Still Alive
Evan must admit, they are a pretty good match. In bed at least.
When he wakes up the next day, he can still feel the spots where Barty had buried his teeth into his skin the night before. He looks to his side and finds Barty still sleeping tightly.
Evan gets out of bed and starts his laptop, then walks into the kitchen for some of his favourite sleep-away-potion; coffee. Soon after both mugs are filled, he hears noise from the other room. Apparently, Barty just fell out of the bed.
“How would you like your coffee?” Evan asks a still very asleep looking Barty, who drags himself into the kitchen.
Barty yawns and sits down on top of the kitchen counter besides the two mugs with the black brew. “Milk and sugar.”
Evan nods and mixes some milk and a teaspoon of sugar into the second mug, fully aware of Barty closely observing him. When he moves to close the sugar lid Barty catches his hand and takes out 4 more spoons of sugar and mixes them into the coffee.
“That can’t taste well.” Evan says with apparent disgust.
Barty grins and takes a big sip from the diabetes bringing brew. He then adds some more milk.
“Way better. How are you able to drink that thing without anything?” He laughs.
Evan stares at Barty, taking in the man sitting on his kitchen counter like a child. He had put on one of Evan’s pyjama pants; a simple grey-checked one. His upper body’s naked which allows Evan to closely observe it (he didn’t have time for that the night prior as he had other priorities). There were multiple tattoos. A snake winding itself from the front of his hips to his back. Some rather random tattoos on his right arm, which looked more like drawings and a ring of roses around his other upper arm.
Adding Barty’s good build (Evan didn’t see it clearly yesterday, but his hands wandered more than once over the other's upper body) the bloke grinning back at him, has the potential to look like an adult. Yet his grinning face, the mischievous sparkle in his eyes and the amount of sugar he takes in, not to mention his inability to stay serious for a second - it all reminded Evan of someone who just entered adulthood.
“How old are you?” He asks. Hoping his first hook up after months wouldn’t turn out to be younger than his 23 year old little brother.
“Why? Scared I’m underage?” Barty teases.
Evan stares back at him silently.
“You really didn’t know about the dating app, huh? I’m 30. My age is there if you wanna check.” Barty adds.
He then follows Evan as the older one walks back into his bedroom to sit down in front of his laptop, the browser still open from the day prior. The tab had the question ‘how to get rid of fingerprints fast’ in the search bar.
“Well, that is not at all unsettling. Are you going to kill me after all?” Barty jokingly says.
“I’m an author.”
“Aha. Well, if you’re still looking for an answer: There are many ways to alternate your fingertips permanently through scarring them, but that makes the fingerprints unique in their own way, so you wanna avoid that. You could burn them, or use calcium oxide to corrode them away. Both being temporary as it only destroys the top layer, so your character would need to use this time and time again. And then there is the so-called hand-foot syndrome. Which can be a side effect of a drug used in some chemotherapies. One of the symptomes being the loss of fingerprints- Do you want me to write it down for you?” Barty doesn’t wait for Evans' answer and leans over him to grab pen and paper and notes down all the things he just mentioned.
“Now I think I should be the one worrying. Which reminds me, how come we both matched on this app when it’s based on algorithms like that?” Evan asks, eyeing Barty suspiciously.
“I’m a fan of true crime podcasts and crime novels and sometimes I look up how realistic something is.” Barty explains and adds with a grin. “If I really were a murderer, then I’d be a bloody stupid one to look stuff like that up online.”
Evan contemplates that reasoning for a minute, then concludes that, if the man staying behind him was indeed a killer, he probably wouldn’t sit here right now.
“So, you are an author. Any chance I’ve read something of yours?” Barty asks interested as he lets himself fall back on the bed.
“I’ve published two works under the name Evan Rosier.” Evan gestures to his side and at his two books sitting in his smaller bookshelf. (He had a bigger one as well in his living room, but he liked to keep some special books close, in his bedroom.)
Barty rolls himself on his stomach to get up more easily and then walks over to the bookshelf. He eyes all the books with apparent interest before taking out the ones with Evans name on it.
