[pornmas] day 2.
Summary: "Let's keep him," I said.
Fandom/Pairings: Exquisite Corpse [Poppy Z. Brite]; Andrew/Jay/Tran
Rating: R
Pre-Notes: Do you ever get really, inexplicably mad about the ending of something? Yeah. I've been really, inexplicably mad about the ending of Exquisite Corpse for approximately forever, so I finally took matters into my own hands and rewrote the entire ending to the damn book. If you've read it, this fic starts at the end of chapter 13 and entirely replaces everything after that. If you haven't read the book, here's what you need to know: Andrew is a British serial killer who faked his own death and fucks corpses, Jay is an American serial killer who tortures and eats people, Tran is a Vietnamese twenty-something who has a thing for Jay and decapitation, Luke is Tran's ex-boyfriend who is kind of a douche. Before this story starts, Jay almost kills Tran but doesn't because he's a local and he has a family. Then, Jay meets Andrew and tries to kill him but instead they fall in serial killer love. Later, Andrew decides that Tran (who he introduces himself to as Arthur, Jay's cousin) is the perfect victim, so Jay invites him over again. Then this fic happens.
. . . By the way, this fic contains romanticized character death, murder, cannibalism, necrophilia, and mentions of AIDS (it's in the book). Probably also some dub-con, depending on how you read it. It's also partially in first person, because the source material is partially in first person. I'M REALLY SORRY ABOUT THIS YEAR'S PORNMAS I PROMISE THERE'S SOME LESS DISTURBING THINGS COMING UP.
Disclaimer: I just wrote six thousand words of fix-it fic, no it doesn't fucking belong to me.
all was golden when the day met the night
"Let's keep him," I said.
Jay looked at me, and for a moment I was reminded of the way puppies look at things they're surprised by and don't understand. Their eyes are full of confusion and a little bit of betrayal when they look to you, because puppies expect everything to work out according to how they think the world works. I curled my fingers around Jay's face and smiled.
"Weren't you saying something about how it's bad to kill Quarter boys anyway? We should keep him instead."
"We can't keep him," Jay said. I tilted my head to the side and waited for him to finish his thought, to add the explanation. "He's seen too much. We have to finish the job."
Tran was murmuring still, twisting on the bed as if having a fever dream. Gently, I turned Jay's face so his gaze was focused on Tran.
"Look at him and tell me you don't want to keep him," I whispered. Jay shivered and tried to look away from Tran; I held him fast. "He would let us."
I let Jay go then, to do what he would. His hands were shaking, the only reminder of how drunk we really were, and he looked at me helplessly. I waited.
"I don't keep things."
The excuse was weak, and it was easy to tell that Jay was only saying it because he felt he ought to. I shifted closer to him and touched our foreheads together. "You kept me."
When Tran became aware again after passing out on Arthur's dick, he was tucked into bed. The sheets were cool against his skin, expensive as fuck silk that told him he was most likely in Jay's bedroom. It was dark, but the sliver of light coming from the doorway told him that the rest of the house wasn't. Cautiously Tran slipped out of bed and the room, following the faint sound of conversation and the smell of food into the kitchen.
Arthur and Jay were talking as Jay stirred something on the stove. The way Arthur was pressed to Jay's back, hands slipped under his sweater and pressing a kiss to the back of his neck, wasn't a cousinly gesture and cemented what Tran already suspected: it was very likely that Arthur and Jay weren't related at all. Tran stepped into the kitchen, and Arthur turned to look at him. His eyes were dangerous in the same way that Jay's were.
"You're awake. We were worried when you passed out."
Jay said nothing, and Tran looked down at the hardwood floor under his feet.
"Sorry we were a little too rough with you," Andrew said. Tran wanted to tell him that it wasn't the first time he had choked on someone's dick and passed out and it wasn't a problem, but he couldn't get his mouth to produce the words. "Are you hungry?"
Tran shook his head no, even though he was faintly hungry. He was so intensely focused on the floor and the fact that Jay still hadn't said anything that he missed Arthur walking over, missed Arthur's arm wrapping around him and fingers coming under his chin to force him to look up. His gaze was searching, but Tran couldn't tell what he was searching for. He must have found it, though, because he kissed Tran soundly.
"Arthur," Jay said. It was sharp and slightly annoyed, but almost fond. "Get to the point."
The kiss lasted a moment longer, and then Arthur pulled away with a sigh. He turned toward Jay, arm still wrapped around Tran. It wasn't a tight hold, and Tran could have gotten away if he had wanted to. He didn't move. "Patience is a virtue, love," Andrew said, voice dripping artificial sweetness. "I was getting there."
Looking between Arthur and Jay, Tran got the distinct feeling that he was missing out on something important. The air was tense, but it was difficult to tell if it was because of the intricacies of Arthur and Jay's flirting or the distinct feeling that something horrible was about to happen. Arthur's fingers were warm against his back, and his grip had tightened slightly. Jay was plating jambalaya, seemingly unconcerned with Arthur's response.
After a moment, the tension seemed to have broken and Arthur's grip loosened. He looked at Tran, smiling sweetly, and Tran was reminded of a fox or maybe a wolf. "Jay and I have a proposition for you," Arthur said. "Do you want to get to know us better?"
It took a moment for the question to sink in, and another moment for Tran to fight the urge to burst into laughter. Jay's words from that first night were rattling around in his head: You better be ready for whatever happens. Arthur's proposition wasn't what Tran was expecting, and he wasn't entirely sure that he was ready for it. He wasn't sure you could be ready for something like this. Still, the answer is the easiest thing that he's ever had to say. He doesn't even have to think about it: Tran knows the answer like he knows the Quarter.
"Would I be here if I wasn't?"
Jay set two plates of jambalaya down on the kitchen table. "Do you remember what I told you?"
There's a long list of things Jay's told Tran, but Tran knew the ones that Jay were talking about were the words that are on repeat like a broken record in his head. He slipped out of Arthur's arms and walked over to Jay, hands settling on Jay's hips as he pressed their bodies together. "Yeah. Do you remember what I told you?"
"I do," Jay said, quiet like a confession as his fingers found their way into Tran's hair. "I just hope you meant it."
The problem with Andrew, Jay had decided, was that he was decidedly reckless. It was a calculated recklessness, which Jay admired, but as they sat down and ate while Tran sat primly in his chair, it made Jay more nervous than he could ever remember feeling. Andrew was charming, and Jay had faith in his ability to act appropriately if it seemed like Tran was going to react badly to what they were going to tell him. He just didn't have faith in Tran's ability to take the news that he was in the presence of two serial killers well, which was a perfectly reasonable thing. In Jay's experience, people do not take to serial killers well.
While Andrew talked, Tran was quiet. It made Jay nervous, because quiet wasn't a reaction he knew how to deal with. Andrew didn't seem to notice Tran's silence, or perhaps didn't care - he just kept talking until he'd finished and then waited for Tran's response. It took a very long moment for it to come.
"I want to see." Tran looked up and met Jay's eyes, something fierce burning in them. Jay nearly dropped his fork, caught off-guard by the certainty in Tran's words. He looked at Andrew, who shrugged. "Show me," Tran said. "I want to see where you keep them."
"You don't want to see that," Jay said. It wasn't quite the truth, because the truth was that Jay didn't want to show him. Andrew frowned at Jay and kicked his ankle. It hurt, and Jay winced slightly.
