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Lee knew it was stupid of him to give Sean even half the credit he had both before and after finding out his involvement with this fucked up ‘family’ that had been following him around. Even after his interrogation with his former friend it was obvious that something was different.
Or, things had always clearly been different since he realized it was him. He’d trusted Sean. He’d worried about him when his house got attacked by cultist, and even if he hadn’t been able to check and see if he was okay he’d still felt that gnawing guilt that something might have happened because of him.
Still, it didn’t fall beyond his notice that he was so much paler than he’d been when they first unmasked him. The bags under his eyes had grown quite a bit, not to mention the fact that there was some kind of red rim around them too. If he hadn’t been locked in his basement for months he honestly would have assumed that Sean had taken to being some kind of emo with how his appearance had shaped up.
He already knew that he could arguably hand wave all these issues away be regarding him as a junkie on the decline. His substance of choice had been taken from him and as such he was clearly rotting away down there. Good riddance, right?
As Lee sat on the steps to his basement he kept looking at the scissors in his hands. There were so many options that came with them. It hadn’t slipped passed him that he could do some damage with them. If he wanted to he could just as easily sheer off Sean’s fingers as he’d done to him. I’d be cruel, yes, but did that really matter anymore?
Mo seemed to think so. The way he tried to keep him away from the basement proved that he’d made up his mind long before Lee had even gotten the chance to make it down the stairs. Kaitlyn was a little harder to read on the issue sometimes. Maybe it was because she’d been dealing with all this shit on her own for long enough to form her opinions, or some other reason he couldn’t even place.
It didn’t matter then. They weren’t in the house. It was just him and Sean. Just him and sean and the scissors in his hand. There were options. Plenty of options that he felt the options gnawing at him. It was stupid what he ended up on, really. He still ended up in the basement before he could back out.
The two men made eye contact and both bristled at the sight of the other. Lee squeezed the scissors in his palm. The plastic cut into his skin and, he didn’t notice until the pain rippled up his arm, he saw small spots of red drip onto the concrete.
“Even with all the power in your hands you still end up hurting yourself. Are you ever going to be able to stop doing that?”
“Getting into trouble? Clearly not. Not with you’re little group following me around. I’m sure you’re already well aware of that, though. Or, maybe not, how do you think they’re doing without you? I haven’t really heard a peep from them since Mo and Kaitlyn got me out.”
“They’re clearly plotting then. I’m sure you’ve already considered that option, haven’t you? Thought about all the options on how to protect the house and the little shit hole family you have going on here. Well I can tell you for damn certain, whatever you’re thinking of it is going to be ten times worse.”
“Yeah I’m sure it will, if they haven’t just forgotten about you.”
He noticed Sean’s arms started to tense up after he said that. “They wouldn’t forget about me. I’m the one that shepherds them to the Speaker. They’re incompetent without me.”
“Then why do you think they’d make a decent plan without you? Or are you actually expecting that Lexx person to give a shit about you?”
Lee spun the scissors around the tip of his finger as Sean’s eyes unfocused in front of him. His decrepit eye bags that gave him an already disturbing disposition didn’t help much as he appeared to leave the very plain of reality they existed in. There was so little of his friend left in there it was almost impressive to watch him fall so far. He could remember all the good times they had together but they were always going to be tainted by this bullshit.
“Jesus, dude, you look so fucked.”
“Then do what you want to do. Get over yourself and commit to something for once.” Sean snapped at him. His lip curled upward as his eyes looked back toward him. There was little room to question what exactly he was referring to when he said that, and Lee didn’t want to do him the disservice of doubting his intent.
“I don’t know, I think I’d still find a way to surprise you.”
“You’re right, I am surprised that you’d have to ill-conserved notion of using scissors for this task. You always too obtuse for your own good. Go find an actual fucking weapon instead of brut forcing your way through my skin. Or is that what you’re looking for? Dragging it out so you can finally be satisfied that you’ve done something with your life?”
Lee rolled his eyes, “God, when did you become a theater kid?”
The way Sean reeled from that dig was funnier than he expected. Of all the things that could have gotten to him it happened to be the most mundane take, of course.
“Just get it over with.” He strained against the ropes that kept him in place as he yelled. His eyes bugged out slightly but not enough to fully break from the tiredness that still screamed on his face.
Giving the scissors one more twirl Lee muttered, “Fine.”
Sean went from straining against his binds to leaning back against the chair as Lee got closer to him. He bore his teeth at him and didn’t look away from his foe for a second, before he felt a pressure against his thigh. He let out a small “Uh,” before it must have clicked that he was looking at Lee’s chest.
