… don’t really… go… out. Much, anyways.”
Brett is already squeezing his shoulder, ushering him out the door. “Well, sounds like it’s time for us to take a walk around town, huh?” he says, gesturing to the city. It is a clear Autumn evening, the wind is just crisp enough that it is not too cold.
“We gotta walk, man - it feels so nice!” Brett exclaims. He’s whistling to himself, leading the way, and between the two of them, it appears as if Brett already knows the city more than Andy does. Andy trails behind him, listening as Brett chatters on about work, listening to the lilt in his voice and feeling the breeze.
Brett, he thinks - no he
knows
- is the polar opposite of him. Brett could not love life more; Andy can tell by the way he walks, and the way he describes everything he does. Even in the way he listens. Andy doesn’t think anyone could sound more enthused about his retail stories than Brett does. He had thought Kristen was high energy until he and Brett began to spend time together, just the two of them.
But - it does not bother him as much as he’d originally thought it would. Being around Brett makes him feel like he’s stepped out into the sun for the first time after a long winter. It feels like thawing. It feels like he does not despise life so much, when Brett is in front of him narrating everything as if it were a rare phenomenon.
“Andy? Did you hear me?” Brett is looking at him now. His eyes, gray and attentive, shake Andy out of his thoughts. Brett looks concerned. Andy swallows nervously, ducking his head. “Sorry, I didn’t, I got lost in my mind there for a minute.”
“Thinking about me again, I see,” Brett jokes, and Andy shoves him. Only playfully. Brett laughs and dodges his next hit. “I can’t blame you, I
am
quite a hot commodity.”
“You’re a hot
head
,” Andy replies. Brett holds his chest in mock pain. “You wound me,” he moans, pretending to stagger. Then he straightens up and points again. “I was asking if you’d been in here before.”
It’s a modest looking bar, but he’s never walked inside it. He’s been by it many times. It stands on the corner and is tall and rounded, as if it were built in another time, but he knows this is not true because he watched as it was constructed, when he made runs to the grocery store or to pick-up certain deliveries. He shrugs, grinning.
“Fine by me,” he says. “But you’re letting me buy this time. I still owe you.”
Brett is scoffing a refusal, but Andy is already opening the door and heading inside, holding the door in wait. Brett shakes his head and follows, deep-set dimples in his cheeks. It’s loud and crowded, and Andy is already feeling auditory overload and is itching for a drink, just to bring everything down to a buzz. He crashes into a stool, waiting for the bartender to catch his eye. Brett plops down beside him, checking the board for drink options.
Several drinks later, Brett is on his fifth beer and Andy knows he has downed more shots than recommended to remain civil in public. His knee is bouncing and he can’t stop it.
“Does that ever… bother you?” he asks, pointing haphazardly at Brett’s prosthetic leg. “I mean, does it ever get heavy or hard to control?”
Brett shrugs. “I mean, at first, it was strange, yeah,” he replies, rubbing at it almost fondly. “It hurt and I wanted to take it off a lot. It took awhile to get used to, but now it doesn’t bother me much. I
do
need to take it off when I shower or sleep and all that though.”
He downs the rest of his beer, shrugging.“It’s a good conversation starter though. Gives me an easy ice-breaker when I’m trying to get to know a pretty girl. They ask questions just like you did, and then we usually propel into an interesting conversation after that.”
He grins wickedly, pinching Andy’s cheek. “Guess that makes you my pretty girl for the night, huh?
Lucky
me.”
Andy rolls his eyes, laughing despite himself. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, you peg-legged Cassanova,” he drawls. “I’m the prettiest girl you’re ever going to get this close to.”
Brett chuckles, holding his stomach. It’s time to stop drinking. He pulls Brett’s hand off his face, and they’re kicking at each other’s feet like they’re young boys, back in grade school with no worries whatsoever.
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Brett says after their little tomfoolery, putting up a signal for another beer. “How’s your mom? You mentioned her moving out with some guy you know. Matt? Mark?”
“Mike,” Andy replies. He leans his cheek against his hand. “Michael Norris. He’s been a good friend of my mother’s for a while, yeah. Last we talked, they were finally all settled in to his studio. It’s about an hour drive from here, but my mom’s a lot happier. She laughs more on the phone.”
Brett smiles at this, and Andy feels a warmth pool into his gut. He swirls his shot in his hand, casting his eyes down. “That’s good to hear,” Brett says. The bartender hands him his beer and he sips at it, eyes still on Andy. “What’s he do again?”
