Son of a Gun

@frankie-tow

"I'm just here on a little business." Frankie Jackson is a 30-something scumbag with a passion for alcohol, cigarettes, firearms, and, like every red-blooded American man should be, baseball. He's had military training in four fields and excels in all...

939 posts

"Me? Overdo it? I'll try to take your advice, scout's honor, but I'm doing the second part of a full back tattoo tomorrow. After that," he paused, "We'll see." He paused for a moment, night settling in, pulling them apart by their shirt sleeves. "Hey--thanks." And he finally took a step back. "As long as it means you're getting sleep too." He finally lifted a hand in a wave. "See you 'round."

Wincing in what was an attempt at sympathy, Frankie gave Padraic two thumbs up and backed away as well. The spell was broken. The fog was forcing them to find their ways back where they came from: separate worlds shoved onto one spit of land in the last breath of the cold Atlantic. He was bound for the beach or the woods, depending on whether or not he was intercepted by Sig Whatshisface and his band of UnMerry Men [and maybe Women?]. His lips twitched, and Frankie shook his head, turning to disappear into the velvet gloom before the rising of the sun came to burn away its vague psuedo-form of peace.

“Don’t mention it,” was his response, to most things always, but especially this.

"I picked up someone else's shift, on top of doing the first session of what's going to be--" He shook his head, "A very big tattoo." However Frankie meant the words, it sat just well with Padraic. For once, they weren't coated in venom. And for once, his weren't dipped in sarcasm. "Thanks," he returned rather easily, "You too. Looks like it's been a long day for the both of us."

“...Don’t--” Frankie hesitated. The fuck did he care? Why bother saying anything to this--guy anyway? It wasn’t as though it mattered, or he mattered. Just because he acted domestic didn’t mean he was. His father’s words still rattled around in his skull, learned shrapnel from a home more front line than bedtime, where chores were dismantling and cleaning guns instead of cleaning floors.

“...Overdo it,” he finished blankly, his gaze moving away once more, shoulders rising and falling in a roll meant to relieve tension rather than dismiss the conversation. “Anyway--see you around, or somethin’.” Now it was a dismissal.

“In your dreams, probably,” he added--more playful than intended, so much so that it stopped him briefly.

His words or Padraic’s?

It was still, at least for the moment; even Padraic felt like he could breathe. The twisting turns of time abated, left to stand as nothing more than ticks and tocks on a clock - like it should be. The vampire shook his head. "I just got off of a twelve hour shift. I don't plan on doing much for the next six or so hours. But that's just me." He looked again at Frankie, not a glance or a dart, just a look. Eye to eye, nothing hidden behind it. Maybe that was part of just existing too.

“Twelve hours? Shit, dude,” Frankie softly whistled, shaking his head. “That’s a freakin’ long time to be inking people up.” He ran a hand through his hair, making a note to himself to buzz it first chance he got; again--the darkness was fading, white-gold roots were threatening to show, muddied by dyes and lack of proper care. He hummed in the back of his throat, squinting at the vampire. “You should, I dunno--crack open a cold one. Start a new Netflix thing.” He was just talking, now, to fill the silence--wasn’t sure why, so he let the words run their course before falling into a lull once more.

After a long moment of nothing, he ground down once more on the cigarette underfoot and shrugged vaguely.

“Or sleep or--I dunno. You do you.” He met Padraic’s gaze; wary. He hoped it’d been a plain exchange..

Nothing up either of their sleeves.

Padraic shook his head, echoing the words back as little more than a faint murmur - the meaning resonating a little deeper than he let on. He averted his eyes finally, staring off into the fog as the last of the smoke evaporated in its clutches. "What's next?" he asked. The question could have meant a lot of things, but he turned his head to look at Frankie and added, "For tonight. Got any plans?" He snorted softly. "You don't have to spell them out if you do."

When the cigarette finally bit his lips with its angry head of cinders, Frankie doused it in the cracks between the cobbles; under a duct-taped combat boot and into the damp, dark places nobody looked. He guttered the fire and smoke underfoot and shoved his hands into his pockets, squinting at the thinning mist and the growing haze, the two of which collided--down from the mountains and up from the thawing earth. Everything seemed at a standstill, no grander or better than any other twilight hour. It simply was.

And maybe that was the weird part: the feeling of existence. Of being in a moment.

For the briefest pause, he wasn’t backwards or forwards.

He simply was.

“...no plans,” Frankie admitted, shaking his head slowly, eyes shifting back to Padraic. “What about you?”

