Yao curled up beneath the sheets, shivering slightly as he waited for the bed to warm up a little. As November approached, so did the winter that Yao never thought he'd live to see. He looked forward to the end of those endless and humid days, but at the same time he couldn't help but feel a little weary. He wondered if the winter would somehow bring back bitter memories for Ivan, and if this would change him. If perhaps Ivan's smile would falter slightly at the sight of snow, and be replaced with that same expression Yao had seen on the frail little child in that old photograph, the one that he had discovered so many months ago.
The air around Yao started to warm a little, drowsiness seeping in as he closed his eyes. There was a comfort that enveloped him, one that Yao had not started feeling until recently. This crumbling, cold house was his home now. The dissolving remnants of bodies in the downstairs workshop no longer burdened his mind. The sight of Ivan's bloodied face no longer terrified him. This pillow, that was once soaked with tears of frustration and fear, only felt content sighs now. Comfort, was more than just a luxury by now.
'Yao.'
He turned in his bed, finding Ivan standing by the edge of the bed. It was dark in the room, and so Yao could not read Ivan's expression. He couldn't quite pinpoint the emotion in his voice, either.
'What is it?' Yao asked softly, noting that he couldn't smell any vodka in the air — as he usually did when Ivan made these visits in the middle of the night.
Without reply, Ivan crawled onto the bed. He lay on his side to face Yao, a gentle smile gracing his lips. Yao blinked, waiting for Ivan to say something. When nothing was said, Yao sighed and turned away from Ivan, closing his eyes. It wouldn't be the first time Ivan did this kind of thing, sneaking into Yao's bed like a child terrorised by a fresh nightmare. Yao did not particularly mind by this point. Ivan had never tried anything funny with him in situations like this, and Yao trusted this would be the case tonight as well.
He was about to drift off to sleep when a cold hand clamped onto his shoulder, yanking him so that he lay with his back on the mattress. He snapped his head to Ivan, a snarl in his voice as he hissed at him.
'Aiyah… Ivan, wha —'
The words were caught in his throat when Ivan straddled him, pinning his shoulders down. Lilac eyes stared into Yao vacantly, a darker hue clouding over them. Yao gripped Ivan's elbows and attempted to throw him over, anger boiling over in his veins. Ivan, however, did not move an inch.
'Get off,' Yao growled.
'Ochi chernye…' Ivan spoke softly, tenderness in his voice although his expression had remained distant. 'It pains me that I must do this.'
'Do what?!' Yao struggled beneath his weight, his breath becoming ragged as panic rose in his chest. 'Ivan, get off now. Don't make me hurt you,' Yao hissed, although he knew the only one who could get hurt was him, not Ivan.
One of Ivan's hands lifted off Yao's shoulders, though this did little to aid Yao's struggles to topple Ivan over. Ivan reached for the space underneath the sheets where he had being lying only moments ago. He pulled out a large knife, gleaming in the dim light that spilled in from the hallway. Yao felt his breath lose itself for a moment, the acidic taste of fear in his mouth as realisation poured in.
'Wh— What are you doing with that?' Yao's words stumbled over themselves, uneven and broken sounding as the tip of the knife approached the side of his neck. 'Ivan, no… Don't.' Yao's chest heaved up and down heavily, blood rushing and pumping loudly in his ears. The invisible snake was already holding him in an unbreakable grip, fangs poised at his jugular. 'D-Don't do this.'
'It's for both of us, myshka,' Ivan hummed, his voice lilted sweetly as he leant down, brushing away the sleeve of Yao's oversized shirt so that his shoulder was exposed. The knife traced over Yao's neck, his pulse beating against it. The cold trail dragged down to his shoulder and stopped, pressure building and weighing heavily on Yao's skin. Yao took hold of Ivan's hand, pushing the knife away.
'I won't let you,' Yao seethed, although a cry of fear lurked beneath the surface of his voice. He was afraid, terrified, but not of death. He feared the pain of that knife carving into him, of Ivan's betrayal lacing every sting and stab. He feared being swallowed up by the snake that had been plaguing him for so long, of being devoured and spat back out by it.
