He'd not escaped the perfume passing her, or holding her. It was on him too, now. Miranda started caring about the vapor traces her nearness left, too. Some needlessly expensive bottle she kept hidden by the books that helped her fall asleep in Jonas's bed. Reno hadn't chosen the same ethereal concoction exactly, but it was the same kind of contrast to her real scent. Both women wanted to smother and cover what they were. It had left the young boy burying his face deeper against Miranda's neck to find her first aroma, the one at the bottom of her hair roots and under her breasts. He hadn't known it back then, but it had let the woman think she had succeeded in her masquerade.<br/><br/>So he'd come out of Burning Bear with all these weapons. Toil staying under his eyes and a boondock vicious at the corner of his lips, but with the softness of someone who was out of- and looking for love in the plump of them. Willow bones and artistic loneliness. Wolven snarl and careful, then passionate touches. How many pairs had he uprooted and planted apart because he'd been carved into this monument that Miranda betrayed her husband and treasure girl for? The city folk had no chance, and it became worse when he realized it. Maybe, in the end, it was lonely too, for him. Every romance could be painted on him, so his low bed was always warm, but his own heart couldn't find someone who really needed him, only the mosaic of their own fantasies that they wrapped him in. It was a small misery compared to what he'd hung on Reno before he left, but it was his.<br/><br/>He saw her retreat into her own spine when he spoke, which was why he tried not to use that voice with her. She'd be like the other girls, one day, when she grew up, but he couldn't see it now. Little sprout come up too soon, in the wrong season, drinking from the fog and getting no heat from the hiding sun. She needed him. It was her allure. Too much gravel truth in his voice would have been cheating. He'd hoped to dig up something true here, among the dead - but it bought him something with her. He didn't like how he'd acquired it, but he he'd take it all the same, wouldn't he?<br/><br/>Heedlessly, fueled by a magnesium flash of worry behind his eyes and on his coldly engage frontal lobe, his hand flitted upward when he saw the blood darken her ridiculous lipstick. Why should an almost adolescent girl be painting herself, anyway? But she wasn't dying, especially not from her own teeth, and cradling her now would be condescending. The arm relaxed to hang by the roughed-up denim on his waist. It was missing the glove with its shrinking skin, but he didn't realize that, because she was saying something that wasn't a rejection. In the end it was an insult, wasn't it? He turned it over a few times. It was affection, but for the memory of him. How easy it would be to bypass that notion, and brick it in. He kept it instead, raw. You disaster of a person, who'd been sweet to her, but then turned into this narcissistic mess.<br/><br/>Catharsis in her story. What else could there have been? He should be grateful for how she'd checkered the hatred with misplaced affection. It warmed him. It was giving him tendrils to hold on to so he might find his way back into her grace. Little Reno had never held her heart far away from him. It made him feel worse.<br/><br/>He almost barked the apology when she asked for it. A painful longing that made him weak. He could writhe in embarrassment and wither in the shame if it could be over like that, his part in his own redemption, leaving it up to her whether it was possible to let him in again. But she was worth more. It would be more hollow than her weight if he said it now. Shadowy mountain hero come to the blistering neon nights of the concrete world - he had all manner of characters that could fall off his tongue, but none of his lying personas could put up a performance worthy of her consideration as it was. If she was giving him something as sacred as her hand, he'd have to find his real one to take it first. But I am sorry, his pinching brows said, at least.<br/><br/>He was frightened when she advanced. Not because she looked like a soul out of its assumed narrative on this teal grass and lingering water smoke - an angry apparition with its bleeding mouth and connection to all his sins. He was scared of how she might feel now, because she looked like she might break under her own tension, moving. As if the sinew that made her hand wrinkle her skirt was part of all the strings that laced her whole, and she might be unset and fall lifeless into a collection of misplaced joints if she breathed. It resulted in half a scoot back of his right boot. Little girls are always scary to grown boys.