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It was a quiet and desolate place, the room where he slept. The dim, ornate windows illuminated the ghosts of thin blowing curtains, the rise and fall of his bedsheets subtle in the dark.
Outside, the sky glowed bruise purple with thunder and freezing rain, the deepest blue like white against black.
Outside, there might be the tapping of a branch against the glass, or the smallest odd laugh, off key and crackling of overuse. But the other hand slipped through an obsidian slit in the air, finding purchase through the cupboard atop the bed.
A creak, and an outstretched palm, wet with the rain braiding thin fingers into his thick black hair.
If Fedya was awake, he wasn’t revealing it, but I dropped myself to the large bed where his head peeked out of the covers, spindly limbs landing on either side of him.
He did not move, but the curtains opened silently on violent, violet eyes, diluted in the dark.
Past midnight, the only proper time for this.
“Are you gonna let me in?” I whispered, face an inch from his, loose, rain soaked braid dripping on his face.
“Kolya. I was sleeping.”
“And well look at that, problem solved. Let me in.”
He narrowed his eyes, darting from me to the growing wet spot on the silky covers, voice thick with sleep. “ Dearest Kolya, did you come in from the godforsaken thunderstorm!”
“Why yes I did, do you have a problem with that?” I cackled. I could have simply walked in the door instead of practically teleporting outside his window, but where was the fun in that. “I have executed my task! Turned that poor man’s skin inside out for you, Fed'enka, now won’t you at least suffer me my place in bed?”
“Lord almighty. You’re covered in blood too, get off my bed-”
“It was pretty cool, utterly nightmare inducing, I’ll have to admit, I took some pictures if you want to see-”
“No. I promise you don’t want to see.” He waved me away with irritation, pulling himself up and wiping drips of diluted blood off his face. “Ugh, go wash and maybe I’ll consider it.”
I rolled my eyes and flapped my cloak in front of my face, sweeping it out again to reveal myself again, blood-free, most of the rainwater gone as well to my pocket. “Will that be good enough?”
Fyodor huffed and turned back around, pulling the covers tight around him. “With your cold feet? Try harder.”
I responded with a smile, ditching my cloak and vest for the loose strung shirt and pants hung where I’d left them earlier. And unceremoniously, I climbed in beside him anyway, tangling his warm, bony form around my freezing frame, hands freezing from the melting frost outside the window.
A rapture of sweet affection sucked the warmth from my skin, and I became blind, under those sheets, pressed against his sweet burning skin. And yet I was the farthest thing from falling asleep, shot hard with visions of god in my bloody hands, god in my sweet Fedya.
“Won’t you entertain me a bit? We haven’t talked- really talked in so long.” I pulled the sheets over our heads, breath hot against his collarbones. “Like a sleepover, huh? In my room?”
There was a sigh in the dark, and its sound made me sick.
I swept my cloak over us, and pitch blackness fell like a sheet, our bodies rearranging and warping like silly putty as I pulled that familiar body ever closer through the nothingness.
The inside of my cloak, a place of everything I could not bear to throw away, an infinite void of anything I wished.
I fell without grace onto him, on a surface of polished nothing, a void punctuated only by faraway stars, dots of everything I’d left in here years past.
Fedya’s waif-like form almost glowed, in the nothing that lit us here, warm and close, our private blanket fort, our ever-loving veil to hide beneath. He sat on his knees in a white, long-sleeved nightgown, all silk and lace and near transparency, small patterns along the hem. My ghost, my porcelain doll, wide neck draped unevenly over luminous, pale collarbones, in a halo of utter blackness.
“Oh, it appears you have swept me away into your little pocket,” He looked up, charmed, with sleep-weighted eyes. “It’s been quite some time. We were but children the last time you took me here.”
