back in the rain-slicked seat, abraham swallowed hard. there was no shortage of shit abraham had gotten used to in his life, and even then he continued to heap it all upon his own shoulders. tongue darting out to catch a few rogue rain drops that slipped down the contours of his cheeks, he cast another uncertain glare into the rear-view mirror. “son of a fucking bitch.” whispered to himself, he reached in his pocket and freed a cigarette from the carton he kept close to his chest.
the tremor in his hands made it more difficult than not to wrestle it between his lips, but the first pull of nicotine helped. his only trouble now was figuring out the reason behind his shake: lack of craving, flood of adrenaline, disbelief, or a scalding crucible of all three. it was a molten pool of alloy, all being poured into his mouth. it scorched, it made him sick, it cooked his resolve and charred his already blackened lungs.
twisting the key in the ignition, abraham threw the shift into reverse, foot held over the brake. whatever information blythe thought to share had passed between his ears and tumbled out the other, landing heavy on his shoulders. it weighed him down like the stone that would drown the witch. even then, there wasn’t a single enchantment abraham couldn’t break and make his own. he was at his own will and mercy, and in that will he’d already tried and taken the lives of many, courtesy of the incense that perfumed him. jaw set firm, he reached the final few numbers, the echo blythe provided himself now echoed in his ears.
- six missisppi. throw the car into drive. don’t break. go. nine mississipi. ten mississipi.
foot peeled from the brake and onto the gas, he rolled backward, executing the directions with a sickening crunch he could almost feel beneath the rear tires. if there was one positive aspect to be grasped from abraham’s doodling for a living, it was the care, detail, and attention he poured into it. not all of it came from ink and needles; instead, it was learned on the backs of antiquated masters whose ancient brushes left behind hair in the deposit of their strokes and whose hands trembled against their signature at the base of oil and pigment.
creation and recreation were the business he’d given himself and in that business he sought out the perfection he lacked at every other turn.
as the vehicle fell back onto the asphalt over the body, abraham gave it another half-second before he hit the brakes again, throwing the car into park again. he breathed another clouded breath. heels of his palms coming up to rub static into his eyes, he swallowed the spare nicotine that hung heavy in the front cab, straightening his shoulders before he stepped out again, rain capturing the smoke that followed him and dragging it down to the ground by his feet.
“get him up. fast. we’ve already fuckin’ been here way too goddamn long.”
The sound buried itself in his ears, his throat, his chest. It pricked the tips of his fingers and stung his toes. Blythe, and Abraham alike, had been raised in the separation of body and soul. They were used to more dead than living, and probably respected the vessel once it was empty more than the ones still housing a person with their finger on the trigger for mistake or fortune. He didn’t think of the rattle of the cracks and fractures against his own flesh and bone, but there was a sick lingering at the destruction of someone else’s body. Blythe had come to defile every law in their line of work to make the dead comfortable and mimic final rest as though it was another night’s sleep.
“He stays here.” His voice isn’t a snap, but instead a whip that burns his own lips. This is sloppier than usual, but he’s calculated as much as he can to hide his tracks. He points further down the road, far from where the two of them have ever gone for personal business through the outskirts of the city. “We run up the road, and at the first intersection, we change the tires back. They’re in the trunk. There’s a-a cold front coming in, and it’ll bring debris out that’ll make it hard to track where the car went afterwards even if it’s wet. We still need to change the tires. If we turn on 19th, there’s no cameras and we can turn back into the city without any tracking until we’re back in city limits. But we need to change the tires.”
His clothes didn’t even cling to him anymore in the rain. Instead, they hung off of him. The frailty of what he’d become since the two had shared more than a few words apparent now and Blythe could even see it in Abraham. It was now that he separated himself from his task, against the will of plaguing thoughts to refocus, and studied his brother. The leather refracted as many raindrops but still clung to his head. Whatever Abraham had cultivated to protect himself, the shadows he burned to piece together some shield— no, a cloak; Blythe would never forget that his brother gnawed on destruction and didn’t hide from it. The darkness he carried on his shoulders that darkened his figure against black asphalt and night and dark car was just to move along and not let other trip on what he left in his wake. But Blythe would always see him in the corner of his eye, a stain and a haunt and a crinkled edge of every memory of his childhood that he couldn’t get rid of. Abraham was the patron saint of some demise, and there was no denying that Blythe was cut from the cloth of his shadow when it was young. Soon enough, he’d look like him. His secrets would eat him alive to hold the same tremble of his brother’s hands even if the reason wasn’t the same. Blythe may have not been Abraham’s past, but they shared the same stale air of the Sweetwine Mortuary and hollowed cheeks from eating stress that bit them right back in devourment at some scuffed family dinner table. His present was always beaten with a vile word for him that Blythe recounted enough times as the chant that stung his own thoughts. Abraham was always his would have, could have, should have been and a crisis of his faith whether he knew it or not. He was the possible failure he could own against his will and he regretted the clarity of it right now.
The clothes he wore now were his brother’s, something forgotten and tucked away. Blythe had kept so many of his things when he’d left. It slid off of him from the weight of the rain, faded black dye suddenly dark.
Dark in the face of this tragedy he strung together. Dark as it was when his brother’s twisted presence stained it. Dark like Abraham standing before him.
His figure, fighting against the fabric that pulled off of him and down to the ground, pulled through the stretched collar of the shirt. Abraham’s woven embrace could do no more than tug him down and choke him, protection in its fade as just another shirt to wear during the day lost in the saturation of its color. What was left of him, still fighting through the heavy threads, rippled with the sudden tension that climbed through him. Teeth clenched hard enough for the taste of blood, it pushed through him as he lurched forward at his brother.
He wanted to bury his fingers around his neck, crunch a gasp against the guttural cry that nearly gagged Blythe himself. Yet, what he wanted more than to attack him was defense against the indebted metamorphosis into the creature he believed Abraham to be. He wanted to fight the evolution and sever the tie, and the shove of his brother forward when he finally turned from him was all he could muster now until the thoughts he always lost to cut into him.
Blythe took the switchblade from behind him. In Abraham’s back pocket, the single thread to another brother was stolen and pointed at him in a single click that was more sickening than broken bones. It’s sharp consequence was dulled with the push of impulse as Blythe pushed him away again with its edge.
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