#HURTLES THROUGH THE WALL LIKE THE KOOLAID MAN

[specterchasing-a]

Slay and Gainsay || Adam & Eddie

TIMING: Sometime last month. 

PARTIES: @walker-journal​ & @specterchasing​

SUMMARY: Adam saves Eddie’s life (twice) and is rewarded with ungratefulness, existential nihilism, being told he has rocks in his head, and the invalidation of his core beliefs.

CONTENT: Suicide tw, asylum tw, gun use tw, head trauma tw.

(This thread contains contains graphic descriptions of the topics listed. Please, let one of us know if you need a summary.)

Cemeteries at night felt like home to Eddie. Most nights, ghosts freely roamed the rows of derelict headstones with moonlight illuminating their paths. Tonight, however,  he seemed to be alone among the graves. Wind rustled through the trees as disappointment planted roots in Eddie’s heart. He never knew what to do with himself when the dead weren’t talking. He let out a huff, fogging up the air with his breath, and shoved his hands into his pockets. As it was, he could see no reason to stick around. He turned on his heel and headed towards the cemetery gates. As he walked, he felt a strange sensation that caused the hair on the back of his neck to rise to attention. Someone—or perhaps, something—was watching him.

Eddie stopped in his tracks and took a sweeping glance at his surroundings. “What’re you waiting for? I’m not even a moving target anymore, I can’t make this any easier on you,” he said to the shadows only to be met with silence. After a moment, he decided he must’ve been imagining the unfamiliar presence and kept walking. 

Just before he reached the gate, he heard a twig snap from a few feet away. Eddie turned in the direction of the noise and was quickly knocked off his feet, onto his back. He felt the weight of a full-grown adult pressing down on him; the sight of fangs clued him into the species of his assailant. He wondered if this was it—how he finally wound up dead.

Eddie squirmed beneath him, instinctually struggling for his life. Adrenaline rushed through him as the vampire held him firmly in place. “This is what happens when you tell secrets that aren’t your own,” he hissed.

The vampire suddenly went stiff after a jolt of impact. The pressure of the predator’s grip vanished as cold skin petrified over the span of seconds. Cracks spiderwebbed up the arms holding Eddie down until they snaked up his assilenet’s neck. Luminous red eyes winked out like snuffed candles. Flesh wizened into finely ground dust, now only vaguely held in the shape of the undead hitman. 

Adam unceremoniously shoved the vampire’s dust silhouette off Eddie like a burly kid kicking over a sand castle. The Hunter wiped a white oak stake on his pant leg before offering his free hand to help Eddie up. “C’mon, let’s haul ass, there’s more on the way.” 

Remnants of the dusted vampire collapsed onto Eddie’s clothes. As he laid there and aggressively brushed them off, he made a mental note to burn his entire ensemble. It looked like ordinary dust, but he knew it would be impossible to cope with knowing his clothes were once coated in something that used to be alive. “I liked this shirt,” he mumbled, voice shaking.

A hand reached out for him—it took him a moment to summon enough trust to take it. With the help of the man who saved his life, Eddie hoisted himself onto his feet. “Yeah, I think you’re gonna need to tell me what you are before I follow you. Killing a vampire doesn’t automatically make you my hero.” More vampires didn’t sound ideal, but Eddie had a hunch this guy was a hunter of some kind. He seemed experienced with a stake and that left him on edge.

“...Uh, you’re welcome,” Adam said to the person whose life he just saved. Hero? The hell was he on about? “Dude look I don’t give a fuck about being your prom date, I’m just here to save your life.” The Hunter exhaled and closed his eyes for a moment before opening them with a renewed  mien of urgency. “We’ll have to make a push to the south gate, they’re less clustered there. The plan is to get you somewhere secure to wait out dawn.” 

Adam turned toward the directly with less vampires mustering before pausing mid-stride. The “Unless like...you are like chill will being someone’ red koolaid tonight?” 

Eddie’s face scrunched at the hunter’s brusk tone. Why he cared so much about saving someone he didn’t know was a mystery. Maybe he felt duty-bound to lower White Crest’s body count. Eddie could respect that more than a god-complex, at least.

“I mean, that’s a possibility you kind of have to cope with in this town,” Eddie replied with a shrug, but he opted to play-along with his rescuer's plan and followed him closely. “You, uh, seem to know a lot about this kind of thing. I can’t believe I left my camera at home, I bet you’d give a great interview.”

Was…this dude ok? 

 Hating to waste precious time, Adam turned and began to snap his fingers in front of his companion’s eyes. “Did that vamp hypno-stare you before I got there,” Adam murmured absently as he watched go see if Eddie’s pupils reacted and if his eyes focused properly on the snaps happening at various points in his vision. 

Perhaps figuring vampiric compulsion or shell shock were  the only reasons someone could be so blasé about impending exsanguination through jugular tearing ,  Adam attempted to reach out and apply reassuring pressure to Eddie’s shoulder if he was allowed. “Look man,” Adam began in a gentler tone, “ we’ll get you somewhere safe and then it’ll all be…” 

The attempt to shake Eddie out of the apathetic daze was interrupted by a sharp flare of icy heat in the black of Adam’s head. The Hunter whirled mid-sentence while drawing his machete as part of one fluid motion. 

