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There was a precision to the hunter that bordered on reverence, and the gods saw that it was good.
Alfred saw the way he cut, even with his heavy, cruel blade, and he saw the marks of him all over the dark streets - he traced the lines and he knew who had been killed by beasts, by others, by themselves, and the ones who had been touched by him. And once he took the bodies left to lay on the cold stone and arranged them in a wheel around the fire, although once he was finished, he couldn't say why he did it, and he felt a guilt he could not name.
With him Alfred's speech was liquid and fervent and when he spoke to him he felt as if he had to name every holy thing he had ever known. But what he was asking, with every word, was - I know you've seen this too. I need you to tell me what it was, that black and thriving thing I felt the opaque edges of through study and thought and prayer. That thing that comes to you as if by nature.
It is your nature. You are dark and sacred and free. I saw it in your hunt.
He doubled back at some point during the lengthless night and he saw the wheel and he saw that it was good.
Or at least, that was what Alfred hoped. He searched his eyes for some kind of primitive, instinctive approval, but all the hunter did was try to tuck his wet hair back into his cap and say, "Did you do this?"
Alfred couldn't answer.
"Why?"
Alfred couldn't answer.
He leaned on his cleaver and overlooked what he had done, and he looked, simply, too tired to really comment. Quiet acceptance was a kind of grace, Alfred thought, and then he told himself
well, you're acting mad
what do you want from him, anyway
what do you really want
Whatever it was, he suffered.
And he suffered with a kind of pleasure, a pleasure sweet and sad and nearly silent.
They did hunt together. When they were done, the hunter sat down against a gravestone and pressed his hand to his forehead, lifted his face suddenly towards the moon, and his pupils dilated. His lips just slightly parted.
"Does it feel like," he began, and Alfred said yes. Yes.
The hunter went silent.
Tell me, Alfred prompted, realized he had spoken too soon, ruined whatever feral revelation had been about too come.
The hunter shut his long-lashed eyes.
"It's too big," he said. "It's too big to put into words."
"Then show me."
The hunter rose. He took a long, thin knife from his coat. His eyes were bright and fixed and wide in the night. They held the moon. They held the fire.
Alfred took in a breath.
And the hunter shoved his knife into Alfred's gut, and leaned close to him, and though the blood of a man ran slippery down his fingers he put his face close to Alfred's and he whispered, "Do you see it?"
And Alfred felt closer to him than he had ever felt to anyone, and he didn't fight the pain, and he threw his head back, and he tried to keep his face as smooth and untroubled as a saint's. The type of saint who takes their holy death with tender acceptance.
And he was nearly silent.
The hunter yanked the knife back. He opened his fist and dropped the blade. He opened the other and the Blood was in it, and within moments, Alfred felt his insides knitting themselves back together. The pain subsided. He realized he was cold with sweat, and accepted his sweat and tears and blood not as cowardice but as his natural state of being. He was in his body. And he saw that it was good.
"Now you do it to me," the hunter said.
"I can't."
"Please."
Alfred felt a twinge lower than the cut the man had made, and he let it guide him.
The hunter let himself collapse, crawled close to him on his knees. He pulled the cloth and leather from his face and neck and bared it to Alfred. He offered him the knife handle-first. It was unclean.
Alfred pressed the tip to his pale throat and felt him swallow, the little motion making the blade tremble.
He found it easy to cut.
The hunter raised his hand to his throat, his fingers delicate, and brushed his wound lightly, as if he was afraid to touch it, lest he ruin this, this thing that had grown and bloomed lush between them, and then Alfred was on top of him, pressing his hands to his throat.
He saw fear in the hunter's eyes and he felt satisfaction, a deep and profound satisfaction, and then it was gone, and he was telling the hunter, shh, shh, we've got to stop the blood, by god what were we thinking, and the man laughed unsteady and his teeth were all red. A vial or two later and it was done, though the cut hadn't healed all the way, and his throat would scar. They sat up against the gravestones together, shoulders touching, laughing - why laughing?
Alfred knew he loved him, then.
And he saw that it was good. The hunter kissed him first, wildly, on the kind of little whim that tells you yes god is here too and Alfred tasted his dark and foreign blood. He pressed his forehead to his and the hunter whispered "breathe through my mouth" and Alfred did. He felt the sweat on the hunter's forehead, and then he was pushing back his hat and pushing his hair off his face and then pushing into him and when they were done making love Alfred asked him, "What are you?"
He lay next to him, both on their backs but fingers entwined, and he turned his head towards him, and with eyes full of a sensation Alfred could not identify he said:
"I don't know."