Author's note: Hi guys, how are you all doing? It has been a bit more than a year since I last updated and I must ask you all for forgiveness for this tardiness. I swear it's because of my schoolwork and not because of laziness on my part (though this statement applies only up until last month). It has been so long since I last wrote anything that my writing is now all over the place and I can't really get it right, so it's going to be like the start of this story or worse. I sincerely ask that you bear with it and allow me to improve slowly throughout the few remaining chapters. That said, I'm very glad to be back. I hope you will enjoy the chapter, which, though short, took me nearly a month to write. Thank you all for your support up until my unannounced hiatus and I hope to receive continued support from you from now on.

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Chapter 11: Into depravity

When he entered the room was dark. It had been a cold and wet day overall, with the clouds hanging ominously as a veil from God's vision, and on such a day it could almost be thought that God has turned his back to his own creations, drowned in misery and suffering. It was little later than four in the afternoon and darkness has already enveloped everything within its loving embrace, which was thick and heavy as a blanket. The temperature has already dropped, and the slush from the fresh snow in the afternoon has congealed into ice. In the lack of light, they dulled into hideous grey masses upon the ground that was neither pretty nor shiny, but dingy and treacherous – perhaps a good reflection of the day itself. The young man dragged himself into his room, his posture slightly slumped and his feet shuffling.

Upon the bed lay a vague figure, and in the dead quiet of the early evening, the gentle breathing could barely be made out against the void that was the room. It was a slow, lulling rhythm of in and out, inhaling and exhaling, an almost invisible sheen of mist escaping with each puff of breath. Slowly, as the darkness adjusted to one's eyes, his face could be made out against the shadows, soft white glowing as a single spot of light leading the way towards the bed. In the chill of the unheated room, his pale skin became white as death, an unhealthy shade passing underneath the smooth glow. Perhaps but for his breathing, he could have been regarded as such. Yet even in this terrible sort of silence, there was an ethereal kind of beauty about him – not that of a woman, for certain, but perhaps of the archangel Michael himself, with the sharp angles of his face that contrasted against the serenity of his features, creating a strange fusion of both strength and gentleness. The blanket covered his figure up till the chin, so that his head appeared to be swimming out of darkness, floating in limbo as a lone will-o'-the-wisp on a particularly damp night. The image was one of both heavenly light and terrifying eeriness.

It took the young man a moment to simply stare, an indecipherable look in his dark eyes. For a fleeting second there was something that almost resembled anger, but not quite, that passed through his gaze. It was a terrible emotion that casted an almost inhuman look upon his features, before giving place to weariness in the way his strong brows drooped. Silently, he raised a hand to his face, simply holding it, containing the faint tremors that travelled along his arm that could have very well been through his whole body. For a while, the man stood in what could have been brooding or suffering, or both – no one knew the truth in such a single fleeting flicker of time, and no one ever asked, either. Time seemed to stop between them, one obliviously taking leave of the world, and the other in wordless grieving. Darkness returned with a vengeance, threatening to swallow up the both of them. And then, as abruptly as it had started, the dam broke. With jerky, almost panicking movements, the man bolted from the door, where he had been riveted to earlier. He found the table with practised ease, but as he lit the lamp with shaky fingers, the oil stained them without his noticing. The light flared up as a bonfire at that time of the year, and despair could be made out in the boundless depth of the man's eyes. He lifted his hand again, and seemingly to just then recognised his own oil-stained fingertips, gazed at them as though it was the first time he had seen them, or that he was not the very person moving them to his own will. The strange puzzlement lasted for only a tick of a second, though, and the man frowned, and with a deliberate sort of fascination, slammed his hand upon the table, a morbid delight in his eyes as the old furniture creaked unsteadily under the force.

'…' The bang acted as a gunshot, and Dégel bolted up from his lying position. His eyes opened wide, as if he had been through a disturbing dream, one which left him still wondering whether it was his reality or that his reality had crashed into a million shards. A minute passed, and they stared at each other through an infinity that stretched through the void between them, under the flickering light of a dying flame. And then, finally: 'Kardia.'

