Nothing Like It Was Supposed to Be

Grobbler kicks in the screen door, scared and excited. His body is shaking feverishly at the prospect of what he came here to do.

The living room is cheaply furnished, a small TV, a meagre bookshelf, a comically size Jesus-cross on the wall. In the center of the room, a drab colored Lazy boy chair sinks into the thick shag carpet, and nestled in the seat is the man who wears Grobbler's real face.

There's no surprise, no fear in the mockery's eyes. He just turns his head and gives his guest a pained smile. "I figured you'd come, sooner or later." He's so much older... 15 years of disappointment set deep trenches in his face, the one Grobbler remembers, the one he used to have before his bondage in Faerie warped him until his own family could no longer recognize him.

Breathing heavily, the purple monster isn't sure what to do. His fingers itch, and his mind is pulled towards the sensation of cold steel on his left buttock.

The revolver tucked in his pants is heavy, so heavy.

"I want my life back." Grobbler hisses. He can do this, he has to. Moren did it, she confronted the psychopath doppleganger and killed it. She told everyone else how it was done, how at the last moment the creature stopped pretending and became hideous with the power of the Wyrd, how it disintegrated when it finally fell.

God, he'd been so relieved. Relieved to know that this thing that ruined his life, that drove his family away wasn't human. But standing here, he didn't know what to do. He wanted the thing to get up and rush him, to laugh, to provoke him, anything at all to make this OK, to make it right.

"You can't get it back anymore..." the golem rattles loose a weary sigh. "There's no marriage left to save, the firm forgot your name long ago, hell your daughter probably couldn't recognize me anymore let alone you. They've moved on and they're happier for it."

"How can you be so fucking casual about this you asshole?! You fucked up my life, you've fucked everything up!" Anger poisons every inch of Grobbler's body, and he feels sick with it. But no matter how angry he gets, he just seems closer to breaking into tears. "You fucking drank yourself half to death, you didn't give a shit about my little girl, you made my wife hate me... and then you fucking pretend to turn your life around. What is this Born-Again bullshit you idiot? We were Jewish..." Grobbler's vision becomes too bleary to see, and he grabs a stupid looking commemorative plate off of the wall and petulantly throws it across the room before breaking down.

"I was fucking Jewish..." He sobs as his legs threaten to give way.

"For the longest time," the synthetic says in a comforting voice, "I really thought I was you. You know, I wanted to do my best at work, to be a good husband, to be a great dad." He leans forward in the chair. "But there was just one thing that I could never get over. No matter what I did, or told myself, I just always had this feeling that Sarah wasn't my baby. I wanted to love her like a daughter, you know? But I would look into her eyes and I wouldn't recognize them. When you... came back, long after I'd left, long after I'd found a reason to stop drinking, I could feel it. God, it was like a rush of everything I'd ever forgotten. Everything made sense."

Grobbler falls silent, unable to interrupt, barely able to think.

"I was supposed to be a perfect copy, but blood is the only thing you can't fake. Me and Karen... I mean, you and Karen. I know you don't want to admit it, but that marriage was never perfect. The only reason we, you, stayed together was for Sarah. I didn't have that, and there was nothing to keep us from falling apart."

Grobbler can't stand to hear the truth. He can't stand to admit that drinking was his own problem long before his Keeper cobbled together his Fetch, he can't stand to remember the arguments, the fights over the car, or what couch to buy.

"I just wanted... to live my own life. Not to pretend to live someone else's anymore. So I put my life in the hands of a higher power, and I stopped drinking."

Grobbler laughs a bit through the tears. "Fuckin' fag." But he's smiling just a little, he can't help it. "You know, I came here to kill you."

"I know. So what are you going to do now?"

"I don't know anymore man. I don't know."

- - -

The cold night lashes painfully at Grobbler's wet face as he runs. He hopes that the company of his tiny freehold will help the hurting stop, he doesn't have anything else left for him behind.

Back in the tiny trailer, a man tips back his chair to extend the footrest. He holds a car magazine in his hands and squints through his glasses at the text. "What a gullible dipshit," he laughs to himself before he begins again where he left off.