AIMÉ

The shower ran very hot, and steam filled the bathroom, fogging up the mirrors over the sink and over Jean-Pierre’s vanity table. Aimé didn’t know if it was right to call it a vanity table, really – Jean-Pierre did have a little set of drawers on top of it where he kept his nail polish and the make-up he wore from time to time – mostly lip glosses and eyeliners, but he had costume make-up too. It was just that it wasn’t make-up, for the most part. Jean-Pierre had pulled open the drawers and cabinets underneath the table and explained to Aimé what a lot of the equipment there was for – he had a first aid kit downstairs as well as in Colm’s car, but there were two first aid kits here, one for home use, one for travel. He had gauze and bandages, different drugs, a few neatly packed beakers and litmus papers for different blood tests, syringes…

Aimé sat on the stool beside the little table, leaning his elbows back on the surface, and he watched Jean-Pierre scrub his hands into his hair, blood running down his body and swirling into the water at the base of the shower.

Jean-Pierre had his own bathroom – the one at the top of the stairs, Asmodeus and Colm shared, which had a bathtub, but it was lit normally. Jean-Pierre’s bathroom was so brightly lit that the first time Aimé had stepped inside, he’d actually flinched.

“It is so that I can do surgery,” Jean-Pierre had explained cheerfully when he’d asked about it.

Aimé had laughed at the time.

It didn’t seem as funny right now.

He kept wiping at his mouth, but he could still taste the blood on his lip, and he hadn’t yet managed to say a word.

Jean-Pierre had pulled him inside, putting the rifle and the knife on the sheet laid over the counter in the hall, ready, and Aimé had stared as Jean-Pierre had stripped off of his clothes, putting them in a wicker hamper already filled with bloody clothes.

“So I don’t track too much on the carpets,” he’d said before leading Aimé up the stairs. “You just caught us as we came home – Colm is already in the bath, I think. We left on Saturday after lunch with Bedelia and Pádraic – you know George is thinking about engineering schools?”

The blood had still been streaked all over him, even with his clothes pulled off, and it had been soaked dark and sticky all over him, especially on the backs of his shoulders and on his face, and the gore had still been spattered into his hair. Aimé had tried to breathe enough to say something, but couldn’t manage it, feeling his mouth painfully dry, his lips parting and closing again.

Jean-Pierre had continued to chatter on as he stepped into the shower and under the hot water, and he was still talking now.

“You don’t need to worry about the cut,” he said – Aimé had been looking down at his thigh, where the cut showed. “I told you I heal very quickly – it is already healing. See, the scab is already coming away.”

Aimé nodded silently.

He’d offered no explanation.

Perhaps, to Jean-Pierre, it was as obvious as could be why he should answer the door covered in blood and guts, and Aimé couldn’t work past it, couldn’t make his mouth work, couldn’t, couldn’t…

The bathroom door opened, and Colm stood in the doorway, holding a towel loosely over his side. He was naked and still wet from his bath, not all of the blood completely washed off of him.

“Excuse me, Aimé,” he said, and Aimé stood to his feet, leaning back against the mirrored wall on the other side, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. Colm peeled the towel back from his side, showing the blood sticking to it, and Aimé watched as he pulled open one of Jean-Pierre’s drawers, rifling through for the long tweezers.

Aimé closed his eyes as Colm slid them into the little wound with a wet sound, and he tried to concentrate on the sound of the shower spray instead of the noise of the tweezers in the wound, of Colm’s sharp, hissed little noise of pain before he heard the clink of metal onto the dish Jean-Pierre usually kept for used q-tips and cotton pads.

The bullet was smaller than he expected, looking like it had been crushed somehow, and Colm glanced up at him.

“What you think of as a bullet is a whole cartridge,” Colm explained, leaning back against the vanity table and running one of Jean-Pierre’s antiseptic wet wipes over his skin, even though it made him grit his own teeth. “The bit at the front, the tip, is the only bit that actually gets shot forward – the base of it has the primer, which acts like the fuse, and then the bulk of the cartridge is filled with fuel that serves as a propellant. When you pull the trigger on a gun, it sets off the primer, which lights the propellant, and it’s the force of that propellant giving off gas as it burns that launches the bullet from the chamber at a velocity enough to do some injury.” He sighed, pressing down on the side of his torso, and Aimé watched the little wound continue to heal before his eyes, the flesh knitting slowly together.

“What did it hit?” Aimé asked.

