Chapter Text
Sweet, Phemiec
I knelt in a puddle of hot, sweet blood, aching smile pitted against aching smile. A well-worn axe lay abandoned, messy gore spilt from a gash on his bright white uniform, pieces of him scattered across the floor.
And he was ever pleased, with those violet eyes piercing perfect into mine, scarlet hands prying a soft laugh from my cheeks to match him. Oh, the stars glistened around him, perfect lips and porcelain pale face; a soft romantic tune played in those prison halls where I’d locked us, this sweet seven minutes in heaven.
“Tag, you’re it,” I giggled, and I’d waited years for that punchline, leaning down to kiss him good night. The cherry blood clung to my lips, and I felt blessed.
I could sing of his beauty and my triumph as his red, red life filled my senses, and those weak praising words crowned my head.
“Kolya… ah, you’ve done it!” he remarked, wet with death- “What an intelligent beast, man has given you free will.”
Oh, and he had, I had, I had gifted it to myself with this axe and these hands.
Mad scientist and jester, I had wrought myself, I had killed God and chopped my wings right at their trembling base.
…God, my lover soft and helpless, passive and shy under the axe.
“I am sorry, for the suffering it will cause you. Love is a mortal thing, Kolya…”
And his breath flew quietly home, his head back, neck out in a delicious little sigh.
Stillness, as his finger curled, welcoming.
And the arc of my blade, the final judgement.
Celebration overtook me at the spray of blood, and I jumped in the air, all I had sworn a hideous, hilarious triumph.
I tripped on myself as I knelt forward to the place where his head had fallen, and it seemed almost too precious to touch, bony fingers trembling in time with my heart. But oh, he was still, and my head was light, as I brought him to my lips, hot liquid dripping down my arms.
When I opened my eyes there was naught to see but light, the mess I’d made of him splattered all across the walls. Mindless, I found myself tracing a heart there, red on the white wall. And humming, I picked up the pieces one by one, gathering him in my arms.
“Oh Sigma-kun, you can open the door now, I’m allll done!” I trilled, holding a hand to my mouth.
There was silence, for some time, but eventually the familiar, strained voice returned, muffled from outside the thick prison walls. “What’s the password?”
“Ugh, you know it’s me!” I protested with an exaggerated roll of my eyes. “Fine, it’s your mom. It’s your mom, Sigma! You happy?”
“I don’t have a mom.”
There was a click on the door after another pause, and it slid open slowly, long lavender hair peering around the corner.
“Did you kil- oh.”
“Yep! All gone,” I smiled, holding Fedya’s head up like a white guy with a fish on his tinder profile picture. “Here, you can hold the axe.” I handed it over, and his eyes darted wide, from red hands, to blushing face, to Fedya sweet in my arms. He took it.
I knelt and once again smiled, cradling that blood smeared head in my lap, before I sighed and leaned forward, pulling his pieces gently into the folds of my cloak and sweeping it closed.
I could only hear the crackling whine of the overhead lights, the hum of the plumbing and silent air, as Sigma stood, staring down at my axe in his hands. “I…”
“Let’s go home, shall we.”
He closed his mouth, nodding.
…
The grass crunched underfoot, starting once again to peer out from under snow. Our path was winding, the woods thick, and the great church reappeared before us, rising from the horizon after so long away.
Sigma followed behind me, footstep to bloody footstep in the snow, and he raised his head as the light caught the cracks in stained glass, glowing in the fading light.
Fedya and I had found it many years ago, out here in the nowhere… filled it with furniture and books and called it a home, though I always had the feeling he knew something about this place I never did. Sigma had been with us too these last few years, until his casino finally came to fruition.
Well, ah… there was no need for that anymore, since the plan was long elapsed now. The world was no longer any of my concern, we’d run it to the ground the best it would ever be. And now he was mine, mine forever.
Sigma spoke up, finally, voice monotone as we approached the building long left empty. “Well, are you going to bury Fyodor? I know you two were close, or whatever…” He trailed off. “Did he have any wishes, or anything? I knew he was rather religious.”
