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It had been easier to ignore back on the Rook Islands.
Well… no, actually; not that, exactly. ‘Ignore’ isn’t… really the right word.
It had been easier to deal with back on the Rook Islands.
So. Much. Easier.
In California, though?
There’s too much noise down at the other end of the building; some idiot yelling at the waitress, upbraiding her for a mistake, and –
And it’s… just… so much easier for Jason to think of ways he could make the noise stop than it is for him to restrain himself.
It would just be… so… easy…
He lowers his eyes back to his cup, to the lukewarm coffee with its oily pearlessence and the stained and sticky laminate of the tabletop below; focusing on the little patch of mundanity as he tries to ignore the screaming at the opposite end of the diner.
It would be…
He takes a breath, holds it, lets it out slowly, and then repeats the process – never looking away from the patch.
The man keeps screaming.
It…
Slowly he moves – reaching out and taking the cup, lifting it to his lips and taking a sip of the tepid and strangely tasteless liquid.
He keeps his eyes down on the table.
It doesn’t stop him from hearing the man’s screams or the whispers from people seated around him.
It would be… so easy… for any of them to do anything…
Jason sips again, focusing on the oxymoronical presencelessness of the beverage, turning every nondescript aspect of it over in his mind (again and again) as he tries to push the unfolding event from his mind.
So easy…
He –
He’s… been doing… alright. He’s been doing the right things. He’s been going to the doctor that Richard found and Daisy endorsed. He’s been going to the Group that the doctor suggested. Sometimes he actually talks at either of them – “Hello,” “Good morning,” “Yes, this coffee is shitty” for the most part; but still… talking. He even does the exercises the doctor suggested, for all that they don’t do a damn thing for him.
He doesn’t take the pills – even if he thought they could do anything it would feel like… like… cheating. In general or… or on Earnhardt. He’s not sure, entirely. And it doesn’t makes sense (he knows it doesn’t) but…
But what does make sense, anymore?
Anyway. He… doesn’t take the pills.
He hasn’t actually told anyone about that… yet…
The point is… he’s doing things. The things people tell him he should. The things people tell him will help. The things that make Mom and Richard relax, ever so slightly; that make Daisy try to smile at him, just a little; that make Riley and Oliver and Liza and Keith flinch just that tiny bit less on the rare occasions they’re near.
He’s doing the things (the doctor and the group and the exercises) and he’s actually managing to keep a job (six weeks now – a personal best) and… and he’s… doing… alright.
It’s even been a month since he’s killed anyone.
Well… twenty-six days, anyway.
It’s –
Down at the other end of the diner the man’s still screaming.
But…
Jason stills, the mug resting against his lower lip, as the waitress starts to cry.
It…
There’s a low murmur of noise – low enough that it doesn’t reach the screaming man or crying woman.
Jason ignores it.
It’s easy enough.
All around him people are murmuring and muttering and not doing anything, not even raising a protest as the waitress starts crying harder and the man keeps screaming at her – his voice getting uglier and more dangerous now as her tears are making him sound pleased, a hungry sort of sneer coloring his swears and shouts, the volume of his tirade increasing in his greed for more of her suffering, the threat of violence growing stronger with each breath and each sob and all around no one’s doing anything when it –
“Excuse me?”
Two pairs of eyes he can see and about a dozen he can feel turn to him in perfect unison, and the pandemonium freezes into the stunned silence of a roomful of caught breaths.
At the center of it all Jason just calmly lifts his cup, an attempt at a pleasant (human) smile on his lips and his gaze gentle and fixed on the woman’s tear-streaked cheekbone. “Sorry… can I get a refill? Please?”
Somewhere behind he can hear someone drop a fork, then fumble to stop its clattering. Somewhere else a murmur rises then immediately cuts off. At the edge of his vision he can see the belligerent man start to shake off the shock – start gathering his anger all over again and start getting ready to direct it all at a new target.
Jason just keeps his attention on the woman in front of him and waits.
She jolts to life suddenly, soothing the roil that’s been building below the surface as she stutters and stammers through a half-remembered script and reaches almost frantically for his cup, her hands shaking violently and an outpouring of gratitude behind her words before she makes a rush back behind the counter and then vanishes into the kitchen.