Tran stood and walked around the table to Jay, grabbing his shirt in his fists and pulling Jay close. "Don't tell me what I do or don't want, I'm sick and tired of other people deciding what's best for me. Show me."
For a moment, Tran and Jay stayed as they were and stared each other down. Jay broke the stare first, looking away to narrow his eyes at Andrew. He was beginning to wonder why he'd ever let Andrew talk him into keeping Tran instead of killing him and maybe turning him into a nice stew. Andrew merely smiled, the expression too smug for Jay's liking, and mouthed I like him.
"Fine," Jay said after a long moment. "But if you try to run, we'll kill you."
"Okay." The word was spoken like a laugh, and Jay felt something in his stomach twist. Tran's smile was sweet, wholly inappropriate for the situation. "Just promise me you'll keep my head."
It was a flippant statement that Jay didn't know how to respond to, but Tran didn't seem to want one. He let go of Jay's shirt and took a step back, hands folded behind him in a perfect picture of acquiescence. Jay looked over to Andrew again, not entirely sure what was going to happen next, and found that Andrew seemed to be as confused as he was. Slowly, Jay stood and motioned for Tran to follow him. He assumed Andrew would follow without being told, because Jay may not have known Andrew for long, but he knew him well enough to know that Andrew would not miss this.
There was an acute sense of terror crystallizing in Jay as Tran walked into the slave quarters and looked around. When he'd shown them to Andrew, Jay had known what to do and what was likely to happen. Tran was different. He stood in the center of the room, looking around at everything like a child looks at a toy store, and then walked directly toward the shelves in the very back. He picked up one of the skulls, careful that the roses did not fall, and held it for a moment before turning toward Jay, who was faintly horrified at Tran touching anything.
"I like yellow roses," Tran said. He was cradling the skull to his chest like a baby, and Jay could do nothing but stare at him. "I think I'd prefer if you kept my whole head, though. You could put it in alcohol like the hands."
Jay watched as Tran carefully set the skull back where it had been sitting before he picked it up. He watched as Tran's fingers ghosted over his other treasures, not quite touching any of them. Andrew had come up behind him at some point and wrapped around him, chin resting on Jay's shoulder. "Aren't you glad I talked you into keeping him?"
"No," Jay said, eyes tracking Tran's every move. "This is worse than the night I met you."
Luke walked up lower Royal Street, checking the finials on every property's gate in search of Jay Byrne's property. When he found the gate with cast iron pineapples, he stopped to get a closer look. Most of it was hidden behind the high brick wall topped with foreboding iron spikes and razor wire, but through the gate Luke could see some of the house. It was a faux-Roman design that was eerily reminiscent of something Luke had once seen in a cemetery, a fact that seemed fitting considering what Luke knew about Jay. The yard was overgrown, and there was an oak tree with overhanging branches that Luke could use to scale the wall - but going in through the front would be foolish.
Instead, Luke walked around the block to Bourbon and located the house he hoped was behind Jay's. He scaled the gate to the property, praying that there was no guard dog or alarm system. There wasn't, just a fountain and another wall to scale. He nearly didn't make it over, but in the end he did and then he was standing in Jay's backyard. He was standing on a shed of some sort, and the vague outline of Jay's house wavered in the darkness in front of him. For a moment Luke surveyed the situation calmly, but then he heard Tran's voice. It was faint, and Luke would know it anywhere. He had spent too much time memorizing it, writing odes about it, to not latch onto it.
"I told you, I'm not going to run."
Someone was saying something in response, but Luke didn't stop to hear it. Instead, he jumped down from the roof, momentarily blinded when the courtyard was flooded with light. Fuck, some kind of motion sensor light system. He was screwed.
The door to the shed opened, and someone who could only have been Jay Byrne stepped out. "Who's there?"
Steeling himself, Luke stood up straight and prepared himself for a fight. Before he could say anything though, someone was squeezing past Jay. "Luke? What the fuck are you doing here?!"
Tran. For a moment, all Luke could do was stare at him. It had been such a long time since he'd seen Tran in person, but he was just as beautiful as Luke remembered - even though he was currently angrier than Luke had ever seen him. Luke took a step toward him, and then Jay stepped in front of Tran, eyes narrowed.
"This is private property," Jay said. His voice was flat, icy even, and it only fueled Luke's anger at having lost Tran to him. He didn't deserve Tran. "I suggest you leave."
"Jay." Tran's voice was firm, and he stepped out from behind Jay, slender fingers wrapping around his arm. "Wait. Let me talk to him."
Luke watched the two of them have a silent conversation of some sort. It was easy to tell that Jay didn't like the idea of Tran talking to him, and it made Luke feel vaguely smug. Tran's new boyfriend was afraid of the ex, huh? It seemed like even a total creep like Jay was still susceptible to jealousy.
"Fine," Jay said. It was irritated, and Luke knew exactly how Jay felt. How giving in to Tran felt. "Just don't make it messy."
Something about the statement struck Luke as weird, but he didn't pay it much mind. Tran smiled at Jay, disarming and beautiful as ever, then let him go to walk toward Luke. Even though Luke knew better than to try and touch Tran, he went to hug him anyway. In retrospect, he probably should have seen the knife to his gut coming.
The first time Tran and I fucked, Jay only watched us. Later, he told us that he was still afraid to touch Tran. Afraid he might kill him, because he loved Tran too much. Tran only laughed when he said it before reminding Jay that he promised he would keep Tran's head in alcohol like the hands and he liked yellow roses. Still that first time, after Tran killed Luke, Jay only watched. He didn't even direct us, like he sometimes did afterward, he just sat there and watch Tran ride me until we were both spent and sprawled on the bed. Then, after a moment, he crawled onto the bed between us.
"I told you not to make it messy," he said.
"It was his first," I said. "Everyone's first is messy. Don't listen to Jay, Tran. You did remarkably well for your first time."
Tran shifted so he was straddling Jay, grinning down at him. "Guess you'll have to teach me how to be neater."
He kissed Jay, and they wrestled for a moment before Jay had Tran pinned to the bed. He ghosted his way down Tran's body until he reached Tran's flaccid penis. Tran was struggling against him, breath hitching as Jay took it into his mouth, but Jay held him down and lavished attention on him. I brushed Tran's hair out of his face and kissed him, a half-hearted attempt at distraction that was more of a selfish taking. I still wasn't entirely used to sex with the living, and the way that Tran reacted to touch, had a mind of his own, was fascinating to me. His fingers twisted in my hair, painful and a reminder that I was among the living. A thing to hold onto and keep him grounded.
I swallowed Tran's sobs as Jay got him off for the second time, cleaned his tears with my tongue, and told him he was the most beautiful boy I'd ever had. It was the truth, insofar as I was concerned. Different people liked different things, so to some it's possible that one of the street rats I picked up and took home would suit them better. Tran suited me just fine, although I did not love him in the same way I loved the boys I kept. I didn't even love him in the same way I loved Jay, but I loved him all the same. Perhaps it was different because I actually loved him and not the mere concept of him. I don't know.
