Vodquila

Wilson looked over to Boris with a sigh. "If you're passing out from too much alcohol in your bloodstream that is no good thing, buddy," she said as she patted his face again.

James's eyes opened up barely, and lazily. He moaned quietly as his only sign of cognizance. Wilson held out a glass of water towards him. It was unclear where or when she got it.

"Water?" she asked, keeping it short and simple.

"Mm," was all James said as he reached out for the glass, completely missing it with his hand by several inches. He continued to grasp in the air before his hand bumped into Wilson's and the glass.

"Ah. My mishtake. You know what yer doing. You keep, keep doing the Lord'sh work over therre." I mumbled appreciatively.

With a lot of help from Wilson, James slowly drank most of the water in the cup. As he came to, his mind started racing again, and the sole buried memory of his childhood - among many - resurfaced with alarming clarity.

He was seven at the time. Larrel was a few months out from being born. Kratzer - or Engel had been there, along with Edward and Mr.Watson, who had to have been Schadel. Damascus had been present as well, as an oddly dressed child. And then there had been Boris...

the first face he met that evening around the campfire, and the first he really talked to. As his mind conjured up the blurred images of Boris's young face, a name came to him like a shout in his mind.

"Sigmund," he ended up saying aloud without realizing it. Sigmund - that was Boris's brother, the one he said he could never see again... his name was Sigmund. Young Boris had seemed so very fond of him.

Wilson pulled back as James pushed forward, trying to get up to his feet. He stumbled, and she caught him, supporting him with an arm under his and behind his back.

I took a light sip of gin, thinking how curious this retrospective reunion was, when I processed the name that James had uttered. The gin went down the wrong tube, causing me to cough violently.

It burned, it burned, it burned. My already reddened sclera were probably bloodshot now.

"No, I'm fi-" I started to say, before I spluttered, and resumed hacking out my lungs.
"Sweet Chrisht-" I groaned breathlessly, and coughed some more.
After one final wheeze, I took a moment to collect my senses.


Sigmund? Is that what he said? That was...what he said.

I hadn't spoken his name at all, to anyone, in many years. Did I?- I did- I heard it. That was undeniably, definitely, what he said.

"Fine, I'm fine. What did you say? Jamesh?" I groaned weakly.

"Sigmund," Kratzer repeats. It'd been the name of Boris'...brother? Someone's brother. He remembered that much. He wasn't quite sure of the details but he did know it made him cry at the time. It hadn't been long since he'd watched his own die, leaving him alone with his father. That was the same night he'd earned his scar - and the last night that his father had been alive to hurt him.

"Yyyyour brother," James said again, this time louder as he stepped forward, pushing away Wilson's guiding assistance. "Your brother. You l-loved him. Wh-whatsh kind of sh-shhhhh*t happened that you'd never g-go back to tell him that Boris?" he asked, pointing a finger at him. Having completely lost control over all of his emotions, a lump formed in his throat and he could feel tears forming in his eyes again.

"I might n-never see Larrel again-" his voice cracked. "And f*** it, I d-don't know if you can but if you can and I don't prresume to know evershing abouth all the... things but - if you can see Sigmund again, you better f***in' do that."

There it was again. I was so close to convincing myself that I was hearing things, that my drunken mind was playing tricks on me, but no, no, he just had to try to be helpful.

James... he had no right. He had no bloody right. It didn't matter that he was a better man than I, or that I was possibly the least tragic figure in this room, he had no goddamned right.

"James, I love you. I do." I whispered, shaking with rage, staring resolutely at the floor.

"But shut the fuck up. Just...shut up."

James stiffened. His vision focuses solely on Boris and the others around him became a blurry background. He exhaled slowly.

"Fine," he said. "Fine. I won't shay anything more. But you're shtill gonna have to wake up in the morning and deal wiht yourshelf and at the end of the day..." his voice began to trail off as he looked down at the floor. He couldn't even bring himself to say the words that came to mind. He grabbed his head in both hands and closed his eyes. "Godsd*mned, I - if - no, it's shelfish - godsd*amned shelfish. You're right. I just - I don't want you to live with the shame regretsh I do if you don't have to. I don't know what you can bear but I jusht -" he stopped himself with a frustrated sigh. "Don't... be... me. If you can be better."

I felt bitter, regretful, furious tears well up in my heavy, shaking chest, but they never made it to my disbelieving eyes. They passed with little struggle.
What I really found so difficult to contain, in that moment, was laughter.

'You'll have to live with yourself,' he said.
He said that as though nobody had ever said that to me, as though I'd never conceived it myself, as though I had not already accepted that I would never fully come to terms with these things years and years ago. What a joke.

