Archive of Our Own ^beta

part 1 / a hunt

“Well Suk, look at us, never thought you’d be a guest at one of these, did you, huh?”

The inspector claps a hand on Suk’s shoulder, before moving off to talk to a pretty lady in a high-necked black dress; the man takes a pair of champagne glasses from a server and moves in to offer one to her, which she accepts. It’s quite fashionable to be a detective, these days, particularly after the fuss of the whole Johan case. It had captured the imagination of the press and the public; the internet forums teemed with speculation, with false names, with followers. The department had been badly crippled by the whole ordeal, but it turned out that was just what it needed to gain enough notoriety to be boosted in the esteem of the entire population of Prague.

Suk mills around, trying to look at the paintings.

He’s not really one for appreciating art, but this sort of big time show is obligatory when you’re one of the darlings of such a high profile case (the gunshot wounds must have earned him a measure of respect). Tonight it’s some obscure mixture of small watercolour paintings and garish pages of folklore picture books; the artist is not present, as far as he knows, but something about them reminds him of the fateful, ugly storybook about the nameless monster, and leaves a bad taste in his mouth. The champagne does a lot to wash it away, however.

The Johan case is not over, not by a long shot. That journalist had come to ask him a few questions; which he had answered as best he could— Johan had fled the hospital, the bed found empty. What sort of man can up and leave like that, after being shot in the head and in a coma? No one can do that, Suk thinks, taking a long drink of his champagne and passing by yet another strange watercolour of a little gnarled creature, no one should be able to do that.

The next painting is a small creature-like man, hiding beneath a bridge. It reminds him of a childhood rhyme; there is something uncanny in the pictures; all of the details of them are correct and proportionate, except the creatures themselves. Their fingers are too long, their noses too sharp to be human. They have eyes that look too closely at the viewer, their strange little feet are in shoes that curl like Chinese slippers. The rest of the guests seem to barely be interested in the art at all; these events are more for the social aspect, rather than the art; he likes that about them, being more sociable than academic himself (though he does have his moments, he likes to think!).

But, there’s an odd feeling tonight; there has been an odd feeling about so many nights before this, too— ever since Johan escaped.

There is a fresh electricity in the air whenever he inhales; as if the very atmosphere of Prague was in anticipation of a thunderstorm.

Some nights, when he walks home from the bar or from the station, he feels as if a pair of footsteps are pursuing him along the cobblestones; footsteps that mimic his own so perfectly that he would not notice if the pursuer did not permit him the odd, out of time footstep.

There are other things; stranger things— his mother has been receiving flowers lately, and he had thought that perhaps these gifts were from someone in the office— most people know about the situation with her illness, and they’re all very sympathetic. However, these flowers are extravagant— they are not the sort of thing a colleague would send her. They’re rare, exotic flowers; the reds of Japanese spider lilies, orchids shaped like insects; their pale tendrils creeping down delicate stems. They delight her, of course, but she remains oddly tight lipped about whether or not she knows of the sender; they are not delivered in person, Suk found, when he went to question the hospital staff; they are delivered in the early mornings by a floral service. The floral service too, seemed to be none the wiser— he had looked into it, feeling the hot prickle of dread at the back of his neck, and they were quick to direct him to a manager who had no such record of a delivery being made to anyone at the hospital on the days that his mother had received the flowers.

Suk moves down along the line of paintings, finding them stranger and stranger as he goes. Little congregations of fairytale monsters sit in circles on hilltops; their ugly, misshapen hands seem to invite particular detail from this artist. He moves from one to the next as if looking for clues in a case, feeling as if there has been no accident in his department being invited here, knowing that there is a puppeteer at work, and perhaps that there always will be unless they catch him; shooting him in the head clearly does not work— best they do not make that mistake a third time.

“Detective Suk.”

Suk turns around, finding that he’s been leaning with his nose mere inches away from one of the paintings, frowning terribly, champagne all but forgotten. He’s pulled into a conversation and manages to shake the dread that had been slowly growing in him as he went down the line of drawings; there are hands to shake, after all. He manages to flit around a little after that; he’s always been a talkative guy; people like him, and he likes them. He circles back around to the inspector and is introduced to his lady friend; she’s pretty, he supposes— he’s been distracted since Johan (née Anna). He’s had a certain sort of doubt creep in— doubted his own eyes after that; he had been so close, had spoken to that notorious killer, had paid for their drinks night after night, had told him about his parents.

