Kirke didn't want to register what he was seeing. But he couldn't blot out the sound either way- a sort of snarling, & rending and slurping. Dave was hunkered, back to him, face buried in the gore of what had once been somebody's neck. It wasn't so much the gross sound of ripping sinews was freaking Kirke so much as the little noises of appreciation Dave was making low in his throat, sort of purring &chuckling to himself.
Kirke closed his eyes, shook his head sadly. "Oh, Dave." he groaned.
Dave looked up at him & smiled. Warmyly. Redly. "Kurt!" he exclaimed, sounding genuinely glad to see him. He let his latest dinner drop with a thud. He had started to get up when he noticed Kirke looking at the body in consternation.
"Oh," Dave said, smiled sheepishly, & shrugged,"you remember him don't you? Fuckin' critic for Zoned" He quoted back a bad review verbatim. Kirke chuckled, nervously. "welll," he drawled, at least you DO pick your victims with forethought..."
"Sometimes," Dave concurred,"so. seems to me we should talk, you & I..." "Yes," agreed Kirke, "we should."
On the rooftop they sat, side by side. Kirke shifted, wanting to break the uneasy silence. But he couldn't look up & meet Dave's eyes. Not knowing what would come next.
"So," Dave said, "six years....Look. I have to know. Did you or didn't you....?" He brought his thumb & forefinger up to his temple. A "gun" shape. Kirke winced as Dave mimiced a shot. "I don't remember," Kirke mumbled, "I was, uh, kindasorta high at that time. And no little braindamaged after..."
"For a long time," he added, "I couldn't even remember who I was, let alone how I got there." Kirke ran his hand thru his hair, nervously, biting back tears. He noticed Dave noticing the old scars. Exit wound scars. He took a slight satisfaction in seeing Dave's mortified look. "Either way," Kirke continued,"it's not like I was planning on or expecting an afterlife.I got bogged down there for most of that time. Finally managed to find myself a little gallitrap, you know, one of those holes in the time-space continuum you used to speculate were around when we'd be on speedy bad acid? Well, I wound up corporeal, in this medieval kinda place. Met a grrl. She turned out to be a vampyre. This happened." Kirke sighed. "I never meant to drag you 'into my shit', Dave. I never planned to see you or any of them again."
Dave listened to all this, all manner of emotions flickering in his dark eyes. Anger. Reproach. Pain, most of all. He missed me, Kirke realized, marvelling, he really did. Huh.
Dave got up, pacing. "yeh, well," he began, struggling to hold back his temper, "did it ever EVEN occur to you for one precious second that maybe, just maybe you could've left us worried? That maybe knowing you were alright might've helped?!"
Kirke listened as Dave raged, took it all, every lump. Tried to hear the love behind the abuse, tried to take it in stride. He also had to chuckle quietly tho, at the absurdity of it all. Everyone knew I'd gone DOWN, he thought,bullet to the brainpan, gone! I was sposed to CALL when I got back???
Tcha, yeh, RIGHT!!!
"...any idea how FUKT it left me???I was a mess. Took me years to make any peace with it." Dave glared at him, thru wounded eyes. "were times I HATED you," he said shakily, "for being so selfish. As to think your pain superseded everyone else's..."
"And you'll never know," Kirke hissed finally, sick of this, "the stigma of it. But that's all ancient history now. & now there's this."
Dave couldn't see the problem. "What 'this'? I'm fine." he said. Kirke jumped up. Lip curled back from his fangs in a contemptuous snarl, he lifted the arm of the dead critic, let it fall with a stiff, rigor mortised plop. "He's not," Kirke growled, "we have to talk."
Dave still didn't get it. "Oh heyy, did you ever try this? Kasi showed me." Dave pushed on the corpse's chest; a slow spurt of cold blood leaked from the ruined neck. "You can still drink when they're dead! You use CPR, you massage the heart to keep the blood pumping..." Dave smiled, pleased with his little trick. Kirke just looked at him, scented him, nostrils flaring.This wasn't even Dave's first victim of the night, he'd taken 2 or 3 more! He was so gorged with blood he didn't even look dead. His skin had all the warmth & ruddiness of a live human. Only the lack of a pulse betrayed the change in Dave's physiology.