What I do know is that after that first night, after he stabbed Luke and after Jay stood behind Tran to guide his hands in cutting Luke to pieces, Tran was ours and nobody else's. Once, when Tran was in the kitchen making pho for dinner, he told me that he hadn't really known he was going to stay until he woke up the next morning and found Jay and I in the kitchen, eating waffles. Something about the normalcy, the assurance that nothing about us had really changed, endeared us to him.
Jay usually makes waffles on our anniversary.
Sometimes, in the middle of hunting for someone to lure home, Tran thought about his life.
He wondered if people would envy him should they know the complexity of it, and thought that maybe they wouldn't. More likely than not, they'd feel sorry for him. It's not like anyone would understand why he chose to live with two serial killers of his own free will. They wouldn't even understand how he managed to be with both of them without jealousy, which is really the simpler concept between the two. It works, though. They don't always all love each other, but they know each other and that's even better.
Tonight, Tran's shopping list is somebody blond and he's been pickier than usual for some reason. Three perfectly acceptable people have chatted him up, and he's turned each one of them down. None of them felt right, and Tran's listened to Jay lecture him about picking the right people enough times that he wants to bring home someone good today. Jay's type and Andrew's type are different, so picking something that everyone is happy with is the real challenge. If Tran finds someone perfect, sometimes he brings them home even when they don't match the shopping list.
Those nights were usually the best, because those were the nights that Jay and Andrew let him help for being good. He's not as skilled as either of them, so most of the time Tran's only real job is to seduce someone and lure them home. Then, Andrew and Jay can do the dirty work. When they're especially pleased with him, though, they let him help cut the body up and Jay sometimes even lets him choose what part of the body they eat for dinner.
His education in death came when Andrew and Jay felt like it, for the most part. Sometimes Andrew slipped his hand under Tran's dress during dinner, rucking it up while telling him about being dead. Sometimes Jay woke Tran up and pinned him down on the bed, whispering about the best way to keep knives sharp. Sometimes one of them took him out for dinner, telling him a story about a kill and wrapping him up in words until he forgets about everyone around them. Their mood dictated what they were willing to teach, and it would have annoyed Tran if he wasn't so hungry for what they have to teach him.
Across the club, Tran saw someone not much taller than himself with blond hair that has to be bottle born. Their features were ambiguous, just like the clothing hanging off their slight frame, and Tran knew then that this was the reason he'd been so picky all night. Carefully, Tran made his way over, sliding into the space next to them.
"Hi," he said. It was purposefully shy, and no matter how many times he did this, it still felt new and exciting. His target looked over at him, expression curious, and Tran gave them a smile. "My name's Tran."
"Calvin. You don't seem like the type of person that comes here often."
The statement was both right and wrong, but Tran just laughed. "Looks can be deceiving, Calvin. Dance with me?"
Holding out his hand, Tran tilted his head and waited for Calvin to come to him. It didn't take long, and when Calvin took Tran's hand, Tran curled his fingers around Calvin's wrist and pulled him toward the dance floor. At Andrew and Jay's insistence, Tran was always more or less sober when he was hunting. When he went out otherwise they could care less how sloppy he was, but when he was hunting he needed to be sober. It was one of the very few things that both Andrew and Jay agreed on.
When he asked why, Andrew and Jay had looked at each other and then told Tran the story of how they'd met. Being trashed, they explained, had made it far harder to gauge the situation. So Tran could drink, but he should always be more sober than his prey. That was the rule, and it was surprisingly easy to follow. There was a natural high to hunting, Tran found, and he didn't need anything else.
Out on the dance floor, Calvin fit against Tran's body perfectly. As they thrashed to the music, Tran felt a momentary pang of regret that he and Calvin probably wouldn't even get as far as fucking. Something told him that Calvin would be a great fuck, and unlike Andrew, Tran preferred that his partners be among the living. It was a source of great amusement for Andrew that Tran would eat anything and everything Jay served him, but he steadfastly refused to fuck any of the corpses. It had less to do with the social taboo of being a corpse fucker than the fact that passivity wasn't something Tran found attractive in the slightest. He liked his sex rough, liked being manhandled, and that just wasn't something a corpse could give him.
"Come home with me," Tran said. Over the music it was practically a yell, but Calvin heard him all the same.
He let Tran lead him to his death.
"You never stop surprising me."
Jay let his fingers twist into Tran's hair as he spoke. Tran was smiling at him, the happy and pleased one that he wore whenever Jay or Andrew praised him, and Jay kissed him. They were both covered in blood, and Jay could feel the shape of Tran's hands drying on his hips.
"I'm feeling a little left out," Andrew said. It wasn't truly annoyed, so Jay didn't break the kiss to give him any attention. Andrew would survive for a moment without it, he had a fresh corpse to play with. Jay was more concerned with the noises Tran was making against him, the way they were starting to stick together slightly.
There were still times when Jay wanted nothing more than to cut Tran open and examine his insides, find the place inside of him that said trusting Jay and staying with him was a good idea and then preserve in a jar forever. Most of the time, though, Jay couldn't bring himself to do anything that would mean he wouldn't be able to watch Tran surprise him again. If Jay took a shot for every time Tran unnerved him, as he had for Andrew, he strongly suspected his liver would have waved the white flag a long time ago and he would be very, very dead.
When Tran broke the kiss, breathing heavily, Jay could feel the way his lungs shifted inside his ribcage. He wished Tran's skin were transparent - or even translucent - so he could see the barest shadows of how Tran worked. As Tran breathed, Jay contemplated what his lungs looked like and how he would photograph them.
"Will you fuck me tonight?" The question pulled Jay from his thoughts, and it took him a moment to answer. The night was shaping up to be the sort of night where Jay was too in love with Tran to fuck him, which was never something Tran was happy about. He understood it now, at least, but he was never happy about it. Jay didn't hold it against him, because he was usually unhappy about it too.
"I don't think so," Jay said, voice tinged with regret. Tran sighed unhappily, and Jay pet Tran's hair as he touched their foreheads together. "Andrew will, or I can use one of the toys on you. Maybe tie you to the bed and make you come until the sun rises?"
Tran's eyes lit up a little, and Jay marveled that parts of Tran were simplistic and easy to understand while others made Jay sure that several lifetimes wouldn't be enough time to unravel Tran's complexities. About sex, Tran was simple. About nearly anything else, Jay got the distinct feeling that he only understood the bare surfaces of Tran. He still wasn't entirely sure why Tran stayed, why he hadn't run after Andrew had told him everything.
"You can't fuck until we finish up here," Andrew said. He was holding a hacksaw. Tran laughed, bright and ephemeral like some kind of faerie that couldn't be caught. He walked over to Andrew, wrapping around him.
"Can I cut off his head and keep his skull? The red roses are blooming."
"You can't keep every skull, Tran." Andrew's response was exasperated, like it was every time they had this conversation. Jay liked the insides of dead boys, Andrew liked fucking them, and Tran had an intense fascination with their heads.
"Jaaaaaaaaaay." Tran turned toward Jay, already pouting, and Jay tried to steel himself against the expression and failed. Tran had learned how to play Jay against Andrew very early on, and both of them had thought it was cute at first, so they hadn't discouraged it. As Andrew said often, they had raised a puppy with very bad habits. "Andrew says I can't keep the skull."
Briefly, Jay considered telling Tran no. It wasn't like they never did it, but usually they spoiled him. Jay sighed. ". . . Fine. But just this once."
As Tran cheered delightedly, Andrew groaned. "You told him that the last five times! He can't keep them all. He can't."
