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Knives glinted. Blood sprayed and clotted and ran down bodies way too sweaty. Victor found a sort of satisfaction in all the tiny ways in which Eli was still human: a ragged breath, beads of sweat pooling in the valley where his collarbones met, the exasperated look he always threw Victor's way, as if he were a particularly difficult child.
Everything in Eli looked the same. Sharper, maybe. Focused on a single glorious purpose, the narrow path allowing him to ignore whatever he found inconvenient. His young face haunted Victor. It felt like the burn and powder and betrayal of that last night at their apartment. It felt like a joke at Victor's spense. He wanted to kiss it. He wanted it to burn.
Victor was left feeling weary and slow in contrast. His muscles aching and joints the tiniest bit slower to bend, like the hinges of a childhood bedroom. Victor longed for their exterior to match just as the monsters underneath their skin did. He craved for recognition, for a glimpse of a connection Eli had so desperately tried to hide.
The monster underneath Victor’s skin wanted to tear apart and yank Eli’s ribcage open just to curl inside and bask in the warmth of blood and tendrils and fluttering lungs. He wanted to stay in Eli’s chest as the skin and muscle kint back together and bones snapped into place. He longed to rest and fester and travel through his body like the most invasive infection, settle in the marrow of his bones and know that when Eli’s heart pumped blood, it was Victor’s clenched fist around it making it contract.
Eli’s blood was on his hands, warm and already drying, a crimson film over snow white skin. Victor could imagine it seeping through his pores and joining his own, a tangled dance inside his veins. They circled each other, weapons in hand. Eli’s face was somber. Victor flashed a smile, knowing blood coated his teeth. He could taste it, iron and life. He wondered how Eli’s blood would taste against his tongue. He imagined himself swirling it around his mouth like his mother tasted overpriced wine.
Victor let out a laugh, coughing blood. He told himself he imagined Eli’s brow furrow the slightest bit. There was no room for worry here. No room for tender hands or teasing jabs. Those times were over, dead the minute the idea formed in Victor’s head and he decided to go first. He didn’t feel regret, only homesickness.
Victor twirled the blade in his hand, grateful for the lack of pain. The wet warmth of his own blood should be concerning, but he couldn’t help but feel it like a blanket. He shook his head, ignoring the memories of mid-term study sessions and strong hands tucking their living room blanket around him when he was already half asleep on the couch.
Their knives met, a jarring sound of metal against metal. Their eyes met, and shiver went down Victor's spine. Eli cocked his head to the side. Victor kicked him in the gut and sent him sprawling through the floor. He felt how his lungs fought for air and his failing heart fluttered like a trapped butterfly inside his chest. He wanted to stop. He wanted to go on forever.
That raw need he'd felt since he met Eli, once burning hot and all-consuming, had ossified and splintered. Each fine point piercing through Victor, inflicting pain he should be able to dull and kill. But this agony, this torture, went deeper than nerve endings and science and skin. A death by a thousand cuts tailored specifically for him. Each time Eli refused him, each time he said Victor but meant monster .
Victor wouldn't deny it. Semantically—morally—, he was. But there was a particular agony that came with looking at what was once yours with no way to reach for it. Knives and knuckles and stab wounds were the closest he would get. Comfort was an absent parent in their house of contempt.
It wasn't long before Victor's body failed him. His knees buckled, his fingers shook around the handle of the knife. Eli got up and pushed him against the table where the weapons had been displayed, the movement so intimate Victor barely felt the point of the knife against his stomach. His hands instinctually grasped Eli's shoulders for support, his knife clattering against the ground.
Flashes of a lifetime long forgotten seized him. Of drunken nights and muffled laughter, of flashing teeth in bloodless fights. Eli's presence was as stifling in his memories as it was in that moment an inch apart. The heat of Eli's body seeping into Victor's bones, sedating. Eli's edges had started to blurry. But maybe Eli had always been an undefined, limitless, nebulous creature. Too great and permanent a thing to be contained in lines and shapes.
Eli spoke through gritted teeth. Sometimes righteous, Victor guessed. Something he wanted to be Victor's eulogy. He couldn't be bothered, looking at those deep brown eyes. Victor never considered himself capable of sentimentality, but the feeling of longing was still there nonetheless. How ironic—how terribly breathtaking—, acknowledging a feeling so out of place in their tug of fate and vengeance and regret.
