The next two weeks were absolute torture.

Apartment-hunting, car-searching, hair-dying, identity changes.

Luke never realized that the most menial tasks could be so exhausting. He also never realized that despite being done with their motel-hopping lifestyle, they were nowhere near done with the overly complicated, seemingly unncessary task of covering up their tracks.

The most difficult task, the one that hurt the most, was getting rid of his car. That almost made him cry. Almost.

But at least it kept him distracted. It kept him from thinking about Damien and what he did and what he could do and what he will do. It kept him from doing anything with Damien actually, but that was okay. He was okay.

***

It was their last night in a motel.

Damien entered the room quietly and headed directly to the bathroom. Luke didn't even look away from the ceiling, didn't even acknowledge him. He wasn't sure why he ignored him, or pretended to ignore him. He assumed that it was a way to cope with the circumstances, but being with Damien shouldn't have to be a circumstance.

But I made this choice, Luke told himself. He constantly questioned the choices he had made and whenever he made a wrong one, he constantly reassured himself that it was never really his choice, it was always a circumstance beyond his control. But this, he knew that this was his choice. And this was a choice he had to live with.

Damien stepped out of the bathroom an hour later, smelling nauseatingly like cheap shampoo. He wondered if the stench of blood was still lingering in his clothes. He wondered, if he stepped into the bathroom right now and pressed his face against the damp clothes that were scrubbed to scraps, would he still be able to smell a hint of blood?

Because no matter how hard Damien tried to scrub the blood off himself and his clothes, he couldn't get rid of the obvious truth. He couldn't completely wash it away, he couldn't completely ignore it. He knew that. They both did.

Luke shook away the thought once Damien joined him in bed, sliding under the warm covers and resting his face against Luke's neck. It had been a while since they were able to relax like this. It had been awhile since they last spoke.

He wanted to talk to him. Ask him about his day. Maybe ask about who he killed.

No, no, no, he couldn't.

But he wanted to.

He wanted to have a normal conversation with Damien, whatever their definition of normal was. He was tired of talking about mundane topics, tired of discussing the apartment, the furniture, the rent. He missed having stupid conversations about random things before they started hurdling towards dangerous territory. And maybe that was a risk he was willing to take, an area he was willing to cross into, because he wanted to talk to him.

"Damien," Luke whispered, pressing his face against Damien's damp hair.

He responded with an unintelligble grumble.

"I . . ." He couldn't even figure out how he wanted to phrase his question.

"You look fine with dark hair."

Luke laughed, but not nearly as enthusiastically as he wanted to be. "Thanks, but I wasn't gonna ask about my hair."

"Then ask your question."

"What's going to happen?"

Damien was quiet for a while. "Tomorrow?"

"In general."

"I don't know what you mean."

Luke sighed. "What's going to happen to us?"

He could feel Damien's jaw stiffen against his shoulder.

Damien was quiet for a while again, but then he pushed himself up and glared at him. "Why are you asking this?"

Luke shrugged. "Why not?"

Damien continued to glare at him. "You know . . . we had this conversation a few weeks ago. You remember how that turned out."

Yes, Luke remembered. Damien disappeared for six days. He killed multiple people, probably. Luke would've asked at the time, but he recalled another conversation they had several weeks prior. Damien disappeared for several hours for the first time. He killed someone, probably. And when Luke asked what happened, he simply responded that he went on a walk. Luke never asked again after that. He didn't really want to know, but he knew anyway.

Luke sat up and stared directly at Damien. "You know, I don't have a problem with you . . ."

"Killing people?" Damien finished.

"Well, I'd like to think I do, but I don't because . . ." he chuckled quietly, heartlessly, "why would I still be here? Why would I still be with you?"

"Because you're a dumbass?"

"No, because I care about you. And even though you obviously have a problem that I cannot fix, I still care about you and I still want to be with you and I'm tired of sitting here pretending that I don't care about anything. And I . . ." he sighed out, angry, frustrated, "I don't know, I feel like I miss you."

Damien sneered at the last comment. "How could you possibly miss me? We see each other every day."

"No you don't understand. I miss talking to you, like really talking to you." Luke sighed and rubbed his face in annoyance. "God, I sound like a fucking middle-aged woman. I miss the intensity, the, uh, passion we had."

Damien squinted his eyes thoughtfully. "We still have sex."

Of course they did. More often than they should. But Luke could only think about how the blazing, simmering hot fire of a sex life they had had simmered own into something mellow and almost bland, just leaving a subtle warm feeling to settle in the pits of their stomachs afterwards.

Luke rolled his eyes at him. "You know what I mean."

"Fine. You wanna talk? Let's talk. But I doubt that'll spice up our sex lives."

"What did you do today?"

"What do you think I did?"

"Don't answer my questions with more questions."

"Then ask better questions."

Luke sighed out and closed his eyes. "Who did you kill?"

"A college student on a road trip."

Luke bit his lower lip, feeling more regretful than nervous. "A guy or a girl?"

"What? Are you jealous?"

He opened his eyes to glare him. "I'm just curious."

"A girl."

"Was she . . . hot?" It was an inch closer to a normal conversation, but still miles away.

Damien shrugged. "She was alright."

"And how did you . . ."

"Do what?"

"Make her trust you?"

"I flirted with her."

"So you flirted with her and she just trusted you?" Damien nodded. "And then . . ." Luke needed to take a deep breath before he could finish, "and then you killed her."

Damien nodded again. "Do you want to know how I did that too?"

Luke shook his head, a little too vigorously. "No, no. I'm good."

"Are you good?"

