4fe 57 – Karma
Benjamin woke up with a yawn. He stretched his arms for a long time, enjoying the feeling in his muscles. While he wasn’t particularly a sadist, nor was he very fond of feeling pain on his own body, he had this sort of captivation towards it. Pain, torture, death; it all had an exciting ring to it.
Never once in his life had he to physically torture somebody, but the knowledge had proven itself quite useful on a few occasions. Threatening nuisances and describing every single thing you will do to them would paint the most beautiful expression on their scared little faces. The young man smiled just thinking about it, relaxing and letting himself fall back on the rear seat of the abandoned carriage in which he had spent the night, munching on a piece of grass. The scrap yard was one of his favourite places to stay in. It also had the trill of rusty metal parts jutting everywhere, menacing to slice your skin and potentially infect you to death.
Someone yelled and swore somewhere down from his pile of vehicles and he grinned in satisfaction. He yawned one last time and looked through the hole that was once a door, arms comfortably placed behind his head, legs folded over one another.
-Yo, Gregory.
-Shit, stupid dump…
He looked up at the place his follower was in and for a moment seemed to try and consider how he had even managed to get up there.
-Get down here, will you?
For a moment he wondered about making a smug remark and staying where he was; then he realized that taunting his boss would only result in his nest getting broken down. It wasn’t worth it.
With a sigh, he jumped swiftly down, knowing every stable step. He bore an annoyed expression, hands plugged in his pockets, before he noticed Greg had sliced his leg pretty bad. Then he noticed the different shirt.
-Woah, I didn’t know you actually had a wardrobe.
-Cut the crap, will you?
He looked away, and was that blushing? Suddenly sort of disgusted, he didn’t feel like asking about his clothes anymore, feeling it might had something to do with that girl.
-In any case, you should check on that wound before it gets infected. Stuff around here is nasty.
-I know, thanks.
-What can I do for you?
-Do you know some place where we can burn a lot of crap down and not get noticed?
A spark of interest showed up in Benjamin’s mind. Burning stuff down sounded fun. He hoped Greg had come to fetch him to take care of the destroying, whatever it was.
-You’re in the right place. What do you want to burn down?
-Some, uh… rotten shit. Kind of.
-Kind of…?
The young man in front of him sighed in annoyance. His anger was rising, no doubt, but that was fine by Benjamin. Whenever his boss got angry, he also got stupid, and that made it easier to snatch information out of him.
-Just bring the stuff to me, I’ll take care of it.
-She’ll probably want to watch it burn until the fire’s out.
-Wait, so your girl is keeping… rotten stuff… and she wants it burned. Are you talking about drugs?
-No!
-Sounds like nasty shit, man. You in trouble?
Greg grumbled, snatched something in his pocket, seemed hesitant for a moment and motioned for his follower to take it, which he did. He looked at what was in his hand and a shiver ran through his spine. He was right, the thing, a necklace maybe, looked completely black and rotten, nearly impossible to make it out. Something about it was trying to pull him in, but rather than scare the crap out of him, he found it sort of… exciting. He played with it in his fingers, betraying no emotion, while the other delinquent looked at him, obviously impatient.
-Definitely not drugs.
-Of course not!
-And you say she has a lot more of this crap to burn down?
-Yeah. All of the things she brought with her from her former place look like this.
-Is it some kind of disease?
-Who knows! But I can tell you I’ve had the worse possible luck ever since I got my hands on this thing.
He motioned for his leg. His pants had a rip in them, something well about eight inches. Through it we could see that the wound, nearly as big, was bleeding abundantly.
-You mean like this? What else happened?
-My sister managed to get a hold of me and scolded me for a whole damn hour, some kid throwing rocks managed to catch me even though I was freaking running and I slipped on a wet road and hit my jaw on the stone pretty bad.
A burst of laughter welcomed the young man, who obviously grew angrier by the second; Benjamin had a hard time trying to catch his breath enough to say something.
-That’s… that’s called k-karma, man.
-Kar-what?
-You deserve every shit happening to you for being such a jerk.
A punch right in the stomach welcomed the laughing older man, cutting off his breath for a moment. Benjamin knew that his head would have been the target if he hadn’t been so tall. He pondered for a moment whether to reply or not as his hilarity calmed down, and decided he deserved it. Off in the distance someone else was beckoning for them, most likely Thomas. The two looked at each other with a look of conspiracy and hurried up their conversation before the other man caught up to them.
-Alright, listen. You bring the girl and her stuff right here when fatso over there’s out of the way. I doubt you want him involved, if you went through the trouble of catching me so early. I’ll keep on to this thing for you.
-Thanks, man.
-Let’s find him some alcohol and a girl or two and then we can get started.
His boss gave him a strange look, one Benjamin decided to take as a mix of respect and shudder, probably thinking about how much of a mischievous plan that sounded like. But that was okay, because Benjamin secretly enjoyed being an evil genius. The unaware third wheel caught up to them and gave them a curious look.
-What’s going on here? You guys look like a bunch of gossiping old ladies.
-Gossiping old ladies? Well, maybe I am, but I doubt the boss could be.
Benjamin smiled mysteriously at him and received an even stranger look. Greg was oddly calm, or maybe nervous.
-Dude, what’s up with him?
-Girl troubles.
-Ew. I tell you man, just sleep with her and be done with it.
The two glared at each other for a while and the tall one sighed.
-You know Gregory believes in marriage. No sex before you get the ring.
-Believe what you want, man, but I’m telling you. You’ll feel much better once you realize it’s better to do whatever the hell you want and get every girl you see than chaining yourself up to a single one.
As was to be expected, the two of them started fighting, while Benjamin simply slipped away; sometimes being the smart one meant you had to shut up and watch the other two cave men fight it out like dogs trying to determine who the dominant one was. As to be expected, Greg came out victorious despite having his leg injury kicked various times when the other saw there a weakness. More like an instant anger button, according to its effect. He stood up and caught his breath, still oddly preoccupied and silent, though Thomas probably didn’t catch any of it. These two would keep this on all day if he didn’t step in and stop them.
-Are you done? Hey, fatso. I’m asking you if you’re done being stupid.
-Shut up, twig.
-Anyhow, my sister was searching for someone to go to the pub with, and I thought you might be interested.
-You mean the hot one?
-I only have one sister, idiot.
-Damn right I am!
-Cool. I don’t know where she’s at now, so you might need to search around town a bit.
Thomas grinned widely, before dashing off out of the yard, unsuspecting. Greg, however, seemed to have caught on.
-Is your sister really searching for a partner…?
-My sister is out of town. He’s going to be pretty busy trying to find her, and you know how my family is going to mislead him into believing anything.
-Sometimes, you’re scary evil.
For a moment the two men simply stood there, watching the spot where their idiot friend had vanished from. They were waiting until they could be certain he wouldn’t be around to catch on that they were plotting something without him, or see them sneaking up to the bakery.
-Actually, there is something else I’d like to ask of you.
-Sure. But you owe me an explanation. Of everything.