“So, detective,” the woman says, leaning closer, “I heard you got shot. That must have been awful, how brave.”

Suk smiles easily, mouth lifting. “Yeah, I don’t recommend it. Three times, you know. It took me ages to get back into field work.”

“Suk here is one of our best and brightest,” the inspector says, sliding a hand into the middle of the woman’s back, and angling himself towards her. “Except, he’s prone to daydreaming the days away during briefings, mind always on the ladies, isn’t it, detective?”

This being the inspector (a new hire, for the Prague office, of course— seeing as what happened to his two former bosses left them a little understaffed), and his boss, Suk goes along with the jibe, laughing; he has no way of escaping that one— he’d been caught staring dreamily out of the window, his thoughts circling around Anna. At the time, of course, he hadn’t known that she was going to turn out to be, well— what she turned out to be.

The party wends its way much in the same fashion as any of these gatherings do; Suk gets a little drunk on the champagne, laughs a little too long and too loudly at one joke or another. There’s a group of them going to a nice restaurant afterwards, somewhere in the old town, and he’s been invited; he’s rather enjoying his position as the station’s hero, and people take to him easily, inviting him into their groups to ask him all sorts of invasive questions about the case; which he shrugs off. Being tight lipped is something he’s learnt the hard way; he’d talked once before, and seen the error in this.

He’s back at the table for another glass of champagne, avoiding the paintings now that he’s worked his way around the hall; they’re creepy, he thinks; though it might be worth looking into the artist at some point. There’s always the danger of copycats with a case like Johan’s; though he’s certain that the guy has stopped permanently. That’s just the thing with Johan; he’s not a serial killer, he thinks, he had a goal in mind, and now he’s without that goal. He’s probably somewhere close at hand, though, he thinks, somewhere near enough to keep an eye on all the proceedings. It would not surprise him if he’s here, always staying close to everybody that touched that investigation. But, that will not stop the few who idolise him for his crimes from trying to take up the mantle, Suk thinks, wandering through the crowd and towards the edge of the exhibition, idly looking for the bathroom. It’s safe to predict that in Johan’s wake, there will be plenty of admirers who will try, misguided, to outdo him. These dangerous sorts of cases, when they go public like this one has, tend to have a snowball effect.

When Suk emerges from the bathroom; the door located right at the opposite end of the large hall; he looks at the crowd of well dressed people, all of them milling about in their little circles, all of them holding their champagne; the trays of canapés moving between them as waiters hurry back and forth. He stops to watch for a moment, feeling warmed by the alcohol. His mother would have liked a gathering like this; she did not grow up wealthy, nor did she marry wealth. When it was him and his mother, they lived on a shoestring budget; there were no black tie events in his life back then— he’d been the son of a school teacher. But she’d always loved fashion, he recalls, admiring the neighbour’s style, always wanting to discuss her magazines and the outfits she’d seen in the windows of famous boutiques in the city center. It had been nice to be able to treat her, now and then— even though a detective’s salary is no great shakes, he’d risen up the ranks after the Johan case. Maybe it was a bit of guilt on the department’s side, but either way, it had helped him give his mother a slightly better life than she’d known before. Of course, she was still in the hospital now, and likely would have to stay there for the remainder of her life; he reminds himself to buy her a present for their next visit; she does not have much to brighten her days, though she is as naturally optimistic as he is.

That was another thing that was curious.

The bills had been covered recently, as if by an insurance payout that did not exist.

He assumed that it was something to do with his own shooting and the whole solving of the case; he’s been given most of the credit, at least by the department, even though it had very little to do with him and all to do with Mr. Grimmer and Dr. Tenma; those two were the true heroes— he holds a particular fondness for Grimmer, even now; he had looked up to him, in his way, and he joined the string of dead father figures that seem to inhabit Suk’s life. Perhaps it was the force’s way of apologising for all of the trouble, and not reporting it to him lest he feel embarrassed. The fact that it was simply dissolved, though, as if it had never existed; her time in the hospital was entirely covered, he had not had to pay another cent— it’s odd, but he hasn’t taken it up with the commissioner yet. The conversation, he expects, will be awkward; though it is unusual that nobody notified him of it. If it isn’t the commissioner, it is likely that a concerned citizen might have footed the bill; it’s not as if he’s hidden the fact that he has an ailing mother; the press are aware of the situation. It could very well have gotten around somehow.

Anyway, he thinks, looking out a the crowd, that is a mystery for a different day.

