FicWad

This isn’t beautiful, he thought to himself, his jaded eyes flitting over the figure of the innocent, lacerated corpse on the ground.
Not even flames could make this beautiful.

The man’s somewhat contorted features sorely repulsed Gerard, and he had to look away. He embraced the familiar stinging of his eyes as the fumes from the gas oil he was currently dousing the body with rose up and inflicted on him a comforting distraction. All too willing, he allowed himself a moment to drown in the scent… every neuron and cell danced in his head, getting high on the sweet smell as he breathed it in. The last toxic drop fell on to its victim and swirled in a clockwise motion before being consumed by blood.

Gerard’s attention was abruptly drawn to the amicable mutterings of the crowd now departing from the bar adjacent to his impromptu murder scene. His breathing reduced itself to shallow, silent intakes of oxygen as he listened with grave concentration… waiting… thinking.

Frank Anthony Thomas Iero… son of a bitch. Well, son of a blacklister… a ‘name-namer’, or someone the boss likes to call ‘a walkin’ dead man’: Anthony Iero. That lucky fuck had it nice and gentle; a heart-attack in his fucking sleep. I don’t even know if I would’a watched what they had planned for him. Drug traffickers and the Mob don’t hold much patience with traitors.

So… the schmuck dies, nothing more to see, case closed, right? Wrong. It’s never that simple. Never that… merciful. That day I turn up at the base to find the hit list wiped, and the name of his son, innocent twenty-seven year old Frank Iero, screamed at my fucking blood-drained face.
Gerard listened until the conversations faded away. He had been observing Frank almost his entire career in a dubious state of admiration. The man fascinated him, it was true, but Gerard suppressed his already quiet curiosity to focus on his task. He felt like he knew the stranger well. He knew what music he listened to; what girls he had dated; his reluctance to over-indulge in alcohol, and his tendency to always be the last to leave a party. The latter was something Gerard very much counted on at that moment.

They think I’m just a cheap, murdering piece of nobody. They think I’m some sorta serial killer, butchering in cold blood, waiting in the dark for just another face. Well these veins run so hot it fucking hurts. It scalds me from the inside and makes me want to scream… but I can’t scream now. Can’t make a sound… he’s so close now and it could all slip away so easily…

Gerard perceived the dragging footsteps of who he could only hope in his black heart was the man he sought after. There was no time to be sure, only seconds to take the risk, in which Gerard dashed round the corner and grasped hold of the lone figure with determined hands.

Pulling him violently round into the sordid alley, he crashed his victim’s back against the recalcitrant brick wall, the man’s head cracking harshly against the rough surface.

A twisted grin of sheer accomplishment spread across Gerard’s shadowed face as he relaxed at the familiar features now in front of him. The brown hazel-tinted eyes of indefinable hue he had seen from a distance only did their face full justice, he realised, when viewed at close range. Those eyes swam frantically with fear and confusion, fighting back pained eyelids as blood spidered down from Frank’s temples making wet vein-like formations.

Hello beautiful.

Frank’s body tensed under the stinging sensation of his assailant’s nails sinking deeper into his bare arms.

“W… what do you want?”

Hmmm… typical response… expected something a little classier than that… sexy voice though. You earn some points for that.

“ Omertà… sorry, my tongue’s tied on that one.”
But less so in other departments…
Frank’s glazed expression requested for Gerard to elaborate, “Means I can’t tell you… code of honour, or some shit. Meaningless really, since you already know anyway.”

A lump formed reluctantly in Frank’s throat as the words sunk in, meanwhile his arms found consciousness and prepared to defend himself.

“Don’t. Even. Think about it.” Gerard’s husky voice formed each syllable slowly as he released Frank’s arms with contrasting speed and pulled out a small gun, pressing it firmly against his blood-soaked hair.

Nice eyebrows Lovely. Suspiciously perfect… though I doubt you’re the kind of narcissistic faggot to cultivate such vanity…

Gerard studied Frank’s face intently, aware that his terror-laced eyes had now landed on the disfigured, gasoline-soaked body some metres away.

“I thought you’d be wondering about that,” he said with unnerving blitheness, “It’s what I… do, to those people who are wanted rid of. Those people who’ve done wrong by us… by me. People on the same list as you’re on now…”

Frank could do nothing but stay perfectly still, petrified, as the barrel of the gun was moved slowly up and down his neck, caressing him icily.

You are a clueless one, aren’t you?

“Let me tell you a secret,” Gerard leaned in closer, his lips almost touching Frank’s ear, “There is method in my madness, you know. The death is almost painless; one beautiful slice is all it takes.”
That’s it, stay still Frankie, I’m still talking to you…
“I sometimes carve patterns in their skin, just for the hell of it. For fun you could say. The prettier ones I mutilate the most… so I don’t have to see that nice face dry up and get ruined as it goes to flame.”

“Have you ever felt a knife against your skin, Frank? It’s a unique sensation… you really have to feel it for yourself to quite appreciate the magnitude of… violent sensuality. Would you like to know what it feels like?”

The smaller man could no longer bear to look at his captor as Gerard produced an eight-inch butcher’s knife, bringing it up to Frank’s throat. The hand with the gun continued to grip it tightly but trailed downward over Frank’s torso, stopping just above his belt and putting gentle pressure on his lower abdomen.