“You don’t understand,” I smiled, crawling to him under infinite sheets, tearing the muscles in my cheeks with painful joy when he slid his hand around my cheek. “You’re my prisoner. Now you can’t leave, you can’t even die. There is nothing you can do but wait for me to release you again, you’re completely at my mercy. Aren’t you scared?”
“No,” Fedya smiled, untroubled. His hair shone against nonexistent light, disheveled from sleep but falling right back into place here. “This is lovely. It’s warm.” He lifted his head up to meet me, hands folded neat in his lap, ever holy. “And I know you’ll let me go, won’t you?” He tipped his head, voice soft and low.
Heart twisting, I had no words to respond but a threat. “I’ll kill you. I’ll carry your rotting corpse in my pockets, Fedka.”
He giggled a bit, hand to his lips. “So, am I here to be entertained by the secrets of your room, or must I pay you your necessary attention, Kolya? You needy little thing. You’ll be bleeding out before you call it enough.”
On my knees, my face was red, weak and trembling. The demon, the demon was everything I loved and could not let go of, hands pale and white, bruises on my skin everywhere we touched, every bit of it sin, every bit I had known since we were little more than children.
Fedya knew more than anything, the power he held over me, my closest friend, no matter if we walked side by side or I held him hostage in my own dimension. I was his pet, by my own choice, a happy puppy at his side that killed for him when he asked.
He was everything. I would never leave, though to follow was despair and damnation. And I did, I loved him so.
“Well,” I conceded, drowning in guilt for it. “Keep me company, won’t you, Fedya? I’ll kill you otherwise, I really will.”
Fedya seemed entirely charmed by the darkness around us, the way the dimension twisted and folded above our heads like the curtain of a grand theatre. It looked the way a pillow fort might look to a small child, majestic and grand as an opera house.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he smiled. “You’ve hidden so much inside here. You could tuck away a star if you held it right.”
I grinned ear to ear, cuddling up against him, laying my head on his shoulder. “I have much more interesting things in here, if you’d like to see…?”
He turned to me and slipped slender fingers into my snow-knotted hair, eyebrows raised. “Oh? Let us see.”
Giggling, I turned my gaze upward, reaching out a hand. The nearest star fell from the black fabric sky, then the next and the next, and Fyodor gaped as glittering objects all fell before us.
“You’re rather a hoarder, Kolya, you know that?” he giggled, picking up a heart shaped stone. “Where did you find this?”
I flipped my head back to him, batting my eyelashes. “You know that waterfall where we disposed of that despicable priest?”
He blushed, hand to his mouth. “Oh, yes. It was a beautiful place. That’s so sweet, were you going to give this to me?”
“I forgot,” I admitted, head in my hands. “But you can have it now if you want!”
“I will treasure it,” he said, kissing it and slipping it in his pocket. “But what else do you have here?” He pointed off in the distance. “Is that a ball pit? Dear lord.”
I sighed overdramatically, flinging out my hands to grasp his. “Just imagine the comedy, Fedya! I’m in the middle of a confrontation with the police, they’re about to put me in handcuffs, but all of a sudden-” I mimed an explosion, loud and obnoxious. “BOOM, thousands of colored plastic balls crashing into them like a tsunami!”
“That is clever,” he nodded.
Desperate for his attention, I clung to him. “I have more, though! See?” I dropped to the ground and scooped up a dead dove in my hand, holding it before him like a gift, all feathers and bones falling apart in my hands, a flushed smile on my face.
He grimaced, sighing deeply. “My love, that is greatly unsanitary.”
“No, it’s ok, I promise! I washed him,” I pouted, holding it before me, presenting it like a great present. “His name is Sigma.”
“Ah, I see,” Fyodor patted me on the head. “I’m sure Sigma will be delighted to hear you named a rotting bird after him.”
“Fine, I have human bones too, if you’d prefer those,” I huffed, pulling a femur out of the ether.
