Death stare of goat head fell upon him stirring the memoir moments of a life using big game hunting as a ploy while actual hunting of humans paid him well. Pitted eyes watched upon them. Looked over the patrons including the one who knew it better than he did. His reservations were held. So was feeling a little unhinged. He paid attention to old images at random where Isla left her mark. The ones that warmed up his blood and pushed steam to rise from his neck. It wasn't sudden by slow start to him feeling his anger buzzing beneath the surface. He could do better. Cooling down was going to take more effort than he had any care to pull for it.
Glances from regulars were unwelcoming. Seeing him as an outsider, only around to feed the register with ordered amount of drinks he needed to swallow back. Emptied house shots to local beer bottles collected on the table, waiting for the goat's head to split at its mouth and send a message. It moved, in his mind's eye, telling of all the historical moments of the bar. It had its share of wear, including the bar tops surface. Walls dated, showing once it had some luster, making the joint a fairly swanky place to be in its heyday. Now all it was, was a watering hole for the derelicts of the biker variety and retired law enforcement. It was his scene or he could make it such.
The thing was, Nate or Slade or whoever he felt the most at the core, could make any place his own. Fitting in, blending in mostly, and pretending he wasn't the speck that stood out, was his thing. He had the assistance though, and hand holding going into it but at certain times, including on the excursion across the USA, Isla was his lead. Except that evening. While soaking up another day in Seattle, she pounced on his buttons. He opened himself up to it. Was opened minded. Let a lot of rough stuff go in order to make the most of the trip that was now a token of appreciation. Not only in aging another year but for the mark of sentiments that bound them closer. Tradition.
One eye followed the very form that took center stage in front of a dingy jukebox. Hip swayed from the short distance. There he ran through the moments. The ones that were extremely high, so high that he believed it never was real or going to remain that way. To the lows that life almost hung in the balance if his choice had been made. For the greater of a good or not, the rough patches, sometimes of his own doing, were going to affect her life greatly than he could comprehend. She had to know it. He had to tell her so, it was in that blank stare where he thought about the better words to say. The ones that delayed his racing heart, while he attempted to swallow down another beer.
Three bottles down and he reached for the last one, which was empty. He forgot nursing on it took place even, forgot about the goat looking down at them all, mostly the two. It felt as if they were the only ones around when he turn down the noise. He left the static of choking coughs, jokes that reached the tip of insensitive to a crowd not of their own, and rough threats exchanged, behind and compressed. Skilled with tampering with the noise that surrounded including the disruption of scents to play on urge for cigarette, was tinkered with. The sly smile thrown in his direction from over the shoulder, and the music that queued garnered a head shake.
He wasn't with being the recipient of juvenile antics, especially if it meant the promise of a serenade and dance. Entertainment was better found in watching a man bleed to death after dishonesty was found or missed payments that was owed to him for contracts that required a scrupulous retrieval. Setting aside worry and thoughts about what was left behind at home, singular vision was undivided for sake of breaking down discomfort and making it into the sort of fun careless adults partook in.
Veni, vidi, vici
sputter dust & blood · 09/28
He glanced down, watching himself bleed. It was a gradual spill. Good suit ruined. The shot pierced his shoulder, then right at the chest just missing his heart. Tolerance to pain was at a medium, yet it didn't hurt any less. Sitting in the desert sand, rocked behind a Dodge Challenger, he groaned. Not out of the influx of pain but the situation he found himself in. Mad at himself he was only going to spend the night alone, gambling away money to win it back plus more.
Met up with an old associate who knew the city better than he had, we'll before his other half suspected him to be up to no good. Deeds were lain in neutral until making a bed, inviting the wrong type of people to rest right in it. He could've avoided the spray of bullets, easily. Perhaps swindle the assailants with precision, except his arrogance caused calculations on the defense to be squandered. A delayed shift here, not factoring the amount of bodies filing out of the SUV that followed in pursuit.
A chase could've been avoided, as the Vegas Strip had seen its share including the fleet of police. He avoided the latter, hoping he did. Instead trouble was invited out into the desert, where the darkened skies and bold constellations loomed upon them all.
He cocked his gun after reloading. The weapon was all he had on his person except for at the ankle. Where he needed the help of a higher caliber, he would need to make a dash for it, if anyone else was still breathing that is. He planned to draw them into a trap. Because money was the motivation, the orders of one handler wouldn't save his men. Nate knew this or was it the knowledge of Slade aiding in the situation?
Adrenaline kicked at full max, influencing his next moves, including the aim from underneath the vehicle. Single vision was his guide, aimed at a rising body, but it fell just as ankle and knee shattered from a couple of rounds released. He breathed, between healing gradually and an invincible pulse to keep moving, he needed to retreat before more of an attraction of blood lust took over.