"Let him have his toys," Jay said with a sigh. Andrew glared at him, but this wasn't a new occurrence and Jay knew that Andrew wasn't really upset about the skulls. He wanted Tran to keep them as much as Jay did. It was all more or less a charade to make Tran feel as if he'd won something.
Instead of arguing further, Andrew turned to watch Tran cut off the head. He barely struggled with the task, and Jay felt a strange sense of pride blossom in his chest. Maybe he had been wrong.
Maybe Tran was a gift from some dark god.
We were dying.
That was the forgone conclusion none of us ever talked about: we were dying and there was nothing to do about it. This wasn't dying in the sense that everyone is dying a slow death we like to call life. All three of us were dying from a virus that no one knew very much about, except for that it was slow and fairly awful to suffer through.
It was something that was easy to forget, at first. It was easy to brush aside and pay no mind to the Grim Reaper that hovered behind us as if waiting for us to fall, one by one. None of us cared to discuss that we might wither away, and so we didn't touch the subject.
Until Tran got sick. Until the morning that Tran shivered and puked up what seemed like everything that had ever been in his stomach.
Jay pushed his hair back and whispered to him, wrapped an arm around him, and Tran moaned. "Luke's last gift. Fucking bastard."
I had heard Tran's tale in pieces over the two years that we'd been together. He didn't talk of Luke much anymore, preferring to simply say he was dead and that was all that mattered, but I knew that Luke had the same problem we all did and Tran was just choosing to blame it on him instead of me. Jay looked toward me, eyes wild as his fingers tightened around Tran's arm. It seemed that when Jay kept things, he did not like to give them up.
We put Tran to bed after giving him some painkillers, and then we sat in the kitchen for a very long time without talking. Eventually, Tran stumbled out into the kitchen and sank onto a chair. He already looked a great deal like I once had, when I was dead enough to escape from prison, and I did not like the look on him. Jay liked it even less. He frowned, before getting up. "Can you eat?"
Tran shook his head, and it seemed to take all the energy he had. Jay's frown deepened. "I'll make you a waffle anyway."
After Jay set a waffle before each of us, Tran poked at it despondently. He didn't cut it, and he didn't drown it in syrup like usual. Jay and I ate, though, quietly and concerned. Tran pushed away his plate away a few minutes later, though it didn't go very far.
"You need to kill me," Tran whispered. "Put my head in a jar. Make a meal of me."
"No." Jay's words were fierce, knuckles white where they curved around his knife. Tran breathed out, eyes fluttering closed, and smiled faintly. I didn't say anything, aware that this was not a moment meant for me.
There was a tense air in the room, and then Tran opened his eyes. "Jay," he said quietly, "please."
From the look on Jay's face, it was clear that his resolve was crumbling. I wanted to reach for him, but placed my fingers around Tran's shoulder instead. He looked at me and smiled, looking so much like the boy who had nervously interrupted Jay and I so many years ago. Tran rested his fingers over mine, and then slowly reached out and wrapped his other hand around Jay's forearm. His eyes were tired but determined, and Jay fell to pieces. He stood, crying, and wrapped Tran up in a hug that looked like it would break all of Tran's bones.
"Okay." Jay sounded like the whole world was ending. "Because I love you."
As Tran got thinner, wasted away and became something like a walking corpse, he thought that maybe this was a punishment for loving Jay even when he shouldn't. He couldn't think of it as too much of a punishment, though, because it was worth it. It would always be worth it if he got to be with Jay, and in a way he came to terms with this a long time ago, made peace with death that night when Jay took him out back and showed him the mess of his heart.
Still: dying sucked.
Jay spent a lot of time sitting in the chair that they'd pretty much permanently placed by the bed, brushing Tran's hair back and helping him drink water or eat whatever he'd prepared. Andrew fucked him, and Jay mostly played the part of a corpse, better than he'd been able to before. He had no energy to move, even when he wanted to, and Andrew didn't mind. Tran was pretty sure that Andrew liked him better like this anyway, which was fine with him.
He was dying, most everything was fine by him. Unlike some people, flirting with death, causing it and watching it float away from people, had put Tran at ease with the idea of dying. He had sensed it coming, had decided to embrace it with open arms instead of fighting it.
It was not a choice that Jay was happy with, and Jay kept telling him that they could take him to a doctor, could fight this thing that was coursing through him. Tran understood this as the way Jay chose to show his love and politely declined. He didn't want to live if it was this weird half-state of being. That might be Andrew's thing, but it wasn't his. If he was going to live, Tran wanted to live.
his current state wasn't anything close to actually living. It felt like torture, like those last few weeks of being with Luke, and Tran hated it. He told Jay so, and while Jay did not cry, Tran thought that might have only been because he did not remember how.
Most of the time, Jay did not meticulously plan his murders. He and Andrew were alike in this respect, both merely taking the victims that presented themselves and not spending any particular amount of time thinking it through. With Tran, however, Jay planned everything out meticulously. This, after all, was not so much a murder as a funeral.
Usually, he liked struggle. He liked feeling the life leave someone, and had Jay's relationship to Tran remained the same as it had on the first night, the time that Jay did not kill Tran, he might have gone his usual route. This was Tran, though, the one person on the Earth who Jay loved with his entire being, and something about that made Jay sentimental. It made Jay feed Tran too many pills and curl around him until his breathing finally stopped for good.
Andrew was on Tran's other side, finger's tight around Jay's wrist. When Tran finally stopped breathing, Andrew was the one who scooped him up, body small and mostly bone, and laid him in the bath. Although they usually didn't do things Andrew's way, Jay let this happen. He let Andrew wash Tran clean and towel him dry, watching as Andrew said goodbye to Tran in his own way.
Then, although he and Andrew had disagreed on this point, Jay opened Tran up and finally figured out how he was put together. Face buried in where Tran's heart had lately been, Jay breathed and did not cry. He just drew in breath and let it out, then repeated the process.
When Jay finally felt like he could actually breathe, he set to work preparing Tran's body. His knife was swift and efficient, and Andrew watched him as he worked. They didn't talk, the absence of Tran-lovely, beautiful Tran who brought out the best in both of them-closing in around them. He set aside Tran's head, brushing the hair out of Tran's eyes one last time, and Andrew took it to place in the alcohol that Jay had already prepared. It was a pity that they couldn't have it with dinner, but it would be okay. It would be.
By the time Andrew had returned, Jay was done preparing Tran. He carried him into the kitchen, and began to cook. Andrew waited, having hoisted himself on the counter, and the house was too silent for words. There was a plan in place, for what would happen next, but they did not need to talk about that. It was already said and done, and there was nothing more to talk about now.
They ate, and then they waited.
It is sometimes said, by the people who populate the French Quarter, that there is a house with pineapple finials where three murderers lived. Some of the crazier folk will tell you that they're still there, haunting the property and delighting in scaring whoever is foolish enough to trespass on their territory.
The story about then is told many different ways, though, from them all being in love to them all hating each other, but everyone will tell you that they drank alcohol laced with arsenic in the end and that's how they were found: sleeping together like the world outside their house did not exist-two corpses with a skull cradled between them, smiling serenely.
(ps: if you're late to the party/just want more porn, go check out the pornmas advent calendar/masterlist.)
