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david hadn’t always been an orphan.
sure, he spent too much time out. he ran away from home more times than he could count after some argument with his family. he got a job on the docks because it worried his mother and he got his own place at sixteen because he didn’t like being told what to do but he always went home after a while. he always apologized. and when his mother was murdered he did his best to stay home for good. but his father, often absent before and nearly entirely gone now, seemed to forget about him. and he got restless, and he wandered, and it was while he was wandering late at night that he met max. and max took him away from his family. it was max who made him an orphan, under the guise of power, of immortality, of divinity.
i’ll make you a family, david, he said, once it was too late. once the damage was done and david could never go back to his own family. i can be the father you always wanted. i’ll bring you a mother. you’ll never be alone again. and what good did it do him to run away. to defy this father as he had the last. at least this one had made him with purpose. at least this one seemed to care. at first, anyway. but the promise of immortality had lost its luster, tarnished with an eternity of loneliness that was beginning to stretch before him.
until max brought paul to him. broke him out of a detention center where he was being held for arson. max told him it was so he wouldn't be so lonely. at first he didn't want anything to do with paul because he was angry, so angry. and he took it out on paul for a while when what he really wanted was to take it out on max. but max was playing house with some broad who worked nights at the hospital and made it very clear he wasn't to be disturbed. i'm trying to find you a mother, david. i'm trying to give you what you want. max wouldn't listen, didn't understand that all he wanted was to be accepted, to have a father who looked out for him rather than rejected him. [though, sometimes david thought he understood perfectly and was being purposefully dismissive.]
so he took it out on paul, ignoring him when he felt like it, snapping at him whenever he did anything slightly annoying [and how often that was,] cruelly watching him stumble through this new existence without offering a shred of guidance or sympathy. but eventually it got old, and david had to admit it was nice having someone around. besides, the more he got to know paul, the more he liked him. he was the first to laugh at a joke but the first to stop, too. he was quick to do just about anything, quick to agree to david’s plans--the more dangerous or stupid or reckless they were, the more enthusiastically paul joined in. he liked loud music, pushing the envelope, taking things a little too far to get a rise out of people. paul was fun . not to mention, paul liked to kill, and it was easier to be on his side than be at each other's throats, so to speak. the two of them found the sunken hotel that became their home, and it was there that david finally broke down and apologized. they were a family after that, just the two of them for a while, but david wanted more. they both did.
it was paul who first found dwayne. dwayne who had been homeless in san jose and migrated down to santa carla. he was wandering the boardwalk and caught paul's eye. dwayne would later say that seeing paul was the first time he had smiled, really smiled, in years. paul begged david to bring him into the group, and though david pretended to think about it to tease paul, he knew the second paul pointed dwayne out that he was going to make him one of them.
he left dwayne’s immediate care in paul's hands, though he had to admit he didn't have much choice in the matter. the two were almost instantly inseparable, and david enjoyed watching their surreptitious efforts at keeping their budding relationship a secret--the way they fell asleep holding hands or made excuses to wander off together. he didn't know how to tell them he knew or that he didn't care, so he let them sneak around, looked the other way whenever he could. but when they came to him one night, faces fearful but determined, to tell him what they'd been doing, david was surprised by the jumbled collection of emotions he was hit with. he gave them his blessing, of course, explained that they were equal in this group and that they didn't have to hide anything from him. but secretly he was filled with pride--pride that they saw him as a leader, pride that they feared his judgment and sought his approval. but there was anxiety, too. they were strong, and capable, sure. hell, they were killers. but they were scared. and they were lost. how could he lead them when he was scared himself? he vowed to himself he wouldn't let any harm come to them, and that he would never let them see him scared or unsure.
and so they continued like this, the three of them, for a while. with dwayne becoming a little more sure of himself as the time went by, david could see he was usually rational and stoic, someone he could count on to help make good decisions. the perfect balance for david’s anger and penchant for vengeance, for paul’s propensity to joke around and take nothing seriously. he quickly came to think of dwayne as his second in command, and though decision making naturally fell to david, he would often weigh heavy decisions againsts dwayne’s level head. not to say that dwayne didn't have his crazy side. paul was pretty constantly doing something weird or silly, so it was expected of him. but dwayne. david had lost track of the number of times he had counted himself lucky that dwayne was on their side. even after all their time together, there were still moments where dwayne took the others by surprise. moments when you realised that beneath the smooth surface were fathoms: hidden caverns of deep treacherous waters, strong riptide currents that could pull you away before you even knew it, schools of sharks waiting to tear you apart.