They are filled with little notes and remarks from his friends. Everyone with their own colour. Pandora was pink, Lily red (which made it sometimes feel like she was proofreading), Remus green, Dorcas light blue and Mary yellow.
Evan would never admit it, but he loved hearing their thoughts to his stories and they knew it. When he published his first book they gave him one version filled with all these notes as a present. They did it again for the second and will probably do so for the current one as well.
“What’s that?” Barty immediately asks after opening the book.
“My friends wrote in them. They give them to me as a present.”
Barty sits back down on the bed and starts reading the first book.
For a while Evan just observes him, contemplating whether to let him stay or kick him out - this was supposed to be a one-night stand after all. He ends up turning around and starts typing again.
The killing wasn’t the hard part. What came after was more challenging. Getting rid of a murder weapon without attracting a lot of attention could be seen as hard, but luckily I wouldn’t need to worry about any fingerprints other than the ones of the bartender whom I stole the knife from earlier. Having burned my fingertips meant there were no prints I could leave and as soon as the skin has healed itself, it wouldn’t even seem suspicious to-
“I like the red person.” Barty’s voice bursts into his thought process.
“What?” Evan turns to look annoyed at the younger one.
“She is right. Not everything you describe makes sense. You need to do some better research.”
“Well, I tried my best. I wrote this book while still studying after all. I had exams and papers due. There wasn’t really the time to find out how to kill a person most realistically.” Evan counters.
Barty shrugs and gets up to look at the laptop screen, showing the script to Evan’s current book.
“Are you writing from the perspective of the murderer? Then you really need to do your research better than that.” He teases.
“It was my first book.” Evan grumbles.
“If you need any help. I know a thing or two and I’m pretty good at research.” Barty offers, taking a sip from his coffee.
“And why would you help me? What’s in it for you?” If Evan knows one thing, then that everything comes at a price and he has published 2 books, but that doesn’t make him rich, so if it’s money-
“We keep meeting.” Barty breaks through his thoughts again .
“What-” Evan starts.
“Oh please. I know you wanted this to be a one and never again thing. But I think you are very interesting. I also think we are very compatible .” Barty adds with a grin which leads Evan’s thoughts back to last night.
Barty grinning up at him from the pillows, his black and green hair dishevelled. The piercings in the other man's ear catching some of the moonlight and reflecting it. Sweat running down Evan’s body, a moan escaping his throat-
Fuck.
Barty’s pleased smirk tells Evan that he knows exactly where the author’s thoughts just went. Evan feels caught for multiple reasons and looks back at his script. The cursor blinks mockingly as if asking him “Well? Are you writing or not?”
“Why would someone enjoy killing?” Evan asks instead.
He hears Barty shifting on the bed and a glance over his shoulder tells him that the other had lied back down with his hands behind his head.
“Why do you ask?”
“Need to know if you are worth anything before taking you up on your offer.”
Barty locks eyes with him and for a while they just stay like that. Evan, sitting at his desk and trying to find a reason to make this man leave - for himself just as much as for the other. Barty, casually answering the stare with mockery in his eyes, because he knows he already won.
“There are a lot of different reasons, especially considering that you don’t need to enjoy the murder itself.” Barty answers.
Evan now turns his whole body, intrigued by the rather vague answer.
“Elaborate.”
“Will we see each other again?”
Evan groans as he realises that he walked right into Barty’s trap. But if he puts aside the dread of imaging the smug expression of his twin sister, there are no other downsides to this (only transactional) relationship between the two of them. And he could just tell Pandora that it didn’t work out.
“Yes.”
“Have you ever thought about the motivation of a murderer?” Barty starts, but doesn’t wait for an answer. “Some might kill out of fear. Maybe the other person knows an important secret or the other person actually threatened the murderer themselves first. Some people kill for the excitement, the thrill. It is prohibited to kill another human not only by law, but moral and ethics themselves. But wouldn’t it be possible that someone doesn’t even care about the killing part?” Barty stops here and takes another sip of his coffee.
Evan mirrors him, waiting for Barty to continue. He does.