This entry originally posted here. Original entry currently has
comments. :D
Fandom/Pairings: Exquisite Corpse [Poppy Z. Brite]; Andrew/Jay/Tran
Rating: R
Pre-Notes: Do you ever get really, inexplicably mad about the ending of something? Yeah. I've been really, inexplicably mad about the ending of Exquisite Corpse for approximately forever, so I finally took matters into my own hands and rewrote the entire ending to the damn book. If you've read it, this fic starts at the end of chapter 13 and entirely replaces everything after that. If you haven't read the book, here's what you need to know: Andrew is a British serial killer who faked his own death and fucks corpses, Jay is an American serial killer who tortures and eats people, Tran is a Vietnamese twenty-something who has a thing for Jay and decapitation, Luke is Tran's ex-boyfriend who is kind of a douche. Before this story starts, Jay almost kills Tran but doesn't because he's a local and he has a family. Then, Jay meets Andrew and tries to kill him but instead they fall in serial killer love. Later, Andrew decides that Tran (who he introduces himself to as Arthur, Jay's cousin) is the perfect victim, so Jay invites him over again. Then this fic happens.
. . . By the way, this fic contains romanticized character death, murder, cannibalism, necrophilia, and mentions of AIDS (it's in the book). Probably also some dub-con, depending on how you read it. It's also partially in first person, because the source material is partially in first person. I'M REALLY SORRY ABOUT THIS YEAR'S PORNMAS I PROMISE THERE'S SOME LESS DISTURBING THINGS COMING UP.
Disclaimer: I just wrote six thousand words of fix-it fic, no it doesn't fucking belong to me.
all was golden when the day met the night
"Let's keep him," I said.
Jay looked at me, and for a moment I was reminded of the way puppies look at things they're surprised by and don't understand. Their eyes are full of confusion and a little bit of betrayal when they look to you, because puppies expect everything to work out according to how they think the world works. I curled my fingers around Jay's face and smiled.
"Weren't you saying something about how it's bad to kill Quarter boys anyway? We should keep him instead."
"We can't keep him," Jay said. I tilted my head to the side and waited for him to finish his thought, to add the explanation. "He's seen too much. We have to finish the job."
Tran was murmuring still, twisting on the bed as if having a fever dream. Gently, I turned Jay's face so his gaze was focused on Tran.
"Look at him and tell me you don't want to keep him," I whispered. Jay shivered and tried to look away from Tran; I held him fast. "He would let us."
I let Jay go then, to do what he would. His hands were shaking, the only reminder of how drunk we really were, and he looked at me helplessly. I waited.
"I don't keep things."
The excuse was weak, and it was easy to tell that Jay was only saying it because he felt he ought to. I shifted closer to him and touched our foreheads together. "You kept me."
When Tran became aware again after passing out on Arthur's dick, he was tucked into bed. The sheets were cool against his skin, expensive as fuck silk that told him he was most likely in Jay's bedroom. It was dark, but the sliver of light coming from the doorway told him that the rest of the house wasn't. Cautiously Tran slipped out of bed and the room, following the faint sound of conversation and the smell of food into the kitchen.
Arthur and Jay were talking as Jay stirred something on the stove. The way Arthur was pressed to Jay's back, hands slipped under his sweater and pressing a kiss to the back of his neck, wasn't a cousinly gesture and cemented what Tran already suspected: it was very likely that Arthur and Jay weren't related at all. Tran stepped into the kitchen, and Arthur turned to look at him. His eyes were dangerous in the same way that Jay's were.
"You're awake. We were worried when you passed out."
Jay said nothing, and Tran looked down at the hardwood floor under his feet.
"Sorry we were a little too rough with you," Andrew said. Tran wanted to tell him that it wasn't the first time he had choked on someone's dick and passed out and it wasn't a problem, but he couldn't get his mouth to produce the words. "Are you hungry?"
Tran shook his head no, even though he was faintly hungry. He was so intensely focused on the floor and the fact that Jay still hadn't said anything that he missed Arthur walking over, missed Arthur's arm wrapping around him and fingers coming under his chin to force him to look up. His gaze was searching, but Tran couldn't tell what he was searching for. He must have found it, though, because he kissed Tran soundly.
"Arthur," Jay said. It was sharp and slightly annoyed, but almost fond. "Get to the point."
The kiss lasted a moment longer, and then Arthur pulled away with a sigh. He turned toward Jay, arm still wrapped around Tran. It wasn't a tight hold, and Tran could have gotten away if he had wanted to. He didn't move. "Patience is a virtue, love," Andrew said, voice dripping artificial sweetness. "I was getting there."
Looking between Arthur and Jay, Tran got the distinct feeling that he was missing out on something important. The air was tense, but it was difficult to tell if it was because of the intricacies of Arthur and Jay's flirting or the distinct feeling that something horrible was about to happen. Arthur's fingers were warm against his back, and his grip had tightened slightly. Jay was plating jambalaya, seemingly unconcerned with Arthur's response.
After a moment, the tension seemed to have broken and Arthur's grip loosened. He looked at Tran, smiling sweetly, and Tran was reminded of a fox or maybe a wolf. "Jay and I have a proposition for you," Arthur said. "Do you want to get to know us better?"
It took a moment for the question to sink in, and another moment for Tran to fight the urge to burst into laughter. Jay's words from that first night were rattling around in his head: You better be ready for whatever happens. Arthur's proposition wasn't what Tran was expecting, and he wasn't entirely sure that he was ready for it. He wasn't sure you could be ready for something like this. Still, the answer is the easiest thing that he's ever had to say. He doesn't even have to think about it: Tran knows the answer like he knows the Quarter.
"Would I be here if I wasn't?"
Jay set two plates of jambalaya down on the kitchen table. "Do you remember what I told you?"
There's a long list of things Jay's told Tran, but Tran knew the ones that Jay were talking about were the words that are on repeat like a broken record in his head. He slipped out of Arthur's arms and walked over to Jay, hands settling on Jay's hips as he pressed their bodies together. "Yeah. Do you remember what I told you?"
"I do," Jay said, quiet like a confession as his fingers found their way into Tran's hair. "I just hope you meant it."
The problem with Andrew, Jay had decided, was that he was decidedly reckless. It was a calculated recklessness, which Jay admired, but as they sat down and ate while Tran sat primly in his chair, it made Jay more nervous than he could ever remember feeling. Andrew was charming, and Jay had faith in his ability to act appropriately if it seemed like Tran was going to react badly to what they were going to tell him. He just didn't have faith in Tran's ability to take the news that he was in the presence of two serial killers well, which was a perfectly reasonable thing. In Jay's experience, people do not take to serial killers well.
While Andrew talked, Tran was quiet. It made Jay nervous, because quiet wasn't a reaction he knew how to deal with. Andrew didn't seem to notice Tran's silence, or perhaps didn't care - he just kept talking until he'd finished and then waited for Tran's response. It took a very long moment for it to come.
"I want to see." Tran looked up and met Jay's eyes, something fierce burning in them. Jay nearly dropped his fork, caught off-guard by the certainty in Tran's words. He looked at Andrew, who shrugged. "Show me," Tran said. "I want to see where you keep them."
"You don't want to see that," Jay said. It wasn't quite the truth, because the truth was that Jay didn't want to show him. Andrew frowned at Jay and kicked his ankle. It hurt, and Jay winced slightly.
