Chapter Text
Brighton
Billy Rowan is a nice man.
He loves surfing and taking his girlfriend out for dinner.
Billy Rowan is unassuming; he wears a smile like others wear their diamonds.
He holds the door for you and greets you with a word of advice, if you ever find yourself in need of one.
Billy Rowan grew up surfing in Australia; the longboard became his greatest passion in life. But once Billy Rowan had turned twenty-one, he set out to explore the waves of far away beaches and never returned home.
He has worked every job in every country, lived every life in every place but it was a small, cozy pub just outside of Brighton that had stolen his heart indefinitely. He’s been working there ever since.
Billy Rowan is unmarried but not unloved.
A beautiful woman had come to the pub two years ago, he chose her like he had chosen his new life in Brighton.
She loves Billy dearly as he loves her, everyone says so.
In fact, everyone loves Billy Rowan! They comment on his sun-bleached shoulder-length hair, the blond stubble on his chin and they get positively besotted whenever they look into his baby blue eyes.
The work at the pub is demanding but partaking in the lives of the local townsfolk makes every effort, every late shift - every puddle of puke or piss that he would be obligated to clean up - worthwhile.
And no matter how exhausting pouring beer and loaning therapy to drunken strangers and unexpected friends may be, Billy knew that at the end of every day, there was always an open heart and a warm bed waiting for him.
Billy Rowan leads a good life.
Billy Rowan leads an honest life.
Billy Rowan does not exist.
“Billy? Could you take the rubbish outside for me, love?”
Branda was the good soul of the Hound’s Inn and not just because she was the owner. There was a warmth to her that drew people in. It had happened to Billy too. He hadn’t planned on visiting the pub those few years ago. And if he did then he would never admit to it.
But the sign outside had been inviting and as soon as his feet had landed on the threshold, Branda had won him over. She has had the eyes of a mother. A sight too unfamiliar to Billy, for him to not cling to it – his own mother had died not come to England with him after all.
Just like most mothers, Branda was quick to strip Billy of all his carefully constructed walls. She always told him that she could smell the wind in his coat - whatever that meant, Billy hadn’t been sure.
Although actually, she did try explaining it to him once. But as soon as Branda had started waxing poetic about how she could sense his innate desire to hide himself away from the pressure of living any one singular life, he had turned his brain off and started smiling, patiently waiting for her to stop talking. Which she had done in the end but not before giving him an unwanted lesson in amateur psychoanalysis.
“Yes, Branda. I’ll just finish this up and then I’ll get right to it.”
Branda threw a pleased smile at him that could’ve disarmed half of Brighton. Billy returned it dutifully as he finished pouring the pints.
Old dame Judy gave Billy a penetrating look as she watched him load the tray before carrying it over to her table. Her pale eyes were always poking out from underneath her oversized hat, sticking to him like disembodied digits, as though he could feel her gaze groping him wherever it was directed at.
Billy ignored the unpleasant heat of her eyes trailing his exposed collarbone and put the pints down in front of her and her two lady friends.
“There you go, ladies, there you go.” - Billy quipped, earning a table full of amused laughter.
“Finally Billy darling, I was afraid we’d be nothing but dust, bones and decorative feathers by the time you got those pints ready for us.”
Old dame Judy tried to flirt with Billy. He obliged. He knew they all loved him, but it never hurt to remind them exactly why they loved him all that much. People always enjoy having their misconceptions reaffirmed.
“Crisis averted, eh? I wouldn’t want you running ashore so soon.” - Billy mused.
A wink sealed the deal and old dame Judy positively swooned in her cracked leather chair as she slapped Billy’s arm with feigned embarrassment. And if he could feel her grabbing his biceps for just the fraction of a second then Billy happily ignored it.
The next bit had been predictable, at this point it was theatre to Billy. Old dame Judy grabbed her leopard pattern purse, pulled out a fifty-pound note and let her fingers dig right into Billy’s jeans pocket to deposit the money there as if Billy were a rogue investment.
“Here, my dear, but don’t tell the others. I don’t want them getting their knickers in a right old twist because you’re my favourite.”
She looked at him as though they were familiar acquaintances and for the sake of Billy keeping his job, he pretended to indulge her.
“Aye Judy, soon I might just have enough to take you back Down Under with me, eh?”
Audacious cackling erupted at the ladies’ table and old dame Judy blushed a pleased pink.