"Of course we aren't. Never have been." He exhaled again, letting the smoke roll from his mouth in billows that soon got lost in the fog. He let the end of the cigarette drop, extinguishing it with a quiet touch of his boot. "And--lemme guess--" Blue eyes darted back to Frankie, looking him over quickly. "Never will be." Hands slipped back into his pockets, ignoring a slight chill that shouldn't have done as much as it did to a vampire. "Sound about right?"

“Semper fi.” The words slipped out without a trace of sarcasm or desire to be stopped, the hunter-like-a-hand-grenade [small and full of explosive energy and forever waiting for the pin to drop] lifting one fist half-heartedly into the air.

“Ooh-rah,” he concluded dully, and the hand dropped back to his side, then behind himself, clutched by the hand opposite. He was letting the cigarette burn out between his lips, he knew, but he didn’t care--he was checking in with himself; with his pulse, with the lines of his forearm and wrist, giving himself something to grip.

“Just--we don’t quit, I figured,” he said lamely, lifting a shoulder. “You, me--same ilk that way. Don’t stop till we drop.” Though in Pads’s case, Frankie assumed that’d be never.

He didn’t have that luxury, however.

He could see the scars, see the new marks. It wasn't a secret what kind of life Frankie lived, and Padraic knew it only too well. He used to have similar marks that faded to silver before the day was done, and then disappeared entirely. A facade of perfection; he'd ruined it with tattoos - and he'd done it on purpose. He cast a feigned look of indifference at his arms, which he lifted slightly. But Frankie had seen the nearly full extent in dreams, hadn't he? "It took a lot of work."

Frankie nodded, unsure of what to say. What could he say? They weren’t friends. A few thirsty fantasies did not a friendship build, anymore than a few awkward encounters in a bar, on the street, or otherwise did. He simply feigned interest, right? Know thy enemy, and all that. The hunter in him wanted to have the upper hand, and the soldier wanted to stay on the low-low. He turned the cigarette between his lips with absent, steady fingers, eyes finally drifting away from Padraic toward the foggy streets of pre-dawn, when the shadows were thickest and the air damp with dew. The streetlamps were still shining. Everything glimmered, and he had to wonder if this was a dream, too.

“Yeah well,” he said finally, shrugging both brows, “guys like us--we ain’t slackers.”

He let out a laugh at that, nodding as he did. "But the money wasn't, and so I had to." The phone slipped easily back into his pocket, along with Padraic's hand, the other rising to pull the cigarette away so the vampire could let loose a long show of smoke. "I take pictures of every new tattoo I do. I've got stories that' make you sit down and weep for the direction of those inks." He shook his head with a sigh.

“Makes me glad I keep’em simple,” said Frankie wryly, nodding to the ones on his knuckles--the butchered ones Pads had saved, the ones that had, since last they spoke, collected more scars. Padraic had not, after all, seen his tally marks [other than in a few scattered dreams that had left Frankie dry-throated and shaky come morning]. But scars--those Padraic could probably see, for the most part. No hiding all of those.

He was battered, especially in the hands and face, though his arms and shoulders and back fared little better. As of now, he was healing from a bruised set of ribs and a sprained ankle, but those were minimal concerns in his line of work when he wasn’t in imminent danger.

That sidebar aside, Frankie blew smoke through his nose and cocked his head to one side, eyeing Padraic once more.

“Yours’re pretty intricate, though,” he noted, chin jutting out in Pads’ direction.

It almost hurt, the way Frankie suspected his every move. The subtle twitches that spoke of fight or flight - and always leaned towards fight. But it hurt like an old wound, not a freshly dug one. He knew how the world saw monsters. Padraic flipped through his phone to the picture and held out his phone to Frankie to look at it, his arm fully extended to do so. "See?"

Frankie finally took his eyes off a face he knew from sleep and waking, from a face that was surprisingly beautiful to be attached to a parasite that--well, a predator that needed blood to live. His brows furrowed slightly as he inhaled deep on the cigarette between his lips, then expelled the smoke with a laugh that had no smile, shaking his head slightly.

“Shit, man, excuse the fuck out of me.” He looked back up, his eyes tired, but sincere. “People really are that fuckin’ stupid.”

Even the cigarette, he lit at a distance, as much of one as he could make. And when it was done, he drew back again. Better not test the weird peace between a vampire and the man who wanted him dead. "I'm not. I took a picture of it." He stuck the coffin nail between his lips and dug with his free hand for his phone in the pocket of his pants. "Do you want to see it?"

“...okay.”

Frankie had to stop himself from overreacting to the way Pads went for something in his pocket. It was just a phone, Franklin, for fuck’s sake. He had nothing to fear from a phone other than Snapchat filters, probably. And automated bombs. People on the other end of the line, probably. His head was always abuzz with possibilities for danger, and he wasn’t entirely sure whether it was the hunter or the soldier or something else thriving in there; in the bunker that was his fucked-up brain, hunkered down and waiting, armed to the teeth, for every single one of them.