Tran stood and walked around the table to Jay, grabbing his shirt in his fists and pulling Jay close. "Don't tell me what I do or don't want, I'm sick and tired of other people deciding what's best for me. Show me."
For a moment, Tran and Jay stayed as they were and stared each other down. Jay broke the stare first, looking away to narrow his eyes at Andrew. He was beginning to wonder why he'd ever let Andrew talk him into keeping Tran instead of killing him and maybe turning him into a nice stew. Andrew merely smiled, the expression too smug for Jay's liking, and mouthed I like him.
"Fine," Jay said after a long moment. "But if you try to run, we'll kill you."
"Okay." The word was spoken like a laugh, and Jay felt something in his stomach twist. Tran's smile was sweet, wholly inappropriate for the situation. "Just promise me you'll keep my head."
It was a flippant statement that Jay didn't know how to respond to, but Tran didn't seem to want one. He let go of Jay's shirt and took a step back, hands folded behind him in a perfect picture of acquiescence. Jay looked over to Andrew again, not entirely sure what was going to happen next, and found that Andrew seemed to be as confused as he was. Slowly, Jay stood and motioned for Tran to follow him. He assumed Andrew would follow without being told, because Jay may not have known Andrew for long, but he knew him well enough to know that Andrew would not miss this.
There was an acute sense of terror crystallizing in Jay as Tran walked into the slave quarters and looked around. When he'd shown them to Andrew, Jay had known what to do and what was likely to happen. Tran was different. He stood in the center of the room, looking around at everything like a child looks at a toy store, and then walked directly toward the shelves in the very back. He picked up one of the skulls, careful that the roses did not fall, and held it for a moment before turning toward Jay, who was faintly horrified at Tran touching anything.
"I like yellow roses," Tran said. He was cradling the skull to his chest like a baby, and Jay could do nothing but stare at him. "I think I'd prefer if you kept my whole head, though. You could put it in alcohol like the hands."
Jay watched as Tran carefully set the skull back where it had been sitting before he picked it up. He watched as Tran's fingers ghosted over his other treasures, not quite touching any of them. Andrew had come up behind him at some point and wrapped around him, chin resting on Jay's shoulder. "Aren't you glad I talked you into keeping him?"
"No," Jay said, eyes tracking Tran's every move. "This is worse than the night I met you."
Luke walked up lower Royal Street, checking the finials on every property's gate in search of Jay Byrne's property. When he found the gate with cast iron pineapples, he stopped to get a closer look. Most of it was hidden behind the high brick wall topped with foreboding iron spikes and razor wire, but through the gate Luke could see some of the house. It was a faux-Roman design that was eerily reminiscent of something Luke had once seen in a cemetery, a fact that seemed fitting considering what Luke knew about Jay. The yard was overgrown, and there was an oak tree with overhanging branches that Luke could use to scale the wall - but going in through the front would be foolish.
Instead, Luke walked around the block to Bourbon and located the house he hoped was behind Jay's. He scaled the gate to the property, praying that there was no guard dog or alarm system. There wasn't, just a fountain and another wall to scale. He nearly didn't make it over, but in the end he did and then he was standing in Jay's backyard. He was standing on a shed of some sort, and the vague outline of Jay's house wavered in the darkness in front of him. For a moment Luke surveyed the situation calmly, but then he heard Tran's voice. It was faint, and Luke would know it anywhere. He had spent too much time memorizing it, writing odes about it, to not latch onto it.
"I told you, I'm not going to run."
Someone was saying something in response, but Luke didn't stop to hear it. Instead, he jumped down from the roof, momentarily blinded when the courtyard was flooded with light. Fuck, some kind of motion sensor light system. He was screwed.
The door to the shed opened, and someone who could only have been Jay Byrne stepped out. "Who's there?"
Steeling himself, Luke stood up straight and prepared himself for a fight. Before he could say anything though, someone was squeezing past Jay. "Luke? What the fuck are you doing here?!"
Tran. For a moment, all Luke could do was stare at him. It had been such a long time since he'd seen Tran in person, but he was just as beautiful as Luke remembered - even though he was currently angrier than Luke had ever seen him. Luke took a step toward him, and then Jay stepped in front of Tran, eyes narrowed.
"This is private property," Jay said. His voice was flat, icy even, and it only fueled Luke's anger at having lost Tran to him. He didn't deserve Tran. "I suggest you leave."
"Jay." Tran's voice was firm, and he stepped out from behind Jay, slender fingers wrapping around his arm. "Wait. Let me talk to him."
Luke watched the two of them have a silent conversation of some sort. It was easy to tell that Jay didn't like the idea of Tran talking to him, and it made Luke feel vaguely smug. Tran's new boyfriend was afraid of the ex, huh? It seemed like even a total creep like Jay was still susceptible to jealousy.
"Fine," Jay said. It was irritated, and Luke knew exactly how Jay felt. How giving in to Tran felt. "Just don't make it messy."
Something about the statement struck Luke as weird, but he didn't pay it much mind. Tran smiled at Jay, disarming and beautiful as ever, then let him go to walk toward Luke. Even though Luke knew better than to try and touch Tran, he went to hug him anyway. In retrospect, he probably should have seen the knife to his gut coming.
The first time Tran and I fucked, Jay only watched us. Later, he told us that he was still afraid to touch Tran. Afraid he might kill him, because he loved Tran too much. Tran only laughed when he said it before reminding Jay that he promised he would keep Tran's head in alcohol like the hands and he liked yellow roses. Still that first time, after Tran killed Luke, Jay only watched. He didn't even direct us, like he sometimes did afterward, he just sat there and watch Tran ride me until we were both spent and sprawled on the bed. Then, after a moment, he crawled onto the bed between us.
"I told you not to make it messy," he said.
"It was his first," I said. "Everyone's first is messy. Don't listen to Jay, Tran. You did remarkably well for your first time."
Tran shifted so he was straddling Jay, grinning down at him. "Guess you'll have to teach me how to be neater."
He kissed Jay, and they wrestled for a moment before Jay had Tran pinned to the bed. He ghosted his way down Tran's body until he reached Tran's flaccid penis. Tran was struggling against him, breath hitching as Jay took it into his mouth, but Jay held him down and lavished attention on him. I brushed Tran's hair out of his face and kissed him, a half-hearted attempt at distraction that was more of a selfish taking. I still wasn't entirely used to sex with the living, and the way that Tran reacted to touch, had a mind of his own, was fascinating to me. His fingers twisted in my hair, painful and a reminder that I was among the living. A thing to hold onto and keep him grounded.
I swallowed Tran's sobs as Jay got him off for the second time, cleaned his tears with my tongue, and told him he was the most beautiful boy I'd ever had. It was the truth, insofar as I was concerned. Different people liked different things, so to some it's possible that one of the street rats I picked up and took home would suit them better. Tran suited me just fine, although I did not love him in the same way I loved the boys I kept. I didn't even love him in the same way I loved Jay, but I loved him all the same. Perhaps it was different because I actually loved him and not the mere concept of him. I don't know.
What I do know is that after that first night, after he stabbed Luke and after Jay stood behind Tran to guide his hands in cutting Luke to pieces, Tran was ours and nobody else's. Once, when Tran was in the kitchen making pho for dinner, he told me that he hadn't really known he was going to stay until he woke up the next morning and found Jay and I in the kitchen, eating waffles. Something about the normalcy, the assurance that nothing about us had really changed, endeared us to him.
