[On the night of August 21st, a man dies, and it has nothing to do with justice.
Deep down, he's known all along that this day would come. He's been having twinges of hunger for months now, and for the past several weeks it's been growing increasingly more difficult to ignore. Where once it had been simple nagging, idle dissatisfaction with the other meals that only mostly succeeded at filling him up, now all of a sudden it had escalated into something more insistent and impossible to set aside entirely. At dusk he wakes up hungry, and spends the whole night with his thoughts repeatedly invaded with intruding urges to hunt for prey. At dawn he lets the sunlight hit him, because at least it's a guarantee that he'll have a respite from having to hold himself off until sundown.
He steals drinks of Rohan's smoothies to stave off the edges. He tries not to let himself think about the man he carried up the apartment stairs on Rohan's behalf, how his organs had turned to mush inside his skin before it started to sluice off his bones.
It's worrying about Rohan and Josuke that does him in. Too much worrying, too much possessiveness, too much gargoyle. Rohan and Josuke are his, his his his. It makes it too easy for instinct to take over, and the primary instinct right now is to feed.
He knows what he's doing even as he launches himself into the sky and feigns denial. He's only flying, he tells himself, like he doesn't already know what he's looking for or how his stomach feels like it's growling so insistently that he's going to be sick. Maybe he's going to be sick for other reasons, he doesn't know, but he's hungry, and the gargoyle is unnerving him the way that Star Platinum used to when he was still just an evil spirit that Jotaro didn't understand, fighting on his behalf in battles he'd never asked for assistence in.
At least Star had only ever put people in the hospital. The gargoyle is going to put someone in the morgue.
It's the middle of the night. There's no chance the sun will rise and prevent him, but still he wishes for it anyway. He doesn't want this, he doesn't want to be a monster, but he isn't going back home even though he knows that he should. He's so hungry and soon the lights of Bavan at night are below him and his too-keen eyes are searching the streets, hunting hunting hunting.
His tongue feels thick in his mouth, and he realizes it's because his mouth is watering.
Please, he thinks desperately, and has no idea who he's addressing it to. Please, at least let it be someone who deserves it.
He stays in the air, hovering around bars and erotic theaters and speakeasies, hoping for a respite. Something, anything — some sleazy guy, a group of punks hassling a girl. Anything, anything. His ability to hold out on principle isn't going to last for long.
In the end, it's a laughably stupid offense that earns a man his death. A single, middle-aged guy in a tiny suburban home. It has a yard. He has a dog. He's outside on the back step in an undershirt and sweatpants, yelling into the night. There's a beer in his hand and dirty brown shoes on his feet. The dog is afraid of him; it's hunkered down and bristling, huddled a few feet away and refusing to obey its master's commands to come inside.
Mistreating a dog shouldn't carry a death sentence. But tonight, it does.
By the time he's done, he's covered in blood. It's on his mouth, his face, his hands. It feels like it might be in his eyes, until he realizes that they're damp from something else. There are bits of flesh sticking under the claws on his fingers and his talons. The backyard reeks of death, and all of his scales up to his elbows are tacky and stained under the moonlight.
For a while, then, he just sits there, crouched on a dead man's back stoop with meat in his mouth and fullness in his belly, breathing. In and out, in and out; his mind seems so uncharacteristically blank, in comparison to the hurricane it had been just hours before. He doesn't want to think of anything. He certainly doesn't want to think about what he's done. Even moreso than that, he doesn't want to think about this makes him, now.
The first real thought he has, then,is: what's going to happen to the dog?
~
Two hours later, he's home. Back to the castle, back in through the window to the room he's claimed as his own, where he shuts the door to seal it off and deposits the dog and its food and its toys on the floor, and then exits through the window again. At first he thinks he's going to sit on the roof and wait until dawn, the same way that he's grown accustomed to doing lately.
He's up there for five minutes before he realizes that he hasn't washed the blood off his face, and that he really doesn't want to be alone. In a way, it doesn't really feel like he deserves to do either.
