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letitbleedout · 2 days ago

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Mutual Assurance (III)

Local man leaves his house in search of answers for his current round of problems.

prompt for this one was 'journal/diary.' also on AO3. as always, cntw.

Mutual Assurance I & Mutual Assurance II

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Mornings were too much sunlight for someone a creature of the night like Derek, and this morning was no different, but I still caught myself pausing every time I heard footsteps.

A guilty conscience. Doubt.

What would I do if Frankie joined me? Derek? Even as I shut down my laptop, I reminded myself that I didn’t have to go through with this. No one was making me do it.

I went to my bedroom, careful to walk right next to the wall. It was an old trick that I once taught Derek, years ago, so he could move around without the floor creaking. I never thought I’d use it in my own apartment.

My laundry was several weeks old, which hadn’t seemed like a big deal until I knelt in front of my dresser. Over the years I’d built up a collection of several t-shirts; many were now worn through. I always meant to throw some out, but instead threw them in the washing machine. Then back into my closet they went, for one more round.

Eventually I found a semi-clean Kingdom Hearts shirt, or what once had been. The print on the front was mostly peeled away. But that didn’t matter, because it would be hidden under one of my lighter sweaters. The weather was starting to turn, but it still wasn’t cold enough for the layers that I preferred.

I wore the same jeans, and my usual hiking boots. Once I’d considered getting a leather jacket of my own, but seeing Derek put me off. It suited the seductive Fuck With Me If You Dare thing that guys with a face full of metal and make-up do if they want to survive, but that was the opposite of what I needed.

Before leaving, I grabbed a hat and wrapped a scarf around my neck. It was one that I could pull over my mouth without choking on the coarse wool.

Derek/Frankie was still in bed as I was letting myself out, shutting and locking the door before running downstairs and out into the street as quick as I could. I paused briefly to pull on my gloves, the discomfort from the last of the September heat minimal compared to the prickling sensation of eyes catching on my bare skin.

Even in the winter, when I didn’t need to worry about heat-stroke, I preferred to go out at night. In the summer I barely left the house. Food came from delivery via catalogues and the internet, and when I found myself caught short there was always the reliable takeout. The good thing about my work was that it paid well. Enough that I could afford a two-bedroom apartment in the city without a roommate, even if it was in a rough area, and most of what I wanted. And I didn’t want much.

Cars with their horns and engines and the profanity from their drivers. I heard it all from my apartment, but on the street it was accompanied by a swooping feeling in my gut every time one passed on my side of the road. It would be too easy for it to jump onto the sidewalk, and I was just flesh and bones. Eventually word would get back to Derek, but I might be dead by then. He’d have my money; my apartment, if he wanted it. It gave me little comfort to know that he’d still have Frankie, but it was a comfort I clung to.

I pulled the scarf over my mouth, forcing myself to keep breathing. If I learned nothing else from this, I’d at least have reminded myself that I was horrifically out of shape. Hard to believe that I’d once been the same kid who could bike from our dinky house in the middle of nowhere all the way to town.

Was I this scared back then? No, of course not – I brought Derek to school, I went to the library or the internet café, even after I stopped going myself. This was no different. Just another mission.

Unfortunately, the only time that Sarah had to meet with me was during her break. She gave very clear instructions about when I was to show up, reminding me that I must order something if I wanted to sit in.

There weren’t any seats, but I went up to the counter and ordered a coffee and cake. Sarah didn’t recognise me at first. She went through her whole barista thing, counting out my coins; it surprised her to find that I paid in exact change, down to the penny.

“You don’t see that often,” she said in the neutral-polite voice, sales positive.

I made a sound of agreement.

She handed me a plate with my cake, which I took.

“You can wait down there,” she said, pointing to the end of the counter.

“Wait.”

I could see the moment that she recognised me, one blink to the next. Nothing else about her expression changed, except to wipe away the service-with-a-smile pull on her lips.

“My break is in five minutes,” she said. “I’ll join you.”

By the time my drink was prepared, there still wasn’t a seat available inside. I moved outside, sitting in the doorway next to the shop. No doubt during the twenty minutes that I planned to sit here everyone who had business here would show up, but what was the alternative? Sit on the brick wall surrounding the tree, my back to the cars? As fucking if.