The Spawn hurtled down on thirty feet of leathery wings. It was a hulking thing of muscle and grey flesh, no longer proportioned in anything resembling a human frame. The taloned claws that’d replaced the vampire’s feet grazed deep bleeding furrows into Adam’s shoulders as he ducked and rolled out of the way of the Spawn’s hawk-like plummet. An unearthly keening shriek issued from the Spawn’s distended jaws as momentum carried it past where it tried to snatch the Hunter. The Spawn slammed straight through an angelic statue and several gravestones, the impact barely seemed to phase the vampire as it took a few seconds to shake off the pulverized stone like a dog might  flick off water. 

More chiropteran shrieks answered in the distance, echoing amongst the stooped willows and baroque crypts. 

“Interview what?” Adam gritted through the pain in his bleeding shoulder, looking between the Spawn and Eddie before deciding that extracting the civilian took priority over eliminating these things. “A camera would slow you down! C’mon! This way.”

Eddie’s head reared back at the sudden snapping. “Can you not?” As far as he knew, his mental faculties were intact, both cognitive and non. Then again, he imagined he would think that even if the vampire did put the whammy on him. As Eddie mulled over the possibility, the hunter’s hand landed on his shoulder. He glanced at it with mild distaste, not understanding the apparent need to offer moral support felt by his opposite. The contact didn’t last long, however. Something seemed to be eager for the attention Eddie didn’t want.

A gush of adrenaline entered Eddie’s system as he stared slack-jawed at the winged-beast descending upon the man who saved his life. He winced at the sight of blood and staggered a few steps back. “What the fuck are you?” he breathed as he examined the leaf-nosed creature. Eddie knew about spawn vampires, but he must’ve glossed over the section of text that said they could have wings. His eyes followed the mindless monster as it collided with a statue, then some headstones. Watching the burial places be torn asunder, Eddie felt a swell of hot rage in his gut. 

The hunter encouraged Eddie to follow his lead, and it seemed like he had no choice but to comply. “That rat-bastard just desecrated those graves,” he called out as he took off in the direction he’d been told to. “Also,” he panted, “you’re bleeding a lot.” He sounded slightly less concerned now.

Behind them, the leech-with-wings looked intent on a chase. “You’re a hunter, right? Super speed and all that,” Eddie clamored. “Aren’t I gonna slow you down?”

“Name’s Adam and well...yeah I guess,” the Hunter admitted to Eddie’s question as he stopped to let the youtuber run past him. Adam stepped behind Eddie to face the Spawn that was barreling towards them, wings starting to flap in the beginnings of take off.  Adam drew a trusty SIG Sauer P320 military pistol and fired a quick barrage of gunshots into the vampire, the sound like thunderous whip cracks that echoed through the looming crypts.  

Normally a bullet, especially from a handgun, meant little to the undead. However the incendiary rounds exploded into a flare of burning radiance as its zirconium powder payload ignited at five thousand degrees upon impact with the vampire’s flesh. The Spawn let out a screech whose pitch climbed beyond human hearing as its papery flesh ignited. The burning vampire flailed in panic, charging blindly through gravestones and heaps of gravedirt as it attempted to put out the power flames consuming its immortal flesh. 

That might buy a little time a least. 

Adam hustled back up to run alongside Eddie, leading him in a zigzagging path amid a maze memorial walls bearing the names of mass tragedies and sprawling family crypts whose elaborate gothic accoutrements spoke of wealth trying vainly to leave some lasting purchase on the inexorable march of time. “It’s not about me dude,” he continued, as if the shootout with an elephantine bat creature had just been a pause for breath in the conversation. “It’s about getting you out of here. Sources said one of the vampire clans was taking someone out, so I’m here,” the Hunter said, seeming to take it for granted that this was a reasonable explanation for risking gory death for a stranger’s sake. 

Another Spawn swooped down from where it had been crouched on top of a mausoleum with hellenic pillars. It was a more lithe being then its burning fellow, gaunt to the point of being nearly a cadaverous skeleton with a lipless mouth of needle teeth. It came down on the pair of prey as they passed through a crossroads in graveyard, striking when they were briefly exposed without any obstacles to hide behind. 

“Shit shit shit,” but Adam ran straight towards the path of the Spawn’s murderous descent. The Hunter unsheathed his machete midstride, favoring its weight in the uninjured arm. As he’d hoped, the Spawn shifted its trajectory to drop down towards Adam rather than the civilian. 

The moment of aerial readjustment proved a mistake on Spawn's part as Adam preempted it’s plummet with a Olympics-worthy running jump at the vampire, machete raised over his head. Vampire and Hunter collided in midair a few feet above the ground and the precisely weighted blade cleaved straight through undead flesh and solid bone with mutant strength behind it. Adam broke the worst of the fall with a roll while the one-winged vampire crashed to the ground, carving long muddy furrows through the grassy turf with the force of its momentum. The Hunter flipped back up to his feet and sprinted over to where the Spawn thrashed like a dismembered bird, struggling to support its one massive frame on just one winged forelimb. One executioner's deathstroke later, and Adam was just standing in a sandbox of fine grey dust. 