Every instinctive fibre of Frank’s body urged his to do something; to fight back or at least run. But as the blade was pressed further into his pallid skin he physically could do nothing but try desperately to suppress whimpers of pain forming in his throat.

The knife stopped, blood smeared freshly along its elegant surface. Silent laughter rayed from Gerard’s eyes and was betrayed by his amused tone as he spoke,

“You really think… I’m that predictable?”
His face leaned in close to Frank’s once again, this time with warm breaths being blown unsteadily on to his cheek. Frank’s own breaths hitched in his throat as he felt the gun being slid into his underwear, and winced inwardly when the cool metal of the barrel came into contact with more… sensitive skin.

Frank’s reaction elicited an uncharacteristic, almost child-like giggle from his captor, who instantly proceeded to remove a lighter from his pocket with his newly freed hand. Within seconds it was lit and tossed carelessly onto the corpse, setting it ablaze in a vehement uproar of flames.

“What did you do to deserve that, Frankie?” Gerard questioned him indirectly, staring not at his actual face but instead at its reflection in the sharp, now red, metal, “A venial offence; being born? It’s not your fault Frank…” Gerard’s right hand began to stroke the other man’s face and neck lightly, ignoring his trembling of anxiety, “It was never your fault…” He moved his face back so Frank could clearly make out the flickering shades of brilliant amber and deep red from the fire, reflected in Gerard’s near-emotionless irises. The putrid odour of burning flesh and singing bone filled their lungs rapidly, appearing to affect Frank most. Gerard motioned towards the incendiary heap, never taking his hand away from Frank’s skin,

“For all intents and purposes…” he spoke painfully slowly, now staring directly into Frank’s dilating eyes, “that is you. Don’t pretend this never happened. Don’t go back to work on Monday with a fake smile plastered across your pretty face and tell yourself it’s gonna be fine. Because sooner, not later, you’ll find yourself outside, in a place not dissimilar to this, with some guy who’s not a appreciative as me: some guy who doesn’t care what you did or didn’t do, as long as he’s following orders.”

Frank watched as the other man’s eyes grew wider and burned into his with a look of impassioned violence and unwavering concentration.
If time had a face, I’d have blown it half to hell by now… I guess I should’a had my fun when I had the chance… when I had the time. Do it now, you sonofabitch. Come on!
For the longest second Frank truly believed Gerard was about to change his mind and slice him open as he stood, but then the sharp features in front of him softened, and his apparently merciful attacker whispered in his ear with utmost conviction,
“Now get the fuck out of New Jersey.”

And with that Gerard knew he could leave it no longer, and kissed Frank roughly on the lips… forcing his tongue between them to meet the hot, moist inside of the familiar stranger’s mouth for the briefest moment.

In a hot daze of confusion, hands grabbed urgently at Frank’s arms once again. His body has thrown forcefully out of the alley and he landed on his hands and knees on to the grazing surface of tarmac.

Gerard watched after him as Frank rose unsteadily to his feet with a look over his shoulder, and an odd clinging hint of violation making his insides turn cold. He removed the loaded gun from within his boxer shorts before disappearing awkwardly from sight.

Oh shit. Right… calm the fuck down Gerard.
His hands shook as if a live wire pulsed beneath the skin, electrocuting his tendons and making it vexingly difficult to spell out the words he was now inking on to a scrap of paper, as he always did. Four very shakily penned words that stung him more than any physical pain ever could, because his heart may have been darkened by murder and cigarettes but, as he painfully admitted, it still gave beautiful, warm blood.

And it was still beating for someone.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and lust to love…

Wait, what the hell am I thinking? The little fuck’s still alive; he’s safe; I should be happy. Never so much in my life have I wanted everything to be different; for a chance to start over. And never before have I held by breath while I watched someone run, and prayed they were running fast enough.
He sat the note on the clothed remains of his substitute victim, adding a few drops of Frank’s blood from the knife he was still holding.
I mean, some things are ugly and you have to burn them; some things are so ugly even burning them doesn’t help; and then some things are just too beautiful to allow to burn.

Gerard’s biting thoughts replayed themselves in his head, stagnating, festering, and congealing in his mind. An unfamiliar pang of loss hit the back of his throat as he so reluctantly swallowed away the precious taste that still lingered there. A taste he would likely never recover.

Lost with those thoughts swirling around his brain in a sorrowful cacophony, Gerard subconsciously brought the knife to his own face, placing the tip of the blade in his mouth and very gently closing his eyes.

We all lose things. Hell, I’ve taken lives; made others incomplete… but I’ve never felt loss over anything I’ve had. Things aren’t there anymore, I deal with it. I accept it.

Leave it to me to go and lose something I never rightfully had.

He caressed the blade carefully with his lips, licking off the last remnants of Frank’s blood; running his tongue over the metallic surface time and time again to savour the ferrous liquid.

The man who was no longer being hunted continued to run; a 9mm in his pocket and emotional fatigue still churning his stomach sourly.

And the man in the alley continued his passionate kiss with the knife, hoping that one day the bowels of hell might take pity on him and engulf his wretched life in flames… and maybe then he could start over differently.