“Alright, alright! What’s all this then?”
And then Branda appeared next to Billy quite suddenly. She has always had a good sense for when Billy needed saving from roaming hands and eyes and overenthusiastic tipping from lonely customers.
“Billy didn’t I tell you to take out the rubbish? Go on, off you pop.”
A lifeline appeared and Billy was quick to grab it.
“Yes, right. Excuse me, ladies, duty calls.”
Billy aimed a weak parody of a salute at old dame Judy and finally turned to go, leaving disappointed chattering in the wake of his departure. As he walked back to the staff room, his eyes lingered on the windows looking out on the street for a fraction of a moment. He saw the yellow light from the pub bleed through the glass and into the night blackened asphalt of the pavement. He saw a shadow too, a figure standing back, so far away and so engulfed in darkness that he would’ve mistaken the figure for a man if he himself had been anyone but Billy Rowan.
But thankfully he wasn’t, he indeed was Billy Rowan and so he walked on by and forgot about strange, shadowy figures with peaceful imminence.
The neon tubes that lit up the staff room were flickering nervously. Billy made a mental note to have them fixed later but for now he simply grabbed the two black rubbish bags and turned off the light as he left the room.
As soon as Billy opened the backdoor of the Hound’s Inn, the night seemed to swallow him. The smell of beer had gone and now there was petrol and dirt and the rain that had soaked the country for an ongoing eternity. Flickering neon tubes were replaced with the shy light of a street lantern that barely reached all corners of the little back alley.
It was quiet here and Billy hated it. Especially at night, this liminal silence felt revealing, such little distraction – no music, no Branda, no guests, no women advanced in age that touched him inappropriately – this utter lack of any sensory input would only beg him to dig deeper into himself, if he were left alone within it for too long. And there was nothing there that Billy Rowan cared to unearth.
So, for a second he observed the oppressive dark alley, and then he took a quick few steps towards the bins to dispose of the rubbish bags and finally get back inside. Back inside to where being Billy Rowen had been so very, very easy.
But then he heard something, his back was facing the corner that connected the alley with the main road. There had been a slight shuffle, rubber on asphalt right behind him and the hair on Billy’s neck rose in quiet anticipation.
Maybe it had been nothing, eh?
Maybe the silence had gone to his head. Billy Rowan would believe that, he’d believe the noise behind him had been the wind. And so, he ignored the adrenaline pouring through his heart and aimed to turn around so that he may finally head back inside the pub.
But then, quite unfortunately so, there had now been a knife at his throat.
Billy yelped with sudden terror but then a leather-clad hand cupped his mouth and pushed an oncoming scream back into his throat.
„Sh, sh, sh! Quiet.”
A body was pressed up against Billy from behind, the hushed voice had been so, so close to his ear so suddenly, that he felt a shudder running down his spine and down the back of his legs before it disappeared into the ground beneath him. There was also that pesky blade that still rested on the sensitive, vital skin of his bare throat like an unspoken promise.
“Quiet or I’ll cut your throat, okay?”
The voice was deep and the body warm, so Billy nodded in compliance.
Well, it’s not like he had much else to do anyways.
“Good boy.”
The man – going by the voice and the perceived size of the body – started pushing Billy, carefully leading him towards that part of the ally the streetlight hadn’t and couldn’t touch. He only stopped once Billy was pushed up nose first against wet, cold brick completely.
Billy felt the heat of breath branding against the side of his neck, a stark contrast to the brick wall.
The sensation made him feel relief. The kind of relief Billy Rowan had never and would have never known.
But hoping for help was futile, Billy concluded. Darkness surrounded them both, obscuring them from sight, abandoning Billy from the help of any strange eyes that might have walked past on the main street.
The leather gloves were gone suddenly, to Billy’s surprise, but the blade hadn’t left and so all that dared escaping his mouth was his shaking breath.
“What is your name?”
The hand that had left his mouth was now grabbing a fist full of his shoulder-length bleached blond hair. Strands were wrapping themselves around fingers and the man tugged at them absentmindedly. The slight sting of it added excitement to where Billy had felt relief.
“My- my name is Billy. Billy Rowan.” He said with shaking restraint, aiming to sound steady but cooperative.
Billy earned a deep hum from the man behind him in response. He felt that running down his spine too.
“Your hair looks stupid, Billy.”
