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Retribution and to Redeem
“It's hilarious. You actually have me cornered. You're actually going to kill me,” the man with the ridiculous hat whispers and the grin that splits his face is terrible, terrible. The man spreads his hands around and waves them dramatically, crazed with adrenaline and the knowing end. The smile that catches his face is a disarray of emotions: disbelief, amusement, and sweet, sweet pain. The warning is heard loud and clear when the other man gives a threatening click on the trigger, but he either doesn't hear, or doesn't care or perhaps both, because he turns right around, grabs the double-barreled gun by its tip with gloved fingers, and shoves it right up close and personal to his beating heart.
“Come on, Malcolm, show me what you got.” he purrs, and the taunt is thick in the air. He's almost lazy, almost carefree with his shit-eating grin and the condescending way he stands. There's a feral growl in response, and the sound explodes with such a velocity that it almost hurts, because the man with the gun, Malcolm Graves was not a man with many warning shots. “I know what I did to you, and I did it to you good. Say, Malcolm, how's the Locker been treating you? You're not still rusting, are you?” He takes a step forward, until the end of the barrel is digging surely painfully into his stomach. They're inches away now, the ghost of past lovers' memory on the rise, like the current bad moon with its scarred face and weak flickers.
“I'll fucking shoot you, you dumb mutt, you fucking traitor,” Malcolm Graves threatens, the cigar still between his teeth, dark-brown eyes hateful. This was it, his own personal vendetta finally sated. The man that stole his heart, shattered it, then back-stabbed him and left him to rot for seven years in Hell on earth. This man was going pay and he was going to pay tenfold. “You think it's funny, all of this? You know what's funny? When I send you to-”
“-punctual as usual. Send me to the real Hell? Or perhaps you were going to say that Hell is going to rain back down on me for my....sins?” He grins, and the look is fitting on his coy and flirtatious face. He exhales gently, feeling the gun now digging into his stomach but he doesn't do anything, can't exactly do anything; it's all too funny, it's hilarious and he's dying. A sharp, ear-splitting bark of laughter tears its way from his throat and he can't stop once he's started. “Then let it rain. I know what I did to you and I know why you are here. So what's with the hesitance? You scared, Malcolm? Big bad Malcolm scared of little poor me, poor little Twisted Fate.” It wasn't a question, it was a statement that burned, an arrogant statement that dared the opposing man to blow his brains out.
“You know what's funny?” Twisted Fate continues, ghostly blue eyes sparking under his tipped hat and he winks. “That I felt guilty for so long, watched my back, knowing big bad Malcolm would be back and proclaim Judgment Day. For seven years I lived in terror, waited, expected to see you and now I finally do! Everything was for nothing and I laugh and I dance, and I spit in your face now, Malcolm Graves.” The man does just that, spitting at the gunman's feet, a vicious look forming on his lips, but it's unreadable.
Graves, either stunned by the sudden outburst, or to savor this final moments, knowing he'd blow Twisted Fate's brains and guts and intestines right through that delicate human body once he hears the words he wants to hear and says the words he wants to say, does nothing. He says nothing, but just stares, eerily, with such an intensity that Twisted Fate almost looks away. He lets man in front of him shriek and demand because he doesn't know what to think and after a few seconds more, he decides he's had enough.
With a sudden harsh movement, he swings the gun and clips Twisted Fate around the stomach, knocking the air from his lungs, hard enough to shatter ribs. Split-seconds after, he's on top of the other, rough hands reaching out and he slams the man into the silent deck. The echo is loud, but the beating of his heart is louder and he digs his knees firmly into the man's stomach, two hands around his neck; the vice grip was torturous, painful, masochistic for the other.
“It was supposed to be a clean break,” Twisted Fate chokes out in mid-laughter, the sounds are rabid, hyena-like. It's a merciless cackle that stabs and twists deep within Malcolm Graves, even when he is so certain that he feels nothing. “You're stubborn, too goddamn stubborn. It was your fault, all of it. I didn't want to cross you, not for a single second but you got too close, got too far, Malcolm. If only you left but no, you had to come searching. The world is only big enough for one. I tried to save-”
“-save me. Save me?! Are you bloody mad? Get this through your self-centered, egoistic brain of yours, Fate. You did not save me, you did not intend on saving me. You intended on watching me burn and you're gonna learn tonight. You're going to burn, you son of a bitch,” Malcolm Graves snarls and his grip tightens, until he was sure that Twisted Fate was seeing black and blue. A sudden sadistic desire rushes through the man, and he wants to fling the traitorous scum off the deck, feed him to the fishes. He wants to watch Twisted Fate scream and drown because he knows, he knows that the damn fox can't swim. He at this moment, so desperately wants to watch the other man flail and plead, scream and bleed.
