[He nods, 'James' - he remembered liking that name. It sounds nice, and as the hour was getting late, he says his good-byes and withdraws, leaving just enough mackerel for Abby to steal.
It wouldn't be the last time they meet, not with the game they're playing. The Spider was not the remote spinner of webs, but the leaping hunter, but also on occasion the lurker inside a trap, drawing someone in before snapping them up.
He was careful, always so careful - a false front, crimes covering crimes, sometimes vanishing like a phantom, other times leaving evidence pointing towards another criminal trying to worm their way into his territory or made too much trouble, drawing too much attention near his havens.
Sometimes James wasn't called in at all, and it was disappointing, but when he was - he'd always watch from some remote place, to see him search and question, uncovering what he had hidden. Sometimes it gone as far as him finding one of his safe houses, which Gray would have stripped clean of the presence of any signs of his enterprise by the time police would arrive, leaving only bare rooms and wiped prints.
But much like the drugs, it wasn't enough to quell the screaming - it would be mutable for a while before roaring back louder and louder, taking more to make it silent again. As he upped the dosage, he also increased the complexity of his work, and the severity of it.
Some small part of him hated this, hated the thing he became, but the rest of him was too well-honed at this art, too dipped in blood and shadow to stop. He was constantly uncovering hidden things, forbidden things, loathsome knowledge was knowledge that appeased that hunger. Sometimes his hands were stained with blood when he wrest something new, and he noticed he was growing numb to the sight.
Gray knew that there was no happy ending for this game, but long as he kept playing - a worse one would be avoided, or so he tells himself. Though he could sense the change in James' demeanor as of late.
And the air around him just thrummed with a new kind of tension as he slips once more to that flat]
no subject
It wouldn't be the last time they meet, not with the game they're playing. The Spider was not the remote spinner of webs, but the leaping hunter, but also on occasion the lurker inside a trap, drawing someone in before snapping them up.
He was careful, always so careful - a false front, crimes covering crimes, sometimes vanishing like a phantom, other times leaving evidence pointing towards another criminal trying to worm their way into his territory or made too much trouble, drawing too much attention near his havens.
Sometimes James wasn't called in at all, and it was disappointing, but when he was - he'd always watch from some remote place, to see him search and question, uncovering what he had hidden. Sometimes it gone as far as him finding one of his safe houses, which Gray would have stripped clean of the presence of any signs of his enterprise by the time police would arrive, leaving only bare rooms and wiped prints.
But much like the drugs, it wasn't enough to quell the screaming - it would be mutable for a while before roaring back louder and louder, taking more to make it silent again. As he upped the dosage, he also increased the complexity of his work, and the severity of it.
Some small part of him hated this, hated the thing he became, but the rest of him was too well-honed at this art, too dipped in blood and shadow to stop. He was constantly uncovering hidden things, forbidden things, loathsome knowledge was knowledge that appeased that hunger. Sometimes his hands were stained with blood when he wrest something new, and he noticed he was growing numb to the sight.
Gray knew that there was no happy ending for this game, but long as he kept playing - a worse one would be avoided, or so he tells himself. Though he could sense the change in James' demeanor as of late.
And the air around him just thrummed with a new kind of tension as he slips once more to that flat]