"you know," Kirke tried again, forcing himself to sound flippant, casual, "we don't HAVE to kill when we feed..."
"No," Dave speculated,"but then, you lose the best part of the rush. I can't see why you of all people'd deprive yourself of a high like that." He paused. "It's a crack buzz tho, yeh, it's like Chinese food." Dave added, "20 minutes later you're wanting more. But then, it's not like there's a shortage of scumbags walking around out there, now is there? And 'blood is blood', after all.
'In the end you take it from whatever source you can'"
Kirke looked up, shocked. That quote was his, he remembered writing it, how had Dave known it??? "Oh, I've already had the rules laid down," said Dave cheerfully, "I know, I don't munch the innocent." Kirke laughed, derisively. I suspect, he thought, Dave's parameters of bad & good are a little skewed. In his own favor.
I mean, a bad review of a Foo show is a death sentence now??? "I go on more than that," Dave said indignantly, "I DO weigh it all- I can read their thoughts. Yours too." he added at Kirke's incredulousness.
"look, man," said Dave, "do you remember when I was rooming with you in Olympia? We were living off of food stamps, off corndogs from the am/pm, shooting your BB gun at the Washington lottery building. Do you remember?"
Kirke thought. The shotgun blast had taken a good many of his memories away, but Dave's thoughts were intact, & they quickened him. Kirke could all but smell that rancid little apartment on Pear street, hear the gulls swooping over Percival Landing. "i remember," he muttered, "but..."
"But then you LIKED the sound of breaking glass.You wanted to take out some rich bastard. You TOLD me." Dave was smiling again. His fangs spoiled the effect.
"That," Kirke said, was before I ever made a million dollars. I figured ALL rich people were evil bastards; I was prejudiced." And in spite of himself, he meant that; he, who had once lived homeless under a bridge & dreamed of killing aristocrats now knew the flipside of the financial ladder. He knew money could NOT buy you happiness, only overpriced painkillers. He knew no matter how much people professed to love their popstars, they hated them too. He remebered, more than once, some kid coming up to him, initially to praise the band, then slowly, to start shit when he didn't behave as said kid assumed Rock Royalty should. How he could never win such a fight; either way only HIS reputation got sullied.
How the people in clubs would applaud when he was escorted out, happy to see the rich rockstar get his comeuppance.
He'd been in both places, the streets AND the 33% tax bracket. "Back then I was JEALOUS," he said, "I was grossly misinformed."
Dave shook his head & tched- THIS was one of the traits Kirke had always hated in him. How quickly & stubbornly Dave'd dismiss anyone who didn't GET what he, Dave was on about. There were only two opinions on a subject- Dave's, & the WRONG one.
Whatever.
Dave tried a new tact. He stared at Kirke, & he quoted to him something. Hearing the words brought chills to Kirke. He recognized it immediately. "'Since the age of 8 I've become more hating of human beings in general'" Dave said.
The note, Kirke thought, & shuddered. The motherfucken STUPID cursed fucken note. Damn you, Dave. Damn you
"...'maybe because I love people too much'." Kirke quoted himself from further into the pained tirade. He barely remembered writing the thing, if in fact he had. As he'd said earlier, he'd been far too stoned to even remember his death.
Murder or suicide? he'd been asked incessantly in the afterlife, murder or suicide? Well, the Wraith-rune branded in his leg said suicide, & certainly he'd been suicidAL most of his life, death & unlife. But this was conclusive of nothing.
"I DO hate people," Kirke said, "but not for the reasons you think, Dave. I hate their wasted potential. Their mean-ness, their stupidity, their fuckin' indifference to each other. If there were more empathy in the world..."
"EMPATHY?! There you go again. Empathy!" Dave sneered. Lips curled back from his new fangteeth. "look. Empathy's a double-edged sword. can't you see that, Kurt. Listen.
