Fic Drive: All There Is

[aisalynn]

Title: All There Is
Author: Aisalynn
Fandom: Jumper
Characters: Griffin, with a little bit of David/Griffin.
Rating: Adult--mostly for violence and gore.
Summary: What if I want to break? 

The pebbles crunched beneath his feet as he walked back to shore. Water dripped into his eyes and down his neck and back, pouring down his legs and into his shoes so that the crunch beneath his feet was accompanied by a loud squelch each time he took a step. He reached the top of the small hill he was climbing and turned around.

 

The carnival lights on Brighton Pier were dark, the pier itself silent and shadow-filled, a great white ghost hovering above the dark churning waters below it. No stars were out tonight to be reflected in the sea, but he could still see the water twisting and writhing, the memory of it beating on his skin still fresh. He shivered in the late night wind as it blew wildly, whipping his hair in his face and pressing cold clothes against his skin. But he didn’t care.

 

Another Paladin dead.

 

That was all that mattered. Another one gone, another one wiped from existence. Tied down deep underneath the pier.

 

Lets see how you like being chained down and restrained.

 

He allowed himself a small smirk of satisfaction.

 

“Griffin!”

 

He whipped his head around, smirk dying as he caught sight of the figure near the water. He couldn’t really see him in the dark, but what little light there was outlined a familiar body, caught on familiar blond hair.

 

Griffin narrowed his eyes, and clenched his fists as the anger ran through him. David. The kid who fucked everything up. If it wasn’t for him this would be over by now. No, David had to stop him, had to save his girlfriend. He didn’t realize that with any Paladins alive she was as good as dead anyway. He’d have to learn that the hard way.

 

Griffin did.

 

“Griffin!” He called again, jogging towards him, slipping on the rocks as he ran up hill. “Where is he? What did you do with him?” He was breathing heavily when he finally made it up the hill, and Griffin couldn’t help but wonder why he didn’t just jump.

 

Starting to learn to be a little more careful, I see.

 

“I did what I do with all Paladins. I killed him.” He didn’t bother to look for David’s reaction at this, just stared across the water. He knew the exact spot where he left the man, and he could imagine him now, floating near the bottom, kept from surfacing by an old grimy chain weighted down by even grimier rocks, bloated and twisted face lifted to the surface, neck extended as he had tried in vain to reach it, to breathe again, to live again, eyes open and unseeing as he swayed with the movement of the water.

 

He imagined it like you see in films: the man’s hair dancing gently above his head, catching and reflecting green tinted light in the water, attracting schools of brilliantly colored fish before they darted away, parting the water like Jumpers parted matter.

 

It was beautiful.

 

“Don’t do this,” David’s voice was low, his words rushed and fervent. “Don’t be what Roland said we are. You don’t have to do this.”

 

He finally turned away from the water, meeting David’s eyes. A slow, feral grin curled on his lips. “Yes, I do.”

 

 

---

 

 

They had shackled him.

 

The metal wire wasn’t enough, the electricity and the pain they shot through his body again and again--it wasn’t enough. They had to shackle him, big heavy metal rings over his wrists and feet, chains that clinked every time he shifted, always telling him, always reminding him that he was trapped.

 

The Paladin who was in charge had sat right in front of him, just on the outside of his reach, smug grin on his face. Jeffery. His name was Jeffery.

 

Such a normal, regular name for such a sick fuck, for a man who would grin and smile as he tortured and killed a twelve year old’s family right in front of him.

 

He could remember it all. It was so vivid, the silver of the knife against her skin, the long, graceful lines of dark red that blossomed from the tip as Jeffery ran the knife over her flesh like you would a brush over canvas, smiling pleasantly all the while.

 

He still knew the exact tone of her cries, still heard the song the man hummed in his nightmares.

 

He skinned her alive. Skinned her alive while his subordinates watched, threw nervous glances at each other, and all because it was entertaining. Blood dripped from his hands and down his forearms as Jeffery peeled away her skin, leaving it in a pile at Griffin’s shackled feet. And when he was done he slit her throat. She died, convulsing, right in front of Griffin, blood pooling around them both, and he vomited, the smell and the feel of it as it seeped up his pant legs too much, too much.

 

It was all too much, he’d gone past horror and sadness (he couldn’t even be sad because that couldn’t be his mother, that twisting, writhing thing in front of him, it just couldn’t be) and he was numb. So numb in fact that the cords and the electricity and the pain didn’t matter. He couldn’t feel them, couldn’t feel anything. And when they finally reached for him, he automatically closed his eyes and jumped, taking the chains and the shackles with him, but not his family, not his friends.

 

He left them behind.

 

 

---

 

 

He landed hard on the floor of his lair, hitting his head on the table in the corner, bending his wrist as he tried to break his fall.