The doors haven’t even finished closing behind her before the man finishes turning his anger on Jason.
Jason expected this.
It’s still… not… easy… to not react; to remain still as the larger man starts screaming again (loud, annoying), a fresh litany of petty indignation and pedantic insults and insinuations and –
It would be… so easy to make him quiet.
He’s breathing – almost but not quite one of his exercises – and keeping his eyes on the door to the kitchen and focusing on not quieting the torrent of noise beside him when –
He grabs the wrist before fingers even touch him, pulls the man in close and drives the tableknife he’d pocketed up through the left eye and straight back into the brain, a flick of the wrist twisting the blade deeper into the frontal lobe and then he lets go and the carcass falls with a gasp and a thud and then there’s silence again –
Jason exhales, slowly, and the meaty hand grabs a fistful of his shirt.
So… easy…
Jason takes another breath and finally turns towards the still screaming man.
“Let go of my shirt.” His speaks in a beat that comes on a ragged inhale, his own low and measured tone contrasting the piercing din so sharply that it stuns the larger man into a glorious moment’s silence. “Please.”
From where his gaze falls just past the other man’s jaw (enough pressure and the dull knife would pierce the skin below, sever the external jugular vein and carotid artery in one push, seconds to death if he twists and pulls the blade just right on removal) Jason can see the already flushed skin turn darker, can see the mouth falling slack (drive the knife straight through, pierce the soft palate, all those delicate muscles and nerves and tendons and the entire upper cervical spine to play with) and the eyes bulging wide (transorbital lobotomy or just a quick slash to blind – knife unnecessary for either if the angle of the fingers is right) and the whole body starts to shake again in rage (one punch to cave in the larynx, pull away to make the arm extend and drive the knife into the axillary artery, one kick to break the knee and bring him to the ground, grab the back of the head and drive the face into the counter on the way down, break the ribs just there and they’ll pierce the lungs and heart, break the ribs there and they’ll pierce so much more that will be slow, step in close then shift and get a hold on the throat to feel as the breath stops and the pulse fades…) and Jason –
He…
It would… all be… so…
Jason takes a breath and shifts his gaze.
The newest scream dies on the man’s lips, so fast that the gasps and murmurs around them are audible for a second before true silence falls; every spec of color fading from the man’s skin and his enraged trembling ceasing instantly – the deathly stillness of primal terror draining all the fight as Jason stares dead into his eyes.
He probably should’ve done it earlier, honestly.
People… don’t really seem to like meeting Jason’s eyes these days.
Weird, that.
Slowly, he tilts his head – still not blinking or looking away, and the man gives a jerky, aborted flinch, turning even paler and –
Jason takes a breath and feels his lips pull up – ever so slightly – into something like a smile. “I did say please…”
He breathes.
He waits.
A beat passes.
Two.
Jason feels the coiling pulse inside his skin, his blood, his –
And then – all at once – the man drops his hand, pulls jerkily away, and turns to storm (run) out of the diner.
Jason watches him leave.
Then, in the silence, he turns himself and heads back to his table.
The world lurches around him – collective breath loosed and frozen muscles shaking back to life, the slow roil of hushed murmurs staggering outwards as voices quaver hesitantly into the breaking silence, a sharp spike of sound ringing out as someone starts to clap and then just as suddenly stops, and almost all at once sound and life return to the diner as the people inside try to pretend like none of the past few minutes had even happened.
Jason sits down, closes his eyes, and makes himself breathe as the sound rises around him.
Any one of them could’ve done something.
Any…
Jason presses his palms slowly against the sticky top of the table, counts to ten in every language he knows, and makes himself breathe.
It’s… not easy.
Not now.
It had been so much easier on the Islands.
So… much…
##############
Life goes on inside the diner, like none of it had happened.
Like that’s the end of it.
He’d like to believe that.
It would be so easy to believe it.
So… very… easy…
##############
It’s never quiet in a city, but something approximate has fallen – a lull, a background hum, the hour suspended between late-enough and early-enough so that the world seems to be holding its breath, waiting.