His world is split down the center with rage and blind confusion, but his purpose is clear; make him suffer, make him bite, drag him down to the level of humiliation he had to endear. And without another word, in the mounting silence, he pulls the ivory knife from within his boot and it's dangerous when he unsheathes it with a demanding shink. He waves it in front of the hatted man, making his following actions clear when he gives his only warning shot. A sharp flick across the man's stupidly charming face and he's bleeding, the blood springing to life as it rolls.
It's three seconds before he hears himself screaming- no, not Twisted Fate, Malcolm Graves' terrible, terrible screams. The man stabs without restraint, bringing the blade up and down on every inch of flesh he can find. Blood runs, and Twisted Fate laughs and screams and moans in pure, pure pain. His face is littered with the knife's playful bites, his chest and limbs displaced with blind pain and three dozen wounds. He's hyperventilating and despite his mind keeping those known emotions at bay, his body cannot, and it twitches and trembles under the onslaught.
“Yea? Yea, Malcolm?! Is that all you got? What are you, a woman?” Twisted Fate demands, panting, wincing as another blow lands on him like acid rain. Graves had abandoned the knife, tossing it with a scream, instead resorted to his own fists, bringing them over and over down on his flirtatious, shit-eating face. Each moment of impact is another distinct crack; both are relentless, merciless. “Did daddy teach you to hit like a girl? Or did daddy knock you dumb?”
That did it.
Splat.
“Ahaha, I didn't think you'd have it in you, Malcolm.”
The man drives his fingers deeper into the other man's left eye-socket, feeling the disgusting squelch on his fingertips and he twists and turns and plunges the digits in harshly, viciously with animal-like certainty as the other twitched and screamed and cried and yelled until his lungs were raw and he could hardly breathe- still then, he would not beg Malcolm Graves to stop, so Malcolm Graves made it his goal to hear Twisted Fate beg. When he finally pulls away, a torrent of blood explodes, and drowns out half of the once-handsome, twice-cocky face. He considers stabbing out the other eye too, but after a moment of consideration, Graves decides he wants the man to see what he does to him. Twisted Fate was shaking uncontrollably under him now, at his limits, yet he was still relentless.
“Th-that all y-you got?” The man whispers, cut off with a hiccup, before he lips split into a devilish smile as Graves gets up to retrieve his gun. If he wanted to run now, he physically couldn't and he doesn't. This was it, Judgment day for one gold-digging motherfucker and Twisted Fate knows, he knows that he has forsaken the gunman and this was his way of repaying him; he had waited for this point for too long, too. He wasn't going to let Graves hold back the undying rage, and he was going to rage against the dying sun. This was his way of a feeble “sorry,” even though he'd never actually mutter such words for his pride wouldn't allow it; somehow, given that, it was even more pitiful.
He came here to die. Most importantly, he came here for the final laugh. He wouldn't go out begging on his knees, he'd go out as the one who dominated the one who kept Graves guessing. Maybe he was a mere masochist, or a true believer, or just a fool. It didn't matter, it was bad, but it felt damn right good. A high that couldn't be summed up in words, a stream of thoughts that cannot be put into perspective and because he does not know what to think, he laughs, and he laughs again, and he keeps laughing even when Malcolm Graves jabs the gun barrel up his nose with a hiss and a snarl.
“You're gonna die,” Malcolm Graves whispered.
“I'm going to die,” Twisted Fate agreed.
The trigger clicks, and Twisted Fate closes his good eye and waits, the sigh catching in his throat. Three seconds go by without a single change in the wind or in Graves' demeanor and so he begins to wonder. Twisted Fate swears he'd be dead if he heard the shot, the smoke and the bang. He doubts he could feel any more pain than the stinging, mind-numbing spikes that are already thumping through his limp body, so the stupidly obvious conclusion hits him hard, and he feels stupid. It is stupid.
“Chickening out, Malcolm? What's another when we've done so much worse?” He demands and it's like he's begging to be shot, begging for his brains to be splattered against the colorless, barnacle-encrusted deck. He knows that once that does happen, no one would come looking or even wonder; gunshots were the norms in Bilgewater. Crows were also the normality, ready to feast minutes after his heart stops its frantic jerking, its stupidly defiant throws. Or, the more adventurous ones would show up before he's even dead and peck at his eyes, at the exposed skin. They'd dig their talons into his neck and drill those black beaks into flesh and veins and tear sinews and the smaller bones from his body. Then those fragments would be carried off where it would never be seen again.
The dogs would come next. Domestic, but abandoned mutts. They'd have their bloody share. Even in death, Twisted Fate was one popular, hustling son of a gun and he, he can already hear the sweet, sweet crunch of bone and sweet, sweet tear of flesh. They were hardly a step from wolves, dangerous, ready to gang up once those human counterparts were down in the dirt and caught defenseless. It makes Twisted Fate wonder how loyal they really are, how loyal to their primal, wild and senseless instincts. In some sense of the universe, they were just as bad as the rest of the world.
