Adrian Moretti (![]() ![]() @ 2020-05-27 00:18:00 |
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Entry tags: | #january 2018, adrian, adrian x kane, kane |
Who: Adrian and Kane
Where: Seaview
When: Tuesday, early evening, 01/23
Status: Complete
Warnings: Violence, death
Adrian knew he should be leaving Point Pleasant soon. He was running low on supplies and money and the town was starting to feel too small to hide in for so long. It should be getting easier to leave now; Mila had a job, she was healing, safe at their parents' house and looking into moving somewhere nicer than Seaview with Aaron who was off the pills, as far as Adrian could tell. It was that ideal situation he'd been waiting for (and dreading) where he knew he could safely leave town for a while and not worry about his sister non-stop. He knew she'd hate it when he left, but that wasn't the same as being in peril. The problem was that things didn't feel like they were getting any easier and Adrian had to wonder if they ever would in a place like this. Something was happening, a bad moon rising sort of feeling, and he was jittery and maybe a little too paranoid and overprotective. A few days ago he had started to regularly park outside Mila’s workplace just to fill some need to watch over her and make sure nothing too weird was going on. It was thankfully boring as hell the first couple of days but after Monday night a fog came crawling in through town and after everything that had happened back in December, that felt like a bad omen. It was more like mist close to the ground, nothing like that horror with the monsters in it but Adrian just knew that he for sure was not going to camp out in the woods until it passed. After making sure Mila got home safe on Tuesday he made his way to Aaron's old place for a quick shower and some warm food. It had become a regular routine, a comfort he probably shouldn't be allowing himself so often but he found it hard to resist.
He parked the car a little ways down the road, not wanting his whereabouts to be obvious to anyone who might come looking and with the car out of the way and the door locked behind him it was a little easier to pretend everything was okay for a little while. When he got out of the shower that illusion of safety was abruptly shattered. There was a lot of noise outside, people yelling angrily, the sound of metal scraping against metal. Adrian peeked outside cautiously only to find that all the noise was because two guys were in a screaming match, one of them in his car, smoke and snow flying behind him as he floored the gas pedal and kept continuously trying to push another car out of the way. Adrian waited it out for a while but the cops never came and it all felt insane, like the kind of insane that happened in Point Pleasant when Bad Things crept in and drove people crazy. He didn't leave Aaron's house until the man had finally left the car and was busy physically fighting the other. It was chaos, the two of them screaming and rolling around on the ground, a few people standing around either just watching or screaming too and Adrian used that chance to slip past unnoticed, ignoring the all too human urge to interfere and try to make sure these idiots didn't kill each other or anyone else.
He regretted parking so far away now but that was always a hard decision whether to keep the car close enough to get away faster or keep it far away to avoid suspicion. He really felt like he should have taken the middle road here as he stalked out of Seaview, heart hammering in his chest and as he half expected to hear gun shots behind him. He needed to get to a phone, make sure Mila stayed indoors and then he could park outside their parents place and... well, he didn't really know what he'd do if things escalated, but at least he'd be close to her.
Kane didn’t know what was happening to him, but he had long since stopped wondering. All he knew was the pressure in his chest, the red film over his vision, his pounding temples. His intense rage. There wasn’t a direction for it, there was no calming it down, it was a force all its own, making his heart race and his muscles tremble with unspent energy. It probably wasn’t a great idea to drive when he was feeling this way, but Kane was well past rational thinking. He wanted to get his hands on something, choke the life out of it, take its soul. He needed to kill, and he was going to find the kind of thing he always killed -- a monster.
He was driving too fast past the road that led to Seaview when he spotted a man with hunched shoulders hurrying down the side of the road. Only Kane knew that wasn’t a man. He’d seen it before, in the dark near the trees, eyes shining brightly silver. His heart squeezed in his chest and he let out a cry of pure anger through his teeth. The bastard had gotten away the first time, but he wouldn’t again. Kane yanked the wheel to pull the car over, the front tires skidding in the gravel on the side of the street a few yards in front of Adrian. He threw the door open and launched himself out, already pulling a knife from the arsenal on his belt. Wild-eyed and with his teeth bared, he pointed at Adrian. “You!” he growled more than said. Unmindful of anything now but his purpose, he started running toward the monster.