I first met Sarah at a Parent-Teacher evening. Derek and our mother were in the classroom while I waited in the hall. Sarah Zweiben was the next in line alphabetically, and rather than show up at her assigned slot her family arrived at the same time we did. Physically she was tiny—it was only as a teenager that she got heavy—but she’d always been big. Her curly hair was decked out in butterfly clips and hairbands, and she dressed bright. Beads on her shoelaces clanked when she walked, and the decals pressed onto her jeans sparkled in the sunlight. I could tell when Derek had been hanging out with her because a faint air of glitter would appear where he’d been sitting.

I’d tried to ignore her, but she walked over to me and demanded to know if I was the real Frank. Amused, I told her yes, and she stuck out her hand.

“We should learn to get along,” she said. “You’re going to be seeing a lot of me.”

She spent more time at our house than our own father, although amusingly enough not while he was there. Her parents were permissive, so long as she was willing to bike or sort out a ride, but they drew the line at her being in the same house as an adult man. At the delicate age of ten I didn’t understand why that was so bitterly, cruelly funny.

I saw them around, sitting under the trees in the overgrown orchid, reading or drawing. Derek would tell her stories, often while climbing the spindly branches, and she’d illustrate. Other times I saw him coach her on how to better mimic voices, a skill that she never picked up. But her efforts were endless, and she could laugh at herself.

As they got older Derek let her paint his nails and style his hair. There were a few phone calls from school about ‘the appropriateness of a boy wearing make-up,’ especially as some of the other kids were giving him grief about it, (until I put a stop to that.) By the time that he was thirteen he was doing his own nails, black and hooker-red, as Sarah called it. Our mother didn’t like it but also didn’t give a shit, so long as he looked respectable when our dad was home and when she brought him out ‘visiting.’

When I was sixteen I found her journal unattended, and did what any opportunist would. In my defence, I didn’t read it cover-to-cover; a twelve-year-old girl’s life is not nearly that interesting.

May 15th – Back at Derek’s house. We found a book of constellations and went outside to look at the sky, once it was dark of course. I wish the sky in our backyard looked like this. It was so much brighter than I expected, but still really hard to see the pages. Derek let me use the flashlight to check, but then he got annoyed with me. He just wanted to stand there and watch. It was pretty freaky, and I didn’t want to leave him, but I started to feel bad about what we were doing. I went inside to watch from the kitchen, and I watched Derek just stand there. I didn’t turn on any lights because he didn’t need any. Even though it was dark inside also, I still felt safer. His house is creepy.

May 16th – No one had any idea that we stayed up all night last night. Every time I close my eyes I think that I’ll fall asleep, but I’m not going to give us away. Derek doesn’t look tired at all so there’s no reason for me to be a wimp.

May 19th – I called Derek after something happened yesterday. It was really late, and no one else was awake. I was so scared the whole time that someone would walk in, but if I had to sit alone in my room I think I would die. Frank picked up the phone, which I didn’t expect. I asked him if Derek was around and he went quiet, which at first I thought meant that his mom had taken him again. I was ready to be confused, because school is almost over so why not wait? but then Derek (Cassidy) came on. I didn’t tell him anything, but just wanted to talk. I wish I had my own phone so that I didn’t have to worry about being listened in on. I wish I had a family like his, except of course with Kayla instead of his brother.

June 26th – Back from Alabama! Now summer can ACTUALLY start. I cannot BELIEVE that we get out of school and then I STILL have more stuff to do before I can have a VACATION.

It looks like Derek isn’t free yet. I showed up at his house and found Frank sitting on the porch. As soon as I saw him I knew that Derek and his mom were gone, but I still asked. He let me have a glass of water before I biked back and I tried to ask some questions, just to see what he’d say. He barely talks. It’s almost a game to see what I can make him say.

Mostly he just said yeah or I don’t know. So no real answers this time. I wonder if missing so much school has made him dumb, in the original sense of the word. There’s no one to talk to out here.

June 28th – Went back to ask about Derek again. Frank was sitting in the garden cleaning a gun. I was scared, but I asked him anyway when Derek would be back. He said he didn’t know. I said that he must know, because no one goes on vacation without making plans. He said if there are plans, he doesn’t know them.