"Fuckin' Mickey. Have fun he said. Make friends with a wannabe mobster, he said. He'll take care of you, he said," Nathan rambled under his breath and listened for the awakening of new footsteps. Back passenger car door was quiet when he heard the creak of it opened. Moaning of excruciating torment was blocked. He knew the two vehicles were eight men full at least, and three were unaccounted for as far as movement was concerned. Either they were dead or waiting him out until his head popped up.
He stayed on the ground to track movements, check the next legs that were seen. Tactical usage put him in a strange position after rolling off the ground to limit anymore damage to the borrowed car. It's owner was going to be more than pissed. Less so once earnings would push off in that direction. Isla was going to be pissed for coming back to the hotel and getting blood on a nice suit.
His anger was rolled into the boiling of his gut. Sauntering off to the side, he ducked low enough to miss the soaring round that could've pierced his ear if he moved too slowly. He held off from wasting bullets, wanting to make the mess cleaner than it had been. To find pleasure in taking them all out without the use of hardware. He wanted to use his hands to orchestrate their defeat. To kill them off and blame the findings on a drug deal gone wrong. He had the means to.
Cojones were at its heaviest, and one chance move, especially at the downturn of awakening the menace for hire, he split the theatricals the gun provided and agile movements propelled him to slide across a dust ridden hood throwing his weight on one of three left standing. He had an hour left before getting back to the strip and half a minute to cut them down without folly. Thirty seconds to be the last man standing.
marked for life
phantom pains & worries · 10/04
Sleeping in longer than four hours was luxury. Sleeping without being disturbed fell under the same category. Sensations across the skin of his upper back shoulder, just where the edge of his map of a tattoo were, had a place. He dreamed of a needle's edge finding micro puncture wounds but sealing definitely. The ink looked fresh. Cool air blown across it without flinching from the sting. It was the most he could remember and the reddened face of the cruel joke played upon him by his girlfriend and daughter. It boiled him to see the matching tattoos that meant far too close of him to feel comfortable with but sadness was another he met as he awakened from his extended sleep. She was gone, removed from the bed.
Allowing him to rest longer but he knew she done something. Like a pain, a faint sensation was met in the position where coordinates were supposed to be. He rose sans the fighting of any fogginess and wiped his face. If her indentation remained, he had her scent instead. It permeated, along with the sizable details of their intimate closure to a difficult night. He sought out the dog that usually gave him hassle by wining to hop on the bed for an ear scratch. His pup size needed the assistance and Nathan obliged, until zeroing in on the reminder at the back of his shoulder. The pen's marking was dried. Detailing in it felt enough to know skin was tampered with.
Eugene would have to wait until curiosity was answered. He slipped out of bed, limbs reflexing from the simple posture. He looked around for boxers to throw on and escaped into the bathroom. Light flipped on to brighten what the natural light couldn't. He seized the reflection of himself, looking closely with the eye that was able to see unlike his right ocular which was internally scarred. Vision took heed to the details around him, including the fairly dressed bathroom that never appeased his own tastes. He found the discrepancy peeking over his shoulder a little and searched for a hand mirror.
Coming across one to the point of tearing down the bathroom, he quickly met the mirror to look behind in the opposite reflection. '42.3601° N, 71.0589° W' was written in its place, just cutting off where he couldn't angle enough to see fully but it was there. Artistic skill aside, it's penmanship legible enough not to leave him dissatisfied when the sentiment, it's meaning thrown back at him. He was quiet, and reflective. Brought to a place where memories and current entanglements clashed. some for the worst and the rest for the better. He knew how much the ink meant to those involved who had it etched into their skin. He never realized how incomplete he felt of not being exactly part of it when his enhancement ruled out its chance of remaining.
Blue pen ink spelled it out for him. Resting but never assured. He took it as a sign but also a stretch of comfort as important as the coordinates were shared, he was reminded. He tried to distance himself from the awful hint of sadness by his skin healing or question other anomalies present as being the oil to water of another man's life. He had better things to waste his energy on and it pained him to think that being without a piece of ink was unworthy but it wasn't the case. He dropped the mirror at the door pushed open and the puppy strolling in not allowing Nate to leave him by himself or without his ear scratched.
He scooped up the dog into an arm as gently as he could muster and exited the bathroom before trailing where she went off to. Travels of one part of a home that wasn't his but opened to feel as such compounded to the extreme overwhelming sentiment he was unable to escape. Nathan didn't want to when there were plenty of chances to do so. This was his extension of what stability was like. How he had someone, something, and his examples of what family were despite being lucky than most to having an unconventional one. They were in one place. One destination he couldn't remain too far from when he felt the need to breathe. One city that marked where he would end up dying for the degenerates that meant what an entire world could give.
His steps strengthened as he was awake with the dog trying to celebrate the morning trying to leap on his shoulder and lick his face. He rescinded and walked into the kitchen hit with the sizzle sound and smell of bacon. Where she stood in a stolen shirt of his, stopped him in his tracks. He wanted to ask why. What possessed her to want to dot lines where the ink healed but he knew the answer to it. Thoughtful in a juvenile action, was remembered but he would still give hell about it.