A sudden laugh that Billy hadn’t anticipated and couldn’t hold back left his mouth and then the man tensed up vigorously; making him yank Billy’s hair back accidentally and when Billy felt the blade break skin on his throat ever so slightly his laugh suffocated. Warm blood ran down his neck, seeping into his cotton shirt.
“¡Mierda!” - the man cursed, seemingly just as surprised by the cut and the blood as Billy had been.
In fear of wounds much more severe, and to put an end to the anxious worrying of the man who had just cut him with a knife Billy started rambling quietly.
“Please mate, there is money in my pocket, take it all. I don’t mean any harm.”
Billy pleaded pathetically, verbally throwing himself at the feet of the man like a dog offering the leather of its own leash. He felt the anxiety that permeated the air mere seconds ago retreating.
“Money? I like that. Alright let me see.”
To Billy’s disappointment relief, the hand that had been pulling on his hair was now wandering south. Stroking along the curve of his spine until fingers reached into one of his back pockets.
“Mmh, what do we have here? A phone?”
Billy felt the man pull out his old phone. Billy Rowan wasn’t keen on a rapidly modernising world; he liked his technology internet free and decked out in lots and lots of physical buttons.
A plastic thud was heard shortly after; the man had dropped the phone on the wet concrete.
“Boring.” - the man continued, before stepping on the phone with such force that it broke, no, exploded into countless little plastic pieces that Billy would never be able to reassemble.
Billy just about controlled himself enough to not verbally complain about the loss.
The knife at his throat had eased itself into a slight distance by now, the blade was no longer touching skin but looming over it. Maybe the man was careful enough to not accidentally kill Billy through the sheer absurdity of another accident. There was a strange kindness to that observation that Billy decided to ignore instantly.
The hand that had tossed his phone was now moving to the front pockets of his jeans, first searching from the outside and once the man felt a familiar outline, his fingers reached into the fabric.
“A wallet? That’s better.”
Quiet rustling of clothes suggested that the man had taken the wallet and put it into his own pockets. Which did make sense, Billy thought, this was a robbery after all.
A thought came to Billy, then, which caused him a jolt of panic. He turned his head ever so slightly to search for the security camera that Branda had installed a while ago. Usually it sat way up high, a red light blinking steadily, signalling to anyone that it was watching them.
There was no red light now.
But the man had noticed Billy’s wandering look, and it once again pulled him into frenzied anxiety.
“Ai, ai no, Billy don’t look at the sky, look at me. The birds won’t help you. Birdy has flown.”
It appeared as though it was the man who had closed the red watching eye of the camera. Which also made sense, Billy thought, no thief would want witnesses to their robbery.
Billy felt the man lean in closer, pushing him further against the wall. The closeness was uncomfortable but the heat of the man, his tall, strong and lean body, his breathing on Billy’s cheek and neck - there was more than something to it.
“I saw you through the window, amigo.” - the man teased, voice low and sultry.
Amigo.
“Did you like that? Having that old lady’s hands down your jeans?”
No actually, Billy didn’t like that at all, but it simply belonged to the task at hand and the task at hand had always been the entirety of Billy’s life, no matter what that task might’ve looked like in the moment. The importance of it never wavered.
But instead of denying or confirming or even explaining, Billy remained quiet.
“Yeah? Don’t get shy now, Billy.”
“Please, just take the money and go.” – Billy deflected, adamant on remaining submissive to being the surprise participant of a robbery.
There was one more pocket the man hadn’t gone through and it was the very same one old dame Judy had deposited her flirtatious investment in. The man now had his hand on that pocket, too, first feeling from the outside again and then he dug his fingers into it.
He pulled out the fifty-pound note and – going by the crinkling noise, also stashed that somewhere on his own body.
“Ooh, that’s a big tip, Billy. Looks like she liked you, no? I wonder why.”
It wasn’t just that the man was pushed up against Billy, it was that he could feel his hips angled in such a way that his crotch was squarely rubbing up against Billy’s bum. And now their closeness, especially there, seemed to increase once more. Heat and goosebumps and raised hair and relief and excitement and confusion, they were all mixed together in Billy’s blood and their push and pull was slowly driving him crazy.
It didn’t help that there were fingers on his waist, stroking forward towards his belly and then-
Oh.