Adrian should have been more alert, he should have seen this coming, should have known those people fighting were doing that because of some fucked up external influence. Should have, should have, should have. He didn't though, too caught up in his own thoughts, making a beeline for his own vehicle and not considering the one driving down the road towards him. Until it swerved in front of him, causing him to stumble backwards, nearly falling on his ass. It happened so fast and he was so slow, so human, not a fighter at all without that thing inside him going hungry. He had barely seen Kane's face that first time around with a flashlight shining in his face and this time was no different because his focus was on the knife as Kane charged him. Adrian had a knife too, he was fully aware of it in his pocket but he wasn't fast enough to get it and it wouldn't have made much difference. He'd never thought in his life he'd be in a knife fight, had never trained for that in any way so he did the only thing he could think to do in such a short time span and kicked up high when Kane got close enough, hoping to at least get him off his balance and preferably hurt him enough to get away. It had been years since he did any sort of fight training but it felt almost like instinct which probably would have served him better if his training had been more serious and more aimed to hurt.
If Kane had been able to focus more, if he'd been able to see better through all the rage, he might’ve been able to avoid that kick. As it was though, Adrian’s boot connected with Kane’s forearm as he lunged forward with the knife in hand. The blow was strong enough to knock Kane’s grip loose, and he felt the knife go flying. “Motherfucker,” he hissed, an insane level of frustration amping up his already-crazy tsunami of anger. Not losing too much momentum, Kane barrelled into Adrian as his leg came down, tackling him down into the road. He didn’t think to grab for another weapon. If the violence boiling out of him had to come through his hands, so be it. He was grunting and growling as the two of them grappled on the freezing asphalt for the upper hand. Kane swung punches and jammed knees wherever he could, trying to stay on top of Adrian and get a hold on his neck. He was going to kill this fucking monster if it killed him too.
Adrenaline did weird things to a man - and monsters - and while everything happened fast, it felt slower to Adrian. He was painfully aware of every punch and kick that landed, could sometimes tell where they were about to land before they did even if he wasn't quick enough to dodge them. He could taste blood in his mouth and it was hard to breathe but he was at least giving as good as he was getting, kicking, punching, clawing. He'd have bitten too but Kane didn't give him the opportunity. He had no idea why Kane wanted him dead and a small confused part of him wanted to say 'wait', 'hold up', 'let's talk about it'. This fight was distressingly real compared to most of the fights he'd been in in his life and Kane was stronger right now, yet another thing that monster inside him would latch onto when it told him to go hungry, he was so weak without it. It was weirdly satisfying to see Kane was bleeding too by now and he wondered if he'd feel stronger if he tasted that blood, if it would have the same effect as hunger did.
This was not Kane’s normal MO. He studied his targets first -- as long as he didn’t catch them in the act of being monsters, like those black eyed kids -- he was careful. He made sure they were what he suspected and deserved to die, and that he could kill them. He’d seen this man-thing only once, and he’d been eating a deer and not a human, but that didn’t matter to Kane now. He just knew that Adrian was a target and seeing him alive and walking around had sparked intense rage inside of Kane. All of his usual finesse and skill had fallen by the wayside in favor of brawling with this man on the street. He took the blows without hardly feeling them, adrenaline and insanity shielding him from most of the pain ... he would surely feel it later, if he survived this. Kane didn’t even care if he didn’t, he just wanted to dole out as much damage as he could. After who knew how long of grappling and grunts and struggle, he ended up straddling Adrian’s chest, taking some of his arm-leverage away. Kane got his hands free and lunged for Adrian’s throat, closing both of them around it. Teeth bared, blood running into one eye from a split in his forehead, he slammed Adrian’s head against the street, then started to squeeze.
