Mercy

The last four Advil tablets were strewn arbitrarily along the center of the kitchen table, four glaring red reminders of the unspoken feud brewing between Billie Joe and me. We were both in pain, yet seeing the other suffer was so far beyond the physical torment of my nearly broken nose or the old bastard’s inflamed lungs that neither of us bothered to lunge for the pills. We sat with similar glowers pulled across our faces, daring the other to take them, for it would be utterly pointless to allow the painkillers to go to waste. It wasn’t as if we could split the dosage, either. At two-hundred milligrams apiece, those tiny red fuckers wouldn’t put a goddamn dent in the constant throbbing of my nose and head unless I consumed all four of them. I knew full well that four might not even quell the aching in Billie Joe’s chest, but I was steadfast in my mission to bring any form of contentment to him. He was my patient, after all.

“Take the fuckin’ pills, Fairy. I don’t need ‘em,” Billie grunted, pushing the pills towards me. Groaning, I flicked them back to the center of the table.

“Yes you do! I can see it in your eyes that you need these more than I do!” I ranted, exasperation coursing through my veins in a constant throb which mirrored the pulsating pain in my head. The old bastard merely grinned at my docile outburst, and I clearly saw the wheels turning in that manipulative mind of his. My face fell as I realized I would not be winning this dispute.

I was fucked from the beginning, for there’s no arguing with a psychic.

“Shit, if you think I look like hell, then you obviously haven’t seen your face. You got one helluva shiner workin’ there, ‘n’ your nose? The blood pourin’ out was more’n I’ve seen in one place a long time,” he chuckled, arms crossing defiantly against his chest.

“I’m not the one dying,” I snapped. My fists clenched upon the kitchen table, and I immediately wished I could withdraw my harshly worded phrase, but there was no going back. My words were scattered across the table as haphazardly as the fucking red pills, and neither of us were jumping at the chance to gather them up. The old man’s grin disappeared in an instant.

“Fuck you,” he whispered, arms unraveling as he succumbed to an assumed defeat I had not foreseen. His fingers trembled as he grasped the tablets, one by one, and popped them into his mouth. With a grimace and a generous gulp from his perspiring can of beer, the cause of our spat was washed away in a matter of seconds.

“See, that wasn’t so hard,” I cooed, but Billie Joe continued to glare at me. With a triumphant smirk, I leaned forward and cupped his face in my hands, drawing him closer to me. I kissed him square on the lips before murmuring in his ear, “C’mon, don’t be a sore loser.”

His tongue lapped out and caressed my earlobe, compelling an appreciate tremor to reverberate throughout my body, as he mumbled, “I ain’t.”

Without warning, lips attached themselves to mine. All conscious thought pertaining to my aching head was extinguished on the spot. His fingernails grazed along my scalp, sensual enough in their lazy trail to stimulate an immediate arousal in me, as his greedy tongue traced the outline of my mouth. I moaned, and through the small opening my parted lips created, Billie Joe plunged into me. My arm reached out to draw him nearer to my body, but the minute I embraced him, he pulled away. The abruptness of our separation left me in a lightheaded stupor, and when my brain finally caught up with my overzealous dick, four little intrusions were poking against the insides of my cheeks.

Billie Joe had used his lips and his body to force me into taking what should have been his dose of Advil.

I pursed my lips, scowling in my defeat, as I grew cognizant of a faint, fluttering movement out of the corner of my eye. A quick glance to the side depicted a smug old bastard with one hand pressed firmly against his mouth as he took a desperate, but futile, stab at quieting the giggles which threatened to erupt from his throat. His unoccupied arm was outstretched and haughtily brandishing an unorthodox peace offering, and it wasn’t until I snatched it from him and used it to swallow down the pills that he ceased in mocking me with his beer. The liquid tasted like brutal defeat laced with piss.

“I had you goin’ for a minute there, di’n’t I?” he chuckled, thoroughly bemused by his own shrewd deceit.

I was reminded of my neglected hard-on, and through gritted teeth I hissed, “You’re an asshole.”