And then a cold leather hand was gliding further down south. Billy’s breath hitched as the man cupped his crotch with an open palm and curious fingers. If there was a moan on the tip of Billy’s tongue, then he would deny it. But the way his leather-clad fingertips were digging into his balls, was surely a sensation Billy had not been opposed to.
Relief, Billy thought. The feeling had been so overwhelming.
“Ai Billy, you make a lot of people happy with that, no?” – the man said, his voice just low whispered syllables in Billy’s ear. The sound of it was dipped in honey and Billy found himself needing to lick it off the man, while his fingers rubbed over his bulge ever so slightly, a barely-there motion that drove Billy insane.
“No wonder the old lady couldn’t keep her hands off you.”
“Like you, you mean?” - Billy teased although he hadn't meant to.
The man hummed in response once more, a pleased noise, if Billy had ever heard one. And then the hand was gone and Billy’s overexcited nether region was once again met with cold, wet brick.
A most unfortunate development.
It was the only bit of banter that Billy allowed himself to indulge in. The knife wasn’t resting on his throat anymore anyways.
“Here, because you were being sooo cooperative.”
For the last time the man’s fingers were digging into Billy’s jean pocket. This time though, there might have been something added to it rather than it being plundered. He tried imagining what Billy could’ve possibly been given by him but the size of that thought overwhelmed Billy Rowan’s imagination.
And besides, the man was still all over him, Billy was still trapped between the smouldering heat of him and cold, wet brick. Coherency had not been within reach for the time being.
Billy had loathed coming to the back alley but there was a part of him that would’ve enjoyed it much more if there was always a robbery at knifepoint waiting for him there.
“I will go now, okay?”
Billy froze in anticipation.
“Don’t move and I won’t hurt you. You trust me?”
I trust you.
Billy nodded carefully.
“And you will keep your eyes to the wall, sí?”
Billy nodded more enthusiastically.
“Good.”
If there had been lips on Billy’s throat then, he would’ve denied it feverishly. The darkness had hidden it, kept it a secret, a myth by definition, one that only Billy and the man would know by heart. Even that godforsaken alley hadn’t seen it. But the ghost of a warm mouth, barely there but open and tender, the feeling lingered, as the man disappeared.
Footsteps were heard, quick and growing quieter with distance.
“Thanks for the money, Billy.”
And then the man was gone and Billy let out a breath he hadn’t realised was trapped in his throat.
He took a second to come to his senses, to remove himself from where he was still clinging to a brick wall. Billy’s lungs were heaving quietly, and his heart was beginning to race. Nervousness overtook him, something within him was being called to action.
There was the sting of a cut and the fading warmth of a kiss on either side of his neck.
Relief.
With shaking hands, he dug into his pocket to see what the man had left him there, but the feeling of folded paper made him tense up and freeze. Best not to open it here.
The dark alley would not keep every secret. Watchful eyes or a lack thereof won’t matter either way. Another hesitant breath and then Billy bolted. He walked to the back entrance with quick steps, rushed through the door and didn’t wait for it to close.
Another few steps and he was back inside the staff room. Nervous neon light flickered to life, but Billy ignored it. He walked further towards a door that was tugged into the corner of the staff room. He opened it, turned on a neon light there that shone evenly and slammed the door shut behind him.
Billy’s shaking breath was bouncing off the walls of the small, windowless broom closet, reverberating through tools and utensils and arriving loud and oppressive in his own ears.
His racing heart was as thunder in there.
Finally, Billy reached for the folded paper in his jeans pocket. He pulled it out and unfolded it with hesitation, careful not to rip or tear or damage it in any way. This piece of paper had already become so precious to him.
Black ink had touched paper.
Eight words, twelve numbers.
Billy Rowan understood none of them and yet he knew this was all he ever cared to learn. He felt himself unravel at every digit. Every layer of him pierced by ink, every sense of his life unmade in this broom closet.
A tear welled up, touched his cheek and fled down his jaw, wetting the blood that was drying on his neck.
He had never been so happy.
And at last, there was only one more thing Billy Rowan had to do now.
He dug the paper back into his pocket, deep enough so that it wouldn’t fall out. A precaution he hadn’t taken with old dame Judy’s money. But money wouldn’t compare to the treasure of this paper.
Billy emerged from the closet, ran back into nervously flickering light. He found the small mirror where Branda often fixed her wild, curly hair during a particularly troubling evening shift. He saw Billy Rowan reflected there. His long blond hair a mess, streaks of tears on his blushed cheeks, streaks of blood on his neck, deep red that has seeped into his white cotton shirt.