Andy frowns without realizing. There’s something there that Brett cannot trace, but he feels as if there was a tripwire somewhere, and he’s just set it off. Brett coughs, awkwardly, when Andy does not respond, instead staring into his shot glass as if he wants to fall in.
“Hey,” Brett says, calmly. He’s been around Andy long enough to know. He reaches a hand out and lays it over one of Andy’s hands. “We don’t have to… I didn’t mean to pry…”
Whatever it was, Andy seems to snap out of it, giving a small grin. Brett can still see it in his eyes though. Something dark. “Sorry, thinking again,” Andy says. Brett knows it’s a lie, but he doesn’t pry. He just hopes that one day, he can coax it out. Andy is full of layers, he sees, and it is something he is intrigued in peeling back. Not today. But maybe someday.
Andy sits up and takes his shot, exhaling heavily. “He writes. He has a mystery series out, but I know he’s working on a thriller right now.”
His phone buzzes in his pocket. Kristen’s name pings on the screen. He picks up, grateful for the distraction. He can hear her clinking dishes over the phone.
“Hey - what are you up to right now?” Kristen asks. “Jeevie just came back from her band’s tour and I was wondering if you had any other plans.”
Andy looks over at Brett, who’s chatting with the bartender. They’re laughing about something, the bartender sliding him another beer. Brett catches his eye and winks, as if they are sharing some sort of secret. Andy thinks he must have missed the memo. He smiles back anyways.
“I’m just with Brett. We’re at some bar. You know that little corner green bar that looks like it’s from a British television show? Two floors and round-ish?”
“Yeah, I’ve been around it. Jeevie has played there before,” Kristen says, and then sighs. “Well, I don’t want to ruin your little date - don’t feel like you have to come.”
“Shut
up
, it’s not like that,” Andy hisses. He can feel his face heating up. Brett looks up, concerned, and Andy rolls his eyes and gives him a thumbs up. Kristen laughs. “I’m joking - but seriously, if you already have plans, don’t feel bad. Just text me and let me know.”
“It’s Kristen,” Andy explains, hanging up. He’s typing furiously, thumbs tripping over the keys. “She wants to know if we want to go see her since Jess is back from her band’s tour.”
“It’s up to you,” Brett says, stretching and finishing his beer. “I’ll come with if you’re going.”
For some reason, Andy finds this odd, that Brett would respond like this. He is not the type to be dependent, and Andy does not find himself the type that anyone would want to follow behind or ask for his input. But Brett is waiting on him now, eyes trained on him. Ready to go wherever he decides.
There’s something strange and comforting about it. His heart is flipping, and the grin that slowly blooms across his lips is spontaneous and uncontrollable. He feels undeniably warm.
“Well?” Brett asks, and Andy stumbles over his words, feeling guilty and not quite understanding why. He coughs awkwardly, waving a hand. His voice sounds anything but casual though, and he’s wringing his hands for no reason.
“Let’s go,” is what he decides. He would rather be here than go to his apartment, and it is better to be somewhere private, especially once the alcohol sinks in. Brett is grinning again, and his arm is around Andy’s neck before he can say anything else, and that is fine by him. He isn’t sure what he’d say anyways, and Brett’s hold on him keeps him from staggering out of the bar and making a complete fool of himself. Not that it much matters, but his anxiety settles under Brett’s warm hold anyways. Just because.
They walk again, and the sun is setting, and it is beginning to cool down. Andy is glad he chose to wear the clothes he did, and Brett is shivering next to him. He decides it would be extremely hilarious to stick his icicled hands up in Andy’s shirt. Andy strongly disagrees, but it is difficult to stay angry when Brett is clearly and purely amused, laughing out loud and wheezing out apologies.
“This is your own fault, you know. Who wears a tank when it’s the middle of November?” Andy argues, only half-bitterly. They’re traipsing up the steps to Kristen’s apartment. The heat when the door shuts behind them is welcomed.
“Someone who works up a heat from training all day, that’s who.” Brett huffs, rubbing his hands together.
“You work up
my
heat.”
“Bet I do, you flirt.”
They’re at Kristen’s door, and Andy is flabbergasted and tripping over his own words, flushed to the tip of his nose, and Brett is keeled over howling in laughter when she opens it, drink in hand. Jeeves can be heard in the living room, fiddling around on her base.
