The Beginning is the End is the Beginning (SevenxSwitch)

[sevenpercentsolution]

Suffocating.

He felt like he was fucking suffocating.

The New York night air was hot as hell and the shitty little fan on the table was wheezing its way through every spin, stuttering and spraying dust from where it had collected at the base, flecking Blake's sweat-soaked torso with grit.

But Blake didn't notice; he was already covered in too much dirt to care - silt and sediment from the day's fight, filth and grime from the street.

Sweat.

Tears, but not his own.

Blood.

So much blood - blood on his fingers and his wrists but not on his knuckles because liberal jaws were too soft to break his skin. Blood on his face from where it had sprayed after he'd hit that molotov-tossing socialist right in the teeth, effectively ending his days of granola-chawing.

Blood on his pants, thick on the soles of his boots from where he'd kicked one of those hippies in the face, because for an instant he could have sworn the guy was one of those skinny fucking little Charlies from 'Nam, waving an RPD at him and it wasn't until he was on the fourth - fifth? tenth? - kick that he realized he was hammering his heel into the face of an American. It had stopped mattering by then, though - slopeheads, coolies, liberals, the inside of their skulls all looked the same.

Blood on his cigar - even the smoke tasted of it as he rolled it out of his mouth and into the air. Smoke and ash and cider, it tasted like war. It tasted like fucking glory.

Blake closed his eyes against sight in general because his vision was rippling like a pond; he blamed lack of sleep - it had nothing to do with the bottle of Jim Beam he had been watching over, because he wasn't drunk. He wasn't drunk, though by all rights he should have been because the bottle was down to its last jigger but he was still thinking - nothing seemed to stop it. Nothing worked anymore. The only time it stopped was when he was in the midst of it, when the blood was fresh on the air and there was a weapon in his grasp, or just his big goddamn mitts if that was all he had.

He stood at the window of his high rise, staring at the city that sprawled out in front of him as a play of shadow and light, and the smell hit him. The smell of the city. The fucking smell of the rats that crawled and grovelled and snivelled around the streets, too shit scared to do anything except go to church and buy their white-picket fences for their suburban homes and have kids that they would raise to go to church and want white picket fences around their suburban homes, too.

And when the real world landed on their lawn wrapped up in the daily newspaper, they would blame the guys who kept them safe, pitch their home-made bombs and trash cars because they thought they were making a point. They thought they were making a difference.

They weren't. They didn't. They never would.

"Shit." Blake griped, and pitched the empty bottle off of his balcony, waiting until he heard it smash several stories below before stumbling back into his apartment. He crash-landed on his couch, in a restless, drunken haze that wasn't quite sleep but he knew he wasn't fucking awake either, because that Vietnamese girl was dead, she wasn't standing in his living room, staring at him with empty fucking sockets and that big, swollen pregnant belly. That was all in his head.

He closed his eyes and wished her away. He told her she wasn't real. She left, just like she always did, and when he opened his eyes to an empty room again, he laughed low and hoarse in his chest, not because anything was funny, but just because no one got it.

And no one ever would.

That was part of the joke.

 

[SwitchAndrogyny]

"Hey!"
The small voice shouted from beneath the rolled up paper held high by her so called best friend Tony.

"Give it back asshole!"
She demanded for the hundredth time in the last ten minutes.

Tony continued to dangle the rolled up poster mere inches above her stretched reach. When she jumped, he'd raise it just out of grasp, a mocking laugh escaping his lips.

"Do a little dance.":
Tony ordered his friend Roxanne.

"Fuck you man, just give it back!"
Roxanne growled, finally snatching it from above.

"Ha! Ya fuckin faggot. Who's the bitch now? Hmm."
Roxanne smirked, unrolling the poster.

It was a poster of America's biggest frickin hero, aside from the giant smurf. She become rather obsessed with the gun wielding, cigar chopping, charlie stompin badass known as the Comedian. He was like a dream come true to her. She plucked off a piece of gum stuck to the poster. It was covered in the city's grime. She technically stole it but it was no secret. It was pasted to a wall in the subway, and she peeled off before anyone else could deface it.