Luke wished he was. He wished he could end the conversation there, but there was one idea scratching at the back of his head, begging to be exposed. "Did she . . . suffer?"

Damien froze. "Luke," he muttered coarsely. "That's why I kill people. I like to watch them suffer."

Luke felt his internal organs twist around each other, tying themselves around his stomach and squeezing, determined to make him vomit.

"But why?" he choked out. He never mean to ask that, but he needed to know.

Damien frowned. "You want me to explain why I like killing people?"

Luke shrugged. "I just don't understand why . . ."

Damien exhaled heavily and pressed his face against his hand. "I like the way they scream, the way they beg for mercy, the way their blood pours out—"

"Okay, stop," Luke hissed.

"You wanted to know."

"I wanted to know if . . ." Luke didn't know why he felt more embarassed than afraid to ask the question. " . . . if it turns you on."

Damien shifted his stare to the bed and nodded. "It does."

Luke was definitely going to vomit now. "So do you . . ."

"Do I what?"

"Fuck . . . their bodies?"

Damien laughed, but it was struggled and choked. "No. I'm a sadist, not a necrophiliac. There's a difference."

"Oh."

"But seeing their bodies, it does, you know, I could . . . get off on that."

"Have you?"

Damien's body tensed. "Yes. But I don't . . . I don't do it anymore."

Now that I have you. Luke could sense the words in his tone.

Then a horrifying thought crossed his mind. "Does that mean you've imagined me . . ."

Damien nodded guiltily, now completely avoiding eye contact. "But I would never do it."

"You wouldn't?"

"I don't want to."

"You don't?"

"Well, of course I want to," Damien hissed, clenching the sheets with his hands. "But at the same time, I don't."

The horror that was building up at the base of his spine, the disgust that was bubbling in the pit of his stomach, gradually subsided as Luke watched the internal conflict that Damien was struggling with. Curiosity now scratched the back of his mind, and now that he knew that Damien was really fucked up, he wanted to know to what extent.

"How would you do it?"

His face twitched. "Don't."

"I want to know."

"I don't want you to know."

"I don't care. Tell me."

"I'm not gonna fucking tell you anything."

"Please tell me, I need to know.

"No, you don't."

"Damien, I swear to God—"

"I can't tell you, Luke!" he snapped. "I can't!"

"Why not?"

"Because it's one thing to have you be disgusted by me or even disturbed by me, but it's another to have you afraid of me. I can't let that happen."

"I don't understand."

"You already get enough nightmares as is."

"I don't see how it could get worse."

"You could have nightmares about me."

"You don't give me nightmares."

"But I will. I will if I tell you what I would do to you."

The entire time, Damien never looked at him, never released his grip from the sheets.

"If you don't tell me, I will get nightmares. Not knowing is my worst nightmare." He wasn't sure if he was exaggerating or not. "Please tell me Damien."

Damien shut his eyes and sighed out heavily. "Fine, he muttered. "I'll tell you." It took him a while, but after a long moment of silence, he finally started speaking.

He drags his nails across your skin, down your neck, your chest, leaving thick pink swollen lines across you entire abdomen. You hiss in pain but you don't fight it, you feel your skin break and bleed but you still don't fight it—

Damien gasped lightly, and Luke could see that he was already aroused.

He grabs a knife and starts marking you up. He leaves tiny little cuts everywhere, your arm, the nape of your neck, the inside of your thigh. You hiss with every jab, you squirm, you move around—

He groaned and rolled over, rolling his hips, grinding against the bed.

And then he stabs you when you least expect it. You gasp in pain, you stare at the wound in horror as blood begins to trickle out of it.

He was already panting, and gripping the sheets as if he were going to fall off.

He stabs you again and you wail out in pain. He watches you bleed and you can only cry. There's so much blood, so much of your blood, everywhere. All you see is red, red, red, surrounding you, and you never knew how much blood you had inside of you, but it's everywhere—

He didn't want to, or maybe he couldn't, speak anymore, as he rutted against the bed, trying to finish himself off.

"Damien?" Luke whispered.

"Luke," he muttered shakily, desperately.

Luke was numb. He couldn't feel, he didn't know how to feel, so all he could do was sit there and watch and listen to Damien. "Keep going."

Damien moaned, a mixture of pleasure and despair, still rutting against the bed.

And then he fucks you, hard, so fucking hard, that you lose your senses momentarily, that you only know pain and nothing else. And you scream, you scream and you wail and you sob, because he's dragging a knife down your thigh as he tears your ass apart.

Damien groaned, no, he whined, and started rocking his hips violently against the bed.

He's almost finished, at least, you think he's almost finished, and you think you've already lost your voice. But before he finishes, he bites you, tears through your flesh with his teeth, taking chunks of flesh from your shoulder. He licks the blood leaking out of you and—

"Fuck," Damien growled.

"And what else?"

"A-and . . ."

"And then?"

He finally looked at him, his eyes shining with desperation. "Luke, please."

His voice was weak and shaky, beyond desperate, just passed upset.

"And then I beg for mercy?" Luke added, unsure of how to respond.

Damien choked on his cry as he came, spilling onto the sheets and shaking violently as he finished. His arms collapsed undereath him and his face landed against the bed, still shaking.

Holy shit, Luke immediately thought. He never saw Damien like this, he never thought he would see him like this.

"Damien?"

"L-Luke," he stuttered. "I-I can't."

Luke grabbed him and pulled him into a tight embrace, with Damien's head pressed against his chest and his upper body cradled in his arms.

"Luke, I don't want to hurt you," Damien whimpered.

"You won't," Luke whispered, stroking his sweaty hair. "You won't."

At this rate, it seemed like Damien would get more hurt than Luke would.