![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
phormthevixdjinn[Rapt Rapt Rapt]
"Christ," Vect muttered low to herself, juggling the tote bag from one hand to the other. She'd been knocking for ten minutes at this point. All things considered, Vect wondered if it would be best to just give up. Either she wasn't home at all, or else (and very likely) she didn't want to talk to anyone. Least of all talk to Vect. The smart thing to do would be to leave the bag on the doorstep for her and just head home.
But still. Vect had to try. Goddamn it, someone had to try. Alexis deserved that, at absolute minimum.
[Rapt Rapt Rapt]
"Alexis? Are you there?" Vect's knuckles struck against the door in quick succession, "It's Vect."
"I just want to make sure you're alright. I promise."
A heavy silence clung to Vect, smothering her. The kind of silence she found potent and full, overflowing with the utter absence of noise. No rush of passing cars, no chatter from a couple idly strolling down the street, nor any scramble of a stray dog's claws on the pavement. Just... burdensome silence. Vect felt like she was the only thing in a three mile radius making any kind of sound. Even the shifting of the tote bag in her grasp was deafeningly loud, for how isolated it sounded.
Every time she disturbed the quiet, Vect eventually felt it rush right back in to surround her. She could push it away for a moment, but soon after she was drowning in it yet again. That loathsome silence - it hung in the air along with her frozen breath. It made her feel obvious, exposed, vulnerable.
Vect dropped the tote at her feet as she yanked her jacket up around her shoulders. She ducked slightly into the collar as she huddled her arms across her chest to shake off the cold. It was bitter tonight. Bitter in a way she'd rarely felt in the past. It wasn't supposed to get that cold here. It never snowed , barely even iced over. That's why she LIVED here, after all - Vect hated feeling cold. She had grown up in the desert, so being cold always made her feel so... wrong. Surrounded on all sides. Losing energy. Almost helpless.
The sudden shuffling of locks behind the apartment door made Vect's ears perk up swiftly. Her heart jumped a beat, and then calmed. She exhaled.
The door opened but a sliver - hardly enough to reveal anything on the other side. Yet, even through this narrow ribbon of an opening Vect could see enough - She could see a thin stripe of light brown fur and tall ears.
"Alexis, thank fuck, you're alright." Vect smiled with relief, stepping forward with enthusiasm, "The girls and I were just so wo-"
"Stop," Alexis's voice was soft, yet forceful. Even her single word seemed to tremble and shudder in her throat. And yet it landed with unexpected emotion.
That single word struck Vect square in the face.
As little as Alexis spoke, it was enough to make herself clear. Vect had heard this tone before. She'd seen this state before, in so many others. She'd heard the exact mix of urgency and desperate sadness. This was familiar, in a gut wrenching kind of way.
Echos of that conflicted emotion rippled through Alexis's shaky voice, "Vect... You need to leave. Please."
"Alexis?" Vect spoke softer now. She paused for a moment, and then took a closer look through that tiny gap in the door.
Her heart sank.
Vect saw enough: Hoodie. Jeans. T-shirt. Mussed hair pulled back tight. Heavy evidence of tears from her welled up and reddened eyes. And no ribbons anywhere. It was Alexis, of course, but an Alexis completely other than what Vect was used to. A fennec, to be sure, but a fennec who appeared haunted and gaunt. This was an Alexis entirely other than the Alexis who had shared herself and her happiness, other than the Alexis who had reveled in her awakening, shared her enthusiasm, and displayed joy when amid friends.
The realization was immediate. Vect saw beyond the safe and boring clothes. She saw the wounds - The ones that were so obvious even if they weren't visible, or physical. She saw the hurt. The hurt that so many girls carried with them everywhere, tucked away in their sweaters, thinking it was invisible.
Fuck, Vect thought to herself.
She still deserved help. She still deserved someone reaching out.
Vect tried her hardest to speak softly, slowly, and genuinely. "Alexis, I... I just wanted to see if you're okay. Oh, and I wanted to bring you your things." Vect picked up the tote bag from the doorstep, offering it gingerly to Alexis from the other side of the door. "You left a lot of clothes at the club last time you were there. And those shoes were so cute on you, I figured you'd w-"
"Stop, please." Alexis pleaded quietly, "Just... Keep it yourself. Or... or throw it in the trash. Get rid of it. I don't care. Just..."
"But," Vect tried her best to massage her voice, to make her words as gentle as she could, "you love these shoes."
"..."
That silence again, clinging to every awkward moment. Vect felt smothered. Yet at the same time she could hardly pay that any mind under these circumstances. She understood that Alexis was struggling. She could see it even through that crack in the door. She saw enough to notice Alexis' mouth was opening without making a sound, repeatedly gasping tiny breaths, as if struggling to speak and choking on her own words. She saw in those eyes that unique flavor of distress, some hellish mixture of anger and helpless sadness.
"I can't do this anymore," eyes downturned, barely a whisper.
"Can't do this?" Vect paused a moment. A long moment. "Can't do what, Alexis? Please, help me understand."
"Why are you making this harder than it has to be?" The words croaked from her tightened throat miserably. "You know exactly what I mean."
Alexis' gaze rose to meet Vect through that slender crack, a single, watering eye meeting the mink's gaze as those fingertips squeezed around the door. "I can't be Alexis anymore."
Vect knew the words were coming, but even still, they landed with force that set her off-balance. She felt a pit open under her heart as the silence rushed back to smother her. Every time this happened, it broke her soul a little more - Because every time it happened, it was never a rational decision.
It was always self-harm.
"W... 'Can't be Alexis'? You can't be yourself?"