His voice was clogged, and the acknowledgement came out as a croak, yet the single word betrayed the ocean of emotions within – inexplicable fear, incomprehension, and something bittersweet. It was soft, yet in the silence that followed the outburst, it rang as the bells tolling over the life of every one of them. The man opposite him startled, and his eyes softened.

'My apologies. Did you sleep well?' Reluctantly, as if afraid of something invisible to the both of them, yet still there and very much tangible between them, Kardia left his previous spot for the bed.

'Perhaps; I am not too certain. There was something disturbing in the back of my mind, yet I could not wake up from it though it was dreamless – think you it is a premonition of something to come? Or perhaps it was merely because I was tired; I have been feeling something strange for some time now. But enough of that; how was your day? You are pale and shaking. Did something happen?'

Dégel's brows drew together in a light frown as he reached out, touching Kardia's face, as if ascertaining for himself that the very man before him was indeed shaking. There was a sense of wonder in the way his brow cocked, before something within his eyes softened as he lightly ran his hand over the man's cheek and into his hair in a comforting gesture. With his free hand, Dégel pulled Kardia to sit on the bed next to him, before taking the oil-stained hand in his own. A sigh escaped, barely there, yet an exhale of whatever burden he was shouldering nonetheless. Fingers squeezed, and warmth passed between palms pressed so close a feather could not get in between. It was just like that, that somehow the cold seemed to abate from the small space between their twin bodies, and the raging storm suddenly calmed, in the depth of swirling blue and in the relaxing of tensed shoulders, releasing their owner from whatever burden he was harbouring.

'It is nothing; perhaps I too have been tired.' Kardia closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the perpetual glint of mischief had made its re-entrance. 'But speaking of which, how quick it was of you to go back upon your words this morning. Is this tiredness so overpowering it overcomes your will cast in steel and forged in the purgatory itself?'

'Wha…' Dégel's eyes widened in incomprehension, before his cheeks flushed furiously as something seemed to click within his head. Kardia gazed with fond eyes at the stammering man, eyes downcast and an embarrassed expression upon his features. 'That is… Well…' And at last, 'My apologies.'

At that the man had to laugh. The throaty sound resonated within the confined space of the room, and its vibration could almost be made out in the thick atmosphere. The good-natured feeling about him that had been missing that day suddenly returned as his eyes crinkled in mirth. He laid an oil-stained hand upon Dégel's head and ruffled his hair easily and roughly in an affectionate gesture, before a cat-like grin split his visage into two.

'Then will you make up for it, here and now?'

The look which Dégel was fixing upon his lover was unreadable, his lips thinning into a line and his brows stoic. But then, as he leaned in and dropped single 'yes' into the space between them, his eyes hardened into a stern look.

'But pray do not think me so dumb as to not realise that you are trying to change the subject. I know you do not wish for me to know what it is that is ailing you, Kardia; you never do. I trust you, that you are acting as you think best in my interests; yet my mind cannot rest when yours refuses to. I shall not interfere in your personal issues, but I want you to promise me that if it concerns me, you will tell me about it.'

There was something ominous in the way his voice dipped, as though it was a silent promise of bad consequences should his wish not be satisfied. Despite the way Dégel was still slowly inching his way towards his lover, the tension that shot up the moment his words escaped his mouth could almost be cut with a knife, and he appeared more like a predator looming over his prey, ready for the pounce the moment a single sign of weakness is shown, rather than the lover about to kiss his beloved that he was.

A knock on the door interrupted whatever it was that Kardia was going to say.

'Kardia? We need to talk, you rascal.'

As Kardia craned his neck back to shout at whoever it was that was standing behind the door, Dégel's eyes darkened as they suddenly trained on his scarlet scarf. Quick as lightning, his hand shot out to hook into the scarf and tore it away.

