A Touch of Blue - 19. Alone and Seeing Red

Zafiro

Huh, I never realized he is wearing a necklace.

Dog tags.

His?

Maybe.

I slip under Tin Can’s arms, moving for the stairs. When I look back, I see he is still frozen in place.

“Don’t tell me my kisses somehow make people turn into statues now,” I smirk.

It is almost exactly like Soul. I did the same to him and he froze over just like Tin Can here. I find it rather cute.

Thinking of Soul however is a bad idea at the moment.

Tin Can straightens up and keeps his eyes on the wall next to me. His face has turned a dark shade of red.

“I-I uh,” Tin Can sniffs and rubs the back of his hand on his forehead. “That was...unexpected.”

I grin. “Good. That was the point.”

Turning to walk down the stairs, I glance once at him and I see him watching me.

He pulls himself out of his trance and follows me.

I see his phone on the coffee table and so I grab it.

Immediately I type in Piggie’s number.

“Who are you calling?” Tin Can asks behind me.

Turning a bit to look at him, I say, “a friend.”

The phones rings for a few moments before it goes into his voicemail.

Frowning, I pull the phone back and check the time.

It is nine in the morning so I can see him possibly sleeping in, but I really need to speak with him.

I push in his number to call again.

“Do you think he was safe from the train crash?” Tin Can asks.

“Of course,” I say, a bit too quickly. “He does not live anywhere near the crash sight.”

Tin Can nods and sits on the couch. I sit in the arm chair, drumming my fingers on my thigh.

I hold my hand up to inspect the new gloves. The dark blue color is nice. The retractable claws are still the same shiny, silver metal so I am fine with that. Blue claws would have looked a bit weird in my opinion.

The call does not go through and I hear a robotic lady telling me that Piggie is not there right now.

Frowning, I call again. This time I am starting to get worried.

There is the chance that he is passed out drunk at the moment. Both he and Vero do go through that from time to time.

Of course, there are the other things running a mile a minute in my head, but I am really trying not to think of that right now.

Now that I am getting nervous, I stand and start pacing back and forth in front of the main monitor.

The call ends again and so I redial.

“I swear to god he better be balls deep in Vero right now,” I growl to myself.

Tin Can chuckles hesitantly at that.

Glancing at him, I smile but then the call goes to voicemail again.

Now I am scared.

Tossing the phone onto th couch, I immediately start walking for the stairs.

“I need to get going,” I say. “Need to make sure they are alright.”

When I reach the foot of the stairs, I decide to call Ama.

“I’ll go with you,” Tin Can says as he stands.

I shake my head.

“You do not need to,” I say. “You might just slow me down.”

He frowns at that.

“I meant-” I try to apologize but Tin Can holds his hand up.

“I know what you meant,” He smiles. “You would probably be right. Just know, if you need somewhere to stay for now, you are welcome to come back here.”

Raising an eyebrow at that, I almost tease him for wanting my company, but Ama’s voice enters my ear.

“Who is this?” She asks, sounding defensive.

“Ama, it’s me, Zafiro,” I say. “Just checking to make sure you are alright.”

She gives a sigh of relief. “Oh god. I thought someone was trying to find us. Are you ok? I have not heard from you for some time.”

Biting my lip, I turn away from Tin Can, walking up the stairs slowly.

“Yeah I am alright,” I say. “Never been better really.”

When I look over my shoulder, I see Tin Can right behind me. When I move to let him pass, he does not.

“Have you heard from Piggie or Vero?” I ask, walking up the stairs again, a bit faster.

“No I have not,” Ama says. “Why? Are they alright?”

“I am not sure,” I say. “Piggie won’t answer his phone. I think he might be passed out or fucking Vero.”

Ama laughs. “Yeah you are probably right. Well when you see them, tell them to come by and see me. You too. We should all have dinner for old times sake.”

I smile at that. “That would be nice. It would be nice to have the family together again. It has been years since the last gathering.”

“A shame Marlo can’t join us this time,” She sighs. Memories of her husband is a bit of a sore subject for everyone.

Marlo was this big man with an even bigger laugh. He seemed to warm up any room with his loud voice. Loud but a personality that was as sweet as candy.

It was a shame that his spirit could not outshine his brain tumor.

That was two years ago. Two years since the last family dinner.

“Yeah, I miss that old dog,” I say with a small smile. “Maybe I could bring someone as my plus one?” I grin at Tin Can.

He raises an eyebrow at me but shrugs with a smirk.

Ama chuckles. “Oh really? I do not believe you have ever brought someone to meet any of us. Who is the poor unfortunate soul?”

I scoff. “Oh please. He would be lucky to have me.”

Tin Can grunts and folds his arms, raising an eyebrow.