“Come on in, my favorite boys!” she greets, taking one in each arm and kissing their foreheads. She backs up and waves them in, calling out to Jess in the process. Andy and Brett follow in behind her, and she leads them to her kitchen counter, where she has various snacks already propped out.
“Pizza’s in the oven, beer’s in the fridge,” she says. She sniffs the air. “It’s you, isn’t it Brett? When I hugged you both I smelled it. I smell your cologne. It’s nice.” She waves her hands towards herself, as if she’s bringing his scent in towards herself.
Brett bows dramatically and takes a seat at the counter. “Thank you, thank you,” he replies, swiping some chips out of the bowl in front of them. “Old Spice never fails me.”
“How funny,” Jeeves chimes in, having put down her bass. She makes her way to the counter, kissing Kristen’s forehead and then rummaging through the fridge and pulling out a beer, popping the lid off. “That’s the same kind I use.”
“
That’s
why I like it,” Kristen says, snapping her fingers. She looks Andy and Brett up and down. “You two definitely pre-gamed. I can tell. Andy’s got that look in his eye when the alcohol takes his mind on a walk.”
“I’d like a longer walk, if you don’t mind,” Andy tells her, and she grins and shoves him gently before pulling another bottle out for him. The oven dings.
They waste no time in sitting around the counter, eating and holding small conversations. Jeeves shows them all her pictures and videos of her tour, and entertains them with wild stories of backstage antics between her bandmates. It is well into the night and they are still drinking; Brett following Jeeves into the living area to challenge her to a round or two on Guitar Hero.
“Cliche,” Jeeves teases him. “But I’ll still kick your ass.”
Kristen rolls her eyes fondly, but catches Andy’s sleeve before he goes to sit with them. “Come with me for a smoke? Jeevie picked up some Dosido while in Rockford.”
He knows they are going out for more than a smoke. He can see it in her eyes as she pulls him towards the glass sliding door onto her patio. Brett and Jeeves are so invested in their game, neither of them notice. She plugs in the hanging lights and they almost match the stars. She sits on the swinging bench and pats the pillows, where he slides down into next to her.
Mid-roll, she stops and looks at him, her brow arching in deep thought. Andy watches as she begins to say something, then stops and licks at the paper instead, as if deciding what she wants to say still. He has a pretty strong idea of what it is she wants to talk about. He’s just not sure if he is ready to have the conversation.
She hands him the joint first, holding the lighter. “Go on, take a hit before I take mine,” she murmurs, and he knows there is a hidden meaning in her words. He takes a shuddering breath and inhales once, twice, and holds it before passing it back to her, letting the smoke flow through his nostrils. He sighs, waiting for her to bring down the hammer.
“You’re happier when you’re here, you know,” she says, after coughing the smoke up a bit. She gestures inside the apartment. He looks in with her, his eyes landing on Brett’s dimples and the way he leans in and shakes Jeeves, who is laughing hysterically. Jeeves is strong, he knows, but he can tell that Brett is being gentle with her. He can tell by how his fingers are curved around her shoulders.
Kristen is staring after him when he turns back to her, and he feels himself warm self-consciously again. He does not know what to say. He takes another hit instead. Kristen frowns.
“But you want to go back and see
him
anyways, don’t you?” she pries. He cannot lie to her. He knows she would see right through it. He exhales loudly and shakes his head, before burying it in his hands and dragging them down his cheeks. His beard scratches against his palms.
“Actually, I haven’t seen him in a while,” Andy mumbles. He doesn’t know why that makes his heart sink, just enough to leave him a little nauseated. “We had some weird kind of argument and he hasn’t shown up for a couple of days.”
“Oh!” Kristen celebrates, a little loud, pumping her fists in the air. “God
is
real, and he loves us after all.” He cringes slightly, and he wishes he could be rid of the attachment, but it is time to face the music. Chucky is an addiction, whether he likes it or not, and the feelings are returned, whether
Chucky
likes it or not.
“Andy - I… just
why
. Why?” Kristen asks, and he can tell she has been holding this storm in for a long time. He feels the electricity in her voice. He feels the shock, the pain, the
shame
. She is smoking and looking over the balcony, leaving him on the swing. “I’ve tried to understand it, and you know more than anything, I want you to be happy.”
“I know,” he says, swallowing, feeling his guilt settle in his gut. She inhales and passes him the joint again, and her brows are knotted together in frustration. Her hands are shaking, and had they not been friends for so long, he would suspect she is going to punch him.