For a moment, I found myself cycling through my reasons, my excuses, manufacturing some sense out of the things I did. But then I stopped to question, why. Why did I feel compelled to justify myself to him? What made him feel as though he had the right to chastise me- nevermind that, why did I believe that he held that right? Why had I ever given him that power?

The same... the same regrets. It didn't matter. It didn't matter. It didn't.

Like him. I almost laughed, almost, again. If he thought that we could be anything alike, then it was clear that he didn't know me at all. I had to be frank, I knew exactly how I felt about James. He gave me hope, and he gave me guilt.
I hated how he didn't even need to try to remind me of the revelation that I tried so hard to postpone- that my fate was in my own hands.

He had shouldered burdens leagues heavier than any hardship I could boast of, lost more people, had less choice in the matter, lived the life of a criminal abhorred by all, and still had a good, pure heart, while I was little better than a wanton, hedon cad, who remained so for no reason other than because he was what he wanted to be.
It filled my heart with a perverse sort of satisfaction, some twisted form of thankfulness, to see him push his limits and do something selfish, just once.

I admired James. Don't be like me, he said.

Of course not. Why would I ever want to be?

Better. God. Better. If he had stopped, just a moment sooner, perhaps then, perhaps I could have let it go. I wanted so badly to let it go. God, how I hated him.


"Why...do you care? Why do you care what I do?" I asked him scornfully, almost snarling.

"And what will it take to make you stop?" I pleaded.

James could feel his face grow hot, and whether it was in anger or simply from all of the alcohol in his system, he had no idea. Tearfully, he looked up at Boris. "'Cause someone's got to d*mn bloody care about you, and I -" James cut himself short, before daring to finish his sentence. "Well I bloody care!" he shouted, much louder than was necessary.

"You're not condemned to your fate! I know I don't know you nearly as well as I ought to but I feckin' can't bear to see you just-" he reached out with his hands, fingers curled in frustration. "-Shomebody's got to fight f-for you and b-believe you can be more and I c-can't help that I'm b-bloody well bein' it. F*ck. Do you really want me to shtop? 'Cause I'll shut - I'll shut my up but I - GODS." He groaned, shaking his head as he looked down at his hands.

"I know I d*mned well don't deserve to know, I just - I don't understand."

I took one final glance at my glass, and thought better of it. I'd really had enough.
I stood up, and walked stiffly over to James.

I leaned over, much closer to his face than I had meant to. Shaking as I was, I controlled my voice as much as I could.

"Alright," I said softly. "If thatsh' what it takesh...alright."

I pointed to two chairs in the far corner of the bar.

"Meet me over there. Pay attention. I'll only tell thish shtory once." I told him, gruffly.

Then I moved on, and waited.

James blinked slowly as he was met with the strong stench of Boris’s breath in his face. He flinched slightly, but listened. He barely managed a nod at Boris’s instructions, but it only just dawned on him what he’d asked of the man: to essentially, justify himself, or at the very least, share a very vulnerable part of his life story. He didn’t know how to back out of it, and it wouldn’t be fair to after all of their arguing leading up to it, but his gut wrenched at the thought. He watched for a moment as Boris got up to the table he’d pointed at and took a moment to get on his own feet.

His lack of an immediate response was twofold: he hesitated out of dread, but also, he wasn’t sure how easily he would make it over there. His body was... not faring very well. He slowly got up from his seat and cautiously made his way over there. Predictably, he bumped into a few tables along the way, but he managed to not fall. So when he slumped into his new chair, he considered it a success, and readied himself to hear Boris, and reserve his judgements for a later time.

I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to say. But there he was, he had shambled resolutely to meet me, despite the menace with which I had invited him, and the great strain on his lightweight body. How dare he, I thought, how dare he look so vulnerable. As though he thinks that will make me forgive him.

I was unprepared. I thought I was prepared. But these were secrets I had held in myself for almost as long as I had felt like myself, for as long as I knew what myself was. Even with my senses riddled and dampened by alcohol, I felt every fiber of my being holding back. I felt the iron vice around my heart tighten its grip.

I thought that I knew what I wanted to say. You've no right. It shouldn't matter to you. I'm not your responsibility. Your obsessive compulsion to fix people against their will disgusts me.

I held on to that anger with all my strength, to stave off some of this pervasive melancholy, but I could already feel that I was slipping. I tried, I tried so hard to say just one of the hateful sentiments that came to mind, but I could not bring myself to let them out.

And thus, when my voice came out, barely audible, all that James heard from me was weary resignation.