He did not make an effort to fix any of it, in fact Billy clawed at the small cut on his throat, reopening it, making blood flow fresh and bright red as it had done when the man had cornered and wounded him.
The blue of his eyes was glass. Billy Rowan looked terrified and he couldn’t have been more pleased about it.
“Branda?” – he cried, only now tearing his eyes away from his own reflection and hurrying outside the staff room, down the corridor and back into the customer hall of the pub.
“Branda!” – he shouted again when he saw her, her back turned towards him. She was still talking to old dame Judy and her two friends. But the sound of his voice had startled them all. Old dame Judy was the first to spot him. Billy saw her cheeks pale at the sight of him and her mouth opened in a silent scream.
“Goodness, gracious!”
Someone had yelled at Billy and then all of them followed.
“Christ on a bike!” - “Blimey, Billy, what happened to you?” – “Someone call an ambulance!”
The air in the pub turned violent with anxiety. Branda rushed over to him at the speed of light. Her motherly hands touching and probing until she worried herself into a near panic attack.
“Billy what happened, talk to me, Billy!”
The next few moments would be essential, and so Billy did his best to remain calm and yet let everyone believe that he feared as much for his life as the blood pouring from his neck would make everyone suspect.
“The alley, there- there was a man. I didn’t see him and then- then, he had a knife and-“
Exhaustion deterred his words. Billy Rowan sounded shocked beyond reason. Incomprehensible but steady; the act was preconceived.
“Fuckin’ hell, Billy. Where is he? Did you see? I’ll call the police and then I’ll get you to the hospital.”
No police, no hospital. Official records needed to be manipulated.
“No, no, Branda, it’s quite alright. It’s not as bad as it looks. I told him to take my money and he did and then he left, thank god.”
Branda’s face wore a mask of utter bewilderment. Her eyes were darting back and forth between the blood on Billy’s neck and his unnerving calm eyes.
“But- “– she tried and then her words failed her. Billy needed to take over now.
“Listen, darling, could you call my girlfriend? Tell her my phone is broken and that there’s been a bit of a hassle, I’ll go to the hospital myself and I’ll file a report there.”
His words were calming enough; he could see them moving things in her brain and her expression turned a bit softer.
“Let me at least drive you, I’ll close the pub, everyone will understand- “
“No, no, no, it’s all good. Let me just catch some fresh air and then I’ll go to the hospital, and all is fine. Just call my girlfriend, would you, love?”
Billy gently grabbed Branda by her upper arms, his warm hands aiming to calm her down enough so that she would play the part that Billy Rowan had envisioned her to star in. It all depended on her now
“Branda, dear, we’ll call an ambulance, sweet Billy doesn’t know what he’s saying. Look at him, the poor lad has lost his marbles.”
Old dame Judy chimed in from where she was still sitting, pint in hand and large, feathered hat on her forehead. Billy Rowan did his best to not anger at the inconvenience of her presence, it would not have fit the story they had all bought the day they met him.
But Branda, reliable, sweet, motherly Branda, had been at his side once more.
“I’ll take care of it, Judy, don’t worry your pretty feathered head.” – Branda called to her dismissively; her eyes fixed on Billy.
He will miss her, Billy thought. Billy Rowan would’ve missed dear Branda, the heart of the Hound’s Inn. The loveliest pub just outside of Brighton; run by a good soul and her Australian bartender.
Billy Rowan would’ve missed this life.
And then Billy leaned down and kissed her cheek.
“Thank you, I’ll call you from the hospital, okay? Don’t worry about me. These things happen.”
She wrapped her arms around him at that, a tight hug, the feeling of her maternal and it stirred muddied water beneath Billy Rowan’s surface, just the way it had done the day they had met.
And then he pushed her away ever so gently and before he could look into her eyes any further, he stormed out of the pub and back into the moist, cold Autumn air.
Billy Rowan felt himself become fragmented once he had passed the threshold of the pub. Like there was an image of him lingering within the walls, contained by the door, the windows, contained by Branda and even silly old dame Judy.
The image would be buried in that pub.
But that was quite enough of that, Billy Rowan decided.
The task at hand was the priority and the task at hand had shifted and so he made his way to his car as quickly as he could. His old reliable Audi roared to life as he turned the key inside the ignition. Yellowed headlights mixed with the orange light of the street lantern, making the road ahead look gloomy but secure.
