@castlcd ( bc it started out as crack and now weâre here; ft: the vampire au that should have been a joke but now everyoneâs into )
There had to be an adjustment period - there always was, when shit hit the fan to a spectacular degree, and the next thing you knew the thing you hunted was the thing you became. The money had been good, yeah; getting out of the desert but staying in the chase, the adrenaline, the ability to put those skills drilled in by Uncle Sam to good use - all the better. Going after assholes that preyed on the average Joe had appealed to Frankâs straightforward morality, and there was nobody Billy trusted to have his back more than Castle. They were good. They were really fucking good.
Didnât make âem invincible, though. Theyâd had their share of gunshots, knives, blunt force trauma. But the small, deep gash on his side was the first injury Billy ever hid. He hadnât been sloppy; he had just been too slow - too human. Â
It was viral, more or less, at least best as anyone could figure; didnât always take, especially if you did all the right things. Flush out the wound, inject yourself with antidotes, spend the next four days puking your guts out and pretending you just had the fuckinâ flu as you hoped against the odds that youâd luck out.
Nobody had ever called Billy lucky.Â
And there was only so long he could deflect Frankâs texts when they hadnât even spent two days apart since basic, much less six. By that point it was clear the world had kicked him in the balls yet again, the hunger gnawing at Billy no matter how much he ate; his senses overwrought, like he was living with a constant hangover. The gash that should have still been scabbed over and red was completely gone.
Frank was going to kill him.Â
And not just figuratively.Â
Judging by the number of missed calls, it was only a matter of time before Frank showed up anyway, and who the hell knew what state heâd be in by then. He couldnât just disappear; Frank would track him down, just like heâd do in reverse. So Billy finally sent a text, because there was nothing for it; nearly cracked the screen because heâd been getting stronger, and he still hadnât adjusted to the new reflexes, but it was only going to get worse when he finally did what those things all eventually had to. They. Him. Fuck.
[txt: FRANKIE] Think I finally kicked the flu.
[txt: FRANKIE] Beer and stromboli tonight?
The first known targets were a product of their own creation; not victims, instigators â scientists and security, caught in the fallout when people playing God made their human mistake and smashed three vials of crazy on humanityâs shoe.
Not that he and Bill knew that back when. They didnât need to. The missions fit their skill set and the price was right, even if every brief and explanation they got handed was more batshit crazy than the one before it: Russians, North Korea, 5G, irradiated ground water, Tesla.
( Though Tesla, maybe, that one he could see. Guy already looked like a cartoon vampire melted. )
What they knew for sure was there were things walking the earth that shouldnât be, and those things were alive when they needed to be dead. Him and Billy, they could help with that.
And help they did â 74 confirmed kills in the last 19 months alone, spread out over 27 countries.
How it all came to happen, how the virus spread from a small DARPA lab in Central Europe to almost every continent on earth, was a timeline theyâd pieced together one incineration at a time. They were resilient pieces of shit ( designed to be ) so fire was the only real way of making certain the job was done, and so-called apex asshole or not, when the fight was done and they got to building the fire those creatures got to bargaining -- with whatever they knew or thought they knew.
To begin with, Frank didnât wanna hear it; just didnât give a shit what those mutated monstrosities had to say about the things theyâd done or why.
Jerk the zipties tighter, shove a kerosene soaked rag between the incisors, light âem up.
That was it. That had been their rinse and repeat since day 1, ol' faithful, up until the Kosovo deployment.
Sometimes, when it got too quiet or stuck on an empty highway, Frankâs mind would empty and the smell of those woods drifted back. The sound of boots on soviet concrete stairs; five pairs of eyes reflecting in the dark. A culmination of final words.
Shit that shouldnât be able to get any weirder and now just wouldnât quit.
The last week had given Frank more quiet moments than his sanity was good for. The privacy to take a shit with the door open and jerk off whenever had quickly devolved into the privacy to get kicked out of all the local watering holes and, eventually, the bad idea to call the kids while their mom wasn't home.
According to a judge in New York he wasnât supposed to do that, but he figured it would take them a while to rat him out. Maybe.
( Frankâs divorce had been a shit-show from start to finish. It was their second tour, three steps off the plane and surrounded by half his unit, when some sweating pissant wearing in his daddy's cuff-links had served him standing on the tarmac of Camp Dwyer.
Yeah, it had pretty much all gone downhill from there. )
So by day four he was ready to say screw it and take the next job solo.
Day five, he was tempted to call Billyâs phone from a boiler and hang up until he got this girl named âFluâ and tell her all about how his ex-boyfriend Russo gave him herpes.
Day six, he woke up to a nightmare about a soda fountain and a shower curtain and knew something wasnât right. So it didnât surprise him none when the phone lit up only nine miles out from the GPS marker he was honing in on.
The truck idled as Frank flicked the screen open and stared at the new messages, feeling his vague sense of misgiving twitch in their hole.
[ Frankie is typing ... ]
[txt: BILL] sure she ainât terminal? [MSG DELETED]
[txt: BILL] gimm [MSG DELETED]
[txt: BILL] beer and stromboli in 20
andulkaphoto
discoholicmusic
annaxmalina
tangentwithtanner
prguitarman
baratheonpilled