He clapped politely, as I clumsily sorted through a skeleton, a pile of increasingly cartoonish weapons and tried to conceal the gift I meant to give him for Christmas,
I’d stolen his rosary a few months back, and now it was covered in violets and red roses, hanging in an old, old skull I’d made a little garden in. I think he knew I’d taken it, but, you know, I hoped he would like it anyway.
I held up a heavy axe, with a smile. “And this is what I’m going to kill you with.”
His eyes slid up the weapon, down to my eyes, with a smile. “Impress me, why don’t you.”
“Yes,” I leapt to him, dropping the weapon with a clatter, eager. “I’ll give you a show if you’d like. I can make you disappear!”
“Oh?” He raised his eyebrows, listing my face up with his fingertips to meet him. With joy, I swept my hand up, a ripple of space sending the shimmering veil against his flesh, glimmering like a ghost. And he gave an amused smile, a hand to his mouth.
“See? We’re not even real,” I bubbled with joy. “Not until we leave this place. I could kill you here, and it would do nothing, nothing at all!” And I fell to my knees, laying my head in his lap. “Hold me,” I begged, brushing that pale nothing across his lips. “Nothing matters in this veil, our bodies are simply subjective. Abandon everything, please.”
He laid heavy eyes on my soul, as we hung there in private death, and caved in. And I shivered, soft skin tugged me gently aside to his lap, drowning in his silken death clothes.
“I dreamed about you,” I whispered, conspiratorial. “You were beautiful. I killed you and everyone else.”
Drowning me gently, Fyodor leaned forward, with a knowing smile. “Oh? And what did you do after that?”
I turned to meet him, unnerved. Some record skipping, playing over once again as that smile twisted.
“What do you mean?”
Eyes closed in calm faith, his hands soaked exhaustion into my skin, attending to that fraught, breaking braid. “After you adorned the world with my blood. What happened afterward? What did you do next?”
I turned, and laughed, tilting my head to the side.
Silence, head tilted like a broken doll.
The answer never left the deepest layer of my heart, but it sat, cold, heavy with despair.
Oh, he knew, he saw through my blood like glass, my eyes rotting teardrops. His kiss was stuck somewhere in my ribs and I could not pry it out no matter how far I opened my chest, and it itched. It itched like I must kiss him until he bled, for all the lacerations on my heart.
His presence graced me with violence, his voice adorned me in sin, my name from his lips was death, over and over again, agonizing ecstasy.
I was cursed, unyielding violet eyes raked over me and I couldn’t decide whether to make love to him or hide his heart underneath the floorboards.
Well, I’d have to do both then, wouldn’t I? For my sanity, was this the only thing that might free me of hideous love?
I felt frost forming on the edge of my fingertips, raw and red where Fedya pressed against my skin.
Was it his living ghost, or my shame, killing us while we held one another? If I wasn’t careful…
Shaking, I pressed my head to the hollow between his collar and chest and closed my eyes, half-hoping his heartbeat might prove fatal.
Oh lord, my sweet Dos-kun’s eyes, skin pale and sick, the golden halo behind his head, I knew I’d rip myself in half to end the world for him, I’d tear my heart from my chest, I’d leap off the edge, I’d laugh until my throat gave out, dance on hot coals for the slightest laugh.
We were damned angels, rotting at their height in the sky, and if only we could shed our wings and fall, might I know how it felt to be alive.
I could not live a second without him.
Now tell me, were those rays of sunlight, or the bars of a cage?
The first time I saw him was the first time I cried.
My voice was hoarse, my knees bled, I lay draped in colorful rags, bloody axe in my hands, wrists clinking with broken shackles. The curtain was splattered in a dance of bright, thick red, my hair hung loose and knotted around my shoulders, and there he was. Standing above me, his cloak fluttered in the wind, hand outstretched to be my new goddess.
“My, my, you’ve made quite a mess, haven’t you… and you must be freezing, all barefoot like that,” he knelt before me, cold, delicate hands wiping blood off my face. His voice was still caught half in puberty, but rich and dark nonetheless, beckoning like a deathly winter’s night. “Come with me and I’ll help you set the whole world aflame.”
