[ he takes a breath, and all around him, time grinds to a halt.
the bizarre clarity that comes with being near death is something he had never previously considered possible. it was supposed to be messy, painful, sudden. that's what he always made it, for every life that his own hands and tools took. death is hard to make clean when you aren't strictly made for killing, and sasha is not. has never been. he's only effective at it from years of practice. hard earned, worn right down to scars and notches on his hands, his arms, a thin white line grazing the edge of his lip, rivets of tissue on his back, his abdomen. souvenirs of the hours he has spent perfecting what has never been his to perfect.
not that he would ever admit to such a thing. no one would say that sasha yelisarov wasn't made to bathe himself constantly in the blood of slain monsters (no one would guess how he fusses and agonises over washing the scent from his clothes), because he should be. he is a man of muscle and finesse, crafted ideally into the shape of something that should be a monster hunter. appropriate lineage, plenty of dedication — but no love for it. no sense of duty thrumming under his skin.
it's just the easiest part of himself to hide, that's all.
there is something that feels terribly wrong about this, in ways that sasha cannot properly understand. he has never found himself in a position of such grave danger whilst feeling terrible shame. not because he fucked up, to put it in vulgar but accurate terms, but because he has felt as though he is trespassing for several long, uncomfortable minutes. like he has wandered into a stranger's garden and is stamping all over the hydrangeas. the feeling only sunk its teeth deeper and deeper into his shoulder as the lake drew nearer. or rather, as sasha found himself driven ever closer to its shore.
he encounters a small wooden jetty. its presence is of little comfort, mostly because he is thrown onto it with a great deal of force that knocks the wind from him and makes the whole structure wobble worryingly, though sasha's current worries are bad enough that this adds little to his dread. he's often been told that he seems very fearless, that it's an admirable quality. he never thinks to reply that a desperate desire to survive is the only impetus that allows him to overcome his near constant terror. he is always afraid.
always.
the monster is strange. (unsurprisingly, many of them are.)
it is roughly the size of a bear and has hulking great shoulders, its preferred method of movement strikingly and unnervingly similar to a gorilla's. at a glance, it doesn't appear to move very quickly, but that's just its size being deceptive. having been slammed into head-first, sasha is quite well acquainted with this fact, now. the thick, blunt claws of its — sasha is loathe to call them hands, but can hardly write them off as paws. whatever they are, the claws attached have yet to break skin, but they'll be leaving behind wonderfully ugly bruises, if not making a new attempt to rip him limb from limb.
he fucked up because he is tired of this. all these years of putting everything into something that never had your heart is exhausting. one last job, to set at ease a smattering of paranoid, fearful minds in this crumbling world. one last victory, before he ambles off into a sulphuric yellow sunset and prays for peace. not for anyone else, just himself. fuck everyone else's peace. he just wants his own. and now he's going to get it, eternally.
the jetty creaks beneath the weight of the heaving, wheezing monster as it inches towards him, deadly slow. still trying to catch his breath, sasha runs over his mistakes. not setting a wide enough radius for his traps. picking apart visual accounts and putting together a probable image of this monster without realising the disjointed descriptions were all valid, all true. all the damned thing wanted to do was roam around its forests, eat the occasional squirrel and lost child. (the kind of thing that got people to involve men like sasha, unfortunately.) he needed his guns, but he left them in the car. thought his knives would be enough, that his magic would be enough, but the spirits don't crowd him here like they do elsewhere. here, in the open air, they are scattered and sparse. the few of them that do convene more brightly here scuttle and dance around the monster, delightedly. sasha would have found it pleasant were it not for the fact that he had angered it terribly.
it doesn't matter, he thinks, still gasping for air, rolling away from the monster and onto his side, where his hand topples over the side and brushes against the freezing cold surface of the lake, a jolt of surprise rattling through his body but otherwise remaining quite unmoved. he can barely see even a ripple across the inky water in the gathering twilight, but it comforts him, all the same. it would just be better if that nagging feeling of intrusion would leave him. it doesn't matter, he repeats. you didn't have much to live for anyway.
that's what that poet was talking about, wasn't it? the world ending, not with a bang, but with a whimper. ]
[ He is dreaming in the wan light of the sun setting, dazed just slightly as the light is beginning to find and he will emerge into wakefulness again. He is dreaming about a father he barely remembers and a mother who carried him off to the sea and taught him to sing and to catch his own kills. She tells him when he is small that he has eyes like raw malachite, and anyone would be a fool to resist. She is not wrong, and he catches a young sailor boy by the tips of his fingers with his teeth, toppling him in. The blood in the water is enough for a frenzy and one could say with a taste of blood, the deal is sealed.
Normally, the lake is quiet. "Quiet" means that the fish are swimming their typical patterns, the birds are skating in for their catches and the deer and bears are skimming the water for a drink. "Quiet" means that a boat will occasionally drift out from the small pier on the edge and float into the center with a glimmering hook and "quiet" means that Konstantin will watch for a while and occasionally push and prod the wooded bottom. Unless he's hungry of course, in which case he will either croon his catch into complacency or topple the thing over and make it a mess of teeth and blood. He is moody. It's a problem.
There is a rough kind of rocking and rumbling from the edge of the lake, and this is in fact what stirs him from his mild wakefulness, causing him to stir up the water, dark and cold and twist a bit from a nest made of rock and lengthy weeds, algae and glimmering treasures (earrings and bracelets, necklaces and particularly bright stones.) He stretches aching bones and muscles and moves forward with a flick of his tail, twisting free from the bottom and following the dull thunk of the man-made structure.
Konstantin only needs to peer his head up from the water briefly to see what is happening.
This thing again.
