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“We can handle this,” Paimon murmurs. There he goes again. We. How long has there been a “we”? “Back up a little.”
When Lauren?iu scrambles back, the corpse bursts into flames. It’s an unnatural fire that consumes the body to ashes, which fly in the increasing wind, within seconds.
Lauren?iu stares, barely feeling Paimon’s hand, and yet it weighs him to the world, keeping him sane.
“Come, let’s get back to the motel.”
Lauren?iu blinks blearily. “Okay.” He knows that he’ll be fully aware and powerful once this liminal bliss-fugue, full of dreaminess and arousal, ends in the next hour or so.
He doesn’t move from where he’s mired in blood and gore. It feels like a waste, as smoke fills his nostrils, to leave this blood. He gets on his knees, leans down fully, and begins licking the asphalt, tasting copper and petroleum. Right there, as Paimon watches.
"Darling, the body is gone, mostly, but if someone finds us like this..." The body. What was his name? His parents’ names? What did it matter? Lauren?iu must feed. It had to be someone.
Once he raises his head, warmth cups his face and cranes his chin upward.
“Let’s go back to the room, get you washed up, take Daisy and go. Keep following wherever she takes us. All right?”
Lauren?iu nods, and with Paimon’s help, he stands. He steps on something with a crunch, a dull prickle on his bare feet. He looks down—glass. The man’s glasses.
Paimon snaps, and they’re back in the room.
He has killed before. Not just to feed, but for pleasure. Ripped out throats and eyes in an entire hospital ward, but it never feels entirely right. Either it feels like nothing, or the slaking of his hunger encompasses all. After all, he’ll feel joy and pleasure when he kills Anthony and his inconvenient hunter spouse.
All other deaths, after the initial pleasure-haze, are just necessary, but empty once that high fades. In fact, that anticipation of its end tends to dampen the bliss. He wishes he could just enjoy it. Paimon hadn’t gotten somber after he killed that one man.
Nevertheless, he’s lighter than he’s been in decades and all he can think is Thank God, no, thank the Devil, thank Paimon. He should kiss him. It must be like eating stars.
As his companion pushes open the broken bathroom door and flicks on the light, Lauren?iu tells him, “I have blood in my hair.”
Amused, Paimon looks over his shoulder with a smile. “You have it in a lot more places than that.” He squeaks the hot water on. It sputters out mud. “Hold on, just give it a moment.” More mud. “Just a few more seconds.”
As he waits, and the water runs clear while Paimon washes away what hit the tub, Lauren?iu begins to peel off his ruined clothes, plastered to his body. He doesn’t feel a hint of modesty. After all, Paimon has first seen him naked, as all souls start.
When the king sees that Lauren?iu has started to undress, he says, “I can go—”
“Could you help me?” The worst part of killing someone and drinking blood has to be taking the ruined clothes off after. It’s a shame. He actually likes AC/DC. Bon Scott died too soon. Paimon will have to conjure up a new outfit for him.
He suppresses a laugh, especially when Paimon straightens and seems surprised by Lauren?iu’s nonchalance. He seems to be weighing something in his mind.
If he wants, he can just tear off his clothes, but it’ll be nice to have help. Before, no one helped him after a feeding, whether he killed someone, typically on accident, or not.
“I can, if you need.”
Paimon strolls up to him, tugging on the front of his shirt, as if testing its pliability. As if dissatisfied, he shakes his head and Lauren?iu expects him to snap his fingers and magically shed the clothes.
Instead, when Lauren?iu nods his permission, Paimon tugs off his shirt, though it’s a bit of a hassle for them both. His fingers briefly, accidentally graze Lauren?iu’s side, which tickles.
Once he’s shirtless, the two crescent surgery scars on his chest are bared. again, Paimon has seen them before, but sometimes it feels like he’s reminding everyone else that they exist. And yet, they’re the scars he’s least concerned about.
Then, Lauren?iu unbuttons and unzips his pants, and takes them off himself and climbs into the tub, now ninety-nine percent clean, maybe ninety-eight.
By the shower tub, Paimon gets on his knees.
Lauren?iu’s mind spills poetry like one of Paimon’s champagne fountains.
i want to drink you like the moon. like the silver moonlight inwater.
i want to kiss the stars off your fingers.