It was at that moment, I knew I would follow him to the ends of the earth. This mourning edifice of bones in a heavy cloak transfixed me with freedom, with light. He was the only reason I was alive, the only person I would die for. And I would do it, in a heartbeat if he asked, I’d rip myself to shreds, with a chainsaw, a stapler, a small, small dagger.
I moved as all the others before him, a machine of meat and pain, painted and adorned, listless undrunk poison until that day he placed a hand on my shoulder and asked me to show him I had free will.
I hadn’t known the words, far from it. That gilded birdcage of wrought iron was all I saw, a glittering cloak to do tricks behind, acrobatics and an exaggerated smile, a collar round my neck and the doves that flew freely from my hand into the sky, that made me want to kill.
The blood from a white dove was thick under my fingernails, as I knelt still in that suspended cage, sleepless in shadow picking apart its wings. And feather by feather, they fluttered to the ground where I could not follow.
And there he appeared below me shining as a star, barely more than a child, deep shadows under his eyes and the moon round his head, beckoning.
It did not take much to persuade me to sever my captor’s heads from their bodies, and soon his bloodsoaked hand would join mine, juvenile and wide eyed, the name decay of angels first slipping from our tongues.
Books found their way into my hands, books of the psyche, of the love between men, of free will and god, long Russian novels involving beautiful men with axes and fanaticism for their own minds.
Free will, in destruction of this awful, broken realm. Every taboo to be broken, everything base, disgusting, abominable and abhorrent. In his arms, at his feet, on my knees for his glorious love.
Him and I, against all others, him and I alone, him and I till we danced bloody ghosts in the hollow we made of our city, yet it would never be enough.
It was hypocritical, wasn’t it.
Every second I lived it, every second I loved him, with my breath and mouth and thoughts, never alone and never against him. Sinking beneath his skin, so close his ribs and my throat became one and the same.
Wasn’t that everything but free will, tugged by a golden rope uncontrollable and deep, rooted in every cell in my body, the center of every desire?
Weren’t those his hands scooping out my open skull- and I could not help but want it, that hypnosis that felt like love, a little wind up toy for his warmthless heart.
Love.
I wanted to kiss him, I had to kill him so much it bled from my eyes when I gazed upon that holy form.
If the axe could not exterminate it from my flesh, I was doomed.
“How often do you have that dream?” he asked, his whisper pulling aches from my skin.
“Every night,” I laughed back, anxious and hyper, itching to fight. “Fedya, let’s dance, shall we?” I pulled him up, spinning around fast, breathless, darkness churning in the fabric sky. “Come on, please?”
“So we’re to live out your dream then, here in the ether?” he laughed, hands tangled in my braid, calm and eager. “Where nothing is real?”
And my eyes widened, lips chapped and splitting with my smile.
I could barely control shaking hands, as I felt his slide around my waist, ice cold. “Yes, yes yes-” I clung to him, eyes shut tight in blackness. For a little while I hummed, twirling him around, edges soft and light.
“Give me a ballroom, Kolka,” He demanded, and in that lace nightgown, his familiarity was a sharp, tight bowstring played against my insides.
With a joyful laugh, I threw out a hand, planting stars above us hung on strings, a shining marble floor of gold-rimmed, checkered tiles, great white columns rising into the dark sky. It was all engraved for him out of my churning dark matter, desperate for beauty.
He stood politely, his hand in mine, the other behind his back, smiling. “And what of music? Do not disappoint me.”
“Ah- of course,” I flung myself at him, and a disembodied orchestra sprung to life, that one tune he and Ivan loved that I could never quite set my tongue upon the name of. And I could not stop laughing, his bare feet tapping against the polished floor, dancing in our pajamas, blood so close beneath our flushed skin.