“I make you a damn near perfect little sandwich ‘n’ let you drink the rest o’ my beer, ‘n’ this is the thanks I get? Fuck that, I’m takin’ it back,” Billie Joe announced, seizing the can right out of my hands as it was pressed to my lips, squashing the chances I had of taking another sip. The abruptness of his movements sent droplets of the amber alcoholic beverage careening sporadically onto the kitchen table, and once he’d reclaimed his precious vice, he drained what remained in the can in one gulp.

“Oh, I see how it is,” I growled, dismissing myself from his table without another word. I had in my possession another of the old bastard’s beloved vices, one that I was damn near convinced he hadn’t touched since his cancer diagnosis, and I was intent on finding it before he was able to sense exactly what it was I craved.

I headed directly towards the old man’s bedroom and fell to my knees before a heap of discarded clothing on the floor. I fished around inside the pockets of my jeans and quickly came across a lighter and a deplorable wad of cash, but the pack of cigarettes I longed to use to my advantage was nowhere to be found. Had I unintentionally left it in my locker back at the hospital, or had they fallen out during my sprint through the forest with Jakob?

“Lookin’ for these?” an arrogant voice asked from the doorway, words dripping with feigned innocence. I didn’t need to look at Billie Joe to know he was flaunting a stolen package of cigarettes.

“Yes,” I sighed, completely drained of any lingering initiative to best the dying man. I simply had to bend over and take what he would thrust at me without complaint, for his power over me would always be superior. He might have promised me I would no longer be the bitch this time around, but as I continued to be dominated by him both physically and mentally, I seriously began to doubt the sincerity of that specific promise.

I was unable to look Billie in the eye as I retrieved the pack from him. With my tail between my legs and my erection limp and forgotten, I slunk back into the kitchen, making sure to sit in the chair furthest from the old bastard. With a scowl, I fished a single cigarette from the pack, lit it, and took a lengthy drag. Almost as an afterthought, I spitefully blew the entire lungful of smoke out in Billie’s general direction when he returned to sit across from me.

“Look who’s the sore loser now, Sugah,” he muttered, shifting in his seat while the smoke curled about his face, framing it with the barely visible token of my ominous contempt. The smell was driving him mad, yet he did not ask me for a hit. Instead, he took to compulsively gnawing at his fingernails to keep his mind off of his mounting craving. When it didn’t immediately work, he stood and rummaged through a cabinet in an attempt to remove himself from my hazy cloud until his found what he was looking for. With much reluctance, he turned on his heel and set a small glass bowl in front of me before collapsing into the chair beside me.

I purposely flicked the ashes so they would miss the makeshift ashtray entirely. Billie watched them fall to the ground with pained eyes, and for a moment, his confidence matched that of the dying embers.

“Why haven’t you asked me about him?” I demanded, referring to the teenage boy he killed.

Billie remained fixated on the burning end of my cigarette as he replied, “I don’t wanna know. Not yet.”

“When will you?” I pressed.

“Dunno. Maybe never.”
“He killed your grandson,” I blurted.
“Stop it, Fairy, I don’t-”
“He tried to kill me.”
“Please, stop-”
“Why are you willing to ignore that?”

Billie’s eyes were closed, and his fingers etched circle after frantic circle into his temples. It was almost difficult to watch as I struck the only nerve the old bastard seemed to have, for he was all but imploding in front of me. He was no longer smug, no longer brave, no longer dominant. The way in which he began to cower under my stare placed the power in my hands, though my own frailty made it impossible for me to control it. Instead, the power was transferred to a ghost lingering unseen within every square inch of that house.

“‘Cause Frankie was my Elliot. I’m not ready to relive that!” he cried out.

“Then can you tell me more about how your brother got you and Adrienne out of Georgia?” I questioned lightly, taking his hand in mine. I hoped the physical encouragement would be enough to coax him into continuing his story.

“Yes,” he whimpered. “I’ll tell you ‘bout anythin’ but Frankie.”