I Hate This Place

"I moved here because I loved the ocean as a kid. What a naïve little idiot I was. I ruined it for myself because this place is rotten. Rotten to the very core of it, and once I finally manage to free myself from the damned shackles of my curse, " I laughed, "it's all I'm ever going to think about every time I see the water. Eight years of never-ending hell. "

I wanted to stop, but it felt like my mouth moved on its own accord, spilling my guts out to this sullen archivist. But what did it matter? We'd probably both be dead by the end of the year.

"Eight fucking years of desperation. Of spying, and beatings, and strangeness. I hate it here. And I hate every single inane headcase who willingly lives here in..." I swept my arms wide, "in this wretched place, with its stinking sea and beach of fetid mud and glass. "

"I didn't have much of a choice." Pierce replied, in his soft and gratingly monotone way.

"You did!" I snapped. "You didn't have to stay! And at least you don't mind your job. I never wanted to be a P.I. but I didn't have any choice. I'm too strange for decent people's work, but too decent for Stranger work. You at least could be happy if you weren't so dead set on being miserable."

The corners of Pierce's mouth turned down in a brief blink and you miss it type of frown. It panged my damn heart, but I forced myself past the feeling. He deserved it. Pierce HAD options, and I didn't. Life callously went and set me on the one-way track to a brutal death, and I was just too damn stubborn to simply let the ride take me to my final destination. Always digging my heels even when I knew better, as if railing against fate would bring me any sort of peace.

"As a kid I wanted to be a mechanic like my dad, I even did it a little, but now," I made a small waving gesture with my hand, "I'd take anything. A cashier, bellhop, an usher. Hell, I'd even be one of those poor bastards that clean up roadkill." My voice cracked as a sob ripped from my throat. I sniffled and wiped my face with my sleeve. Weak, why couldn't I keep myself from crying? "Anything but this. Anything but being a Stranger. Ghosts already call to me, and follow me home. I'm half expecting a Devil one of these days to be sitting at my dinner table, bidding me welcome, and asking if I want a deal."

"It wouldn't free you." The Doppelganger said.

"You fucking stay out of this!" I snatched my mug from the table and hurled it at the creature. The Doppelganger neatly sidestepped it. The mug smashed against the wall with a terrible crash, sending a spray of coffee and ceramic every which way. Coffee dripped down from the ugly splotch it left on the yellowed wallpaper.

"Morgan." Pierce said softly.

I spun to face him, hand raised and finger pointed accusatorily, ready to tear into him. But the fight up and went right out of me upon meeting the man's eyes. Those damned, sad, tired eyes, permanently ringed with black circles. I let my arm fall limply back down to my side.

"I...I can't do it. I refuse to do it. I'd rather die than be a Stranger." I whispered. "I just want to go home." I covered my face with my hands, trying to salvage what little dignity I had left. Pierce could hear me crying, but it didn't mean the man needed to see my face while I did so.

I jumped as I felt arms wrap around me.

"I'm sorry, Morgan." Pierce said as he gently held me against him.

I took my hands away from my face, and pulled Pierce into a tight embrace. I clung to the other man desperately, holding onto fistfuls of his jacket in a white-knuckled grip. Any port in a storm. Even one so painfully temporary. I took one last shuddering breath, and came undone.

---

I couldn't tell you how we ended up in bed next to each other, my face pressed so firmly against his chest that each breath felt like I would suffocate in the fabric of his shirt, his hand running through my hair as he whispered meaningless lies of comfort. Things weren't going to be okay. We both knew it. But I wasn't going to tell him to stop. Ravenous and hungry for any scrap of genuine sympathy, but like an ill-trained dog, I always snapped at any hands extended towards me. It never mattered to him how hard I bit him. St. Fucking Verdeaux wouldn't leave me. They should mint a coin of him. The type that people rubbed between their fingers as they spat out their daily, desperate devotions. I could see it now, a book in his left hand and the right one raised. The patron saint of the miserable strays.

Pierce shifted slightly, his chin rubbing against the top of my head. "Do you want me to stay?"

I nodded and gave his shirt a small tug, not daring to speak lest I start bawling my eyes out again.

With a soft sigh, he settled in, moving his bad leg so the knee of it rested on top of my thigh, using my body as a makeshift cushion. "Goodnight, Isaac." Pierce mumbled, his words almost intelligible. His breathing slowed as he quickly drifted off to sleep, leaving me alone in his arms.

The fall rain fell heavily, drumming a beat upon the window pane. Somewhere outside a woman screamed. And dogs barked. And music played. And people shouted then burst into laughter. A constant cacophony of noise, even at night, that for once didn't make me feel so terribly lonely.