Colm raised his eyebrows, tilting his head.

“The bullet. Why didn’t it go through the other side?”

“Well, this is actually the exit wound,” Colm said. He gestured to a pink spot on the other side of his torso, where the scab was already coming away in little pieces, “This is where it entered. It almost exited, but then I tried to heal around it, forcing it back further in, so then I tried to dig it out with my finge—”

Aimé was glad that the toilet was right next to him, because it meant he didn’t vomit anywhere else.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Jean-Pierre said to Colm, turning off the shower and beginning to wring out his hair.

“I thought he was okay,” Colm said, reaching out to touch him, and Aimé let out a low, burbled noise of relief as Colm took some of the nausea off of him, although it made Colm blink a few times, and when Aimé looked up at him, he looked green. “I thought you were squeamish,” he mumbled, wrinkling his nose.

“Not squeamish,” Aimé said, leaning out of the way of Colm’s hand. “That’s not why.”

He was trembling again, he realised, as the immensity of the situation dawned on him in ways he really wished it wouldn’t. He’d known what Colm and Jean-Pierre were, of course, had known they were immortal, had even known that they didn’t look at things the way that humans did, but all at once, now, the reality of it was hitting him, and it…

Aimé had experienced existential terror before.

He’d never experienced it quite like this.

“Will you get my towel for me, Aimé?” Jean-Pierre asked sweetly.

Aimé was on his feet in an instant.

*     *     *

JEAN-PIERRE

It had been a rough job.

They’d gone out to an isolated property in the South of England, and had initially burglarised the place, moving past the mundie security designs in order to take the children – their primary target had 7, all of them under the age of twelve – off of the property, knocking each of them out and removing them off the campus of the house, and in the process, they’d knocked out every member of domestic staff that didn’t carry a weapon.

They had tried not to kill security in the initial stages, but that care had not been mutual, although when comparing scores afterward – he and Colm always had score tabulations, and documented the documentation in their respective pocket books – they hadn’t included them in their sums.

Jean-Pierre had been behind, with Colm taking the lead with the recently deceased prince – now, the two of them were neck and neck.

He had been surprised to see Aimé on his doorstep, but pleased, too, and it had been amusing to feel the way Aimé stiffened and then relaxed under Jean-Pierre’s kiss, the way he kept wiping at his own mouth.

There had been terror in his eyes when Jean-Pierre had come before him, and there was something fascinating about that, something wholly delightful in Aimé looking at him with such fear radiating from him, although for all that fear, he wasn’t pulling away, wasn’t running from him.

Aimé hadn’t said anything yet.

Jean-Pierre was waiting quite patiently, interested to hear what he would say, if he would voice his fear at all, but it hadn’t come just yet: he had chopped fruit for Jean-Pierre and set it on a plate for him, and now the two of them sat on the bed eating fruit from the plate.

A television show Jean-Pierre had picked at random, some sort of documentary, was playing, but Jean-Pierre wasn’t watching it.

He was watching the rise and fall of Aimé’s torso as Aimé kept his gaze on the television. He leaned forward, sliding his hand over Aimé’s chest, resting on the centre of his breast, pressing down on his sternum, and Aimé’s eyes fluttered closed, his lips quivering.

“You think I will harm you?” Jean-Pierre asked softly.

“How many people did you kill?” Aimé asked, keeping his eyes closed, tightly closed, as though he was frightened to open them.

“This weekend? Twelve.”

“Twelve,” Aimé repeated slowly, and Jean-Pierre slid closer, sliding his hands over Aimé’s chest, pressing down on his breasts either side, and to his delight, Aimé huffed out a little laugh, grabbing him by the wrists. “This thing about my tits has to stop.”

“I like them,” Jean-Pierre said, and Aimé grabbed both of Jean-Pierre’s hands, holding his wrists together and pulling them off of his chest, and he squeezed tightly enough that there was a delightful edge of pain in it, and Jean-Pierre looked down at Aimé, at the uncertain expression in his face, the hesitation. “You’re frightened of me?”

“Who’d you kill?” Aimé asked, and Jean-Pierre squeezed his sides with his knees.

“His name was Mark Cuthbert. He mostly dealt in party highs – ecstasy cut with one thing or other.”

“You killed him because he dealt drugs?”

“Oh, no,” Jean-Pierre. “He was a human trafficker.”

Aimé was silent then. “You— Have you— Have you always…?”