"If people had more empathy, the world would NOT automatically become a happy go lucky paradise. It would get worse. They would see EXACTLY how other people felt. And they would hurt each other even more... because stabbing in the dark would be eliminated. No more guesswork! The world would be more sadistic, because everyone would know EXACTLY, tot he letter, how to hurt everyone else!"
Kirke said nothing.
Dave grabbed Kirke's hand firmly between his own, leaned his head on Kirke's shoulder. He could feel how badly Kirke was shaking, & feel the Thirst, raging to get out of his friend & sate itself. "i don't see why you fight this, bud," Dave sighed, "I wish you'd've come to me sooner. I don't hate you for doing this to me. Had I known you were still alive, & that you had this power, I'd have forgiven you everything if you'd given it to me sooner. I'd have begged you for it.
"I missed you, Kurt. When you died, part of me went with you. I had dreams about you. I cried. A lot."
Kirke wanted to cry now, but he fought it. Hardened hsi resolution, grinding his teeth. I have to get thru to him, he thought, I HAVE to make him understand! He shuddered.
or take him out myself...
"Look," Kirke said, "I never asked for this..." and he told Dave of Gwynna, of his Embrace, of how if not for Sabria he would not have survived it. "..and so I became vampyre," Kirke said, "but it was never by choice! Look, you DO know the music thing was over whether I'd died or not anyway, don't you? Nirvana was over. My amrraige was over. Everything....
"I was gonna go away. You'd never've seen me again anyway. None of you. Not you. Not Krist. Not Courtney...
But I've missed Frances. Oh Godd help me, I have. To never see her grow...but look. Like all kids, she was scared of the darkness, sometimes. I'd sing to her & make the monsters go away....
"I swore to myself, Dave. I swore on the love for my child,who I know I'll never see, that I'd never become something she would fear. That I'd never become a monster..."
Dave was looking at him. Kirke lowered his head. There, he thought, that's the best I can manage. If he can't get that...
Dave burst out laughing.
"ohh, that...that's rich, Kurt. That...oh, you fuckin' deserve a Oscar for that." Dave chortled.
Kurt groaned.
"I," Dave reiterated when he was able to stop laughing,"am not out of control. I know what I'm doing, Kurt! Give me some fuckin' credit! you always said I was the most well-adjusted boy you knew. So. I adapt. I survive. Let me tell you something, I am NOT feeding indiscriminately. I've inherited this empathy of yours. It's in my blood, as it were. I feel their feelings. Hear their thoughts. This..." he indicated the dead journalist, who was starting to reek of the onset of decay, "was not just a petty act of revenge. Wasn't just MY band he dissed. He made a living out of cutting other people's playing to the quick. Frustrated wannabe, you see? Determined to drag everyone else down. He broke careers where he could. Petty fucker." Dave spat in the dead man's face. "beat his wife, too. I KNOW. He told me. with his thoughts. with his smell. Yes, Kurt, I know you think I'm a menace. I'm not. I'm making judgements, same as you. I have to feed. I just don't have any moral quandaries, like you. I enjoy surviving."
"...quandaries..." repeated Kirke. He wanted to believe what Dave said. But he also knew dave's dismissive, snap judgement nature. Maybe he was trying to be moral. But it was a morality without mercy, without remorse.
Dave was smiling again, a guileless, guiltless smile. Indeed, this was their primary difference, the crux of it, taken to its basest. Dave WAS a survivor, & a hedonist. Lives would be taken, each night, because Dave liked the energy.
"I'm sorry," Kirke muttered, & he felt feverish, scared, "you were a mistake. I should've never made you..."
He lunged at Dave, and Dave went down, lying there, pinned under Kirke's meagre weight. If the attack was expected, Dave made no sign of it, eyes wide, slightly scared. Dave made no move to push Kirke off tho. He laid there & waited.
i HAVE to do this, Kirke thought, hesitating, and he bared his fangs. Dave gave a meek, surprized yelp when he actually was bitten, as though perhaps he hadn't expected Kirke to go thru with it. He tensed, but he still did not fight.
The liquid was rich, and immediately intoxicating, full of manic energy. Had this been any other victim, any anonymous rapist or cutthroat Kirke felt was rightfully taken, he'd have lost himself in the bliss & savored every mouthful.