Fitting, that.
There’s a brief swell of life – cursory courtesies exchanged just at the edge of his field of view – that fades back into the static of the hour, and within moments the waitress is walking away from the diner, one arm wrapped tight across her stomach as she crosses the cracked asphalt below the one flickering street light.
She doesn’t see him.
She doesn’t see the battered truck, parked just outside the dancing cone of light.
She doesn’t see the men who crawl from the truck and start to move in a pack towards her.
She doesn’t see when he steps out of the shadows (behind her, before them) or how his sudden presence draws them to an abrupt stop.
She just keeps walking, completely oblivious to the scene she’s narrowly exited.
Good.
It will make everything… easier.
The… man at the front, from before, leading the group, shifts, shakes, stares at Jason for a long moment, squinting at him through the flickering lights and shifting shadows, trying to get a proper look past the organic chiaroscuro of their surroundings and beneath the further shadows of his hood, the friends he brought mirroring his confusion in scattered degrees.
Jason doesn’t move. He just watches and waits.
It takes a moment for realization to strike – he sees the moment it does, sees the man’s eyes grow wide and his mouth gape and his skin pale, sees him flinch in shock as he stares at Jason and his brain connects the dots and then…
A shred of common sense would see the man turn and go back to his car.
It’s not exactly a surprise that he doesn’t.
Not that it would actually matter.
The man had waited six hours and brought along four friends to participate in whatever he’d planned for the waitress who’d brought him the wrong drink.
Jason was never going to let him just leave.
The man’s moving towards him, expression ugly with anger and hunger, the friends at his back filling him with confidence, the surprise at the interruption and the disappointment over their lost prey twisting into a new intent – one directed towards what they think stands before them.
Jason doesn’t move.
The ringleader’s grinning now, all the uglier for it, and he’s talking – accusations and insinuations and ‘veiled’ threats as his friends fan out, positioning themselves for what they think is about to happen.
Jason doesn’t move.
The brief flare of amusement flickers and dies out, anger swelling again at the silence, and in the purpling flesh and glint of teeth and spit and the glimmers of sad little pocket knives flicking outward Jason sees the shadows of the real monsters these sad little men think they measure up to.
It’s all a little bit… funny. If you think about it.
His lips twitch.
A hand grabs his arm.
Jason moves and
finally the world comes alive
He drives his hand – empty, open, a blade would end it too quickly – up against the face, shatters the nose, breaks it at an angle that won’t drive bone up into the brain, grabs the side of the head and pulls as he punches up, snaps the jaw and cracks the spine, punches again, dents but doesn’t crush the larynx, then drops his hold as he sidesteps the attack that comes at a crawl from behind, stomps down on the fallen man’s leg and feels it snap as he pulls back and then strikes, fist cracking three ribs on the first punch, breaking them on the second, driving them inwards on the third, the taller man curling reflexively inwards and Jason grabs him by the hair and pulls back, drives his knee up against the taut spine and then pushes, forward, forces the body to the ground below, forehead and nose and mouth and jaw hitting the asphalt with a cascade of snaps and cracks, and he lets it fall, writhe by the other, and turns.
light pulses, music sings, color dances around him once more
The three remaining men stand, stare, frozen in shock and horror that teeters tenuously between understanding and rage.
It took exactly nine seconds for him to reduce their friends to writhing, ruined wrecks… and he isn’t even breathing hard.
he can breathe again, so… easily
They should turn and try to run.
They don’t.
Just as well, really.
he can feel
That they bring themselves to him just makes it that much easier.
He doesn’t rise, rolls back from the writhing body, lets the first “attacker” race straight into and fall over his fallen friend, then sweeps the leg out from the second, pushes up and reaches up and grabs, grasps, pulls into the fall and feels the reverberations in the face as the back of the skull shatters against the asphalt, pulls and drives it back down again and again then drops the body and turns, rocks back, the excuse of a blade arcing widely before him and he rises behind the swing of it, kicks out the knee of the third from the back, drives it down and feels it shatter between his foot and the ground, reaches and grabs the jaw and pulls back, a blow downward that breaks the left clavicle and then grabs and pulls the arm that reaches towards the pain, grinds then knee further below his foot as he pivots, twists the arm back and tears, feels ligaments and tendons and muscle and bone scream in elbow and shoulder as they entwine strangely and then separate from where they should be in the moment before he drops the limb lets the body fall and turns towards the last.
