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Reece lay dead on the floor of their office. Sprawled out halfway under the table, arms and legs akimbo. His hands were almost flat to the floor where he had tried to catch himself in time. It hadn’t worked. How could it have done? How, when the sharp corner of the table had already connected with his skull before he had hit the ground, pierced it to the point of fracture? Reece’s head was turned away from Steve, facing the skirting board. A tendon in the side of his neck was pulled taut, jumping out against the soft skin below the tilted jaw.
Steve’s chest gave out to another stifled wail. Each sob bubbled up painfully in his throat, bursting out in whimpering gasps that clutched tight at his lungs and wouldn’t let go. Wouldn’t let him breathe. He sniffed, gasped out again, blinked rapidly, made another punched-out noise deep in his throat.
Then he leaned over the table and stopped the recording with a shaking finger. All he could hear was his own jagged breathing, echoing in the still air. Gulped hard. He looked down at Reece’s body, blinked at the unmoving back of his head, traced the uncomfortable contortion of his spine with his eyes.
“Reece.” He croaked, and his voice was wrecked.
Nothing. Steve sniffed harshly, shifting forward in his seat and feeling fresh tears well up despite it all.
“Reece, it’s over now.”
There was a nauseating moment where he remained still, and Steve was talking to his corpse. Then, Reece shifted.
“Oh, thank God. My back’s just starting to go.” He groaned.
And Steve watched with shaking breaths as Reece bled new movements into his sleeping muscles, stretching his legs and flexing his hands. When Reece lifted his cheek from the floor and turned to face him, Steve found himself blinking wetly at the sight of Reece’s face. He was fluttering those long lashes, adjusting his glasses – they had been knocked askew during their argument, warped by the sudden crush against the floor.
Steve turned away and busied himself with taking a few long gulps of his coffee, willing his heart to stop pounding. It hadn’t been real. He knew that it hadn’t been real, and yet he couldn’t help the nausea painting the soft palate of his mouth.
It had been agreed beforehand that Reece would remain dead throughout the last five minutes, all while Steve would rustle the bags, bang the cupboard doors, and rev the saw himself. It would’ve completely taken him out of it to see Reece sipping coffee opposite him, obviously alive and well, even as he pretended to dismember his fresh corpse. So, with Reece left dead by his feet, the recording went without a hitch. It sounded real. It would please the fans, become an extra episode for those who looked for it. And Steve knew it was sure to unsettle the listener, instil that voice in the back of their minds that whispered, low and taunting – could it be real? And the problem was that it had felt real. Much, much too real for Steve. All that hacking and gagging, spitting out his bile and saliva, had left an acrid scrape in his throat and a phantom smell of blood. Ripped flesh.
Reece had dropped down unceremoniously into the other chair as Steve had been thinking. Wiping roughly at his cheeks, – which he just knew were flushed a bright red – Steve forced out a wet, belated chuckle at Reece’s joke. It grated.
“That was perfect, Steve. Really, really good.” Reece was saying, and Steve hadn’t caught all of it, just watched him smiling wide and lifting his own coffee cup to his lips as if muffled, “I told we didn’t need a rehearsal, didn’t I? We’ll not need to do it again, now.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He replied weakly, still sniffing.
He couldn’t help the obvious bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed hard, warring against the involuntary spasming of his lungs. Why wouldn’t his body understand that nothing had even happened? The saw hadn’t eaten through Reece’s skin, had never connected with bone or whirred its teeth against marrow and muscle. There was no blood, neither on the floor nor on Steve’s own brow, not spattered across his shirt from the spray of ravaged flesh. So why was his own heart betraying him, squeezing tight against his ribs, as if he had really taken that saw to Reece’s skin?
Steve looked about the room, trying to ground himself. The early afternoon sun shone in at the window, filling the room with a familiar blast of cold light. He knew this place inside and out, had catalogued everything, could probably draw it blindfolded. Everything was normal. Everything was fine, just as it always was.
But even so, murders happened in ordinary places. Flats and houses and offices. Places where nobody would ever suspect dark, grisly things to be done – horrific things carried out in bedsits and living rooms and kitchens. Behind closed doors, in brightly lit rooms where the sun still reached, people were tortured and killed and hidden away, never found. Was it really so farfetched to think that it could happen here? Here in their little office, where he and Reece drank their coffees and laughed till they cried? It could happen. Steve shivered hard. It could happen.
Opposite him, Reece swallowed his coffee, smacked his lips, and looked at him expectantly. The echo of his voice hung in the air, and Steve realised with a jolt that Reece had been speaking. He hummed non-committedly, hoping that would be enough.
Reece frowned, tilted his head. Shit.
“You alright though?” He said, because he was always going to, and Steve didn’t know what to say.
Of course, Reece could tell there was something going on. He set down his cup firmly on the table, and pursed his lips in consideration of Steve: an expression so dear and familiar that it felt like a knife to his gut.
“Yeah.” Steve said, trying to keep his voice level and failing miserably.
Reece’s face flickered with concern, furrowed brows lifting in the middle, “Not too much, was it? I wouldn’t blame you. It is gruesome. Good thing it’s only audio, otherwise we wouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.”
A severed head floated in his mind’s eye, glasses cracked; through the splintered glass Steve couldn’t help seeing the faded blue eyes staring sightlessly past him, frozen in an expression of shock. His traitorous mind filled in gaps even as he attempted to dispel the ghost of another reality. Dark hair matted with blood, pouring into ears and dripping from the exposed meat of a neck. About to be wrapped up in a plastic bag. Tied neat with a bow.
Steve tried again to speak, sucked in a large, shuddering breath, “Yeah, I’m just…”
He looked desperately up at the ceiling as he attempted to compose himself, fastened his eyes on a stain he found there. But his vision blurred with a fresh flood of tears, and his face crumpled in on itself.