Distantly, near the back of the hall, he spots a swatch of blond hair.

Suk stops, feeling something catch in his throat; some sense of panic rising.

The dread that he’d been feeling all week starts to simmer, prickling up his spine, making him sweat. The flicker is gone as soon as he has seen it, and he stays there, rooted in place, his heart hammering in his chest. He knows that this is irrational; that being so brazen, in plain sight, would be a foolish move for anyone on the run from the authorities to make. But— who else would be so bold as to appear at a function where the Prague police force’s investigators have been invited? Who else would put on an expensive suit and slip into the crowd and socialise with the very people who are searching for him? Only the villains in storybooks do that; the villains in the movies.

It is the second time that turns his blood to ice.

That snatch of colour is unmistakeable; he has never seen Anna without her wig, but he has seen the photograph; and he knows her face, would know Johan’s face anywhere.

The fine nose, the pretty eyelashes.

People keep crossing in front of his view as he works his way around the center of the hall; keeping to the walls, trying to avoid knocking into anyone as he hurries.

Johan is here.

The crowded hall is difficult to navigate; he pardons himself as he almost bumps into a fashionable pair of society ladies, who wave at him, their smiles going ignored by him as he feels his adrenalin start to race.

Suk makes it to the other end of the hall, standing in a doorway, certain that he saw someone disappear this way, certain that he saw the retreating suit back, saw a shimmer of pale blond.

He stands there, listens, but cannot hear anything over the clinking of crystal glasses and the laughter of the assembled people. They could all very well be in danger; while he’s certain that Johan has finally brought his killing spree to an end, there is equally no telling that he is not trying to erase everyone that has ever had contact with him. There are two ways that this can go— he could be here for Suk, could be here to kill him and truly wipe himself from the face of the city, or he could be here on some more infernal errand, some monstrous task that not even Suk, or Tenma, or anyone aside from Johan and maybe the real Anna Liebert can conceive of. Of course, Johan has never particularly cared about innocent casualties. Ruhenheim was no murder; at least, it was not listed as such, but those who worked on the case know all too well: it was the most insidious sort of murder, Johan barely had to dirty his hands.

A scent catches his attention, then; just something, like an afterthought, not something that would be easily noticed at first, but rather as if someone had passed by him. The stale notes of incense, like a perfume that had stood open too long, linger in the air with a nostalgia that he feels barely permitted to him; he knew her for only a few weeks, and she was barely real. Him, he corrects himself; it was Johan all along; none of that was Anna Liebert— Anna Liebert is a different person entirely.

He slips beneath a rope barrier and into another room of the gallery, finding that the lights are off here. The walls are hung with large jungle scenes; the paint dripping from trees and down into ferns and vines. Suk’s shoes clack loudly on the parquet flooring; it’s not often that he wears a tux; but tonight is important; the mayor is here, and his department is always on some sort of bid for funding.

The honeyed lighting of the main gallery seems far behind him; there’s something subterranean about the deserted hallways with all of those tall paintings lining them; there are eyes in the undergrowth, watching him as he passes. He climbs a staircase, hearing footsteps ahead of him, trying to control his own breathing as he pursues but does not dare to go any faster than a brisk walk. The footsteps ahead of him match his pace exactly, almost falling into step, but just that one beat out of time with him.

He reaches a landing, and looks up, seeing a faint red light coming from one of the upstairs corridors. It’s spooky, he thinks, fielding a shudder; and this is Johan. He has never been face to face with the man himself before; but he had seen the comparatives of the man and his sister; instantly he’d seen the difference between the two, the animation in the real Anna Liebert’s face, and the stoic beauty of her strange brother.

Suk slows down, creeping up the stairs as best he can. They emit a loud squeak, however, and he jumps, steps quickly to the top of the staircase, looking down the long hallway.

The red light of the exit sign illuminates it. The door swings shut.

Suk’s feet slip on the polished floor; the grip of the dress shoes is not made for pursing international criminals, and he just about falls as he throws himself down the hallway, not entirely certain what he will find when he flings open that door, unarmed, knowing that this is not the sort of killer you’d want to catch by yourself. He’s propelled towards the door all the same; he pulls it open, looks out at an empty fire escape.

The night sky beyond it is clear and the air is cold; he catches the faintest hint of that perfume, as if the very air outside smells of it, as if it is not in the air but perhaps sunken into his own skin.