'Dégel?' In the split second that it all happened, Kardia had bolted away from the bed. Standing in the middle of the room, he stared at his lover with wide eyes, before they narrowed into slits filled with malice. There was something akin to cold fury that shone behind the blue of his eyes, within which there was reflected an equally icy wrath contained in a single look that stood out against deathly pallor. A sound resembling a growl ripped itself across the silence and settled into congealed ice, encasing and suffocating.

For upon the bronzed neck were purple fingerprints resembling a sort of strange marking. The angry marks were imprinted into flesh, and upon a closer look one could see that the skin was dented and swollen, proof of unrestrained violence and near-death experience. The atmosphere between the two suddenly seemed to have become even more frigid than before as Dégel glared at the terrible sight before him.

'What is this?' The baritone of Dégel's voice rang in the sudden silence as a knife through butter.

'A brawl, dear Dégel.' The fake nonchalance with which Kardia answered him thinly veiled his own fury as though Kardia was deliberately mocking Dégel for his unreasoned anger.

'Do not lie to me!' The shout was accompanied by a yank at the front at Kardia's shirt. The ice within his eyes had been replaced by a fire blazing from the depths of hell as his face contorted into a mask of terrible wrath. His fist seemed almost about to tear the other's shirt when he yanked again. 'You promised to tell me when someone made another attempt on your life!'

'Blast it! It is for your sake that I don't want to tell!'

The argument was brought to an abrupt halt as the door flew inward with a loud noise. Soft moonlight flooded into the darkness of the room, casting a long shadow upon the ground. In the doorway stood a tall man with glinting dark eyes, his face twisted into horror mixed with surprise. Not a word passed as they scrutinised each other, unwilling to back down.

Dégel narrowed his eyes at the man, Manigoldo Feliciano. He knew that man knew something, but the challenge in his gaze made it crystal clear that Dégel was not going to glean anything from him. It frustrated him to be interrupted, but even more than that, for the first time in his life he felt bloodlust pushing at the back of his mind. Red was starting to invade the edges of his vision, and it took all of his control gathered over the years to restrain himself from doing something he knew he would regret. Yet what audacity! Who was it that dared to hurt Kardia? Dégel wanted to rip his throat out with his bare hands. The anger within him was swirling like a storm without an outlet. He wanted to direct it at Kardia, and he did, but it was not enough. It was never enough. He wanted to find the wretch and put a bullet through his brain, and a sword between his eyes. That would have made him glad. Dégel imagined himself mauling the vermin in retaliation for what he did to his man, and it made him feel better. Vaguely, he registered that the darker his thoughts sank, the more satisfaction he had, one of a sickly sweet sort, but that his thoughts were morbid and he, too, was going to lose himself in madness. Yet, he neither cared for the thought nor its implications. What would they matter if Kardia had died? Dégel's stomach sank at the notion.

A heavy sigh broke the deafening silence and Dégel's train of thought. Kardia turned away, hiding his face in the shadows away from the flickering candle light.

'You broke my door, bastard.'

Manigoldo seemed stunned at the statement, before he growled threateningly.

'Very well, I'll give you an hour. But don't think for a minute that I will stand for your nonsense!'

With that, he stormed away after throwing Dégel a last unreadable look. Dégel's hardened gaze answered him, and as the man turned away Dégel fancied he saw bruises forming on the side of his head hidden away in the shadow before. The gears turned in his head, and as he whipped back to look at Kardia, the very same realisation caught within the man's eyes devastated him more than he imagined possible. It was merely a fleeting doubt, yet Dégel somehow knew that it was true with every fibre of his being. And his heart plummeted into despair.

'Was it…' His voice was no louder than a whisper, quivering like a canary before the hungry eyes of a cat, hoping against hope that his suspicion was wrong.

