Unhinged

"You think you know me but you don't, Draven," Voss shouted, his voice echoing through the nearly empty parking garage. "You can look at the sky and see a storm but you won't know if the lightning will strike you. You can't know what the thunder will sound like or where the hail will come from."

"Voss, you're more transparent than a fucking stormcloud."

A crude, screeching sound exploded from his throat as he punted a pink-lit cone clear across the ramp into a different level of the parking garage.

"No, Draven. NO!"

Draven fell quiet as Voss raged through the open space.

Voss dug his nails into his skin, tore open old wounds, and screamed. The black hair that came to his cheekbones and curled with the curve of his neck, kept falling back into its perfect place as though he wasn't exorcising some demon from his soul. He was a god dying from the duality of man.

"I've been pretending everything was fine this whole time. Screw me, right? Screw me because there was a war, Draven. People died and I was a good little fighter keeping my mouth shut and my tears to myself. I smiled and I laughed and I even cried at the right funerals. Remember Avarin? I didn't cry next to his pretty little black box did I? I held it the fuck together."

Draven fidgeted, looking deeply uncomfortable. The pink light inside the parking garage shadowed his eyes and made him look depressed. Worn out. Dead on his feet.

"Tera died in my arms and I didn't even swear. I did nothing. I dropped her and kept everyone moving. Do you remember that Draven? I ran for six miles with her blood smeared all over me. Do you remember what happened after that?"

"Don't."

"I do. I didn't eat for three days, didn't sleep for five. I got stabbed in the arm because I was so tired but I couldn't sleep 'cus I kept seeing her. You're going to look me in the eyes and really say that I'm a cold-hearted coward after you saw that?"

Draven's chest rose sharply underneath the leather jacket. Cold, autumnal wind blew through the parking garage, throwing a bunch of soggy leaves on top of the sleek black car behind Draven.

"You are. You really are," Voss said quietly.

He looked down at his hands.

They had been elegant once. Dancer's hands with pianist's fingers. He'd done both to excellence. But now they were scarred. Slashes of bright white encircled by pink covered both sides of his hands and stretched up to his elbow. Knives liked to bite and he was in the habit of getting bitten.

"I've given everything for this cause and you just want me to roll over and take the bullet for you. All this effort isn't even worth an ear, is it? My blood is all over this city and you won't even hear me out. I've bled on every street corner for this. My blood is in the storm drains."

"Voss..."

"No. No, no, no. You don't get to "Voss" me. Not now. You...you need to hear this. You need to fucking hear this!"

"There's nothing to hear."

"Isn't there?"

The shadows on Draven's face shifted as he clenched his jaw.

"I've taken three shots for you, Draven, and five cuts that would have killed. I have the scars from trying to save you all over me. Every morning I wake up in pain because of the blade that knicked my hipbone and you don't want to hear me?"

Draven pointedly looked away.

"You think you know me but you won't even look at me. You know, you're a coward."

"I am not," he snapped.

The brawny man across the garage from Voss visibly recoiled as Voss stormed closer.

"Scared of me now?"

Blue eyes caught a narrow band of seafoam light from outside the garage and flashed.

"No."

"Maybe you should be."

A car crashed in the distance, shrieking brakes and twisting metal.

"Did it ever occur to you, Draven, that you were creating something bad? How many times did I go down to the processing center for you? How many times did I spend a night running around like a lunatic trying to avoid their beatings?"

"Beatings?"

"Oh what, you didn't know? Every time you messed up, I took the flack as your righthand man. This stupid rebellion isn't all sunshine and fairytales, Draven."

"It should have come to me."

"But it didn't. It came to me and I took it because you know what? I wanted to. It wasn't any worse than anything else I was dealing with. My friends had all been killed. I'd taken enough lives to lose count. Women died for knowing me. Everything was going rotten and I couldn't stand it. My mind, Draven, my fucking mind couldn't straighten out. Just being an ember in this fire of rebellion was too much but I fucking followed you, like a damn puppy, and now look at me! I'm the whole fucking fire."

A woman laughed shrilly off in some apartment. Two blocks down a car backfired. The city was quiet.

"It's almost three in the morning," Draven said, his voice tight with restraint. "You're tired. Let's just leave. You can sleep in the guest bed and we'll talk about this in the morning over stims and pancakes, all right?"

"See, you think you get it. You think that you can dangle a good night's sleep in front of my eyes and I'll get inside your car and this will be over. But you can't. You don't know me, Draven."

"I know you plenty!" he shouted, snapping his carefully manicured exterior. "I watched you grow up here, Voss! You flew through the ranks and I watched! I watched you run for it. I watched the light leave your eyes after you had to kill that girl. I watched you get risky after Tera and jump into fights you couldn't win. I watched you bleed."

Draven reached out suddenly and grabbed Voss by the jaw, switching positions with him and pinning him against the side of his car.

"I stopped your suicide attempt after Tera and when we went to Avarin's funeral, I remember carrying you home after you cried yourself sick in a back alley. It would be easy for you to think that I haven't paid attention to you in the eight years you've been here but I have."

"You still don't know me."

"Don't I?" The pink light darkened as half the parking garage went dark, making Draven's features serious. "You're dead, Voss. You died after I put you on that case that got Avarin killed."

It was true.

Voss bit his tongue to stop the tears.

"Since you came back that night," Draven continued, "Bleeding all over with tears and snot stuck to your face, missing your fucking pants, you've tried to die thirteen times and I'd know because I've got a scar for each one. It wasn't plain good luck that got you out of those spots."

"What?"

"Voss, you haven't been right for three years. You live for the three seconds of pleasure you get from a hit and the guilt that comes from fucking a whore. Don't pretend you don't, I've seen the cars."

The color drained from Voss's face as Draven continued. He didn't just know him, he'd studied him.

"I've watched you fall into the high. I've watched you bite your lips just to taste blood. I've watched you for eight fucking years, Voss, and I know that you're trying to die."

The world went very still.

And the city became silent.

It was three a.m. and the ghosts of the world around him had finally managed to fall asleep. Voss looked into Draven's eyes as his world froze. No, the ghosts hadn't fallen asleep. They'd just taken to haunting Draven's soul.

"Why didn't you stop me?" Voss whispered.

"I'm here, aren't I?"

Voss's stomach dropped as all the fight left his muscles. He closed his eyes with a soft grimace.

"Tell me again, Voss. Tell me I don't know you."