“Whatever you say, Zafiro,” Ama says. I can hear the smile in her voice. “Well, I must go. Tell Piggie my plans and I will prepare something tomorrow alright?”

“Alright, Tia,” I say. “I’ll see you then!”

The call ends and I turn to Tin Can.

“Would you be in the mood for Korean food tomorrow by chance?” I smile.

He looks a bit shocked. Even a blush is flourishing on his cheeks and around his neck again.

“Uh, sure,” he says. “Not going to like, I thought you were joking, but I guess I have not had any food like that since I last saw my parents. It could be nice.”

“Your Mama made you food?” I ask.

That is a bit surprising to me honestly. Based on what he has told me so far, his parents do not exactly seem the ‘homemade food’ type.

“Well, not necessarily,” He says. “My aunt would come over and cook in the kitchens.”

I notice he says kitchen with an S. I choose not to point it out.

“Well, that’s nice,” I say. “I would like to know what she put it in that somehow made you grow some tits.”

He covers his chest and rolls his eyes. “Again with my chest.”

I smirk. “Hey, no need to cover them. Me likey.” I say the last part in a deep voice.

“You are a pain,” He says with a laugh.

“A pain that has grown on you,” I say with a wink.

He grunts and follows me to his room. He pauses by the bed and I keep walking out to his outdoor gym.

“It is probably best if you stay honestly,” He says, a bit hesitant.

I chuckle and turn to face him.

“Missing me already, Tin Can?” I smile. “I haven’t even left your roof yet. Need another kiss to remember me by?”

His face turns a shade pink.

“N-no,” He stammers. “You literally just woke up after being knocked out for days. Don’t you think it would be best to lay low and regain your strength?”

I sit on his fencing, still facing him.

“Aww, are you that worried for me?” I say in a baby voice. “You see me all messed up in your house and you think I am some kind of fairy who can’t handle a little pain?”

He moves to stand at the doorway. His eyebrows furrow and he shakes his head. “No, of course not.”

“You damn well better,” I say. “I can handle myself just fine. This was only a once in a lifetime situation. We have all had our rock bottom. I will be just fine. Now don’t go worrying about me.”

He frowns but slowly nods. “A bit of a scary one if you ask me.”

I shrug and smile. “Not everyone has the same rock bottom. Only one place to go from here, of course.”

“Still,” he says, folding his arms. “You should be resting. Do you need some more painkillers?”

Chuckling, I shake my head. “No, honey, I do not. You can stop pestering me like some overbearing wife. I will be fine.”

He purses his lips and nods again. He stares down at the floor between his feet.

Rolling my eyes, I smile and sneak my way back over to him.

The wind is blowing quite a bit today so I am going to assume that hides any sounds I make.

When I am close enough, I lean up on my toes, rest my hand on the back of his neck and kiss his cheek.

He does not freeze this time, instead he looks at me and he gives me a small smile.

“I’ll see ya later, Tin Can,” I smirk and pat his back lightly before turning to leave.

Before I can, he reaches out and grabs my arm.

I am about to pull my arm away or maybe smack him for touching me but then he ends up planting a kiss on my cheek.

It was only a quick kiss and he lets me go as soon as it is over.

Looking over my shoulder at him, I raise an eyebrow.

“We must be hanging around together too much,” I say. “You are starting to steal things just like me.”

“Is it really stealing kisses if both involved want them?” He asks with smirk. “Plus its the first day of this happening. Consider me new to this game you play.”

“Hmm, quite a fun game, but who says I only stole kisses today?” I say as I stand on top of his fence, careful to keep my balance.

His eyes narrow at my question.

I lift my hand and reveal the dog tags he was wearing earlier. I may or may not have slipped them off when I kissed his cheek.

He reaches for where they were once resting on his chest and he rolls his eyes at me.

“Really?” He sighs.

I wink and fall backwards over the railing.