“Since the uprising,” Jean-Pierre said softly. “I have killed a great many people in my lifetime.” Aimé’s heart was beating faster beneath him, and Jean-Pierre slid his hands forward. Even with Aimé’s hands gripping his wrists, he didn’t stop Jean-Pierre from putting his hands around his throat, and he squeezed slightly, until Aimé let out a breathless little whimper. “I frighten you.”

“You scare me fucking shitless,” Aimé said.

Some of the pleasure faded in the moment. It surprised Jean-Pierre, the way that his delight caught in his chest and evaporated, because Aimé didn’t look only frightened of him, but resigned, somehow, dulled, somehow. Jean-Pierre forced his expression to remain neutral as he relaxed his grip on Aimé’s neck, tapping his thumb against the hollow of his throat. He remembered his nightmare of the past week, the way that he’d woken soaked with sweat and sobbing, the way Aimé had clutched at him as though to protect him from the world at large. He had been very grateful for it.

“I wouldn’t harm you,” Jean-Pierre said. “I love you.”

“You love me?” Aimé repeated.

“This surprises you?” Jean-Pierre asked.

“A little bit,” Aimé said.

“And why is that?”

“Because my dad came over before I came around here,” Aimé said lowly, staring in the vicinity of Jean-Pierre’s naked chest instead of meeting his gaze. His voice was hoarse and thick. “Asked what the fuck my new boyfriend had done to my mouth.”

“Kissed it, no? Or—”

“The enchantment,” Aimé said.

Jean-Pierre leaned back. “Ah,” he said softly.

*     *     *

AIMÉ

He’d seen Jean-Pierre do this before, but it didn’t make it any less frightening now.

Jean-Pierre’s small, prim smile became keener, sharper, turning into something more like a smirk; his eyes became clearer, the colour colder; he raised his chin, and all of a sudden, Jean-Pierre seemed that much taller, that much bigger than Aimé was.

The sound of Aimé’s gulp rang in his own ears.

“Well?” Aimé asked.

“Well,” Jean-Pierre replied, giving a neat little shrug of his shoulders, sitting up straight where he straddled Aimé’s belly. He was smiling, showing his teeth, and he was looking down at Aimé as though Aimé were something newly fascinating, newly delightful, his fingers tracing a vague pattern over Aimé’s chest that made Aimé at once quake with fear and want to spread his legs wider. “You’re so calm. I thought perhaps you would be angry – like the first time.”

“I’m angry,” Aimé said, trying to keep his breathing in check. “I’m fucking angry, Jean – I’m pissed. You can’t just, you can’t just do that to someone—”

“Why not?” Jean-Pierre asked, and he tilted his head to the side in a way that was so entirely inhuman that it actually made Aimé shiver, and based on the way Jean-Pierre pressed his lips together, stifling a giggle, he’d done it on purpose. “You let me.”

“I didn’t let you,” Aimé said, shoving Jean-Pierre off him and standing to his feet: Jean-Pierre was stood right in front of him in a heartbeat, leaning over him, and whenever Aimé tried to lean away from him, Jean-Pierre matched his movements, getting closer again. “I didn’t know you’d done anything.”

Jean-Pierre’s smile softened, and he looked down at Aimé for a moment, arching one perfect blond eyebrow. “Didn’t you?” he asked softly.

It hit Aimé like an actual blow, but Jean-Pierre didn’t let him step back, reaching down and cupping Aimé’s cheek very tenderly, his fingers touching featherlight over the stubble there.

“You knew,” Jean-Pierre said in the softest and sweetest of voices, in almost a whisper. “You are not a fool, Aimé – you knew, and when I told you you were wrong, you knew that I was lying, but you leapt to believe me anyway.”

“I didn’t,” Aimé said, shaking his head. “I didn’t—”

“Would you like to start smoking again, Aimé?” Jean-Pierre asked, forcing Aimé to look up, to meet his gaze. “Could you control yourself without my work to assist you?”

Aimé swallowed hard, clenching his hands down at his sides, and Jean-Pierre held his face between his palms, looking down at him with his clear, bright eyes, his sweet smile and its frightening knife-edge. Jean-Pierre had told him he loved him a moment ago, and the worst thing was that Aimé entirely believed him, even though it fucking hurt – he’d never really believed someone loved him before outside of his mother’s family, but it figured that the only person to actually say so would be a monster.