david found marko trying to drink himself to death on the beach. maybe i’ll just drown he said to david without really noticing david was there. maybe the ocean will take my body away and then no one will have to think about me anymore. it took david a while to recognize marko as the kid who’d lived down the street from him so many years ago, in what felt like another life. he’d changed so much. back then david had never given him a second thought--why would he? the kid was ten years younger than he was, annoying, played football with his friends in the street. he’d helped him fix a bike chain once but mostly just avoided him. but now...well of course there were still ten years between them but at the same time there were really only two. and after a while marko recognized him, even through his drunken haze, and rested his head immediately on david’s shoulder as they sat on the sand and looked out over the water.
he’d been kicked out of his house, david learned, when his father found him getting too close with another boy during a sleepover. he was tired, marko said. tired of hiding who he was, tired of walking on eggshells, tired of being alone. and though david had enough sense to wait until the next night to turn him, lest the talk of wanting to die was merely alcohol inspired and would fade with the sunrise, david could not stop himself from taking marko’s chin in his hand and kissing him.
they felt a little more invincible after that, the four of them. it didn’t matter that the world moved on around them. that the MISSING fliers with their pictures faded and fell from the bulletin boards. they had everything they needed: love, family, support. they had each other. they were their own little royal family, and santa carla was their kingdom, their playground, their killing field. they still dropped in on max, but david had practically given up looking for him to step up and guide them. no, his goal now was merely to be a thorn in max’s side. we’re still here. because of you. we’re not going to let you forget that.
laddie came next. they’d seen him a couple of nights in a row, digging through trash on the boardwalk while people walked past him as though he were invisible. they all attempted to talk to him in their own way, but it was dwayne, silent and strong, who finally convinced him to come back with them. he’d run away from home to avoid his abusive parents, and though they agreed they wouldn’t turn him into one of them until he was an adult, they also knew they would die before sending him back to the streets of santa carla. they never asked his real name, and he never told them. they loved him, fiercely, like a son, but he presented his own problems. laddie was just a child, and they agreed early on they would keep from him their true nature as long as they could. but that meant leaving him behind when they went to feed.
which was how david found star. he would take laddie out, just the two of them, when the sun had just set and the boardwalk was starting to fill up. let laddie walk close enough that he could still keep an eye on him yet far enough ahead that it looked like he was alone. he had to wonder--despite the fact that laddie’s face was plastered on every milk carton in santa carla, no one ever stopped to talk to him, ask him if he was lost or alone. no one, until star.
david found her look attractive, he wouldn’t lie about that. but more attractive was the way she crouched down to laddie’s level, pushed his hair out of his face, asked him gently if he was lost, if he was hungry. david watched her as she bought him something to eat, sat with him and made him smile. more attractive still was the look of pure adoration on her face when he walked up to her, not even bothering to put on the lost concerned parent act he’d briefly considered. he’s with me , david said, placing a hand on the young boy’s shoulder. and he could tell immediately that star was hooked. thanks for looking out for him. he invited her back to the hotel, explained she could come and go as she pleased, but he knew it was a matter of time before she would move in permanently. she was a runaway too, and the hotel was a nicer place to stay than any of her other options. despite her young age she took to caring for the kid like a mother would, and when she found out what david and his friends really were, she was all the more determined to keep laddie safe. and of course… despite the danger, despite the fear, there was something in david she thought might still be worth loving. worth saving.