Swimming slowly, Konstantin skims the water, his tail flicking up and breaking through the near-still and glassy surface of the lake towards the scuffle--man and beast. A man who is stilled by the attack and a beast who knows no finesse and at once, Konstantin breaks the water in full and reaches pale, slender hands up to grab the pier. There is no returned attack that happens, not a physical one anyways, as he lets out a short whistle to grab the hulking beast's attention, reaching his other hand forward and beckoning a bit. ]
I've told you, [ he says very softly, fingers curling a little. ] Anything that crosses this structure is mine.
[ The beast itself moves slowly towards the edge of the pier, and while its attentions are semi-divided, Konstantin knows that soon it will be taken completely for himself. Nothing hunts what is his, and while maybe whoever this is might get away, he won't tolerate being defied (and having awoken to something like this is even worse. His mood is wholly fouled.) As it leans its great head forward, Konstantin pulls just slightly back into the water, scaled hands still touching the pier's wooden edge softly. They have had an on and off conflict with one another, one involving teeth and claws and a series of great gouge marks along Konstantin's dark tail that tell a story of nearly being scooped up in the beast's frustration when taunting it far too much.
Konstantin knows now how fast and how careful he must be (but how much more dangerous he is allowed to become as well. He tries to be civil. He really does. For a siren anyways.)
He glances for a brief moment at the man whom the monster had about to make a meal out of and offers him the smallest of nods before leaning up himself and sliding wet fingers into what could only be considered a mane of hair, hand cupped like a lover's cradle as he parts his lips and sings very softly. The sound falling past his lips is faint and gentle, sweet and yet sultry, like a sullied kind of love, thick and oozing with a potent magic. Konstantin sings a song: Just for you he tells the monster, tail twitching just slightly in the water and teeth clicking together on the faintest of words as he curls fingers into its hair further and begins to reel it forward. Just for you, but you have to come a little closer. A little closer. His song is sweet and gentle, hardly a hair of deception in sight and while he has tried to reason with the monster before (he keeps the even larger ones at bay by being an annoyance, and puts the fear of whatever god a man or woman might worship by chasing them far from the vicinity of the lake if they bear arms...
He doesn't need a guard if it's just going to keep breaking all of the rules.
Like not fucking with what's his.
(The only downside to being so large, after all, is that the blasted thing can't swim for its life, and Konstantin has woken rather hungry.)
So when the monster has craned half its body over the water, Konstantin lets his muscles do the rest--slender, but strong, well-honed from swimming, he lifts his other arm up as if to embrace its great, thick neck and brings it down into the water, instantly whipping his own head down to press white teeth into its throat, releasing a thick sluice of blood in a spray over the pier and into the water.
-
There is one point, teeth buried deep, that he looks up past the edge of the wood, eyes dark and wide and mouth full of teeth, now covered in blood as he sinks dark claws into the mass of a monster that keeps thrashing in the water as he holds it face down with the strength of someone four times his size. He doesn't speak until the thrashing is weakened enough to barely a splash of clawed hands, and it takes a good few moments or so before the thing is jerking faintly in the water, gone dark with blood. ]
Lost?
Edited (i mixed up my rocks and didn't close my parenthesis) Date: 2016-04-23 11:18 am (UTC)
[ it feels like a dream, now. like he's embroiled in something that doesn't seem entirely real, which is funny, considering the kind of life he has so far lived. there is little about it that should qualify as conventionally "real", but it's all he's known. this — this is different. this is a combination of elements that should not combine. hands, rising from the water, followed by a face that, at a glance, seems perfectly human. beautifully human, to sasha's dizzied, spinning eyes. he finds himself rolling back and out of the way, mildly, without any great rush. allows for space at the edge of the jetty. there's a glitter of scales, and a sound that pitches in his head even though it isn't meant for him. not human. whether sasha's luck has well and truly run out or been aggressively stamped into simple non-existence is up in the air.
another monster. one that speaks works sasha distinctly understands.
anything that crosses this structure is mine.
he knew they existed, naturally. he's not sure that this is even the first time he has met one. but to avoid them on his hunts was one of the simplest ways for him to maintain that aura of fearlessness. let him chase the wild ones, the lumbering beasts with wild eyes that frighten him so much that he can't hesitate, that he can't be tricked by sparks of humanity. (he would be, he knows it. it's that inherent gentleness, the part of him that twists and churns every time he kills.) stuck between them, sasha's chest heaves, glassy eyes staring up at the exchange. at least now, the sense of intrusion makes more sense. nothing seems clearer and more easily understood than the thought of this lake belonging to this — whatever he is.
a creature with a hauntingly beautiful voice, singing a song that is not for him, but sasha wants to listen, all the same. he almost forgets about the black mass of fur and awful breath and teeth half the width of his forearms. which, honestly, are quite broad as it is. this says a lot about those teeth. not that teeth are of much use, of course, not when you're lost to a song. it would be nicer, sasha thinks, to be sung towards my death than simply torn apart without any ceremony. he resigns himself, once more, to an inevitable end.
he misses his sisters. though his family were never the religious sort, sasha finds himself, for the first time, considering the possibility of an afterlife. it comforts him, a soft lie like rose petals kissing his cheeks, a spark of warmth that might promise him the familiarity of reunion. at least if he's dead, he'll be with them again. he won't be alone. that, or he'll be lost to the endless darkness of death and never know any better anyway. either way, it doesn't matter.
it doesn't matter.
as the monster is dragged from the jetty into the water, sasha finds himself flinching and gasping as he clutches the edges of the wood, certain he'll give himself splinters, but uncaring in the wake of possibly getting dragged in too. he's a strong swimmer; the man in the lake will unquestionably much stronger, he has no doubt. the heat of fresh blood is so much that he feels it through the fabric of his clothes, spilt across his abdomen and chest, a few drops flicking up towards his neck. luridly dark spots against the darkened pale of his skin.