“So what’d you do to piss off one of the clans anyway,” asked Adam as he beckoned for Eddie to follow him back into the cover of some statuary rows. 

A gun? Eddie attempted to curb his surprise by reminding himself that he was dealing with a hunter. As he ran, he cast sidelong glances in both directions. No one seemed to care that this cemetery was the closest thing its ghosts had to a home. The winged beasts were brainless, he couldn’t expect much from them, but Adam should have known better. His search for specters proved fruitless, but he didn’t have time for an extensive investigation. Eddie made a mental note to donate however much money he could afford to the cemetery in the near future.

“Me?” Eddie opposed. “Listen, dude, I’m the poster boy for acceptable casualties.” Chaos ensued, but Eddie refused to look back at the carnage. He needed to leave the premises, if only to guide his attackers away from the graves. When a spawn appeared up ahead, he skidded to a halt. It didn’t matter how little he cared about his well-being, instinct always overruled his wishes. 

Eddie looked away in disgust, bile bubbling in his gut, as Adam wrestled with the creature mid-air. Impressive as he was, Eddie never had a strong enough stomach for gore. Even after the hunter dealt his killing blow, he couldn’t bring himself to look. The world around him spun while gravity beckoned him with a siren’s song. By the skin of his teeth, he managed to stay upright, but his knees wobbled and threatened to collapse.

Adam spoke, his voice was cavalier and effortless. Clearly, they were built differently both mentally and physically. “I didn’t—” Eddie stopped mid-sentence to heave oxygen into his lungs, trailing after Adam on reluctant legs. “I didn’t know they were so touchy,” he explained between ragged breaths. “All I did was make a video or two about them, nothing groundbreaking.”

Adam frowned at his companion as he walked beside him in the shadow of a family mausoleum. Statues in the image of this wealthy line’s ancestors, entrepreneurs, council members, grand dames, and children taken before their time all stood on either side of a small marble promenade. A ceiling covered in mosaics detailing scenes from their family’s history was held up by walls riddled with small shelves holding skeletal remains and dust behind glass inscribed with individuals’ names. 

“My name’s Adam,” the Hunter said after time, brown eyes scanning the alcove’s shadows before alighting on Eddie again. “Why would you be an acceptable casualty? You do something fucked up? Or are you one of those cringey libs who feels guilty for existing?”

“You what…,” Adam took a few steady breaths of his own in the mausoleums, though perhaps more to steady his nerves than his heart rate. “Vampire clans are secret organizations that rely on secrecy and selectively turning people in power in order to push their agenda. How could you think that making exposure videos wouldn’t bring down the heat?” 

Breathing gradually became an easier task for Eddie as they navigated the mausoleum. A breeze followed them through the entrance and dried the recent build-up of sweat against the back of his neck. A shower wouldn’t fix all that tonight put him through, but he imagined it would be a good start. Warm water, the comfort of his apartment, and a distinct lack of hunters with martyr complexes. It sounded like pure bliss.

“The pleasure’s all mine,” Eddie responded dryly as he considered the passing inscriptions. “I’m Eddie.” Being on a first name basis with someone who brought guns to graveyards didn’t make his wishlist, but being unnecessarily rude and withholding his name would only make the remainder of their journey more awkward.

When Adam uttered the words cringey libs, Eddie’s eyes snapped in his direction with the added emphasis of incredulously raised brows. “The statues we just passed are jealous of the rocks in your head.” His expression relaxed and his gaze shifted forward. “No to either option.” He debated leaving it at that, but Eddie found keeping quiet difficult even when he wanted to. “I’m just not a worthy candidate for a rescue mission, is all. You should save your energy for someone who didn’t ask for a burial plot with a view on his eighth birthday.” His parents told him that he misunderstood their request for him to start thinking about his future and bought him a set of Star Wars LEGOs instead.

“See, the whole ‘agenda’ thing is kinda why I did it,” Eddie responded with a pointed glare. “It’s not my fault they’re petty enough to spill blood over a video sponsored by Dollar Shave Club. Y’know, if they bothered to dust off their antediluvian brains once in a while, they might’ve realized having it taken down was a simpler solution. Now, all they’ve accomplished is causing the deaths of their own worker bees and making me feel all kinds of special.”

“Rocks in my head,” Adam, frowned and considered that turn of a phrase for a moment, the apolitical Hunter not picking up that it might have something to do with having insulted Eddie’s preferred team color of suited sociopaths. Being stationed around the world with his parents had made Adam forget just how hard Americans simped for the cults that stole their money. “Y’know, I don’t think any other douches have ever actually used that one on me before,” the footballer noted. 

Eddie’s following speal about purchasing graves and laughing off the threat of vampires that he’d just given Adam shit about killing not fifteen moments before managed to chip the Hunter’s usual cavalier demeanor. “Okay Tumblr-Gothcore-stan,” Adam said in slow low tone. “I don’t know what kinna trustfund dreamworld you’ve been living in, but these people are dangerous.”

