Work Text:
Although he could have never quite put it to words, the ideology that he had grown up with had led him into a nihilistic state long before he had acted on his outlook.
There was an event that changed him from an unthinking child, full of joy and innocence, into the man that had become callous and cold to the world, ascribing no meaning to anything. It had been his mother, dying from choking on her own vomit when he was eight.
The night before she died, she had told him to go to bed as his father and her celebrated some form of territorial victory. A rival gang, a massacre. Their bodies dragged to the basements to be disposed of. Although he had not seen the killings, he had seen how happy they were at their deaths. Something throughout his entire life up to that point that they had worked on to achieve was now accomplished, and they were making their way through setting up new prospects in their trades.
She had told him to go to bed, even as he told her he was too scared to sleep. When she asked why, and he told her from seeing the bloated face of a dead man that one of their lackeys had failed to cover in a body bag, she laughed along with his father and got down next to him, picking him up to take him to his room.
"Why would you be afraid of someone dead? He's dead... he can't hurt you!" She sat him on the bed when they arrived. "Are you scared you're going to end up like him?" When he nodded his head, she tucked him in and kissed his forehead softly.
She reeked of wine.
"Everyone dies, dear. That's what we're born to do. Have kids then die. And in the meantime, have as much fun as you possibly can. Now. Go to sleep, and don't think about some ugly bastard getting what he deserved."
When he woke up the next morning, he went downstairs and found her and his father laid in the living room. She was on her back, puke over her mouth and eyes rolled into her skull. His father was asleep in front of the dead fire, his hands having been burnt from where he was laid with them so close. Unlike her, he had yet to throw up, but all the child could think to do in that moment was go back to his room and try and sleep again.
Violence had become the norm at that point, and although he put value on his relationships, by the time his father died he simply hardly cared about much of anything anymore, except making sure that for the brief moment it was relevant, he could get what the man worked for back for him. That territory that had costed so many lives, he needed it back.
It felt nice to shoot those men, watch them bleed on the floors that were now tarnished by their tacky carpets. It was nice to take their bodies and watch them burn in their incinerator in the basement, likely similar to the ones back in Russia that his mother and father had used prior to their immigration. It was all fantastic, at least for a moment. Feelings of emptiness returned however, when the men had cleaned up. The craving to do something, yet nothing motivating him to do anything. He had no goals, and while he knew to keep his people occupied with guarding certain hotspots, he had a majority taking breaks or staying with him in his own headquarters, keeping him company in some desperate ploy to stay entertained.
After the death of his mother, the sorrow of losing her kept him from behaving outright like a child again, even at eight. In school he kept to himself, his personality shifting seemingly overnight from the perspective of his teachers and peers. When learning to fight when he got older, he put in effort but still seemed to lack in some senses when it came to motivation. By the time they were moving after the war, his father had worried he would do little for him and the family business.
A source of hatred against his son. A source of contempt.
Although he had never really reacted at the time, and simply went along for the ride, his father still put him up to odd jobs that required his more personal ministrations that he could only trust to his blood.
Violence, it was something he grew accustomed to long before he had to run jobs for his father. Never knew any different from it, really. When it befell him, however, that was when his personality changed for a final time from the cold drifter to the violent thrill seeker.
About twenty years old, maybe slightly older, he'd gone on a mission. Out of nowhere, someone caught him in the eye with a knife as another took a bat to the back of his head. Whether his men had fled or had been killed, he never really knew, but he did know that when he woke up, he was in some headquarters of a rival gang, his hands tied and his clothes stripped.
Nothing unusual.
He'd seen his father do the same. Let his men use their own prisoners, so that when they needed a message sent in hostage videos they looked pathetic, or perhaps if he just wanted to humiliate their rivals before killing them, they could. His own torture, however, simply changed him. Hands roving over his body in ways that while felt like they should have been loving, only terrified him. Eventually being raped was worse, however, the violence mixed with the intimacy of someone being inside him. But even the terror of that did not compare to the beatings and abuse that came after, a stark contrast into something he understood but still kept his heart racing and fearful for how close it felt like they got to killing him each time they were done with him.
Thoughts that nothing mattered as his mother said kept playing in his mind, but his body reacted anyways, screaming at him that living certainly did matter, whether he liked it or not.
He was returned, eventually, although the memory was hazy. Dragged out of a car and thrown onto a back doorstep somewhere. Left to lay there until someone from their gang walked out and recognized him as something other than a dead body.