icy splashes of water reach him as the monster thrashes, but he does not attempt to move out of their way. he realises that he should be more proactive about getting away, whilst the lake creature is otherwise occupied. he could survive this. as sasha drags himself to sit up, his body feels horribly heavy. it seems like cheating to just wait for the lake dweller to make him his next meal, as opposed to having the life actively snuffed from him in a struggle, but — he's so fucking tired. his bones feel like lead, and his body aches. there is something disgustingly satisfying about seeing the monster that would have killed him flapping and struggling in water muddied with its own blood, held beneath the surface by a body that looks so slender and supple, but teeth that make sasha's knives look blunt as butter knives.
so he sits, watches. blinks back from his reverie when he is spoken to. ]
Sorry? [ softly accented, almost passably american, but not quite. understanding blossoms behind his expression belatedly, and his cheeks flush with colour. ] You could say that.
[ Konstantin watches the look on the human's face with interest, seeing the various sleepy emotions that travel between his eyes and the soft curve of his lips. His fingers curl tightly in the fur of the monster may buoyant by the water, tongue darting out to slip over a smear of blood. It's the animal part of him that doesn't want to miss a drop, but he figures if he lets the beast go, it will still be there are in the lake for him, so he does, pushing its mass down and away and moving forward to pull himself half up on the dock. Elbows on splintering wood and shimmering, dark fins on his forearms as he wipes the rest of the blood from his mouth with a palm and fingertips.
It's a courtesy, maybe. Konstantin knows full well that he can be frightening and this one, well, he doesn't want this one to run so fast. ]
There's no in-between to it. Are you or aren't you?
[ He's tempted to drag this one down as well. His face is open and gentle and his eyes, something he'd like to keep until their ultimate decomposition sets in (but what good would they be then?) Konstantin tempers the compulsion in his voice, pulls back on the sharpness of his teeth, of his words, and folds his arms over the pier, resting his cheek on them softly.
Less shark, more angel fish on the pretty ones, Konstantin. He hears his mother softly crooning. This one is pretty, the most palatable one visually that he's seen in months and his tail twitches between the water for a flicker of a beat before he steadies that just as well and fixes a warm gaze on him.
Maybe he doesn't temper his voice as much as he would like to think. But some things require the gentlest of suggestions. This is a good idea, his voice laces between the words softly, an accent you can't touch with recognition. The best choice you've made all day--you've made a lot of bad ones, so-- ]
[ the creature in the lake — it feels unkind to refer to him as such, but "man" feels just as in accurate — needn't have bothered with using his magic, but how is he to know that the man on the jetty is in a poor place for self-preservation? curiosity and lack of interest in surviving this evening alike would have made him move forwards obligingly. he can hear it, feel the tug of compulsion, but makes no efforts whatsoever to resist.
he has made a lot of bad decisions, after all.
it's far easier to stay focused when monsters don't have human faces. this is something his mother always told him, with an unspoken warning. the warning made by a mother who knows her son well enough to understand how hard this would be on his heart, how unsuited in temperament he is to killing. (something she did not want to accept, for many years, not until she realised that he would never stop trying his hardest to please her, regardless of what it did to him.)
with some amount of difficulty, sasha pushes his aching bones forward and crawls, on his hands and knees to the edge of the pier, closer to his unexpected saviour.
(it seems counterproductive for monsters to be so beautiful. his face is absurdly handsome, but his form — it breathes elegance.)
he looks almost unnaturally sweet like this, cheek on his arm, long lashes and dark eyes and all the blood now gone from his face. it's hard to imagine the same sweet face having recently committed a perfectly gruesome and rather frightening act of violence. one that worked very much in sasha's temporary favour. this wouldn't be so bad. they say drowning is a horrible way to die, but sasha thinks the agonisingly slow claws of loneliness do far more damage. ]
I am. Lost, I mean. Though I don't really feel like it, anymore.
[ there is an answer, here. sasha doesn't know what it is, yet. there is an answer that he's been searching for, and he wants to take it in both hands at least for a moment, know it and absorb it just for a short while. ]
What are you?
[ maybe it's impolite to ask. maybe sasha should know. but he asks it anyway, stopping as close as he dares to the edge of the pier, sinking back down into a sit. he sounds breathless, still trying to ease the discomfort in his chest from having the wind knocked out of him. ]
[ all around him, the forest is still. deathly and uncomfortably silent. the tree line creates a handsome zigzag border along the bottom of a night sky painted a sickly orange from distant city lights. he can only keep his gaze still for a moment before the world starts to spin and his eyes roll upwards to the dark haziness above him, and he stumbles until his back smacks against the hood of his car. warm blood trickles from his temple to his cheek, fresh and thick, but it's not nearly as interesting to him as the blood all across his arms, soaking through the fabric of his clothes, sticking to the skin of his abdomen. a thin, choked laugh fights its way from his throat, pushing past his clenched teeth.
the bruises will heal, but a hunting knife to the carotid, not so much.
sasha waits for his vision to clear a little and for breath to fill his lungs again. the man slumped in a dark heap some distance away from his is one that he knows, in the vaguest sense. one that made an unnerving habit of remembering sasha's name and face whilst never being forthcoming with his. acted like they were friends, embroiled in a singular cause, wandering down the same path. that was never the case. no monster that sasha ever killed was then paraded around the local dive with jagged edged bottle tops shoved into its eyes, each tooth taken out one by one on the bar top and then handed out like trophies to each wide eyed spectator that happened to be nearby. sasha made hunting his duty, not a sport. killing something that wants to kill you makes the process no easier.