(I don't want this.)
But despite the strength he put into his arm, the force his trembling hand was exerting against Ivan's, the knife had won. Skin was pierced, the snake's fangs stung him, and a trickle of blood rose out of Yao's skin. It was this droplet, this little bead of crimson red, which caught Yao's eyes. He watched it fall onto the mattress, hypnotised by the trail it left behind. Poisoned and paralyzed, Yao felt the venom burn in his veins.
'Beautiful, isn't it, myshka?' Ivan took hold of Yao's chin with an ice cold hand, amethyst gaze drawing Yao in. 'You want to see more, don't you?'
Yao did want to see more. He really did, in the most strangest and twisted of ways. The poison had tainted his blood already, the blood had already been spilt. What difference would one more drop do? Why not make that crimson bead into a beautiful ribbon? Into a thousand ribbons! A bouquet of torn flesh and blood, of blooming red roses and spider lilies!
Make me into something beautiful… The words sought to leave Yao's lips, but he could only lose himself in the sight of Ivan's lilac eyes and nod weakly.
The knife pressed into Yao's shoulder, drawing a line and setting skin ablaze with its trail. More red ribbons, more spectacular beads trickling down onto the white mattress. Yao trembled and withheld a cry of agony as the knife continued on down the length of his arm, sparks of searing pain bursting alongside it. The pain was unbearable, tortuous and slow, only alleviated by Ivan's cold hands sweeping over his torn flesh. Yao was being broken, taken apart, only to be mended back together by Ivan's touch.
Ivan's bloodstained hand travelled up to Yao's chest, resting above his madly beating heart. A soft smile crept up on Ivan's pale face. 'I wonder why your heart beats so fast.'
Yao smiled back weakly, willing himself not to pass out as his vision began to flicker and fade. He took hold of Ivan's knife-wielding hand and guided it to his chest. 'Open up and see.'
The knife plunged into his ribcage, tearing his chest open and pulling flesh apart. Yao shrieked, the world darkening and falling away from him, but he held on. He had to see, he had to feel it when it happened. Ivan's hand reached into his chest, his cold touch stinging against the blazing fire that had bloomed in Yao's heart. Icy fingers grasped the throbbing and beating heart, ripping it out from Yao.
It was burning, burning and lit aflame in Ivan's hands. Yao watched the crimson rose breathe in those pale and wintry hands, like a flame flickering in the breeze. He could still feel it as if it were still in his own bleeding body, still pumping wildly in his torn chest. Yao watched as Ivan devoured his burning heart, fangs sinking into the twitching flesh and tearing away. Tearing away until Yao's heart was gone, until the flame was entirely swallowed up by the beast. Until —
'Myshka?'
Yao snapped his eyes open, swallowing up the air in raw panic as images of bloody carnage seared through his mind, haunting him as he struggled to reassure himself that it had only been a nightmare.
That wasn't real. That wasn't real. The words rang in his head feverishly. But even so, he felt his hand around his chest frantically, searching desperately for that pulse. His hand rested and felt rapid throbbing beneath his heaving chest, relief sweeping over his hysteric mind. It was only then that his breath became a little more composed, evening out slightly in the darkness of his room.
'Myshka.'
Yao jolted out of his position, sitting up in his bed as he realised Ivan was lying next to him. The panic returned, perhaps irrationally, as he heard Ivan chuckle. The hallway light spilt in through the doorway to partially illuminate Ivan's pale face, his smile weakened by the concern in his lilac eyes.
'Were you having a nightmare?' Ivan asked.
'N-No,' Yao choked out, throat closing in on itself as memories of the knife burying into his chest resurfaced. Regardless, he forced himself to continue, struggling to keep his voice steady. 'Why are you here? Don't you have your own room?'
Ivan's brows furrowed. 'I heard you crying. But there wasn't much I could do, da?' The smile returned to his lips. 'I get nightmares too, sometimes —'
'Get out.'