"Check it out!"
She turned the poster to Tony, who responded with a scoff.

"What're you jealous?"
She asked, rolling it back up, and shoving it in her backpack.

"Fuck no man! That guy's a total moron..."
Tony rolled his eyes, turning to continue his walk home.

"Pfft, you only say that because your mom and dad are damn hippies."
Roxanne snorted in response, following after him.

"Were. Were hippies..."
He should have never told her that.

Tony made the mistake of inviting Rox over to "watch" the news, which meant smoke pot and bitch about the republicans with his dad. He'd known Rox for a lifetime and thought pot would loosen her up. After all her parents had her strung up so tight, everyone could hear the cables snapping.

"Man, your dad smokes pot like a freight train...He's a fuckin hippie."
Rox laughed, letting out a dreamy sigh, nothing but the Comedian on her brain.

"Shut up! If you don't believe me, go see for yourself."
Tony elbowed her, and pointed.

"The Comedian lives in the condos on 3rd and Washington Street. Like condo 9A or some bullshit."
He nodded, continuing his pace.

"No way! How the fuck do you know?!"
Roxanne grabbed his arm and shook him.

"You know Calvin? Yea, well his dad went to 'Nam too ya know, and had to deliver some message or something to the guy."
Tony shrugged, pulling his arm from Roxanne.

"Shut the fuck up! Really?"
If this was true, Roxanne was going to make a bee-line to those condos.

"Scout's honor."
Tony reassured her with the scout's hand sign.

"Man, you're such a fag. I can't believe I hang out with you."
Rox shook her head and moved across the street.

"I'll see you tomorrow."
Tony called.

"Yea..."
Roxanne's voice trailed, she could care less about what Tony said just then. She was on a mission.

Holy shit! Was this really happening? She was going to meet the Comedian and it was going to be fuckin kickass! The condos were five blocks away and by the time she got there, she couldn't breath. Having practically sprinted all the way. The ripe 18 year old pulled herself up nine flights of stairs and then she saw it. Door 9A. She was a sopping, sweaty, mess. She would have taken the elevator but you needed a goddamn ID card to use it. She caught her breath, running a clammy hand through her sticky curly red hair. Damn her mother's ginger genes. She pressed an ear to the door, she could only hear a humming sound. Probably the air conditioner, a fan or something. It sounded vacant. Damn it...It hit her like a ton of bricks, all that wasted effort. She checked the door. Locked. Grumbling she whipped out her student ID and jammed it into the door's crease. She was trying to be quiet but she'd only picked a lock twice in her life. The lock and door knob jiggled, cursing she stompped her boot clad foot on the ground.

"Open, damn you, open!"
She whispered harshly, attempting to pick the lock.

[[sorry, it seems long, but it's mostly chit chat. :3]]

 

[sevenpercentsolution]

Blake had been down for an hour, maybe two - he couldn't be sure because time lost all meaning when he looked at it through the bottom of a bottle.

But there were some things that the drink couldn't take away.

Like his instincts.

They were what woke him up late into the evening; his eyes snapped open and, unmoving, he listened.

Footsteps. Shuffling. Scraping. A stomp and the sound of a voice, sharp for a moment and then quiet again. Blake lifted his head and ignored the way that the leather from the couch stuck to his chest from the heat; he sat up, he shifted noiselessly from the couch, he stood.

Someone was outside his door.

Someone unskilled was trying to break in.

Still a little hazy with alcohol - but sober enough now to be properly disgrunted - he briefly considered opening the door and just busting his would-be thief's head in.

But where was the fun in that?

Blake peered around the apartment - it was neat, clean and sedate, just the way a military man should have his home, because a slob was a fucking embarrassment to the American ethos - but it was tinged with the distinct smell of cigar smoke, something strong and spicy that lingered in the air even with the window open.

He looked back at the front door again, then he moved silently across the hardwood floors, too familiar with the thick soles of his steel-toe shoes to even scrape them - silent, too quiet for a man his size.