He stepped on the acceleration with practiced urgency and off he went. Billy Rowan drove and drove. Past the police station, past the hospital, past Brighton. He kept close to the coastline, the street dipping in and out of the forest that lined the stoney beaches out there.
The trees had risen high here, but the falling leaves left the branches too naked for them to shield Billy Rowan from the light of the moon. Silver dipped into the yellow headlight of his Audi.
Eventually, Billy took a hard turn into the forest, getting closer to the shoreline that he had left behind a while ago. The forest became thicker and thicker before it cleared, revealing nothing but a small shed surrounded by wet, browning grass.
It was here where Billy Rowan stopped his car.
He would need to be quick. Billy opened the glove compartment, where he kept – surprisingly enough – his favourite pair of leather gloves and put them on before he stepped out of the car.
Billy headed off into the darkness until he reached the front door. It was here where he stopped and listened.
Just for a moment there was silence, an owl up above, the wind and the dry Autumn leaves and the ocean somewhere to the East but there was nothing else and so Billy felt secure enough to open the door.
A small light flickered to life after his fingers had found the switch.
Everything was as he had left it, a bag, a fridge and a light bulb.
He went for the fridge first and couldn’t contain the light sigh of relief he uttered as he saw that the three bags of his own blood he had stashed there were still intact.
He grabbed them and then he grabbed the bag, turned off the light bulb, closed the door behind him and walked through the thick dark before jumping back into the driver seat.
Again, the engine roared, the yellow light painted itself across the treeline and the rotting grass.
The task at hand was coming to an end.
Relief.
Billy Rowan felt exhaustion pulling at his limbs, the anticipation of what was to come tearing at him, digging into his surface and penetrating the deeper layers.
Billy felt like his skin was slowly being pushed off his bones. A separation that would be final and it was of utmost importance that Billy knew on which side he stood once that metamorphosis had been completed.
He stepped on the acceleration, heading for the treeline. There was a small path there, the trees were standing just far enough apart for his Audi to make its way through their labyrinth.
And before he knew it there was the ocean. An endless black void, cut off at the horizon. Only the stars and moon above, reflected in the shimmering black, gave it a sense of reality.
Billy stopped the car just as the front tires reached the precipice of the cliff.
This will do.
This had to do.
He wasn’t frightened by what would happen now. If anything, it frightened him that it had all felt so easy. The robbery, leaving Branda, asking her to call his girlfriend. A woman he had been with for two years and who he had never really known.
None of this had been hard. The implication of it didn’t terrify Billy Rowan, it terrified what lay beneath him, what was pushing at his skin from the inside with painful determination.
With ease he loosened the handbrake, grabbed his bag from the passenger seat and exited the car.
Billy Rowan pulled out a knife and the first of the three blood bags. He punctured the plastic carefully until a small hole made it possible for him to splash the blood all over the driver’s seat. Once the blood had run out, he grabbed the second bag and once that had run out as well, the third. It should be enough to make anyone believe that the loss of this much blood will have been fatal to whomever it belonged to.
A robbery in an alley.
A lost security camera feed.
A rejection of help.
A frenzied escape.
A blood-soaked car.
A missing man.
Billy Rowan had ticked off every box on his list, except the final one.
He dug his fingers into his pocket where the folded paper had been hidden away all night. With steady hands he opened it up; black ink and now his bloody leather fingertips pressing deep red into the paper.
Those words had been on Billy Rowan’s mind; they had become his mind. The words were tearing at his skin from the inside, cutting layer from layer from bone. He read them one last time:
Billy Rowan died. His body was never found.
The skin was gone now. His bones were bare.
Billy Rowan sat down in the front seat, the engine hummed, the yellow headlight shone out into the black ocean.
Someone pushed from behind, Billy didn’t hit the brakes, and then the front tires were touching air. The underside of the car creaked and bent as the stone cliff tore it open. The back tires have gone over the precipice.
Billy Rowan stared at the ocean through the windshield of his old Audi. The black waves swallowed the yellow headlight as the car crashed into them and then
they swallowed him.
Billy Rowan died.
His body was never found.
High up on the edge of the cliff - his eyes fixed on the fading red of the taillights sinking beneath the blackened surface of the ocean – stood Jonathan Pine.