“Your hands are shaking,” Twisted Fate noted, and he closes bleeding and jagged hands around Malcolm Graves', his own fingers on the trigger. Malcolm Graves almost flinches, as if the gentle touches were venomous, infectious. When he looks up with his own good eye and grins with something like finality and sadness, it breaks more than something within him. It breaks something with Graves and the gunman wants to snap his hands out and back hand the son of a bitch because he was being so goddamn calm, so careless.....so helpless. “Let me help you. It will all be over soon.”
“Why?” The question is soft, softer than any words that Malcolm Graves could have barked out. It was unlike the man who was now shaking, gritting his teeth and staring with his lifeless brown eyes. He musters something out that the night wind snags up and runs with but the purpose is clear. It was too late to forgive, too late to forget and Twisted Fate laughs at the irony, laughs at everything; it's terrible, a terrible sound. It was a whimper, the guttural remains of once lover's past and a choked sob that of a wounded animal. He gasps with his closed eyes, matted with blood face and leans into the strong chest that embraces him when rough hands bring him close. The red stains the dirty clothes and Twisted Fate just inhales the smell of gunpowder, cigarette and leather.
“I couldn't have done anything.”
“You could have tried.”
“Trying wouldn't have done it.”
“So why did you run?”
“I was afraid, Malcolm.”
“Fate, you are never afraid.”
“No, I am always afraid.”
“Of what? Of who? Tell me.”
“I couldn't accept that you were going to die.”
“I didn't.”
“That's why it was so ugly.”
“What is ugly?”
“Truth.”
The hatted man's cracked and bleeding lips turn up into a pained smile. Even if Malcolm Graves decided he wasn't going to put a bullet to his head, he was already dead. As his past partner would have put it, “dead man walking.” He can already feel everything hot and cold leaving his frail, empty shell and he knows he shouldn't be shocked when he looks down with the tilt of his chin and discovers the obscene amount of blood pooling out beneath him. For some reason, he still gasps and but feels no repulse or blame, or guilt, or anger, or anguish- just blankness, unfazed. A subconscious part of his notes how the crimson look like great wings in flight and he laughs at the hysterical idea of him being an angel.
“Fate, stay with me,” a distance voice demands and the urgency in said voice causes something within Twisted Fate to stir and writhe. He shudders and gasps, and suddenly his hands reach up and he grabs the man's collar frantically; suddenly, he cannot die, cannot bear the treacherous idea because he still had unfinished business that he needed to see to. He needed to hear the answer, the confirmation he so desperately needed. He must chase the morning sun, he must out run it because he's dead by morning. His hands reach up and they catch around thin air. He frowns and tries again, thrashing wildly.
“Malcolm,” Twisted Fate chokes out.
“I-”
“Malcolm!” The man repeats and he feels burning frustration now. He couldn't be cut off when time was so limited, when time was so cruel and senseless. Everything was flying overhead and nothing was sticking. Twisted Fate, arrogant son of a bitch wasn't so arrogant at this very moment because he's afraid, so afraid that if he didn't say it now, he'd never be able to say it, or worse, his decaying mind would forget. “Do you understand?”
“I-”
“Do you understand now?!”
“I know now.”
Bang.
“Good.” The phantom of a genuine smile ghosts over the dead man's lips and it hurts his cheeks in a way he hasn't felt before. The torrent of blood comes next, spilling from his mouth, eyes and nose without end. It was an endless cycle of red and tears and the man's fingers drop from Graves' gun trigger to his side with a dull thud. He gives one shaky breath, a terrible, terrible breath before he collapses into the man's arms. It was stuttered, hitched, but by no means hesitant, a single ghostly blue eye wide and open. This was it, Judgment day at its finest and he'd meet it head on.
The screams the other man communicates are terrible. It could hardly be counted as communication. There was something animistic, cruel about it. He grabs the limp body by the collar of his tattered shirt and he shakes and he hits, pulling it into the air before slamming it down into the deck over and over again. Over and over, it echoes and over and over more bones rattle and shake. They must be fine powder by the time Malcolm Graves is through, his own bloody hands digging into the body, nails black with blood. The look on his face is deranged and sickening.
“GODDAMN IT, FATE! DON'T YOU DARE-”
Words aren't enough. Words never were enough. With a howl of rage and agony, the man takes up his gun and empties round after round into that once-handsome, twice-cocky body. Now, he was the one laughing and screaming to a pitch that would put the banshees to shame. The definition of “blood flies” hangs true in the night air as the man drenches himself in it. When the bullets ran dry and the blood seemed to have gone too, he brings the barrel down, over and over again until there were no more cracks, and no more of that cruel, cruel smile.
As promised, the crows came. Then the dogs.
But there was not one, but what remained of two bodies.