“More than anything,” she continued, voice shaking, almost growling, “I want to
kill
him, if you won’t. I want to completely erase his existence, and make sure he will not come back
ever
again.” She pauses, as if unsure if she should continue, but she does anyways. It has been a long time coming. She looks at Andy, and he sees a dark light in her eyes. “I’ve fantasized, many times, about how I would like to kill him. I’ve come up with a million plans to trap and corner him, and tear him apart, limb for limb, teeth pulled and eyes knifed and fingers taken. I would want his death to be slow. I would want it to last as long as he’s tormented you.”
“The only thing that stops me is your need to have him around. I
swear,
if you said the word, I would unleash every level of
hell
on that piece of shit.”
Andy chokes, and Kristen shakes herself from a supposed reverie. “I’m sorry,” she stutters, looking almost embarrassed and confused. As if she does not quite understand herself where her words came from. He sees the face of his friend again, and she laughs sheepishly. Awkwardly. “Sorry, that was
so
dark.”
She’s giggling now, coughing hard on her recent drag. She passes it to him and thumps her chest. “Jesus, I feel like I just went through an exorcism!” She coughs again, and then puts a hand on his arm. He looks at her. Her eyes are bright, almost teary. He wants to blame the weed filling her lungs. He knows it is not that simple.
“I’m serious though, Andy,” she continues, and his chest tightens again. She looks back inside, and he cannot help but follow her eyes. Jeeves is throwing back her head, and Brett is falling back on the couch. He can hear their laughter. “There is happiness for you, if you just turn your gaze away from
him
, and look elsewhere.”
His heart
hurts
.
“Chucky, you mean,” Andy says, but he knows that they both know he is avoiding what she is saying. He feels his heart pattering anyways, without his consent. Kristen nods. He notices how she refuses to say his name. She takes another drag, and she does not cough this time. She sits down on the swing again and leans her head on his shoulder.
“It’s only a suggestion,” she whispers. “I just want you to be
happy
, Andy.” Her breath is shaky. He leans his head on top of hers.
“I know,” he says. They sit there in silence, both of their hearts heavy of unspoken thoughts. Fortunately, they have been friends long enough that words are not always necessary for the two of them to communicate. They stay on the patio, smoking and making small talk until Jeeves finally peeps her head out of the door and shouts at them to come in before they both catch a cold.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
His days are quiet, and for the first time in what feels like forever, he wishes they weren’t. His hours at work have become too slow, his down time in his apartment too dreary. He tries to distract himself with television or alcohol, but it only seems to escalate the problem. He cannot write, except about one thing, over and over again, only to feel ashamed and want to tear the pages out and burn them. He doesn’t because he knows it will not make the feelings burn away with them.
When Kristen or Brett have the time, he pulls himself to their company. He had never realized until recently just how
lonely
he’d been for so long. He had just gotten so used to being on his own that his mind had become numb to it. He does not know who to blame for awakening his awareness to this problem.
He makes a commitment to drive to his mother’s house every Saturday. It is the least he can do and he has been lazy about it for too long. The first time, he was so guilty about how long it had been since he’d last gone to visit her that it took re-opening just healing wounds on his skin before he could brave the hour drive. Karen had opened the door, and while it had seemed to take a minute before she recognized him, she had pulled him into a strong hug and ushered him into the house. He wanted to cry just being in her presence again. He had forgotten how much he had missed his mother.
He had stifled his tears and followed her into the kitchen. He could tell that she had designed every part of the house. He could see her in the way it was put together. It had her touch.
It is the same this Saturday, only this time, he does not feel the horrid guilt from before, and he does not feel so much like crying. Brett has sent him some strange photo of a cat that makes him laugh, for reasons he does not understand, and he is still laughing about it when he knocks on his mother’s door.
“Andy!” she says, and in her eyes, he feels as if she does not know who he is, really, but he waves it away as nothing. She hugs him tightly and ushers him into the house, calling for Mike to come downstairs from his office.
“I’ve become so used to you visiting now, I am getting better at preparing a nice meal for the three of us,” she says, her warm and familiar hand on his arm. “It’s pot roast today; the weather is starting to cool down, so I thought it was perfect. Tea?”
“Sure, Momma,” Andy tells her, kissing her forehead. “I’ll come help.”