<br/><br/>She might as well have been a reaper then, with what she said. Of course he was here for himself, or worse, not for her but for Jonas. He'd come to see the good parts of himself in the polish of father's headstone. A sanctimonious prodigal part of this family, taking its place by the first piece of their world-wide mausoleum. If all is well after the end, the story would tell his act favorably, right? He was well acquainted with his selfishness, and tried never to diminish its part in more important introspection. How beautiful he thought he'd be. He'd even envisioned himself screaming in tears, and hiccupping through apologies and old memories while new dirt stuck to his teeth, bowed down flow, with his nose against the Burning Bear floor. But he'd afforded himself a rather formidable stance again, his heart in his chest held high above Jonas's. Here, old man, thank you for the trade you taught me, and the love, I took the love of your life, and now petition for the love you might have after.<br/><br/>Without question, he was here because he wanted to be better, to see himself better. He'd been eager to see her, but that was just some smoldering lava center of tucked-away nostalgia. That wasn't a measure of his worth, even if she wanted him to be at least that good. Holding her had been the first real embrace since he learned himself. He was just this darkly dressed villain, after all, finding things for himself by digging through this cemetery. Loving her could not be a saving grace. He must be that honest. She couldn't be betting on his transparency and then finding that there was nothing in him for her. Of course I'm here for me. Who drives across the country for someone else? Of course you're nothing to me. Three hours waiting for one hour of sordid pastime.<br/><br/>"Of course I'm here for you." Damned Wicker boy. Because you're weak and dress it up as sympathy and respect for little girls fragile hopes. Didn't care when you left, so you should be so magnanimous on your return? She'd be hungry enough to believe it, and he was too. It wasn't Jonas he'd thought of when not-Reno asked him if she should keep the ember of life they'd made, or when he'd fed her all the poisons through her nose and tongue and syringes to make it no surprise when she said that the ember had drowned, two weeks later, a truth written in blood on her triangular garden of pubic hair and cunt and their bathroom floor, stark as any bold or cursive font. It was Reno he thought he'd killed, too, and wiped up with too much toilet paper and undone with bleach. He hoped he was right. Maybe. For Reno, maybe he could rewrite himself, even if he hated sentimental lies.<br/><br/>He stood still by her side when he couldn't pass her completely. He didn't know what it was, but he bent his neck and lowered himself, temple to hers for a moment. Like some wild animal confessing loyalty to a civilized thing. He didn't tremble, men mustn't, but he thought every muscle would snap in fighting it. He could catch them, little girl oils, finally, under her woman's chemicals. It put distance between the fibers that made him, and he sighed with horrified relief. He wanted to cry against her. He went to see about his bike and her truck, instead.<br/><br/>He wanted some argument from his machine or hers. But it all worked smoothly, the new, bespoke ride on top of the ancient flat surface. The binds held it well, too. Fucking father, who'd always be prepared. The state of them and the rust lines from the clasps said enough. He'd not touched them, nobody had, since his useless son left. Volk kicked a tire and rammed naked knuckles against the ugly paint just over the handle of the driver door. In this chill it hurt more, and he cussed. He put forearms to the glass and his head against his forearms, in turn. His teeth were solid, stacked, and there was a drop of spittle falling down between his elbows.<br/><br/>"Fuck it." he muttered, mouth soaked as he shoved himself off the truck and pulled out a cigarette and burned it. He almost cried again with the comfort of the exhale, a much more temperamental fog then the one holding Jonas's stone. While squeezing the metal lighter for the remnants of the fire's heat, he watched the children they used to be come past on their way into forest. Castle Gray, the lake, their brook, whatever destination. He frowned and combed the fingers also holding his cigarette through Reno's hair, the end of her pigtails. Volk relaxed miserably against the door and hung his boot with bent leg on the step. Another cloud out his maw and he felt the return of Burning Bear into his morrow. This fucking place.