The snow was all melting away so there wasn't enough of it to cushion that blow and Adrian's vision went black for a few seconds. He barely remembered there was a knife in his pocket, not that he could have reached it in that position anyway, his sole focus was now on getting those large hands off his throat using whatever means necessary. There was no way he was dying here today. He had a flash of images in his head of Mila finding out he was dead, of his parents finding out he'd survived all those years ago only to die here in the sludge and fog without ever coming home. So he punched and he clawed and he kicked, his body mostly on autopilot after a few moments had gone by and he couldn't get air in his lungs. He tried to gouge Kane's eyes, tried to find leverage to get his legs up high enough to either kick him in the back of the head or wind his legs around his head to jerk him backward. That would have been a fucking fantastic way to end this but he couldn't get enough traction in the melting mess of snow. His lungs burned and his heart hurt, a raw and bone deep terror seizing his whole body. It was worse than any nightmare he'd ever had, like sinking into freezing cold blackness and for a few seconds his only anchor to the world was the man currently squeezing the life out of him, solid and heavy and too damn strong.
Kane had never strangled someone to death before. No part of him was thinking rationally about any of this, but he was dimly surprised at how easy it was. He expected a shiny-eyed monster to have more strength to fight back with, maybe have some tricks up his sleeve, but the man under him was acting like just that -- a man. Weak and vulnerable, even as he was struggling for his life. Kane leaned back as far as he could and turned his head to protect his eyes, feeling his skin tear here and here under Adrian’s nails. Kane held steady though, tightening his grip on the neck between his hands and pushing down on the body beneath him as much as he could. He felt something crunch in Adrian’s neck and it gave him a savage sort of thrill. He was going to win this, he was going to come out on top, and that was all that mattered at the moment.
It got to the point where Adrian felt like his head was about to go off like a bomb, the pressure kept building and the fire in his lungs felt like it was spreading to his limbs. He had the faint hope that the monster within him would make a last ditch effort, some semblance of self preservation but it never did. So maybe he was the monster all along and he deserved this. That didn't stop him from thrashing under Kane, fighting with everything he had until his body got too weak and his consciousness started fading. He didn't release his grasp on life so much as it was torn from him and in his mind he sent out a desperate plea for help from anything out there, be it a god or something else - something worse. He was going straight to hell if there was a god, he was sure of that, and maybe that was another reason to keep fighting but where the spirit was willing his body was not. His vision went muddy again, fireworks exploding behind his eyes as it felt like something snapped inside his brain. A stroke he guessed and it was more like an echo from a different time than an actual thought, faded and distorted. He knew too much about how bodies worked and right now he wished he didn't because those scrambled thoughts were too accurate in telling him just how he was currently dying. They were the last to go, his body went limp and he wondered if he'd be stuck in there as it rotted away. Maybe that was his hell. Mercifully his thoughts started fading too and he felt like he was falling until he felt nothing at all.
Kane looked at the monster again just in time to watch the light fade out of his eyes. They were bloodshot and slightly bulged, and his tongue was protruding from his lips. He looked gone, but Kane still held on for another few heartbeats, pure malice clenching his aching hands tighter. It was hard to let go, but once he did, Kane felt a surge of victory. He’d set out to kill the motherfucker and he’d finally done it. Maybe it had been suspiciously Too Easy to do, like maybe the guy wasn’t actually a monster, but Kane couldn’t think about that right now. He couldn’t think about much of anything. He slumped to one side and pulled his leg off of Adrian, tilting his face up to the sky to catch his breath. Kane’s eyes closed and he thought he could feel the fog all around him, whispering its approval. It was a moment of peace after what felt like days of rage. He basked in it thoughtlessly, still running only on the weird instinct that had taken him over. He was bruised and scratched and bleeding, but he was alive and that meant he’d won.
Dying turned out to be a lot like falling asleep, if falling asleep was a lot more painful. It all came down to the same thing in the end, descending into darkness and oblivion. Those last seconds almost felt good because Adrian hadn't experienced worry free seconds for years until now. He wasn't expecting to come back but something sparked in his mind again, something he'd later remember like a voice telling him 'no', a voice he'd attribute to the monster within though he still wasn't sure if that monster was just him. Simple as that, no and his brain started sparking again as pain flooded his senses. It was a sequence of rapid emotions; disappointment, fear and rage all rushed through him before instinct kicked in and without Kane's weight holding him down, he could move again and blindly reach for his knife. He was still seeing stars but it didn't matter, he could hear Kane's labored breathing, feel him with whatever senses were kicking in first. All he knew was that he needed to kill him if he didn't want to go through it all again. It was Kane's turn to die. He slashed at his side before jamming the blade of the knife into his thigh with a satisfying wet sound that mingled with what he realized were his own angry grunts.
