The Mind of a Hero

Intermission II

"Put that out", Davey sighed, waving away the freshly burned candle wafting around his apartment. "Please? It's hard to focus."

He sighed in relief as the pungent stench of cinnamon and pumpkin flew away, and the lights he paid for every month came on over his head. "I was just trying to save energy. Our light bill's gotten higher lately."

"I'll pay the most of it", Davey mumbled, clacking the keys of his old computer, pressing the missing shift and enter keys familiarly. He sighed as he felt his boyfriend's hands wrap around his shoulders, a slight squeeze causing his shoulders to relax. "Hey, Race."

"Ciao", Race greeted quietly, and Davey chuckled. "Jack's not stressing you out too much, right? I could always beat him up for you."

"No", Davey mumbled, grabbing at Race's planted hands. "I wouldn't want you to hurt your hands."

"Fine", Race sighed, moving to sit on their shared desk. Davey took note in their still clasped hands, and the dryness he felt on them from the dry ingredients used to make cake. "I can just get Crutchie to do it anyway."

"I'm sure he'd be more than happy...", Davey continued typing, "...to do that for you."

"How's this thing going anyway?"

"It's going okay", Davey answered honestly. He wasn't sure how else to describe the interviews, although he's sure Jack would have a few choice words. "Elmer is...fucked up, to say the least."

Race frowned, crossing his arms. "I thought you said he was opening up now, and he was kinder than you thought."

Davey sighed, pulling his hands away from the keyboard. "He- He is, but...the more I know, the more I think Jack's documentary will be rated R."

Race chuckled, shaking his head. "I guess he's stressing you out."

"Just a little."

"Ah, you love him too much."

"Not more than you."

——————

Jack had forgotten to breathe as he reviewed the video tapes he'd recorded, taking intermittent deep breaths as he stood against his couch. He could barely hear the footsteps marching toward him with power, but he looked away from the camera to glance at his wife's heels. "Hi, babe."

"Hey, Jack." Katherine grinned as if she was greeting him, but Jack could tell it was a goodbye. "I'm going out with Sarah and Sniper in half an hour. Do I look like I'm forgetting something?"

Jack looked over his wife, a small smile gracing his lips. She was just as perfect as the day he met her, the most beautiful woman he'd gotten the chance to embrace as his own. Lucky as he was, he had trouble saying anything more than, "You look amazing, Kath."

Small, but it got her to smile, which seemed to be a constant goal of Jack's. "What are you working on?"

"The Kasprzak guy", Jack sighed, and he moved his camera to showcase it to Katherine, who leaned over his shoulder curiously. "He's a mess, but it'll make for a good movie. It'll probably be about three hours."

Katherine hummed, and Jack couldn't help to stare at her focused eyes, and how they moved to capture every detail. "It looks good. Did you send it to your editor?"

"Some of it", Jack mumbled, and he scrolled through more unedited scenes. "She's busy, though. Got a kid, and stuff."

Katherine hummed once again, and Jack could tell she was already calculating the amount of nights Jack would stay up editing his own documentary. He figured those would be the nights she would turn in early, and offer a meal preparation plan. He wasn't exactly looking forward to the same unsalted spaghetti for a week.

The phone rang, and Katherine moved to find it as Jack decided standing wasn't doing it for him anymore, and he moved to sit on the couch. "I'd rather go into cardiac arrest than do this shit."

"It's your boyfriend." Jack chuckled softly as Katherine handed him the house phone, placing a goodbye kiss near his lips before grabbing her coat and walking out of the door. Jack placed the phone to his ear.

"Yeah?"

"How's the documentary going?"

Jack sighed, flopping back onto the couch, his head hitting a decorative pillow. "I want to shove a steak knife in my balls. You?"

"I'm hoping Race will accidentally slip arsenic into dinner tonight."

Jack furrowed his brows at the sound of Davey being hit, and various Italian phrases too faint to hear. It sounded like Davey had been hit on the back of his neck, and Jack shuddered from the memories of his brothers' icy hands smacking him into regret. "My prayers, dude", Jack offered, shaking his head amusedly. "I know that hurts."

"I've felt worse." Jack really didn't want to know.

He decided to focus harder on his camera to combat the ideas of what his little brother and best friend did in their spare time, not really caring that Davey was on the other side of the phone. They didn't need to speak to communicate; there were nights the both of them kept the other on the phone for hours, either falling asleep or waiting until the other did, and sharing the consequences of the equally high light bills their parents had to face. To think back when they were young made Jack smile, albeit painfully as the effects of age were just beginning to wear him down at only thirty-nine, but it also made him think of Elmer, and the effects of age hit him when he was only twenty-two. "I feel bad for Elmer, man."

Davey hummed over the phone, a message only a select amount of people could understand, like morse code or Latin. His thoughts didn't exactly differ completely, but he had his own ideas, ones that kept him from writing them out.

Elmer wasn't a simple individual; he was less black and less white than Davey assumed he'd be. He found it difficult to label him as a murder when he only murdered those that caused harm to others, including one murderer. He could admit he's fucked up in the head, but aren't most people? Not everyone sought murder as a vice, though. "He made his bed, Jackie."

"But he wasn't exactly killing upstanding citizens, Dave", Jack reasoned, raising his eyebrows at the small detail he remembered. "Except for-"

"Yeah." Davey sighed out and ran a hand through his hair frustratedly. He stared at the blinking cursor next to the unfinished paragraph and wondered what made him better than Elmer. A man in love was all he was--he's sure if Race decided he wanted to go on a murdering spree, he wouldn't punish him for it. But he supposed the difference was that he wouldn't make an accessory out of himself either, and would give Race to the police. "What do you think of Albert?"

"I think he's just as fucking insane", Jack chuckled, kicking his legs off of the couch and forcing himself to stand up. He walked to his bedroom and placed the camera on the bed, adjusting the house phone on his shoulder and under his cheek. "He started this whole thing in the first place, right? I don't think Elmer's a murderer at heart. It's probably the only romantic love he's ever witnessed–he expected it, you know?"

Davey hummed, and Jack could tell he was close to smashing his head onto his keyboard. "I guess so."

Silence overtook their conversation again, and Davey wasn't the least bit bothered with it. His mind was mesmerized with the case he had in front of him, yet it refused to put anything to paper. Nothing he was thinking was relevant--Elmer was a monster but he wasn't, yet he wasn't exactly kissing babies and blessing them under the name of God. Honestly, Davey didn't know what to think.

"Hey, Davey!" He looked behind him to see Race peeking his head out of the kitchen, a tired but excited smile on his face.

"Darling?"

"Food's ready. Tell Jack to come over if he's hungry."

Davey nodded, and turned to look at his computer screen, adjusting his cellphone in his hands. "Race says to come over if you're hungry. My guess is he made too much again. So?"

"I'm already in the car." Davey chuckled, shaking his head, and hanging up on his best friend.