He lit his second cigarette and nodded vaguely, echoing his own former sentiment.

“Okay.”

It seemed silly to hope for more than what Frankie could give, but with the offering of the cigarette, he felt that strange little bird in his chest flutter with a little bit of wishful thinking. He took it, slow in his movements, eyes never leaving Frankie's, as he drew it to his mouth. "Got a light?" He smiled, shaking his head and lowering the cigarette with a sigh. "A baboon's butt--with his name under it."

“Yeah.” Frankie fumbled in his pockets for a moment, then came up with his lighter--plain and silver, millitary-issued, engraved with 08.06.00, and the short phrase, “give back Hell” scratched beneath it, probably by a pocket knife.

A simple click and it ignited--trusty as it always was, the flaming tongue held at arm’s length, too, for Padraic to light at his leisure. Frankie watched the vampire, though, more than he watched the fire, because he knew which of the two to keep an eye on. To fear, probably.

Or the one most likely to draw him in.

“...You’re fuckin’ kiddin’,” Frankie said flatly, cocking a brow. “No way. Uh-uh. I don’t believe that for a second.”

"They never did it for me either," he said in passing. And it was true. Not once, had he shuffled behind a desk. The imposing walls had loomed too high for him to surmount. But he shrugged that thought away. His eyes widened, just a fraction, when Frankie asked him a question. He wondered if the man really wanted to know; better yet, why was he furthering the conversation. "I get sores, and sometimes I have to ink something I really don't want to ink, but I'll take it over an office any day."

Frankie’s face attempted something like a smile again--the gash of his mouth lanced upward at the right-hand corner, at any rate, and the pale man of waning youth and use rubbed his neck, looking away before patting himself down for yet another cigarette.

When he did manage to procure his crumpled carton of menthols, he hesitated--then offered it first to Padraic instead of taking one for himself, motioning with his eyes more than his words for the vampire to make himself at home--at least at arm’s length.

Fucker couldn’t get sick from this anyway, probably. It was like a goddamn vampire cheat code.

“Worst thing you ever had t’ink?” Fine. He’d fuck off, and Pads would fuck off.

Right after this cigarette.

Fuck, I must be lonely.

"Turn of phrase," Padraic admitted, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "But now that you mention it, maybe I could see you sitting behind a desk and listening to people's problems." He raised his eyebrows at that, letting it be known that he was, of course, joking. But it fell flat, even to his ears, and he stepped down from his armored tower for just a moment with a deflated shrug and a softer voice. "But you'd probably get tired of the same shit every day."

“Fuck no,” came the automatc response, accompanied by a bittersweet expression that was half genuine humor and half genuine displeasure. “Desks ain’t for me.” He didn’t like anything he couldn’t easily escape, after all--a desk was too confining. Suits were confining. Lawyers, psychologists, teachers--probably the first to go down in the inevitable monster-driven apocalypse. “I like bein’ outside too much,” he finished dryly. It wasn’t a complete lie. Walls were confining, too. The half-scrapped bunker at the beach was good enough, he supposed. The last time he’d had anywhere to call an official home was--what he’d left back in the States. And that was gone, now. Burned down. For the safety of all.

No, Frankie didn’t like houses.

And he didn’t have anywhere to call home.

“...do you get tired,” Frankie asked after a moment, secretly wondering why a. Padraic hadn’t fucked off as asked, and b., why he hadn’t bothered to enforce that feeling yet, “doin’ what you do?”

The laugh the pureblood let out was anything but cheery. Sure, it floated like it was, even played like it was, but the bitter undertone was tinged with leftover ink still sitting on his arm. One bird for each soul, flying where they could be touched no more. It was poetic on his best days, but on his worst, it was a fatal tally mark. "Is that your professional advice?"

Frankie darted a glance over Padraic. Was he preparing to attack? Gearing up for a fight? Was he looking for a way out like he was? No--they had nothing in common, he refused to believe that. Just like he refused to believe the ink on his skin meant anything; that vampires were people, like they mattered. Like any of this fucking mattered--he was too tired for this. For conversation with anyone or anything.

That’s how he reasoned with himself, at any rate, when his voice got soft and the rasp lessened in it, the nasal annoyance of the Bronx drifting in a gentler, more suburban direction, maybe:

“...do I look professional to you, pal?”

Frankie’s eyes lifted from the birds embossed in shadows on Pads’ arm to his distant, ancient eyes.

"Do you want a tally?" He shook his head, back to being Padraic the tattoo artist, the illustrated ladies man; throw away the Leahy that slipped out. He tilted his head, one shoulder raising in a permanent almost shrug. "Never heard of counseling for that, do you have any recommendations?" The armor felt sturdy, safe, cold, and empty.