but here —
he keeps returning to the lake, and konstantin keeps letting him.
the name circles idly in his mind, and half the time he swears it doesn't sound like it's composed of letters so much as it's made of notes, melodic and tragic, a collection of minor keys. maybe the man was right. maybe sasha was acting on the impulse of a lingering song, maybe he was too deep in the clutches of the thing that lived in the lake.
the "thing" that saved my life, sasha spat, contemptuously, as he pushed his blade into the man's neck. he doesn't care that it doesn't say much. he has, with his own eyes, seen what konstantin is capable of, tearing apart and drowning a monster nearly twice his size, licking blood from his lips. from his perfectly shaped mouth. it's hard to believe that someone so beautiful could actually be inherently evil. would he have let sasha go, if he was? maybe it's just a long game, building a false sense of trust before an inevitable death. a death sasha won't mind, if it comes. he was already prepared to it the first time he toppled onto that jetty. it doesn't matter if it happened today, or tomorrow, or a year from now. if konstantin was to take sasha's final breath, then he'll never say he didn't ask for it.
the morbid thoughts never quite leave him, these days. sasha realises he spends a frightening amount of time daydreaming about the ways in which he could die, and how poor his attempts to stay alive are getting. he leaves his shotgun behind in the apartment, armed with only his knives and a pistol housing a half empty clip. he drives after hours spent in his preferred corner of the bar, drinking and drinking and drinking while voices chime and pulse around him, few of them for him. except for the man, who sasha suspects, now, may have been trying to hit on him from time to time, in that abrupt, near offensive way of men who struggle with their sexual urges. not that sasha ever gave a damn. he was just a noise, violent static and wasted breath.
and now he's dead, by sasha's hands. because he was here for konstantin, for the monster in the lake that sings to its victims.
there are many things that have made sasha angry over the years, but his is an anger that never comes alone. it's always on the heels of sadness, disappointment. it mixes and dilutes with whatever myriad of emotions he feels, but not today. today it's pure rage that slams into the man as he attempts to saunter past sasha, towards the thin dirt track that leads right to the lake. fury that scuffles with a man who arrogantly declares that he's here to rid the world of one more stain, livid anger that pushes past the dazed pain of having a rifle butt to the forehead. because sasha is done with this. he isn't a hunter anymore. he's — something, drifting, lost. he's lost every day, every hour, until his feet find that little pier and for a few hours, he doesn't feel lost, because there's nowhere but there.
sasha would rather have died trying to stop him than allow the man anywhere near the lake. he could have, maybe, if he hadn't been so determined to watch the life flicker out of the man's cruel eyes. feeling the blood soaking into the fabric around him, feeling the man still and stumble out of life, is no more satisfactory this time than any other time, but for the first time, sasha feels something heavy lift from his shoulders. like he has fulfilled a purpose that feels worthy. protected someone that is still alive to be protected.
the taste of konstantin's mouth on his (earthy, bloody, wet) is carved into his memory like a scar.
maybe that first song he heard has stayed with him.
he doesn't care.
his eyes have accustomed enough to the dark that he doesn't care about traipsing through it towards the lake. a dark red hand lifts to rub gently at the sore spot on his chest. the bruise will be wicked, just to the right of his heart. his palms sting from the scratches and dirt sunk into his skin. he wonders, absently, if he should have brought the body with him. no matter. he can see to that later, when he stops seeing stars.
as he trips onto the pier, he laughs, hoarsely. is that what this has come to? wondering if he should be bringing the bodies of men he kills to the lake, presenting them like an offering to the beautiful creature that swims its inky depths. oh, the tables have certainly turned. (sasha doesn't care.)
he doesn't announce himself, breathing heavily and deeply, taking in every gulp of air as though he's a parched man consuming water, dropping inelegantly to his knees in a way that makes him wince, the ache of it bouncing all around him, and shaking the pier. he figures if konstantin is here, he'll hear him. smell him. he'll know. sasha doesn't mind waiting.
Well, that's another one of your problems solved, isn't it?
[ Konstantin smiles slowly, no teeth, just the gentle curve of his lips as the hunter moves forward just a little more. He doesn't shift over himself, merely drums fingers softly on his upper arm, looking up and admiring with out discretion. Humans, he's found, always ask this sort of silly question. What are you? Usually, it's met with barely a second glance and hardly an answer, but Konstantin likes this one (likes this one enough that he won't lure him into the water today, that he won't slide his teeth into his neck today.
He really does need to pace himself, after all, and this lake is not as protected as he would like it to be. It isn't as if he has any ideas for this one anyways.
Giving a soft slap of the water with his tail, Konstantin reaches up with a hand and touching the slightly damp fabric of the man's jacket, drawing a thin line down it before sliding fingers into it and tugging just gently for him to come down a little more. There's no need to be afraid, and he doesn't plan on cutting his life short. Not any time soon, anyways. He purrs it out softly, gently. ]
Three guesses, and the first two don't count.