Fast, he spun, and the gown spread out in the dark wind, glittering and translucent. His skin was porcelain pale, veins nearly green in his hands, thunder and rain somewhere above the edges of the cloak, his bones begging to be broken.
I could hold it back no longer, that melting thing battering my skull behind my eyes.
“Become my ghost!” I cried, falling back and heaving a great axe from the starry folds, lunging at him with overwide eyes.
“Ah, so it is that kind of dance,” he leapt back gracefully, breathless surprise sweet on his lips. And with the beat of the music he swept himself away, lifting the skirt of his nightgown and slipping a dagger from his bare thigh. “Excuse me then…”
A gasp slipped from my bleeding lips, and fast I was falling apart, as he was gliding towards me, murder in his eyes, a smile on his lips. In this darkness, gravity warped, and we were leaping as if on the moon, weapons raised.
I was all out of sorts, burning up, and I could barely lift the axe before he grabbed my leg and yanked me back to the ground.
“Sweet dreams, dear.”
I fell aside, but his voice filled me with delight, and I righted myself, grabbing his bruised, feather light arm, throwing the axe in the air above us. Humming a sweet tune, he took my hand, calm and nimble as we twirled, caught in the silk of his gown.
He was completely unfazed, and it ate at me, bit by bit. Wouldn’t he just scream and run, couldn’t he just attack me back, it was as if my axe was simply a rose- but it was only a further serenade to my heart, overwhelmed by the music, his smile, twirling and dancing and not caring one bit.
The axe fell between us, and he slid aside just in time with a content smile, still in time with the frantic violin. A crack ran through the floor where it hit.
“Kolya, you’re so rude,” he giggled, and dipped in my arms so fast I nearly fell, throwing me aside the next second in a blur of black, white, and violet.
Eyes wide, I reached my hand up to my face, a hot smudge greeting my fingertips, metallic and sharp. And my knees were weak, grinning ear to ear, blush rosy red.
From across the floor he blew me a kiss, waving a red edged dagger.
Desperation clung to me, pink love shifting ever into the red, deep, bloody crimson. I pulled my weapon from the floor, heavy and hard against my palms. My muscles stretched and burned in delight, breath stolen from my lungs as the air played a sweet arpeggio. And I rushed at him, face flush with agony, voice hoarse and screaming. “I want your heart! In my hands! Give it to me!”
His hands wrapped around me tight, dizzy and pale, and I could cling to him for years there beautiful, stark mad, raving at his cherry blood kiss.
“Take it,” he laughed, with his dagger to my throat, greeting me cold and sharp.
Exhaling rapidly, I lunged forward and wrenched the blade from his grip, plunging it into his empty hand with an overwide smile.
Blood splattered thick on my face and he hit the floor hard, black hair spread out beneath him like a bird’s nest.
“Ah,” Fedya choked, ghost pale, chin to the sky, fingers twitching. He regarded me with interest, pinned to the floor between my striped legs.
And my blush was hot scarlet, fingers spread wide on my face, laughing gaily. “How was that, Dos-kun? Does that feel good?”
“Most certainly,” he sighed, voice strained as he ripped it away, grabbing me tight, bloody handprints on my waist. “But why do you not stake my heart?”
My breath caught, tears battering at my skull.
Yes, why did I do that? Why would I stall, here in bloody battle?
His hair was all out of order, fine and dark and limp over his face, spread out on the ballroom floor. And I couldn’t get enough of him. It overwhelmed me, blood on my hands, hands on my hips, hot surge of weakness in my thighs-
Kill kill kill kill-
Axe forgotten behind me, I fought him back to the floor, the music distorting to an ugly crescendo- Thin, chapped lips, violet eyes, chin tipped up, tendons strained on his pale neck-
Love, love, burning love-
Frantic hands went for his throat, his knee tight between my legs, and my smile hurt, my hands shook, pulling tight.