Frankie half-glanced at his arm, the one covered by the baggy army-issued jacket he’d taken with himself upon departure from the ranks, into which he’d sewn little pieces of his life--a flag, patches where wolves had ripped the cloth like paper, a stitch or two in shaky hand to remind himself of the places he’d dared to call home that he couldn’t anymore.

And under all of this, his tally marks ticked across a bicep, cut by a knife and filled in with whatever was available to mark himself up. Kills and capers successful in effort and execution.

He was, after all, just another executioner in a world full of criminal monsters.

Wasn’t he?

“...Jack Daniels, ol’ number seven,” Frankie muttered, scratching his jaw and shaking off an unsettling chill. “For everything else, try marijuana.”

#sensitive materials #padraic-tow

Turned away at the gate. It hurt in a self-satisfying way, the confirmation of hate that dashed hopes but vindicated self-hate. He turned up a smile that only played out bitter in his eyes, not for Frankie or the rejection, but for his own state. He stood on one ledge, and somewhere, a thousand lifetimes away, stood Frankie. He finally shrugged, closing hurt blues to leave only the perfect smile. "I called you the wrong name, didn't I? Shit. Alright." Eyes open, mask up. "I'll leave ye be."

“That happen to you a lot?”

The words slipped out before he could catch them. There was a trace of dry humor to them; maybe an effort to show some...well, actual humanity. Toward what, an apex predator like a vampire? If he’d any common sense, he’d take Padraic out on the street like he’d been raised to, without batting an eye or feeling any twinge whatsoever in his heart.

And it wasn’t so much the island full of freaks that stayed his hand--anymore than it was the branding of the fox and the moon on his neck.

It was the kick he felt in his gut when Padraic slipped into character, into a vague sort of armor, and into what Frankie could barely identify as...what accent was that? Irish? Welsh? One of the two.

“...Callin’ out the wrong name, I mean.” Frankie’s words faded; hesitant, quiet. “...should see somebody about that, man.”

The pureblood, who felt dirtier each day, simply shook his head, sliding his hands into his pockets. "Because I care about you and want to get to know you." He said it easily, no tone in his voice, just as honest a truth as Padraic could manage. "Do I need to flirt a little harder to make it obvious?" Or were the dreams not enough, he thought bitterly to himself. But here he was again, throwing himself on heaven's door for the chance to get just a little warmer before he's turned away.

The words prickled him.

They struck a nerve; or two, or three, and suddenly, Franie was on-edge from teeth to tendons, tensed and ready for the fight he knew was coming. Or thought was coming. It was hunter’s instinct; it was soldier’s expectation. It kept him at the ready and, up until this point, had kept him alive. The caution on his face was blinked away, replaced by a hollow mask of emotionless disbelief; a silent dismissal of Padraic’s words.

“Right,” he said flatly, “I think we’re done here.” He’d give him the chance to walk away. Maybe he’d be a smart dead thing, rather than end up a dead-dead thing.

“I’m sure you’ve got--” he motioned vaguely with his shoulders, “four score and seventy-two virgins to woo. So why don’t you make like a bat out of Hades and fuck off.” His teeth flashed in something that wasn’t a grin; because his face never made that expression quite right, and he added, “because it ain’t happenin’, Pads.”

Then one last test:

“When y’can’t even remember a dude’s name, and all...” He pursed his lips, shaking his head slowly. “Just doesn’t bode well for any pursuit of happiness.”

Padraic hadn't expected Frankie to turn, and maybe in that moment, he'd been caught off-guard. His hair longer now, a new tattoo on his neck, and a sort of breathless weariness that swept over him before he could sweep it under the rug - which he did with an easy sort of shrug and smirk. "Alright, so you're fine. Excuse me for being worried." He held up his hands in a fake surrender before he dropped them to his sides.

The momentary hesitation wasn’t lost on Frankie. On the contrary–he was suddenly a little more alert, a little less devil-may-care about the whole situation. Larei came back to him then; the fruitless effort that’d been giving Fanden her blood. Vampires did have a tendency to look after their own–but they weren’t coven-kin. They weren’t even of the same ilk; one pure, one turned, and not even by Padraic. Hell, it was specieist to even think they might be friends–and he was jumping to conclusions.

He shook his head slightly, finally putting the cigarette out under his foot with a twist and grind that was reminiscent both of snuffing a candle and snuffing a life, both hands in his pockets now.

“Why the fuck would you care?” There wasn’t any acidity to his voice–just genuinely bitter exasperation.

This had to be some kinda vampire bullshit trick.

Whatever.

He was prepared for anything, probably.

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