[ He slaps the water against with his tail, all black-green-blue glittering scales and translucent fin made bone-sharp at the edge. ]
it's troubling in many ways, but sasha's lack of resistance is probably what bothers him the most. he feels it more, now, that tug of a voice that has far more influence than ones that sasha knows. he was aware of it from the moment that konstantin spoke, allowing those notes into his silky voice, but now — as he tries to untangle himself from it, he can't figure out what are his own thoughts and what is being planted. he can't even tell if anything's being planted at all. is that the pervasiveness of this man's magic? such grace and subtlety in its execution that sasha can't tell what's real and what isn't. but he doesn't resist. he hasn't the strength to, and the grip on his jacket is tight, it has power behind it.
his body tips forward and down in a stutter, like there's the slightest hint of hesitation clutching it, but not nearly enough to have an effect. here, sasha can see better the curve of a handsome mouth and properly track the shape of thick, dark brows. endless eyes. has he already gone over each other these features in his head? he doesn't know whether his thoughts are operating on a loop or actually finding new details to be entranced by. he realises, belatedly, that his heart is beating a funny, irregular pace, too fast to be calm, but its rhythm too bouncy too be fear. it's something else. something more troublesome.
it takes a moment for him to formulate a response. his eyes roam every inch of this face, his mind slowly kicks back into gear. he thinks. a tail slaps the water, and the man is clearly in his element here, but he's something more, more than sasha's initial thoughts. he presumes neither of them are in a rush; a silence stretch between them, neither too long nor too short. ]
A siren, [ he murmurs, slowly, the words still sounding uncertain as they roll off his tongue. ] Your voice is — you can influence people. Like you have me. I wouldn't normally come so close.
[ but he still doesn't sound convinced. ]
But I can't tell what's me and what's you, not anymore. [ his eyelids flicker open and shut. ] I'm not sure if I care.
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timeasmymeasure
( monsters and the men that hunt them )
Date: 2016-04-22 09:34 pm (UTC)the bizarre clarity that comes with being near death is something he had never previously considered possible. it was supposed to be messy, painful, sudden. that's what he always made it, for every life that his own hands and tools took. death is hard to make clean when you aren't strictly made for killing, and sasha is not. has never been. he's only effective at it from years of practice. hard earned, worn right down to scars and notches on his hands, his arms, a thin white line grazing the edge of his lip, rivets of tissue on his back, his abdomen. souvenirs of the hours he has spent perfecting what has never been his to perfect.
not that he would ever admit to such a thing. no one would say that sasha yelisarov wasn't made to bathe himself constantly in the blood of slain monsters (no one would guess how he fusses and agonises over washing the scent from his clothes), because he should be. he is a man of muscle and finesse, crafted ideally into the shape of something that should be a monster hunter. appropriate lineage, plenty of dedication — but no love for it. no sense of duty thrumming under his skin.
it's just the easiest part of himself to hide, that's all.
there is something that feels terribly wrong about this, in ways that sasha cannot properly understand. he has never found himself in a position of such grave danger whilst feeling terrible shame. not because he fucked up, to put it in vulgar but accurate terms, but because he has felt as though he is trespassing for several long, uncomfortable minutes. like he has wandered into a stranger's garden and is stamping all over the hydrangeas. the feeling only sunk its teeth deeper and deeper into his shoulder as the lake drew nearer. or rather, as sasha found himself driven ever closer to its shore.
he encounters a small wooden jetty. its presence is of little comfort, mostly because he is thrown onto it with a great deal of force that knocks the wind from him and makes the whole structure wobble worryingly, though sasha's current worries are bad enough that this adds little to his dread. he's often been told that he seems very fearless, that it's an admirable quality. he never thinks to reply that a desperate desire to survive is the only impetus that allows him to overcome his near constant terror. he is always afraid.
always.
the monster is strange. (unsurprisingly, many of them are.)
it is roughly the size of a bear and has hulking great shoulders, its preferred method of movement strikingly and unnervingly similar to a gorilla's. at a glance, it doesn't appear to move very quickly, but that's just its size being deceptive. having been slammed into head-first, sasha is quite well acquainted with this fact, now. the thick, blunt claws of its — sasha is loathe to call them hands, but can hardly write them off as paws. whatever they are, the claws attached have yet to break skin, but they'll be leaving behind wonderfully ugly bruises, if not making a new attempt to rip him limb from limb.
he fucked up because he is tired of this. all these years of putting everything into something that never had your heart is exhausting. one last job, to set at ease a smattering of paranoid, fearful minds in this crumbling world. one last victory, before he ambles off into a sulphuric yellow sunset and prays for peace. not for anyone else, just himself. fuck everyone else's peace. he just wants his own. and now he's going to get it, eternally.
the jetty creaks beneath the weight of the heaving, wheezing monster as it inches towards him, deadly slow. still trying to catch his breath, sasha runs over his mistakes. not setting a wide enough radius for his traps. picking apart visual accounts and putting together a probable image of this monster without realising the disjointed descriptions were all valid, all true. all the damned thing wanted to do was roam around its forests, eat the occasional squirrel and lost child. (the kind of thing that got people to involve men like sasha, unfortunately.) he needed his guns, but he left them in the car. thought his knives would be enough, that his magic would be enough, but the spirits don't crowd him here like they do elsewhere. here, in the open air, they are scattered and sparse. the few of them that do convene more brightly here scuttle and dance around the monster, delightedly. sasha would have found it pleasant were it not for the fact that he had angered it terribly.
it doesn't matter, he thinks, still gasping for air, rolling away from the monster and onto his side, where his hand topples over the side and brushes against the freezing cold surface of the lake, a jolt of surprise rattling through his body but otherwise remaining quite unmoved. he can barely see even a ripple across the inky water in the gathering twilight, but it comforts him, all the same. it would just be better if that nagging feeling of intrusion would leave him. it doesn't matter, he repeats. you didn't have much to live for anyway.
that's what that poet was talking about, wasn't it? the world ending, not with a bang, but with a whimper. ]
no subject
Date: 2016-04-22 11:52 pm (UTC)Normally, the lake is quiet. "Quiet" means that the fish are swimming their typical patterns, the birds are skating in for their catches and the deer and bears are skimming the water for a drink. "Quiet" means that a boat will occasionally drift out from the small pier on the edge and float into the center with a glimmering hook and "quiet" means that Konstantin will watch for a while and occasionally push and prod the wooded bottom. Unless he's hungry of course, in which case he will either croon his catch into complacency or topple the thing over and make it a mess of teeth and blood. He is moody. It's a problem.