The fennec didn't respond verbally. Instead that slice of her face turned down, tears starting to stream over her cheeks in earnest.
"Please," the mink pleaded, "Help me to understand. Please explain it to me."
Alexis shook her head slowly, finding her voice useless. She moved to close the door, but before she could seal it Vect reached out a hand to keep it open.
"Alexis, please. Please listen," The mink's words were clear, now. They weren't soft, or pleading. They were solid, yet desperate. She struggled to keep herself level.
"If what you experienced with us wasn't what you wanted, if in the time since then you've discovered it's not for you - If you well and truly believe that you understand yourself to be someone else at your core: I respect that. No one will judge you for it. We'll support you and love you no matter what, even if your path doesn't overlap with ours. That's your journey, and that's your right to decide." She took a step further toward the threshold, "But I need you to tell me right now, right here, that that's the case. If it is, I'll leave immediately. I'll turn around and walk away, and while we'll always welcome you back no matter what and no matter who you are, if you sincerely want it I'll be gone so long as you like. We never wanted, and never want, you to be anyone you're not. We never want you to be pressured into being someone you don't want to be. So if it is absolutely what you wish, I'll turn around and you'll never see me again."
Vect's grasp on the door was shaking a bit now as she looked to Alexis intently, "But before that, I need to hear it in no uncertain terms. From you. Clearly. Directly. Not that you can't. Not that it's impossible. Not that 'It won't work'. Not that something stands in your way. If those are the reasons, we can conquer them together. If there are obstacles, they can be surmounted. But if it's truly something that you don't desire, then I understand."
Vect leaned in closer toward that sliver of Alexis she could see through the door. At this point the urgency in her words was mounting. She was losing her cool, despite how soft she was trying to keep her tone.
"I need YOU to tell me you don't want to be Alexis."
The fennec shook her head slowly as she gazed at her feet. The simmering silence roiled around them both, pierced momentarily only by her barely stifled weeping.
"What does it matter what I want?"
The fennec gasped silent sobs as she struggled. Tiny, desperate swallows of air punctuated her inability to speak as her cheeks continued to flow with tears. Eventually, her words crept slowly past her quivering lips, each crawling slowly past hardly suppressed, gentle tears. "What does it matter what I want to be, if I can't be safe, Vect?"
"What does it matter what I think of myself, who I think I am... when my place in the world, my very survival, hinges on how other people see me? How they interpret me?" Vect could practically hear the girl's heart sinking into a hollow mire as the silence extended a moment. There was a kind of defeated resignation that instilled her every struggling word with hopelessness. "I can't lie to you, Vect. Being Alexis, after all these years? Being able to see the me I wanted to be, see that me be real? It... it felt like the most important thing in the world. I felt complete. For the first time in my life I felt... I felt whole. I knew people like me, and I knew what it was like to be... comfortable. It somehow, it felt like everything was going to be okay."
"But what does any of that matter?" There was a resolve behind her sadness, a desperation and anger she couldn't hide. "What does it matter when I can't be me anywhere else, without tremendous risk?"
"How many of your girls do you care for in your organization, Vect? And of them, how many are chronically unemployed? Have you ever asked yourself why? How many of them feel safe straying from the club alone? How many of them only walk around as a group of three or more, unless they're hiding in plain sight - passing themselves off as someone they're not? How many of them wind up hurt, emotionally or physically, because of who they tell the world they are?"
"And how many of them are dead?"
The silence rose up past Vect's ears for a tortured minute.
Somewhere behind Vect, a single dried leaf floated to the ground on a silent breeze. It glided to the ground and skipped once against the pavement. In that moment, to Vect, it felt like the loudest sound imaginable.
Her throat was choked with yet more silence as she chewed on the words that Alexis had painfully shared.
"Goodbye, Vect," Alexis spoke softly, and very gently closed the door.
It took a good twenty minutes before Vect finally turned from the doorstep and started her way home.
She had left the tote by the door, though. She had to.
The streets were lousy with fog. Vect felt the damp, sickening embrace of wet, cold mist as she shuffled her way across manicured sidewalks. She didn't like being out in the haze, not this late at night. She liked being in this neighborhood even less. Nevertheless she moved with little haste despite her discomfort. Her feet felt heavy as her heart.
The words Alexis had gently poured from weeping lips kept simmering in Vect's mind. She couldn't stop thinking about it.
Vect was always the first one to tell any prospective member about the risks, about the very real dangers, being a part of her community entailed. Being up front about that detail was important to her. None of this was supposed to be a surprise. None of this was supposed to be deception. The idea that it was a purposeful ruse - That particular accusation got flung around too much as it was, and she hated that shit. So her community, and Vect in particular, took special care to ensure it was all on the table beforehand. It was never withheld, never obscured.
But that shit wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to anyone that they had to have a conversation about "If you want to explore yourself with us, you have to accept that some asshole might hate you". The fact they had to do that in any capacity wasn't right. There was so much more at stake, so much more joy to be had than risk! But still... The risk was there. It was undeniable.
The fact that any risk existed at all was bullshit. All they ever did - all she ever did - was try to make things as safe and comfortable as possible. That was the goal! The ideal! A fucking comfortable place to be. A goddamned place to exist, and the knowledge to make it possible.
And yet, she couldn't deny what Alexis had said. About the hate. The danger. The fact that so many of her closest friends and sisters were marginalized out of society, forced to beg friends for support. The fact that some asshole could literally murder them and likely get away with it.
Vect swiftly slammed her sneakered foot into the trunk of a stifled tree as she passed - Her kick finding the wood protruding from the cement hard enough to liberate a handful of crisp, orange leaves above.