I think that I saw something I shouldn’t. I want to ask Mom about it, but I know what she thinks about guns. Mom and Dad are starting to say that it’s not appropriate that I spend so much time at a boy’s house, even if it’s just Derek. He’s not even a boy all the time. They wouldn’t get it. They’ll lose their heads.

July 12th – While I was waiting for Derek in the bathroom, his mom came down to the kitchen. She asked me some questions about my parents/etc. and it was all normal. When Derek came out he just stood to the side and waited for her to finish. Then we went outside.

Later I asked him what we were going to do about food, and he said that we could make something. He said that we had the house to ourselves. I said, “Is your mom going out?”

“She isn’t here,” he said.

“She was in the kitchen.”

“No she wasn’t.”

We argued about this for a while, but eventually I dropped it. Derek was starting to get actually angry with me, like I was lying. He didn’t say that, but I know that’s what he meant. He seemed scared. I think I might have seen a ghost, or this might be one of the stories where we’re in the house with a creature pretending to be someone else. Like a vampire.

July 13th – I looked through my oldest journal to see if I wrote about the bite, but it looks like not. It isn’t even a big story. Definitely not important enough to write down. Anyway, what happened is that Derek came over to my house and we were upstairs in my room. He told me to lock the door and showed me a bite on his shoulder. I asked him what happened and he said that an animal bit him. I thought he meant a dog or something, but I wasn’t sure because it didn’t look like what I expected. He asked me what I thought, so I told him that it looked bad. I asked if it hurt, and he said it was no big deal.

A few days after this Derek and I were playing. He was bleeding through his shirt. When I asked him about it, he looked down and said that he wasn’t. I asked if it was the bite, and he said, “What bite?” I thought he was playing a game, and said that this wasn’t funny. I tried to talk to him about it because I thought it looked bad, but he yelled at me and told me to forget it.

He doesn’t ever take off his shirt, so I can’t check for myself. But I know there’s something there. Or at least, there was.

This is some kind of ghost story.

August 21st – Yesterday was so hot that I thought I was going to die. All day long I just looked at the clock, waiting until I could go home and be in the air conditioning. I love my house… it is so much better than the school, or Derek’s house, which is where I am now.

Thankfully it stormed for all of last night so it isn’t AS bad. Everything is wet outside, so we’re sitting in one of the empty rooms upstairs. Just like in all the movies there are sheets draped over every piece of furniture.

While Derek was sorting through the box of charms and cards, I went to look outside so that I could check where we were. The house is so weird, with so many empty rooms and hallways, that you never look outside and find what you expect to see.

Walking around the edge of the grass, next to the treeline, I saw Frank. He was carrying his gun with him, pausing to look into the woods. Every so often he stopped and raised it. He wasn’t just carrying it like a hunter, but he was holding it like he was ready to shoot someone.

I asked Cassidy about him. She said that she doesn’t pay attention to what he does, because he mostly just locks himself in his room or else goes out, she doesn’t know where. I suggested we follow him. “Are you crazy? He’ll kill us.” Then she laughed.

September 11th – You will not believe what happened.

A few minutes after I’d sat down, just when my coffee became drinkable, Sarah pushed against the crowd going into the coffee shop, breaking free of the tide to stand on the sidewalk. She surveyed the outdoor seating area like a sea captain searching for land, then looked across the street. I wasted at least two valuable minutes of her short break trying to figure out how to signal to her where I was, but eventually she found me.

I squeezed over so that she could sit next to me. A thin layer of sweat covered her forehead. Even with the air conditioning, the counter at the coffee shop was uncomfortably warm. The street wasn’t much better. There were too many people pressed in on us from all angles. It was hard to breathe.

“Is Derek alright?” was the first question out of her mouth, which surprised me. I expected to ask the questions.

“He’s fine,” I said. “He’s alive. Why? What did he tell you?”

“Nothing, actually. I’ve barely heard from him.”

“Did he tell you why?”

She looked away from me, at the ankles of the people walking past us. “Not really.”

“But he told you something.”

“He said that you two had a falling out.”

I straightened my back, letting out a sigh. Sweat was gathering at the back of my neck, and on my back. Sarah was too close. “You could say that. But that was months ago. He’s staying with me for now.”