He felt no lingering sense of loss, then. Just regret for the utter lack of him.
One by one he peeled bloody leather gloves from each of his fingers in a silent ritual.
There was no remorse. None for shedding his skin, for being buried underneath a strange man for two years, for breathing life into him and the people he cared about. No remorse for drowning him.
Jonathan Pine just felt emptiness.
He had done this too many times now, had lived too many lives, he couldn’t contain them. They had all been him and he had been nothing but them.
Though he was relieved, now.
Jonathan was relieved in that alley, too. The heat of him. His beating heart, the sting of his knife and the tender touch of his lips.
Jonathan breathed for what felt like the first time in his life. The salt ridden air of the ocean below filled his lungs and then his brain. Drowning Billy Rowan had felt like cutting off his own foot that had been caught in a bear trap. It also felt like nothing at all.
A necessity. The snake sheds its skin so that it may go on living, growing a new one beneath it that will be shed too once the time has come. Thus is the circle of Jonathan’s life.
And he was sick of it.
He bent down and grabbed his bag then, pulling out a torch and a smartphone. Everything had been prepared so long ago. He had never meant to live as that man for years. But it was the task at hand, it was what had been asked of him.
Jonathan looked at the paper again, disregarding the now useless words and focusing on the numbers instead. He had recognised them as coordinates when he had first seen them in the broom closet a few hours ago.
He typed every digit into his phone, hit send and then he received a route in return.
The final coordinates weren’t far from here, a thirty-minute walk through the forest.
Jonathan shouldered his bag, aimed the torch ahead and walked away from the precipice behind him. The car and the man that lay beneath black waves all but forgotten.
He was careful to walk on dry leaves and to step through thick undergrowth instead of avoiding it. Best not to leave too many footprints. They will be searching for him as the victim as well as the perpetrator. There will be a media frenzy in a few days, his face plastered on every screen.
The missing Aussi.
A problem that needed attention at a later point in time.
For now, Jonathan kept on walking, checking his phone and finding himself on the right path until the treeline emerged in front of him and beyond it a road.
Lanterns were sprinkled along the roadside, illuminating the night in a collection of orange cones.
His phone told him that he had reached his destination.
As if called upon by his arrival, the sound of an engine coming closer made him duck back into the treeline. A single headlight rounded the corner and was now on a straight part of the street that was directly headed to where Jonathan was hiding.
The engine roared and slowed, brakes creaked, the light had arrived and come to a stop mere metres from Jonathan. The engine died and adrenaline shot through Jonathan’s veins with sudden anticipation. His heart was pounding, preparing him to run or to follow.
Jonathan felt alive.
“I can see you.”
And then Jonathan pounced.
He bolted out of the bushes he had scarcely hidden behind and came to a stop in front of a man on a motorcycle. The lone white headlight blinded him, drenching the man beyond it in pitch black darkness, but he knew, Jonathan always knew.
“Teddy.”
Not a prayer, not a confession, Jonathan spoke his name with absolution.
“Took you long enough, this is the third time I drove past here.”
He hadn’t changed. Jonathan had felt it in the alley, felt him with familiarity, felt Teddy pulling him out of a trance he had drowned in for years.
I can make you clean.
He still had the same mysterious quietness about him, as he slid down the side of the motorcycle, extending the stand with a practiced kick of his foot and then he finally turned off the engine, killing the ghastly white light and plunging them both into a dark night.
An orange street lantern cone far off to the right of them gave them some resemblance of sight, still.
Jonathan saw the white of Teddy’s pretty smile through the dark and it was all he needed to finally move.
Jonathan crossed the space between them with two big steps and Teddy anticipated him, raising his arms as Jonathan raised his and they collided with a force that might have shook the earth beneath them but at the very least strained their hearts.
Their arms were wrapped around one another with desperate relief. Jonathan’s chest rose against Teddy’s, he could feel his hammering heart through his rib cage, beating in unison with his own. And then he pulled away, just far enough to move his hands up to Teddy’s pretty face. He cupped his jaw, his thumbs resting on his sharp cheekbones, he saw his brown eyes reflecting him, reflecting the night and everything there had ever been between them.
And then Jonathan kissed him or Teddy kissed Jonathan, it hardly mattered.
Their mouths collided, there were teeth and tongues and neither of them could stop the fever that befell them.
It had been so long. It had been so, so long.
