Dynamics of a Human Heart Ch. 05

You can have my sodding legs," he squeezed what was left of the cigarette into pulp within a clenched fist, "And in return, you give me your beating, bloody heart and I get to feel again," he tossed away the remains of the cigarette, "You up for it?"

"Fuck. Me. Running," was all Sam said, as she wheeled away.

Grey gave the girl a scarred smirk, devoid of any humor before turning his glance to Miranda and striking a dramatic pose.

"Tra le sue braccia, la mia signora dorme, avvolto in un velo. Si svegliò il suo allora e tremante e obbediente che ha mangiato che brucia il cuore dalla sua mano. Piangendo lo vidi poi allontanati da me."

Miranda scoffed once and shook her head as Sam looked up at her.

"What, what'd he say?"

"It's Dante," she explained; classical literature had never particularly interested Samantha, "It's from La Vita Nuova, first sonnet."

"C'mon Miri, spare me the history lesson, what'd he say?"

Miranda looked up at the ceiling for a moment trying to think back to her days reading 'The Inferno'.

"'In his arms, my lady sleeping, wrapped in a veil. He woke her then and trembling and obedient she ate that burning heart out of his hand. Weeping I saw him then depart from me."

Miranda assessed Grey coolly, "A 'burning heart' huh?"

Grey returned her look, a study of frozen jade, "It seemed right proper," he replied as he gestured at the cigarette burn upon his breast. The scar tissue already present made it very difficult to tell exactly where one wound began and the other ended.

Grey began to struggle and try to get out of bed, he opened his mouth to yell, but his rage had cost him; he began to cough intensely and soon fresh blood was spewing forth in choking gasps as he thrashed about.

"Jesus! For fuck's sake, calm down!" Sam yelled.

"Get...out!" he managed to gurgle even as his whole body began to tremble and shudder. His head was shaking and his eyes were bright with fever as his eyelids continued to flutter as he swung violently between delirium and anger.

"Out...."

"No Grey, fuck, shit!" Sam cursed, trying to hold the raving man down.

Miranda crouched next to her lover and hurriedly whispered something in her ear.

Sam sent her a shocked look, even as she attempted to grapple with the frenzied man on the bed.

"And that'll actually work?" she asked incredulously.

"Yeah," Miranda said sadly.

"Fucked up," Sam muttered before turning to Grey, clearing her throat and speaking loudly,

"You saved Miranda and me from harm, so we owe you and until we pay you back, you'll have leverage over us...," Sam sent a tortured look to Miranda who returned it, no one should have to be reasoned with in such a fashion "...and so we're going to take care of you to clear any debts and make sure you don't have anything on us anymore."

The difference was like night and day. Grey slumped boneless onto the mattress; still and quiet.

"That's...." Sam struggled with the words, "I can't wrap my head around that kind of thinking. It's so--."

"Cold? Selfish? Dehumanizing?" Miranda chimed in.

"All of the above." Sam reached over and gently dabbed the blood from his mouth and wiped the sweat from his face, "What in God's name has your life done to you, my friend?" she whispered.

Miranda gave a short little laugh and Sam turned, "What?"

Miranda gestured, the blanket had slid from Grey's body, exposing his scars, "After what just happened, I think the really bad scars are internal."

Sam sighed and nodded, "I know self-pity when I see it," she began, "dated plenty of Goth girls who had the 'poor me, poor me, my life is meaningless' schtick down to an art," she gestured at Grey, "This, is a whole new variety of fucked up and evil. I've met plenty of people who hated their life; I've never met anyone who is just so...indifferent about it, so apathetic."

"He feels very empty," Miranda said quietly.

"Part of me wants to look down his throat, see if he has a soul somewhere down there, you know? Some iota of hope or humanity," Sam confessed.

Miranda smiled a little, "What's stopping you?"

"The possibility that he doesn't."

Miranda stopped smiling.

"Your soul is like your appendix," Grey whispered, slowly opening his eyes to look at the girls, "You hardly use it and chances are you'd never notice it if it went missing."

"So what, did you sell yours or something?" Samantha asked sounding offended.

Grey snorted, "Couldn't find any takers. Apparently it's a buyer's market and mine didn't pass quality control."

"And we've managed to find a darker place, thank you Grey."

The Englishman ignored her, instead he gestured for Miranda.

"Hand over my kit."

Miranda gave him the small green bag, "Would a 'please' kill you?"

"In my current state? Entirely possible," Grey scoffed as Miranda just rolled her eyes.