Yao felt himself being suffocated by the air, stifled by a feeling he couldn't name. It ached in his chest and made a lump in his throat. Yao wanted to call it fear, an unbearable kind of terror only caused by a nightmare so bloody and vivid. But he also knew it to be something else, something that burned in his heart, waiting to be remedied — but by what, he did not want to know. He wanted nothing to do with these emotions, unwilling to sort through them and put them into neat little boxes. They were to remain nameless, unrecognized. This was how Yao intended to cope with them.
Ivan left the room without a word, an expression of hurt flickering in his eyes. Yao felt guilt stab at him, but it paled in comparison to the images that continued to burn in his mind. He waited for Ivan's shadow to disappear into the hallway, before flopping back onto the bed with a heavy exhale of air.
He didn't fight the images, did not fight as the burning flame lit up his chest again. He surrendered to them and hoped this fiery serpent that was coiled around him would leave him alone. But he was already stung, already poisoned. The pyre in his heart would not die out soon. This, Yao knew.
.
'Ignorance is bliss…'
Alfred glanced over at Arthur. 'What was that?'
A soft smile swept across Arthur's lips, his eyes fixed on the dead man before them. The man was seated at a polished dining table, hands laid up so that their palms faced the ceiling. In each hand, a red lump. The most noticeable thing, however, was the man's head, the top cleanly sliced off. Where his brain used to be, red roses and lilies overflowed, their petals crumbling and withered. His eyes were empty, black sockets. The corners of his lips were torn, split so that a bloody grin was stretched across the man's face.
'Ignorance is bliss.' Arthur said as he approached the seated man. 'Isn't that what you think of when you look at him?' His gloved hand reached for the red lump in the dead man's hand, despite Kiku's quiet objections. Arthur held the lump up and chuckled. 'And he's holding his own eyes! Oh, our boy really has stepped up his game...' Arthur hummed and placed the lump back into the open palm, turning towards Alfred's dumbfounded expression.
'Game?' Alfred scoffed, arms crossed over — perhaps to conceal his balled up fists. 'Are you even taking this seriously?'
'I am taking this very seriously, James.'
'It's Jones.' Alfred pulled away the mask from his mouth, despite the putrid stench.
'Yes, well, whatever...' Arthur shot back absent-mindedly, his gaze returning once again to the dead man, curiously peering at every blood stain, every petal, the angles at which the man's fingers were curled. A small gasp of excitement left Arthur's lips, pulling out a pair of tweezers from his coat pocket. He plucked something from the table. 'Detective Honda? A bag, please.'
'Yes.' Kiku hurried over to Arthur, opening up a clear plastic bag.
'Did you think we'd be this lucky, James?' Arthur let the strand of hair fall into the bag. 'Seventy-two victims and we already have a hair sample.' He looked up at Alfred and smiled words laced with dry amusement. 'I'd say we're making progress.'
'That hair sample means nothing if we have no suspects.'
'Very true, indeed…' Arthur mumbled, although Alfred couldn't help but feel ticked off by the mocking tone in his voice that wasn't quite there. But Alfred could hear it, could see it in that annoying man's smirk as he said it.
A knock on the open door startled Alfred, sending his head snapping towards it. The sight he was met with, however, was not a welcome one.
'Morning, Linda.' Alfred forced a smile at the blonde, her shoulder leaning against the doorway. 'I'm, ah, sorry to tell you but… We're in the middle of an investigation here. So… whatever the problem is, I can't hear about it now.'
'I didn't come here for you,' Linda spat back, an inkling of a sharp accent grating in her voice. She stepped into the living room and made a hurried walk for the stairs.
'Wait, Ms. Sterling!' Kiku followed after her. 'Please do not touch anything…' His worried voice trailed as he hopped up the stairs in pursuit of the blonde.
'Who's that?' Arthur asked, his green eyes wandering curiously up the stairs.
'Social Services.' Alfred exhaled. 'Also the woman that hates my guts, for whatever reason.'
'Hm,' Arthur hummed, perhaps in approval. 'And her name's Sterling…'
'Is that supposed to mean something?'