Why were they always responsible for some other bastard's bigoted violence? The danger never originated with them! And yet they shouldered the blame for it all. Every time. It was their fault, just for...
Vect's very soul sank to think of Alexis - and those like her - Who faced the brunt of that violence. Even if only silently and indirectly. Vect could take the hate if it was directed at her. That was her lot in life, and she was happy to do it. But the idea that someone else finding themself, embracing themself, just being themself - That anyone in such a situation should be under threat of goddamned physical violence wasn't fucking just or reasonable. And all that bullshit came from...
"Lost another one, did you?"
Ichor thick words oozed through the fog unbidden, dribbling into Vect's ears. A voice leaking from the hazy suburban park just to her left as she passed. She didn't have to turn her head to understand. Just hearing the words choked her brain almost immediately, dumped a shock of freezing fear into her veins in an instant. Her feet were instantly rooted to the spot.
"How very sad."
Shit... Shit. SHIT.
"Look on the bright side, Vector." A thin, razored shadow took shape, slowly assumed substance from the mist. "At least this one's still breathing."
The mink turned her head slightly to the left, trying her best to be measured. There she saw a thing of angles and edges. Arms too long, legs stepping forward just slightly too much with each stride. Human, ostensibly. The man seemed to somehow leave reality frayed in his wake as he emerged from the haze, that chiseled, unnatural crack of a grin across announcing his arrival. Vect's chest tightened at once. It was more than a little hard for her to breathe. She could feel his presence exceeding his physical limits as he poured into existence.
ShitshitshitshitshitShitShitShitSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT!
FUCK!!
Vect's heart suddenly awoke with newfound terror as she recognized her situation. The ice water in her blood surged down her legs, through her arms, and round the tips of her fingers before making the return trip to her heart. It arrived home with a stunning shock. Trembling, the mink reached a shaking hand past her breast, into the interior pocket her coat. She fumbled with the package there before bringing a cigarette up to her unsteady lips with shaking fingertips.
She turned to face him with as much poise as she could muster. Her feet skidded across the pavement awkwardly as she fought for balance, struggling to assume what appeared like a position of ease as she faced him.
As she turned, she pulled a lighter from her jacket and flipped it open to ignite the flame. She bent her face down toward the flicker, holding her mouth close to light the cig. She focused her attention on that simple, isolated motion more than the man in front of her. Or at least, she tried to make it look that way.
"Hey Andy. What's shakin'?"
She took a drag from the cigarette before regarding Remmington with a level gaze. Vect made a gesture with smoldering stick in hand, sweeping dismissively left and right, as it to motion to the spaces beside him. "Where're the flunkies today, Andy? Not like you to travel without an entourage of assholes. You gonna be okay without someone to lick your boots?"
Vect knew, very pointedly, that these could be her last moments alive.
The corners of Remmington's lip barely cracked, his eye making his best approximation of a smile. It was quite unconvincing.
"You know, you ought to be thankful, Vector," his voice felt like thick, viscous acid. "So few realize that they're on the path to ruin before they pass the point of no return. ■■■■ almost made a grave error."
Those words cut through her immediate fear. Vect felt a surge of raw emotion, and instinctively snapped her head to glare at Remmington, "Her name's Alexis."
"Why the fuck should I care what his name is?"
The freezing chill in Vect's veins began to thaw. Something else was starting to flow through her heart.
Remmington raised his head ever so slightly. Just enough to ensure that his placid, unmoving gaze was angled slightly above Vect's eye line. He sure looked like a pale, fragile, gaunt man, if you weren't paying too much attention. Yet something about his stare hit Vect with an intangible sense of weight, square in the center of her chest. It only intensified as he spoke. "How many have you led to ruin, I wonder? Have you been keeping count, Vector? The hapless dullards that you lure into disaster with promises of debauchery disguised as self-discovery? Or are they like so many discarded prophylactics to you?"
Vect narrowed her eyes as she took a long, pointed drag on her cigarette. She exhaled haze from her lips as she gestured toward Remmington, doing her best to hide her accelerated, uncontrolled heart rate.
"You know what, Andy? I got a train to catch. You have a miserable evening, `kay?" Vect walked backwards as she spoke, quickly turning on her heel to face the other direction and -
Remmington's face suddenly loomed inches away from her own. Vect recoiled backward in panic. Her hand instinctually flew to the small of her back, fingers on the grip of her machine pistol hidden there, wedged in her waistline of her pants.
"Careful, Vector," Remmington oozed further, leaning forward ever so slightly, "Wouldn't want to lower the property value around here, now, would you? It's worth more than you'll ever amount to."
"You better fuck off, Andy," Vect halfway grunted through gritted teeth. "I dunno what the fuck you're pulling here, but I will not hesitate to put you in the ground."
"Please, try." His eyes flickered somehow, a darkness behind his pupils that made Vect feel uncomfortable in the pit of her stomach. "I wonder why you visited him tonight, Vector. Genuine concern for his wellbeing? Desire to pull him back into your depravity? Upset at losing a new toy to exploit?"
Vect was breathing heavier now. Faster, too. It was an almost ragged desperation in her lungs. Her fear was mutating into anger. She could feel it happening rapidly, could recognize the blaze as it washed over her. The glacial chill was gone, giving way to roiling fury. The adrenaline was not gone, but it was being redirected. She had to be careful.
In an instant, a realization dawned on the mink: Why Remmington was here. Alone. Why he was waiting for her.
Because he had already been here. Because he had-
"Maybe you were here for something else. Hrm? Maybe you already 'touched' that one. Needed to control him before it got out of hand."