 

“Fuck,” he moaned and he slowly got up, cradling his hand and hissing as the movement pulled on the small knife wound on his side.

 

Four Paladins. He’d barely gotten away.

 

Four of them, and two of them were still living.

 

“Fuck!” he said again. “Shit!” He kicked violently at a box beside the table, not caring as the cut opened a little more, but instead welcoming the pain, welcoming the sharp slice of heat in his side, the warmth of his own blood trickling down his skin. It distracted him from the thoughts in his head. 

 

Two of them still alive. Two. Two.

 

Another fucking failure.

 

He clenched his fist and slammed it into the wall.

 

 

---

 

 

He killed Jeffery.

 

It was years later, and it wasn’t his first time, his first kill. No, by the time he was sixteen he had killed three men, all three quick and desperate when he was trying to get away, to escape. He hadn’t thought about it, didn’t waste time doing it--just a bullet to the head, or the electric cord tied around their neck--it was never planned.

 

Not like Jeffrey.

 

With him he planned, carefully, meticulously. He day-dreamed about it. About finding him and finally getting his revenge, finally giving him what he deserved. And one day he did, and he took his time, the only murder he had wanted, waited to do.

 

He skinned him alive.

 

Afterwards, when the screams and convulsions finally stopped, when the knife lay cold and heavy in his palm, he threw up, emptying his stomach in a corner of the room, face pressed against the wall so he wouldn’t have to see what was left of the body. His hands were covered in blood, thick and gritty, staining his skin and clothes and getting underneath his nails so that he thought he would never get rid of it, never get rid of the smell, hot and strong, the metallic taste if ut in the back of his throat. It was all around him: in his hair, on his clothes, on the walls, the floor, in the air he breathed, and it was just too much like that night and he cried, great gasping sobs that he tried to wipe away but just smeared blood on his face and he had to get away, get out. He could feel the pressure of non-existent shackles on his skin, cutting off circulation. He had to get out.

 

He jumped to the desert. It was dark, and it was empty, nothing but black sky and lines of sand, the smooth graceful rise and fall of the brown hills, and the cold didn’t matter, it felt good, cooling his overheated skin and letting him try to forget.

 

But he couldn’t forget. They wouldn’t let him.

 

 

---

 

 

His hand hurt. Waves and waves of pain flowing from his knuckles and up his arm and to his shoulder, and he gasped out a breath of relief as it flooded through him, wiping his mind of anything else but the pain. This he could deal with. He leaned against the wall, hot forehead pressed against the cool cement, and just breathed.

 

“What happened to you?”

 

Goddamn it!

 

He pushed away from the wall and turned around. “What the hell are you doing here?”

 

David stared at him, eyebrows creased over concerned eyes as they ran over his face and hands. “I was looking for you. This is the most likely place for you to be.”

 

“Is it now?” He brushed by him, heading for the first aid kit. “I’m gonna have to change that.” He dragged out the box from beneath the couch, pulling out bandages and wraps. He’d probably need stitches, and a brace for his fingers--they felt broken. He twitched them experimentally and grimaced. A trip to the hospital might be in order: somewhere insignificant, where he could just jump in and out without being noticed. But he’d might as well see what he could do first.

 

As he lifted up his shirt there was a hiss behind him. He looked over his shoulder. David’s eyes were wide and trained on his back, moving slightly as they followed the paths of multiple scars, layered on top of each other. Griffin didn’t blame him, he knew what it looked like: there wasn’t an untouched piece of skin on his back: it was all scars, all wounds.

 

“How did you get all those?” His eyes were still wide, voice shocked.

 

Griffin smiled humorlessly. “Battle scars.”

 

Another hiss. “Paladins?”

 

Griffin looked back to the kit. “Yeah.” He ripped open a packet of gauze.

 

“Were these ones who captured you, or did you go looking for them?” His voice wasn’t quite so sympathetic there. It was harder, accusing.

 

Griffin said nothing.

 

David sighed and walked to him, kneeling beside him. “Griffin,” he placed hand on his shoulder, Griffin could feel the heat from it on his bare skin. “maybe… maybe you should stop.”

 

He jerked his shoulder away. “No.”

 

David gave another frustrated sigh. “Why do you have to kill them? Don’t you realize that you are giving them a reason to hunt us?”

 

Griffin threw the bottle of antiseptic he was holding to the ground. He stood up fast, forgetting about the pain in his side, and glared down at David. “Oh, so you know everything about Paladins now do you?  Just a few months ago you were a stupid, ignorant kid, and now you think you can tell me about them?” His voice had grown steadily louder and David slowly stood up, a wary expression on his face.

 

“I’m just saying--”

 

He cut him off, “You’re saying nothing. You don’t know what you are talking about.” He paused, and a slow smirk formed on his face as he stepped closer to him, looking straight into David’s eyes, close enough that he could hear his breaths, feel them on his face. He spoke softly, still smirking. “Or do you think you know because your mommy is one of them?”