“Good.”

“Why, were you worried?”

“I mean, it’s just like him to disappear without telling anyone, right? Like, he says that he’s basically a part-time missing person at this point. So I shouldn’t act surprised.”

“Any idea where he’s been going?”

She frowned, somehow dropping her gaze even further, to the seating area by the coffee shop, at someone’s dog curled up under their chair. I hadn’t even noticed that it was there. “He was hanging around with this guy.”

“Hanging around with…?”

She shrugged. “It’s probably nothing.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked. “Do you mean they’re friends, or does Derek owe him money? Is he gonna come after Derek? Is he gonna be armed?”

“He doesn’t exactly tell me the ins and outs of these things,” she said. “Not like I asked. But they seem… close. Like actual friends.”

“Would he hurt Derek?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I mean, Derek? Are you serious? Who’d want to hurt him? Not unless… Why?”

“No reason,” I said. “Everything’s fine.”

There was something that she wasn’t going to tell me, and I couldn’t make her do it. She must have known that something was wrong: having known Frankie for so long I know that we are not convincing liars, and that I was frustrating Sarah the same as she frustrated me. But even if I wanted to, I didn’t know what to tell her – all I’d seen was the aftermath.

“What’s special about this guy?” I asked.

“They have some kind of beef,” she said. “Like, they’ve full on started arguing in the shop. My manager had to ask them to leave once. It’s probably nothing. Loads of people with nothing better to do come here and do it, they pick a seat and just… and Derek is friends with a lot of weirdos. There’s no reason this guy stood out.”

But she hadn’t mentioned his other friends.

“What’s his name?”

“Lee,” she said, and then gave me his last name and where he hung out. Without prompting, miserably, she added, “He came looking for Derek last week. Said he wanted to talk.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Just that I don’t know anything, because I don’t. Derek’s always between places. He lives… somewhere. On his latest victim’s couch.”

Even as she said it, annoyed and frustrated, she clearly cared about him. That was his power: anyone he wanted, he could have. And people have always wanted him. Not once do I think he ever wanted in turn.

I thought about his dull disinterest watching me clean him up. Silence as I poured hydrogen peroxide on the bite on his shoulders or the claw marks on his arms. How bored he’d seemed staring out the windows while I tried to work out whether the bruises on his chest meant that something was broken, asking, “Are you done yet?” Always I felt like I was being shown up. If his ribs were ever broken, his shoulders wrenched out of alignment, I couldn’t help him; there was no point in checking, but I did it anyway. I had to know. To see for myself whether some answer would present itself, but nothing ever did.

Sarah still being his friend was a consequence of her decision; I was here because I was his brother, and had no say in what I felt for him.

I closed my eyes, briefly pinching the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger. Was there anything between us except for blood, a closet full of first aid supplies and bruises?

As I sat there trying to answer this, I swore that I could still hear Sarah’s breathing and the sound of every individual set of footsteps passing in front of me. It was difficult to think.

We would sit together, I remembered, and he would tell me about the books that he was reading, swapping voices and acting out what different characters did. I’d listen, I’d approve. He’d follow me around dutifully as I did the rounds on our property. After he started leaving with our mother, ‘visiting,’ he watched me with this enlightened interest, he who had now seen more than me, watching as I studied the ground around the home that I’d never left. Checking the traps, reading the trees. Sometimes, around the time that I stopped going to school, he’d join me at the internet café or the library, doing his schoolwork. Abandoning his schoolwork in favour of reading while he waited for me.

“Frank,” Sarah said. “What’s going on?”

I would never be able to make her believe that it was nothing, and it would be insulting to tell her not to worry about it—I couldn’t control what she did. But if I wanted to, I could say that I didn’t know, and be mostly telling the truth.

“I’ve got this,” I said. “But you know what he’s like. He doesn’t make it fucking easy.”

#.writing #mutual assurance #original writing #some formatting here so if you care about that at all i'd recommend reading it on ao3 #but it's no big deal

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letitbleedout · 26 days ago

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Normal Encounters at Work

Benson and Randy have a chat over their break.

written for 'asphyxiation.' cntw. here I return from my involuntary hiatus bearing my plentiful bounty et cetera.