He remembered his father waiting with him at the doorstep for their driver, his jacket covering him, and how he had held his hands in the car. Despite how pathetic it must have looked, he also recalled not caring that his old man carried him in, shouting for help and staying next to him as he talked with doctors in the ER. How he had promised to personally take care of whoever had done it to him, as they waited in some comfortable room for hours on end as tests came back. One of the rare times they hadn't really been at each others’ throats. Just sitting there in solitude, his father talking to him but him having no words.
Had it not been for the circumstances, perhaps he would have been happy he was finally being given some mind aside from being berated for his laziness and spoiled ways. Not just something to his father that was constantly getting pushed away in favour of more pressing matters, or being told he needed to be looking after business far differently on his end if he ever wanted to be a successor.
It was nice, almost.
His father pushing his hair out of his face, holding his cheek in his hand, thumb tracing the tear line he hadn't realized he'd been making damp. His other eye was swollen and bandaged, but he knew his father would have been fully cupping his face to try and get his attention if he didn't think it would have hurt him. Promises of being told he'd get him cleaned up as soon as they could take him home, and help him to his own bed to rest kept being whispered on repeat in a tearful voice that likely would have mimicked his own if he could have spoke. He'd liked his suggestions, especially given how awful his stay in the hospital was simply with what he had to be tested for, as well as the scans to his body to see what was broken. He felt safe, and it was very rare he ever was afforded that serenity. His father being there and genuinely present almost made what happened feel like a shocking and distant dream that hadn't really occurred, despite his mind playing its events on loops.
It must have been a few days after he was released that he first tried the stuff they made, a trial exhibition into an attitude that would accompany him for the rest of his life. Seeking thrills and chasing feeling good, sat in a hotel room his father had got him in order to be safely away from any territory that might have been compromised. His cousin who was training to be some form of bodyguard, needing the loyalty of family, hanging out with him. She was annoying, but she had said that the stuff they cooked and ran on the streets was actually pretty clean. She handed him some pills, and he took it.
Nothing had ever felt better, but he realized that even as he chased the pain of his body away, his mind was still reeling. If his mother were right, and nothing truly mattered, then why was the fear still there despite the fact that his death would have been meaningless? When he asked his cousin for some insight, she just gave him another pill and told him it was because he hadn't taken enough. Whether she were correct or not mattered little, because it was enough to keep his mind at bay for a couple hours while they sat in bed together drinking kvass and eating lukewarm room service food while watching the news, a caster talking about a massacre in an area known for cartel activity.
As time dragged on and his body healed, the drugs helped enough to keep him from being a shut in, despite the fear he initially had before giving in and seeking out danger himself, rather than letting it find him. They could not stop the subtle feelings that would come back to him, however. The fear of his bodyguards moving too fast, causing him to flinch and then instantly berate them to hide his embarrassment. Being with a whore for the first time after his capture, and crying halfway through, spending the rest of the time with her curled around him as if it would make him feel safer somehow. Everything reminded him of the torture, which in turn embarrassed him and drove him crazy.
But the drugs, they helped.
Even if his father was always a little upset that he snuck a few of their newly crafted products into his penthouse rather than leaving it on the table near his office. It just made him not think too deeply, and simply enjoy whatever was happening. A feeling he had strived for. A feeling that was comfortable, and hard to find without a few pills down his throat.
Perhaps that was where his mind was at after getting sweet revenge for his father's life, as he sat down on the couch, taking a capsule every five minutes out of sheer boredom and malice. Needing to chase the feeling of being devoid of anger, devoid of fear, yet still full of life and awake.
Now that there was nothing to work for nor avenge, he was quite lost. All the emotions were null, and he truly had no cares anymore. The triumph did not stop him from wanting the drugs, however. He shovelled them in by the handful, his throat hurting from the dry swallowing, and his ears ringing terribly.
The arcade game was annoying him, and as he took another few, one of the guards commented.
"Hey, boss?" he asked, his voice low as if to make the others not hear. "Take it easy on those pills. You shouldn't take too many of them."
Instead of listening, or reacting with anger derived from embarrassment, he only closed his eyes a little and leaned back, before reaching again for the pile and swallowing the couple more he felt he could manage.
Eyes were on him. Worried looks, or perhaps pity. In the past, or perhaps the present without his chemical calm, he would have been irate at that fact. All he could think to do in that instance, however, was breathe out sharply as if to laugh, and take a few more.
He closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them once more everyone in the room was gone, along with his pills. It would have filled him with anger to imagine his men taking them, whether that be for his own benefit so that he couldn't have them or for their benefit of getting drugs while he was unconscious, but he couldn't care. Sweat was dripping down his face despite how chilled he felt, and he needed to get a feeling of freshness without going outside and breathing the night's air. Getting up was difficult, but he blinked and somehow he was standing in front of the sink. He blinked again, and his feet were soaked with water as his hands gripped the edge of the countertop. He noticed how pale his skin was, and he dunked his head under the sink for a second, before he felt someone grip him by the collar and pull him out.
"Boss? You all right?" asked the man.
He couldn't respond.
"There was a situation, but we've got it under control now. I just wanted to tell you we've got some Colombians in the base- Hey, boss?"
The man across from him, someone he thought he had known since he was fifteen and moving across seas, seemed to morph and change. Red eyes replaced the blue ones, and the discoloured lips too somehow seemed to be coated in fire. Suddenly they were moving in quick motions that he could not understand. Telling him things in a screeching voice, as his body flailed, motioning at the door, then him, then the door again. Whatever had replaced his friend, certainly it would not replace him. Cautiously, as he had no other choice with how fast the man moved, he reached for one of the shotguns on the counter, his fingers unable to grasp it before the man had caught his wrist, and was pulling him to go and sit down on the couch.
"I think you might have taken a little too much, boss. Let me get someone to clean this place up for you, why don't you sit down, all right?"
The words lost any and all meaning on him. For a second, he thought about struggling, about scratching at his eyes or punching him. Instead, his limbs felt uncompliant, and when he looked at his hands, hazily moving to push the man off where he directed him, his fingers blended together in a mirage of colours.
"What'd you do with him?!" he asked in Russian, trying to hide the fear in his voice.
It only came out as a slurred groan, the man helping him to sit down, and then lay down when he saw he was too unwell to move beyond that.
"I told you not to take so many of them," he repeated, moving him to sit up slightly as he took a pillow for his head so he wouldn't asphyxiate on his vomit. "Did you finish that whole pile? Should I be taking you to a hospital?" he continued to ask, much to no response. "Let me go and get one of the cooks for this shit... he might know better than me."
As soon as the man left, he felt instantly at ease, clenching his eyes shut as tightly as they would. Sounds still echoed around him, and the distant shouting somewhere down the hall beckoned him, but he didn't want to move. Logically, he knew there were things happening that were related to the trip, but he felt so scared in spite of that. The only thing that kept him truly stationary was the knowledge that no matter what it was, there was little that he could do about it. He tried to look beyond the couch to the counter, but the water had long stopped running, and he could no longer focus his eyes enough to see if there was still a gun on the counter to protect himself with from whatever was causing one of his men to howl in pain in the hallway.
All he could do was curl up on his side and hold himself as he kept his eyes closed as tightly as they would let him.
When he opened his eyes again, the room around him was different. Instead of the white walls and the fish tanks, he was in the quiet and dark room of his childhood house in Russia. It was cold, but the blanket around him was cozy, as were the pyjamas he wore. Thick fleecy things, a little rough but not so much so that they would hurt his skin. For a second, he went to go underneath the covers more and pull them around himself, but he found that they were too far out of reach, and he was simply too tired.
Whatever dream he had fallen into, it was nice enough in temperature to try and let his eyes slip shut once more. He exhaled, only to feel a rough hand overtop of his own, grabbing his own hands firmly together and holding them. His eyes shot open, only to find his father sitting next to him, holding him slightly.
"Father?" he asked, hearing how his own voice sounded so slurred and garbled. It scared him, but the other man only squeezed his hands tighter and reached for his face with the other, as if to reassure him.
"Don't speak... You know where you are?"
He nodded, but his father only laughed.
"No, I don't think you actually do. But that's all right. You don't have to know. Just try and relax. Let everything run its course." His father moved to slightly reposition himself, the weight of the bed shifting with his action. The grip around his fingers loosened for a second, and for a moment the room spun and he tried to close his eyes once more, but apparently the prior disapproval of his sleep was still an issue as he felt his father grasp his face and hold him so that he was looking at him once more. Worry etched onto his features, and his eyes were wild. "No, you need to try and stay awake, boy."
"Dad...?" he asked again, his voice perhaps a little less shaky from before but still weak. He tried to reach for his wrists, but his hands wouldn't respond.
As if recognizing the worry he caused, his father eased his grip on him and only held his face, his own visage softening a little into something more sorrowful than worrisome. Eyes dropped, mouth frowning at the edges. His thumb traced the scar on his eye, softly, not looking away from it. As if to say sorry for not being there to protect him from getting it when they tortured him, and as if to say sorry for leaving him alone to take care of their business without any help nor guidance.