Only silence answered him. And yet, from the pained look in his lover's eyes, Dégel understood it all, and the silence was his best answer. He felt as if the ground had been pulled out underneath his feet, and as he staggered back only the bed met him as he fell upon it unfeelingly. With a hand covering his eyes, Dégel exhaled a long sigh that sounded like a sob, which, perhaps it was, yet only Dégel himself knew it for what it was. The world turned dark about him, and he felt like hyperventilating. He gulped in big gasps of air, trying to control his emotions, but perhaps at that point all was in vain. Dégel wanted to shout, but his voice did not come. He wanted to cry, yet tears would not fall from his suddenly too dry eyes. He wanted so very badly to lash out in anger, to hurt someone. He imagined how good it would be to take Kardia with him to a far, far away place, where nothing but darkness could reach them and nothing but quiet awaited them, and he wanted to laugh at his own folly. Everything was spinning too fast while rewinding too slowly at once. There was a headache splitting his head into two, and in his ears he could hear his blood rushing too loudly. Dégel wanted to scream in agony, yet his throat clogged and his mouth would not move. And so it was all Dégel could do to sit there and take it all in, almost as though he was resigned to the situation even as his insides thrashed about in vain for some sort of salvation when none would come. He felt like retching.

'Dégel.' The quiet of Kardia's voice could not break through his suffering to reach him, and neither could the gentle hand on his head. But when the man saw that Dégel would not respond to him, he shook him harder and called his name again and again until he looked at him with dead eyes.

'Dégel,' he repeated, 'pray, do not despair so, for all is not lost. I am still here, am I not? Come, we shall resolve this dilemma. You are the rational one; I need you to make this work.'

'Rational, you say? Then would it not be most rational to tell the police that my brother attempted murder on you, my lover? And watch him die by hanging, and you buried alive, and myself on the pyre until hell fire greets us all?' In the reflection in Kardia's eyes he could see how his glassy eyes and his gaping mouth resembled those of a dead fish, but the thought barely registered. Dégel felt cold all of a sudden. It was a cold that seeped down his spine like a snake slithering into the deepest recess of his mind, numbing him to the world and even the brutality he had uttered without care. For what would he care, he wondered. He was suddenly so tired, so, so tired that all he wanted to do was to lie down and sleep it all away, all the while knowing that he could neither afford that simply solution, nor look at himself again if he chose to run away then. Dégel felt ill.

'Dégel?' The tentative hand on his forehead jolted him back to reality, from which he never knew he was separated. Kardia was looking at him with eyes half worried and half afraid, and in that instant, the world about him dimmed away. Only the eyes of his lovers shone like stars from the darkness enveloping them. Dégel could feel himself being pulled away again, and the only thing grounding him were those eyes. He could see Kardia beginning to panic, but it was all so blurry after the brief instant he was brought back. There was a voice within his head telling him that none of it was his fault, and that he needed to just release them all from their suffering; he would be granting them all a mercy, even. It was a voice like honey dripping into his fevered mind, soothing him with sickeningly sweet gentleness. How satisfying, how grand it would be, the voice whispered, to end it all with his own hands. He could then love his brother and his lover properly, it told him. Drink with his brother a last drink, tell him a story, make him feel that his love is not unrequited, before sending him yonder where he would wait for them. Embrace his lover tight and never let go, kiss his forehead and his lips, watch his lover's longing gaze on him till the end as life slowly leaves his broken body. The drone of the voice went on and on into infinity, leaving Dégel shuddering in delight, before white noise cut it all off. Dégel gasped for air again as if he was reaching out for something, but this time, something within him snapped.

With strength he knew not where from, Dégel flung himself away from Kardia. He swayed on the spot as a drunken man, neither knowing where he was or what he was doing.

'Wretches, vermins; the devil confound us all!' He muttered, then, in an increasingly louder voice, 'What miseries! Would that the devil put us all out of our misery! Or, perhaps not the devil, then, perhaps I shall put you out of yours, and Unity out of his! House arrest? No, the dungeon would do. Ten years, twenty years, he shall have his love while I rot with mine. Come, come, dear Kardia, beloved Kardia, let this love consume us all! Care not for the common, weak, vulgar, licentious crowd! For what more can they do to us who are already dead on the inside?! Come, plague, re-enact the Black Death all over again! Open the foolish's eyes to how beasts and men alike are broken. The Great Flood too, may come. Let us drown in the sins we sow and reap as descendants of Adam, for how greedily we yearn for things forbidden to us!'