He rummaged through the olive-green kit, removed a sliver flask, and unscrewed it, taking a long pull from it.

Miranda scoffed, "Booze in a first aid kit, yeah, why doesn't that surprise me?"

Grey lowered the flask, coughed once and handed it over to Sam.

"Here you go, blondie," he said, "Only those of us who can actually appreciate a good bit of spirits are worthy."

Sam took the flask and shrugged, "Why not?" She proceeded to take as large a drink from it as Grey had.

"Sammy," Miranda began, "I think that could be a really bad—"

"Fuck me!" Sam spewed the alcohol from her mouth like a geyser.

"—idea," Miranda finished tamely.

Sam coughed hard and began to choke. Miranda was at her side pounding her on the back, as Grey made sure to rescue the flask before the blonde girl dropped it.

"What the hell is that?" Sam demanded wiping tears from her eyes.

"Mother's milk," Grey responded, "Or as you lot know it 'bathtub gin', sans the actual bathtub" he took another pull from the flask.

"Construct one still; jeep parts, surgical equipment, test tubes, spent ammunition clips usually make for serviceable parts. Add whatever you can find to serve as mash; juniper berries, ginger root, orange peels, every now and then a bit of anti-freeze, then cook until it is prepared to dispense happiness and pure love in liquid form."

"Pure love' my shapely ass; It's pure poison!"

"It's an acquired taste."

"So is battery acid!"

"Well this is the more subtle recipe for those with a refined palate; the stuff we drank back in the day was made of half-rotten produce, soaked in rubbing alcohol and aged a few days."

"You're fucking kidding me?"

"Would I lie?"

"In a heartbeat, you treacherous fuck!" Sam yelled.

Grey laughed and the mood in the room lightened a bit.

"I want to try some."

Miranda took the flask from Grey as the other two eyed her warily.

"Uh, you might want to be careful, Miri."

Miranda simply nodded and took a slow, measured, pull from the flash. She swallowed and lowered the flask, a study in serenity.

The other two were watching anxiously, with bated breath.

"She's turning green!" Sam crowed and Miranda began to cough.

"Kuso! That's foul," she ran her tongue along the inside of her mouth, "Ugh!"

The others laughed as they passed the flask around. Slowly, but surely, the girls managed to at least give the appearance of keeping time with Grey's intake and becoming wildly drunk in the process.

"So," Miranda hiccupped, "Where'd you learn how to make this poison?"

Sam's ears perked up and her jaw nearly fell open at her lover's tone: Miranda wasn't nearly as drunk as she was pretending to be; she was pumping him for information!

"Oh, around," Grey said dismissively, waving his arm about in the air.

"Come on Grey, some specifics please."

"Europe."

A pause.

"Do you want to narrow that down a little?"

"Eastern Europe."

"It's like trying to find Carmen Sandiego," Sam muttered as she took a pull from the flask and began to shake it, "We're running low here!"

"Okay, okay, okay," Miranda smiled, pouring on the charm, "How about you tell us a story about the recipe and how it came about?"

Jesus, I hope you know what you're doing Miri. Sam thought to herself.

Grey scratched at the scar at the edge of his mouth, tracing his finger up its length to his cheek as he pondered.

"Well, it's made of juniper berries—"

"We KNOW that already," Miranda slurred, "Get to the good part."

"What makes you think this story has a 'good part'?"

Miranda leaned in very close to him and hiccupped, "Grey, if I had you tied down and naked, the first thing I would make you do," she hiccupped again, "is dig out each and every one of those stories you have locked away in the that grizzled skull of yours."

"That's....an interesting visual." Grey admitted.

"No shit," Sam added. Maybe Miri really WAS drunk.

"All right, all right, keep your knickers on," Grey muttered.

"Why?" both girls asked simultaneously then looking at each other in shock before dissolving into a fit of high-pitched giggles exchanging kisses whenever their faces were close enough.

Grey took in the sight of them and cleared his throat,

"If you birds would rather snog than hear the rest of this story..."

"Silence!" Miranda cried out, struggling to get into a sitting position, "You won't get off that easy," she thought about what she just said and then began to giggle again. Sam, who had been making steady progress in her efforts to sit up straight, collapsed cackling at Miri's choice of the words.

"Anyway!" Grey resumed, "The locals had this drink, Smreka, made of fermented juniper berries. We matched it against that fine elixir you are currently consuming. Everyone had a skin full or so and we waited to see how long it took to get good and truly pissed."

"And who won?" Sam asked.