"I'm proud of you. I didn't say that last time, but I am."
The pair exchanged a moment of quietness, before the youngest of the two pulled back slightly. His father let him go, and resumed holding his hands off to the side, looking away at the old fireplace. It was crackling slightly still, but the flames that had seemed to have once brightly licked the logs were running out of fuel, and were desperately clinging to whatever pieces of bark and twig they could find in the ashy wastes. He couldn't meet his son's eyes, but he could squeeze his weakened hands to let him know that despite his cowardice, he was still standing next to him.
"...You're not real, are you?" the son asked after a moment.
"Does it really matter if I am or not? If I'm not, you're still here in this room. Maybe a dream. Maybe a hallucination. If I am real... then there's no difference."
"I guess," he agreed, then trailed off as if losing his train of thought. Pushed onward by slight pressure from his father, he resumed. "I guess you're right. It doesn't, and I can't do anything," he said, taking long breaks between words, mind too numb. His eyes were slipping shut again, and his hands were going limp.
This time, he couldn't manage to keep himself awake when his father tried shaking him.
His eyes shot open once more, and this time he was back on the couch. Two men were looming over him, either with features he could hardly recognize. Blue, sharp teeth, eyes that glowed red. Nails extending far beyond what a normal person's nails should have, and movements that seemed to blur together, as if they were swishing water around in a sink, yet somehow doing it in the wide open. Trying to sit up was impossible when his limbs hardly obeyed his calls, but he knew he needed to escape. Shoot them and run before their friends came. Get as far away from the demons as possible. Instead, he only let out a strangled sound, tilting his head away, causing everything to blur together and make him far more dizzy as his eyes slipped shut again.
"Boss?" one of the men yelled.
"How many did he take?" the other asked.
"The whole pile I'm guessing, maybe with a few gone from the others taking some."
"What do you mean the whole pile?" the former inquired, getting down on his knees next to the couch and reaching for their leader. His skin had long turned a deathly pale colour, but his lips and ears were starting to get a tint to them that signified he wasn't getting any oxygen. "The whole pile?" he asked again for confirmation, looking over his shoulder to find the other mobster nodding. Breathing in sharply and holding an exhale to hear clearly, he put his head to the dying man's chest and listened. "His hearts pounding but I can't hear him breathing."
"What should I do?"
"Bring the car around, he needs his stomach pumped. I'll do CPR. Go!"
The man went out quickly, and the cook sat up on his knees, moving the pillow and getting him flat on his back, before he moved his shirt and jacket slightly, and started to compress his chest. For a second, he thought he saw his eyes open, but when he went to look further they had either slipped shut again or had never opened to begin with.
There were no other noises aside from air being pushed in and out of the immobilized lungs, and the exertion from the only man who knew the tiniest amount about what he had taken on a medical scale.
"Why'd you do that, boss?" he asked, before pushing him further down, tiredness already setting in from the rhythm he was trying to maintain in breaking his ribcage.
Of course, he got no response.
In his own mind, the world around the gang leader had faded into the quiet and peaceful room once more. It was a welcome change from the daunting white walls and the demons leering over him. It was getting colder around him, but this time, his cousin was standing next to him, and had pulled the blankets up to his knees as he tried to jabber on about the monsters, much to the confusion of his father and the bodyguard. The two panthers he had often had sleep at the end of his bed were also doing their part to try and keep him warm, with one curled up around his feet and the other with it's head leaned against his rapidly rising and falling chest.
"Hey, hey relax, boy!" his father told him, a bit harshly. Tones so reminiscent of their time bickering about his inability to maintain his grades nor engage with any training in his youngest years of understanding his place in their organization.
"Dad, dad they're going to get me... he's trying to rip my heart out!"
"Son," his father said, trying to stroke his hair but finding him so agitated that he couldn't calm him. Instead, he let him panic for a second so that he would burn some of the worry away as he realized there was nothing he could do at that point. Anxiously, the youngest was looking around the room, his eyes flicking rapidly between different nostalgic decorations. It was only when the bodyguard sat down on the opposite side of him and wrapped her arms around his neck and held him for a second that he started to calm down, the hysteria fading away and only being left with the laboured breathing. When she pulled away, the father had found a way to busy himself by holding his son's forearm, and looking at the ground. "...I'm sorry, my boy," his father said, his voice low and hardly audible.