“Maybe the killer is indifferent about the killing and far more interested in what comes after. The mind games. How can the murderer get away with this? Where to bring the corpse? How to destroy the evidence? What about the murder weapon? If they are also prone to showing off their intelligence they might even contact the police. Taunt them by leaving notes. Things like that.” Barty shrugs and takes up the book again as if he didn’t just deep-analyse a hypothetical murderer. “‘s that enough? Have I earned to stay and read a bit longer?”
Evan bursts into a snigger at the cheer absurdity of the situation.
“Whatever you like.” Evan turns back to the blinking cursor and starts typing away. He tries to ignore the implication of the smile on his face, when thinking about the strange bloke sprawled out on his bed.
❁ ✒ ☠︎︎
“I know, I know. I’m here right now. … Yeah, I will tell him. … You are making way too much fuss. Come here yourself if you care so much. … Bye. … Love you too.”
The voice of his younger brother pulls Evan right back into reality.
His eyes fall to the numbers at the bottom of his screen. It was 5pm. He turns around to find Barty lying on his bed with one of the books from the bookshelf in the living room.
Barty had been up a few times to look around the apartment, get himself some food (and Evan as well) and to get a new book. Evan felt strangely okay (even comfortable) to have him walk around the place. What he doesn’t feel okay with at all, was his younger brother finding him in Evans bed.
Evan did not spend half his teenage years explaining to little Felix that he can’t go with strangers, to have Felix find the stranger Evan met yesterday, lying in his bed. Especially not after having called him so late yesterday to warn him about a murderer on the loose.
“Shit.” he mutters, which is all he can do, before Felix bursts into his bedroom.
“Rise and fucking shine, dickhead. You didn’t answer Dora after hooking up with a stranger so she sent me over to see if you are still breath-” Felix stopped mid-sentence as he was greeted with an unknown man lying in his older brother's bed.
He slowly raises his phone and the click of the camera is heard and then chaos breaks loose. The sound yanks Evan right out of his state of horror and he jumps up from his chair. Barty seems genuinely unamused for the first time since Evan has met him.
“I’m so going to send this to Pandora.” Felix laughs as he turns on his heels and runs.
Evan starts running as well and gets a hold of Felix in the kitchen. With one hand he grabs the younger one by the neck, with the other he takes the phone to close the chat.
“Give it back! Wait. Don’t open the gallery! Okay, I’ll delete it. Just give back the phone.” Felix begs and begs and Evan just strengthens his grip.
“Yeah sure you will. I don’t trust you one bit, Brat.” Evan opens the gallery and is greeted by pictures of naked torsos and other unclothed body parts. He shuts off the phone in milliseconds. “...Felix? What the fuck ?”
“I told you not to look.” His younger brother cries embarrassed.
“Was that you?” Evan asks, praying he didn’t just see his brother naked.
“God, no! It’s Charlie… ” Evan barely understands the mumbled name.
He groans. Great, now he could never look his brother's boyfriend in the eyes again.
“Just..delete the bloody picture please. And don’t say anything to Pandora.”
Felix takes back his phone and does as told. Both brothers deliberately avoid eye contact. The awkward silence, however, doesn’t continue for long, as roaring laughter breaks through it.
Barty stands in the door frame, having witnessed all of the spectacle, and laughs so hard he has to actually bend forward.
❁ ✒ ☠︎︎
“Was nice meeting you Barty. And you should really text Pandora.” Felix says in lieu of a goodbye and closes the door behind himself.
After Barty had lightened the mood, the three of them had eaten some leftover pizza and Felix had told Evan that Pandora couldn’t reach him and therefore made Felix come over. In return for Felix' silence, Evan explained his situation with Barty. Due to Barty’s childish behaviour he and Felix got along perfectly well. So good actually, that Felix got Barty’s number before Evan.
Evan would need to keep an eye on those two or he would soon have a far bigger problem than Pandora finding out. He wouldn’t put it past either of them to get into trouble and both together was a receipt for disaster.
“I should get going myself. Don’t want you to get sick of me already and cancel our agreement.” Barty jokes.
“Can I?” Evan answers flatly.
“Nope.”