Pointing my hand upwards to a building nearby, I immediately start swinging my way towards Piggie’s.

~~~

Oh god.

I really don’t want to leave Tin Can’s house. It is like a small bubble of safety.

When I am in there, I felt like I don’t have anything to worry about. I don’t have to worry about myself or Piggie.

It really does not help that we have unlocked something between us. It sure as hell isn’t a real relationship, but it is something close to that. What would that even be called?

We are not exactly friends. Definitely not close enough to be lovers. We are still wary of each other because we know what the other is.

He is a former officer that clearly cared about his job more than others. I am just some thief with a fancy suit to make life easier.

I will say that it was very surprising that he kissed me himself. That was interesting and not at all expected.

Whatever this thing between us is, it is weird.

I like it. I like weird things I guess and so this is absolutely welcomed by me.

Pulling myself on top of a roof when I reach the busier side of the city, I examine the dog tags.

‘Balance your mind in one eye and your heart in the other - Hong Kyung’

Hong Kyung? Who could that be? Surely not either of his parents. I feel like neither of them would ever say something like that.

Grandparents? Sibling? Former husband or wife?

Hmm, now I feel a bit bad for snatching it. Looks like I have an excuse to bring myself back to his doorstep.

It has been some time since I last called. Piggie should be awake and able to answer his phone this time.

Only one problem, I do not have a phone.

Hmm…

Peeking over the edge, I look down at all the people walking on the sidewalk.

It is an hour before noon so everyone is running around trying to get to all their jobs. Most are on their phones.

Perfect!

I slide myself down into an alleyway. When I reach the ground, I stand by the entrance, waiting for a victim.

The perfect thing about the Rich Side is that nobody cares for anyone else. They only want to get to their desk jobs and get on with themselves.

Grabbing one should be easy enough.

That is exactly what I do.

I reach out to some short alien. He is wearing a small suit and on his phone. His voice is a lot deeper than you would expect from such a small creature.

Pulling him into the alley, he shouts and tries to pull his arm from my grasp.

“How dare you!” he yells. “I will call U.U.P.P. at once!”

I smile at him before letting him go.

He grumbles to himself, straightening his suit.

“Cute suit,” I say.

He looks up at me, already enjoying the praise.

His expression turns to one of shock as my foot collides with his face.

The little alien’s body falls sideways onto the ground. He is out cold.

He did look cute in that suit though. Just a little tiny thing. Almost like a child. A child that looked like a blue moth.

Grabbing his phone, I dial Piggie’s number.

While it is calling, I grab the mothman’s legs and pull him over to rest him against a garbage can.

Piggie does not answer.

I call again and start climbing up the building to get back on the roof.

Not even when I reach the top does Piggie answer.

My lungs all of a sudden can’t seem to find enough air. Ringing in my ears are starting to return and my hands begin to shake.

Dropping the phone back down into the alley with Mothman, I jump over the edge and start swinging for Piggie’s house.

I do not stop for breaks. Not even when my arms start to sting from pushing myself too much.

Breaks are always needed. To stretch my arms so that they do not get sore. Too weak to even lift to shoot another grapple hook.

When it almost feels like my arms might be pulled from their sockets, I stop.

I really wish I hadn’t.

Sitting down with my back against an electric box, my mind begins to reach terrible conclusions on what could have happened to Piggie and Vero.

They can’t die! They are used to this. They have lived through almost everything! I can’t lose some of the only family I have left. I can’t!

After what feels like the longest time I have spent trying to get to the poor side, I see the train tracks.

That should give me about fifteen minutes before reaching Piggie’s.

A small break is fine now. Being so close eases my nerves a little bit.

Resting on my back with my arms spread out, I take deep breaths, trying to calm my nerves.

Everything will be ok. Nobody is dead. Maybe his phone was dead this whole time.

Why couldn’t Vero have her own phone? Sharing a phone is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard of.

If they are dead, when I die, I am going to find them in hell and beat the shit out of them. I swear to god. I told them this too long ago.

Someone had pulled up to the nightclub to try and scare Piggie for money.

I was out stealing from some big shot hockey player. Stole some precious championship rings.

When I came back, Piggie told me what had happened.

It was the first time I ever heard of such a thing happening to him.

He and Vero simply laughed it off. I was pissed. I yelled at them, telling them that if they ever died, I was going to bring them back to life just so that I can kill them myself.

It was all a joke of course, I just hope I can keep making those jokes.

A scream grabs my attention down below. I think nothing of it at first, not until there are gunshots that follow that scream.

Frowning, I peek over the edge, careful not to look over enough for someone to spot me.

“Come on!” A man in black and red shouts. “Let’s get what is ours!”

Hundreds of men and women give war cries in response, some even shoot shots into the air in excitement.

They run off deeper into the Rich Side.

Robots can be seen walking among them.

Narrowing my eyes, I watch Arturo’s men for a moment. Waiting for them to run off.

This is strange.

A small part of me wants to investigate, but now is not the time for that. I need to find Piggie and Vero. I need to make sure they are alright.

After waiting a small while, I jump and grapple over to the train tracks.

