“So when Martin came around… he seemed like a good choice, like I could breathe. And when he killed my dad, I thought he’d saved me. I thought he was protecting me. But when I think about it now, I see he didn’t do it for me. He was just afraid my dad would out him.”
Knight chewed on that for several seconds. “Your taste in men hasn’t really improved,” he said, pointing at Fane’s portrait tattooed on Elliot’s chest.
Elliot took a deep breath, thinking back to his teenage years. “I first got into serial killers at around fourteen. I’d imagine teaming up with them to get rid of my dad, to kill anyone I hated at school, or to dismember the lousy teachers who got money for being such dicks. It appealed to me that they seemed to have complete control over the world where I had none. I thought that if I could have just a fraction of their confidence and courage, I wouldn’t be such a useless victim anymore. I didn’t have friends, so the serial killer thing was a way to meet people online. And through Dahmer fans I found the Faneatics. It felt like being a part of something exclusive, it still does."
Knight slowly got to his feet and brushed his index finger against Fane’s image on Elliot’s skin. “So this is the hero you’ve chosen?”
Elliot slipped the towel off his shoulders, looking up at Knight. “He had cunning to not be found, and even if he was evil, there was a certain elegance about him. He wasn’t just some thug.”
Knight rolled his eyes and approached a tall chest of drawers. He rummaged through one and returned to the bed holding a sharpie. “Don’t want that face or name in my bed,” he said, and before Elliot could protest Knight proceeded to methodically put black ink over the tattoo.
Elliot looked down at Fane’s disappearing face with his eyes wide, but he didn’t push Knight away. Sure, he loved the tattoo, it represented a big part of his life, but with a man like Knight around, with his father and Martin dead, maybe the need for Fane wasn’t as pressing? After all, Knight was a man of flesh and bone when Fane was just a fantasy, a ghost living in the basement.
“Why? Are you afraid of ghosts?” Elliot reached out to stroke Knight’s forearm where a whole list of ancestors climbed up the skin.
Knight snorted. “Nah. I think he doesn’t deserve you.”
For those words, Elliot would let Knight paint all over his body with a sharpie. “Do I have good taste in men now?” He spread his legs to pull Knight in between them and arched up to wrap his arms around Knight’s neck. If this wasn’t how falling in love felt, he didn’t know what did.
Chapter 15
It was ridiculously cold.
Snow had been falling heavily for the past two weeks, which resulted in a thick layer of frozen fluff. It would have been grim on those dark December afternoons if it weren’t for the cheerful colors of the Christmas decorations that dominated Brecon due to high prizes promised in this year’s best-looking house contest. Some of the more invested participants were going overboard with giant inflatable snowmen and the like, but Knight enjoyed the cozy atmosphere in the town center most.
Illuminated decorations hung between lanterns along the main street, and all the little shops embellished their fronts for the season, inviting passersby in with the scent of cinnamon and evergreens. Each store had something special prepared in its front window, and the decorations ranged from subtle Christmas accents to elaborate scenes created with either the products on sale or special props. The local café had a miniature railway driving cookies through a landscape of white cotton and porcelain houses, and the tasty ‘passengers’ had looked delicious enough to lure Knight and Elliot inside.
They each had a pastry, as well as big cups of sweet coffee with whipped cream, and even the constantly falling snow could not spoil their mood. Knight finished his apple turnover—still warm from the oven—before they reached the next crossing, but Elliot took his time with the oversized gingerbread man.
He was finally not eating every single meal as if it could disappear from his hands the next second, and Knight was so happy to see his cheeks have a healthy rosy color. Despite his features still being so angular, Elliot’s face had filled up a bit and he didn’t look so gaunt anymore.
The other week when they were about to head out to town, Elliot had layered all his clothes under a big hoodie and Knight could hardly believe it when Elliot admitted that he didn’t own a winter jacket. Elliot had claimed he was fine, but his blue fingers told a different story, so Knight took him shopping for winter clothes and called it an early Christmas present. Elliot wasn’t thin as a reed anymore, but it by no means meant he had that much fat on him.