Chapter Text
Neither of them wants to run anymore.
How does it feel to see your once best friend, your one and only brother in the world like that , like the knives tightly clutched in two separate hands, like the smiles etched in red scars and stitches on two faces, like the charcoaled bush of once smooth brown hair, like the dim death glare in once lively bright green eyes, like the hatred in the air, like they’re enemies - like neither of them ever cared?
Do you even know who’s chasing whom? Do you understand who’s running from the other? What is there to escape, what do you want from me, what do I want from you?
“Well?”
Turns out they can’t answer any of those questions. Being psychotic means you don’t need many words, proper communication is unnecessary, when everything you face is either a victim or an enemy or a combination of both, and nothing else matters other than the delicious glee of slaughter. There’s no need to consider morals or expectations, consequences nor hesitations, a plunge of the knife in hand is all it takes.
But those exchanged ‘I love you’s from so long ago rings in their ears, and that makes all the differences.
Liu swallows, some blood returns to the white knuckles on the knife hilt, and he let his arms drop and hang to his side.
It makes them more than enemies. The remaining blood in their veins have the same origin, while they have all the reasons to loathe and hate their despicable parents, they had each other as family.
Should they be enemies at all?
“Have you already given up?”
Jeff hasn’t lowered his knife yet, and he hasn’t answered any questions. He wants a fight, and he’s not getting one tonight.
“No.”
Because Liu knows where he’s at right now, he understands how his train of thoughts changed since that horrifying night. He has sorted himself out, and he wants to do the same for his brother.
“I mean I have given up before, but not now.”
He doesn’t know when he has fixed his gaze to the ground, but he now raised his head once more to look at Jeff, green focusing on black, on twisted conflicting emotions that make whatever anger he might’ve still held inside dissipate like water vapor.
“I’m not giving up on you Jeff, not again. I tried hating you after what you did to me, but I didn’t like it. I forgive everything you did, hell, I’m doing the same things as you do, I can understand how you feel, and…”
He opened a faucet, now he doesn’t think he can stop. He’s most likely not making much sense anymore, and whether or not Jeff is still listening, he doesn't know. The more words come out of his mouth, the more blurry his sight gets. He’s only slightly conscious of that his hands are fisting, one with nails too long digging into his palm and the other with knuckles going back to white around the knife hilt, he’s shivering, voice along with the body. Time went back by years, to the aftermath of one of the rare fights they got into with each other, Liu regretting it immediately after Jeff started not talking to him. He stood beside his brother’s bed for a long time not knowing how to apologize, mind completely blank of what to say, Jeff just pretended he wasn’t there. Liu stood until he was wringing his hands together in increasing fear, the imagination of a young child running wild thinking that his brother is never going to speak to him again, he felt so alone, so scared, uncertainty swallowed him, fills the night as the darkness itself, he was never afraid of the dark after the night, but his lips trembled then and he raises his fists now to rub at tears running down and stinging his stitches, and the image of the terrified brat overlaps with the 24-year-old man hunching his shoulders in Jeff’s eyes as Liu askes like so many years ago.
“Do you hate me, Jeff?”
Do you hate me? Do you want to be enemies? Did you try to kill me because you do?
Do you still want to kill me because you hate me, just like how you hate our parents?
Jeff’s lips are slightly parted, his grip on the knife has long since gone slack during Liu’s babbling. Being the second time he hears these words doesn’t change that shock and guilt rushes over his head, doesn’t prevent the hard, sudden wrench of his heart, doesn’t remove the lump choking him in his throat. If anything, time had only made emotions harder to cope with, Jeff the Killer never thinks about Liu but Jeff is sorry, he never thinks that he is because his subconscious tells him there’s no point to be, death doesn’t change how it’s inevitably unforgivable and insanity doesn’t change how it’s inevitably unforgivable, he thinks - he thought that there was no way Liu would forgive, until tonight.
He knows the answer to Liu’s question, for once there’s someone he doesn’t want to lose, someone he doesn’t hate, someone he can love, someone who loves him back.
So Jeff takes hesitant steps to cross the distance he put between him and his sobbing brother, embraces him stiffly like they’re still boys too young to be called teenagers fighting over something extremely stupid, as if the night when everything changed never occurred, and the history of bloody massacre for each of them hadn’t existed. For the first time in Jeff the Killer’s life he has to angle his knife to avoid harming someone, has to worry about whether his arms are tight enough to hurt, is it comforting for Liu, should he say something, should he do something more?
He should say he’s sorry. Sorry for ever hurting his brother, his only friend, the only one who gives a shit and loves him. He should tell Liu again that he loves him, he owns him that.
It’s not easy. When Liu’s face is burying in his shoulder, tears slowly dampening the material, vibrations of the soft sniffles and hiccups he feels with his arms around Liu’s body, the distant thought of “is he actually taller than me now?”, Jeff can’t utter a single word, he convinces himself instead that Liu has said everything they needed to know.
Jeff gives awkward pats to Liu’s back and attempts soothing strokes, Liu has one hand tangled in his hair and the other wrapping his waist, he can’t move away if he wants to. When Jeff realizes he’s also tearing up, he thinks that this is enough. They should probably stop doing this sappy hugging thing-it’s not like he can blink the tears away, and no he’s not going to cry.
