[From the earliest days Charlie can remember, there were bad men in the world. No one talked about it around him, a child on the boundary between decency and depravity, but he knew about it anyway. Eavesdropping on a conversation about how a former friend had to be chopped to bits and hidden away had been habit before he even knew what the men had been discussing.
They spoke in vagaries, or in sentences halted with silence taking up the space of an indicting word. He'd been hearing this kind of talk since before he knew what any of it meant.
All the while, those men would pat him on the head. Pinch his cheek. Tell him he looked like hell. Brusque affection with the same hands that dealt in blood and money. People have always been both monsters and family at the same time.
When Charlie stepped into the world of kindred, it felt like crossing the street in a familiar neighborhood. There was nothing for him to cling to, no sense of humanity that a demon like what he'd become couldn't possibly possess. Because there's no sense of evil that a human like he'd been couldn't possibly possess, either.
Facts he reminds himself of when he does feel the odd twinge. He hasn't gone so far as to put a word to that emotion: regret, grief, frustration, or something so simple as hurt. The world he's in now is the same world he's always been in. He's the same damned man he's always been.
Even in this resort.
First vial in hand, Charlie toys with the glass between his fingers. It rolls from tip to palm, thumb brushing over it to flick it up between pointer and middle finger. The way one idly flashes a knife.
Despite, or perhaps enticed by, Makoto's narrowed glare, Charlie is rapt in Makoto's words. He's satisfied with himself that he's kept the boy talking this long.
Charlie's lips purse at the assertion of strength. He tilts his head to one side, then back - he agrees.] Power's a rule anywhere you go.
[So is generosity, Charlie finds. Just because there aren't altruists on every street corner doesn't mean that everything has a price tag attached to it. Sure, he's the first guy to strike a deal, but he knows the joy of simply giving to whoever he likes. It's a show of that same power Makoto is desperate for.
He makes a note to give the kid something for free, sometime.] Like you said, the more you have, the easier it is to take what you want.
But you don't seem the type to pin someone down and force it out of them. You've been eh... nothing but cooperative!
Think that'll change? [Who can say, really? Some people think a moral code is a privilege won by blood. In Charlie's experience, the people who fight for something like that stop wanting it soon after they get it.]
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[From the earliest days Charlie can remember, there were bad men in the world. No one talked about it around him, a child on the boundary between decency and depravity, but he knew about it anyway. Eavesdropping on a conversation about how a former friend had to be chopped to bits and hidden away had been habit before he even knew what the men had been discussing.
They spoke in vagaries, or in sentences halted with silence taking up the space of an indicting word. He'd been hearing this kind of talk since before he knew what any of it meant.
All the while, those men would pat him on the head. Pinch his cheek. Tell him he looked like hell. Brusque affection with the same hands that dealt in blood and money. People have always been both monsters and family at the same time.
When Charlie stepped into the world of kindred, it felt like crossing the street in a familiar neighborhood. There was nothing for him to cling to, no sense of humanity that a demon like what he'd become couldn't possibly possess. Because there's no sense of evil that a human like he'd been couldn't possibly possess, either.
Facts he reminds himself of when he does feel the odd twinge. He hasn't gone so far as to put a word to that emotion: regret, grief, frustration, or something so simple as hurt. The world he's in now is the same world he's always been in. He's the same damned man he's always been.
Even in this resort.
First vial in hand, Charlie toys with the glass between his fingers. It rolls from tip to palm, thumb brushing over it to flick it up between pointer and middle finger. The way one idly flashes a knife.
Despite, or perhaps enticed by, Makoto's narrowed glare, Charlie is rapt in Makoto's words. He's satisfied with himself that he's kept the boy talking this long.
Charlie's lips purse at the assertion of strength. He tilts his head to one side, then back - he agrees.] Power's a rule anywhere you go.
[So is generosity, Charlie finds. Just because there aren't altruists on every street corner doesn't mean that everything has a price tag attached to it. Sure, he's the first guy to strike a deal, but he knows the joy of simply giving to whoever he likes. It's a show of that same power Makoto is desperate for.
He makes a note to give the kid something for free, sometime.] Like you said, the more you have, the easier it is to take what you want.
But you don't seem the type to pin someone down and force it out of them. You've been eh... nothing but cooperative!
Think that'll change? [Who can say, really? Some people think a moral code is a privilege won by blood. In Charlie's experience, the people who fight for something like that stop wanting it soon after they get it.]