I could not breathe, though I was not the one being strangled. His flesh trembled against mine, violet starved, and there was something hot and wet dripping from my eyes or my mouth or perhaps between my legs…
Everything was red, dots of blood in my vision, on his lips, our laughter an endless feedback loop growing so loud the illusion began to crack.
My hands would not stay still, I cracked and let him go, and he fell forward, breath wheezing, handprints red upon his neck.
“You can do better than that,” he croaked, tilting his head to me, toothy grin and hypnotizing eyes.
No, no, no, he wouldn’t die, I’d gotten caught up in this game and all it did was wrap me tighter to him, pushing me to the brink of desperation.
“I will! ” I screamed, head aching in defiance. Love was leaking from me like a broken faucet and I couldn’t keep it in, his form swimming in front of me irresistible and sweet. I wanted to sing with him, dance and laugh and hold his hand, braid flowers into his hair, lay my head on his shoulder and hoard all the blankets on his bed. I wanted to make him scream, I wanted him to burrow into my heart and bleed me dry. It terrified me, his blood sweet sugar on my tongue.
The axe was heavy and unwieldy, carving through the sky as I swung it, and he met me, slight surprise delicate on his face as the blade buried itself deep in his stomach.
Fedya fell, and I did too, in a crazed relief to my knees.
“Oh dear,” he exhaled, voice choked with blood.
I crawled over to him fast, ripping the blade from his abdomen, gore spilling around me, my white clothes staining violet red.
It was a silk nightgown soaked in blood, from bare feet to gaping neckline, thin-lipped smile and death-filled eyes, calling me, feeding me, ripping me apart.
I clung to him, bony hands scrambling for attention, pressing his body to me, all angles and bones, blood seeping into my every pore, fluids and organs and everything I’d just chopped right through. “Fed'enka, do you love me now? Tell me you love me, tell me you’re mine, what have I done? Is this good? Are you scared of me now?”
I hung over him, eyes wide, and there was a searing lump in my throat, threatening to rip me open.
Fedya laid out beneath me, breathing in starts, a limp rag doll beautiful and empty as the floor flooded with red. “Oh, far from it, Kolya. This is an absolutely wonderful dream. So, you wish to kill me, do you? As a way of proving yourself as the master of your will?”
I nearly cried, nodding as he spoke every word in my head. Everything I’d never said, I couldn’t express, my glass veins and his dark eyes, once again. “Yes, yes, you understand! You understand why I have to kill you- kill you is because I love you- I-”
“You love me,” he finished, staring through long black eyelashes, blood a sweet messy lipstick. “Oh, Kolya, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that…”
The music was warped, glitching between violent, pain struck piano and the sweetest flutter of love. The ballroom was in shambles, blood splattered cross the columns, stars falling from the sky, curtains blowing in a nonexistent wind. Our dream, desecrated and rotting, and the room could not help but reflect myself, laughing in terrible obsession.
My glass body, cracking into shards, he saw it all, and I felt so loved as he bore that glittering shard into his body. My bloody shards of love, cutting through the fibers of his arteries to his very heart.
“You forfeit your dignity, your sanity, for me?” He uttered, a touched, sweet laugh, pressing a weak finger to my chest. “You know, somewhere in your heart, that you will not survive a second if you do this to me. That my death will be the thing to finally break you altogether? That you, my brutal lover, will be dying for me, whether it is by my command or your own despair?”
Oh-
He was smiling, weak and pale with pain, graced with it, ever the martyr. And the look he gave me was one of searing affection, a trust I would never even put in myself, almost proud.
“I will be very pleased if you manage to overcome the constraints of your mind, little clown. You have already done so well. And you deserve my love, if you have the skill to take my life.”
He coughed, a spat of blood hitting my face.
My eyes were wide, the scar across my eye throbbing, ready to burst. And I felt something foreign and hot smear the blood on my cheeks, pouring from my eyes.