“Oh, Steve.” Reece rolled over on his chair, wheels squeaking, “Come here, you daft sod.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Steve wheezed.
Reece drew him in close, pressing Steve’s face into his chest and resting his chin on his head. Steve’s hands clutched desperately at his back, vying to press against skin through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. He clung tight as he could, shifting forward to the edge of his seat until he was cradled almost entirely by Reece, who planted his feet firm on the floor so as not to roll backwards on the chair with the extra weight. He was warm, so warm and alive, alive, alive. Steve let loose a litany of choked, moaning sobs; he convulsed with the force of them, jolting in Reece’s arms. Between the squeeze of each one, he gasped for air and tried breathing lungfuls of Reece as if he were oxygen.
“It’s alright, you’re alright.” Reece soothed, petting one hand over the crown of his head and threading through the short grey hair. The gentle weight of his cheek resting on his head comforted Steve almost as much as his words did.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m so upset.” His words were muffled into a firm shoulder, gasped out, “I know it isn’t real, but I just… I just…”
And he was interrupted by another whimpering sob tearing itself from his throat. Steve pressed his eyes shut in shame, more tears eking their way out to dribble down his cheeks. He turned his face with a little difficulty to press into Reece’s neck. The sensation of all that hot, tender skin startled a gasp from him. Alive. The hot pulse of blood, blood, blood circulating and pumping around his body could be felt imperceptibly beneath that warm skin. Alive. He sniffed, nose still running, and inhaled Reece’s cologne.
“I know, I know.” Reece tightened his grip around him, voice gone all soft and gentle. It rumbled through his throat, and Steve could feel the vibrations in his skull, “It’s a lot.”
He nodded miserably. Reece was taking steady breaths, so even and regulated that Steve knew he was doing it for his benefit. In for six, out for six. Steve counted. He felt the subtle rise and fall of the chest beneath him and mimicked it as best he could, taming the ragged shuddering of his lungs. It was usually him doing this for Reece, not the other way around. It felt odd, being on the receiving end of comfort. He wondered whether this was how Reece usually felt, nestled into the crook of his neck and just breathing away. He wondered if Reece felt as safe as he did now. Slowly, the rhythm of their chests matched up until they were both existing together at the same gentle pace.
“D’you want to move to the sofa?” Reece eventually asked, words hanging there in the comfortable silence. He stroked firmly down Steve’s spine like a cat. Steve felt like one, curled up in his lap.
“Yeah.” He murmured, raw and gravelly.
It was a tempting idea – Steve’s back had been twinging from the strange, forced angle that the chairs afforded them, and it had just begun to tip into a proper twanging agony. Despite the promised relief, he was still reluctant to let go of Reece, and the process of de-tanglement was careful and slow. When Steve eventually pulled back enough for Reece to see his face, he instantly ducked his head and scrubbed at his flaming cheeks with his fingers. He was sure he looked awful. Every one of his airways was blocked with a thick film of mucus. He sniffed, swallowed, coughed. Felt gross and sick, even though he wasn’t. Reece’s hands never left him, one resting on his shoulder and the other curling around his upper arm.
When they stood up from their chairs, Reece winced slightly. Steve noticed the grimace even while blearily scratching the crust from his eyes, and he distantly remembered Reece’s earlier half-joke, half-complaint. God, they were getting old.
“Come on then.” Reece hummed.
Steve allowed himself to be led to the sofa just a couple metres away; he allowed himself to be manoeuvred until he was half-lying on Reece’s chest, leaving them both semi-reclined against the cushions. Underneath his ear, he could hear the reliable thump, thump, thump of Reece’s heart, pumping all that hot blood around his body. He rested a flat hand on Reece’s chest too, felt the heat of his skin and fooled himself that he could feel the thick pump of Reece’s heart jumping up against his ribs and against his palm.
“I know it’s not real.” Steve said quietly after a while of just laying like that, letting Reece’s heart kiss his fingers, “It just felt that way.”
He felt the heavy hand in his hair speed up, now scratching lovingly behind his ears. It made Steve’s eyes fall shut with pleasure and one of his legs involuntarily jolt.
“It couldn’t ever be real, really. You know that.” Reece replied softly. Having noted Steve’s reaction, he was now focusing his attention on lightly scraping his blunt nails against his scalp. His other hand had settled low on Steve’s back, a grounding weight. Steve shivered pleasantly.
“Yeah. No, I know.”
Intertwined on the sofa in their office, Steve did know. There was no need to say anything more, because Reece understood what it had all been about, and why, and that there was no need for any more discussion. There followed a long, comfortable silence. Steve began to doze off, lulled by tender, loving scratches and the prolonged catharsis of a good, long cry.
“It doesn’t make sense anyway.” Reece said, at length.
It roused Steve from his reverie, and he blinked sluggishly, “What?”
“The whole thing of it.” Reece declared, as if it were obvious. There was a pause. For a moment, Steve thought that had been it. Then, “Why is it that we, apparently, have a saw just lying about our office?”
That startled a wet laugh out of Steve. He smiled so wide his cheeks ached, pulling at the aching muscles.
“I don’t know.”
Reece continued, and the grin was evident in his voice, “It’s not even… And the police follow up these abandoned phone calls, anyway! So about ten minutes after you had finished chopping me up, an ambulance would turn up at the door and you’d be scuppered.”
Steve nuzzled closer, sighing out a chuckle. They could talk about murdering each other, describe it in horrifying detail, act it all out as if it could be true. But in the end, it would always just be the two of them telling stories. Steve knew what was real. He tilted his head into Reece’s loving fingers. It was this.