Fall, 1937

Ian

Urgh.

Ian lay on his sofa, fixed in an awkward slouch. The pain from the night’s earlier activities still radiated through his body, and the gruesome details of the actions taken flooded his mind. It happened each and every time he got back, gorey details filling his thoughts till he was on the brink of nausea.

He couldn’t believe he’d done that. Though, to be fair, he usually couldn’t believe he’d done it. As faces and wounds made their way into his active thoughts a horrible clarity of just how terrible he’d been always coursed through his system.

Ian wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to it.

“Hey, Foolhardy, where'dja put the alcohol? Nearly emptied my flasks during the last job.”

Crimson’s voice came from across the apartment as a yell, causing Ian to slide up on the couch, seizing up in pain as he strained to look at her.

She was scrounging around his kitchen, currently standing on a countertop, awkwardly rubbing her hand across the top of a cabinet in search of the bottles of alcohol. Ian sighed, leaning back into the sofa and closing his eyes.

“Should be on the cabinet to the left of that one,” he yelled back, voice raspy from exhaustion.

“Alright.”

Ian took a moment to look around his small apartment.

Worn off-white wallpaper with faint patterns along it adorned all the walls in the living room, shifting to plain white tile as it entered the kitchen. Dark red carpeting made up the flooring of the room, always with a musty smell that you just couldn’t get out no matter how hard you tried. The moment the smell hit his nostrils, he shifted, burying his face into the cushions of the sofa.

The sound of Crimson’s hands rummaging against the cupboards came from across the apartment, before it was just as quickly replaced by glass clattering.

“Sweet!”

The bottles clung together a few more times before Crimson jumped to the floor with a loud thump.

“Aw, Foolhardy, why’d you go and buy more Dandy’s!? This stuff tastes more like fruit juice than beer!”

Ian let out a breathy sigh between clenched teeth, straining his eyelids as if doing so would make him fall asleep faster.

Stolen story; please report.

“You’re free to go out and buy your own snazzy booze whenever you’d like, but can you keep it down? I’m trying to get some rest.”

“Rest!?”

Crimson’s steps became closer and closer as Ian heard her exit the kitchen and walk towards him across the carpeted flooring.

So much for getting some sleep.

He lazily opened his eyes to see Crimson a few feet away, setting down the bottles of flavored liquor on the coffee table in front of the couch. She was looking at him all the while, gauging his current condition.

“We just got back! Don’t you gotta eat?”

He gave her a frown as she stared at him. She’d changed back into normal clothing when they’d gotten back, now she was dressed in a casual white button up, and black pants, with similarly black suspenders coming up from the top of them and looping around her shoulders. She almost looked disappointed by the prospect that he wanted some shut-eye.

“I’m not that hungr-”

“Wrong. It was a rhetorical question, Foolhardy. C’mere!”

She walked up to the couch, planting a hand on one of his arms and gripping it hard.

“Wait, wait, gimme a moment!”

Without hesitation she wrenched him up off of the couch, and he cringed in pain as she placed an arm on each of his shoulders, stabling him so he could stand.

“Hell, Crimson! You gotta give me a sec!”

She only persisted, using her grip on his shoulders to push him towards the dining room table. His legs instinctively began to walk as she continued to shove him forward.

“C’mon, just one meal! You gotta eat so you’re all good to practice tomorrow!”

Once they’d reached the table she released one of her hands from his shoulder, grabbing the back of a chair and pulling it out from under the table. She then placed it back on his shoulder, using the leverage to push him into the chair. Another wave of pain radiated over him as he landed on it.

Ian sputtered a few words through the pain, “Practice? What’re you talking about?”

She ignored his question, only further pushing the prospect of dinner, “Look, you just rest here in this chair, and I’ll go ahead and whip something up for us, i

t’ll be great!”

She was acting odd, that much was clear to Ian, but the cause of it was less clear. She’d never once offered to do something like make dinner. He looked at her quizzically as she sped off into the kitchen, the sounds of slamming cabinet doors and clanging pots loudly clamoring from it.

“Just you wait, Foolhardy!”

With that declaration, the ruckus coming from the kitchen only seemed to grow louder.

Christ, I’m gonna have to clean up whatever the hell she’s doing tomorrow.

Crimson had a nasty habit of making a complete mess of his apartment. There’d be days where he’d come home to her passed out of the sofa, bottles all over the floor and large stains covering the floor’s carpet, all of which suspiciously happened to smell of booze.

Ian’s gaze swapped from the kitchen to his hand. The severed fingers still hadn’t fully healed, but they’d mostly grown back in the run back to the apartment. Right now they were fleshy stumps that went up to the first knuckle, falling just short of the length of his ring finger.

He moved them slowly, curling them into his palm, and rubbing them against the seared lines of skin, black lines burned into his hand. The lines crossed all along his skin, forming a circle containing a single star, all the lines of which intersected one another.

A pentagram.

The damn thing made it so he had to wear gloves every time he went out, as the infernal sign was well known enough that nearly anyone walking down the street would recognise it as some sort of demonic tampering upon him. Crimson had made it clear, no one should be made aware of it. It was one of the only things she was deadly serious about.

There was a lot she wouldn’t tell him, and to be honest he wasn’t sure he wanted any more information about infernal dealings. Most of the time it felt like the more he knew, the worse off he was.

Knowledge of more powerful creatures just made everything feel insignificant in comparison, especially humanity. Devils, imps, vampires, and all sorts of other creatures towered over humans in just about every aspect. They were more powerful, had quicker reflexes, and countless other abilities, whereas if a human fell the wrong way, kaput.

As Crimson’s war against his kitchen raged on in the background, Ian’s mind raced with all sorts of thoughts, his powerlessness, the night’s activities, and of what concoctions Crimson might be creating. Eventually though, the immense tiredness overcame Ian. His vision went hazy as his posture relaxed, the sounds of the kitchen slowly faded, and he drifted into sleep on the wooden chair.