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Benson kicked open the back door to another hot, mouldering day. This was his second break since the shift started, but he could have reasonably taken another three without the workflow of Burgers, Burgers, Burgers grinding to a complete standstill. If the day carried on like this, it looked like he and his Ma would be dining on—you guessed it—burgers for the next few nights. Assuming no one else wanted to dip into the supply.

He reached for his cigarettes. It was a new pack that he’d opened the night before, and he was only a third of the way through. He could treat himself to a second, if he really wanted it.

On the other hand—might be better to have something to look forward to for later.

He propped a crate in front of the door, then wandered around the side of the building to watch the cars sliding down the highway, sunlight glinting from the wing-mirrors and windows. The girl working the gas station side of this joint was hauling a bag of sand half-heartedly to a spill under a nozzle. She got within five feet and stopped, leaning against the pump and closing her eyes before kicking the bag the final distance, letting it split open and spill sand anywhere. She spread it with her boots, not bothering to make sure that she’d done an even job before snatching up the bag and walking back inside.

As she reached the door she paused at the door. She must’ve felt the prickle on the back of her neck that people get while they’re being watched, like any good prey animal. Benson watched as she looked to her left, then her right, before finally looking up at the roof of the forecourt. The dumb bitch didn’t even look behind her.

He stubbed out his cigarette as he made his way to the back door. Who should be standing there, looking suspicious as anything, but Bradley? Randolph, Benson had once seen on a form in the back office, but that wasn’t what his nametag read.

Benson edged slowly forward, trying to work out what the kid was doing. The way he stood, hunched over himself, constantly stealing glances in through the open door, Benson excepted to find the kid was lighting up a spliff—in which case, he wouldn’t mind partaking himself. But no, the kid was nowhere near ballsy enough for that.

Maybe Benson should offer; take him out in his car to one of these middle-of-nowhere fields and hotbox it. Some weed would probably do him some good.

Cocaine, maybe—wasn’t that supposed to make you nervous? It would explain a lot, looking at him. How jittery he was, nervous energy wrapped in skin. Once while he was cashing up Benson had watched his throat, counted the pulses. He lost track, but it was fast enough that he expected the kid to go into cardiac arrest or pass out at least.

But he was nowhere near cool enough to do coke.

Not besides the bottle that he had tucked inside his jacket. He kept sipping at it, pausing, looking inside. He did this several times; it was hypnotic to once. Not once did he look to his right, to Benson. Another perfect prey animal—at least, if you were the predator.

Benson laughed, shaking his head. Predictably, the kid jumped, spilling soda down the front of his uniform.

“Oh,” he said. “I…” He looked up at Benson, then back down at his shirt. Delicately, like it was contaminated, he pulled the hem away from him. “Sorry. You startled me.”

“My bad,” Benson said. “Hey, where you going?”

“I need to take care of this…”

“You’ve still got—what, fifteen minutes left on your break?”

The kid shrugged. He didn’t say anything, but didn’t go back inside, either. Instead he just awkwardly stood at the edge of Benson’s peripheral, trying in vain not to let the mess he’d made of his shirt touch his skin directly.

No one who worked at this joint was someone that Benson would consider a friend. Hell, there wasn’t anyone in this town or any of the surrounding area that Benson would want as even an acquaintance. By the time he was eight he’d seen what this place was made of and decided he wanted no part of it; nothing in the thirty years that followed had changed his mind. But as far as people went, the kid—Bradley, Randolph, whatever he wanted to call himself—wasn’t that bad.

It would be pretty hard to hate him. He didn’t do much. Benson couldn’t remember a time that he’d seen the kid do anything that wasn’t just following orders, but for some reason it pissed him off less than the vapid, shallow way that everyone else went through life. People who did nothing except what was expected of them. Nothing more. But the kid put his head down; he worked; he took everything seriously, except himself.

That was it. The kid was missing that invincibility that everyone else had, that smug certainty that nothing unexpected would ever happen. They thought they’d never get hurt. That the really bad things wouldn’t happen—not here, not to them, not to their kids. Not once considering that maybe, they don’t have a fucking clue who they’re alone with.

The kid seemed to have a pretty good idea about how the world worked. Benson could see it in his eyes. Shining with fear, like the eyes of a deer caught in headlights.

