I really enjoyed writing this piece. I usually try to stick to realism in my stories, but I needed this to happen at the end and it was the only conceivable way I could think of accomplishing it. Feedback is always appreciated- I sincerely hope you enjoy this .

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It was when he started seeing double that he began to wonder why the bartender hadn’t stopped him. It wasn’t as if a polite insistence that he shouldn’t have another from the barkeep would have any effect on what he was doing- his world had gone to hell, and because of it, he was hell-bent on drinking the pain away.

The shoddy hole-in-the-wall known as a dive bar had been packed from wall to wall to wall earlier in the evening (presumably because there wasn’t much space in which to pack a small amount of people), but it had long since cleared out by the wee hours of the morning in which he found himself alone with a half-consumed bottle of vodka. The ambient lights above the bar and billiard tables had been dimmed to a dull amber a few departed drunks earlier, chalked pool cues abandoned on a scratched wooden floor with alcohol seeping through the sizeable cracks. The bar still reeked of cigarette smoke, part of which he was certain resulted from his own noxious cancer sticks, and the only remaining occupant other than himself was the heavyset bartender who kept a close watch on the level of vodka left in his bottle.

He didn’t drink vodka because of any particular affinity for the spirit. It was tasteless, odorless, clear… it was just what he needed. It was bleach, perfect bleach, erasing his painful memories like bloodstains on a white shirt.

And if the bleach failed, the best he could do was start over with a new shirt when all he wanted was a new life.

A new life.

Was it so much to ask for?

But the blood never washes away completely, and he knew it better than most. The bleach could obliterate even the most stubborn of dramatic scarlet stains, but the blood could never be sluiced from the crevices in his hands. The viscid crimson that gushed so abundantly from his victims, the vivid claret of his brother’s blood that was never intended to be spilled… even if others couldn’t see it, he would always know that there was scarlet dripping from his hands.

The blood never washed away. It wasn’t comfort, it was a steady income, and it wasn’t so much blood as it was familiarity.

But it was there, nonetheless.

He was plastered and he knew it, but he wasn’t intoxicated enough to collapse on the filthy wooden floor like one of the drunks he constantly passed on the sidewalks whose livers died a little more each day. He would never allow himself to reach such a point; he wouldn’t let something as trivial as alcohol bring him so low. He couldn’t surrender himself, couldn’t let go for even a split second or everything that was already out of proportion would start tail spinning out of control.

He sat at the end of the bar, muscled forearms pillowed on the cracked Formica with nothing but the vodka that was dwindling faster than he could remember as a small consolation when the barkeep approached him. He didn’t doubt that his appearance was intimidating- ashen skin, bloodshot eyes rimmed in red and accompanied by dark bags beneath, worn leather jacket concealing a lithe frame with muscles and cocked fists large enough to make a lesser man cry, body that reeked of cigarette smoke, vodka, and blood… all of that blood.

The barkeep was an unimpressive man. Standard height and weight (he could have snapped his man over his knee if he so pleased), hazel eyes nearly as murky as an upstate lake, and long-fingered hands clutching an alcohol stained cloth that he was using to clean a tall beer glass. “I think you’ve had enough,” the man stated, removing the bottle from before him to wipe the spout with the same cloth and return it to below the bar.

He could have cried. And not just for all of the people who haunted his every waking moment and his every nightmare, not just for the blood on his hands that even the strongest of soap couldn’t wash away, but for the vodka. For his bleach, his perfect bleach, his perfect key to a new, perfect life. If he drank away this less than perfect one, maybe he could have another. Maybe he could try again.

Maybe he could set things right.

But with his bleach returned beneath the counter, that opportunity seemed lost. He wasn’t surprised, to be quite honest- it seemed as though, when it came to life, he had simply drawn the short straw. Nothing ever went right for him, and things definitely weren’t looking up.

They weren’t going to change because nothing ever does.

The barkeep was looking at him in a peculiar fashion, thick eyebrow quirked over a curious hazel eye. “You need help getting to your car?” he questioned, emerging from behind the counter to take him by the upper arm as he slowly stood from the barstool. His vision swam sickeningly before him as he struggled to find purchase and equilibrium, the world tilting beneath him and his stomach jumping into his throat before he swallowed past it and straightened his posture.

“I’ll be fine,” he insisted, moving toward the wooden door of the bar with only a bit of a stagger in his step. He felt the bartender’s questing hand supporting the small of his back should he have collapsed and shoved the man off with unnecessary violence, grunting as he continued on his determined pilgrimage toward the door.

He didn’t want this man’s help.

He didn’t want anyone’s help.

He didn’t want their pity.

The bartender chuckled and opened the door for him, following him down the cracked cement steps slicked with a mirrored sheen of translucent ice characteristic of a New York winter. “Jesus, you’re strong,” he remarked, rubbing the shoulder which he had assaulted before trailing after him in the direction of where he had parked his car alongside the road.

He knew he was strong. He knew it damn well. He worked hard to make sure of it.