I shook my head. “Fed’enka said if I killed him, I was free to do whatever I wanted. It’s only fair, really,” I said in a daze, chin raised to heaven, voice crackling on the edge of laughter. “I told him if I died first he was legally obligated to swing me from a ceiling fan at my funeral, like in that one post.” I turned around, smiling at him. “You know.”
It was a discussion we had often, death. Under the covers, my head in his lap, our frequent sessions of confession. It was my sins laid bare before his violet eyes, my servitude in repentance, given with enthusiasm, weak on my knees. We spoke of his rapture, we spoke of blasphemy and philosophy and martyrdom, God's will in terror, in cyanide and atom bombs, our murderous abilities free from our bodies.
It gave me great peace, in the midst of the great hurtling spiral of space. Nothing else ever did.
Our footsteps grew quiet as we set foot on the overgrown path.
“So then… what are you going to do?” Sigma asked, eyes fixed on his feet. “Why did you even have to kill him, anyway? Your reasoning makes no sense to me.”
“Well, why are you following me back to this house?” I smiled, cocking my head. “Even though the home Fyodor promised is gone, he is no more to help you?” I responded instantly.
Sigma frowned, hair falling in sheets over his face. “Well, I suppose I’ve really got no purpose now it’s all gone, huh? I don’t know why I’m still here. Both of us managed to survive when Fyodor told us to die. But.” He shrugged. “For what? I’ll just… wait for all this mess to blow over with you out here. It’s all I’ve ever known, after all.”
“Mmm,” I nodded, summoning a well worn key from my pocket and opening the door.
It moaned, swinging open, and my face opened in nostalgic delight at the dusty beauty inside.
“Well, anyway, you’re free to do whatever,” I waved him off, pulling off my hat and setting down my cane, rustling around in my cloak a bit.
Ah, there was my sewing kit. Maybe that wasn’t as good as the medical grade kind, but it wasn’t as if it would matter…
I pulled aside a stool to sit in, beside the great red chair we’d found rotting in the woods. And I knelt on the ground, sticking my head in the blackness of my cloak, opening my eyes to the lightless dimension inside, everything hanging in place where I’d left them.
“There you are,” I sighed with a quiet smile, color returning to my vision.
Fedya lay pale and sleeping in the black velvet folds, blood spread around him, mouth slightly open. I reached out to stroke his face, relaxing now that he was back in my sight. Mindless, I swiped a bit of red from his lips and licked it off, hoisting the head and body gently into my arms. He was still a little warm, as I held him, emerging back into the light.
The smell of blood was thick around me, but it nearly always was, and I sat my lover on the old red armchair, positioning him as carefully as I could with his arms on the rests. Piece by piece I assembled him, leg to its joint, hand to the wrist, but the head had to be held in place so it did not fall.
Oh, his torso was a mess where I’d chopped him up too, blood brightening his bland white dark and thick.
So I pulled out the needle and thread, red sticking to my fingerprints, cutting away at the prison uniform around the slash, the rose red flesh calming as it surrendered to the cold.
First, this, then the limbs…
Methodically, I pursed my lips and pulled the lips of the wound together, taking care to guide the trailing bits back in, globs of fat and hard tissue, some cut tube secreting a clearish substance I probably shouldn’t have been touching.
There, I sewed it all together as best as I could, but no matter how I tried, they were no pretty stitches. I’d never been taught to embroider lovely roses on dead skin. Sure, I had experience, but I didn’t care what that old government man looked like with his skin inside out. This was different. And I poured every bit of love I had into those seams, a perfect pattern to honor his death.
I’d been caught up in my work, humming mindlessly, lost in the patterns of his skin that I loved. It was the gentle way he lay, as I stitched his arm back on, eyes modest and dim through the heavy curtain of eyelashes that hooked me in, my voice caught in the threads as they drew crimson.
His head came last, and the red thread circled him like a necklace. I was getting better, even as I worked, and I nearly cried at his beauty, those soft edges encircled in blood.
I leaned back with a smile, the body sewn together.
There were red finger prints stuck around that mangled stitch, running down his lean stomach, off-putting and messy.
With a noise of discontent, I tried to wipe the marks off, but the blood just smeared, congealing, lukewarm.
Hgnn..