david could feel it in himself, still. the uncertainty. the fear. he had gathered this rag tag group of misfits to him and most of the time, he could trick himself into believing he was in control. but there were times when he was reminded that no matter how much death and terror they were responsible for, they were still just orphans, still just lost boys. the night on the carousel was a good reminder of that. they’d left laddie and star at the hideout to go find trouble, or cause it, and they did just that. david locking eyes with a girl, pulling her attention away from her date. he thought nothing of it when he reached out to touch her face momentarily before moving on. or, trying to. a commotion had suddenly broken out behind him and he turned to find dwayne narrowly avoiding the swinging fists of the girl’s jealous date, paul and marko attempting to fight him off. david reached to grab his face but before he could really teach him a lesson he felt the cold, sobering pressure of some rent-a-cop’s nightstick against his throat. he pulled his hand back, running a tongue over his teeth as the cop growled something he was sure was meant to be threatening in his ear-- i told you to stay off the boardwalk --and resisted the urge to tear the man’s throat out right there amid the chipped painted horses. he saw paul reach a hand up but falter when he tried to reach out, because they all looked to david to lead them. god, it made him want to scream. he saw that the fight had gone out of them all, and his heart broke with love. for paul, who he’d treated so badly at first but who still came back, who reminded them all that nothing was worth doing if they weren’t having fun. for dwayne, who rarely said anything but spoke volumes when he did, who didn’t start fights but could certainly finish them. for marko, god, especially for marko, who would do anything he asked without a moment’s hesitation, sometimes anticipating his needs before even he did. he would kill anyone for him. for all of them. but for now he had to be strong, to pretend that the knowledge that they were unwanted wherever they went--even by their own surrogate father--didn’t bother him. david steadied his voice, steadied his hands, carefully arranged the smirk on his everlastingly boyish face. okay boys, let’s go. it was his idea, his tone said. they were leaving because he wanted them to. they were leaving under no one’s authority but their own.
[later, david would make sure to look directly into the face of that cop before killing him. to show him that he should have never messed with him or his boys. the abject terror made his blood taste so much sweeter, made david feel like a god.]
it was michael he blamed for their downfall. [though in his heart, he knew he was doing the same thing he’d done to paul when they’d first met--blaming michael because max was not in range of his wrath.] not at first, of course. at first, he wanted michael for star. she was lonely, he knew that. so he would play the possessive boyfriend act for a while, get michael intrigued. and maybe michael would be the perfect way to get star to finally, fully join them. she was getting weaker, he knew that, too, finding it harder to resist, though she was still holding out. but if she knew she had michael, if she had someone to spend her forever with, maybe it would be more appealing. and, he had to admit, michael seemed kind of fun. or at least, had the potential to be fun. in any case the boy was so starved for acceptance, and so far gone for star, he would have done literally anything they asked. david could see it in his face, the anger and the jealousy and the hunger shining brighter in his eyes than all the neon lights of the boardwalk. the moment star climbed on the back of david's bike, michael staring after her like some lost puppy… david had to laugh. in that second, michael was already as good as dead. it was almost too easy, almost… sad. he should've known it would be downhill from there.
it was michael's stupid family. david had made a rule so long ago: orphans only. lost boys had no mother, they had no siblings. they had no one to care for them but each other. he should've left michael on the boardwalk, should've let him plummet to his death over the side of that cliff. but max stepped in. finally, pretending this was all for david and his boys. take him with you david. make him one of you. then his mother will have no choice but to follow. and our little family will be complete. like max knew anything about their family. he still hadn't forgotten the way max had looked at them when they walked into the video store-- i told you not to come in here anymore-- what he'd said to them. and now he wanted to call the shots? david hated him for it. hated himself for listening. but he would do it. not for max. and not so he and his boys could have a mother; they'd gotten on just fine without one for this long. but for star, who needed someone who looked at her the way michael did. for laddie, because he needed star around to look after him. for dwayne, because if star went, then laddie went, and he knew dwayne would have the hardest time saying goodbye. for paul, who loved dwayne and would do anything to see him happy. for marko, who looked up to paul with the near hero worship of a younger brother. for himself, and how much he loved marko. how much he loved all of them, even if he didn’t always know how to say it.
but he'd pushed michael too far, too fast. trying to get him to kill when he had too much to lose, had a family who loved him to go back to. and star… he'd pushed her, too. had tried to get rid of his michael problem and solidify star’s place in their group by having star kill michael. changed laddie in an attempt to make her stay. he was losing control, losing command, and he didn't know how to get it back. instead of killing michael so she could stay with laddie, or bringing him into the group permanently, star saw him as a way out, a lifeline thrown to her from a boat david was trying so desperately to sink. he'd done it all for them, for their family, but she couldn't see that. wouldn't. and so star had gone to michael for help and michael had gone to sam and sam had gone to those idiot frog brothers and one of them had--oh, god , marko…
but there wasn’t time to grieve. first, their mission was vengeance. dwayne had loved laddie but he'd loved marko more, they all had. they could get laddie back when the rest of them were dead. and maybe it wasn't too late to get star back but if she died, then she died. as far as he was concerned she'd chosen her side. he wouldn't say there wasn't some part of him looking forward to it. he had two goals in mind and he would not stop until they were finished: he was going to tear michael's throat out and then he was going to kill max. if he got to disembowel whichever frog had staked marko, fine. if he died when max died, then that was fine too.
