Chapter 2: Chapter 1.1: The Night We Met

Trigger warning: Violence, gore, suicidal ideation, strong language

……

They’d lied. 

Who are they? 

Death wasn’t black… it wasn’t even grey. It was white, spotless, pure white. 

Who told me that?

The whiteness sliced pain into his arm, shards of a broken and icy blade. 

Where am I? Who am I? 

He was spent. Fear nagged at him, but he had no strength to move. He was tired, so tired… 

The heavy blue eyes closed, submitting to his exhaustion. 

Let me rest.

……

Blood spewed from where the teenager’s right index and middle fingers had been. A long, raw scream replaced his pleas for mercy. As he knelt on the ground clutching his maimed hand, Keary stood looking down at him grovelling. 

Pathetic. He felt a twinge of disgust, but it quickly vanished into numbness. This was so senseless, all of it. He bent down towards the snivelling figure, still holding the dripping switchblade that had done the damage. The victim’s eyes were wide with shock, but quickly shifted in terror as Keary leaned in and grabbed the bleeding hand.  

“There’s still time if you run,” he murmured, waving the blade lazily at the severed digits. Before the victim could respond, Keary straightened up and flung them out of the alleyway, onto the slush of thickening snow outside. 

The younger boy flinched but didn’t dare to move. 

“Go on then. What are you waiting for?” 

Cautiously, he stumbled to his feet and edged away from me, skirting wide before eventually hurrying to retrieve his fingers. Then he began running away as fast as he could. 

The thought of throwing the knife at his retreating back, into his brain or throat or heart, flashed through Keary’s mind, but he pushed it away wearily. How senseless. He could feel the blood from the blade trickling down his hand. 

Why do I even bother…? 

Wiping the knife, he moved toward the girl kneeling nearby, who had tears and a look of horror on her face. He offered it to her handle-first, but when she didn’t take it, he let it drop to the ground with a sharp clatter. 

“It was just some money,” she whispered, her dark hair veiling half her face. “He was just trying to survive.” 

“He was pathetic, weak, and stupid enough to cross us,” he answered coldly. 

She made a choking sound that might have been a laugh or a sob. “So cruel…!” 

“Cruel?” Keary scoffed. “I should have killed him.” 

“Hurting people… killing! So casually—” 

“If you can’t manage it, just say so and get out. We don’t need weakness.” He closed the front of his coat, stuffed his stained hands into his pockets, and stepped past her out of the alley, into the cold night. She didn’t follow. 

It was late, and it was snowing heavily, unusual weather so early in December. Keary quickly lost sense of his purpose and wandered around aimlessly. The winter air was freezing, but he didn’t care. He savoured the feeling of each step sending pain through his numb body, giving him a strange sense of being dead and alive at the same time. 

At length, he took his hands out of his pockets and stared down at the rust-coloured stains. 

Why am I doing all this? Indulging in crime, getting into fights… all for what? Certainly not to be caught. Self-protection? Can’t be. I can’t even remember what that boy did. Tried to steal my wallet?

Perhaps. 

Come to think of it, Lisette was right. I should have killed him. It was cruel to let him live. I should have released him from this misery. 

The misery of existing.

When will I finally be free of this…? 

He looked up into the dark maroon sky, but there was no answer, just a quickly thickening fall of snow. 

The streets were already blanketed as he started across a field of white. Trudging along, he suddenly stepped on something that felt nothing like snow. Startled, Keary quickly tried to shift his weight, stumbling backwards and falling into a bed of coolness. 

“Fuck!” Snow showered from his hair as he shook his head angrily. “What the fuck was—” 

He stopped. There was a trail of blood in the snow. He looked at his hands, but the blood had long dried in the cold; this was someone else’s. He cast his gaze to where he had fallen to figure out what was going on, but wasn’t prepared for what he saw lying there.  

At first when he spotted it, he couldn’t tell whether the roadblock was a girl, boy or wingless angel. Bright hair framed its pale face, its skin was almost as white as the snow it was surrounded in. There was something strange about it. Something captivating. Something that made Keary’s heart race. 

Swallowing past the lump that had formed in his throat, he hesitated before nudging it with his boot. “Hey.” 

No response. 

“Hey!” He shook it again. “What are you doing out here?” 

It didn’t budge. 

Keary cursed. Now what do I do? I’ve tried to rouse it. Is it alive, even? It crossed his mind that perhaps he should just leave it here, come what may. Someone else might find it. Or it might just pass in peace. But somehow, he just couldn’t bring himself to walk away. 

How unlike me. 

He swore again, then moved to pick it up. They needed to get out of this cold. As he slid his arms around it and started to rise, the bright-haired figure’s eyes opened just a sliver, and it spoke, weak and confused. 

“Shinigami…?”

Angel of death? Keary grimaced. So it was alive after all, and human. And male. “Hey. Why are you lying out here in the cold?” 

“I don’t… I—" The blonde stiffened suddenly as Keary tried to pull him up. A shudder ran through his body, and Keary realised his hands were once more warm and wet with blood, flowing fresh from a gash in the half-conscious boy’s arm. 

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That settled it. “I’m taking you to the hospital,” Keary told him, not even sure if he could hear or understand. He’d get any medical attention he needed there. Good plan. 

But it wasn’t so easy. “No!” the blonde cried, and started to struggle feebly. “I can’t… They… they’ll get me… They’ll get…”

Keary bit back a retort as the boy went limp again. Fine. Saves me the trouble of filling out forms anyway, especially with these bloodstained hands. 

That left only one other place to go… 

……

Flashes of memory, of people leaning over me, silhouetted against the darkness. 