But he could barely bring himself to swallow, and it was hard to cry and drink at the same time. At length, he unhooked his fangs from Dave's throat. Beat on the drummer's chest, & sobbed. "Damn you, Dave!" he whispered shakily.
Dave looked at him, calmly, eyes warm with friendship. He reached out & tousled Kirke's hair.
"Asshole," Dave chuckled goodnaturedly, "I knew you didn't have the heart to kill me."
"oh, I have the heart. I got PLENTY of heart," Kirke muttered, "it's balls I'm fucken lacking here. Oh, Dave...
Kirke smiled bitterly.
"I missed you too." he admitted.
Dave flipped back his piggytails, stared at Kirke. "You with that old guy?" he asked.
"What old guy?"
"Cronus. You with him, Kurt? I mean..." Dave leered. Made the fingers of his right hand into an "ok" sign, a hole, & thrust his left index finger in & out of it. Rudimentary, playground signing. A "fuck" gesture.
"Guttermouth," Kirke hissed, & Dave laughed. "yes. I am. What OF it?"
"Just curious, no need to get defensive," Dave said casually, eyes betraying his revulsion, "never did get your 'queer' side at all!"
Kirke shrugged. Filched thru the pockets of his plaid flannel overshirt for a ciggaret. Lit it. Sat for awhile, lost in thought.
"Some of em DO ask for it, actually..." he said after awhile. Dave misunderstood.
"oh yeh, I know, they're bastards, or you couldn't take em. A conscience is an expensive thing to maintain..."
"No, no, I mean some victims DO ask for death," Kirke said, speculatively, "there IS the sexual element to the feeding, you'll understand this one day. But then, some people really wanna die...and they're drawn to us. It's beautiful, really. I'm so gentle with them. I want their deaths to be painless & nice for them..."
Dave looked confused, & slightly revolted. "'Kirke O'Bain'," he said, pronouncing it carefully so as to show he GOT the mis-spelling, "you also callin' yourself Kevorkian these days?"
Kirke realized he'd forgotten to breathe now for some time; he exhaled smoke thru his nostrils with a sigh. "I was in th'Western lands for about 3, 4 years..." he said, "the afterlife's a creepy place. Try not to die if you can help it, Dave."
"uh, yeh." Dave agreed nervously, wondering where this was leading.
"I met Jim Morrison there once," Kirke continued, "he ain't too far from Cronus's really. His mortal remains, I mean. Pere lachaise. s'a funny little place, has a weird history. Plece de Greve, this mass grave they used to use? Caved in the wall of some restaraunt. Bodies, skeletons all over the place... So, the French decided to build a new cemetary? Imported in some celebrity corpses to give the place instant chic. But I digress.
"Jim's as fukt a Wraith as one could meet," Kirke continued, "he LOVES his bad reputation, & the way grrls still ogle his sorry dead ass. He baits suicidal grrls, he does. 'Break on thru to the other side!' Then he laughs at their stupidity.
"'Kids will call to you', he sez, 'they will invoke you. You should go to their little seances. it's a gas, man.'
Fuck you, I said, why?
'To them you ARE death,' he sez, 'Merciful death. Beautiful death. Death with the face of an angel'
suck my nutbag, I told him, you're a sick bastard.
'Straight up, man, dig it,' he sez, 'don't you see? You're public domain now. Kids who never knew you are in love with your Image. You're everything they need you to be. Especially the reassurance that death could love even them.'"
"That IS sick!" Dave exclaimed. Then added, "but he's right, you know. After you died..."
"I know," Kirke said sadly, "'copycat suicides'. I met some of them, too. First thing they'd do? Is show me their guns. Like overeager virgins. 'See it, Kurt? Touchittouchittouchit. Validate me. I'm your angel now'.
"I never wanted to be an advocate for suicide, or heroin, or automatic weapons. I never asked for this bastardized sainthood. I never died for them! They don't even know me! None of them know me! None of them had the slightest inkling of my personality or intentions."
Dave was silent, studying his hands. "May I ask you something?" he blurted.