'No, not really…' Arthur's expression drew into a pensive one, betraying interest when his words suggested otherwise. He blinked and snapped his head back to the corpse. 'Well. On with the rest of this bloody mess. Do we have a name for him?'
'Neil Bowman. Former psychiatrist.' Alfred flicked through the file Kiku had left with uncharacteristic carelessness on the table. 'Retired after the shutdown of Glen Hills Asylum. Lived with his adopted son. Wife died two years ago.'
'Glen Hills, you said?' Arthur glanced up at Alfred.
'Yeah.' Alfred threw the file back onto the table. 'Something special about it?'
'Dr. Rothaugen was a Glen Hills doctor. Fred Lombard and Moira Langerhan were nurses there. I haven't read the case files on the other sixty nine victims but I'd say that still makes Glen Hills pretty special, don't you think?' Arthur peeled off the plastic gloves and threw them into the 'biohazard' waste bin, part of Kiku's meticulous crime scene investigation procedure. He picked up his cane, which he had left leaning by the doorway, and began to spin it around in a way that was starting to irritate Alfred.
'You think the killers are ex-patients?' Alfred crossed his arms again, hoping that cane didn't knock something over.
'Correction. I know they're ex-patients.' Arthur paced around the dining room table. 'Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say at least one of them is. The young pup that's responsible for putting this ensemble together…' He stopped his cane short to point at the corpse, the tip dangerously close. 'He's having a little too much fun for a disgruntled ex-patient. No, I think he's trying to say something.' The cane came down onto the wooden floor, Arthur approaching the dead man with slow and deliberate steps. 'But I don't think he himself knows it…'
'He?' Alfred raised an eyebrow.
'Oh, yes.' Arthur turned to Alfred. 'Statistically speaking, of course, it's almost a given. Besides, don't your witnesses all describe two men?'
'Some of them say a man and a woman.'
'Ah…' Arthur turned back to corpse, reaching out to touch the wilted flowers. 'I suppose only a woman would put so much thought into such presentation. Red roses and lilies… I wonder…'
'So now it's a woman?' Alfred pulled Arthur's hand away.
'I'm only entertaining the thought, James.' Arthur pried his hand away and shoved it into his coat pocket. 'Give a man some room for imagination, will you?'
'It's Jones.'
Arthur smiled in that sly and lopsided way that Alfred was starting to become familiar with. 'I know that.'
Alfred felt green eyes examine him, perhaps watching and waiting for every micro expression to bear itself on his face. It was an uncomfortable feeling, as if the man knew better and was flaunting it, dissecting Alfred's mind right in front of him.
'Then don't —'
'Ms. Sterling, I'm afraid you can't take that with you! Please understand!'
Alfred and Arthur turned towards the stairway, Linda striding away from it with a weathered teddy bear in her hands. Kiku followed behind, eyebrows upturned in concern.
'Ms. Sterling!' Kiku called out, but the blonde had already left the home and shut the front door behind her with a bang.
'You okay there, man?' Alfred laughed weakly, forgetting the strange Englishman for a moment. 'At least I'm not the only one she hates.'
'She took something from the crime scene…' Kiku returned to the living room, worry knitting his brows together. 'I explained to her in a calm manner and yet she would not listen.'
'Why the teddy bear, though?' Arthur asked.
'She said it was for Mr. Bowman's son.' Kiku sighed. 'I could not stop her in time…'
'It's just a teddy bear, Kiku.' Alfred slapped Kiku's shoulder reassuringly. 'Don't worry about it. Besides, we got a lead, I think. Glen Hills.'
Kiku's eyes brightened in interest. 'Glen Hills?'
Alfred nodded, allowing Arthur to go into details, ideas punctuated by theatrical pauses and cane gestures. The man was a nuisance, egocentric and patronising, to say the least. But even so, Alfred was relieved to have some lead to follow, and so he did not dwell much on this. At long last, the case was going somewhere. All he needed was a name, a face, for this two-headed beast.
And when the time came, when the mask had been pulled away, Alfred would not hesitate to take this beast by the horns.