“Gogol-”
My frustration rose, and my face twisted a grimace, dropping the needle to a miniscule clatter, painful in my ears.
“Can you shut up-” I snapped my head around, rather more snappy than I’d been going for.
Sigma stood with his hands on the railing, caught halfway down the stairs. And his eyes would not leave Fedya, wide and trembling.
“What?”
His breath was shaky, breathing in, exhaling hard on the question. “Wh… at… the hell are you doing?”
I turned back to Fedya, looking up. He was shirtless now I’d dealt with his wounds, and there he sat, politely, eyes closed, his only flaw the stitches’ edge.
“Oh, I’m sewing him back together,” I held the needle up, a little sticky. “Could you get a washcloth, by the way? I’m getting him all dirty.”
His lips pulled back, hands close to his body, and a long pause went by.
“I… suppose so- but why? It’s not like it matters underground. You killed him, why do you care for his body?”
My head tipped back. “Huh? Oh, I’m not burying him. He’s staying right here.”
Some birds chirped in the distance, perhaps the first birds of spring.
“What?” he gaped, arms hanging limp. “I- Gogol?? He’s dead . You can’t just…” He threw up his hands. “You can just get rid of him, throw him in the woods for all I care!”
I sat calmly, hands in my lap. “But I don’t want to. I killed him,” I asserted, eyebrow twitching. “I proved my power over him fair and square. I proved my free will. So I can choose what I do with him.”
His eyes grew wide, retreating. “Well, what on earth do you want to do with him?!”
I turned back around, shrugging. “I just don’t want to be without him.”
“Well then what the hell was the point of killing him?” he deadpanned. “If he still wields that much of a grip on your heart, even after death?”
Indignant, I stood, stomping my feet. “Hey, it’s not like that.” I smiled, holding out a hand in demonstration, another proper on my chest. “He has no power over me. I’m the one in charge now.” And that hand gravitated again to Fedya’s clammy face, sweet eyelashes brushing my thumbs. “Isn’t that right, Fed’enka?”
Silence.
A sick, warm smile filled me. He was being so nice and quiet now, nothing more than a doll. I had made him a doll, and what a perfect relationship we would have, free from that dirty entanglement of souls. I would dress him up and take him everywhere, braid his hair and make him beautiful, I would keep him right in my cloak where he could never run off anywhere else.
And he would be still, forever, he would be still, free from every chafing chain.
I laughed gaily and threaded my hands in his, twirling him around and holding him out to Sigma, like a prized possession. “See? Isn’t this perfect? I slayed the love that had me brainwashed, I broke his evil spell,” I sang, standing him up beside me, dipping him in my arms. “And I as a human being, I as the executor of free will, have no obligation to follow any ritual expected of me by society. I’m free as a bird, he is mine forever! And I choose to fly in this direction, Sigma-kun. Do you have a problem with that?”
I melted at the thought, this docile, sweet doll, eyes closed, mouth small, skin sick and pale. We could never argue again. What an ideal partner, he would never say another word. Wasn’t that just what we’d been lacking? Wasn’t that the only thing wrong; those blasphemous words that shook me silly, the eyes that witnessed my deep bloody insides?
Well now that was dealt with, now I would no longer have to worry for that pesky dependence I’d developed, to his hand in mine.
His soul was extinguished. I was free.
Sigma didn’t respond when I said it. He didn’t say anything at all, just turned around and left, uneasiness circling him like a cloud.
And I turned back to Fedya, beautiful Fedya.
Looking at him summoned this sickly ache… a kind of perhaps… guilt, I didn’t fully understand. It wasn’t as if he could say anything against me- no, I’d made him silent and he would not cling to my heart any longer. And there was no guilt to be had, it was a relief that took over my whole body- yes, finally, he was still, he was gone for the rest of time, nothing I could do would change that and I wouldn’t if I could, I had blessed him so to release his soul from this prison.
No, there was nothing to regret, but when I gazed upon him…
I’d stripped him nearly naked to make right the offending gashes upon him, but no amount of stitching would make him whole again, a Frankenstein's monster of a being. It brought me to giggling laughter, how I’d stolen his beauty in ghastly death. I’d gifted him to be hideous, a masterpiece of scars and pale flesh for my consumption alone. Red stitches trailing down his stomach like a line of kisses, it was alluring- even more so now no life kept him clean- and it consumed me, his head regal in his lap, head lolled, hair bloody and sleek falling perfect in his face.
