PERVERSE - Apply Fic

23

From his short stint in medical school before his death, Ajay learned that it can be difficult to assess how accurate the memory of pain is. He knows is not very good. When he walks out at night, he hears the sound of screeching tires, of burning metal, and he's particularly unlucky when crossing the street, sometimes he hears a bang, metallic and loud like a gunshot, and he knows it is the sound of his body hitting a car. He never remembers how it aches.

The cold is like that. He's Canadian, built to handle the icy chill of winter. It is not even the end of October, and when he steps outside of the motel to see Este on the balcony, the wind blows and suddenly he is the coldest he has ever been. It is not snowing, and he knows the snow will come. It is colder in January than December, colder in March than it is that evening, but even still, Ajay is the coldest he has ever been. Likely, the coldest he will ever be.

Este doesn't glance over her shoulder, but she feels the presence of Ajay when the door closes. Something about the way it shuts, the quiet steps of his feet. It couldn't be anyone but him.

Then, he is beside her, leaning on the balcony as well, looking down into the parking lot beneath their feet. He doesn't say anything, and Este appreciates his lack of clever retort.

Other people leave the building, floating by in quiet pairings or smaller groups. It seems that none of them are poltergeists. None of them really want to bother anyone else. None but Este naturally.

Kaylee Wood-Roswell is dead. This time, she isn't coming back. Probably, she actually remembers the way she suffered at the hands of the husband they shared. Este never even liked Kaylee, never really wanted to learn about the woman who slept with her husband before and after her death. The choice was taken from her, but the most final force there is.

Maybe their province dies in the winter. Maybe it doesn't ever come back to life, but the snow melts. The grass, brown as it is, grows again. Oil is striped from the land, their economy is dead, and maybe it's a vicious cycle but it is a cycle. Kaylee has been removed from the circle of life.

Este grits her teeth. A lesser woman would swear.

"Were you friends?" Ajay asks.

Este chuckles to herself. The wind blows in her hair. She feels it whip in her face, snagging on her eyelashes. Some of it gets in her mouth. It's all horrid.

In the breeze, she looks so beautiful. So accursed. As a medic, Ajay is used to helping people, and he can admit he feels some sick satisfaction when he is able to help alleviate someone's aches. Maybe some others might think that is sweet, but he doesn't. His pleasure blossoms from the suffering of others.

"I don't have friends," Este points out.

Ajay rolls his eyes, "pretty thing like you? Every demon in Hell must be lined up around the block."

"Yeah, well my husband beat them there."

Ajay shifts his weight onto the opposite foot, adjusting his posture. He looks at her.

"You still look beautiful when you let other people see you," Ajay looks at her.

He thinks of her, by the pond in the forest through his drunk eyes, and he thinks of her drunk through his sober eyes. He thinks of long walks, of murder and forests, not just lives that were stolen from them, but the deaths.

Ajay never thinks about the life that was taken. It wasn't, not really. His heart beats, his eyes blink, and he breathes in air even if it is the coldest air he has ever felt.