Nope.
He sighed in almost-frustration and turned his head so that his tears run down his face into the side of Liu’s hair -- damn it, he has to strain his neck to do so -- and wishes for once that he has eyelids.
Liu probably can feel Jeff’s tears making his hair wet because he untangles his restraint on Jeff’s waist and hair, wipes his own cheeks for the last time before holding Jeff’s face to look at him and brushes the tears away with tender fingers. Their foreheads are pressing together, Jeff wishes again that he has the ability to squeeze his eyes shut so that he can dodge Liu’s gaze, instead, he looks at the ground, some dry bloodstain visible on the bottom of his shoes, his hands now placed on Liu’s sleeve, grabbing hold but not knowing why he wants his hands there.
There’s something different about the rusty smell of blood that lingers on them and never goes away, maybe a whiff of what marks the two of them different. No moon tonight, not on a night when urban legends are out and around, clouds pile in the sky, not enough to rain but enough to be damp and cold, the dampness carries in the wind, which drifts by in stealth, disappearing into the darkness before they can even realize its presence.
It’s a stereotypical night to commit murders in rooms with locked doors and open windows, plunge a blade into warm pulsing bodies and end an enemy, but they’re not doing any of the above.
Jeff has no fucking idea of how, why they’re kissing on a night like this.
‘Cause you’re not enemies, you’re brothers. A voice in the back of his head reminded him.
There’s definitely something wrong with that statement. Jeff thinks with his mind going hazier each second due to all the kissing.
Kissing like it’s what they’ve been doing for the past ten years instead of going around and killing people, desperate hands turn grabby, fingers pulling at hairs and clothes, tongue prodding at ripped corners of lips, causing teeth to involve, the taste of blood is something they can do with.
Breathing turns erratic, someone gives a low moan and saliva that knife ripped mouth corners can’t hold travel down their chins, they don’t know it but noises of the kiss are echoing loud and clear around in the space they’re standing. Hands now grapple or cup the other’s face, knives are long forgotten, none of them even hears the clatter of blades hitting the ground.
They will be at it longer if it isn’t that both being virgins who painfully lack experience, they run out of breath and have to stop.
Liu’s face is flushing pretty bad, and Jeff’s lips, which is normally red enough, looks like someone put bright red highlighter on top of it. The tips of their tongues stretch out as if reaching for each other, a string of saliva connecting the two for a while before snapping, and maybe what snaps is their sanity, Liu thinks.
He barely finishes a breathy “what the fuck” before both of them rush together at the same time, once more to devour the other’s mouth, some sharp breaths cut in between, the air hot and electric around them despite the chilling night. Jeff yanks the front of Liu’s sweater hard, jerking his head and makes him nick his lip on Jeff’s teeth. Not the first time tonight, but he still splutters, grips Jeff’s shoulders to push away, Jeff, however, seems to be very determined to prove a point, because he growls and puts one leg between Liu’s legs to grind upwards, right on the hard-on Liu doesn’t realize he has until that moment.
“I don’t remember teaching you this.” Jeff hisses by his ear, the temperature of his breath burns, sending warmth from the tip of his ears right down to the bottom of his feet -- a fairly large portion of it decides to take residence in his dick.
“I’m not-shit, Jeff , don’t put pressure on it-”
“You’re not what, not having a raging erection?”
Jeff is sporting an ear-to-ear grin that lives up to his name, he let go of Liu’s sweater in order to place his hand on the front of Liu’s jeans, palm covering the tent. Liu, being one of the two brothers who always take action far ahead of mind process, before Jeff can do anything more, seizes Jeff by the hips and pulls the two of them flush against each other, moves his own hips and god . Jeff’s about as hard as he is.
“And I see you’ve decided to touch a dick first before touching a boob.”
Jeff’s groan is frustrated, the endnote coming out as what probably is the start to the f word, but the rest of the word he stifles by biting down on his lower lip.
“So you’re implying that I’m the one who started this shit, little man?”
The sudden return of that ancient nickname nearly makes Liu start crying all over again. It’s too endearing, holds too many memories, better times when they thought their life was bad enough.
“What I’m implying is that gayness obviously comes naturally in the family. Also, notice the height difference.”
“Fuck you.”Jeff punctuated by pushing his hips forward into Liu and draws out the remaining breath in his laughter, also the rest of his patience along with a hoarse groan.
“My place.” He panted, losing his composure and fuck composures .
“What?”
“It’s close, if we’re doing this, we’re doing this at my place.”
For a moment Jeff looks like he might object, though at this point there’re too many places that are objectable in this business that he’s at a slight loss of words.
“Jeff, come on, please?”
Liu himself feels way too old and with way too many scars on his face to be doing this puppy-eyed-younger-brother shit, but it still works for Jeff, so he guesses he’ll be doing it a lot more starting from tonight.
Jeff scowls before palming his face and sighs.
“You’re really too old for this puppy-eyed-younger-brother shit. And you said it yourself, you’re taller than me.”
“Is that a yes, big bro?”
Jeff bends down to collect their knives, throws Liu’s back to him, and taps the tip of his own knife against Liu’s chest.
“Lead the way, brat.”