but they were more prepared than he had expected. at first it was all going to plan: he could taste their fear in the air, could hear the outright panic in star’s voice-- michael they’re coming! --and it sounded so sweet. he was going to make them all scream before the night was over. he was going to make them beg him for mercy, for forgiveness, and he was not going to give it to them. he was smiling when they went in, could hear the rage in paul’s voice-- you’re mine! you killed marko!-- and though he regretted the fact that he wouldn’t get to see the frog brothers die, he was glad marko’s death was being avenged by his best friend, his surrogate older brother, more family to him than his own blood had ever been. he could hear alan and edgar screaming in fear, better than any song he’d ever heard. downstairs, david could hear dwayne taunting michael’s little brother, so he waited, biding his time.
david was all but seeing red at this point. in the back of his mind he could hear the screams, but the fact that they were coming from the wrong throats wouldn’t register until later. there was nothing in his mind but a singular thought: michael...michael . where is michael. he didn't care what happened as long as he got to kill him. make him suffer. make him bleed out slow in front of his mother and brother. or turn him completely, somehow, make him the thing they hated most. he had only been trying to offer him a new life, a chance to be something better-- i tried to make you immortal! --bring him into their little family.
but michael proved stronger than david had ever imagined. and though he hadn't died that night, david knew when he was defeated. he waited, played dead, ignored the pain of those antlers that had barely missed his heart. could max tell that he was still alive? did he care? he listened as max explained his plan, flippant, cocky, without the tiniest hint of remorse or grief for his lost boys. your boys, and mine, he said, and david wanted to scream. where were you when paul died? or dwayne? where were you when they hunted us down and drove a stake through marko’s heart while we slept? where were you when we asked you for help?
he lamented the fact that he didn’t get to watch max die, didn’t get to see the look of surprise on his face as he was run through. it was almost enough, listening as they managed to kill him with what might have been, under other circumstances, comic ease. he waited to see, with max gone, if he would die too--there was a part of him that almost hoped he would. after all, what was the point without paul and dwayne, without marko. but no. he stayed. and the surviving, triumphant heroes, restored to their normal pathetic human lives after killing max, talked about what they should do about the destruction, the bodies in the living room. but their grandfather pulled the doors to his work room closed, said something about how he would take care of it but for the time being they were all going to a hotel to clean up, get a good night’s sleep, get their mind off of it. and then david made his escape, if you could call the excruciatingly slow pace he was forced to maintain an escape. he pulled himself off the antlers slowly, inch by inch. sat on the wooden floor surrounded by his own blood, waiting for the wounds to heal, listening for any sound of life. but the house was quiet. they'd left: the emersons, the frogs, star, laddie, even took the fucking dog. david was--for the first time in a long, long time--completely alone.
he walked through the house, slowly, quietly, listening for any sound of their return, piecing together the events of the night as best he could. he pocketed dwayne’s earring, rested a hand on his chest, the last bit of heat from the electrocution still running through his shattered torso. there was nothing left of paul but his bones--the holy water had disintegrated his flesh entirely--and the slightly damp patch he ripped off of paul’s jacket burned his hands. he stood in front of the charred skeleton of his creator for a while, discovering that as the physical pain subsided and the emotional pain took hold, he could feel, too, that max was gone. the relief, however, was so miniscule in comparison to the wave of grief threatening to swallow him whole, that it might have been nonexistent. he spat on max’s still-smoking bones, then left the house and headed back home.
it was a slow journey, but he managed it before the sun came up. he didn’t know how long the emersons would stay away, but he knew eventually they would discover that he had left, that he had survived, and come looking for him. he climbed, slowly but surely, into the rafters of the room marko had claimed for his own, securing the tapestries that had been strung up there as a makeshift ceiling, a hiding place that no one but he and marko had known about. he hung there, halfway between sleep and wakefulness, waiting for them to come looking. and they did, all bravado and bluster since stumbling into victory, so sure of themselves with the sun beating down on their backs, but they didn’t find him. he was smart to skip town, edgar said in that knockoff action hero growl, with a swagger barely masking his relief. knew we’d come looking for him. bet that’s the last we see of that bloodsucker. once he was sure they’d gone, heard their car driving away from the cliffside, he climbed down again, laying down in the bed where he’d spent so many hours with marko, holding his blood-stained patchwork jacket in his hand, and finally allowed the grief to take him.