I-
I laughed, but it was pained, as tears fell onto his face- despite every order of my mind, tears fell, a flood, a wave, an ocean carrying us away.
“Will you keep my corpse with you in this dream too, when all is said and done, my dear?”
It was romantic and sour as he said it, twisting the corners of my mind, his words driven deep as a knife.
“Will you hide me here in the folds of your cloak, neither dead nor alive, your sweet paradox bleeding out into infinite ether? Will you be able to keep away from looking upon me, or will you bring me into the light where my heart does not beat, sing to me as I rot, hands covered in gore as your sanity slowly slips away, Kolyenka?”
And I could not breathe, as he dug into me. My bones, aching with devotion, a faith so painfully corrupting. He had lost too much blood, and he was smiling, soft in my arms, slipping in and out of consciousness.
Here, in my cloak, nothing was real. Until I once again opened a door into our third dimension, there was no death, no life, no entropy- He could stay here forever with me if I made him. Forever, bleeding out in my arms, unconscious and passive, forever my little puppet-
And wouldn’t that be perfect, as the world melted all around me, stars crashing to the ground, imaginary fire consuming the empty ballroom in space.
These stars were never stars, but everything else I couldn’t bear to throw away, bones, corpses and toys and fluttering before me in the blood…
Multitudes of old polaroid pictures.
I blinked for a moment, as I caught it, fingerprints on the dusty photo paper.
Him and I, a long time ago.
My hair was awkward at my shoulders, messy and badly cut, a wide, stupid smile on my face reaching for a black-haired boy in a sweater vest, hands in his lap, frown light, eyes dark.
And my breath was unsteady, melting at his feet.
“Oh, Fedya, look at this…”
I was sick, waiting once again for his words, words that didn’t come, his breathing nearly stilled.
Though this wound was nothing but a scar on our minds, if he died here, would he still be there when we returned home?
“Fedya?”
His name echoed, sharp and dark. The room was screaming in my ears, this infinite void under my control, black and silent, louder and louder.
I could not breathe. I could not breathe. I could not-
A rush of freezing cold air and dim light, and there was his silent bedroom, calm.
Ah…
The night was a dim lavender, wind and snow rattling the class near the ever present ticking of a grandfather clock.
I could hear my heartbeat again, and the cold sheets around us, my hand pressed into the mattress beside Dos-kun’s head, laid perfect on the pillow.
There was no wound, no axe, no blood on my hands, the blankets and my cloak thrown wildly aside, the ever gaping hole made simple black fabric away from my touch.
His face was cold, when I touched it, skin to skin, my black painted nails like writhing beetles in the dark.
“ Fedya? ”
Couldn’t I kill him right now, without a second thought?
And that would be the end, of this terrible feeling, the burning ache in my chest and the need that bound me to him forever, it would be gone, forever…
He wasn’t breathing.
“FEDYA!” I shouted, grabbing his face, heart pounding against my ribs, clawing for him, smile a horrid grimace.
I was always near him, as much as I could be. It hurt not to be touching him, every day of every year clinging to this feeling that bubbled up slowly, ever more consuming. The longer he was away, the deeper his despair fell, the more lives fell from his pale, familiar hands, it sweetly took over every cell of my body.
A saccharine parasite like the kind that clung to those zombies of ants. It grew up around my organs, till there were spores in my skin, leaves in my lungs, muscles aching towards my own destruction, molding and rotting and filled entirely with love.
I couldn’t live without him, I couldn’t breathe without him, overwhelmed with the impossible desire just to hold his hand.
And there was a great dark emptiness around me, pouring out of my eyes.
“Dos-kun,” I cried, voice wobbly. My head fell to his chest, nose to his nose, shaking him, nails digging into his flesh, falling apart before him. “Come back…”
And his eyes fluttered open as I sobbed, pressed in desperation to his chest, fists full of his nightgown.