Arturo’s gang continues to walk under the tracks. The ones that should have seen me pay me no mind.

They continue walking into the city with guns in their hands.

Whatever, I will look into that later. Maybe Piggie or Vero will have some kind of idea on what is going on.

Before I do, I quickly run to my abandoned building for my biker jacket. It has become a necessity with my suit now.

Nobody has run in here thankfully. My door is still locked, the key still in the last place I put it.

Opening the door, I quickly grab the bag with my clothes and fetch the jacket.

I slip it on and I frown at the sleeves.

Ok, so maybe it is not as perfect as I hoped it would be.

The sleeves are not at all as long as I remembered. They barely touch the middle of my forearms honestly. They leave me a bit uncomfortable.

Pursing my lips, I roll the sleeves up to my elbows like I did before. It makes it tighter, which is nice.

I guess I just assumed the sleeves were long enough. The sleeves were always rolled up before because I had nothing to hide.

Looks like my forearms will be out for show. I guess I can live with that.

Now, off to Piggie’s.

I lock everything up and then run outside to climb the building.

Now it is time to swing my way over.

The streets occasionally have a random gang member in red or black. They jog off towards the Rich Side.

What could possibly be going on? They all had guns.

Has Arturo decided to attack everyone over there? Why?

Don’t get me wrong, I despise them as much as the next guy but is this really necessary? Most of them are innocent.

Apparently, buying Arturo’s drugs wasn’t enough I guess.

I wish I could call Tin Can to warn him. My phone has unfortunately gone missing thanks to Cody.

I shiver at the thought of his name.

Still do not want to think about all that had happened that night.

When I reach Piggie’s building, I almost forget to send off my grapple to keep me from falling to my death.

The front doors have been blasted open. The concrete has large red stains that are visible from up here.

Another attack?

My heart starts beating a lot faster as I slip down to ground level. As soon as I do, I run as fast as I can through the entrance.

The place looks even worse than the last time I was here! There are holes in walls, everything is knocked down, chips of wood are everywhere as well as hanging wires, broken glass, and lots of red.

So.

Much.

Red.

Just looking at it makes me sick.

The edges of my vision become blurry and I become a bit light headed.

I fall to my knees and grip onto my head. I can feel my pulse going through the veins.

Slowly, my vision begins to turn pink. Almost like when I got hit in the face from those robots. The color turns darker and darker. Like blood has created a veil in front of my eyes.

I am breathing way too fast. Everything keeps grabbing my attention. Even things that I know should not be there.

The sound of glass breaking echoes around in my head. Everytime I look for the source of the sound, I see that nobody is there.

Droplets of rain fall down on my skin. When I look, I see that it is not water, but blood. Why is it so warm?

I stand, trying to get away from the blood rain.

Somehow I stumble over a broken chair, falling onto my hands and knees.

I look back at the chair. Only, it is not a chair. It is Soul? What is he doing here?

Hesitantly, I reach out to touch his face, wishing for those eyes to glow once again.

As soon as i touch him, he dissolves back into a wooden chair.

Letting out a small whimper, I back away, wanting to get away from these scary and strange mind tricks.

I run into something.

Clothes. Skin. A body!

Turning to look at what could possibly be another chair, I instead find myself looking down at Piggie.

He is staring up at me with lifeless eyes. They look like black holes. The red filter making it look as though his brown eyes are black.

Gulping the bubble in my throat, I shakily reach out to touch his face. The whole time I am praying that he will turn into a chair. I would give anything to see some broken metal or wooden chair.

Before I even touch him, I already know the answer.

Instantly I break down.

I rest my forehead onto his chest and cover my head with my arms.

I cry. I sob. I scream in anger. I slap Piggie across the face to wake him, to stop this stupid prank.

He does not wake up.

The red slowly fades away, the color coming back into the world around me. The bloodrain coming to a stop, yet I swear I feel it on my cheeks.

It is my tears. Not blood.

I see that the red was not lying when it showed that Piggie’s eyes were black. They are still brown, but they are just as lifeless.

Gripping onto his shirt, I glare down at the blood circles that are on his clothes.

Turning my head away, I close my eyes, trying to stop my tears.

Reaching my fingers out, I brush them over his eyelids, closing them to make it look as though he is sleeping.

Sniffing, I stand up on wobbly legs. Looking down at him once again, I look around for Vero.

I can only imagine what has been done to her. She never answered my calls. She would have if she were alive.

I frown when I can’t seem to find her. That is, until I looked behind the bar.

She has fallen against the ice box. It looks like she is resting against it. Her eyes are closed, almost as if she is dreaming. Dreaming something better.

I know that you need to breathe to dream however.

Hopping over to her, I feel new tears falling again. This time there is no noise. I do sniff every now and then, but I do not want to be a little bitch in front of them. They would have smacked me if they saw how I was acting right now.

Instead of crying over her corpse, I hug her. I hug Vero’s head to my chest, rocking her back and forth. Wishing for her to be safe on her travels to her dreamworld.

Angrily, I rub the back of my arm against my face, wiping away these pathetic tears.

I stay there, watching over them, wanting their killers to come back.

Let me kill them. Or maybe let them kill me.

Either way, I am alone now.