There is a rough kind of rocking and rumbling from the edge of the lake, and this is in fact what stirs him from his mild wakefulness, causing him to stir up the water, dark and cold and twist a bit from a nest made of rock and lengthy weeds, algae and glimmering treasures (earrings and bracelets, necklaces and particularly bright stones.) He stretches aching bones and muscles and moves forward with a flick of his tail, twisting free from the bottom and following the dull thunk of the man-made structure.
Konstantin only needs to peer his head up from the water briefly to see what is happening.
This thing again.
Swimming slowly, Konstantin skims the water, his tail flicking up and breaking through the near-still and glassy surface of the lake towards the scuffle--man and beast. A man who is stilled by the attack and a beast who knows no finesse and at once, Konstantin breaks the water in full and reaches pale, slender hands up to grab the pier. There is no returned attack that happens, not a physical one anyways, as he lets out a short whistle to grab the hulking beast's attention, reaching his other hand forward and beckoning a bit. ]
I've told you, [ he says very softly, fingers curling a little. ] Anything that crosses this structure is mine.
[ The beast itself moves slowly towards the edge of the pier, and while its attentions are semi-divided, Konstantin knows that soon it will be taken completely for himself. Nothing hunts what is his, and while maybe whoever this is might get away, he won't tolerate being defied (and having awoken to something like this is even worse. His mood is wholly fouled.) As it leans its great head forward, Konstantin pulls just slightly back into the water, scaled hands still touching the pier's wooden edge softly. They have had an on and off conflict with one another, one involving teeth and claws and a series of great gouge marks along Konstantin's dark tail that tell a story of nearly being scooped up in the beast's frustration when taunting it far too much.
Konstantin knows now how fast and how careful he must be (but how much more dangerous he is allowed to become as well. He tries to be civil. He really does. For a siren anyways.)
He glances for a brief moment at the man whom the monster had about to make a meal out of and offers him the smallest of nods before leaning up himself and sliding wet fingers into what could only be considered a mane of hair, hand cupped like a lover's cradle as he parts his lips and sings very softly. The sound falling past his lips is faint and gentle, sweet and yet sultry, like a sullied kind of love, thick and oozing with a potent magic. Konstantin sings a song: Just for you he tells the monster, tail twitching just slightly in the water and teeth clicking together on the faintest of words as he curls fingers into its hair further and begins to reel it forward. Just for you, but you have to come a little closer. A little closer. His song is sweet and gentle, hardly a hair of deception in sight and while he has tried to reason with the monster before (he keeps the even larger ones at bay by being an annoyance, and puts the fear of whatever god a man or woman might worship by chasing them far from the vicinity of the lake if they bear arms...
He doesn't need a guard if it's just going to keep breaking all of the rules.
Like not fucking with what's his.
(The only downside to being so large, after all, is that the blasted thing can't swim for its life, and Konstantin has woken rather hungry.)
So when the monster has craned half its body over the water, Konstantin lets his muscles do the rest--slender, but strong, well-honed from swimming, he lifts his other arm up as if to embrace its great, thick neck and brings it down into the water, instantly whipping his own head down to press white teeth into its throat, releasing a thick sluice of blood in a spray over the pier and into the water.
-
There is one point, teeth buried deep, that he looks up past the edge of the wood, eyes dark and wide and mouth full of teeth, now covered in blood as he sinks dark claws into the mass of a monster that keeps thrashing in the water as he holds it face down with the strength of someone four times his size. He doesn't speak until the thrashing is weakened enough to barely a splash of clawed hands, and it takes a good few moments or so before the thing is jerking faintly in the water, gone dark with blood. ]
Lost?
no subject
Date: 2016-04-23 12:19 pm (UTC)another monster. one that speaks works sasha distinctly understands.
anything that crosses this structure is mine.
he knew they existed, naturally. he's not sure that this is even the first time he has met one. but to avoid them on his hunts was one of the simplest ways for him to maintain that aura of fearlessness. let him chase the wild ones, the lumbering beasts with wild eyes that frighten him so much that he can't hesitate, that he can't be tricked by sparks of humanity. (he would be, he knows it. it's that inherent gentleness, the part of him that twists and churns every time he kills.) stuck between them, sasha's chest heaves, glassy eyes staring up at the exchange. at least now, the sense of intrusion makes more sense. nothing seems clearer and more easily understood than the thought of this lake belonging to this — whatever he is.
a creature with a hauntingly beautiful voice, singing a song that is not for him, but sasha wants to listen, all the same. he almost forgets about the black mass of fur and awful breath and teeth half the width of his forearms. which, honestly, are quite broad as it is. this says a lot about those teeth. not that teeth are of much use, of course, not when you're lost to a song. it would be nicer, sasha thinks, to be sung towards my death than simply torn apart without any ceremony. he resigns himself, once more, to an inevitable end.
he misses his sisters. though his family were never the religious sort, sasha finds himself, for the first time, considering the possibility of an afterlife. it comforts him, a soft lie like rose petals kissing his cheeks, a spark of warmth that might promise him the familiarity of reunion. at least if he's dead, he'll be with them again. he won't be alone. that, or he'll be lost to the endless darkness of death and never know any better anyway. either way, it doesn't matter.
it doesn't matter.
as the monster is dragged from the jetty into the water, sasha finds himself flinching and gasping as he clutches the edges of the wood, certain he'll give himself splinters, but uncaring in the wake of possibly getting dragged in too. he's a strong swimmer; the man in the lake will unquestionably much stronger, he has no doubt. the heat of fresh blood is so much that he feels it through the fabric of his clothes, spilt across his abdomen and chest, a few drops flicking up towards his neck. luridly dark spots against the darkened pale of his skin.