But somehow, hearing this insolent son of a bitch who thought he knew something about what he was going through tell him that he was strong made him angry. It made him angry because he was tired of people trying to make him stronger than he was, stronger than he ever thought he could be…

Stronger than he knew anyone should be.

Somehow, hearing it one more goddamned time made his blood boil and somehow, he wanted to cold-cock the bartender right across the nose.

But he didn’t.

He had shed enough of other’s blood for one night.

He had shed enough blood for a lifetime.

An imperfect one. An imperfect life he could have only washed away with a perfect bleach.

If only it were that easy.

They approached his car and he fumbled for his keys in his back pocket, bypassing the loaded shotgun without a safety catch jammed into his waistband before his fingers finally connected with the cold, corrugated metal. He inserted the correct key into the lock, opening the driver’s door.

The bartender whistled, admiring his expensive sports car. It had taken numerous jobs in order to earn enough money to sate his vanity with the car… he worked hard for what he had. “Nice car,” the man remarked.

“Thanks,” he muttered, and tonight he couldn’t take pride in the sports car like he normally was able to. Were it any other night, had his perfect bleach and consequently his perfect life not slipped through his very fingers, he might have been proud. He might have gloated, he might have rattled off one of the numerous unnecessary facts about the car he had crammed his head with, but not tonight.

Not tonight.

“You’re not going to try and drive, right?” the bartender asked as he slides into the driver’s seat, luxuriating in the expensive leather’s caress on his aching, abused body. He could feel his stomach churning at the very thought of waiting in Saturday night New York traffic, his perfect bleach threatening to make a dreaded reappearance in a far less appealing form.

“’Course not,” he slurred, pulling a lever that sent the seat to an almost supine position.

The bartender pursed his lips. “There are easier methods of suicide.”

The door slammed shut before he can utter a feeble thanks, and the alcohol whisked him into a hazy, merciful twilight.

He dreamed, although no more and no less horrifyingly than usual. A thousand black nights soaked in viscid scarlet blood played back in vivid Technicolor, screams surely more shrill than they were the first time he heard them echoing in his head. He could still feel the warm metal of the gun, slick with sweat from his palm, clutched in his hand, still feel the vibration that traveled through his fingers and up his entire arm when the weapon fired. He could still see all of the blood pooling on the floor beneath the lifeless body, still remember the haunted, disappointed eyes that stared back at him… the blood, all the blood.

He woke covered in a cold sweat, hands flying to the revolver in his waistband and the knife in his boot in a blind panic. He had been trained well, too well, and old habits die hard. The sun was setting, and because of it, he could only assume that he had slept through the entire morning and afternoon.

He knew what he had to do.

He jammed the key into the ignition, not even able to take pleasure in the way the engine gunned and roared to life with the ferocity of a caged animal. He drove over the speed limit, weaving in and out of traffic in a manner that earns him numerous obscenities and rude gestures in return, careening down the roads like a bat out of hell.

There are easier methods of suicide.

His time was up. He had served his purpose, and it was time for a change. It was time for something perfect.

He couldn’t stay here any longer. He couldn’t let himself slip and hurt someone else.

He drew the car to a screeching stop before a ramshackle wooden cabin far outside of town just as the darkest of nights fell. Dust from a once-lush front lawn billowed around the tires, overgrown flowers wilting into the path toward the decaying wooden door that was falling off of its rusted hinges. The floorboards of the front porch were rotten and some even collapsed, providing for an overall decrepit, dilapidated appearance that would make a lesser man believe the house uninhabited.

He knew better.

He had been here before.

Slamming the car door behind him, he pounded up the rotting steps while fully ignoring the fact that they could very well collapse beneath him. He knew full well that the door would be unlocked (it always was) and entered the wrecked cabin.

He was so ready for it to be over.

He wanted his perfect bleach. He wanted his new life.

A sinuous, beautiful woman appeared atop the staircase and descended it in a manner he knew was intended to seduce him, dimpled grin curving up her lush, scarlet-painted lips.

Just like blood.

“Back so soon?” she questioned, velvet voice honeyed by charm as she passed a smooth hand over his cheek. He shuddered both in pleasure and terror, resisting the urge to grab her throat or blow a hole in her as had been previously drilled into him. Her fingers were cold, cold as ice, and he could have sworn he caught a glimpse of fire and brimstone when they connected with his scarred skin. “You did what I wanted… now I assume you’ve come to collect your reward,” she stated.

He exhaled shakily, trembling with exertion and the promise of what he had desired for so very long. “I want you to find me a djinn,” he said resolutely. He just wanted it to be over.

He wanted his perfect bleach. He wanted to wash it all away, to wash away the blood that he knew wouldn’t, shouldn’t come off. He wanted a clean slate. He wanted to start over.

Her perfectly plucked brows creased over eyes dark as slate that danced like the flames of hell that he knew she had seen before. “The prospect of being sucked dry and living in a fantasy world doesn’t scare you? Not once?”

“Not once,” he whispered, and it’s the one thing in his life that he’s meant more than anything else. “Do we have a deal?”

She stroked his cheek and hellfire burned before his eyes once more. “Deal.”

Perfect bleach. A new life. There are easier methods of suicide.