Adam took a few steps towards Eddie, boots utterly silent on the sepulchral marble. “Look sorry I’ve cockblocked your death-boner or whatever, but these clans will also go after your friendsand  family.” The Hunter raises both eyebrows at Eddie before returning his scrutiny to the graveyard’s shadow. “I’m not gonna to tell you what to do with a life you don’t value, but maybe take your mind off those suicidal blue-balls long enough to think that it might not just hurt you.” 

Adam shrugged. “Or maybe that's just the rocks in my head talking, who knows.” 

Adam grinned and attempted to clap Eddie on the soldier, as this had just been a rather amicable group huddle. “Annnnway, let’s haul ass out of here so you can start on the like Teen Casket Sonnets or whatever and get Byron-famous.” 

With that, Adam led the way down a dias towards a garden flanked by several rows of cubicle sized crypts with pointed roofs whose entrances were guarded by rusted grates. 

The more Adam talked, the more Eddie’s distaste for him grew. He sounded exactly like the highschool tormentors that made his teenage years hell on earth. The familiar anxiety of helplessness they caused him came crawling back even though he assumed the odds of Adam laying a hand on him were low. Emotions don’t always consult logic before dredging up the past. “If anyone’s a douche, it’s the guy using the word ‘douche’ as an unironic insult,” Eddie quipped.

The nickname caused Eddie to roll his eyes, and an urge to repeat the motion returned with Adam’s warning. “You people sound like a broken record,” he muttered under his breath. The number of times he’d been scolded for dabbling in danger was astronomical.  Whatever effect people wanted it to have on him clearly didn’t take.

Eddie instinctively took a step back when Adam moved closer. He proffered another warning, but this one had more flair than the last. Friends and family, right. His parents rarely spoke to him and friends were few and far between for Eddie. He thought of the few he did have, his mind lingering on Alfie’s name longer than the rest, and a surprise blip of guilt emerged. “I’m not suicidal,” he snapped without thinking as soon as the hunter spoke the word. After years in therapy, the word scared him. Admitting he felt that way meant an instant trip to a mental health facility filled with miserable patients and disinterested nurses, and no contact with the outside world. The ghosts he met there were the saddest he’d ever known. “I just don’t care, there’s a difference.” He knew that wasn’t really true, he’d heard the words ‘passive ideations’ before. Eddie chose to believe that didn’t apply to him.

“No one will get hurt,” Eddie insisted. Adam didn’t know it, but he’d successfully convinced him to take down the videos himself in case the hunter was right. “Stop lecturing me.” As much as he wanted to sound commanding or intimidating, his inflection morphed the words into more of dejected request.

The sudden shift in tone felt like whiplash. “If I pay you, will you stop saying things like that?” He sounded more lively now as he forced himself back into the rhythm of barbed banter. 

“Where exactly are we going, by the way?” Eddie questioned as he followed Adam. He was exhausted, all he wanted to do was go home and never think about his run-in with Chad the Vampire Slayer again.

“I mean yeah dude obviously definitely is a difference between laying down on the subway tracks and blowing your own brains out with a Glock,” Adam pointed out with bully club frankness as he took the first careful steps into the garden parameter of floral beds and stone benches.  “Question is if it's like a meaningful difference. You want to die and buying some arsenic versus just being so numb that you let yourself get offed by vamps,” the footballer shrugged as he paced forward, machete at the ready. “It’s just doing the suicide slow and without a trip to the Pharmacy.” 

Adam snorted at Eddie’s demand for him to stop saying true things and a jesting bribe to pay him to stop expressing himself. “Nah brah, I don’t accept money from irresponsible content platforms,” the footballer shot back with the smirking energy of a Twitter shitstorm. 

“To my car, hopefully,” Adam said, voice a little absent as he frowned and slowed his steps, eyes flicking to the rows of crypts. 

Eddie didn’t understand why Adam decided to lecture him on the subject of suicidality. He already performed his hunterly duties, why couldn't he have been the stoic type? He refused to entertain the topic beyond what he already said. “This isn’t 1932, you can’t buy arsenic at pharmacies anymore.” For once, having a pharmacist for a dad actually paid off.

His brow once again raised incredulously at Adam’s assertion that his content didn’t meet his standards for responsibility. “Well, that’s rich coming from the man who risked his life for the sake of, what, some guy? What if you died saving me? And I’m not even talking about my indifference to death making that a bad decision, I’m saying a hunter should ostensibly know how to pick their battles.” For someone with such a sense of duty, Adam didn’t seem to value the idea of keeping his birthright from killing him. “You guys get off on the salvation of humankind or whatever, I get it, but what happens when the big bad comes and all the hunters are on the wrong side of the grass because they made a mistake in a fight to save an accountant, or whatever?” Eddie scoffed and shrugged his shoulders. “But I’m the one with suicidal tendencies, right?”

Eddie glanced at Adam curiously while he eyed the crypts. “You lookin’ for the boogeyman, or did you confuse this for a parking lot when you got here? I don’t see any trucks nuts, so.”

Adam grinned at Eddie’s circular rant.  “So you are saying that I should pick and choose which human lives to save?” Although he was smiling, something in Adam’s voice became colder, a subtle icey disdain hidden in the playful tone. “Here you just gave off the vibe that its not worth the risk to save an accountant,” he noted. “Why? Because their life isn’t as important as say...a CEO?”