"Tell me, Vector. Did you fuck him?" The malice with which he spoke his words cut deep into Vect's psyche, "did you infect him?"
Remmington's gaze slowly shifted, breaking from Vect and methodically tilting toward the apartment complex she had just departed. Vect could practically feel his burning eyes directing toward Alexis in the distance.
Vect's fingers tightened around her weapon. She had to keep control. She knew she was being baited. She knew the last thing she could afford to do would b-
"Do I need to clean this mess of yours up, too? Just like all the others?"
Remmington's voice curdled with slick, oozing mockey, "Just like I cleaned up Ca■■■-"
"FUCKING PRICK!"
[WHOCK!]
Vect planted her heels, reeled back her head, and smashed her cranium full force into Remmington's placid maw. The man stumbled backward, stunned and off balance for a split second by the surprise strike. Vect exploited the window of opportunity as aggressively as she could. Her fingers squeezed around the grip of the machine pistol as she tore it from its hiding place.
She jammed the weapon under Remmington's neck, and crushed the trigger.
[BrrrrrrrrrRRRRAAAAAP!]
The suburban silence was torn to a thousand shreds by the report of automatic gunfire. Vect unloaded half a magazine into Remmington's jaw in an instant. Thick wet splattered across her face as dark, onyx syrup erupted in spectacular fashion from Andrew's viciously rent flesh. It was hard for her brain to parse what was happening, or comprehend what she saw - merely a mess of broken meat and rivulets of pouring, thick ooze that spilled from the gaping wound. Dark ichor landed on the pavement below with dull, full slaps. She felt the splash of the blowback as it painted her face with splatters of darkness.
And then... silence. The sound of her own desperate breath was solitary, but nearly deafening. Alone. Time stretched outward impossibly as Remmington's body recoiled a step, his shattered, bifurcated head bending backward from the force of point-blank gunfire. An arc of viscous, pitch black ooze streamed from what was once his jaw, up through the air.
[THOOM]
Reality was made a mockery as Remmington's oppressive, overwrought boot stamped one step forward. His gory, partially exploded head quickly snapped forward into position. Dark and wounded, the thickened ooze rapidly slowed to a trickle as his untouched eyes re-leveled their gaze at Vect. She could see the shards of bone, missing teeth, broken fragments of his skull that burst forth from behind his nose. A handful of bullets exited his cheek along with the waterfall of slick, dark goo, clattering to the pavement below as Vect stared on in horror. She could see it - See the emptiness behind that flesh. See the emptiness reaching forward, consuming his wound. She could not process this - but she could see it.
An eternal second passed before Vect could fully regain control of her nervous system, but in that time she could see Remmington's fist pulling back over his shoulder. What she was unable to follow were the three impacts of that fist - The ones that collided with her chest in rapid succession. Yet, even if she could not see the blows, she could certainly feel each strike as it rained down upon her. Then another in the shoulder. And another in the stomach. And then the force of full, potent impact on her jaw. Her vision pulsed crimson and shook. Images were incomprehensible, unrecognizable flashes that were disconnected from time. There was only disorientation, and pain. So much pain. Eventually she felt a hand on her throat, lifting her from the ground. This was followed by her back hitting something.
Hard.
Vect let out a wheezing cry - an attempt at a shout of agony that choked to death inside her chest before it could escape. Slowly she became aware of Remmington's too-long spindle fingers tightening around her neck, holding her against the thick park oak that he had slammed her into so powerfully. She coughed, blood spraying from her own lips now as she struggled to breathe. Her disjointed vision slowly returned to her, though she was barely able to keep her eyes open.
Remmington's face was closer than ever. A pulsing, streaming darkness leaking from the lower jaw she had shot off just moments ago. As her senses gradually caught up with her, she could see Remmington gasping large, open-mouth pulses from his somehow returning jaw bones - akin to a wounded animal steeling itself. Slowly, very slowly - the cascading ichor began to relent. The onyx sap steadied, congealed... and gave way to normalcy.
Within moments, Remmington looked no worse for wear. Normal. Fine.
Vect was able to note this only between extreme spikes of agony.
"Let's get something straight, Vector. I consider myself a being of significant patience. But I am running low when it comes to you. You do not get to die until you've satisfied me. You will suffer until you do."
"You're going to give me exactly what I want, and you're going to give it to me soon. And until you do, this will continue."
In a swift motion, Remmington swept his leg under the mink's, knocking her feet out from under her. Simultaneously, he released her throat - sending her body crumpling to the ground in an instant. Vect let out a tortured shout as she hit the concrete of the sidewalk with the full force of the fall. And then let out another anguished cry as Remmington's boot collided with her stomach in a viscous kick.
Remmington loomed high above even as Vect struggled to huddle inward on herself in pain. He took a moment to adjust his jaw with a deliberate hand, casually assessing his freshly mended flesh. Then, with the totality of his weight, he stepped on Vect's neck and leaned down, just millimeters from her ear. The mink squirmed in agony under his boot, fighting intensely just to draw any air at all, desperate for the pain to end.
"Your anguish will not lessen. Not until you've given me what's due... And next time... You'll wish I had come for you, instead."
Very slowly, Remmington reached into Vect's inner coat pocket. While still standing on her throat, he pulled the pack of cigarettes out, and then stood to his full height.
At last, he removed his weight from her body. He stood tall and calm as he pulled a cigarette out for himself, lit it, and savored it for a long, drawn out moment.
Remmington turned his back on the bleeding mink, leaving her wounded body in a pile as he very slowly walked away.
Vect's labored breathing filled her own ears as she trembled on the concrete. Slowly, as Remmington melted back into fog, the world around her began to grow fuzzy and dim.