“Do you hate me, hm?” Jean-Pierre asked, still in that sweet voice, stroking his hair back from his face. “You said you could never despise me – do you now? Will you leave me? I won’t stop you, you know, if you wish to, Aimé. I will simply ache in your absence.”

Aimé shook his head, feeling his stomach flip at the very thought of it, and Jean-Pierre leaned closer, brushing their noses against one another, looking into Aimé’s eyes.

“Are you going to leave me?” Jean-Pierre asked.

Aimé wanted to say he would. He wanted to say he would leave and never come back, wanted to say that Jean-Pierre was the scum of the earth, that he couldn’t do whatever he wanted to Aimé just because he was human, just because Jean-Pierre was an angel, just because he wanted to.

“Would you like for me to take the spell away?” Jean-Pierre asked softly. “You have tried to quit smoking in the past, have you not?”

Aimé inhaled through his nostrils.

Jean-Pierre smiled at him.

“Are you going to apologise?” Aimé asked.

Jean-Pierre blinked, and then looked down at Aimé with what seemed like real, genuine surprise. “For what?” he asked.

Aimé let out a breathless, sharp, punched-out sound that eked out of his throat without his meaning to, and Jean-Pierre leaned back, but before he could say anything, say something awful and smug and superior, Aimé dragged him down and started kissing him.

Jean-Pierre tried to control the kiss, tried to make him pull back, but Aimé shoved him back onto the bed and kissed him harder, pinned Jean-Pierre under his weight as best he could, pinning his wrists down.

It lasted for—

Two minutes, maybe.

Jean-Pierre let Aimé control the kiss, let Aimé imagine, for a hundred and twenty seconds, that he was going to let Aimé top, and then he bit Aimé’s neck so hard he shouted, releasing Jean-Pierre’s hands.

The choking should have frightened him, somehow, but it was better than ever.

Later, Jean-Pierre sat beside him on the bed, cross-legged and eating pieces of fruit from the plate Aimé had made up for him, looking down at Aimé where he laid on his back.

“May I tell you something that I think you will like?” he asked.

“Sure,” Aimé said. He was still a little dizzy, not from the choking – Jean-Pierre was medicinal about it, knew exactly when to stop in a way no one Aimé had ever been with did, but he supposed that only made sense – but from how hard he’d come, because Jean-Pierre always seemed to want to wring him out after hard conversations.

“None of my past lovers ever liked to be choked,” Jean-Pierre said. “It is a curious fetish of yours.”

“I never asked you to choke me.”

“Not with your words.”

It made a kind of hot, pooling warmth spread out through his chest, his arms and legs, and Aimé leaned his head back against the pillows, looking up at Jean-Pierre, even as he reached up and touched his throat, feeling where the flesh was sore and stung under his fingers.

It felt good.

“I never felt it,” Aimé said quietly. “It’s why I could… I couldn’t feel it. So long as I couldn’t feel it, it wasn’t… Is that part of it? You hid it?”

Jean-Pierre smiled down at him, shook his head. “You think you would feel a tattoo, once it was laid in your skin?”

Jean-Pierre reached out, slowly stroking his thumb along Aimé’s bottom lip, and it made Aimé’s eyes drop closed, made him shiver: Jean-Pierre touched him so gently, so gently that the touch was almost ticklish.

“The circuit of the enchantment runs in line with the pulse of your heart – you would be aware of it no more than you might be aware of your own blood in your veins. It is a complicated enchantment, though – it has specialised symbols for nicotine, but for tar, also; it makes you vomit, but safely. I have modified it for my own uses but when it was first used in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, its purpose was to make its victims vomit until their organs exited their mouths.”

Aimé opened his eyes. “Jesus,” he said.

Jean-Pierre laughed. “It is very violent, yes. Would you like for me to show you? I will teach you any enchantment you want.”

Aimé bit his lip, worrying it under his teeth for a moment, but then he nodded, and as he pulled himself up, Jean-Pierre pulled a notebook and a pen from the side table, smoothly, easily drawing symbols on a piece of paper, explaining their function, their purpose.

“I should hate you,” Aimé said. “You’re a murderer, and I should hate you.”

“I am very grateful that you don’t,” was the mildly-spoken reply, and it made Aimé’s whole chest pang in a way it really shouldn’t. He couldn’t even bring himself to look at the soft, sweet look on Jean-Pierre’s pretty face, so he looked at the page instead.

“Show me another one,” he said in a quiet voice.

Jean-Pierre picked up his pen.