It is a crisp night, and he shivers in the breeze as it passes by him, staying very still, listening for the sound of shoes on the fire escape below him. He cannot see anything when he leans over the railing to look, just sees the cobblestones of the driveway that wraps around the art gallery, just sees the boundary wall beyond that, and the well-trimmed hedges beyond that. There is no blond head making its silent escape, no shadowy, monstrous figure slinking over the dark lawn.

Perhaps, Suk thinks, raising a hand to rub at the back of his neck— perhaps he has simply imagined this. After everything that he went through, surely it would not be so odd to find himself snapping at ghosts; to find himself pursuing things that were not there; just shadows, imagined scents. But, he thinks, leaning against the rail, head dipping, his fringe falling forward, that hospital bed was empty, and Johan was long gone. Maybe this sort of suspicion was warranted. Maybe they all should be on their guard.

There is no telling what woke up from that coma, he supposes— not even doctor Tenma can tell them that.

Suk is so certain that he can feel eyes on him, and he looks again, staring out into the night, eyes squinting against the dim haze of the ground below. He can see nothing, of course, but that feeling remains; the certainty of it seeping into him. There is, too, still the lingering thought of pachouli; as vague as anything. It sits with him, stays.

For a moment he’s tempted to call out into the dark evening, to shout Johan’s name and tell him that he has seen him, to throw out some sort of boldness that he does not truly feel.

But, the detective stands there instead, his jacket rustled by the breeze, and then he turns around, heading back inside, shutting the door securely behind him.

This was, he thinks, walking slowly, the bloodied light of that exit sign falling over him, a show for no one here but himself.

/////

The following day, a bright, icy Sunday, he goes to visit his mother in the hospital.

All of these reports of the flowers have started to pique his curiosity, and he‘d been unable to sleep that night, after the party. Not from the alcohol, he’s sure, but for that horrible certainty that there was someone else who was very much aware of him; a presence that feels as if it is not encroaching, not quite that, not entirely, but is trailing slowly after him, following him on all of his menial errands; to the grocery store, to the post office, to the station.

Last night, he’d locked his door securely, had stood in the middle of his apartment and listened, waited to see if he could hear steps on the other side of that front door. There had been nothing, of course; just the sense that there was someone lingering, as if they were not real, but an apparition, drifting past, invisible if not for the feeling that their presence was there, dogging him.

“Good morning, Jan,” the receptionist at the hospital greets him, offering him a bright smile.

She knows him by name, of course— they all do. He’s here often; he loves his mother dearly and visits her at every opportunity. The fact that she most often does not know him is a point of acute pain for him, but he likes to think that on some level, maybe subconsciously, she still knows him, still recognises him, and maybe will remember his visits with clarity later on. The fact that she will likely not recover is not something that he enjoys thinking about— the remainder of her life will be here, in this hospital bed; she is too ill to return to her apartment, and he simply cannot afford to take the time off to look after her himself, despite feeling the duty bound desire to do just that. His guilt seems to be in pursuit of him whenever he leaves the hospital, leaving her there alone. Thinking of her wondering where he is, why he has not come to visit her… despite having seen him just that day— it does not bear dwelling on.

“Morning,” he says, smiling back, shifting the yellow roses he carries under an arm, so that he can sign in on the hospital registry. “I hope your cat is feeling better.”

“Oh,” the woman beams. “Yes he’s much better, I took him to the vet yesterday. I’m surprised you remembered.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Suk answers with a shrug.

She waves him off, and the interaction buoys his spirit slightly, and he takes the stairs to his mother’s floor, wondering if she will know him today, and hoping to have something of the interaction he had with her back when he had been in the hospital after the shooting. Of course, he’s visited often, dutifully as always, since then, but her memory has since faded. There is something there that does not add up; the strange magic that Johan had worked on her, that had given her mind clarity— there was no real sense in it, no need for him to have been kind to her. From what he knows of Johan’s profile, the old are usually a common victim for him. He’d had his mother back, briefly, when he’d needed her. Perhaps it was just a happy coincidence, but nevertheless, not much in the Johan case has been coincidental.

“Hi Mom,” he says, and smiles at at her, her greying hair turned silver at her temples now.

“Oh, hello,” she says, returning his smile. “Aren’t you such a handsome young man? Are you one of my Jan’s teachers from the gymnasium?”

“Not quite,” he says, his heart aching. “I brought you some flowers.”