“Er,” the kid said. “Um, if you don’t mind… was there… did you… did you need me for anything?”

“What?” Benson asked.

“I said—"

“Nah, don’t sweat it,” Benson said. “Would you relax, already?”

The kid looked at him strangely, like Benson had just said a word that he’d never heard before.

“Come here,” he said. “Look around. Enjoy the view. What’s in there that has you in such a rush, anyway?”

“Well… the sink.”

Benson laughed. The sound was sharp, but not so loud to justify the way that the kid flinched next to him, like a gun had just gone off next to his head.

“Really, kid. What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s no big deal, you know. There are extra shirts in the back.”

“… I’d rather not,” he said. “I don’t really know when the last time those were washed, or who was wearing them last. That’s how you get, you know, scabies.”

Benson looked at him from the corner of his eyes, then shook his head. “No one’s going to fire you if you spilled some soda on yourself.”

“Right.”

“And I doubt anyone here has scabies,” Benson said. “Syphilis, sure. The clap—almost definitely. Shit, kid. Is that the kind of crap you worry about?”

The kid stared pointedly at the ground, his face growing red. With hair as light as his he seemed to glow, like he was on fire. “Not all the time.”

“Just sometimes? Here? Look, you’d know if someone was carrying… it’s pretty obvious. So don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not worried. Just… don’t want to take chances.”

“You’ll be fine,” Benson said gently. “Christ, though. If I was as careful as you when I was your age…” He watched the kid carefully, trying to judge for any reaction. “Were you always like this? Or did working here, seeing what goes on behind closed doors, did that open your eyes to how filthy the world is?”

“It’s fine.”

“Make you realise that you might be squeaky clean, but the rest of us—oh, you can’t control that.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“Me?” Benson asked.

The kid shrugged. He continued to stare intently at the pavement as though it was the most interesting thing in the world.

Benson leaned around, peering in through the propped open door at the back room. “You want to know what I’m thinking?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Sure it does,” he said. “You asked, right?”

“I guess.”

“You did. Man, I just heard you.”

“Yes, I asked.”

“What I’m thinking… I’m thinking about how fucked up it’d be to hang yourself back here.” He cast an eye towards the kid’s face, waiting for a flicker of disgust or—anything, really. He wanted to see what the kid would do.

It turned out that the answer was not much. The edges of his mouth turned down, and he clenched his fists nervously around the hem of his shirt. But that was it. He didn’t even frown.

“Think about it,” Benson went on. “You come in here early in the morning, say it’s your turn to open up. The ceiling is high enough that when everyone else gets here, they open the door and your feet would be hanging just above eye level. Knowing some of the people working here, they wouldn’t even look up. Just let themselves into the office, punch in, and start serving burgers. All while you’re just hanging there, rope cutting into your throat…”

The more he said, the less he was sure that the kid heard him. He’d stopped fidgeting with his shirt, instead burying his hands deep in his pockets. Otherwise he stood motionless, so still that Benson barely believed the kid had even heard him.

He, meanwhile, felt that familiar bite of rope under his chin. Right in the hollow under his jaw, it felt remarkably like a hand a hand wrapped around the soft flesh. The tender, delicate part of the throat held tight by the L of a splayed hand, forcing his head back. He forced himself to draw in a deep breath through his nose, reminding himself that he could breathe despite all the signals his body was firing. Singing false alarms, like what happened once a week around these parts when one of these assholes he worked with forgot to take the burgers off the grill.

Benson made a show of checking his watch, then clapped the kid on the shoulder. “Well, that’s my break finished. You must have another ten minutes, or around that. Take your time. I can cover you if you need to run back home, get changed.”

“Thank you,” the kid said.

“Don’t mention it,” Benson said. “I’m serious—whatever you need, don’t sweat it.”

The kid raised his eyes—finally—from where they’d been resting on the ground. He looked at Benson with surprising force, the sort of intensity that usually came loaded with an accusation. There was none of that in his gaze, just a sharp and swift acknowledgement.

“Alright,” he said quickly. “Thanks. That’s, um, I appreciate it.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Benson said. He swallowed, surprised to find he didn’t have to work his muscles around a hard knot in his throat.

#the passenger #the passenger 2023 #benson the passenger #randy bradley #.writing

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