The look Adam threw over his shoulder made the machete’s cruelly honed edge seem soft in comparison. “Dude, fuck off with the elitist bullshit,” Adam demaneded with a biting calm, “ther’s a reason why I’m sworn to value human life equally. Because otherwise bigots and self-hating cucks like you go on about how some human beings are worth sacrifice while others aren’t”

“You aren’t just ‘some guy’ Eddie,” Adam continued with a gentler sternness. “You are a human fucking being with the same worth as any other. Even if you were a celebrity or tech bro millionaire nothing would’ve changed,” claimed the scion of one of those Hunter lines that was perhaps endangered by being too bright a candle in a night. “Don’t LARP like you could possibly know what a Hunter’s priorities are when you can’t even see yourself as a person.” 

“Truck nuts? Nah left them on your mom’s rig,” Adam quipped absently, meeting Eddie’s lazy stereotype with the equivalently lazy comeback it deserved as he felt a presence grow stronger. 

Mist poured out of the crypts, slithering through the grated gates and rolling across the flowerbeds, benches, and artificial ponds like a wave breaking over an unprepared harbor town. 

“Take this and hold it in front of anything that looks thirsty,” Adam said, reaching into his shirt and withdrawing a silver seal of solomon on a thin chain for Eddie to take. 

Eddie’s lips pursed when Adam hurled accusations at him. “God, how did you miss the point of what I said that badly?” he asked with apparent exasperation written on his features. “It’s not about one human mattering more than another, it’s about keeping yourself alive so that thousands can live instead of dozens. You make one wrong move and you’re dead no matter how badass you are, so why do you throw yourself at every fight you can?” He assumed he wasn’t an exception and that Adam made a habit out of playing the savior role. “Today, you could have died fighting a handful of vampires. Tomorrow, the apocalypse could happen and then it wouldn’t matter how many individuals you saved, and there would be nothing you could do to stop your life’s work from being rendered moot.”

“For the record, I really am not more than just some guy, and I’m not saying that because I need some machete-wielding jackass to help me scrape my self-esteem off the ground,” Eddie said lowly. “Y’know, I really can’t wrap my head around why everyone is obsessed with a person needing to be worth something. I’m not a commodity, I don’t need a goddamn price-tag. I’m  human, you’re right. That means I’m temporary and ultimately meaningless to the world as a whole, and that’s okay. My experiences aren’t meaningless, especially not to me, but my existence does not matter because the sun will rise one day and no one will remember my name. At the end of the day, we’re all tourists on vacation and we should make the most of our time here, but that doesn’t change the fact that we have a flight to catch in a few days. So, people caring as much as they do about meaning and worth just detracts from the time they could be spending having fun.”

Adam seemed distracted, which made bothering him less enjoyable. “I’m questioning your taste in women,” Eddie mumbled. A few moments later, something was being thrust into his hand, and Adam advised him how to use it.

Eddie looked down in puzzlement at the seal. “Oh, are you Je—” A figure leapt from the shadows and his jaw snapped shut mid-sentence. His entire body clenched as what he assumed to be a vampire lunged towards Adam with ill-intent. Eddie considered the seal for a moment, unsure if it would work for him considering he wasn’t Jewish. He wasn’t anything, really, but he didn’t want to be entirely useless. If Adam thought it would help, he probably knew best.

Eddie took a few hesitant steps closer to the hunter and the vampire with an outstretched hand brandishing the pendant. He didn’t know the range it had, but he figured the closer, the better. All he needed to do was avoid any potential blows not meant for him. 

“You’re right I misunderstood your point,” conceded Adam with an eye roll. “It was dumber than I thought.” 

“Do you know why we took that long maze route through the graveyard? It wasn’t for the parkour” Adam sighed, wondering if he’d ever talk to one of these objectors who actually talked to him like a thinking person trying to do his job rather than just a flesh-doll of some Hunter stereotype they’d already constructed in their head. “It’s because I don’t actually throw myself into every single fight,” sighed the young soldier. “I chose the route with the least vampires my Hunter-vibes picked up and only fought the ones I needed to,” Adam explained with the weariness of someone who had done his homework only to find someone else was just winging it. 

“And yeah I guess I could just do like you suggest….let people die...and justify that with I’m saving myself for some bigger thing that might come later,” Adam mused with a dismissive pfft through his lips. “I mean my rock brain wonder if letting the population get whittled down without slaying the perpetrators in the small cases and then having a snowball effect of the locals being converted into….a bigger army of hungry vampires seems like the actual thing that would cause the apocalypse you’re worried about.” 

He shrugged. “But hey man, you’re the expert.” 

Adam narrowed his eyes at Eddie as he held out the hexagrammic star for him to take “So ultimately nothing has worth because it's temporary,” Adam bluntly summarized. “Look, I’ve been around the world and my take is that we need to have basic assumptions of innate human worth or people’ll get ripped to shreds by fascists and oppressed by people that use your dumbass take as justification to do what they do. That’s why we made those concepts dude, not so we can ruin your Beatnik ennui.” 