A glance at the side of her bed tells him that he needn’t have bothered with the flowers. The bouquet that sits there is— extraordinary. Suk does a double take at seeing it; he does not recognise any of the arranged blooms at all; they’re strange, almost alien looking.

“Thank you so much dear,” his mother says, a hand raised to her cheek. “It’s been a long time since such a good looking man brought me flowers. You remind me of my ex-husband when he was young, oh, he was charming.”

Suk breathes a laugh, and steps closer to examine the existing bouquet.

“These are pretty unusual,” he says. “Who sent these to you?”

“Aren’t they lovely?”

“Mm, they are.” Suk looks for a card, finding nothing. “Do you remember who sent them?”

“How did you know that yellow roses were my favourite? Oh, Jan must have told you. That boy is so thoughtful,” she says, hands folded on top of her duvet.

Suk frowns, placing the roses down on her bedside table; they're a little dwarfed by the imposing bouquet that the anonymous sender has left, but, as she said— they are her favourite.

“Mom,” he says, pulling up a chair so that he can sit beside her. There is something, this time, when she looks at him, as if she were trying to piece together some sort of recollection, as if she knows his face but cannot quite place where she has seen him before. “I need to know who sent you these flowers, it’s important.”

“Hello Jan sweetheart,” she says, her expression vague, and he reaches to take her hand in both of his own, feeling his throat tighten.

“Hi mom,” he says.

This has aged her, this illness. She’d gone from a bright-eyed, strict teacher to bedridden. The decline had been sudden and dramatic; her hair had turned grey over the course of a few weeks. Her hand seems so frail in his own, like an old, old grandmother’s.

“I don’t know the name of the person who brought those flowers,” she says. “They did ask after you, though.”

Suk is alert at that, ears pricking. “Their face, have you ever met them before?”

“I’m not so sure,” she says, patting his hand gently. “He had beautiful eyes. Small hands, like a woman’s. He said to say hello to you when I saw you next.”

“Was he— did he have blond hair?” Suk holds his breath, feels ill.

“I don’t recall.” She smiles at him.

There’s a pause, and when she looks at him again, she seems confused, frowning. “Are you a friend of Jan’s?” she asks, her smile brightening. “He is such a good boy. You know, he’s training at the police academy now, I’m so proud.”

Suk returns her smile, though something in his own is false now, coloured with the unsettling nature of those flowers. They sit beside the bed; a strange, unfitting gift— this bunch are red; their blooms look something like a lily, but they are larger; crimson needles rise from the centres in spidery bursts. He’s never seen anything quite like them before.

He spends the rest of the afternoon chatting to his mother about the usual few topics that are familiar to her; they discuss the weather, and she reminisces, tells him stories that he has heard before, many times over— mentions again the incident of how he fell out of a tree, spraining his ankle, and how he had hobbled around for the rest of the day, in very obvious pain, but unwilling to admit to it lest she worry. The flowers remain where they are, a spectre there on the table, presiding over their conversation as if they were a third presence.

Something else catches his attention as he stands to leave, bidding his mother farewell.

It is there, like it had been at the gallery.

The scent is thin, as if brought in on a draft of air from the open window; as if coming from the flowers themselves— but those things definitely do not look as if they have any kind of scent, and it’s not floral enough to be from the roses. It seeps through the air like an afterthought; nostalgic, painful.

Anna’s perfume.

The bright light of the afternoon makes him realise this, smelling it here, of all places.

Suk glances back, over his shoulder, towards the other curtains that have been drawn to divide the various beds, feeling his heart clench— Johan knows where his mother is, Johan has been here, has visited her with his, as she said, beautiful eyes, his delicate hands. He feels his mother’s eyes on him, but notices that they have that glassy, far-off look. He wonders if somewhere in her, buried, she senses that something is not right, but has no way of comforting him, no way of placing who he is in her memories. Surely, he thinks surely Johan would not hold some sort of grudge against her. He spared her once, what business does he have coming back here?

The scent, however, seems to have faded, and Suk leaps to his feet with a curl of resolve, pulling aside each curtain, making his way down the line of beds. They reveal nothing, just swirling open to reveal another hospital bed; crisp sheets folded and tucked. No vision of Anna, and not Johan either.

He returns to sit with his mother, a grim look overtaking him, and she smiles, tilting her head. “What’s the matter, dear, you look so upset?”

Suk schools his features for her, smiling once more. “Nothing, mom, don’t worry. You were telling me about that time you saw me— uh, Jan— graduating from the academy. Why don’t you— tell me about that.”