He picked up a chair from his dining room set - heavy wood, solid, sturdy - and held it by the leg, he leaned against the wall, just beyond the sight of the front door. He waited.

 

[SwitchAndrogyny]

"C'mon, c'mon..."
She twisted the student ID working for better leverage.

"Almost got it..."
Her tiny pale fingers had turned a deep red, having worked at the lock for a good five minutes.

"Bingo!"
The door's lock clicked and rotated.

Finally after several brain numbing minutes, which dragged on like eternity, she popped the lock. She stood in the doorway, relieved, huffing. City watered even sounded refreshing right now. The apartment was empty. Several faint yet familiar scents wafted the room. A pungent smokey smell, that when inhaled deeply enough, made her feel like she just got done eating a hot meal. Then the obvious smell of alcohol. It reminded her of every time she'd fallen and scraped an elbow or knee. Her mother always came to the rescue with cotton balls and rubbing alcohol. He must have been celebrating...She thought to herself, finally entering the apartment. She made sure to be as quiet as possible, but the whine of her leather boots with each step, was unnerving. Reaching behind her, she pushed the door shut. The apartment had reminded her of her grandfather's house. He too, was in the military. Everything had its place and even the messes looked clean. She turned her head, that's when she saw him. The man towered at least a foot taller than her and the chair poised above his head only made him appear to be even larger.

"Shit!"
She gulped and quickly moved out of reach of the chair.

She kept her arms over her head as she scurried. First she headed around the sofa and towards the kitchen. Dead end. Darting from the kitchen, down a hallway. There was a bathroom and a bedroom, both obviously dead ends, so she found herself back in the kitchen. If one listened close enough, they could hear her heart pounding in her chest. She grabbed a knife from the block. Who was she kidding? If she were to stab him, the blade would probably bend like in cartoons, and that's if she even got close enough without being flattened like a pancake. The Comedian seemed a lot larger in person.

"I-I-I'm sorry!?"
She stammered holding the knife up.

In the nature shows, animals always made themselves look bigger in a fight. So, that's what she did. She held her breath and puffed out.

"I just wanted to meet you!"
Blurting she waved the knife.

"Please don't smash me with that chair..."
Her voice grew smaller, sweat gathered at the neck of her shirt. She was good as dead.

 

[sevenpercentsolution]

He waited.

And waited.

Eventually, Blake was idly holding the chair at thigh-height and looking down at the nails of his available hand, picking dirt from under his forefingers with his thumb, listening to the constant scraping at his front door.

"Fucking amateurs." Blake huffed; at the very least he could be sure that it wasn't a hired gun, because no one with any self-respect would shell out cash for that kind of hand.

Finally, there was a metallic click and he hefted up the chair again, poised to take down his enemy but -

- jesus fuck. They were just getting smaller and smaller.

The little redhead stared up at him with moonbeam eyes like she had no idea she'd walked into someone else's place, or that she hadn't expected anyone to be inside and suddenly the chair felt like overkill because what was the fucking point?

He lowered the chair down from where he'd had it balanced above his head but held onto it anyways, carrying it at waist height, dark eyes tracking the girl as she ran for the hallway, a move that told Blake he wasn't even dealing with an amateur here.

This was worse than an amateur - she was trapping herself.

And anyways, the way she was running in circles had him somewhere between wanting to laugh and wanting to get really fucking angry - he hadn't decided which one he would go with yet, but the very sight of him was undoubtedly an intimidating one. Standing at six-foot-four and dressed only in boots and slacks, Blake was still filthy with dirt and blood from a fight, his dogtags flashing against an expanse of heavily muscled, scarred torso. The apartment was almost completely dark save for the lights that came in from the active city outside his balcony - which, at that point, was the redhead's only means of escape.

If she was up to a ten story fall, anyways. He sure as hell wasn't.

For an instant - and he might have blamed the booze for the moment of softness - he considered telling her to just get the fuck out and not look back, because he was getting tired of this shit already -

- but then she grabbed the knife, and the sight of sharp, flashing steel instantly set off that nasty part of Edward Blake that a specific few had seen. His eyes darkened. He dropped the chair - it landed with a heavy thud on the hardwood floor - and he advanced on Roxanne, walking towards her with the slow, sure walk of a predator, backing her into the kitchen, his expression set into something unreadable, but decidedly unpleasant.