Someone’s knees buckled, Teddy fell back with a thud, pulling Jonathan with him until they both hit the muddy ground. Still Jonathan chased Teddy’s lips, lying on top of him now, kissing him as he hadn’t done in a year.
One night they had been granted together a year ago, carefully orchestrated, too much of a risk but they both had needed it. The separation had been torture, one night in two years would’ve never ever been enough.
But it was the only semblance of safety either of them had to offer.
As long as there was a bounty on Jonathan’s head, as long as Teddy's survival remained a secret, being together would’ve meant a death sentence.
Teddy’s hands now took a hold of Jonathan’s face, grabbing at his cheeks and pushing him away until their kiss broke. A lone thread of spit connected their mouths.
“Tranquilo. Tranquilo, Mateo.”
Quiet. Calm down, Mateo.
Teddy’s thumbs were stroking down Jonathan’s cheeks and then back up and then back down, a soothing rhythm. All of Teddy felt so achingly familiar to Jonathan.
There were a million questions in his head, then. Every single one needed to be answered.
“How are you?” – was the one Jonathan picked out first, which made Teddy smile the way he did whenever Jonathan confused him. Half his mouth turned upwards and his eyes an unmoved and unreadable black.
“Now? Good.”
Even without much light, Jonathan could see it was the truth and it filled him with endless, endless gratitude.
Teddy threaded his fingers through Jonathan’s long hair, combing the strands back and tugging them behind his ears. Stupid, Teddy had called it and he had been right. Jonathan couldn’t wait to cut it off, like he had cut off and discarded the rest of the man he had inhabited.
But then Teddy put one thumb under Jonathan’s chin, tipping his head back so that Teddy could look at his neck from where he was still lying underneath Jonathan.
Teddy ran a careful finger over the small cut there, an accident that Teddy hadn’t meant to happen, but Jonathan was grateful for it. It needed to be real and so it had become real.
“Perdóname.” - Teddy whispered, easing over the cut and then craning his neck so that he could press his lips to it too.
Forgive me.
He hated hearing those words from Teddy, hated the thought of needing to grant him forgiveness. There was nothing Teddy could do that would demand Jonathan’s absolution. He had met Teddy those three years ago, his target, the fallen son of a monster. He’d been mysterious and gentle and beautiful and a cold-blooded killer. And Jonathan had loved him, all of him.
Teddy moved his lips from the tender wound on his throat, up to the side of Jonathan’s mouth and kissing him there too. He tasted like iron; blood had dyed his lips.
“Perdóname, Jonathan.” – he whispered in repetition.
Worship, Jonathan thought, the sight of it overwhelming. He felt himself shaking at the weight of Teddy’s devotion. Undeserving of it, he was forever utterly undeserving of Teddy’s love.
So, when Teddy leaned back, resting his head back down on the muddy floor, Jonathan aimed to deter the weight of their conflicting emotions, always shifting anxiously between them.
“Give me my fifty quid back and consider us even.”
Teddy smiled, then, bright and boyish and it made Jonathan lean his head back down.
Just one more kiss.
“Never.” - Teddy whispered against his lips, and it made Jonathan smile too.
It was time to move now. The mud was soaking them, the night did not have many hours left and they needed her cover to stay low and undetected until they reached their next destination.
Whatever or wherever that was, Jonathan knew.
He knew what would be waiting for him at the end of this. No matter where he went, his destination had been predestined.
Jonathan got up on weak knees, lending a hand to Teddy as he rose to his feet after him. Their fingers remained loosely intertwined as they walked to Teddy’s motorcycle.
Everything had separated them, time and time again, neither had the strength to let go now that it wasn’t necessary.
Teddy mounted the machine first as he threw a waiting glance at Jonathan, silently telling him to get on too. And so, Jonathan did and he wrapped his arms around Teddy’s waist to hold on to him. Burying his nose in Teddy’s shoulder, breathing him in, clinging to him. Jonathan felt so achingly alive.
Finally, he was himself after he’d been buried beneath the grave of a stranger for two years.
And alas that, too, had been familiar.
“Where are we going?” – Jonathan asked as Teddy ignited the engine. The motorcycle vibrated beneath them with stunted power.
There were more questions tethered to the one Jonathan had asked.
Where is he?
Did you find him? Does he know you’re alive?
Will this end?
Teddy had heard them all and answered only one.
“Hong Kong.”