Jay usually makes waffles on our anniversary.
Sometimes, in the middle of hunting for someone to lure home, Tran thought about his life.
He wondered if people would envy him should they know the complexity of it, and thought that maybe they wouldn't. More likely than not, they'd feel sorry for him. It's not like anyone would understand why he chose to live with two serial killers of his own free will. They wouldn't even understand how he managed to be with both of them without jealousy, which is really the simpler concept between the two. It works, though. They don't always all love each other, but they know each other and that's even better.
Tonight, Tran's shopping list is somebody blond and he's been pickier than usual for some reason. Three perfectly acceptable people have chatted him up, and he's turned each one of them down. None of them felt right, and Tran's listened to Jay lecture him about picking the right people enough times that he wants to bring home someone good today. Jay's type and Andrew's type are different, so picking something that everyone is happy with is the real challenge. If Tran finds someone perfect, sometimes he brings them home even when they don't match the shopping list.
Those nights were usually the best, because those were the nights that Jay and Andrew let him help for being good. He's not as skilled as either of them, so most of the time Tran's only real job is to seduce someone and lure them home. Then, Andrew and Jay can do the dirty work. When they're especially pleased with him, though, they let him help cut the body up and Jay sometimes even lets him choose what part of the body they eat for dinner.
His education in death came when Andrew and Jay felt like it, for the most part. Sometimes Andrew slipped his hand under Tran's dress during dinner, rucking it up while telling him about being dead. Sometimes Jay woke Tran up and pinned him down on the bed, whispering about the best way to keep knives sharp. Sometimes one of them took him out for dinner, telling him a story about a kill and wrapping him up in words until he forgets about everyone around them. Their mood dictated what they were willing to teach, and it would have annoyed Tran if he wasn't so hungry for what they have to teach him.
Across the club, Tran saw someone not much taller than himself with blond hair that has to be bottle born. Their features were ambiguous, just like the clothing hanging off their slight frame, and Tran knew then that this was the reason he'd been so picky all night. Carefully, Tran made his way over, sliding into the space next to them.
"Hi," he said. It was purposefully shy, and no matter how many times he did this, it still felt new and exciting. His target looked over at him, expression curious, and Tran gave them a smile. "My name's Tran."
"Calvin. You don't seem like the type of person that comes here often."
The statement was both right and wrong, but Tran just laughed. "Looks can be deceiving, Calvin. Dance with me?"
Holding out his hand, Tran tilted his head and waited for Calvin to come to him. It didn't take long, and when Calvin took Tran's hand, Tran curled his fingers around Calvin's wrist and pulled him toward the dance floor. At Andrew and Jay's insistence, Tran was always more or less sober when he was hunting. When he went out otherwise they could care less how sloppy he was, but when he was hunting he needed to be sober. It was one of the very few things that both Andrew and Jay agreed on.
When he asked why, Andrew and Jay had looked at each other and then told Tran the story of how they'd met. Being trashed, they explained, had made it far harder to gauge the situation. So Tran could drink, but he should always be more sober than his prey. That was the rule, and it was surprisingly easy to follow. There was a natural high to hunting, Tran found, and he didn't need anything else.
Out on the dance floor, Calvin fit against Tran's body perfectly. As they thrashed to the music, Tran felt a momentary pang of regret that he and Calvin probably wouldn't even get as far as fucking. Something told him that Calvin would be a great fuck, and unlike Andrew, Tran preferred that his partners be among the living. It was a source of great amusement for Andrew that Tran would eat anything and everything Jay served him, but he steadfastly refused to fuck any of the corpses. It had less to do with the social taboo of being a corpse fucker than the fact that passivity wasn't something Tran found attractive in the slightest. He liked his sex rough, liked being manhandled, and that just wasn't something a corpse could give him.
"Come home with me," Tran said. Over the music it was practically a yell, but Calvin heard him all the same.
He let Tran lead him to his death.
"You never stop surprising me."
Jay let his fingers twist into Tran's hair as he spoke. Tran was smiling at him, the happy and pleased one that he wore whenever Jay or Andrew praised him, and Jay kissed him. They were both covered in blood, and Jay could feel the shape of Tran's hands drying on his hips.
"I'm feeling a little left out," Andrew said. It wasn't truly annoyed, so Jay didn't break the kiss to give him any attention. Andrew would survive for a moment without it, he had a fresh corpse to play with. Jay was more concerned with the noises Tran was making against him, the way they were starting to stick together slightly.
There were still times when Jay wanted nothing more than to cut Tran open and examine his insides, find the place inside of him that said trusting Jay and staying with him was a good idea and then preserve in a jar forever. Most of the time, though, Jay couldn't bring himself to do anything that would mean he wouldn't be able to watch Tran surprise him again. If Jay took a shot for every time Tran unnerved him, as he had for Andrew, he strongly suspected his liver would have waved the white flag a long time ago and he would be very, very dead.
When Tran broke the kiss, breathing heavily, Jay could feel the way his lungs shifted inside his ribcage. He wished Tran's skin were transparent - or even translucent - so he could see the barest shadows of how Tran worked. As Tran breathed, Jay contemplated what his lungs looked like and how he would photograph them.
"Will you fuck me tonight?" The question pulled Jay from his thoughts, and it took him a moment to answer. The night was shaping up to be the sort of night where Jay was too in love with Tran to fuck him, which was never something Tran was happy about. He understood it now, at least, but he was never happy about it. Jay didn't hold it against him, because he was usually unhappy about it too.
"I don't think so," Jay said, voice tinged with regret. Tran sighed unhappily, and Jay pet Tran's hair as he touched their foreheads together. "Andrew will, or I can use one of the toys on you. Maybe tie you to the bed and make you come until the sun rises?"
Tran's eyes lit up a little, and Jay marveled that parts of Tran were simplistic and easy to understand while others made Jay sure that several lifetimes wouldn't be enough time to unravel Tran's complexities. About sex, Tran was simple. About nearly anything else, Jay got the distinct feeling that he only understood the bare surfaces of Tran. He still wasn't entirely sure why Tran stayed, why he hadn't run after Andrew had told him everything.
"You can't fuck until we finish up here," Andrew said. He was holding a hacksaw. Tran laughed, bright and ephemeral like some kind of faerie that couldn't be caught. He walked over to Andrew, wrapping around him.
"Can I cut off his head and keep his skull? The red roses are blooming."
"You can't keep every skull, Tran." Andrew's response was exasperated, like it was every time they had this conversation. Jay liked the insides of dead boys, Andrew liked fucking them, and Tran had an intense fascination with their heads.
"Jaaaaaaaaaay." Tran turned toward Jay, already pouting, and Jay tried to steel himself against the expression and failed. Tran had learned how to play Jay against Andrew very early on, and both of them had thought it was cute at first, so they hadn't discouraged it. As Andrew said often, they had raised a puppy with very bad habits. "Andrew says I can't keep the skull."
Briefly, Jay considered telling Tran no. It wasn't like they never did it, but usually they spoiled him. Jay sighed. ". . . Fine. But just this once."
As Tran cheered delightedly, Andrew groaned. "You told him that the last five times! He can't keep them all. He can't."