"Haven't the foggiest, no one remembers what happened after the fifth round or so."

Both the girls laughed again and collapsed upon one another, giggling as Grey shook his head.

"And on that note, I find myself in desperate need of a good and lengthy piss," he announced.

"Alert the media!" Miranda cried out and proceeded to swoon upon her lover's lap.

"Yeah, yeah," Grey muttered as he wrapped the blanket tightly around his shoulders and back and padded over to the bathroom, closing the door firmly behind him.

Miranda opened one violet eye, "Is he gone?"

"Yeah, Miri," Sam sighed, dreading whatever her lover had in mind, "he's gone."

Miranda fairly leapt to her feet, all traces of inebriation dispelled within an instant as she grabbed her phone.

"That was pretty convincing, with you being hammered and all," Samantha commented, "You don't fake things in bed do you?"

Miranda grinned as she stuck the very tip of her pink tongue between her front teeth, biting down lightly in thought.

"Why no, dearest, how could you ever think such a thing of your loving, innocent, Miranda?"

"That was not convincing in the slightest," Samantha sulked.

"A-ha!" Miranda came rushing back to Samantha, phone gripped in triumph like a game hunter with trophy in hand.

"'A-ha' what?" Sam asked.

Miranda gestured, "The drink known as 'Smreka' is made of juniper berries, which can be found on all continents save Antarctica..."

"But we knew all that," Sam interjected.

"...However" Miranda continued as if she had not been interrupted, "The drink Smreka itself has its origins in Eastern Europe, specifically; one country."

"Where?" Sam asked, her curiosity piqued.

Miranda simply handed the phone over to her lover who frowned at it, attempting to dredge up as much sobriety as she could on such short notice.

"Bosnia?"

"Bosnia."

"Why the fuck would Grey be in Bosnia?"

Miranda smiled like the cat that had devoured the canary and all its friends, "Consider the facts: Grey speaks several languages, fights like someone who's had training, and seems to have a working knowledge of human anatomy: at least enough to patch someone up or beat the living hell out of them with minimal effort and without kind of hesitation that most people would have."

"Okay...." Sam offered cautiously, not entirely convinced.

"Some additional information: when you were down and out, he hoisted you up into fireman's carry like he'd been doing it for years," Miranda tapped her lip, "There's only two professions that lend themselves to that technique: Firemen or soldiers."

"Okay, then how does his 'geek cred' fit into all this? Advanced physics and mathematics are usually not job requirements for guys in the Army, even amongst the English."

Miranda pursed her lips, "That I haven't figured out yet," she admitted, "But I'm getting closer."

"Miri," Sam whispered, "You're playing with fire," she cocked her head towards the closed bathroom door, "Literally."

"Why?" Miranda shrugged, "I just want to know more about him."

"No, you want to have something on him," Samantha countered, "The more you know about him, the less power he has on you, I know you Miri, you can't abide the idea of anyone in your life that you haven't decoded, deciphered and figured out completely."

"I have you, don't I?"

Sam snorted, "Sweetie, you had me figured out in inside of six weeks, I'm not complicated," she jerked a thumb towards the door, "That's complicated, it's unknown and I know that that's the kind of thing that will draw you in. Do the terms "moth" or "flame" mean anything to you?"

"I can handle myself," Miranda growled, "I don't need my mommy to check up on me."

Sam gritted her teeth, "Given what you've told me about your mother, I'm inclined to believe you," she sighed, "If you're going to insist on doing this, then do it right."

"What do you mean?"

"If he was or is in the British army, find out when the last time they were in Bosnia and what events surrounded their time there."

Miranda shrugged, "Sounds easy enough."

"Miri," Sam said taking her hands, "That country has a really, really, ugly history, at least in recent years. And if he was there during some of that...." Samantha shook her head, "Then maybe being burned alive was the least of his problems."

"You don't understand!" Miranda cried out, "I have to see! I have to know, to understand!"

"For God's sake, why?"

"Because her intellectual vanity insists upon it."

Both girls whirled to face the bathroom. Grey was standing there in the doorway, simply looking at them. There was a stillness about him, he didn't appear to breathe, blink, or shift his weight, he just impaled the lovers with his steady gaze.

"How long have you been there?" Miranda asked quietly.

"Long enough," he lit up a cigarette and took a long pull before gesturing at Miranda with it, "Your ability to pretend you're lagered is complete shite, by the way."

"How did you know?" she asked quietly.