“No, no, sit!” Karen protests, pushing him towards the couch. The room is so full of light, but she doesn’t have a single bulb on. It has to be the windows, large and placed just so. He can feel the warmth of the midday sun on the cushion and throw pillows as he relents to his mother’s wishes and rests against the couch. Karen is bustling off into the kitchen, calling over her shoulder.
“How is work? You had a day off today right?”
“No, I just close earlier,” Andy responds. He can hear footsteps on the staircase, and turns his head to see Mike Norris, wrinkles in the corners of his eyes and mouth as he smiles. Mike claps him on the back.
“Andy, good to see your face around again!” he says, then leans in to murmur, “It’s all your mother talks about. Saturday is Andy Day.”
He steps into the kitchen, and he can hear their small chatter and the clatter of china. Mike says something he cannot hear, but it makes Karen laugh aloud and shout at him. Something about them reminds him of how Kristen and Jess are together, sharing secrets. Harmless ones that are just for the two of them.
Mike’s head pops out. “Do you have a preference on flavor?” he asks. Andy shrugs.
“Just nothing bitter,” he replies. Mike disappears again for a moment, then nudges the swinging doors open with his knee, Karen trailing behind him. Mike sets the tray down on the coffee table, and then sits in the small sofa across from Andy.
“I put honey in it,” Karen says, sitting next to Andy. “It’s called Countrytime Peach. Sounds good doesn’t it?”
Andy nods and settles into the couch. Karen shares photos from when she and Mike went to a pumpkin patch out of the city, and Andy shows Karen Jess’ photos from her tour. Karen asks a lot about Brett, and she asks questions Andy is not sure how to answer. Questions that make him heat up under his skin. He had forgotten what mothers are like when they see budding potentials. She takes the pressure off of him after a while though, distracted with sharing how proud she is of Mike’s progress in his work.
Mike sighs and rolls his eyes fondly, but gives in to Karen’s insistence, explaining as much as he can without giving too much away. He draws it off of his personal experience, when he previously worked in the force. Andy can hear himself reliving certain moments, simply from explaining the set up of each event taking place in their sequence. He can see a veteran shine in his eyes.
“It doesn’t bother you, to go through it again?” Andy asks.
“Better on paper than in my head,” Mike says, laughing. But there’s something somber in his voice, Andy can hear it. And he knows that they both know that it truly does not leave your mind, even once it is written down. It stays and it hibernates, to trick you into thinking that it is gone, only to wake up and feed when you least expect it.
Or it sits on your couch and rummages through your things, which is what he finds Chucky doing when he arrives home. He is almost surprised, but a part of him always knew. He almost grins. Almost. Chucky is sitting on his couch, reading a book. Smoking. Drinking. He looks deep in thought, which is a look Andy had never imagined he would find on Chucky’s face, but truthfully, there is so much happening around them and between them that he just shakes his head. He does not notice that he does not feel anger, but a strange relief.
Chucky is also still wearing
his
clothes, which makes him realize that they are going to have to have another very strange and unexpected conversation of buying him some clothes that will fit. He wonders why Chucky has not gotten around to this already. He assumes it is merely for a lack of desire to peruse through a store and find anything. This, he understands.
He coughs under his breath, unsure and awkward about trying to catch Chucky’s attention. Chucky jumps, immediately looking embarrassed, and shutting the book quickly. There is something about him that is different, and he is not sure what it is.
“Andy,” Chucky says, and there it is, in his voice too. Still gritty, still slurring, but not a hint of cockiness. The exact opposite of it, in fact.
“Chucky,” Andy says back. Unsure. He hangs his coat on the couch arm. He does not sit. It is his own apartment and he does not sit.
“I have to tell you something,” Chucky says, and Andy braces himself for the worst. He instantly thinks of his mother, but he’d just seen her. He thinks of Brett, but the man in question is texting him now, asking when he wants to spend time with him again.
Perhaps Kristen. She had made it quite clear she was Chucky's enemy. Perhaps he had found it out, and decided to eliminate her before she could eliminate him. Immediately, his mind conjures up images of Kristen, strangled. Mangled. Worse.
“Hey- sit down, it’s not whatever you’re thinking it is. Will you calm down, kid? You look like you’re gonna pass out,” Chucky interjects, slapping the couch cushion. “
Jesus
.”
His scowl is back. Andy sits, timidly. Still very unsure. Tense. Chucky growls and rolls his eyes, but the blush on his face is undeniable.