Familiar eyes stare back at him.
He sees fear.
It feels…
The shape turns. Tries to run.
He almost laughs.
There’s a knife on the ground – dropped from a now forever useless hand – and in one motion he grabs it up and throws it out, the sad little blade gliding through the air with undeserved grace to pierce the back of the right knee – flesh parting as it sinks in and the body crashing down with a scream as the leg gives out.
For just a moment the approximate stillness returns.
Then the screaming starts.
Jason moves.
He passes the fallen, writhing and moaning and sobbing in their blood and piss, each measured step bringing him closer and closer to the body on the ground – screaming curses like music and trying to crawl away – the flickering street light above painting the world in undulating shadows as he moves across the dancefloor and –
His foot comes to rest on the hilt of the knife, pressing it slowly deeper, tip grinding its way into bone, blood bubbling up and out from the ragged tear in flesh and there’s a wild shriek below before it tries to turn – a wide, wild swing of another sad little knife aimed at him that he barely needs to move to avoid, just the slightest shift and it passes through empty air and then another to reach out, grab the wrist, a twist and a pull and bones snap, fingers go limp, the attempt at a knife falling into his other waiting hand, another shift and his foot leaves the embedded blade, another to drop the wrist and –
Jason rocks back on his heels. Tilts his head towards the sky. Exhales once – long and slow, almost one of the exercises – and –
“Please!”
A pulse runs through him.
Slowly, Jason moves – head lolling and eyes drifting downwards, gaze falling down to the body below.
Fluid coats the contorted face like badly applied camo – tears and snot and saliva and sweat mixing together with fresh blood, the glistening paint catching the flickering light, all the brighter and more vibrant with the increasingly ashen canvas beneath, and –
Another pulse.
The eyes are so very wide – pupils shrunk near to nothing and lids pulled back to their apex to expose a sea of white and –
Another pulse.
Jason sees the shadow of himself reflected in those eyes.
“Please…”
Another pulse.
Jason…
“Ple-”
Jason moves.
The body grows closer as he lowers himself – eyes managing to go even wider as he crouches, leans in, head tilting slowly as he stares straight into the terrified gaze below him.
“What…” the low whisper of his voice cuts off all sound from beneath, the breath of it hanging – gossamer – in the stilling air. “Am I going to do with you…?”
Another pulse…
There’s a burbled sound – a sob and a plea all in one that goes silent as he tilts his head back the other way.
“I could let you go.” He dips his head in a little nod, gaze falling to the side and blade flitting towards the prospective distance as the thought lingers in the air. “It would be… easy enough. And…” his gaze shifts, returns to the so-very-wide eyes below, “I’d know that you’d remember this. Me. So…” he nods again, a soft hum leaving him, “I could just walk away… leave you here and… trust… that the next time you think about hurting someone… just because you can… you’d remember me.” He nods a third time, shifting a bit more upright, eyes lifting and blade flicking back and forth between his fingers. “So I could let you go… believing that you’d change.”
There’s another sob from below.
Another babbled, broken plea.
And Jason…
“But…”
A sigh leaves him – long, low and slow. His eyes close and his head tilts back and away. His fingers shift, the little knife dancing a lazy arc through the still air.
“Things…”
His hand falls.
“Don’t change…”
His eyes open.
“Do they?”
He sees himself in the eyes below.
A pulse runs through him.
And Jason smiles.
“Hey.” He reaches out, slowly, gently taking hold of the other man’s jaw and lifting the face upwards, leaning in close, their eyes locked as he smiles and sighs into the stillness. “Do you know… what the definition… of insanity is?”
There’s another sob.
Another plea.
And Jason…
Keeps smiling.
And…
he…
decides.
And it’s weird, probably. But…
It's so easy.