Grey counted off on his fingers, "One: you giggle too much. I'm pretty good at sussing out what someone is like when they're good and sloshed," he took another pull from the cigarette, exhaling a cloud of smoke, "You are not a 'happy drunk'. At best, you'd be a 'wordy drunk'; one of those types that uses a lot of big words and carefully enunciates every syllable so that they don't appear to be completely pissed.

"I can see that," Sam commented, "What else?"

"Two: you attempting to give the appearance of matching each of us drink for drink. You're, what, fifty-three kilos soaking wet?"

Sam immediately fell into another fit of hysterical laughter as her mind further dug itself into the gutter. Miranda turned beet red and Grey continued.

"Miranda, if you had actually tried to match everyone else drink for drink, we'd be taking you to the clinic for acute alcohol poisoning."

"Three: the flask, it's rubbish; doesn't smell right," he shook the flash for emphasis.

"What does it smell like?"

"It's what it doesn't smell like: I can smell only three things. Gin, tobacco, and vanilla," he pointed at Sam, "She's the vanilla, I'm the tobacco, which just leaves you."

"Just a second," Sam sat up frowning, "Exactly how do you know what I smell like?"

"Lugging someone up and down the boulevard for a good, long, time helps one get acquainted to their person in a hurry."

"Point taken. Continue."

"So what do I smell like?" Miranda asked.

"When you're not wallowing in self-delusion? Strawberries amongst other things, well, your lip gloss anyhow."

"How--?"

"Earlier. When you tried to kiss me in the kitchen the other night, I could smell it."

Sam leveled her lover with a steady gaze, "You tried to kiss him?"

"On the cheek," Miranda replied defensively, "And it didn't actually happen; he ran screaming before I could actually touch him."

"Well, see, now him freaking out like that makes sense," Sam commented, "It's twisted, perverted, fucked-up and insanely tragic, but it makes sense."

"Well, like I said, your lip gloss smells like strawberries, the rest of you, is another story," Grey tossed away his cigarette and lit up a fresh one.

"Oh yeah, what else do I smell like?"

"Love," Grey replied simply.

Sam's eyes went wide, "Okay, NOW I require an explanation, just how much did you enjoy this not-quite-kiss?"

Miranda flushed crimson and opened her mouth to speak, but Grey cut her off with an upraised hand.

"I did not say 'arousal', I said 'love'."

"Okay," Sam turned her blue eyes to scrutinize the Englishman, "And what does 'love' smell like?"

"Custom-made body crème."

"You still have that stuff?" Sam laughed.

"It smells nice," Miranda countered before addressing Grey, "For Valentine's day a few months back, Sam gave me some body cream."

"More special than you know, poppet," he took a drag and exhaled a cloud of smoke before turning to address Sam, "Cost you a pretty penny, didn't it?" Grey asked.

Sam nodded, frowning, "yeah, how did you...?"

"She said 'a few years 'back. There're traces of Tennessee lavender," he gestured at Sam, "I'm guessing that's where you're from originally?"

"I'm getting tired of asking this," Sam sighed, "But again, how did you know?"

"You can still hear a bit of the Tennessee twang in your voice when you speak," Grey took a contemplative pull from his cigarette, "It's subtle, well, as subtle as a Tennessee accent can be, so not Nashville or Knoxville. Taking into account the fact that you've probably lived in California, what, fourteen years or so?"

"Sixteen."

"Okay, sixteen years in California to get rid of an accent that probably wasn't terribly strong to begin with," he appeared to be doing the 'math' in his head, "Chattanooga or, less likely, Charleston or Cleveland, but definitely somewhere relatively southwards and close to the Georgia border."

"You were right the first time," Miranda answered on Sam's behalf, no longer surprised that Grey was apparently able to pull facts from thin air, "Chattanooga."

"Antiques dealer I knew lived down in Savannah, I sometimes pass through that region of Tennessee on my way there."

"I'm trying to imagine you in Tennessee," Sam said aloud, "It's just not coming to me."

Grey smiled slightly, "Remind me to tell you what a 'knees up' at Mercer House was like."

"Okay, tell us what a 'knees up' at Mercer House was like." Sam immediately put in.

"Some other time," he took another puff from his cigarette, "Do I pester you with endless questions?"

"Grey, you're some kind of super genius sporting a gruesome amount of scar tissue and a supernaturally large amount of emotional and mental trauma. Couple that with serving in Bosnia and do you really think we have any stories that can compete?" Sam asked.

"It's always possible," he retorted, "And from my end, the stories I have aren't that interesting to begin with."

"That's because to you, they're memories, not stories," Miranda said quietly.