== (wants) wrote in repose, @ 2015-12-03 20:23:00 |
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Entry tags: | *narrative, cris martin |
Narrative: Cris M
Who: Cris Martin + NPC dealer
What: running through the fog, calm and collected
Where: Main Street area, near Sonrisa Arts & Crafts
When: right after this
Warnings/Rating: violence, drug mentions
Ian. It was the only word scraping the insidesa his skull, fingernails shredding tissue in that small, mortal sarcophagus. It was festering, ugly, acrid on the backa his tongue. His heart thumped out Sam, frenetic, frenzied, fraught, in a beat unmeasured and erratic against his ribs. Tumble went Ian, thump went Sam, and Cris ran, outta the the police station, unholstering his pistol without even being awarea it. His panic was long-legged, fast, but without the white, wide-eyed terror that gripped some. Nah, he felt calm, like time was thick brume in fronta him. The fog outside, in its watery haze, swallowed him whole. But, he kept his chin up, eyes open, and he stalked through it with gun muzzle aimed at the ground that changed tone under his shoes, the denser thudda asphalt after the cracka concrete.—But, he knew where he was going, and he went, mind clear, even as that fucking name stuck in his throat like a curse cankering, and even as Sam pushed itself through his veins, circulated his body, fed him life. Sweat sheened his upper lip clammy. Cris moved, predatory, toward Sonrisa, toward Sam. Over Central, down past 2nd, and 3rd. If there were voices tendriling in the madnessa that fog, the guy didn't hear them. If ephemeral hands grasped for him, with fingers turbid and blurred at the knuckles, he didn't feel 'em. There was Ian, there was Sam, and, it was only when he knew he was close to the storefront that he spoke out at all. "Sam—" Strained, the only slippa distress flagged. Louder. "SAM." Louder." Heart lumped in throat, jammed up against that sick-stuck Ian. "SAM!" Nada. Nothing, but he wasn't alone in the fog. Near the front door of Sonrisa, there was the shuffle of sneakers against white sidewalk. The shuffle was loud, and the sneakers screeched new when Cris called out. That shuffle turned into footsteps, but the voice that belatedly accompanied the approach, it didn't belong to a girl, and it sure didn't belong to Sam. "Man, she leave you hanging too?" The voice in the fog was male, 20s. It wasn't accented, not traditionally speaking, but it was tone and attitude and the wrong side of those tracks. It was an entitled voice, because the law'd been dirty out in Repose for years, and bad shit wandered unchecked. "Step, man. I deal this shop." Considering he was on Main Street, Cris really shouldn'tna been surprised to hear a voice that was neither Sam's nor what he imagined Ian's to be. Too young, too close, and he immediately stepped back, every parta him on alert, huh? Practically trembling with it. But, his hands were steady, even if they felt like they moved too fast for the speeda the world rolling so slow beneath duty-black Oxfords, a marble in molasses. Like his body was the pole the world turned on.—The words that warbled through gray-pluming haze came sluggish too, their meaning working its way past the clawing name, to penetrate, to connect. But, once they did—once Cris understood who it was, everything unspooled in fast-forward. He couldn't even play the parta comrade or nothing, to get close enough to the guy, to figure out where he came from, since there were prolly more just like him, waiting like cockroaches in the shadows. Nah, he was too tight wound. To tense, and the guy's stupid words just cut the wire that held him back. It was hard to know where to swing, huh? No idea-a height, size, nonea that, but that didn't stop Cris, and, through the sour rage that curdled in his mouth, he was fucking ecstatic when he felt cartilage collapse, bones break, blood bloom. Ian's name was acid that burned through the bottoma his stomach, ate through intestines to gluted gut and Sam's roared in his ears, and there was nothing else. He didn't think about his job, about Sam trying to get a fix. It was those two names and his elbow rammed into where he figured throat would be, driving the botha them to the sidewalk with inertia behind solid muscles. "What the FUCK did you say to me?" Those were the words that came outta his mouth, fume and spit. He didn't hit him again, as much as he wanted to, as much as he shook with that want. But, he held that kid down by the throat and screamed at him again, like he could really answer like that. "WHERE IS SHE?" His brain didn't bother with the logic-a the fact that the guy said she left him hanging, huh? He just asked, once more, leaning down close enough to feel the guy's breath on his cheek, "Where. Is. She." This guy, he wasn't expecting