Dégel suddenly stopped his rant, and his eyes flashed, before he collapsed onto the ground before a petrified Kardia. He choked, and then heaved once, twice, before raising his head, and all signs of his insanity were gone. There was something eerily calm about his expression, almost like a lake so still nothing could disturb it, and which therefore bore no life. He stood with his unshakeable grace as though nothing had just happened. His cool gaze caught that of his lover.

'I apologise for this embarrassing show of weakness. As I have said before, I shall not tolerate such behaviour on the part of my brother any longer.'

'Wait! You are unwell; your forehead is burning up. Call your doctor; rest; I can deal with your brother. What do you think you are going to do anyhow? Call the police as you said in your fit? Break from your family? Pray, stop this folly!' As Kardia grabbed his shoulder, his fingers dug into his bones, and Dégel frowned from the pain. He could read the undisguised alarm in his lover's expression and in the way he clawed at his frame, as though wanting to nail Dégel there both physically and emotionally. Dégel tilted his head to the side experimentally, and the grip tightened just that bit more.

'You seem confused. Pray, sit down. If not your doctor, I shall call the doctor in town. He should be near; I know he is. Dear God, what is happening with you?!' The hand on his shoulder moved to push him towards the bed, but Dégel resisted with little difficulty. He could hear the quiver in Kardia's voice. Ah, was he breaking? Dégel never intended to break him, or anyone, for that matter. He was merely going to return home and sort things out with Unity, and then come back for Kardia. Dégel could not quite understand why he was being treated like a wild animal, ready to pounce any minute. Kardia should have known that Dégel would never hurt him despite the urges pushing at the edge of his mind.

'Why the alarm, now? I am well, see?' With a smile that did not reach his eyes, Dégel pulled Kardia into a hug. He carefully wound his arms around the corded neck to avoid the bruises and held onto the mane of hair that reminded him so much of the proud lions. The body within his arms stiffened despite the arms circling his waist, and Dégel chuckled mirthlessly. 'Are you afraid of me now? But be not afraid. Have I ever hurt you? By the Lord I'll rip out my own eyes before I do anything to hurt you. And be not worried on my behalf either, for my head is clearer than ever, here, now, at this instant. I love you. Have I told you this before? Ah, I can't seem to remember; perhaps now my memory too is failing me. Yet that matters not. I will tell myself every morning I wake up from now on, over and over again, that I love a man named Kardia. Kardia likes apple, and black coffee. Kardia also works at a flower stand, he who stands out amongst the flowers. Did you know? Kardia is a hero. Not Achilles, not Hercules, yet a hero nonetheless. If I ever forget that, I will write down again and again until I memorise it all by heart. And I know that this, too, is true, that I am the eldest son of the Leblanc barony; it is I who shall inherit the title and the rights. This time, Kardia, I will protect you.'

Dégel finished with a kiss that tasted so bitter it almost brought tears to his eyes, yet they were too dry to allow any more tears, for he now felt too cold to feel weak. The arms around him tightened, and he thought for a fleeting moment that Kardia would not let go. In the end, though, he did. When Dégel looked up, eyes darker than hell bore into him like they were dissecting him from the inside. It was an unreadable look that branded itself upon his mind, and in that instant suddenly Kardia was too far away from him, it was as though he too had closed himself off. There was an aching in his chest, one which Dégel easily contained, just as he had done his entire life. He turned to the gaping doorway, all the while feeling the stare of the other man on him like something crawling under his skin.

'Do send words on your progress. And see the doctor; you truly are having a fever.'

It was a cold statement intended to be a farewell. Dégel inclined his head before stepping out into the bottomless night without looking back.