 

David’s eyes flashed. “Shut up.”

 

Griffin’s smirk widened. “But it’s true isn’t it? It’s the reason she abandoned you when you were a kid.”

 

David’s lips twisted as he snarled, “I said shut up.” He shoved him.

 

He laughed as he stumbled and caught himself on the couch, enjoying the angry grimace on David’s face. “That’s right, she abandoned you.” He circled around him, watching the expression on his face get darker, the muscles in his arm tense. “She’s got herself a new family now. A new house, a new kid… Because she thought you were a freak of nature, that you shouldn’t even live. Probably couldn’t even look at you, she found you so disgusting--”

 

The punch knocked him back into the wall.  His head cracked against the cement and he didn’t even have time to register the pain before hands were around his neck, slamming him into the wall again and again, squeezing at his windpipe as guttural worlds like fuck you and don’t know shit were spat in his face.

 

He smiled, feeling his lip crack open and blood drip down his chin, and the smile was enough to make David pause.

 

And then Griffin lunged at him.

 

They landed on the table with a crash, rolls of gauze and packages of disinfectant wipes and medical tape scattered on the floor, and they didn’t matter, because this, this, was the only healing Griffin knew, the pain in his jaw and hands, the rush of adrenalin as he fought, arms and fists flying without caring where they landed, what they hurt, if it was him or someone else. Just the thrashing body beneath him struggling and fighting back, drops of blood on his bare skin, throbbing, swollen eyes and harsh, brief grunts as fists hit flesh and he could feel nothing but the anger pumping through his veins.

 

And when the punches became harsh grips on his arms and shoulders, when the grunts became groans, the gasps made because need instead of pain, when his mouth was no longer attacked by a fist but by another mouth, hot, wet and needy, teeth scraping against his bottom lip, tongue collecting the blood from the gash there--well, that was alright too, because pain was pleasure was pain and it didn’t matter as long as he didn’t have to think, didn’t have to really feel and it didn’t even matter that those hands around his wrists circled like shackles because he was splitting up, tiny cracks up and down his body, splitting open old and new scars and filling, filling him until there was nothing but white, hot and bright and empty, empty of everything and everyone and empty of even him.

 

For one single, glorious moment there was nothing at all.

 

 

---

 

 

His name was Roland.

 

Roland, who took the place of Jeffery. Roland, who was cool and calm and business-like, and would never waste time entertaining himself with victims, he’d just disposed of everyone quickly and efficiently.

 

Her name was Kasey.

 

Kasey, who worked at the pizza place in New York. Kasey, who was sweet and liked to talk to him and gave him extra pepperoni and anchovies because he came so often, and didn’t know anything about his secret because he wouldn’t (couldn’t) ever tell her and it didn’t matter, she was disposed of quickly and efficiently.

 

And that’s how Roland worked. It didn’t matter who they were or if they were completely ignorant of the war going on, if they knew--even slightly--someone who was a Jumper then they were dead. And that was it. He didn’t take his time killing them, he didn’t enjoy it, or relish it or even stop to think on it, he just killed them, like killing an annoying rodent stealing food in the winter.

 

They didn’t matter.

 

And if that’s the way Roland worked then that’s how Griffin would.

 

 

---

 

 

Afterwards they were laying on the ground in front of the couch. Their clothes had been thrown carelessly around the room and packets of medical supplies were underneath them. David had pulled the old gray blanket off the couch for them but Griffin didn’t care. His eyes were closed and his body ached and it was nothing to the ache inside, and nothing was ever enough to distract him from it, not long enough to matter anyway.

 

Fingers softly traced the scars on his skin, circled around fresh bruises. David’s breath puffed against the skin on his neck and the fingers moved to his mouth, lightly skating over his split lip. “I’m sorry,” he breathed, and Griffin didn’t say anything, just closed his eyes tighter because he wasn’t sorry and he didn’t believe in apologies anyway.

 

The hand moved to his side, carefully checking the state of the knife cut from earlier before coming to rest on Griffin’s hand, gently wrapping it around swollen fingers. “You know,” he said softly, “you’re killing yourself like this. I think if you continue, you’ll break.”

 

Griffin opened his eyes and stared across the room. Information about the Paladin’s pasted the walls, streaked in dirt and dust and grime and blood and he was no where closer to where he need to be, closer to being done.

 

Maybe he never would be.

 

Maybe he never wanted to be.

 

He closed his eyes again, taking a deep breath and forcing memories of blood and pain and shackles away, replacing them with the throb in his wrist and fingers and side, the feeling of David’s skin against his, the cool floor beneath him. This is all there is, he told himself, all there is.

 

“Maybe I want to break.”