And the silence came rushing back to surround her.
"Christ," Vect muttered low to herself, juggling the tote bag from one hand to the other. She'd been knocking for ten minutes at this point. All things considered, Vect wondered if it would be best to just give up. Either she wasn't home at all, or else (and very likely) she didn't want to talk to anyone. Least of all talk to Vect. The smart thing to do would be to leave the bag on the doorstep for her and just head home.
But still. Vect had to try. Goddamn it, someone had to try. Alexis deserved that, at absolute minimum.
[Rapt Rapt Rapt]
"Alexis? Are you there?" Vect's knuckles struck against the door in quick succession, "It's Vect."
"I just want to make sure you're alright. I promise."
A heavy silence clung to Vect, smothering her. The kind of silence she found potent and full, overflowing with the utter absence of noise. No rush of passing cars, no chatter from a couple idly strolling down the street, nor any scramble of a stray dog's claws on the pavement. Just... burdensome silence. Vect felt like she was the only thing in a three mile radius making any kind of sound. Even the shifting of the tote bag in her grasp was deafeningly loud, for how isolated it sounded.
Every time she disturbed the quiet, Vect eventually felt it rush right back in to surround her. She could push it away for a moment, but soon after she was drowning in it yet again. That loathsome silence - it hung in the air along with her frozen breath. It made her feel obvious, exposed, vulnerable.
Vect dropped the tote at her feet as she yanked her jacket up around her shoulders. She ducked slightly into the collar as she huddled her arms across her chest to shake off the cold. It was bitter tonight. Bitter in a way she'd rarely felt in the past. It wasn't supposed to get that cold here. It never snowed , barely even iced over. That's why she LIVED here, after all - Vect hated feeling cold. She had grown up in the desert, so being cold always made her feel so... wrong. Surrounded on all sides. Losing energy. Almost helpless.
The sudden shuffling of locks behind the apartment door made Vect's ears perk up swiftly. Her heart jumped a beat, and then calmed. She exhaled.
The door opened but a sliver - hardly enough to reveal anything on the other side. Yet, even through this narrow ribbon of an opening Vect could see enough - She could see a thin stripe of light brown fur and tall ears.
"Alexis, thank fuck, you're alright." Vect smiled with relief, stepping forward with enthusiasm, "The girls and I were just so wo-"
"Stop," Alexis's voice was soft, yet forceful. Even her single word seemed to tremble and shudder in her throat. And yet it landed with unexpected emotion.
That single word struck Vect square in the face.
As little as Alexis spoke, it was enough to make herself clear. Vect had heard this tone before. She'd seen this state before, in so many others. She'd heard the exact mix of urgency and desperate sadness. This was familiar, in a gut wrenching kind of way.
Echos of that conflicted emotion rippled through Alexis's shaky voice, "Vect... You need to leave. Please."
"Alexis?" Vect spoke softer now. She paused for a moment, and then took a closer look through that tiny gap in the door.
Her heart sank.
Vect saw enough: Hoodie. Jeans. T-shirt. Mussed hair pulled back tight. Heavy evidence of tears from her welled up and reddened eyes. And no ribbons anywhere. It was Alexis, of course, but an Alexis completely other than what Vect was used to. A fennec, to be sure, but a fennec who appeared haunted and gaunt. This was an Alexis entirely other than the Alexis who had shared herself and her happiness, other than the Alexis who had reveled in her awakening, shared her enthusiasm, and displayed joy when amid friends.
The realization was immediate. Vect saw beyond the safe and boring clothes. She saw the wounds - The ones that were so obvious even if they weren't visible, or physical. She saw the hurt. The hurt that so many girls carried with them everywhere, tucked away in their sweaters, thinking it was invisible.
Fuck, Vect thought to herself.
She still deserved help. She still deserved someone reaching out.
Vect tried her hardest to speak softly, slowly, and genuinely. "Alexis, I... I just wanted to see if you're okay. Oh, and I wanted to bring you your things." Vect picked up the tote bag from the doorstep, offering it gingerly to Alexis from the other side of the door. "You left a lot of clothes at the club last time you were there. And those shoes were so cute on you, I figured you'd w-"
"Stop, please." Alexis pleaded quietly, "Just... Keep it yourself. Or... or throw it in the trash. Get rid of it. I don't care. Just..."
"But," Vect tried her best to massage her voice, to make her words as gentle as she could, "you love these shoes."
"..."
That silence again, clinging to every awkward moment. Vect felt smothered. Yet at the same time she could hardly pay that any mind under these circumstances. She understood that Alexis was struggling. She could see it even through that crack in the door. She saw enough to notice Alexis' mouth was opening without making a sound, repeatedly gasping tiny breaths, as if struggling to speak and choking on her own words. She saw in those eyes that unique flavor of distress, some hellish mixture of anger and helpless sadness.
"I can't do this anymore," eyes downturned, barely a whisper.
"Can't do this?" Vect paused a moment. A long moment. "Can't do what, Alexis? Please, help me understand."
"Why are you making this harder than it has to be?" The words croaked from her tightened throat miserably. "You know exactly what I mean."
Alexis' gaze rose to meet Vect through that slender crack, a single, watering eye meeting the mink's gaze as those fingertips squeezed around the door. "I can't be Alexis anymore."
Vect knew the words were coming, but even still, they landed with force that set her off-balance. She felt a pit open under her heart as the silence rushed back to smother her. Every time this happened, it broke her soul a little more - Because every time it happened, it was never a rational decision.
It was always self-harm.
"W... 'Can't be Alexis'? You can't be yourself?"
The fennec didn't respond verbally. Instead that slice of her face turned down, tears starting to stream over her cheeks in earnest.