icy splashes of water reach him as the monster thrashes, but he does not attempt to move out of their way. he realises that he should be more proactive about getting away, whilst the lake creature is otherwise occupied. he could survive this. as sasha drags himself to sit up, his body feels horribly heavy. it seems like cheating to just wait for the lake dweller to make him his next meal, as opposed to having the life actively snuffed from him in a struggle, but — he's so fucking tired. his bones feel like lead, and his body aches. there is something disgustingly satisfying about seeing the monster that would have killed him flapping and struggling in water muddied with its own blood, held beneath the surface by a body that looks so slender and supple, but teeth that make sasha's knives look blunt as butter knives.
so he sits, watches. blinks back from his reverie when he is spoken to. ]
Sorry? [ softly accented, almost passably american, but not quite. understanding blossoms behind his expression belatedly, and his cheeks flush with colour. ] You could say that.
no subject
Date: 2016-05-01 12:38 pm (UTC)It's a courtesy, maybe. Konstantin knows full well that he can be frightening and this one, well, he doesn't want this one to run so fast. ]
There's no in-between to it. Are you or aren't you?
[ He's tempted to drag this one down as well. His face is open and gentle and his eyes, something he'd like to keep until their ultimate decomposition sets in (but what good would they be then?) Konstantin tempers the compulsion in his voice, pulls back on the sharpness of his teeth, of his words, and folds his arms over the pier, resting his cheek on them softly.
Less shark, more angel fish on the pretty ones, Konstantin. He hears his mother softly crooning. This one is pretty, the most palatable one visually that he's seen in months and his tail twitches between the water for a flicker of a beat before he steadies that just as well and fixes a warm gaze on him.
Maybe he doesn't temper his voice as much as he would like to think. But some things require the gentlest of suggestions. This is a good idea, his voice laces between the words softly, an accent you can't touch with recognition. The best choice you've made all day--you've made a lot of bad ones, so-- ]
Come closer. I want a better look at you.
no subject
Date: 2016-05-01 05:45 pm (UTC)he has made a lot of bad decisions, after all.
it's far easier to stay focused when monsters don't have human faces. this is something his mother always told him, with an unspoken warning. the warning made by a mother who knows her son well enough to understand how hard this would be on his heart, how unsuited in temperament he is to killing. (something she did not want to accept, for many years, not until she realised that he would never stop trying his hardest to please her, regardless of what it did to him.)
with some amount of difficulty, sasha pushes his aching bones forward and crawls, on his hands and knees to the edge of the pier, closer to his unexpected saviour.
(it seems counterproductive for monsters to be so beautiful. his face is absurdly handsome, but his form — it breathes elegance.)
he looks almost unnaturally sweet like this, cheek on his arm, long lashes and dark eyes and all the blood now gone from his face. it's hard to imagine the same sweet face having recently committed a perfectly gruesome and rather frightening act of violence. one that worked very much in sasha's temporary favour. this wouldn't be so bad. they say drowning is a horrible way to die, but sasha thinks the agonisingly slow claws of loneliness do far more damage. ]
I am. Lost, I mean. Though I don't really feel like it, anymore.
[ there is an answer, here. sasha doesn't know what it is, yet. there is an answer that he's been searching for, and he wants to take it in both hands at least for a moment, know it and absorb it just for a short while. ]
What are you?
[ maybe it's impolite to ask. maybe sasha should know. but he asks it anyway, stopping as close as he dares to the edge of the pier, sinking back down into a sit. he sounds breathless, still trying to ease the discomfort in his chest from having the wind knocked out of him. ]
--
Date: 2016-05-08 09:01 pm (UTC)the bruises will heal, but a hunting knife to the carotid, not so much.
sasha waits for his vision to clear a little and for breath to fill his lungs again. the man slumped in a dark heap some distance away from his is one that he knows, in the vaguest sense. one that made an unnerving habit of remembering sasha's name and face whilst never being forthcoming with his. acted like they were friends, embroiled in a singular cause, wandering down the same path. that was never the case. no monster that sasha ever killed was then paraded around the local dive with jagged edged bottle tops shoved into its eyes, each tooth taken out one by one on the bar top and then handed out like trophies to each wide eyed spectator that happened to be nearby. sasha made hunting his duty, not a sport. killing something that wants to kill you makes the process no easier.
but here —
he keeps returning to the lake, and konstantin keeps letting him.
the name circles idly in his mind, and half the time he swears it doesn't sound like it's composed of letters so much as it's made of notes, melodic and tragic, a collection of minor keys. maybe the man was right. maybe sasha was acting on the impulse of a lingering song, maybe he was too deep in the clutches of the thing that lived in the lake.
the "thing" that saved my life, sasha spat, contemptuously, as he pushed his blade into the man's neck. he doesn't care that it doesn't say much. he has, with his own eyes, seen what konstantin is capable of, tearing apart and drowning a monster nearly twice his size, licking blood from his lips. from his perfectly shaped mouth. it's hard to believe that someone so beautiful could actually be inherently evil. would he have let sasha go, if he was? maybe it's just a long game, building a false sense of trust before an inevitable death. a death sasha won't mind, if it comes. he was already prepared to it the first time he toppled onto that jetty. it doesn't matter if it happened today, or tomorrow, or a year from now. if konstantin was to take sasha's final breath, then he'll never say he didn't ask for it.