"I'm not going to let anything happen to you," said the bodyguard, who was sitting next to him on the bed, trying to cheer up the mood a little. With one of her feet, she was bothering the panther sat at the very end of the mattress, touching its paw with her foot and causing it to twitch its leg away, only for it to relax and have her annoyance be in reach again. Despite the out of place feeling, it put the two other people at ease to see her playing with it in spite of the circumstances. With her hands, she had rested them on his shoulders when the youngest of their group calmed further. It didn't make him feel comforted, but it made him feel real in a sense. "Do you feel all right, at least?"
"My chest feels so tight. It's hurting to breathe," he responded.
"Move you damned pest," scolded the bodyguard, as his father tried to urge the lazier of the two panthers that was sleeping on his chest off his son so he could breathe better.
"No!" he interjected. "It's not... it's not the pressure. It hurts to take deep breaths. It's... I can't describe it," he said, his hand quickly going to the panther’s head, not wanting it to leave. His fingers played at its ear, and it yawned, indifferent to his suffering.
"Does it hurt down the middle?" asked the bodyguard, squeezing his shoulders slightly.
"Yeah, and on the side."
There was a long pause. No one spoke, but the bodyguard and father exchanged a look as the sickly of the three let his hand rest at the scruff of the animal, feeling its vibrations from it purring.
During his recovery, his father had often brought the panthers to sit by him so that he wouldn't be alone. At the time, he had been sleeping in his grandfather's room, usually spending the day unmoving with his hands covering his ears, trying not to remember what had happened all the while taking only what his father would give him to calm down, after he got caught overly high off their product with his cousin asleep in the bathroom of the hotel room. The animals, although not entirely empathetic, did at least go up to him and try and coax him to play with them or pet them when he was on the verge of being sick from the thoughts of his near death. A vivid memory of him laying in that exact position in bed, the pain from his final beating flaring up as it repeated in his head. The creatures then had curled up close to him, just as they were then. Even the motion of his hand, hard to move from the sprain, felt familiar as it hardly complied then.
"I'm dying, right? I'm ODing on my couch," he more so stated than asked after a moment. His chest started to rise and fall rapidly with the panic setting in. Instead of confirming it, his cousin only put her arms around him again, hugging him. It was his father who explained as he squeezed his arm and moved the hair from his face, askew from his earlier panic.
"It's really not as scary as it sounds," he tried to comfort. "Leaving the world, that is. We all did it... it's the most natural thing that can happen aside from being born."
He tried to keep his composure. He really did. Repeated to himself in his head that he needed to keep in control and not look pathetic and scared in his final moments. It was just as his father had told him at the bank, however. He hadn't even realized he was dying until it was far too late, even if it was inadvertently by his own hand.
His breath started to quicken despite the pain, and his fingers squeezed his father's hand as his chest spasmed as if his bones were breaking. All the man could do to comfort his son was hold his hand until it was over, keeping it close as if it would help him. At one point, he had thought he was fragile, especially after he'd been kidnapped. He had tried to indulge him, let him do whatever he wanted because he felt responsible. Now, as the calloused fingers gripped his own as he suffered, he knew that was no longer the case. That the man had become a killer, just as he had. That his son had travelled the same path that only led to desolation. At least now, he could take care of him.
"I'm scared," his son whispered, his voice strained. "Why does it hurt so badly?"
The bodyguard had pulled away but still kept close, doing similar to what his father was doing in trying to comfort him.
"I don't know... but just try and relax. I'm sure it's going to be over soon."
The youngest continued to pant in pain, clenching his eyes shut. The last thing he saw before he slipped out of the room again was his father and cousin keeping him company, either one looking sad at his suffering yet being unable to help.
It was only a very brief flash before he was back in his old room again. A demon wrapped around him, as he was unable to move. Hallways blurring together in colourful and shifting ways. His eyes fuzzy as the shouts echoed against his skull.
When the midnight air hit his lungs, he took a sharp breath in, and closed his eyes once more.
The fire was out, and the room was almost empty. His father was gone along with his cousin, and the panthers must have followed them out of the room. It was frightening to not have anyone be there, and for a second, he felt that eternity may have simply been solitude in his room. Instead, the instant his pain grew and fingers twisted in the sheets, out of the corner of his eye he saw a dark figure walk to him.
Just the same as the last he had seen her, his mother came over and pulled the covers up around him.
The relief from her touch felt like a long and drawn out fever finally breaking, and he breathed out a sigh, catching his breath before he stopped taking in breath all together. She reached over, and as she kissed his forehead, the son let his eyes slip shut for a final time.