"Please," the mink pleaded, "Help me to understand. Please explain it to me."
Alexis shook her head slowly, finding her voice useless. She moved to close the door, but before she could seal it Vect reached out a hand to keep it open.
"Alexis, please. Please listen," The mink's words were clear, now. They weren't soft, or pleading. They were solid, yet desperate. She struggled to keep herself level.
"If what you experienced with us wasn't what you wanted, if in the time since then you've discovered it's not for you - If you well and truly believe that you understand yourself to be someone else at your core: I respect that. No one will judge you for it. We'll support you and love you no matter what, even if your path doesn't overlap with ours. That's your journey, and that's your right to decide." She took a step further toward the threshold, "But I need you to tell me right now, right here, that that's the case. If it is, I'll leave immediately. I'll turn around and walk away, and while we'll always welcome you back no matter what and no matter who you are, if you sincerely want it I'll be gone so long as you like. We never wanted, and never want, you to be anyone you're not. We never want you to be pressured into being someone you don't want to be. So if it is absolutely what you wish, I'll turn around and you'll never see me again."
Vect's grasp on the door was shaking a bit now as she looked to Alexis intently, "But before that, I need to hear it in no uncertain terms. From you. Clearly. Directly. Not that you can't. Not that it's impossible. Not that 'It won't work'. Not that something stands in your way. If those are the reasons, we can conquer them together. If there are obstacles, they can be surmounted. But if it's truly something that you don't desire, then I understand."
Vect leaned in closer toward that sliver of Alexis she could see through the door. At this point the urgency in her words was mounting. She was losing her cool, despite how soft she was trying to keep her tone.
"I need YOU to tell me you don't want to be Alexis."
The fennec shook her head slowly as she gazed at her feet. The simmering silence roiled around them both, pierced momentarily only by her barely stifled weeping.
"What does it matter what I want?"
The fennec gasped silent sobs as she struggled. Tiny, desperate swallows of air punctuated her inability to speak as her cheeks continued to flow with tears. Eventually, her words crept slowly past her quivering lips, each crawling slowly past hardly suppressed, gentle tears. "What does it matter what I want to be, if I can't be safe, Vect?"
"What does it matter what I think of myself, who I think I am... when my place in the world, my very survival, hinges on how other people see me? How they interpret me?" Vect could practically hear the girl's heart sinking into a hollow mire as the silence extended a moment. There was a kind of defeated resignation that instilled her every struggling word with hopelessness. "I can't lie to you, Vect. Being Alexis, after all these years? Being able to see the me I wanted to be, see that me be real? It... it felt like the most important thing in the world. I felt complete. For the first time in my life I felt... I felt whole. I knew people like me, and I knew what it was like to be... comfortable. It somehow, it felt like everything was going to be okay."
"But what does any of that matter?" There was a resolve behind her sadness, a desperation and anger she couldn't hide. "What does it matter when I can't be me anywhere else, without tremendous risk?"
"How many of your girls do you care for in your organization, Vect? And of them, how many are chronically unemployed? Have you ever asked yourself why? How many of them feel safe straying from the club alone? How many of them only walk around as a group of three or more, unless they're hiding in plain sight - passing themselves off as someone they're not? How many of them wind up hurt, emotionally or physically, because of who they tell the world they are?"
"And how many of them are dead?"
The silence rose up past Vect's ears for a tortured minute.
Somewhere behind Vect, a single dried leaf floated to the ground on a silent breeze. It glided to the ground and skipped once against the pavement. In that moment, to Vect, it felt like the loudest sound imaginable.
Her throat was choked with yet more silence as she chewed on the words that Alexis had painfully shared.
"Goodbye, Vect," Alexis spoke softly, and very gently closed the door.
It took a good twenty minutes before Vect finally turned from the doorstep and started her way home.
She had left the tote by the door, though. She had to.
The streets were lousy with fog. Vect felt the damp, sickening embrace of wet, cold mist as she shuffled her way across manicured sidewalks. She didn't like being out in the haze, not this late at night. She liked being in this neighborhood even less. Nevertheless she moved with little haste despite her discomfort. Her feet felt heavy as her heart.
The words Alexis had gently poured from weeping lips kept simmering in Vect's mind. She couldn't stop thinking about it.
Vect was always the first one to tell any prospective member about the risks, about the very real dangers, being a part of her community entailed. Being up front about that detail was important to her. None of this was supposed to be a surprise. None of this was supposed to be deception. The idea that it was a purposeful ruse - That particular accusation got flung around too much as it was, and she hated that shit. So her community, and Vect in particular, took special care to ensure it was all on the table beforehand. It was never withheld, never obscured.
But that shit wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to anyone that they had to have a conversation about "If you want to explore yourself with us, you have to accept that some asshole might hate you". The fact they had to do that in any capacity wasn't right. There was so much more at stake, so much more joy to be had than risk! But still... The risk was there. It was undeniable.
The fact that any risk existed at all was bullshit. All they ever did - all she ever did - was try to make things as safe and comfortable as possible. That was the goal! The ideal! A fucking comfortable place to be. A goddamned place to exist, and the knowledge to make it possible.
And yet, she couldn't deny what Alexis had said. About the hate. The danger. The fact that so many of her closest friends and sisters were marginalized out of society, forced to beg friends for support. The fact that some asshole could literally murder them and likely get away with it.
Vect swiftly slammed her sneakered foot into the trunk of a stifled tree as she passed - Her kick finding the wood protruding from the cement hard enough to liberate a handful of crisp, orange leaves above.