Adam turned back to face the fog. “Besides you won’t be able to spend that time having fun if y’all are just eaten by giant spiders and skinned by Red Caps because no one is making sacrifices to protect the town” he pointed out. 

Adam sparred with his opponent, a lanky figure with sunken cheeks and near transparent skin from which veins stood out like spidery leinsions. The vampire’s luminous scarlet eyes were swollen and bloodshot with brighter lines of red as if they might burst at any second. There were not forelimbs but rather masses of ravenous bat’s fused together. Adam ducked  long arms covered in hundreds of biting and screeching mouths while he looked for an opening. 

Initially, Eddie didn’t care for Adam’s tone and it showed in the way he furrowed his brows, but the longer he listened, the more he understood where the hunter was coming from. Sympathizing with someone born to kill never seemed like something he’d have to worry about, and yet here he was. His expression gradually softened. “Oh, shit,” Eddie said, his eyes lighting up with a dawning realization, while an out-of-place grin tugged at the corners of his lips. As much as he wanted to write Adam off as mindless, that clearly wasn’t the case. “Guess I kinda biffed that theory, huh?” Being told he was wrong didn’t always lead him to word-y tantrums. When someone made a point that got through to him, he accepted it more often than not. “I never thought about it like that, sorry for being a dick. I got kinda heated,” he admitted with a shrug. Eddie still didn’t fully agree with Adam, but he made a lot of points that deserved more than a knee-jerk response, so he held off on forming a rebuttal.

“Fascists have distorted ideologies to keep people subservient since the dawn of time. That doesn’t make them wrong, it makes fascists bigger assholes than they already are. If they think something has to be valuable to them to deserve respect, they’re going to act on that with or without cause. That rock over there is worth nothing to me,” Eddie gestured to the ground. “Doesn’t mean I’m gonna set it on fire. I could, but I don’t want to, and that’s the difference. People will do what they want and nothing will ever change that. Not to say we should roll over for the urges of bigots, but that’s a fight that will last as long as humans do.”

“And, to be honest, it sounds like you’re talking more about dignity than worth. Equal respect for all living creatures is important because, like I said, experiences do matter. Experiences lead to actions, and actions shape the world around us way more than people behind them. If someone does something horrible, it doesn’t matter who they are, it matters that they did it.” Eddie didn’t see what wasn’t clicking. Then again, he spent most of his life obsessing over life, death, and the ‘why’ surrounding it all. Being surrounded by death since birth tends to do that to a person, and Eddie coped with it by answering the biggest question of all in the only way that made sense to him, same as everyone else.

“Oh, man, I’m so sorry, does the way I view life invalidate your superhero fantasies? Everybody dies, usually in a painful way as far as White Crest goes. Sacrifice as much as you want, it’ll never be enough,” Eddie replied with a blank expression.

Inching closer and closer, Eddie looked for a chance to do something—anything. The vampire before him looked marvellous in a way that made him kind of nauseous, but he didn’t let that deter him. As Adam ducked, he momentarily disoriented the bloodsucker while. While it recalibrated, Eddie got as close as he would to it. It shrieked when it sensed the pendant, rearing away from it in horrified disgust. It wasn’t much, but it might give Adam a chance to catch it off-guard.

Adam was a person of action of a mindset that weighed ideas more for their practical effect on the world than whether they matched some higher metaphysical truth. If an idea is so abstract that it has no practical effect on life that he really wasn’t interested unless it was fun to listen too. But inversely, Adam had little patience for ideas that might be correct in some higher sense but led to terrible outcomes if actually put into practice. 

He shook at Eddie’s first apology to indicate it wasn’t a big deal. Adam was that kind of guy who didn’t have hard feelings after arguments or fist fights, even if he went all in during the actual scuffle. 

However it was maddening for Eddie to just state declaratively that fascism and its ilk would always be with us, as if the suffering of the past were part of some abstract process rather than the lives of real people who didn’t have to be tortured and murdered. Adam was really getting the feeling that Ed-boi here liked sitting apathetically while watching the world go by, and had constructed a whole elaborate system of justifications on why he was in fact enlightened for being numb to suffering and consequences.  

 “Sacrifice as much as you want, it’ll never be enough,” Adam’s brown eyes rolled as he mockingly repeated Eddie’s comic villain words back at him in a suitably pho-menacing tone. “Hey Darth Ed. It ever occur to you that maybe a Hunter already know just a little about the inevitability of death and that victory might be ultimately unattainable?”

The bat-arm vampire reared backed by the hallowed symbol, papery skin igniting in white fire as it grew too close. The vampire reared back, the chioptean mouths lining its long willowy arms shrieking in pain. 

The was all the opening Adam needed. The Hunter darted toward as the vampire reeled, drew a hot pink plastic sidearm and send a stream of holy water into one of the creature’s eyes. 

The Vampire’s eye socket disintegrated with a hiss of pale steam followed by flesh sloughing off burnt bone. It swung of arm of hungry mouths into Adam but the Hunter placed the holy squirt gun against the vamp’s shoulder and the arm toppled to the ground as another squirt severed it like a jet of Fluoroantimonic acid. 

