Hell's Book of Random One-shots

Pick up the Pieces - Part Two

"So, do you have a name?"

The scarred man glanced towards her, briefly meeting her eyes before looking away and shrugging, his childlike fascination more with the decorations of her home than anything else.

They had managed to reach her home barely minutes before torrential rain battered the windows and roof, adding a strange ambience between the two as they sat around two bowls of soup with a plate of buttered bread between them.

In the better lighting of the kitchen, she could make out the array of scars that scattered the flesh she could see.

The face had proved not to be a trick of the light, he did indeed have a long Glasgow smile of a scar, as if the bottom jaw had been replaced and the different coloured eyes were more prominent, one a beautiful blue and the other brown, though she hadn't been prepared for the other scars.

There was another long scar running diagonally over his shoulder and down his chest, disappearing behind the seal of his button-up shirt and another running sloppily around his left wrist.

Even some of his fingers appeared to have fresh stitching around varying knuckles.

More than horrify, it intrigued her and she found that she wanted to know more about him and wondered if he would answer her questions now that he seemed more comfortable than on their walk home.

"He calls me 'my boy', so I guess that would be it," he said in a quiet voice carrying a pleasing accent she couldn't quite place.

She laughed softly, raising her eyebrow a little, "Who is 'he'?"

"My creator."

"Creator?"

He nodded, a fond smile slipping into place as he inspected the coffee in the cup that his odd hands were wrapped around.

"Yes, I'm unlike the others, he fixed me."

She nodded slowly, huffing out a small laugh before taking a sip of her own drink.

"So, like a doctor," she said after licking her lips.

"In a way, I suppose," he nodded, taking his own sip.

Instantly his face wrinkled up and his nose scrunched up, a look of contempt aimed at the drink as if it had offended him.

"Okay, well I think your doctor guy or whoever he is was referring to you more as a son, like; "My boy over there," not as a name."

"My creator is not an actual doctor," he said, "he is not a man of science or medicine, but one of alchemy."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean he cared not for science and its achievements, more in the process of resurrection and life after death, the answers to the unknown."

She tilted her head, looking him over before clearing her throat and shuffling in her seat.

"So is your creator's name Frankenstein?"

He wrinkled his nose and smiled, huffing out a laugh.

"No, though he was very eager for me to read that book it bears no resemblance to him, his name is Glasse."

"Glasse," she repeated with a slow nod. "You don't mind me asking then?"

"If I am the likes of the creature? Not at all, because it is the truth."

"That explains the scars, among a few other things."

She downed the rest of her coffee then stood up, walking to the kitchen sink to rinse her cup out.

He watched her, taking another sip of his own drink only to grimace again.

"What is this?"

"It's coffee, some people see it as a life source."

"It's bitter."

"You can add more sugar if you wish to sweeten it up."

"Please."

Despite her eyeroll, she still found herself smiling as she grabbed a dishcloth and dried her hands before reaching over to pluck up the sugar pot.

Turning around, she set it and a teaspoon in front of him.

"Only add in one lot at a time using the spoon and then test it, okay? I need to make a call."

He gave her a smile that could only be described as too adorable for a man made up of other men, his mixed fingers plucking up the teaspoon as his other hand pulled the lid off.

He must have been made a while ago, the dexterity to his mix and match muscles and the like being as fluid as a whole human, that or he had the greatest physio known to man.

Giving a final glance over her shoulder, she stepped out into the hallway and picked up the ancient device of a landline telephone then dialled the number for the station, an anxiousness stirring up and beginning to make her hands shake.

She hated calling strangers, in fact she barely spoke on the phone at all unless it was in a structured setting like work, but this was for the greater good.

He needed to get home.