CHOO CHOO ANGST TRAIN
Deep down, he's known all along that this day would come. He's been having twinges of hunger for months now, and for the past several weeks it's been growing increasingly more difficult to ignore. Where once it had been simple nagging, idle dissatisfaction with the other meals that only mostly succeeded at filling him up, now all of a sudden it had escalated into something more insistent and impossible to set aside entirely. At dusk he wakes up hungry, and spends the whole night with his thoughts repeatedly invaded with intruding urges to hunt for prey. At dawn he lets the sunlight hit him, because at least it's a guarantee that he'll have a respite from having to hold himself off until sundown.
He steals drinks of Rohan's smoothies to stave off the edges. He tries not to let himself think about the man he carried up the apartment stairs on Rohan's behalf, how his organs had turned to mush inside his skin before it started to sluice off his bones.
It's worrying about Rohan and Josuke that does him in. Too much worrying, too much possessiveness, too much gargoyle. Rohan and Josuke are his, his his his. It makes it too easy for instinct to take over, and the primary instinct right now is to feed.
He knows what he's doing even as he launches himself into the sky and feigns denial. He's only flying, he tells himself, like he doesn't already know what he's looking for or how his stomach feels like it's growling so insistently that he's going to be sick. Maybe he's going to be sick for other reasons, he doesn't know, but he's hungry, and the gargoyle is unnerving him the way that Star Platinum used to when he was still just an evil spirit that Jotaro didn't understand, fighting on his behalf in battles he'd never asked for assistence in.
At least Star had only ever put people in the hospital. The gargoyle is going to put someone in the morgue.
It's the middle of the night. There's no chance the sun will rise and prevent him, but still he wishes for it anyway. He doesn't want this, he doesn't want to be a monster, but he isn't going back home even though he knows that he should. He's so hungry and soon the lights of Bavan at night are below him and his too-keen eyes are searching the streets, hunting hunting hunting.
His tongue feels thick in his mouth, and he realizes it's because his mouth is watering.
Please, he thinks desperately, and has no idea who he's addressing it to. Please, at least let it be someone who deserves it.
He stays in the air, hovering around bars and erotic theaters and speakeasies, hoping for a respite. Something, anything — some sleazy guy, a group of punks hassling a girl. Anything, anything. His ability to hold out on principle isn't going to last for long.
In the end, it's a laughably stupid offense that earns a man his death. A single, middle-aged guy in a tiny suburban home. It has a yard. He has a dog. He's outside on the back step in an undershirt and sweatpants, yelling into the night. There's a beer in his hand and dirty brown shoes on his feet. The dog is afraid of him; it's hunkered down and bristling, huddled a few feet away and refusing to obey its master's commands to come inside.
Mistreating a dog shouldn't carry a death sentence. But tonight, it does.
By the time he's done, he's covered in blood. It's on his mouth, his face, his hands. It feels like it might be in his eyes, until he realizes that they're damp from something else. There are bits of flesh sticking under the claws on his fingers and his talons. The backyard reeks of death, and all of his scales up to his elbows are tacky and stained under the moonlight.
For a while, then, he just sits there, crouched on a dead man's back stoop with meat in his mouth and fullness in his belly, breathing. In and out, in and out; his mind seems so uncharacteristically blank, in comparison to the hurricane it had been just hours before. He doesn't want to think of anything. He certainly doesn't want to think about what he's done. Even moreso than that, he doesn't want to think about this makes him, now.
The first real thought he has, then,is: what's going to happen to the dog?
Two hours later, he's home. Back to the castle, back in through the window to the room he's claimed as his own, where he shuts the door to seal it off and deposits the dog and its food and its toys on the floor, and then exits through the window again. At first he thinks he's going to sit on the roof and wait until dawn, the same way that he's grown accustomed to doing lately.
He's up there for five minutes before he realizes that he hasn't washed the blood off his face, and that he really doesn't want to be alone. In a way, it doesn't really feel like he deserves to do either.
He goes to find Rohan anyway.]