"I cannot see him, becaush... its'h becaush... the reashon, is he..."
I felt a vice tighten around my throat. It took several attempts to force the words through.

"He's dead."

"I think I, I remember now. I told you, as a child, how I'd get up to all sortsh of mischief, and Si- Sig- he'd...he'd be there. Looking out for me. I neverr rreally, thought much of it. I loved to make him upshet with me, I thought it wash a joke. But... in time... in time, I came to shee what it, what it meant. To him. "

No, what...what was this? The further I went on, the more I felt as though I was glad, glad that someone should know the truth of him. I did feel sorry, sometimes, to think of how sad he would be to know that I never spoke of him. And now, now that I had started, I actually wanted to continue. Despite the grief. Despite the fact that James already had too tight a hold on my heart. It was worth it. That frightened me, but I did not stop.

"He wash sheveral yearsh older, sho he got drafted firsht. Hish absenshe, it changed me. I misshed him, very, very badly. I worried about him. Eshpecially, eshpecially when... he got wounded, in the leg. Earned him an honourable discharge.

He came back home, and I, I wanted nothing more than to make him proud. I did. I did, too." I paused, and held onto that thought. I felt myself smiling, lightly, under my weary brow.

"We reconshiled, and I never made him crossh again. When I turned sheventeen, I wash delighted, almosht, to get the chance to do something reshpectable, show him I wash serioush. And Sig- Si...Sigmund was, he wash proud of me."

I said it. I said his name. The barrier was broken.

"Sigmund wash, he wash proud of me. That meant more to me then, than anything elshe."

I would have given anything to have stopped there. The story, time. My life.
To stay there just, just a little while longer.

"One day, when I vishited home, on, on leave... I found him. Jusht... jusht a few shecondsh... if I'd arrived jusht a few shecondsh earlier, I might have caught his lasht wordsh. All I had time to catch was a cough, a splutter."

I felt cold tears streak slowly down my cheeks. "And the resht wash silenshe. He wash fighting, I know it. I know... "

I let myself cry in silence, for just a moment. When they came to a close, I recounted the next part as detached and impassionately as though I were a dead man.

"I returned to my posht. I didn't mourn. I tried not to think of the assasshin. I knew that Sigmund didn't believe in vengeanshe. He would have wanted me to shtay, uphold my duty.

But I couldn't shtop thinking about it. "

I felt old rage rise up to take me over once again.

"I knew the killer wash out there, that he washn't French, he wash from London, whatever, whatever happened, it had nothing to do with the war! The trail wash out there, and it wash going cold, but it washn't, it washn't what he would have wanted, so I shtayed.

...That lashted fer two weeksh."

The passion spent, I was left hollow once again. It was no longer within me to miss it.

"I desherted, fled to London, began thish search... that wash over two decadesh ago.
I'm older now than he wash then, and I've learned sho much more about the man who killed him, hish name, hish businessh, hish clientele... but I shtill don't know a thing about why a godforshaken criminal like him had anything to do with my brother."

My voice started to creak at the end, there. No. I told myself I would not cry again.

"And I wonder, who, who were they, to each other? Did they know each other? Wash there a side to hish life that I never knew?"

No. No, no. It didn't matter. It didn't matter. It didn't matter if I had reasons, or if those reasons were even good. I wasn't justifying myself to James. I wasn't defending myself to him. I was merely explaining the way things were.

When I spoke again, I spoke with dark resolve. I let my voice shake with passion.

"I will sacrifishe anyone, and anything. I don't care what I've done, or what I'll do. I will not be satishfied until I find that shon of a whore, make him talk, cut hish throat, sever hish head, sheal it in a bucket of cement, and throw that bucket into the blackesht depthsh of the shea.

After that... I'll confessh my sinsh at the church, I'll campaign fer the orphanage, get into local politicsh and shpeak fer the lower working classh, I'll quit narcoticsh, feed the pigeonsh, anything! Anything you want me to do! Anything at all. I don't care."

There! There was that desperation, that pleading tone again. Why?

Then, James did something that confused me, even more. He reached out, and touched my hand. I froze. I must have looked for all the world like a frightened animal. Even after all the sordid things I'd said, after the precise details of my vengeful fantasy, even then. That didn't mean he liked it, or that he'd support me in it.

But it meant that he still cared, despite everything, despite how I'd thrown his kindness in his face, hated him, and practically begged him to hate me. And despite my efforts, I loved him. No. I still couldn't believe it.

I looked back into his eyes, again. It wasn't even difficult, this time. In fact, it was comforting.

