No smile was ever kind to him. Not because of the intent of the one giving it, but because all Caim ever saw in the row of raw starkly white was the baring of teeth of a snarling beast ready to pounce and as soon as the man showed those pointy knives it sliced his spine in two with its ice cold twine.
Was an acute, thick narrow streak, like a fillet of blood running down a white wall, slitting him from head to toe, concomitantly slow and too swift, that jump started his heart as adrenaline kicked in, hand in hand with the old familiar foe, that twisting thing called fear. And while those electric wide oceans barely blinked he thought: What exactly the Hell you think you are doing?
But he knew, didn’t he?
He was exhausted of stagnation. Exhausted of observing life through the windows of the library. He new time passed for people’s clothes changed, his own too, for Grumpy old Jenny took care of that with no chance of any protest or inquiry from his part. He had started to mark the days on calendars, but he always slept with the last day of the month marked in ink and raised the next day to a brand new spotless calendar of the same month on the wall. He swallowed bitterly. No questions asked, he tried to mark it through the publication dates of the books he read, but as soon his eyes were averted they were all gone. He started to memorize the rise and fall of the big fire ball in the sky and its silver knifed companion by heart, but as soon blue gems opened to the light on the next day the number had erased itself of his mind and with no way to note he could only contemplate, meekly humbly the joys and the woes of life pass by.
He didn’t dare to ask Jenny, she would disregard it completely, call his doubts foolery and his fears wise, for no one should stir the pot nor question what was in the witch’s cauldron that everyone called Santa Carla.
Time passed but his wish to live didn’t. The desire was so great it reached a point where not even fear of Death was capable of choking the craving of knowing if the touch of another skin held any similar trait to the warmth of the Sun, nor erase away the hint of a smile when very rarely the youth of technology addicts came to search for some book. The sudden impetuosity that risked to overtake any caution when passing a book to a customer’s hand after checkout . The gnawing caprice of touching one’s hand, mid transaction and whisper: stay.
The yearning already had devoured him whole when he risked, against all Jenny’s rules and precautions, doing hitman moonlights after library’s shifts to the rival gangs of Santa Carla. He got extra cash, and if the light of a new found the underdog of the night tied upside down, blood drained out of a knife cut in their throat, no one cared, really. With savage vampires all around, mafia problems where the least of population’s worries, and therefore such department grew and spread healthy and prosperous like a festering.
It didn’t matter really Caim felt paralyzed of terror with the simple prospect of being caught by vampires, humans or any other creature ill-intended that bumped the night. It didn’t matter he had disjointed, fragmentary, abstract night terrors after each night of hunt. It didn’t matter how sparse the gaps were between each other. In a place like Santa Carla where were more people undead than alive, often the weakest of the kind became prey. And Caim wasn’t only weak, he was defective, in every fucking way.
He observed as he always did, he watched that new face, night after night, inside the sacred prison of the library.
Time passed, people were born, people died, but they never lost fascination in Caim’s eyes. “ The eyes of child wonderment” once he heard Jenny comment when she thought he wasn’t listening, but her words were laced in melancholy. “The eyes of child wonderment “, like Santa Claus! If he actually existed. But he wasn’t Santa, and he wouldn’t ever be able to be, for Santa made children happy, and he wouldn’t be able to make any child happy, for he never was one.
Exhaustion, exhaustion is what led him to put his foot outside with a book under his arm to gift a newcomer he had been spying for quite some time and that obviously could kill him. The predator showed his teeth but instead of the common fear, laced with the adrenaline and terror, a peculiar ticklish sensation made of the hollowness of his chest, home.
The wide expressive jewels he had for eyes flickered with the new feeling, dared to blink once, before his lips curled up, almost without him willing the motion, into a dazzling brain melting smile. The first one he had ever remembered giving.
The fear hits him in the face- like glassy shards of ice stinging his face. A splash of icy cold water that sobered Lucio up almost instantly.
Widened blue eyes, filled with terror, are met by Lucio's dark crimson ones. Tranquil and calm, seemingly observing the other with intrigue. This was no spike of intimidation, this was something primal. A deep fear within his soul. Something that felt like clawing at bones.
And yet, still he does not recognize this other man. It couldn't be him specifically that brought this feeling to the surface. Perhaps someone who looks like him?
Or with a similar affliction.
The world was full of terrors, wasn't it? Well hidden as they typically were within the openness of modern society.
Santa Carla. He'd heard of this place, the unofficially named 'Murder Capital of the World'. The nickname earned from the heavy amounts of gang activity and disappearances.
Of course, Lucio himself had an inkling as to what was going on around here. And decided to travel to make the discovery himself.
So far, it had seemed the locals didn't think anything of his presence. That is- until this boy in the library. A survivor of an attack maybe? So many thoughts run through his head in that small moment between them.
Though, quite quickly, the ice melts away into something more pleasant as he is offered a silent smile. Shy, mayhaps?
He sort of gestures with the book to casually bring attention to it. Though he'd felt eyes on him before, he hadn't exactly expected a gift.
"Is this... some sort of program the library does for Christmas or something?" He asks curiously.