 

[SwitchAndrogyny]

She was holding her breath, waiting. When he dropped the chair, all the hot air she was holding in was suddenly pushed out.


"Thank god..."
Her shoulders relaxed and the knife was lowered.

"I knew he was lying!..."
She called with a nod.

"Ya see, my friend Tony said you were a total moron...But, I said..."
Her voiced trailed, growing nervous.

She wittnessed the change from when the Comedian had the chair held high, to something far more scary. This must be what it feels like right before you get mauled by a bear. Swallowing hard, she stepped back, as far as she could go, pressing herself against the counter. This guy was fucking nuts. He was probably suffering from PTS or something. Maybe he thought she were a Charlie and was having a trippy 'Nam flashback. Those big doe eyes glazed over with potential tears. The closer he got, the more tense she got.

"Like I...Like I was saying...I don't think your a moron at all...I think you're totally badass and stuff..."
She raised her arms over her head, shielding herself.

"Please don't hurt me..."
She peaked through her arms looking for a means of escape. Maybe she could run between his legs? Or slip by him? Maybe?

 

[sevenpercentsolution]

Every man suffered from duplicity, no one was exempt from the rule - ultimately, some guys were just better at hiding it, ignoring it, pretending they never thought terrible things; pretending they never felt the urge to take something that didn't belong to them or spill some blood or do something they were likely to regret.

Pretending the darkness wasn't there.

But Blake wasn't one of those guys - he hadn't been since before 'Nam. Since long before the bar in Saigon with the bullets and the hot tear in the side of his face.

He couldn't pinpoint the time where he'd come to accept that side of himself - he just knew it was there, that there was no point in fighting it, not when the good guys always ended up as cold meat on a steel tray, not when the darkness always won anyways. May as well let it happen. Over the years, he'd let it take over so much that he sometimes felt like he'd lost some part of himself, like something had gone missing along the way, left in the dirt with the trail of bodies that formed his timeline.

An image came to him, the line of faces he had caved in over the years. At the end of the line, he could see the little redhead who was standing in front of him, scared shitless, and the darkness told him he could just cut her now and no one would know - no one would say a thing because he was a fucking American hero. They would ignore everything he did, because he represented them. He couldn't do anything wrong.

Fucking idiots.

One hand took hold of Roxanne's wrist, gripping hard and wrenching up, his other hand going to her tiny, slender white throat, palm grasping her jaw, thumb and forefinger on either side of her face, lifting her head to force her to look at him.

"There are rats all over the streets here," he mused, his big hand clamping hard around her wrist to encourage her to drop the knife. He forced her head to the side as though he was inspecting her, looking over her profile - pretty. Young.

"So what the hell is a mouse doing in my apartment?" he asked, more to himself before directing the question to Roxanne, his voice low, rumbling in a way that made it echo through the place, "The fuck are you doing in here, little girl?"

 

[SwitchAndrogyny]

Tony was right. She should have listened, should have known better. Her curiousity got the best of her. She shut her eyes, retracing the events that led up to this very moment, the last few seconds of her short lived life.

Her alarm rang with Elton John's Bennie and the Jets blasting in her ear at 7:00a.m. She started her morning routine, clothes, hair, breakfast, and teeth. Meeting Tony around 7:30, they headed to school together. School started at 8:00, lunch at noon, dismissal bell at 3:10, then her and Tony were heading home. Now she found herself cowering in front of her favorite American icon. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

A sharp pain started at her wrist and shot down her arm like a web of lightening. She didn't bother to fight and forgot all about the dinky knife until the sound of it hitting the floor echoed the kitchen. Everything was exagerated right before you die. Sounds, sights, smells, etc. A lump swelled in her throat, having nowhere to go, being pinned by the Comedian's massive hand. Choking shrills spilled from her lips, her mouth suddenly desert like. Her eyes only settled on his for a second before resting on the floor. She could feel death closing in, things turning dark...Was he talking to her? Was she still alive?