"You know, I, I don't know why, but I feel glad that I told you this. If there'sh anything I truly hate about you, it'sh how difficult it is to stay angry with you." I chuckled, lightly.

"Don't speak of this again. Please." I said quietly.

I spaced out for a good while, after that. Then I felt sweet, peaceful release, as though I'd just woken from a bad dream, and fell asleep into a more pleasant one.
After all that exhaustion I really wasn't capable of feeling anything heavy at all.

Now that I had undergone that soul purge, of sorts, I felt better. I stood up, straight and collected, returned to the fold, and addressed my poor companions with genuine, lighthearted candour.

"I'm very sorry you all had to see that, everyone. You'rre jolly good sportsh, all of you."

I dashed over to Wilson, and hugged her. "Wilshon, my dear, dear Wilson, I'm sorry that I caushed shuch a ruckus in your good establishment." I let her go, and stood back, leaving one hand on her shoulder. "I owe you so much at thish point, it'sh really not funny. If you ban me from thish place forever, I will have no hard feelingsh."

I stood back from Wilson, and looked at Schadel. I gestured at her enthusiastically.

"Schadel! It wash your turn. I remember! It wash. Did you think you could get out of taking your turn? Haha, that'sh adorable. Blasht it, I need to take a piss. Tell me how it went, alright? Toodle-loo."

And with that, I departed swiftly for the bathroom.

James felt his heart drop into his stomach the moment Boris said Sigmund was dead. How had he not understood that? How could he have not considered that a possibility? He could feel his chest collapsing into itself as Boris continued to share. Moments ago, he would've said he hardly knew Boris, but now he was afraid he knew too much. Did Boris really want to share it? Was he okay with this?

He watched Boris without making direct eye contact until Boris allowed it.

As he listened, he knew in his heart that he understood. Boris had lost someone precious to him, and he wanted to make things right. He wanted justice - or what little taste of it he could attain to in this short life in hopes to mend the pain of his loss. And he could tell... he could hear that the pain was very great.

He couldn't ask anything of Boris. Not now.

As Boris seemed to come to a conclusion to his story, he reached out a hand with a gentle touch.

For things like this, there were no words. Death was terrible, and it ripped out a piece of your heart that could never be replaced. And as he hesitantly looked up, expression as grim and somber as it was, that was when Boris decided to make eye contact. Though Boris seemed to welcome it, he felt ashamed.

Boris had been brave enough to share a part of him that he'd probably never shared with anyone, or a small, select few. And he wasn't even sober for it. He felt far from deserving. But Boris said he was glad. That he wasn't even angry. And James could tell that to be true, but all of his being could not understand it.

He stared with a blank-face sort of shock as Boris pulled away and departed to the other end of the room, and retreated to the restroom. He felt a part of him leap out of himself in a desire to follow - to apologize? To say something. But then an overwhelming sorrow rose up within him and gripped his heart like an iron fist, and a whimper passed through his lips. With arms trembling slightly, he lifted his hands, grabbed his head, and buried his face in a shield of his arms, face-down on the table.

And he wept.

With quiet sobs, he cried, letting tears drip off his nose onto the table, and he cried. But not for himself.

For Boris.



Wilson lifted a finger as Boris hurried off to the bathroom to correct him, and tell him it was his turn, but then figured - eh, he basically did do his turn in a way. He answered a truth to James, just not the rest of the group. And considering the state James was left in and how Boris seemed eager to have a moment alone, she decided to hold her tongue. She cleared her throat and took James's seat in the circle.

"Well!" she said, not really smiling with her face, but smiling with her voice. "Uh... Schadel? Do you... wanna keep going?"

Schadel watched as Boris went into the bathroom. The conversation between James and Boris was supposed to be a private one, but she had been unable to stop herself from overhearing most of what they had said. The others had all been so quiet after the argument, and her hearing was better than most because she wasn't really human.

She was so distracted by thinking of what he had gone through - and how similar Sigmund's story was to Adam's - that she didn't even notice that they were talking to her again. She was too busy staring after Boris as he closed the bathroom door behind him.

"Schadel," Edward hissed, drunkenly nudging her with his elbow. "It's your turn."

"Truth," she absentmindedly said.

She needed to talk to Boris. He was perhaps the only person that would truly understand what it had been like for her to lose Adam, and the thought of having someone to talk to about him after all these years gave her a strange feeling. Blanx had never fully understood. How could he? He had interacted with humans, but his first memories were of being captured by British soldiers during the Revolutionary War. Adam had been her everything back then; he had known how the world was supposed to work, and she had idolized him for it.