“Kolya, you’re crying,” he spoke, achingly gentle, delicate hand raised to brush the tears from my white eyelashes.
And I knelt like a deer in the headlights, sniffling. My face was red hot, drenched in tears, arms up like a t-rex.
He was warm, a smug smile on his face, love in his eyes.
“DOS-KUN,” I shouted, falling upon him in a great embrace, giggling, overcome with relief and happiness. My arms were filled with him, his soul right before me, eyes on mine, ever bagged down with exhaustion. The brief panic flew away just as quick as it had come, I was a coward, but he was here, here again. “You’re not allowed to die until I say so, nuh-uh!”
And he accepted it, pulling me close as we sat in the middle of the bed, sounding that familiar, low, sweet laugh. “Of course, возлюбленный…”
My fingers had not yet stopped trembling, my heart not yet understood nothing was to be feared. He was threading his hands through my long hair, gathering the mess once again into a braid, and I could not stop crying. He began to hum something from a long, long time ago, back from when we were only teenagers, building a bomb in the leaking basement of an abandoned church.
“Kolya, would you die for me?” he asked, lyrical, sweet, his lips against my neck, hands threaded in mine.
“Yes,” I answered without hesitation, a great ache in my heart.
And I would, I would in an instant. He was my religion, and I knew the only thing we were headed for was death. His or mine, ours or theirs, of the world or the gifted or all our dreams. It was all I’d ever known, waiting for him finally to need me, to see me, to kiss my lips and request my death for the sake of our plan.
“Wonderful, then I have just the job for you, dear. It will be the greatest martyrdom,” he waxed poetic. “I’ll love you forever if you just do this little thing for me.” And he held my hands together, brushing back my hair and whispering sweet orders in my ear till I blushed pink. “Does that sound alright, dear?”
Wide eyed, I struggled against myself.
I ached for him to use me, to give my life entirely over for him. This was who we were: the harbingers of death, bringers of destruction, of chaos, of flame, of the great salvation falling to our knees in horror.
But not yet. No, for now we were sweet in bed while the storm raged outside, he was warm and his hand was in mine. I laughed and told jokes, and he smiled, in the sun, in some shady grove. I baked him sugar cookies shaped like nooses and we ate them together on a picnic blanket, I pulled him onto dizzy roller coasters and clung to him the whole time as he sat perfectly comfortable, I wrote poems of his beauty and read them to him under soft light, and we grew old together, somewhere on a park bench, somewhere that was nowhere, somewhere we could never reach and would never be possible in the best world.
“Well, what if I kill you first?” I turned to him, madly in love, pain in my smile.
“Then I’ll love you ever the more,” he lamented, brushing aside my bangs and kissing my cheek, the scar across my eye.
“Mmmgh…”
I was disintegrating slowly, and I laughed in his arms, exhausted and warm. Giving up, I slipped my legs under the covers as he closed his eyes with a sigh, arms around me.
His hand atop my heart, I melted into him, losing every attempt to remain separate people. His heartbeat so soft, loud and clear against my back, our legs tangled together, breathing slow.
I would stop that beating heart, I would, I would and it would kill me. I would hold that heart in my hands coated in gore, and he would disappear, to nothing but the dirt and my fucked up memory, at my hands and no one else’s.
And when he was gone, there would be nothing left to tie me to the ground. I would kill him, and lose the last thing I loved, the last piece of my mind, my only weakness. I would fall to my knees sobbing and I would join him immediately. There would be no future after him, there would be no stars. He and I would be extinct from the earth and free from this disgusting thing called love.
But not tonight, no, not while I held him just a little bit longer… Tomorrow, he would die, tomorrow, again, the next day, I would do it. Months and months of tonights, for just one last kiss and then I would turn out the lights, as the chains around our hearts grew ever tighter, clinging with a smile to his shirt. Yes, I would kill him tomorrow, while I still had the strength to hold the knife-
But not tonight.