But that would not do, not in those awful, baggy prison garments. Fedya deserved worlds better than that- and I would restore him to his glory, I would do him justice, yes, that was what was wrong.
I threw myself into it with a fervor, scurrying upstairs to our room where he might have something proper to wear. I hadn’t thought of it in so long, but when I skipped to the hall and opened the door, there it was in cobwebs, caked in nostalgia.
Light filtered in through stained glass, onto an old, queen-sized four poster bed, covered in everything we’d left behind. Pictures, posters, a god-awful rug, an altar and grand curtains gathering dust, a pair of Fyodor’s gloves, placed ever neatly on the dresser.
A smile split my face open. This was the grand place we’d really barely left, where I’d always migrated back to, in my dreams when they were sweet.
And I sighed out loud, twirling in triumph and falling against the dusty bed, sent into a coughing fit almost at once.
“It’s good to be back, isn’t it?” I exclaimed when I regained my breath, glancing up to the space where Fyodor would stand.
Gh.
I stood once again, heartbeat a little irregular. There was an old coat of his, up on the hanger… and I pried open the dressers, pulling out that lovely little loose blouse, the sleeves puffy and translucent, throwing clothing items at the floor willy nilly, and- there.
The cloak, oh, the cloak… thick and black with those three little buttons, unearthed from his closet, as I held it up. And I collapsed into it, worn and soft. It smelled like him, when he came to bed at night after coming in from the cold… crisp and stinging, metallic, like evergreen and candle wax, dusty old bibles, that essence of him I couldn’t name of a warm, familiar body.
I threw it over my shoulders, sinking to bow legged knees, melting to a puddle. “S’alright if I borrow this, right?” I asked, voice a heavy sigh, breathless. “I don’t look too plain in this? Suppose you’d think it’s more proper now, wouldn’t you…”
I drew the clasp closed, hating just how soft it was, and I stood warm and happy inside, in that spotlight of dust.
And I rushed back downstairs once again, tripping over myself to return to Fedya.
He had not moved, a rosy, open sore on my mind, a sharp, empty nausea attacking my spirit.
He always sang, when getting ready… and I didn’t know the name of the tune…
It was something traditional, one of those old ones you were supposed to learn as a kid, that he had to teach me much later. And it began to leak out of my mouth, as I cleaned and dressed him, as calming as I could possibly make it.
Skin was cooling now, and I thought perhaps it might be easier to sew these garments on as well, so they wouldn’t fall off…
The tune was comforting, and no new beads of blood dotted the skin I knit together, simply lukewarm flesh, pulling his pretty shirt around him and buttoning the front.
I hit a wrong note, glaring and painful, and my voice became breathy, unsure.
Was that how it went? My voice was not the rich, deep tone that it was meant for- when he sang, it stuck in my heart canals, stopped them up and congealed, rot running down my throat.
And I couldn’t find my footing again, utterly lost.
I held him upright, with tense love, his joints creaking, lips clean of blood, face unnaturally white Wouldn’t he smile, just for one second, would he not smile upon me in this dainty outfit I’d sewn on?
His hands were always cold. I was the warmth giver, he was the light bringer, that was how we survived- so the lack of warmth bothered me none. But nor did he tremble, as he always did, nor did he place his hand on my waist, correct my form, soft dark voice invading my skull and guiding my notes, through that halting waltz.
He was limp, and ever silent, and this cathedral was so large and empty, images of the saints overgrown with vines and lichen, rare March light catching in the motes of dust.
I kissed him to forget it, and he tasted of blood, of stagnation and taunts, something thick sticking in my veins. It didn’t feel the same, it didn’t taste as it ought to, and I was not remembering the notes quite right.
I kept on with it despite myself, for there was no one to stop me, and I filled those halls with odd noise, till dear Sigma stomped down again demanding I put that thing away. I only laughed at him, caught in the lovely, guiltless remnant.