The first sound Kane heard through his own heavy breaths was a choked gurgle at his side. He didn’t react immediately, which was why he ended up with a knife in his thigh. Adrian had looked dead as fuck to him, but suddenly he was moving again and before Kane really knew what was happening, hot pain flashed through his side. That was nothing compared to the agony of a blade plunging into his thigh, though. Kane howled, one hand flying down to grip his leg -- like that would help -- while the other tried to shove Adrian away. He didn’t have the leverage position at the moment though, sitting on his ass on the ground like an idiot. That crazed anger flared up in him again, and he reached to fumble for another weapon at his belt, another knife, something to defend himself with.
When Adrian couldn't get the knife out of Kane's leg right away, he swung and punched him in the face to buy time. Pain spread like fire through his hand because he had no idea how to do it 'right' but his adrenaline was running high and he couldn't care about that right now. He needed to kill Kane before Kane killed him and a couple of seconds later he got enough of a grip on his knife to yank it out. It wasn't just that he needed to kill him, he wanted to kill him, caught in the grip of rage and fear. He slashed out again but his knife didn't connect so he scrambled backwards, blinking furiously to try to regain his vision. Even as it started to clear, everything was so muddy, barely more than shadows that blended in with each other. The leg wound should hold Kane back a little, or so he hoped, he'd have to take care of that if he wanted to live. Adrian wondered if he'd hit the artery and he hoped he had, there was a strong smell of blood already but how much? He couldn't tell. It just felt vital to get to his feet and try to see. He couldn't let Kane get the upper hand again.
Kane felt his nose break as the monster -- undead monster, he now knew -- landed that punch. He let out another cry and lashed out blindly back, but his fists didn’t connect with anything. He was bellowing in impotent anger and pain when Adrian pulled the knife out of his thigh, and that yell turned into a scream. It hurt even more than it had going in, and Kane’s thigh was instantly soaked in blood. He clamped both hands down over the wound to try and staunch it, survival instinct trumping the push toward violence for the moment. A string of curses flew from his lips and he did his best to scoot back toward his SUV with his one good leg. His entire right leg felt like it was on fire, and Kane couldn’t be sure that the knife hadn’t sliced an artery. He needed his phone, he needed to call for help, but first he needed to get away from the monster if he could.
There were two instincts warring inside of Adrian, one was screaming at him to finish it, finish it or this guy will keep coming, the other was screaming at him to run. There was too much noise, there'd be people, cops even, and he couldn't see well enough to know if they were already there, closing in, staring. So he ran, ignoring the urge to follow the scent of blood and make sure there was more of it. He had a vague idea which direction to go but every step hurt his whole damn body and every breath made something whistle in his throat. He didn't even know what he'd do if he found his car, could he drive? Probably not. But Aaron's drugs were there and maybe they'd numb the pain. Maybe Kane was too bad off to follow him, maybe he could hide. Maybe, maybe, maybe. All he knew was that there was too much pain and far too much noise, not just Kane screaming but people screaming everywhere though Adrian thought maybe some of that was coming from inside his own head.
Kane didn’t have the time or the bandwidth to be very relieved when Adrian turned and booked it away. He was bleeding pretty badly and he knew he needed help as soon as possible or he was going to die. He wasn’t ready to die yet, goddammit, and he wasn’t going to let some shiny-eyed asshole come back from the dead and kill him. His nose was swelling already, his face feeling like it was on fire. Every movement hurt from the cut in his side and the bruising. But what really took center stage was the agony in his leg. Kane wasn’t sure if an artery had been nicked or not, but if he didn’t move fast he was going to find out. Growling and cursing the whole way, Kane dragged himself back to his car with one leg and one hand, the other clamped firmly down on the wound. He had to get to his phone and call for help. Bailey, he needed Bailey. And a tourniquet. Revenge could come later. He’d killed this motherfucker once, and he would do it again, in a way that would stick this time.