.
Yao's bare feet padded across the rough wooden floor, eyes sleepily searching, looking for the trail of that familiar scarf, of Ivan's towering frame. The house was dark inside, but through the boarded up windows, the faint purple hue of dawn peeked in. Yao rubbed his arms as he fumbled through the darkness, a chilly breeze snaking into the downstairs hallway and teasing him. Following the source of that breeze, he came across the back door, wide open and leading out onto the porch.
It was from the doorway that he spotted Ivan sitting on the back porch steps, silently staring into what used to be a garden. The earth was dry and cracked, perhaps from that particularly hot July, dotted with patches of grass and stinging nettles. Beyond the wired garden fence, tall and open grass fields swayed in the gentle wind. It was only within the boundaries of this house that everything seemed to crumble and dry out, strangling whatever life it contained. It was a dull and hollow view, and Yao had to wonder how long Ivan had been looking at it.
His feet creaked against the wooden floor as he approached Ivan, Yao's thoughts still drowsy from sleep, but awake enough to know that leaving things as they were since last night would be a mistake.
Ivan turned his head and smiled weakly. 'Dobroe utro, myshka.'
Yao nodded and sat next to Ivan, folding his arms over his legs and looking out into the barren garden. He glanced toward Ivan, stealing glimpses of what expression he wore, if that smile had been forced, if his eyes were clouded over with reminiscence. But all Yao could catch was the blue fabric of Ivan's sweater, and the white scarf that he wore so dearly.
'I'm not upset...' Ivan spoke up, lilac eyes seizing Yao's mid-glance. 'I'll admit… I'm not used to being around people like you.' Ivan returned his gaze to the dawning horizon. 'People like Katyusha… kind people.'
'I'm not kind,' Yao murmured, tearing his eyes away from Ivan to lose himself in every bend and sway of the grass blades that seemed so far away from them. Beyond the fence, it was a relaxing sight to look at. Tranquil, like the painting of a beautiful and unreachable place.
Ivan smiled, a gentle curve gracing his lips. 'Maybe not in the conventional sense…' His hand softly pet Yao's shoulder. 'But you look out for me. Don't you, myshka?'
A gust of cold air swept through the field, lashing out and piercing Yao's exposed arms. He shivered and held his legs closer to his chest, but he did not mind. He sat there and watched the purple hue of the silent sky melt into one of soft amber, a sliver of the sun rising slowly over the horizon. Yao had always been one for sunsets instead, for watching the sky blanket itself with shimmering stars and a glowing moon. But it was in this moment that Yao forgot the serenity of a dark sky, wondering why he had never watched the sun rise like this before. The moon was beautiful, yes… but Yao had forgotten how breath-taking the sun could be, too.
As the wind howled a little more strongly, the trail of Ivan's scarf whipped in the air, dancing along the breeze and unravelling slightly. Yao caught the end of it, marvelling at its softness for a short-lived moment, before turning towards Ivan. Ivan's eyes were faintly widened, holding onto the rest of his scarf in his attempt to salvage its form around his neck. Yao smiled reassuringly and looped the one end of the scarf around Ivan's neck once, twice, trying to emulate the way in which Ivan always wore it. He only caught glimpses of the pale skin beneath the scarf, Ivan's gloved hands covering a large portion of it, almost as if to hide his neck in shame.
'It's okay, myshka. I'll fix it from here,' Ivan said softly as he adjusted the scarf, tightly fixing it around his neck. His eyes were preoccupied in doing this, but his expression betrayed a quiet kind of panic — of embarrassment, almost. When Ivan set his hands back down in his lap, Yao spotted a patch of skin left uncovered on his neck, ghostly pale skin exposed to the cold air. But what caught his eye was a blemish peeking out from beneath the scarf, red and slightly swollen, not too dissimilar to the scar Yao had from spilling acid on his arm.
'What happened there?' Yao's hand reached out, delicately pulling away the scarf to reveal more reddened skin. Ivan immediately flinched, his hand reaching to his neck protectively and tugging the scarf up. Yao pulled his hand away, brows furrowing in concern at Ivan's response.