Kirke sighed. "Sure." he said.
"Did you ever think of me at all? While you were out there, floating around the afterlife? Did you ever look down & say 'Iwonder how dave's responding to all of this..'" Dave laughed, bitterly, & stole Kirke's ciggaret. Toked it. Bloodtears streamed down his face. I'm hurting him again Kirke thought, baaad topic choice.
"Sometimes," he said, "not a lot, really. It hurt too much to look back... & I had alot of healing to do. And a whole other existence on my new plane..."
Dave looked at him. Hard-eyed. Bitter.
"Stop me if you've heard this one," he said oddly, "how do you make a Nirvana reunion? Two more bullets."
Kirke winced. "I've heard all the jokes," he said, "I know, I know. I'm a walking, talking punchline. My whole existence ripped open & raped for other ppl's amusement. The headless whore. Kurdt NoBrains. Yaddita yaddita yaaah! Ouch."
Selfconsciously, he scratched the back of his head, flinching as he touched scar tissue.
"Well," Dave said finally, "I've heard them all too. And maybe it's not the same pain, not being the brunt of the joke. But shit, man. shit! You were my FRIEND.
"and to hear people talk about you like that...on top of the pain of..of losing you." Dave swallowed hard.
"I thought about you alot," Dave continued, tears flwoing freely as he spoke, "dreamed about you. Missed you. Loved you. Hated & resented and was sore pissed at you, too. It was like a betrayal. You never said goodbye.
"Finally," he continued,"I had to get on with my life. With my music. So I did.... but you never really went away. Journalists'd fuckin' bring up Nirvana all the time. I'd see your face, glaring at me from kids' T-shirts.
posters...
"And, right. none of em ever really knew you, not like I did. They laughed at you. And worse, most of them idolized you. Put you on a pedestal like some two dimensional thing...."
"Oh, there he is, up there in Heaven, playin' Unplugged forever," Kirke's whole body radiated his sarcasm as he spoke, "a sweet, nadless fangless fucken ANGEL. Never a bad word to no one, just an endless pissy font of love and empathy."
"..or a wet-dream poster-boi," Kirke continued, rising to his feet, shaking with nausea, "like James Dean, like Morrison, like ELVIS! How many soppy little Goth chickies do you think finger themselves under my photo every night? How many lost grunge-grrls daydream me their ideal lover, or worse, like Jimbo said, their eventual angel of mercy??? Merciful death. Ahhh, Jesus. Ah fuck
"fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck..."
"You can't change their minds,Kurt," Dave said, "you can never seperate the myth from yourself anymore."
"And I can't save them!" Kirke moaned, "I couldn't even save myself from myself!"
Dave smiled, slightly. "..or your murderer." he added, with sarcastic mirth, "if it WASN'T suicide, Courtney coldcocked you for sure.
"or I did.
or Kali. or GoldMountain. or every damn dealer in Seattle."
Kirke laughed, in spite of himself. "You're forgetting el Duce." he chuckled, "or Burrough's brain machine."
Dave lit up. "You were paying attention!" he said, "I KNEW it! I knew you couldn't just cut us off forever..."
"You always DID believe in UFOs, Davey-boi. You & your fucken Duchovnian rifts. So then why not ghosts...?"
"...but...you'd never've done anything LAME, right? Like, channel thru Whoopi Goldberg & make me waltz to the Righteous Brothers with ya? Right?"
Kirke chuckled. and sang.
but not "Unchained Melody"
"if you believe in foreverrrr
he growled,
"then life is just a one night stand.
If there's a rock & roll he-ea-vennn..."
"..."they're sure to have one HELLUVA band!" Dave joined him. Kirke grinned.
"sounded a FUCKova lot better'n 'My Hero'"> he cackled.
Dave looked suitably chagrinned. "Did you ever meet John Bonham?"
"Would I tell YOU if I did??"
"So, what did you think of 'Celebrity Skin'?"
"s'the best Smashing Pumpkins record I ever heard!"
"did you REALLY write 'Old Age'?"
"shut the fuck UP,Dave.Let's go get a bite to eat, alright??"
