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31_days2005-09-27 11:47 pm
of-carabas.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2005-09-27 11:47 pm
[September 27] [Near Dark] A Thousand Miles (23/26)
Title: A Thousand Miles (23/26)
Day/Theme: September 27th/Chasing the metaphysical express
Series: Near Dark
Pairing: Jesse, Caleb
Rating: PG13
Jesse knew that through the eyes of his victims, he looked like something out of a nightmare. Not physically. Physically he was plain old Jesse Hooker, same as always. But the way he acted, the way he stood, way he moved, and particularly his attitude toward killing and eating people - that wasn't plain old anything. No, it was something else. Something unnatural. Wasn't nothing natural about eating people, that was the reasoning. Which meant he and his crew, they weren't just killers, weren't just another part of life on this world - no, they were some metaphysical bump in the night.
He knew that was what they saw, because that was what he'd seen, being turned. It was what Diamondback had seen when she first looked at him. There hadn't been any rational reason for her to see that in him, not when as far as she knew he was just another hitcher on the side of the road. But she saw it all the same. Everyone did. When folks looked at his pack, they might not realize exactly what it was they were seeing, but they knew it was something out of the ordinary. Sometimes that was useful - made it easy to catch the prey's eyes. Sometimes, less useful; they tended to stick out in people's memories, even when they tried their damnedest to blend in.
And sometimes it could be a problem. Like now. Because Mae's new boy, he'd been turned, but he still had that look in his eyes, like Jesse's pack was something strange and otherworldly.
They weren't.
Not that he could explain exactly what they were, of course. Oh, he could think of a certain label that might come close to describing them, a label used for monsters that appeared in Hollywood horror flicks or gothic penny dreadfuls - but he didn't use that label. Didn't like it. He didn't like the things people associated with it, all thrills and romance and otherworldly horseshit, and he didn't want it associated with him and his pack. They were physical. They slept, they ate, they lived, with all the everyday hassles of living that every creature on this planet dealt with. And if he'd seen a little more of the world than most, that didn't necessarily make him something supernatural.
But then there was Caleb. Whose horror at killing, whose horror of what he'd become, was the horror most folks had for the supernatural. He wasn't thinking of this life as just another way of getting through the day (or night, as the case may be) - he was seeing it as a horror straight out of his nightmares.
He seemed to need to. Needed to cling to the idea that most folks' lives had some value, some spiritual superiority while Jesse and his pack were something unnatural, dark and wicked. Something damned. Caleb had been turned, he'd even tasted blood, he knew how good and natural that felt - but he still stood apart. He couldn't, say, look at killing a person and realize it was just the same as chopping the head off a chicken, just another way of surviving. The only way, for Jesse and his crew. Killing wasn't complicated. It wasn't some spiritual trial. Hell, it wasn't even a question of ethics. Killing was just a part of life, pure and simple.
But not for this boy. For whatever reason, Caleb needed killing to mean something more than that.
Jesse supposed that was a luxury of the times. Folks didn't need to go hunting or fishing for food, they just went down to the supermarket. All the killing that supported them happened at a safe distance - same as Mae was doing for Caleb, now.
But she couldn't protect him from the reality of life forever, and the boy couldn't cling to his ideas of killing meaning something beyond the physical. One way or another Caleb was going to get used to death, and quick.
Day/Theme: September 27th/Chasing the metaphysical express
Series: Near Dark
Pairing: Jesse, Caleb
Rating: PG13
Jesse knew that through the eyes of his victims, he looked like something out of a nightmare. Not physically. Physically he was plain old Jesse Hooker, same as always. But the way he acted, the way he stood, way he moved, and particularly his attitude toward killing and eating people - that wasn't plain old anything. No, it was something else. Something unnatural. Wasn't nothing natural about eating people, that was the reasoning. Which meant he and his crew, they weren't just killers, weren't just another part of life on this world - no, they were some metaphysical bump in the night.
He knew that was what they saw, because that was what he'd seen, being turned. It was what Diamondback had seen when she first looked at him. There hadn't been any rational reason for her to see that in him, not when as far as she knew he was just another hitcher on the side of the road. But she saw it all the same. Everyone did. When folks looked at his pack, they might not realize exactly what it was they were seeing, but they knew it was something out of the ordinary. Sometimes that was useful - made it easy to catch the prey's eyes. Sometimes, less useful; they tended to stick out in people's memories, even when they tried their damnedest to blend in.
And sometimes it could be a problem. Like now. Because Mae's new boy, he'd been turned, but he still had that look in his eyes, like Jesse's pack was something strange and otherworldly.
They weren't.
Not that he could explain exactly what they were, of course. Oh, he could think of a certain label that might come close to describing them, a label used for monsters that appeared in Hollywood horror flicks or gothic penny dreadfuls - but he didn't use that label. Didn't like it. He didn't like the things people associated with it, all thrills and romance and otherworldly horseshit, and he didn't want it associated with him and his pack. They were physical. They slept, they ate, they lived, with all the everyday hassles of living that every creature on this planet dealt with. And if he'd seen a little more of the world than most, that didn't necessarily make him something supernatural.
But then there was Caleb. Whose horror at killing, whose horror of what he'd become, was the horror most folks had for the supernatural. He wasn't thinking of this life as just another way of getting through the day (or night, as the case may be) - he was seeing it as a horror straight out of his nightmares.
He seemed to need to. Needed to cling to the idea that most folks' lives had some value, some spiritual superiority while Jesse and his pack were something unnatural, dark and wicked. Something damned. Caleb had been turned, he'd even tasted blood, he knew how good and natural that felt - but he still stood apart. He couldn't, say, look at killing a person and realize it was just the same as chopping the head off a chicken, just another way of surviving. The only way, for Jesse and his crew. Killing wasn't complicated. It wasn't some spiritual trial. Hell, it wasn't even a question of ethics. Killing was just a part of life, pure and simple.
But not for this boy. For whatever reason, Caleb needed killing to mean something more than that.
Jesse supposed that was a luxury of the times. Folks didn't need to go hunting or fishing for food, they just went down to the supermarket. All the killing that supported them happened at a safe distance - same as Mae was doing for Caleb, now.
But she couldn't protect him from the reality of life forever, and the boy couldn't cling to his ideas of killing meaning something beyond the physical. One way or another Caleb was going to get used to death, and quick.