the hit. He had a piece on him, and it would've come glinting in all that white, had he been expecting the swing. But he felt safe enough in the fog, selling to little girls, and he didn't pull that piece. Fact, the thing clattered hard on the sidewalk, and it was luck the old safety didn't put a bullet in someone by failing. The kid went down. Well, not so much a kid. 20s, thick, and he shoved hard at the man on top of him, but he was star blind, and there was blood streaming thick from nose to upper lip, and he spit it angry at the air above him. But close, the fog allowed some visibility, and he knew the law's face, man, and fuck this. "Man, she called me. She called me." Hands up, even on that sidewalk. "We're cool. We're cool. Can't haul me in for selling to your slice." He spit that smug, because he thought he had this. Broken nose, but no way he was getting hauled in. "Get off me, man." Another shove. "I ain't got no clue where she is. She stood me up. Wasn't nobody there." Cris' pistol was still in one hand, stupid as that was, and they really were lucky nobody got shot. The metal was cold and heavy on the kid's chest where he held him down, and the Sheriff didn't even look at those hands that opened in surrender. He was close, right there, and maybe it sounds fucked up, but he could smell the ribbonsa that guy's blood as it poured from his nose. It was thick. It was copper and tang, and, nah, see, they really weren't cool. They weren't fucking cool. "I can haul you in, singao. I wonder how much you got on you. I can fucking haul you in. You think you got the power here? You don't. I do." Vicious, like teeth bared over soft throat. "Don't fucking forget that." He stood, shoving offa the guy, picking up his gun as he did so. But, he didn't let him go. He holstered his own pistol first, grabbed the dumbass's shirt, and stood, reeling him, before plucking up the other gun. He slammed the dealer against the nearest wall, hard, as hard as he fucking could, kid's own fucking gun held against his belly, and Cris dug muzzle in like a knife between the ribs. No sensea space, even in the fog, and he was right there, blood-rich. It was self-control steeled that kept him from squeezing the trigger right then and there. "If I ever see you here again, I'm putting your own fucking bullets in your knees. Huh? You get that? I'll shoot your fucking prick off for good measure." Rough, he all but threw the kid sideways, along the wall, to get him away. "GO." "Man, man, stop. I hear you. I hear you loud." The kid, up against the wall now and with that muzzle to his belly, looked scared. It was a turn of events he hadn't been expecting, and he was young enough to go quick from smug to pissing his pants. Literally. "I only got what she ax-ed for. I just provide a service." Hands still up, and this time he spit that metal copper down, raining blood on both their feet. And he continued quick, "but I won't provide a thing at that shop no more. I hear you. We're cool, Law. We're cool. Just don't kill me, a'ight?" Kid was obviously from somewhere out Cris' side of the world, not born and bred out here in the sticks, but he crumbled fast. "You let me go, and you won't see me again." It was the kind of promise made scared, and the kid almost sobbed when the Sheriff tossed him sideways. He stumbled, but he wasn't no fool, and he didn't wait to see if that GO was repeated. Man, he took off in the white, sneakers slamming hard and a blood and piss left in his wake. That near-sterile stinka piss was strong, cloying as ammonia, but it didn't even faze Cris. Blood, piss, shit, whatever, he just watched the kid stumble and run. He felt bad for that sob, huh? He did, somewhere, in a shuttered chambera his heart. It stuck, that sound, and he knew it intimate. It was fear, choking fear, before the violencea somebody else's fist, their temper. He'd made it himself, over and over—but, he'd go give confession. He'd think about it then. Outta sight, outta mind. Right now, he had to find Sam. He was no closer to finding her now, huh? All he'd done was waste time. Cris cursed in the powdered white, a snarl, a snap. His knuckles ached, and he sucked on them, swollen now, hissing at his own teeth, the heata his tongue. He wanted to lash the fuck out, but he'd break his fingers on the wall—and he needed to find Sam. Ian rolled in his head like a penny down a funnel, Sam was in his pulse in the thumb he had against grip. He forgot the poor kid. He forgot the fear he bred, his threats. He forgot the pain in his hand. The gun in the other. He took off, back into the embracea that fog, disappearing into the whispers that susurrated along skin the way a ghost walks over their grave. He ran, no sound echoing from shoefalls, and called out a name that was swallowed back, consumed. "SAM!" |