Adam peeled the bad heads gnawing at his arm and ribs off like fanged nights and aimed the squirt gun at the downed vampire’s veiny head as it writhed on the ground. One squee of the pastel flower themed trigger, and Adam stood only on wet dust in the middle of a garden walkway. 

“Hey Ed, ….thanks for the assist there, you really came through there,” Adam said wearily, the night's previous shoulder wound not having been any favors as it bled down his shit while one arm was now covered in lacerations for a solid mass of bat fands. 

When Adam parroted him, Eddie realized his comment might have been a bit much, but the whole ‘I sacrifice myself so you can have fun’ schtick rubbed him the wrong way. Eddie wouldn’t tolerate a guilt-trip brought on by someone self-immolating. He imagined being born a hunter left him little choice in the beginning, but he was grown now and a new path could be chosen if the current one didn’t suit him. But maybe he didn’t do what he did purely for the sake of altruism.  After all, the caliber of Adam’s heart didn’t make him a hunter, genetics did. Having only met him tonight, Eddie didn’t feel confident making a judgment call like that yet, but it was on his mind.

“I mean, yeah, I kinda figured I was preaching to the choir on that one. Kinda surprised we don’t see eye-to-eye because of that, actually. Not saying that’s a bad thing. I know all I’m doing is clinging to whatever gets me through the night, so y’know, you do you, man.” Aside from the comment about sacrifice never being enough, not a lot of what Eddie said came from a place of wanting to upset Adam. For the most part, he was merely explaining the way he saw the world and the role he played in life. And, partially because he had issues knowing when to stop talking about a particular subject. Let him loose, and he’d never get tired of the sound of his voice.

The sight of a hot pink squirt gun nearly knocked the wind out of Eddie as he stumbled backwards to give Adam ample parkour room. “Holy shit, that’s genius,” he uttered when he realized it contained holy water. “Oh, fuck me, that smells awful,” he groaned when a breeze carried the scent of the vampire’s disintegrating eyes and flesh to him. Eddie gagged before pulling the collar of his shirt over his nose. “Oh, it’s so bad.” He turned away from Adam’s acts of violence for the second time that night, unable to handle the sight of it combined with the smell.

When it sounded as if the job was finished, Eddie turned around in time to see Adam brandishing the ingenious weapon with an ash pile instead of an opponent. He pulled his collar down again and grimaced slightly at the lingering stench in the air. “Yeah, man, no problem. Thanks for, like, killing it, I guess. I mean, that squirt-gun technique—flawless. And you didn’t even desecrate any graves. I’m proud of the growth you’ve gone through in the past, like, fifteen minutes.” 

Eddie noticed the additional wounds that now littered Adam’s body and frowned as a pang of guilt struck him. When an idea occurred to him, his face lit up again. “You should come to my apartment with me,” he insisted. “I have some Phoenix tears we can use to make you good as new. Just… try not to bleed out until we get there. Do you need me to drive?” His hand instinctively extended in case Adam handed over his keys.

“We’ll never see eye to eye on that I’m afraid dude” noted Adam, choosing not to follow up with the fact that he found Eddie’s perspective pretty insulting to everyone who had to watch their kids get ripped apart by monsters or found their parents’ blood-drained corpses. 

Maybe Ed-boi operated in goldfish time, where by the time he was finished dismissing everything about you and your way of life was just a result of being incomptetant and delusional, he had already forgotten and was now thanking you for saving his life. 

“Maybe I should just kill you and take the Pheonix Tears,” noted Adam with a morbid smirk as he headed to the parking lot, “they're extremely valuable and hey like...your life is meaningless right? People will do what they want and nothing will ever change that, right?” 

Despite the dire threats used as wheedling, Adam opened up his truck and began to put the heaviest kevlar and machete inside without any sign of beheading Eddie for magic tears. 

Adam’s response shocked Eddie to his core. One second, he was thanking him, the next he was aiming for the jugular. “Whoa, I was just being polite because I heard your point of view and have a better grasp on why you save people. I dunno, it would’ve felt kinda fuckin’ disresepectful to react the way I did last time after everything you said, is all.” His body tensed and his chest tightened at the unexpected return to verbal beration. He didn’t know what he did wrong.

Eddie waited a moment, deciding if he should follow him at all, before quickly hurrying to Adam’s side. When he reached him, the hunter met him with a pseudo-threat. At least, he assumed it wasn’t genuine. It made him feel sick to be talked to like that. “If that’s what you wanna do, obviously I wouldn’t stand a chance at stopping you.” He glanced over at Adam uneasily. Being dead didn’t scare Eddie, but the act of dying violently? That was a terrifying fucking concept. 

While Adam put away his weapons, Eddie stood idly by trying to decide what should happen next. “Look, Adam, I’m sorry for being an asshole. I shouldn’t have talked to you like that, I got carried away, and tonight’s sucked, and hunters scare the shit out of me. Some of you guys—maybe even you’re like this, I dunno, we just met— but, it’s like you’re programmed to hate supernaturals more so than to protect humans.” With a sigh, he realized how pointless his apology would be. Clearly, Adam hated his guts. The bridge was burned, if there was ever a bridge at all. “I didn’t know you’d actually care about anything I had to say, not this much, anyway.”