“What the fuck.”
“Your hair looks like shit dude. Can’t blame me for getting frustrated with it.”
The sound of scissors against hair started to fill the usually silent basement. Lee the tension leave his former friend’s body. His eyes flicked down to study his face a few times, but the angle he had on him didn’t allow for a clear view of his face at all. A string of air hit between his stomach and his chest before a long sigh could be heard from his canvas.
“Problem?”
“You’re so fucking stupid.”
“I thought that was well established by now. Or did you forget that I walked into a stranger’s house and didn’t think twice about it being a trap?”
He heard Sean let out a chuckle at that remark. “How shitty are you making me look?”
“You’re doubting my hair cutting skills? Dude, I literally cut my hair all the time. Give me some credit.”
“‘All the time’ feels like a bit of a stretch. You’re hair is too fucking consistent for you to be doing anything with it that much.”
Lee snapped his fingers, “Hey, I can do consistent. I know how you like to look. And it definitely isn’t like an emo scene freak. You’re a freak, but you don’t gotta be like those mall goths.”
“Big words coming from someone who wanted to be like those people when you were younger.”
“Don’t remind me!” The two of them broke out into laughter and Lee had to move away from Sean and rest his hands against the edges of the chair. Their heads touched as they leaned into each other somehow kept one another going.
It was hard for him to stop laughing, for some reason. Every time he’d look back at Sean their eyes would lock and they’d both just keep going. Maybe it was that they each kept remembering some part of their pasts that they shared together. Some memory from high school or middle school, maybe, or some other moment they had been there for the other.
When Lee began to calm down he knew it was stupid. Those red rims were still around Sean’s eyes, and they were going to go away with some laughter. The color in his eyes had been worn away with time and the closer he got the more obvious it was.
He’d crashed on Sean’s couch enough time to know what he used to look like. There were too many awkward instances of the two of them sitting a little too close for comfort or tackling the other for whatever reason. Friends did that kind of stupid shit, right?
They were friends. Friends who’d had fun together, friends who had played video games together, friends who stayed up way too late for their own good. Lee could grasp these memories. He could line them up in his head and remember a timeline of how they met and what their hang outs were like clearly, but then it all became unraveled.
How long had Sean been with that family? How long had he been apart of that cult bullshit without him knowing? Had he always been apart of that crap or did he end up there because of him?
He’d gone of these questions with Mo over and over again already, but as Sean’s face was right against his it call came back to him. His dirty blonde hair surrounded the both of them. It surrounded their abstract disaster like some kind of summoning circle BS.
Lee pulled his face away from Sean’s forehead but he didn’t stop sitting on top of him. His legs continued to dig into his former friend’s thighs, while his hands stayed on either side of him. If Mo were to come down the stairs and view them without context it would look like some kind of secret romantic moment. He felt his cheeks start to grow hot as that realization dawned on him.
He watched Sean’s eyes look him up and down before he said, “Well, you still have to finish what you started.”
The words came out of his mouth slowly. There was a clear care with how he said them. It lacked the harsh edge he’d been putting him through out the whole conversation. He almost sounded like a normal person again. Almost.
“Yeah, yeah, okay, whatever.” Lee muttered as he started to move his fingers again. The two pieces of metal grinded against the pisces of hair while the sounds of their snipping filled the room.
No more remarks left either man’s mouth as Lee continued with his task, while Sean became the most docile he’d been since first being unmasked. It was an eerie sort of silence. Off putting only because of the yelling that had proceeded it, but also because of the abject closeness they both were experiencing again.
They’d both lacked it so much lately.
Lee backed away from the chair to serve his work. It was sloppy in some places but similar to how he remembered Sean was before. It looked more like his friend, at any rate.
He considered cleaning up a few areas closer to his head, but went toward the stairs instead. The silence followed after him. He thought about saying goodbye or at least offering Sean some other closing comment, but he came up dry instead.
There wasn’t anything else for him to say to him at this point. He could keep circling the proverbial drain as he yelled at him louder and louder, or he could go back to ignoring him. At least that way he could start to move on, maybe. If that sort of thing was even possible at that point.
When he reached the first floor he did a double take back at the stairs. He thought he might have heard something. He wasn’t sure if it was a goodbye, an apology, or anything at all. There was no proof, however, that anything had been said. So he instead locked the basement door again. His hand squeezing the knob as he did before tossing the scissors aside onto a random table. He didn’t bother to give them a second glance, even as his throat grew gradually tighter with every passing second.