"I-I...Wanted to meet..."

She was in desparate need of oxygen it wouldn't be too long before her eyes popped out of their sockets and dangled on her reddening cheeks. Attempting to inhale only made matters worse.

"Need...Air..."

 

[sevenpercentsolution]

Sometimes he forgot that other people were more delicate than he was; the kind of person who became part of any hero team needed a particular kind of hardness about them - physically, anyways; they couldn't break from a fall. They couldn't give up after one hit. They had to keep going.

And they couldn't have necks like reeds, either - not like this little thing. He could crush this one in his palm, he was sure of it, too small and too slender, too fragile to handle this kind of thing, her eyes were already rolling back and he was sure her world was going dark now.

Blake wasn't thinking right - he never did during times like these, because all he could hear was the Comedian, a distant and dark voice telling him to just hold on a little longer to that tender throat, choke the last breath out of her. She was worthless anyways, another useless member of society, breaking into apartments late at night, waving weapons around.

She was part of the problem.

Useless fucking broad.

The knife hit the floor with a clatter and the sound jerked Blake back to reality, and suddenly he had a teenage girl dying in his hands and there was no point to it, no fucking point at all.

Begrudgingly, Blake loosened his grip on her windpipe, he released her wrist. He let her drop and stared down at her, expression falling back to something neutral.

Shit.

 

[SwitchAndrogyny]

Her body began to tremble, mustering all of its energy to distribute oxygen evenly. Her eyes moved back to his, something was going on back there, behind those eyes, then she was let go. She crumbled to the kitchen's tile floor, her shoudlers bobbing up in down as she heaved. If her throat wasn't so swollen she'd probably spew her lunch of school pizza all over the floor. Sniffiling, she whiped her eyes, and moved to her knees. She was just going to leave, this guy was fucking bonkers. Dragging herself across the floor, tiny fingers, tiny arms pulled herself up using the countertop.

"What the fuck..."
She croaked, rubbing her neck.

"What the fuck man!"
She repeated, her voice cracking.

"You have a 'Nam flashback you fuckin loon?!"

Here she was, clear, free, and she couldn't keep her mouth shut now. So many emotions were brewing in her gut. Disappointment, anger, nausea, she almost died for fucks sake. Her jaw tightened, eyes narrowing on the brooding man who she was led to believe was a hero. An all American hero. Feeling stupid, she hacked once more.

"I can't believe this!?"

Throwing her hands up, she turned away wanting to leave but was afraid. He hadn't told her to stay or go and she didn't want to end up strangled, pinned to the fridge again. She was lucky the first time and with her running mouth, she was pushing her luck.

 

[sevenpercentsolution]

Blake stood back a little, head cocked very slightly to the side, expression akin to detached interest as he watched Roxanne claw to her feet, sputtering and wheezing, her tiny throat mottled with red streaks from where his fingers had pressed in.

He smiled. Or rather, he bared his teeth at her.

"It's a funny thing," Blake said, his frame casting a broad shadow over the redhead as he pounded some well-needed logic into her little skull,

"You askin' questions, gettin' indignant - 'cause I could've sworn you were the one who broke into my fucking apartment and picked up a knife."

 

[SwitchAndrogyny]

He was right, she did commit a crime, and did deserve punishment. Could anyone blame her though? Having Blake among regular society was like letting celeberties roam freely without any bodyguards. He was asking for trouble, it just came in an unique package. People did all kinds of stupid shit to get the attention of their favorite people, even as far as killing them. She was leaning against the countertop, her eyes cast downward.

"Yea, don't remind me how stupid I am."
She shrugged and moved towards the door.

What was she going to tell Tony? He would never let her live this down. Ever. She reached into her back pack, pulling the rolled up poster out and tossing it to the floor. She could scream with frustration but decided to hold it in. She'd traveled five blocks and nine flights of stairs, she wasn't just going to without anything, even if it was just a cigar stubb. Her bruises were all she needed to know who the real Comedian was. What a disappointment.