DON'T FALL IN LOVE WITH HOPE.

He clutches Abel tighter, the bite turning into a kiss of sorts. He tongues and sucks the open wound as he would a lover’s mouth, purring as the blood spills down his throat. It is like pouring absinthe in his mouth — he feels as though he will get the most delicious visions from it, become godlike in drunkenness. 

Abel feels his pulse hammer against his temples, hears his heart struggle to pump blood that is no longer there. He doesn’t seem to feel it anymore  ---  stifles the cries that build in his open throat, lets his eyes close over without squeezing them shut. Inside his head, Abel grows calmer, finds peace in the lack of thoughts, in the numbness of shock. His body thinks he’s dying, he thinks he’s dying, there’s so much blood  ---  staining his collar, his coat, dripping down the boy’s chin. Abel Ramirez won’t die hanging from a tree, or in a red bath nine parts water and one part him; he’ll die here, like this, bleeding into a monster’s hungry mouth. Even his last breath will be a tool for someone else’s indulgence. 

“Cats are good. Did you know that. I really like cats a lot.”

It’s hard to keep the edge of excitement from creeping into her voice; she can’t remember the last time she got to be close to a real cat without it dissipating into fantasy or trying to maul her. She reaches one cautious, shaky hand out to stroke the feline’s fur almost admirably. 

❛    It’s a stray.    ❜

It comes by now and then, curls up in the shade on his front steps. He’s been leaving water out for it for weeks, soon enough he’s going to be out shopping for pet food. The cat seems friendly enough, hasn’t ever attempted to claw his eyes out while he scratches behind its ears. A good sign, he gathers.

    ❛  Oh — yes, yes, of course. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.  ❜

Ivy is trying very hard not to look over his shoulder at what he’s doing, so she instead focuses on the man himself — though that itself makes her feel shy; he is very handsome.

He remembers her, if only faintly. There are very few other memories from that particular party that he can recollect  ---  he’d sat alone and scribbled nonsense down onto napkins that night, hadn’t he?

❛    You liked my books?    ❜    He closes the book when she falters, sets it aside to let her know that whatever he had been doing mustn’t have been very important at all. She’s sweet (and beautiful), and he’s flattered, she’s certainly going to take precedent over his miserable self-loathing. Meeting readers is strange. People write to him frequently, send him hundreds of emails he never finds the time to get to; but he truly does appreciate when people read his work and become so invested they want to pick his brain  ---  being made aware that he isn’t simply shouting into the void when he publishes his novels is an odd thing to come to terms with. She must know an awful lot about what goes on inside his head.    ❛    I’m not busy at all. You can sit, if you’d like.    ❜

Willow eyes him for a moment, brow slightly raised, but she says nothing about his behavior, about the bottle. It’s been a while since he’s fallen off the wagon. She wonders what set it off this time — and hates herself, just a little, for not being surprised. 

She downs the glass in one go, then sets it back down onto the table.

Abel settles back into the armchair  ---  an old, dark grey couch with some barely noticeable drink stains (mostly whisky, but there’s a visible splash of red wine he attributes to some forgotten night with Flora) here and there on the armrests. He balances the glass atop his chest, creases his brows in thought.

Violence is an ugly thing. Abel had known it too intimately, once. He’d known what it was to feel a swell of wrath so enraged it’d boil the blood beneath your skin, make you want to tear at your flesh just to let a little of it out. He doesn’t know which came first, the anger or the sadness, but both had played relatively large roles in the development of one another. 

There’s a tall shrug.

❛    I imagine he must’ve been angry with them, for some reason, at least in part. An axe is cruel. Guns are quick and clean  ---  it’s hard to hack into a person, you’ve got to do it again, and again. Where did he get them? In the torso? The chest? Their faces?    ❜    Poor lady. Poor kids. Abel takes a sip of the drink, careful not to spill any on his jumper. The stench of booze already clings to him, he doesn’t need his clothes smelling rotten, too.    ❛    I don’t know if I’ve ever been sad enough to kill another person. Just angry. I imagine you’d hold them close and bleed out together, if you were sad  ---  if you loved them. Smothering your children and stabbing your wife seems kinder than brutalising them with an axe.

She almost flinches when he looks at her–not because she’s scared, but because his countenance is so damn depressing and his eyes almost make her worried.

❛    It’s real.    ❜   Real, not real, what does it matter. His perception of the world is a little skewered, especially now. He probably isn’t the best person to ask.

She has been staring for a very, very long time.

The unresponsive pause that follows is almost long enough to assume he hasn’t heard her at all, but he shifts, eventually, turns his head to look at her.

Zero’s vicious snarl turns to a euphoric smile as soon as the bone breaks. The wave of pain that hits him is positively delicious; he lets out a breath, eyes falling shut, and purrs, wrapping an arm around Abel as he falls forward so as not to let him collapse, trapping him in a mockingly comforting embrace. He rubs the other’s back ever so lightly, tasting the scream, tasting the tears, and growing stronger.

    ❛  There. Was that so hard?  ❜

The taunting and torture, the foreplay, is almost better than the meal. Riling the victim up, pulling out those unpleasant emotions, makes them taste better, and the promise of that is almost sexual: there is anticipation involved. Shudder-inducing, voluptuous anticipation. 

The hand rubbing Abel’s back ends up in his hair, the too-pale skin a stark contrast to the dark locks. When he speaks again, his voice is low, an almost-whisper.

   ❛  Give me what I need.  ❜

He doesn’t have it in him to right himself, to pull away from Zero’s embrace and keep what little dignity he has in tact. Abel breathes ragged and heavy through clenched teeth, does his best to keep from shouting  ---  who would hear him? What would they be able to do? He’d only be pulling another hapless victim into a trap. 

It’s with a hopeless sort of resignation that Abel lets his head roll to the side in accordance with the demand. A crushed bone, he learns firsthand, is only slightly worse than dozens of needle - sharp teeth piercing your flesh. He accepts the pain as it comes, decides he must deserve it. God must despise him, decided to curse him at birth, took his heart and his soul and left his body on earth to rot without them. And now this. 

(  Still, better him than someone else.  )

Dominic, kindhearted as he is, had told her where she could find the writer. She had been asking about him, which had led to the threesome offering up copies of his books; she read them all, and cried at most of them. He was a wonderful writer, sensitive, unique in his prose. She made Angelo read his books as well, innocently hoping for a collaboration: imagine the art these men could create together! 

Now she was here, excited and nervous to be meeting him again. 

❛    Sir makes it sound like I’m pushing forty, at least.    ❜    There’s a dismissive wave of his hand, while he finishes up whatever it is he’s doing. Set before him is his second book, half the words on the open page crossed out with black pen, haphazard notes scrawled into the margins.