A Killer's Lover

10

Scott treated himself to a glass of his worst wine after Mitch fell asleep.

Yes, usually you treat yourself to your best glass of wine after a stressful encounter with life or authority. And yes, Scott stole wine from his victims. If he could have any trophy from his kills, wine would do the job. But he likes the sour taste that each dark, twisted sip brings.

It represents his victims; sad, guilty, but something that Scott will never let himself forget.

"You should try Chardonnay," Mitch suggested when Scott poured himself a drink, and he visibly cringed at the smell alone. "My parents had a taste for it."

"Chardonnay's alright," Scott shrugged his shoulders, "But I don't have much of a taste for the better, more expensive kinds. It's a waste of money, don't you think? If you train yourself to like these dirt cheap brands then you save money."

"I'm guessing they taste like dirt, if they cost as much," Mitch challenged.

"...yeah, pretty much," Scott laughed. It felt unnatural and slightly hoarse, if he was honest. Never has a person made him genuinely laugh, other than maybe Jake. And even with him, bar giggles don't count for obvious reasons.

But Scott told Mitch to go into his own bedroom and sleep about an hour or two before, and he could hear the kid's heavy breathing through the cracked door. Without it open, his room was pitch black. In a drunk, panicked state, Scott had broken its hinges. It could no longer close all the way, and that one small detail gave the blond a sense of peace when sleeping alone.

Scott collapsed on his dusty couch after a few hours of thought. He slept in a soundless void, one that felt empty and barren of anything. No dreams, no drifting thoughts; not even a nightmare.

Simply, darkness.

There was a pain in his back when he tried to stand the next day. As soon as his feet began to hold his weight, his wheels churned and he hissed. It wasn't a comfortable couch at all. In fact, it belonged to his father before he lost the use for it.

Money's what you get rich for. As Scott has previously stated, he liked to save it for better times.

He could tell that the sun was out, even though his curtains had been pulled tightly together. The only light came from a bulb that he kept plugged into the wall. It let out a fluorescent glow that turned his kitchen and parts of the living room a subtle white. The rest of the room was cascaded in shadow.

He pulled out some coffee grounds and a filter to put in his "old fashioned" coffee maker. If he were honest, he hated the taste of the coffees with all the bells and whistles. Not only did they have more calories than Scott was willing to consume, but they tasted like a children's drink. Scott took it black and hot, with three ice cubes in it every single morning.

Mitch came out about ten minutes later, and Scott couldn't help but stare.

His head was bald, which was still weird upon first glance. But his shirt twisted around his small body, and the bottom of it came down to the middle of his thighs. It was one of his own, a collared shirt that he (but mostly his muscles) had grown out of. But on Mitch, it looked amazing. The only thing better about the look was that Mitch had stripped his jeans, sporting only a pair of black underwear.

"Good morning," he mumbled to Scott, yawning, "I smell coffee."

"Uh...where'd your clothing go?"

Mitch looked down, embarrassed. "Sorry...I forgot I was wearing my slutty underwear."

"...Yeah, you smell coffee...but I'm guessing that you're gonna want to jack it up with sugar."

Mitch scoffed, sassy even when rising from sleep. "I can take it plain."

"We'll see about that, now won't we?" Scott smirked.

So basically, what happened next is exactly what you were expecting so let's move on.

"That tastes like hot human flesh," Mitch groaned a few minutes later, trying to cool down his tongue with an ice cube. Scott simply stood to the side, smirking over his own cup.

"I told you it was hot, didn't I?"

"Screw you."

Scott embraced his playfulness. He hasn't gotten to be immature since he was a kid, and so it was new yet powerful. In fact, he'd almost forgotten about work.

But almost.

"So...what are we doing today? Am I staying here, or...?"

Scott bit his lip, but he remained silent for a few seconds before shrugging.

"Do you have a job?"

"You could say that," Scott mumbled without speaking, "I can't reveal too much about it."

Mitch raised a nicely-toned-morning-style eyebrow at him.

"You're not a cop, are you?"

Scott shook his head with a "tsk."

"Jesus, no. Do you think they would chase us if I were? Do you think I'd do that?" The kid made him squirm. He couldn't blow his cover...Mitch might be trouble but he didn't deserve to die.

"Well, people stage things all the time, don't they?"

If only Scott could explain to Mitch that he was the exact opposite of a cop. The robber, the burglar, the murderer.

Mitch wouldn't understand, though.

"You can think anything you want, and I won't stop you. But you should know by now that it's not right to assume things." Scott strolled from the kitchen then, heading toward his bedroom to take a shower. "I'll take you to do anything you want, today. But you don't get to make assumptions about me. There's so much that you won't ever be able to know."

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