'Nothing. Just a birthmark,' Ivan spoke softly, gaze flickering the way it had so many months ago, when he had refused to tell Yao about his first kill. Ivan still hasn't told Yao about his first kill, and it seemed he was just as unwilling to open up about the obvious scar on his neck, too. Seeing through this lie within the blink of an eye, Yao swallowed his apprehensiveness and asked.
'Did you get burnt in a fire? The orphanage fire?'
Ivan's eyes held Yao's own, even and expressionless. 'No.'
'What then?'
'It's not a pretty story.'
'It's a story I want to hear,' Yao said, the conversation all too reminiscent of that July afternoon so long ago, when his questions met resistance. But the circumstances had changed since then. 'It's my question for last night. For the man with the flowers in his head.' Yao felt a small smile spread across his lips, remembering the moment when he had the idea of replacing the man's brains with red roses and lilies.
Ivan said nothing, and Yao felt disappointment sink into his stomach. Despite the effort he put into arranging the dead man — he even managed to keep him sitting up at the table! — Ivan never seemed to quite enjoy the sight in the same way that Yao did. But Yao wanted Ivan to smile at his latest work, to praise him or just to say something about it. It seems Yao would have to work harder to impress him, although in what way he wasn't sure.
Perhaps feeling desperate to get the answer to his question, Yao spoke again: 'I'll tell you about my nightmare if you tell me about that scar.'
Shortly after saying this, nervous regret twisted in his stomach. Did he really want to tell Ivan about his nightmare? Could he, even if he tried? Yao was not even given a chance to consider this, Ivan replying back softly.
'You don't have to tell me,' Ivan said, a small breath exhaling slowly as he spoke. 'Let us both keep our nightmares to ourselves. At least for today.'
Yao watched as Ivan turned back to the barren garden, his brows furrowed slightly. Ivan's hand was still resting on his scarf, fiddling with it nervously. Yao's hand itched in a strange way, wanting to reach out for that pensive expression, for the cold hand that Yao sought to melt. He inhaled deeply to ease the feeling, comforted just a little by the absence of the invisible snake that always seemed to plague him. It had already bitten him, seeped its venom into his blood, so what more could it do? His heart, however, still seemed to panic and struggle against it. It would take time, Yao supposed, until that too faded away.
Turning his gaze to the dry dirt beyond his and Ivan's feet, Yao wondered if this house had ever seen normality of some kind. What game did children play in this garden, before the paint on the walls started to peel? What kind of laughter echoed in the hallways, before they became empty? Ivan had been living in a graveyard of a home for so long, never once taking the time to really make it his — perhaps because he didn't know how. Yao's eyes trailed around the garden, taking in its neglected state, before opening his mouth to speak.
'We should plant sunflowers here,' Yao said softly, the words leaving his mouth as he thought them, unprocessed and raw.
Ivan turned to Yao, eyebrows raised slightly in surprise. 'Hm?'
'In the spring.' Yao did not turn to face him, letting his words spill as he kept his gaze on the horizon. For some odd reason, it made him uncomfortable to look at Ivan and say this, as if it were uncalled for or perhaps too strange of a thing to say. 'We should plant sunflowers here. It would look nice…'
A pause, perhaps a breath from Ivan. 'Da, it would. I'd like that, myshka.'
Yao did not have to turn to hear the smile in Ivan's voice, of the brightness that he wished he could hear more of. As rays of sunlight peeked through the fence, the amber of the sky fading into blue, Yao felt his chest swell oddly. Content, perhaps. Happy, even, to hear Ivan's voice lighten a little.
His mind raced with possibilities for the spring, far away as it was, and thought of what other plants should accompany the sunflowers, how he would arrange them in the garden. It would be lovely, charmingly delicate in the way that man's face was when the top of his head was sliced off, when Yao gently placed the thorny roses and fragrant lilies into the cavity he had created.
Just like all of his other creations, it would be for Ivan, and it would be beautiful.