and god, was it black. and god, was it deep. there was a while there he thought he might drown, might never resurface, and he was okay with that. no amount of loss or despair had ever prepared him for this: not since he’d lost his own mother. not since max had decided he wanted david for his own, taken him away from his own family. not since david had clandestinely attended his own funeral, watched his family mourn for him, casket empty, air full of questions that would never get answered. he had never felt so lost before, so hopeless. he wished the antlers had found their mark. that his existence had ended there in that miserable house. they were supposed to live forever, but more importantly, they were supposed to live forever together . and he was supposed to keep them safe. it was him they looked to for guidance. for leadership. but he had ruined everything. he had brought michael in, changed him, he had changed laddie and star. he had trusted that michael wanted to be like them, be with them. and michael had betrayed them all, gone back to his family.
and now, because of it, david's family was dead. and from his place at the bottom of that ocean of despair, where sunlight could never hope to filter, david lay in the bed that had once belonged to marko and remembered.
remembered when he'd first brought marko back to the hotel, the way paul and dwayne had looked at him. the way he could tell that they understood immediately that marko was not food, but a candidate to join them. the other boys took to marko at once, giving him a tour around the hotel, showing him the available rooms, joining him in drinking, offering to go scare his old man. they held him while he cried, told him jokes till he laughed again, and finally, made excuses to head out so marko and david could be alone, curled up until marko fell asleep on david's shoulder in the very bed he was in now.
remembered countless nights just the four of them, piercing each other's ears or cutting each other's hair, sitting around telling stories or reading, more often than not marko sitting at david's feet while david absentmindedly ran his fingers through his curls. the way paul was always touching dwayne in some way, even just something small, to feel connected to him. the way that they had each taken the time to find the things that really made them happy, without the constraints of time or their families or jobs to stop them. paul’s music, dwayne’s tools, marko’s birds. the way that they had found in each other what they had been missing from their own families: someone to look out for them, someone to talk to, someone to love and be loved by in return.
he remembered the way star had looked at them all the way she’d first arrived: a little scared, but mostly intrigued. desperate to find a family and relieved to have somewhere to go that wasn’t her own home. he remembered the way paul and dwayne had looked after laddie as though he was their own kid, how laddie always rode on dwayne’s bike any time they went anywhere. the way paul and marko had treated each other like brothers from the day they met. he recounted decades of memories of the four of them with his fist wrapped white-knuckle tight around marko’s jacket as he lay, half conscious, starving in that grave that had served as their home.
eventually, however, there was light. small slivers of reflected moonlight that shone, impossibly, through the depths of his grief. borrowed light that trickled down and played across his face to finally bring him out of his fevered state. rays, not of hope, but something much colder: revenge.
it wasn’t his fault. it was max’s. max’s half-hearted and ill-conceived plan to bring a mother into their family. as though they needed one. as though max knew what was best for them. david knew his goal that night at the emerson house had been right all along and though he couldn’t take it out on max, there was still one person he could find, one person he could make pay for all the suffering he felt, for those eons of loneliness that he thought he had tucked away for good but were now unfolding themselves in front of him. michael.... michael.
he had beaten him once, yes. but it had been a close fight. and they had been prepared then, united. and michael no longer had power, or strength. he no longer had david's blood in his veins. david would follow him-- michael…michael-- and he would make him wonder if he was imagining things, or hearing things that weren't there, or if he had been found at last. and david would wait, and watch, and take down the members of michael's family one by one, the way his family had been killed. maybe they would look like accidents. his grandfather was old, after all; anything could happen to him. his mother was the type of independent woman who liked to walk home alone at night. his brother, well… there was no telling what kinds of dangerous things teenagers might get into. and the police would say they could find nothing wrong but michael would know better. he would know that he was being hunted. michael… michael… until at last it would be just the two of them.
after all. they would all let their guard down eventually.
and david had nothing but time.