Why were they always responsible for some other bastard's bigoted violence? The danger never originated with them! And yet they shouldered the blame for it all. Every time. It was their fault, just for...
Vect's very soul sank to think of Alexis - and those like her - Who faced the brunt of that violence. Even if only silently and indirectly. Vect could take the hate if it was directed at her. That was her lot in life, and she was happy to do it. But the idea that someone else finding themself, embracing themself, just being themself - That anyone in such a situation should be under threat of goddamned physical violence wasn't fucking just or reasonable. And all that bullshit came from...
"Lost another one, did you?"
Ichor thick words oozed through the fog unbidden, dribbling into Vect's ears. A voice leaking from the hazy suburban park just to her left as she passed. She didn't have to turn her head to understand. Just hearing the words choked her brain almost immediately, dumped a shock of freezing fear into her veins in an instant. Her feet were instantly rooted to the spot.
"How very sad."
Shit... Shit. SHIT.
"Look on the bright side, Vector." A thin, razored shadow took shape, slowly assumed substance from the mist. "At least this one's still breathing."
The mink turned her head slightly to the left, trying her best to be measured. There she saw a thing of angles and edges. Arms too long, legs stepping forward just slightly too much with each stride. Human, ostensibly. The man seemed to somehow leave reality frayed in his wake as he emerged from the haze, that chiseled, unnatural crack of a grin across announcing his arrival. Vect's chest tightened at once. It was more than a little hard for her to breathe. She could feel his presence exceeding his physical limits as he poured into existence.
ShitshitshitshitshitShitShitShitSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT!
FUCK!!
Vect's heart suddenly awoke with newfound terror as she recognized her situation. The ice water in her blood surged down her legs, through her arms, and round the tips of her fingers before making the return trip to her heart. It arrived home with a stunning shock. Trembling, the mink reached a shaking hand past her breast, into the interior pocket her coat. She fumbled with the package there before bringing a cigarette up to her unsteady lips with shaking fingertips.
She turned to face him with as much poise as she could muster. Her feet skidded across the pavement awkwardly as she fought for balance, struggling to assume what appeared like a position of ease as she faced him.
As she turned, she pulled a lighter from her jacket and flipped it open to ignite the flame. She bent her face down toward the flicker, holding her mouth close to light the cig. She focused her attention on that simple, isolated motion more than the man in front of her. Or at least, she tried to make it look that way.
"Hey Andy. What's shakin'?"
She took a drag from the cigarette before regarding Remmington with a level gaze. Vect made a gesture with smoldering stick in hand, sweeping dismissively left and right, as it to motion to the spaces beside him. "Where're the flunkies today, Andy? Not like you to travel without an entourage of assholes. You gonna be okay without someone to lick your boots?"
Vect knew, very pointedly, that these could be her last moments alive.
The corners of Remmington's lip barely cracked, his eye making his best approximation of a smile. It was quite unconvincing.
"You know, you ought to be thankful, Vector," his voice felt like thick, viscous acid. "So few realize that they're on the path to ruin before they pass the point of no return. ■■■■ almost made a grave error."
Those words cut through her immediate fear. Vect felt a surge of raw emotion, and instinctively snapped her head to glare at Remmington, "Her name's Alexis."
"Why the fuck should I care what his name is?"
The freezing chill in Vect's veins began to thaw. Something else was starting to flow through her heart.
Remmington raised his head ever so slightly. Just enough to ensure that his placid, unmoving gaze was angled slightly above Vect's eye line. He sure looked like a pale, fragile, gaunt man, if you weren't paying too much attention. Yet something about his stare hit Vect with an intangible sense of weight, square in the center of her chest. It only intensified as he spoke. "How many have you led to ruin, I wonder? Have you been keeping count, Vector? The hapless dullards that you lure into disaster with promises of debauchery disguised as self-discovery? Or are they like so many discarded prophylactics to you?"
Vect narrowed her eyes as she took a long, pointed drag on her cigarette. She exhaled haze from her lips as she gestured toward Remmington, doing her best to hide her accelerated, uncontrolled heart rate.
"You know what, Andy? I got a train to catch. You have a miserable evening, `kay?" Vect walked backwards as she spoke, quickly turning on her heel to face the other direction and -
Remmington's face suddenly loomed inches away from her own. Vect recoiled backward in panic. Her hand instinctually flew to the small of her back, fingers on the grip of her machine pistol hidden there, wedged in her waistline of her pants.
"Careful, Vector," Remmington oozed further, leaning forward ever so slightly, "Wouldn't want to lower the property value around here, now, would you? It's worth more than you'll ever amount to."
"You better fuck off, Andy," Vect halfway grunted through gritted teeth. "I dunno what the fuck you're pulling here, but I will not hesitate to put you in the ground."
"Please, try." His eyes flickered somehow, a darkness behind his pupils that made Vect feel uncomfortable in the pit of her stomach. "I wonder why you visited him tonight, Vector. Genuine concern for his wellbeing? Desire to pull him back into your depravity? Upset at losing a new toy to exploit?"
Vect was breathing heavier now. Faster, too. It was an almost ragged desperation in her lungs. Her fear was mutating into anger. She could feel it happening rapidly, could recognize the blaze as it washed over her. The glacial chill was gone, giving way to roiling fury. The adrenaline was not gone, but it was being redirected. She had to be careful.
In an instant, a realization dawned on the mink: Why Remmington was here. Alone. Why he was waiting for her.
Because he had already been here. Because he had-
"Maybe you were here for something else. Hrm? Maybe you already 'touched' that one. Needed to control him before it got out of hand."
"Tell me, Vector. Did you fuck him?" The malice with which he spoke his words cut deep into Vect's psyche, "did you infect him?"