the morbid thoughts never quite leave him, these days. sasha realises he spends a frightening amount of time daydreaming about the ways in which he could die, and how poor his attempts to stay alive are getting. he leaves his shotgun behind in the apartment, armed with only his knives and a pistol housing a half empty clip. he drives after hours spent in his preferred corner of the bar, drinking and drinking and drinking while voices chime and pulse around him, few of them for him. except for the man, who sasha suspects, now, may have been trying to hit on him from time to time, in that abrupt, near offensive way of men who struggle with their sexual urges. not that sasha ever gave a damn. he was just a noise, violent static and wasted breath.
and now he's dead, by sasha's hands. because he was here for konstantin, for the monster in the lake that sings to its victims.
there are many things that have made sasha angry over the years, but his is an anger that never comes alone. it's always on the heels of sadness, disappointment. it mixes and dilutes with whatever myriad of emotions he feels, but not today. today it's pure rage that slams into the man as he attempts to saunter past sasha, towards the thin dirt track that leads right to the lake. fury that scuffles with a man who arrogantly declares that he's here to rid the world of one more stain, livid anger that pushes past the dazed pain of having a rifle butt to the forehead. because sasha is done with this. he isn't a hunter anymore. he's — something, drifting, lost. he's lost every day, every hour, until his feet find that little pier and for a few hours, he doesn't feel lost, because there's nowhere but there.
sasha would rather have died trying to stop him than allow the man anywhere near the lake. he could have, maybe, if he hadn't been so determined to watch the life flicker out of the man's cruel eyes. feeling the blood soaking into the fabric around him, feeling the man still and stumble out of life, is no more satisfactory this time than any other time, but for the first time, sasha feels something heavy lift from his shoulders. like he has fulfilled a purpose that feels worthy. protected someone that is still alive to be protected.
the taste of konstantin's mouth on his (earthy, bloody, wet) is carved into his memory like a scar.
maybe that first song he heard has stayed with him.
he doesn't care.
his eyes have accustomed enough to the dark that he doesn't care about traipsing through it towards the lake. a dark red hand lifts to rub gently at the sore spot on his chest. the bruise will be wicked, just to the right of his heart. his palms sting from the scratches and dirt sunk into his skin. he wonders, absently, if he should have brought the body with him. no matter. he can see to that later, when he stops seeing stars.
as he trips onto the pier, he laughs, hoarsely. is that what this has come to? wondering if he should be bringing the bodies of men he kills to the lake, presenting them like an offering to the beautiful creature that swims its inky depths. oh, the tables have certainly turned. (sasha doesn't care.)
he doesn't announce himself, breathing heavily and deeply, taking in every gulp of air as though he's a parched man consuming water, dropping inelegantly to his knees in a way that makes him wince, the ache of it bouncing all around him, and shaking the pier. he figures if konstantin is here, he'll hear him. smell him. he'll know. sasha doesn't mind waiting.
he could wait forever, and he wouldn't mind. ]
no subject
Date: 2016-05-15 12:43 am (UTC)[ Konstantin smiles slowly, no teeth, just the gentle curve of his lips as the hunter moves forward just a little more. He doesn't shift over himself, merely drums fingers softly on his upper arm, looking up and admiring with out discretion. Humans, he's found, always ask this sort of silly question. What are you? Usually, it's met with barely a second glance and hardly an answer, but Konstantin likes this one (likes this one enough that he won't lure him into the water today, that he won't slide his teeth into his neck today.
He really does need to pace himself, after all, and this lake is not as protected as he would like it to be. It isn't as if he has any ideas for this one anyways.
Giving a soft slap of the water with his tail, Konstantin reaches up with a hand and touching the slightly damp fabric of the man's jacket, drawing a thin line down it before sliding fingers into it and tugging just gently for him to come down a little more. There's no need to be afraid, and he doesn't plan on cutting his life short. Not any time soon, anyways. He purrs it out softly, gently. ]
Three guesses, and the first two don't count.
[ He slaps the water against with his tail, all black-green-blue glittering scales and translucent fin made bone-sharp at the edge. ]
You're smart. What am I?
no subject
Date: 2016-05-15 11:33 pm (UTC)it's troubling in many ways, but sasha's lack of resistance is probably what bothers him the most. he feels it more, now, that tug of a voice that has far more influence than ones that sasha knows. he was aware of it from the moment that konstantin spoke, allowing those notes into his silky voice, but now — as he tries to untangle himself from it, he can't figure out what are his own thoughts and what is being planted. he can't even tell if anything's being planted at all. is that the pervasiveness of this man's magic? such grace and subtlety in its execution that sasha can't tell what's real and what isn't. but he doesn't resist. he hasn't the strength to, and the grip on his jacket is tight, it has power behind it.
his body tips forward and down in a stutter, like there's the slightest hint of hesitation clutching it, but not nearly enough to have an effect. here, sasha can see better the curve of a handsome mouth and properly track the shape of thick, dark brows. endless eyes. has he already gone over each other these features in his head? he doesn't know whether his thoughts are operating on a loop or actually finding new details to be entranced by. he realises, belatedly, that his heart is beating a funny, irregular pace, too fast to be calm, but its rhythm too bouncy too be fear. it's something else. something more troublesome.
it takes a moment for him to formulate a response. his eyes roam every inch of this face, his mind slowly kicks back into gear. he thinks. a tail slaps the water, and the man is clearly in his element here, but he's something more, more than sasha's initial thoughts. he presumes neither of them are in a rush; a silence stretch between them, neither too long nor too short. ]
A siren, [ he murmurs, slowly, the words still sounding uncertain as they roll off his tongue. ] Your voice is — you can influence people. Like you have me. I wouldn't normally come so close.
[ but he still doesn't sound convinced. ]
But I can't tell what's me and what's you, not anymore. [ his eyelids flicker open and shut. ] I'm not sure if I care.