“I…. look, this isn’t going to be some sort of sweet
Hallmark
kind of moment,” he grits out. His hands are clutching at where Andy’s shirt hands around his knees, balling up the cloth.
“We both know we’re stuck in this damn situation. You know what it is, so I’m not gonna say it. Rather not make us both uncomfortable.”
Andy feels himself prickling with sweat. He merely nods. His heart races and he hates that.
“Anyways, I just wanted to say, it looks like we’re in it together, for whatever reason, and I…” Chucky pauses and stutters over himself. He curses angrily under his breath, grabbing the bottle in front of him. He squirms in his seat, and he does not look Andy in the eyes.
“I’m… I’m not gonna be a total dick to you,
”
he finally squeezes out. He crosses his arms and looks away, huffing angrily.
“Was that…?” Andy asks, more than a little flabbergasted.
“Shut up or I take it back, you little
shit,
” Chucky snaps. He still does not turn to look at Andy. “I said what I said, and you’ll take it or leave it. Capisce?”
Andy scowls, but he chooses not to respond. Merely because if they delve too deeply into it, they’ll hit the core of something he does not like. He assumes Chucky does not either. He sits back against the couch, tapping his foot. Pent up nervous energy. He didn’t know why he had expected a sudden and great change, but there is not.
“Well don’t get
weird
about it! God, I hate you so fucking much. You’re such a little bitch.”
He rolls forward and takes a joint, ignoring the jab. “You didn’t expect me to suddenly want to be buddies with you or something, did you?”
He watches Chucky visibly cringe in embarrassment in his peripheral. Andy inhales and blows the smoke out, letting it ride. He is still wound up, coiled and ready to spring. He has the sinking suspicion that it will stay this way for a long time, as long as Chucky is right here, right next to him. A long stretch of silence grows between them, with Chucky sighing heavily and shifting in his seat, before Andy finally relents, unable to contain the tension.
He passes the blunt over, a simple gesture they’ve shared what feels a million times now. The air changes from his hand to Chucky’s. He tries to pretend they don’t brush fingers. Chucky takes the blunt with a low grunt. The silence continues to drag. The television static flows on, unbothered.
“You hungry?” Andy asks, breaking. His stomach or Chucky’s stomach growls, he is not sure. They’re too close to tell. He taps away at his phone, avoiding eye contact. He feels the couch shift and his shoulder burn, as it is obvious that Chucky is most definitely turning his attention towards him fully. He can imagine the expression on his face, and steels himself for the supposed biting retort to come.
There’s another shift. He finally tears his eyes off of his phone. Chucky is waiting on his eyes, and he does not know why. What he
does
know is that he has been jilted by this feeling before, of someone looking to him for what seems like guidance. Almost. Perhaps. He is not sure. But the feeling is there nonetheless, strange and true.
“Yeah,” is what Chucky slowly drawls out. “I’m guessing you’re not cooking.”
“What makes you say that?”
Chucky smirks and shrugs, saying nothing. The strangest thing is that there is not a malicious tint to it, for the first time. It is almost playful. Andy does not know what to make of it, and so he does not, clicking through his phone again.
“I’ll order pizza,” he says, and Chucky nods. There is still a small curve in the corners of his mouth, but he remains oddly silent, puffing away at the joint. Andy finishes the order on his phone. Chucky flips through the channels. Kristen text Andy, and Andy decides he will need to respond later. There is a small stress buildup inside him. Time passes. Commercials blare. Beer is drunk. They shift in their seats. The air stays clouded, tense. But other than this, nothing occurs. The most excitable event is when the doorbell rings, and Andy shuffles to the door to take the food and tip the driver.
Even as they eat, Andy sits in wait for the other shoe to drop. But it does not. Perhaps there was no shoe thrown to begin with. When they finish, Chucky takes the box out. Andy can only assume he took it to the outside garbage, because he returns without it. He does not know why he does this, and he does not quite know what to make of the gesture, but another drink later, he hardly cares.
It is not entirely terrible, and although neither will admit, they both are aware that they are more comfortable with the arrangement than they’d thought they might be. And so this is how they sit, in the end, with little to no words shared, little to no need for it, and the uncomfortable prickling of a growth they do not entirely understand. They are still in an obsessive cycle, unable to pull away from each other, but neither of them are trying anymore. There is something new afoot.
In the end, they are together, and there is something comfortably alright with it all, strange as it may seem.