"Let him have his toys," Jay said with a sigh. Andrew glared at him, but this wasn't a new occurrence and Jay knew that Andrew wasn't really upset about the skulls. He wanted Tran to keep them as much as Jay did. It was all more or less a charade to make Tran feel as if he'd won something.
Instead of arguing further, Andrew turned to watch Tran cut off the head. He barely struggled with the task, and Jay felt a strange sense of pride blossom in his chest. Maybe he had been wrong.
Maybe Tran was a gift from some dark god.
We were dying.
That was the forgone conclusion none of us ever talked about: we were dying and there was nothing to do about it. This wasn't dying in the sense that everyone is dying a slow death we like to call life. All three of us were dying from a virus that no one knew very much about, except for that it was slow and fairly awful to suffer through.
It was something that was easy to forget, at first. It was easy to brush aside and pay no mind to the Grim Reaper that hovered behind us as if waiting for us to fall, one by one. None of us cared to discuss that we might wither away, and so we didn't touch the subject.
Until Tran got sick. Until the morning that Tran shivered and puked up what seemed like everything that had ever been in his stomach.
Jay pushed his hair back and whispered to him, wrapped an arm around him, and Tran moaned. "Luke's last gift. Fucking bastard."
I had heard Tran's tale in pieces over the two years that we'd been together. He didn't talk of Luke much anymore, preferring to simply say he was dead and that was all that mattered, but I knew that Luke had the same problem we all did and Tran was just choosing to blame it on him instead of me. Jay looked toward me, eyes wild as his fingers tightened around Tran's arm. It seemed that when Jay kept things, he did not like to give them up.
We put Tran to bed after giving him some painkillers, and then we sat in the kitchen for a very long time without talking. Eventually, Tran stumbled out into the kitchen and sank onto a chair. He already looked a great deal like I once had, when I was dead enough to escape from prison, and I did not like the look on him. Jay liked it even less. He frowned, before getting up. "Can you eat?"
Tran shook his head, and it seemed to take all the energy he had. Jay's frown deepened. "I'll make you a waffle anyway."
After Jay set a waffle before each of us, Tran poked at it despondently. He didn't cut it, and he didn't drown it in syrup like usual. Jay and I ate, though, quietly and concerned. Tran pushed away his plate away a few minutes later, though it didn't go very far.
"You need to kill me," Tran whispered. "Put my head in a jar. Make a meal of me."
"No." Jay's words were fierce, knuckles white where they curved around his knife. Tran breathed out, eyes fluttering closed, and smiled faintly. I didn't say anything, aware that this was not a moment meant for me.
There was a tense air in the room, and then Tran opened his eyes. "Jay," he said quietly, "please."
From the look on Jay's face, it was clear that his resolve was crumbling. I wanted to reach for him, but placed my fingers around Tran's shoulder instead. He looked at me and smiled, looking so much like the boy who had nervously interrupted Jay and I so many years ago. Tran rested his fingers over mine, and then slowly reached out and wrapped his other hand around Jay's forearm. His eyes were tired but determined, and Jay fell to pieces. He stood, crying, and wrapped Tran up in a hug that looked like it would break all of Tran's bones.
"Okay." Jay sounded like the whole world was ending. "Because I love you."
As Tran got thinner, wasted away and became something like a walking corpse, he thought that maybe this was a punishment for loving Jay even when he shouldn't. He couldn't think of it as too much of a punishment, though, because it was worth it. It would always be worth it if he got to be with Jay, and in a way he came to terms with this a long time ago, made peace with death that night when Jay took him out back and showed him the mess of his heart.
Still: dying sucked.
Jay spent a lot of time sitting in the chair that they'd pretty much permanently placed by the bed, brushing Tran's hair back and helping him drink water or eat whatever he'd prepared. Andrew fucked him, and Jay mostly played the part of a corpse, better than he'd been able to before. He had no energy to move, even when he wanted to, and Andrew didn't mind. Tran was pretty sure that Andrew liked him better like this anyway, which was fine with him.
He was dying, most everything was fine by him. Unlike some people, flirting with death, causing it and watching it float away from people, had put Tran at ease with the idea of dying. He had sensed it coming, had decided to embrace it with open arms instead of fighting it.
It was not a choice that Jay was happy with, and Jay kept telling him that they could take him to a doctor, could fight this thing that was coursing through him. Tran understood this as the way Jay chose to show his love and politely declined. He didn't want to live if it was this weird half-state of being. That might be Andrew's thing, but it wasn't his. If he was going to live, Tran wanted to live.
his current state wasn't anything close to actually living. It felt like torture, like those last few weeks of being with Luke, and Tran hated it. He told Jay so, and while Jay did not cry, Tran thought that might have only been because he did not remember how.
Most of the time, Jay did not meticulously plan his murders. He and Andrew were alike in this respect, both merely taking the victims that presented themselves and not spending any particular amount of time thinking it through. With Tran, however, Jay planned everything out meticulously. This, after all, was not so much a murder as a funeral.
Usually, he liked struggle. He liked feeling the life leave someone, and had Jay's relationship to Tran remained the same as it had on the first night, the time that Jay did not kill Tran, he might have gone his usual route. This was Tran, though, the one person on the Earth who Jay loved with his entire being, and something about that made Jay sentimental. It made Jay feed Tran too many pills and curl around him until his breathing finally stopped for good.
Andrew was on Tran's other side, finger's tight around Jay's wrist. When Tran finally stopped breathing, Andrew was the one who scooped him up, body small and mostly bone, and laid him in the bath. Although they usually didn't do things Andrew's way, Jay let this happen. He let Andrew wash Tran clean and towel him dry, watching as Andrew said goodbye to Tran in his own way.
Then, although he and Andrew had disagreed on this point, Jay opened Tran up and finally figured out how he was put together. Face buried in where Tran's heart had lately been, Jay breathed and did not cry. He just drew in breath and let it out, then repeated the process.
When Jay finally felt like he could actually breathe, he set to work preparing Tran's body. His knife was swift and efficient, and Andrew watched him as he worked. They didn't talk, the absence of Tran-lovely, beautiful Tran who brought out the best in both of them-closing in around them. He set aside Tran's head, brushing the hair out of Tran's eyes one last time, and Andrew took it to place in the alcohol that Jay had already prepared. It was a pity that they couldn't have it with dinner, but it would be okay. It would be.
By the time Andrew had returned, Jay was done preparing Tran. He carried him into the kitchen, and began to cook. Andrew waited, having hoisted himself on the counter, and the house was too silent for words. There was a plan in place, for what would happen next, but they did not need to talk about that. It was already said and done, and there was nothing more to talk about now.
They ate, and then they waited.
It is sometimes said, by the people who populate the French Quarter, that there is a house with pineapple finials where three murderers lived. Some of the crazier folk will tell you that they're still there, haunting the property and delighting in scaring whoever is foolish enough to trespass on their territory.
The story about then is told many different ways, though, from them all being in love to them all hating each other, but everyone will tell you that they drank alcohol laced with arsenic in the end and that's how they were found: sleeping together like the world outside their house did not exist-two corpses with a skull cradled between them, smiling serenely.
(ps: if you're late to the party/just want more porn, go check out the pornmas advent calendar/masterlist.)
This entry originally posted here. Original entry currently has
comments. :D