The Bandana Lovers

Pete Waiting for His Aureole

Vegas is again standing on the same blood pool, surrounded by piled up lifeless bodies, reeking of violence, hatred, greed of conquests and failure of the same . Yet they look more peaceful than him who stands as a victorious conquerer. While they rest , he remains restless, his eyes search for a solace all around yet he fails to see the sign of any. His victories are always painful and he never feels the sense of achievement that he should. Instead he always feels a cage developing around him. He could feel a chain shackling him now starting from his legs , restricting his movements. Keeping him fixated among these dead men. His eyes are wandering around to get a glimpse of that one person, whose presence is always majestic. But he can't be seen anywhere close and the chain has reached his chest , the end parts of it are scratching his neck leaving it bleeding. Vegas is again at the verge of giving up. He is tired of his endless search for that one figure , the presence of whom gives him the safest haven. He feels his body getting loose, blood seems to be clotting at every joint and his skin is turning blue, he is ready to close his eyes and let his breathing go down and away from his heart but suddenly a mild touch distracts him. Someone is softly caressing his neck while the chain bounding him is breaking slowly. He feels a life driven air entering his lungs, the bluish lips have started to regain the tint of pink on them, his fingers are gaining the sensation back. And the touch on the neck seems to have sutured his torn skin. While he could feel the person's breathing on it , he tries to turn around slowly to finally have a look at him, but even after being that close, his vision is blurred. He squints his eyes, rubs them but all in vain. All he could see is a blurry red image and a pair of soft hands on his scratched neck , trying to soothe it. He smiles looking at those hands and they start to get more blurr. Vegas feels scared, fear of loosing something clouds him, his breathing is erratic. He tries to hold those hands but could not reach them, they were moving away from him and as they completely go out of his sight a lound banging sound echoes.

Vegas opens his eyes, breathing heavily and as he feels a touch of a hand on his shoulders his hands straight away grabs that hand and pulls the person down, pressing his face on the white marble floor of the temple by putting the entire weight of his knees on his back. He is furious but this time he is not completely loosing it in anger as his eyes roam around the person ,he sees a similar figure and a similar scar. It is Pete under his knees and he realises that he is putting pressure on the stitches which are still fresh. Vegas gets up immediately.

"What in the devil's hell were you doing so close to me in my sleep? "

"Tried to check if I bit you hard. But you are nothing less than a scared squirrel. You kept crying in your sleep and when you woke up, this is what you did. Completely out of fear."

"That's not fear. That is called being alert." Vegas says in his defense. "More than strength it's the capacity of being alert that keeps you one step ahead of your enemy. I am sure you don't even know any of this. And who told you to check on a soft bite. Even your teeth are as weak as you. You thought your milk teeth could give me a scraped skin? Haah, what a joke."

"You don't have any monologue for your crying in your dream.?" Pete taunts.

Vegas approaches Pete and grabs his throat. Not very harshly but he does keep a pressure which could be taken as a warning sign. His thumb keep pressing Pete's Adam apple which do make his pupil dilate but the grin on his lips never leaves which makes Vegas eyes frown in curiosity. Pete is not an easy one to decode.

"One more word and it will be your call for death. You should be thankful that I am a guest as well as your sister's brother in law otherwise you would have paid just now for my disturbed morning."