“Ed,” Adam sighed. “Maybe what I’m saying that maybe you should be a bit more tight lipped about the Pheonix Tears in your apartment?” The Hunter raised a livid bruised eyebrow. “Y’know...like what we were talking about with the youtube vamps?” 

Eddie spilled his guts about the Hunter phobia. Wow what a surprise, who could have seen that coming. “Eddie, chill man,” Adam said as he placed explosives back into sealed containers. “I already knew what you thought about people like me from the second we met…..you're not exactly subtle my dude.”

Adam rolled his eyes. “I’m mostly teasing, I’m pretty used to having conversations with people like you….and saving them...all while they tell me what a fucked up monster I am. It’s chill.” 

“Oh,” Eddie said with a look of mild embarrassment. He did that a lot; overreact when he assumed people were upset with him. At some point, he hoped he would learn the world didn’t end when someone’s tone sounded harsher than he expected it to. “Right, yeah.”

Hearing about his lack of subtlety didn’t come as a surprise, at least. Subtle had never been a word used to describe unless it was said sarcastically. But, when Adam told him how often that people reacted that way to him, his heart sank a little. Hunter or not, Adam seemed to be trying his best. He had good intentions, at least, even if Eddie didn’t share his opinions.

Eddie took a few steps closer to Adam. “That’s fucked up,” he said. “I’m sorry for contributing to a long line of assholes.” The after effects of Adam’s idle, albeit still off-putting, threat made him nervously struggle on exactly what he wanted to say next. “I shouldn’t have judged you for what you are. You didn’t choose to be a hunter and, even if you did, you seem to really care about people. We don’t agree on a lot of things but, I mean, I don’t think you’re a monster. Maybe I did at first, but that’s changed. You’re kind of a dick sometimes, but not a monster.”

Adam scrunched his eyebrows and shook his head. “Ed is not that you hurt my feelings...it's ok I’m a tough dude I can take it. It’s more like don’t you think it's a little weird that you automatically hated the guy who saved your life more than the people and Spawn trying to literally kill you? Don't you think the priorities might be a bit fucked up...maybe even alot fucked up”

Adam whipped his bloody face off on a towel from the passenger seat. “I’ll accept dick, its accurate.” 

Eddie didn’t understand what Adam was getting at. He thought he made it pretty clear why he didn’t resent the spawn as much as he resented the hunter. “I guess it’s not, like, how most people would have reacted, but…” He shrugged, genuinely unsure what Adam wanted from him. “It’s just how my brain is wired.”

Adam suppressed the desire to point out the irony of the ‘just how my brain is wired’ coming from the guy who went on about how Hunters were ‘programmed’ to be evil not thirty seconds ago. “Look I know you’ve invested alot of like...energy rationalizing why it's okay that you are worthless”

“But I think it's complete bullshit,” Adam said flatly. “If you don’t wanna be one more in the line of assholes I deal with? Don’t give up your life so easily and make everything I just did pointless.” 

Eddie felt a tinge of dread when Adam circled the conversation back to the subject of worth. If they hadn’t exhausted the topic by now, they never would. But, what he said next came as a surprise. He looked at the hunter questioningly for a moment. They only just met, and while Adam had saved his life twice in the span of one night, he initially felt an urge to meet his request with immediate rejection. He didn’t ask to be saved, he didn’t owe Adam anything. But, he didn’t actually feel that way even though he wanted to.

“I mean, old habits die hard, but I… I can try to be more careful. Hey, I already plan on taking down the videos that got us into this mess, for what that’s worth,” Eddie offered hopefully.

Adam looked at Eddie for a naked moment, dumfounded. “Wait...dude, that's what I wanted the whole time! Just take them down and that’d be amazing!” 

Eddie blinked in surprise. Adam did know he only meant the two about this particular clan, right? His standards seemed pretty low. “Yeah, man! You convinced me to do that, like, forever ago.” It seemed like he’d finally done something right, which was always an intoxicating feeling for Eddie. “So,” he ventured. “Did you wanna swing by my apartment?” He intentionally avoided saying why. Adam already knew, of course, and he wanted to practice exercising caution.

Adam let out a long exhale and looked back at the graveyard gates behind them. With the adrenaline leaving his body pain was making itself known. 

Truth be told, he was pretty  worried about Cowlick here. The only people Adam had met who accepted worthlessness this deeply had been in the danger zone or zombies so numb with time they’d thanked him in the bitter end. Adam knew that given everything he’d seen and been through that he was probably the least qualified for psychoanalysis on the planet. Still, he couldn’t shake the impression that Ed-boi desperately needed something Adam maybe couldn’t give, and needed it sooner rather than later. 

“Sure I’ll swing by,” agree the guy who was honestly bleeding too much to really pretend he had other good options.  “Well....uh...you could drive,” Adam glanced at his lacerated shoulder. “That’d be amazing.” 

When Adam agreed to Eddie’s proposition, he boasted a wide grin. He knew this was more about keeping the hunter from bleeding to death than hanging out, but it felt nice to be on the same page for once. Eddie extended his hand once more when Adam suggested he should drive. “You got it. Keys, please,” he requested, ready to put an end to an incredibly strange night.