Is the darkness around them or in them?

An apparition before me, with slender white hands, dark hair, and a pair of silver eyes that looked straight into my soul.  

Shinigami…?

Movement. Someone carrying me. Darkness. 

Who… 

“Qui…” The blonde began to move, but stopped abruptly with a soft moan. “Qui es…?” He could not muster any energy in his limbs, and lay there, breathing shallowly.

“You’re awake.” A figure spoke from the shadows. 

The blonde jolted at the voice. “Who are you?” he asked fearfully in a weak voice. 

“Keary. And you?” 

“I…” He swallowed weakly. Nothing came to mind that provided an answer to the question. “I… don’t know.” Even those three words took more than he had expected, and he closed his eyes in pain. 

“Hmm… that’s not good.” 

As the shadow rose and moved towards the bed, the blonde started to struggle again in fear. Is he one of them? Belatedly he realised that his body was trapped under thick and heavy layers of blankets and quilts. "What—"

"You were freezing out in the snow. Don't worry, I only did what was necessary to get you warmed up, nothing more. It seems to have worked." 

Reaching the bed, the figure materialised from the darkness into the apparition from the blonde’s earlier dream. Dark, dark hair falling into silver eyes which were piercing, but held no threat or hostility in their gaze.  

“Can you sit up?” Without waiting for an answer, Keary wrapped strong arms around the boy and pulled him slowly up. The blonde clung desperately to the taller boy’s broad shoulders, too focused on stabilising himself and fighting the darkness that threatened to overcome his vision to pay much heed to the fact that both their torsos were bare.  

“Here, drink this.” Keary took a cup from the table beside the bed and lifted it to the blonde’s lips. “Slowly now.” 

The blonde sipped at the hot chocolate in the mug, then began to gulp it down hungrily, grasping the cup with two shaking hands until his breath suddenly hitched. He choked, sputtering. 

“Easy. That should be enough for now.” Keary took the cup from him and stroked his back. The blonde shivered, then flinched as Keary’s hand travelled down his shoulders. Keary remembered the boy’s wounds. 

"Hang on. It's time to change your bandages." 

He vanished from the boy’s view, then reappeared, this time with a small white box. Although Keary tried to be gentle, the wounds were still too fresh and raw, and the blonde trembled in pain, too weak to struggle. 

"How the hell did you get these?" 

"Don't… know…" The blonde’s voice was faint. He was struggling to stay awake, eyes hooded and heavy. His pain and exhaustion were overwhelming him, darkness creeping into the edges of his field of vision. 

“Don’t cry.” 

Tenderly, Keary touched the boy’s cold cheek. The blonde leaned into the touch, seemed to struggle for a moment, but ultimately seemed to lose the inner battle and slipped out of consciousness again. He slumped forward into Keary’s arms, long lashes fluttering to cover the brilliant blue eyes. 

Laying him down gently, Keary sat back to consider the figure in his bed. 

Long golden curls spilled on the pillow, pearly skin like something from a dream. The boy looked like an angel carved straight out of a church mural. He had the kind of face and body that drove people mad with longing. 

Was Helen of Troy this beautiful? Keary caught himself fighting down desires. To bury his face in that bright hair. To fill his lungs with the boy’s scent. To explore the white body with his lips in ways that would make the angel flush a pleasant scarlet… To kneel before him and beg for forgiveness, for cleansing and salvation from all sins. 

It’s barely been a few hours, and this boy is already driving me mad. My soul is surely in the depths of hell. 

Keary sighed and tucked him in somewhat regretfully, covering the source of temptation before his self-control cracked.

What should I do with him now? 

It would probably be best to find out more about who he was. Keary wasn’t ignorant of the fact that he had many enemies. He couldn’t rule out the possibility that this boy had been sent by one of them, a tactical move to get to him, although his instincts told him that the chances of that were slim. The golden boy had seemed genuinely lost and terrified.  

Even if he had been feigning unconsciousness, there were many times in which the boy could have made his move since they had gotten back to the house. There had been an especially opportune moment when Keary had stripped and held him close under the blankets to lend him his body heat. So hypnotised by the golden glow, Keary knew that he wouldn’t have been able to react until it was too late, even if the boy had suddenly decided to awaken and attack him. 

At the recollection of how that beautiful form had felt pressed against his bare skin, naked, defenceless, and so icy cold, Keary felt a hot thrill run through him. He shuddered and got to his feet. 

Enough lusting after a wounded boy, you lowlife; time to get to work. 

The boy’s clothes lay in a pile next to the bed where Keary had tossed them before, and he bent to inspect the garments one by one. There was an ordinary white cotton t-shirt, and a non-descript navy blue windbreaker, both of which barely did anything against the winter chill. The pants, however, were made of finer material, with no labels or brand tags. 

Interesting. Bespoke tailoring? That might mean that this boy came from wealth. If he did, it could either be very easy or very difficult to dig into his background, depending on exactly how rich he was. The nouveau-riche liked to flaunt their money with luxury brands, flashy cars and obscene houses, but the ultra-wealthy tended to use it to cover their tracks and buy themselves privacy instead. 

It would help if I had a name… 

Keary riffled through all the pockets, frowning when he came across a rectangular metal pendant hung on a thin leather cord. It bore letter engravings: 

CARDIN∙RASHEVILLE

He stared. Well, it could explain the French the boy had been mumbling in his slumber and when he woke up, as well as his brilliant golden curls and cerulean eyes. 

Tapping the pendant on his lips, Keary turned to look at the unconscious golden boy in his bed, then smirked. 

Well, Cardin Rasheville… It's a pleasure to meet you. 

……

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