life-long regrets and occasional mishaps (c)

The voice on the radio was blabbering on about how tonight was a 'party 'til the break of dawn'. Which meant it must've been at least three in the morning, maybe a Friday, and he was more than a bit drunk for not changing the station earlier. Youthful and obviously fake excitement gave him a nauseating headache, and the half-empty beer can in his right hand was definitely not helping him feel better. Ross didn't have a threshold for when alcohol began making him surly - he was surly by design, and somehow his mood was much worsened like this. A song replaced the speaker, equally stale and over-played, and after singing along flatly to the first few lyrics, he managed to slam his hand on the right button for it to die down into a suffocating silence.

He had no plan, no destination. Perhaps he could head home - his home wasn't exactly the most glamorous of places. It was a car. It was the car her was in. So, technically, he was already home. His one-handed grip on the steering wheel loosened for long enough that he swerved on the opposite lane, then lazily steered himself back on course. His best bet was to find a parking lot to sleep in and cool off. He'd never liked betting. He was never lucky...

Wham.

The thud wasn't much. Ross had reached the parking lot of a local nameless supermarket when he heard it and stopped the car tentatively. Couldn't be anything special, but he got out to check nonetheless. "Well, fuck."

The nights had become longer as the days became arduous, and some how fleeting, all in an instant. Each waking second was filled with the ceaseless droning on of work companions and talks of company issues. None of it was a soothing noise. It had taken until he lost her that the man had realized his daughter had been the sole thing that grounded him to reality for the past decade. She had brought some vibrancy and meaning to the pointless existence he had found himself long damned to. Sending Arisa to Beata had been a mistake. He'd managed to hold her back all these years and finally caved into her relentless pleas. Already this was the most regrettable decision that Caine Mallon had ever made. And he had made a lot.

The troubled nature of his ever churning mind, which back in the days of Beata had been soothed by a steady stream of alcoholism, had kept him from finding any sort of solace in sleep. This had lead him to the car, brand new, sleek and black, a prized possession for some sort of pride in heritage that his family name demanded he keep. But he felt nothing other than a burning numbness in the pit of his stomach as he slid into the seat. It was unreasonably cold but he hardly noticed as he allowed the wheel to pull him in which ever direction it decided was best. Caine's somewhat unruly hair just barely blurred his vision. He swiped it mindlessly to the side. Something about the action brought him back to the forefront of his mind, reminding him nothing would be open at this hour. Other than the bars. That was certainly a thought, one that drove a long-buried, insatiable thirst. Since Arisa's birth, following a committed and loving relationship, the dependency had managed to taper off.

The flash of some half-maintenanced signs flickered and drew him towards the 24-hour Supermarket. Seeing how dead the lot was reminded him that tonight, people actually had places to be. Laine had once insisted they go out and mingle with other couples and colleagues from work, which had been welcome for a young Caine who had once prided himself in popularity. But this Caine was withdrawn and reclusive ever since the passing of his counterpart. Had it really been almost 12 year? Fuck, if he didn't have the day memorized. A bolt of frustration coursed through his veins as he remembered. After so long, one might have thought the pain and the anger would have subsided, but it coiled up within him like a wounded snake. Ready to strike at any time. The door was slammed accordingly behind him. Instead of considering locking the door, he simply shoved the fob into his front jacket pocket. Today, the length of it was almost infuriating.

Wham!

Caine stumbled backwards, feeling the force of the car slam into his side and knock him over onto the filthy pavement. Immediately the impact fired through his body, sending shock waves that would have rendered a normal man seriously wounded and most certainly temporarily incapacitated. But he was not normal. Worst than the sensation was the rage that flared up as an immediate reaction and set his nerves on edge. Caine clenched his teeth, gritting them to the point where it was shocking there was not any sort of cosmetic damage. For a second, he stayed there, just waiting for it to fade before a thought invaded his mind, 'Don't they know how much this shit cost?' It wasn't like he couldn't afford for it all to be cleaned, yet the seed of pride was something that had long rooted itself into his brain. A childhood he could not erase.

Quickly, ignoring any pain that threatened to slow him, Caine hauled himself up onto his feet in an abnormally fast pace. If it weren't for having recently let his daughter go, something that had helped to tame his very small measure of control, what happened next likely would not have happened. As he rounded the front of the car, coming to a stop next to Ross' window, the urge to shift was almost over powering. His limbs shook uncontrollably but just managed to maintain their human form. And his fist collided with the window. Glass shattered inward, spraying all over the driver in hundreds of tiny pieces.

At the same instant, the smell of alcohol invaded his enhanced sense of smell. Tempting, reminding... telling.

"I was going to ask what the hell is wrong with you, but clearly there are many things." Caine ground out slowly. Between the cloak of night time and his anger-induced brain, recognizing his former classmate right away was nearly impossible. Instead of making any more motions towards the other man, he gripped the edge of the broken window, glass digging into his palm, in an effort not to break into a shift right then and there.

The heavy, alcohol-thick air of the car felt a lot more cozy the second his hand touched the door-handle. It was almost beckoning him to stay in, and drive away quietly, like he had never been there - the impact surely must've rendered whoever it was that he had hit temporarily out cold, which would buy him time. Was he really that cruel? That lawless? Ross wouldn't have thought himself so, but with shaky decision making, he was already with his hand on the gear-stick.

Except when what he had hit decided to rise up slowly and give him a heart attack. In retrospective, he should have been grateful that who he had run over wasn't critically hurt, but that also meant who he had run over had enough time, while Ross sat frozen and confused, to get to his window. Through the thick glass and with the light of the neon supermarket sign shining from behind, he couldn't make out the face of the stranger right away,clueless to what would happen next. He stared back blankly. If it hadn't been for the rather independent nature of his gift, his face would've definitely had a few extra scrapes and cuts that weren't there before.

Simultaneous to the shattering of the window, the darkness in the man's car tightened around him and, for a second, looked almost alike to slithering animal, curling around to protect Ross' face from the shards that sprayed over him. Choking and dropping his beer can on the car floor, he managed to get a grip on the solidifying darkness with both hands, as if he was physically struggling to tear it off - the sensation brought back unpleasant and guarded off memories that tasted like store-bought lunches and acetone when he thought about them. Nevertheless, he was still alive, he assured himself, as his fingers stuck through the anomaly and pulled it away forcefully. The darkness dispersed and the worst of it appeared to curl away like a wounded dog in the farthest corners from the now broken driver's window.

Huh, Ross hadn't even thought about the window so far. He supposed it would suck to drive around with a broken window, with the cold spell they were having this spring, but the fresh air served to force a slight sobriety in his brain. Looking up, he met eyes with the stranger, then looked down at the hand gripping the side, then back up at the stranger. "You made a mess of my car." he said bluntly. His car wasn't new, or special, or impressive by any means, but there was something about anything of his being filthy that he couldn't stand. Like some sort of surrender.