As if in a dream, he found his hand coming up to Eli's jaw, light as a feather. The blood in his hand now in Eli's face. The face of a god cupped in a monster's palm. He let out a sorry little laugh, tasting the fresh blood bubbling up his throat. He rubbed his thumb over Eli's cheek, a smear of blood tracing his movement. Eli's eyes snapped up to his, something wild and vulnerable in them.
It wasn't until Eli's hand let go of the knife's handle like it burned that Victor realized Eli had driven it through his guts. Victor grabbed Eli's chin, ignoring it, and made him meet his eyes. No regret there, just shock. Victor wasn't sure if he'd hate more seeing remorse bloom in Eli's face or not at all. Eli let out a breath, frantically searching Victor's face. Victor took his time to look, committing Eli's features to memory.
He took in the thick curls and strong jaw, the smooth skin and plush lips. Half art and half flesh, he was a creature of legend. An avenging Galatea brought to life under Victor's hands. He closed his eyes and let out a huff of a laugh. The vision before him was suddenly too much. What was memory if it was a dead man's anyway? Victor rested his forehead against Eli's and tried to not cough up the blood in his throat.
"Vic," Eli said, almost a plea.
They didn't have time for this. They never had. Two wandering characters, oblivious to their own tragedy. Victor feared he would die trying to say the words, a ludicrously wasteful way to die. He felt Eli suck in a breath, as if ready to talk again, but Victor couldn't let this fragile bridge between them break. And if he had to die, he wanted it to be knowing the last thing Eli said to him was his name. A tender, beautiful syllable.
Their breaths mixed, their noses touched. Victor's thumb was still rubbing Eli's cheek when Victor kissed him. Eli's lips were incredibly soft and warm against his. Eli didn't react. Victor knew he was dying, that inexplicable tether keeping him in that moment thinning. He cupped Eli's face in both hands and pressed deeper, wanting to stay. He wanted to live there eternally, he wanted to fuse himself with Eli and haunt the earth.
His head was already swimming and the absence of pain made it all the more surreal. And, for the first time, his power felt more treason than freedom, depriving Victor of those precious last moments. Eyes shut tight, Victor braced himself for the feeling, turning up that dial until the pain burned and clawed at his insides. He gasped in Eli's mouth and tightened his grip on his face.
Pain was a wonderful thing. It left you scrambling and scratching, wild as any other animal in search for relief. It made your existence so excruciating that you could be nothing but present. You could be nothing but instinct and anger and sounds. A creature of sense rendered useless. Victor guessed it was ironic how even he could never be truly ready for it.
One of Eli's hands came to his waist when Victor's knees gave out, his arm curled around his back so he wouldn't fall. Victor kept kissing with clenched teeth, through caged screams. Working his way through the searing pain just to breath in Eli’s breath, to feel how he swallowed and his breathing grew faster. The knife between them dug deeper into Victor’s body, intrusive little thing.
There was a point where the pain was so terrible that your brain gave you the illusion that it had evened out into a bearable thing as long as you stayed put. It was in that moment of stillness when Victor felt himself sleeping away, a completely different numbness taking over him. Touch and weight and all the senses dulled to a ghost of them, slipping through his fingers like water. He felt so light.
The pain was barely registering as Victor’s hands trembled and his fingers lost grip of Eli’s face. He stood limp, only supported by Eli’s arms. He thought it might look poetic from an outside perspective, like a tragedy for the ages, but Victor only felt the hilt of the knife pushing at his stomach and Eli’s lips still, unbelievable, connected to his.
Victor tried to breathe out his name, he tried to say something clever, but the blood he’d kept inside came out in a sickening gurgle. He tried to swallow it back, to clear his throat and say something . To say Eli or checkmate or sorry . He tried to grasp Eli to get his attention, but his fingers could barely graze Eli’s chest in a feeble move.
Funny, how the end was so similar to falling asleep. First a heaviness, a dulling of the consciousness, then the sudden fall of darkness. It was only in that dulled state preceding the quietus that Victor felt Eli sob in his mouth, a brittle thing of a sound.