Remmington's gaze slowly shifted, breaking from Vect and methodically tilting toward the apartment complex she had just departed. Vect could practically feel his burning eyes directing toward Alexis in the distance.
Vect's fingers tightened around her weapon. She had to keep control. She knew she was being baited. She knew the last thing she could afford to do would b-
"Do I need to clean this mess of yours up, too? Just like all the others?"
Remmington's voice curdled with slick, oozing mockey, "Just like I cleaned up Ca■■■-"
"FUCKING PRICK!"
[WHOCK!]
Vect planted her heels, reeled back her head, and smashed her cranium full force into Remmington's placid maw. The man stumbled backward, stunned and off balance for a split second by the surprise strike. Vect exploited the window of opportunity as aggressively as she could. Her fingers squeezed around the grip of the machine pistol as she tore it from its hiding place.
She jammed the weapon under Remmington's neck, and crushed the trigger.
[BrrrrrrrrrRRRRAAAAAP!]
The suburban silence was torn to a thousand shreds by the report of automatic gunfire. Vect unloaded half a magazine into Remmington's jaw in an instant. Thick wet splattered across her face as dark, onyx syrup erupted in spectacular fashion from Andrew's viciously rent flesh. It was hard for her brain to parse what was happening, or comprehend what she saw - merely a mess of broken meat and rivulets of pouring, thick ooze that spilled from the gaping wound. Dark ichor landed on the pavement below with dull, full slaps. She felt the splash of the blowback as it painted her face with splatters of darkness.
And then... silence. The sound of her own desperate breath was solitary, but nearly deafening. Alone. Time stretched outward impossibly as Remmington's body recoiled a step, his shattered, bifurcated head bending backward from the force of point-blank gunfire. An arc of viscous, pitch black ooze streamed from what was once his jaw, up through the air.
[THOOM]
Reality was made a mockery as Remmington's oppressive, overwrought boot stamped one step forward. His gory, partially exploded head quickly snapped forward into position. Dark and wounded, the thickened ooze rapidly slowed to a trickle as his untouched eyes re-leveled their gaze at Vect. She could see the shards of bone, missing teeth, broken fragments of his skull that burst forth from behind his nose. A handful of bullets exited his cheek along with the waterfall of slick, dark goo, clattering to the pavement below as Vect stared on in horror. She could see it - See the emptiness behind that flesh. See the emptiness reaching forward, consuming his wound. She could not process this - but she could see it.
An eternal second passed before Vect could fully regain control of her nervous system, but in that time she could see Remmington's fist pulling back over his shoulder. What she was unable to follow were the three impacts of that fist - The ones that collided with her chest in rapid succession. Yet, even if she could not see the blows, she could certainly feel each strike as it rained down upon her. Then another in the shoulder. And another in the stomach. And then the force of full, potent impact on her jaw. Her vision pulsed crimson and shook. Images were incomprehensible, unrecognizable flashes that were disconnected from time. There was only disorientation, and pain. So much pain. Eventually she felt a hand on her throat, lifting her from the ground. This was followed by her back hitting something.
Hard.
Vect let out a wheezing cry - an attempt at a shout of agony that choked to death inside her chest before it could escape. Slowly she became aware of Remmington's too-long spindle fingers tightening around her neck, holding her against the thick park oak that he had slammed her into so powerfully. She coughed, blood spraying from her own lips now as she struggled to breathe. Her disjointed vision slowly returned to her, though she was barely able to keep her eyes open.
Remmington's face was closer than ever. A pulsing, streaming darkness leaking from the lower jaw she had shot off just moments ago. As her senses gradually caught up with her, she could see Remmington gasping large, open-mouth pulses from his somehow returning jaw bones - akin to a wounded animal steeling itself. Slowly, very slowly - the cascading ichor began to relent. The onyx sap steadied, congealed... and gave way to normalcy.
Within moments, Remmington looked no worse for wear. Normal. Fine.
Vect was able to note this only between extreme spikes of agony.
"Let's get something straight, Vector. I consider myself a being of significant patience. But I am running low when it comes to you. You do not get to die until you've satisfied me. You will suffer until you do."
"You're going to give me exactly what I want, and you're going to give it to me soon. And until you do, this will continue."
In a swift motion, Remmington swept his leg under the mink's, knocking her feet out from under her. Simultaneously, he released her throat - sending her body crumpling to the ground in an instant. Vect let out a tortured shout as she hit the concrete of the sidewalk with the full force of the fall. And then let out another anguished cry as Remmington's boot collided with her stomach in a viscous kick.
Remmington loomed high above even as Vect struggled to huddle inward on herself in pain. He took a moment to adjust his jaw with a deliberate hand, casually assessing his freshly mended flesh. Then, with the totality of his weight, he stepped on Vect's neck and leaned down, just millimeters from her ear. The mink squirmed in agony under his boot, fighting intensely just to draw any air at all, desperate for the pain to end.
"Your anguish will not lessen. Not until you've given me what's due... And next time... You'll wish I had come for you, instead."
Very slowly, Remmington reached into Vect's inner coat pocket. While still standing on her throat, he pulled the pack of cigarettes out, and then stood to his full height.
At last, he removed his weight from her body. He stood tall and calm as he pulled a cigarette out for himself, lit it, and savored it for a long, drawn out moment.
Remmington turned his back on the bleeding mink, leaving her wounded body in a pile as he very slowly walked away.
Vect's labored breathing filled her own ears as she trembled on the concrete. Slowly, as Remmington melted back into fog, the world around her began to grow fuzzy and dim.
And the silence came rushing back to surround her.