“Oh yes,” she says, looking at him dreamily. “My Jan is a very smart boy, you know I am so proud of him, he’s a detective now. I do wish he’d meet a nice girl and settle down.”

Suk sits with her for the rest of the afternoon, leaving when the evening’s shift comes in to take her for her bath and dinner. She did not remember him again that day; just the one time. On certain days it is worse than others— her remembering him at all was a rarity, even just that moment of recognition. He holds onto it.

The flowers; those strange, violent-looking red ones— get a final, parting look. If this is some sort of message from Johan, then, he thinks, then let it be this. Rather flowers than funerals. Of course, he thinks, sighing, and reaching a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, it could be nothing at all. He could be becoming paranoid in the wake of Johan’s escape— he has been seeing him everywhere, imagining that every blond in Prague is him, will turn around and it will be Anna’s face, though this time twisted in the smirk of a killer, mouth turned cruel and harsh.

There is no cause for alarm just yet, Suk decides; after all, chasing daydreams is not a detective’s job.

He has enough on his plate without a ghost, too.

/////

After work, he heads to the grocery store.

He’d been put on night shift, and the early morning light was just starting to tinge the sky a soft pink. Suk’s eyes were already scratchy from tiredness, and he had resolved to get the week’s groceries before going back to his apartment and passing out for the following day.

The sunrise turns the incoming clouds from pink to crimson; the whole square with its spires and domes is turned into a hazy, ghostly place; the city glowing from within in the glare. Suk shields his eyes, squinting out at it, blinded when the pavement reflects. He heads to his usual spot on the corner, near his apartment, and takes a shopping basket. If the job didn’t take quite so many of his evening hours, Suk would actually enjoy being able to cook for himself; though cooking for one is a little bit of a miserable experience for him; he’s a lover by nature; a partner to cook for would be ideal. The last time he’d dated, he thinks, wincing inwardly as he browses the vegetables, was when he’d been hanging out with Johan.

He’s picking through the different coffee roasts when he notices her.

It’s the perfume, first, that drifts towards him; so muted that he barely recognises it for what it is. That odd, old fashioned scent that could very well come from the dressing table of a very old woman; something kept there for many years; the amber liquid of it aged and long since soured. The scent is so out of place, so contrary to the relative normalcy of the grocery store’s aisles, that he does not even notice it at first, just writing it off to some customer maybe; some woman having passed down this row just before him. It does not register, does not even invite consideration.

But; it’s the girl he sees.

She stands on the opposite side of the grocery shelves, snatches of her visible from between the shelved items. He sees the honey-blonde of her hair, the delicate downturn of a lower lip. Thin mouth; barely even there, really, but the cupid’s bow of it is perfect, almost unmistakeable. He staggers back from the shelves, dropping his basket. A few apples roll across the floor. The overhead fluorescent light flickers, and he reels away, but does not make for the exit. The cashier looks at him, frowning, and he picks up the basket, rescuing the apples, and holding up his hand in a silent apology. It cannot be, he thinks, his mind is playing tricks on him. That smell though, he knows it exactly; it is how Anna had smelled, whatever perfume that Johan had stolen for himself and dapped at the points of his delicate neck, beneath the jawline, at the points of his collar bones.

The overhead light flickers again, and he hears the clack of heels, so very much like the echo of Anna’s heels on the cobblestones as they’d walked together through those evening streets, in what seems like a different time altogether.

He changes aisles, ducking his head, and tries to get a look at her— at him surely, this must be Johan; Anna was a fiction. He peers through the products on the shelves, moving aside tins of tomatoes and pickles, seeing only the shimmer of that yellow hair every so often, as it shifts from place to place, seemingly shopping. It would be so easy to put the basket back and go to a different store; he could avoid this confrontation, could write it off to a fancy, a flicker of the past here, in his daily life. He would forget about it, he’s sure.

But, the perfume holds him there, keeps him in place. He moves along the shelves as that blond hair does, keeping low, hoping that no other customers walk in and see him. It is better, he thinks, to be the one to head the ambush. He will approach, and finally catch the figure that has been following him all of these nights; he must act, and take this creature by its wrist and look at the blue eyes and see for himself that Anna is Johan.

There is something else in him, something further, that houses such a curiosity— just to see Johan’s face now, the face that he had been so besotted with; there is that strange excitement in him that he knows ought to be stamped down.

He wants to see that face now, more than anything; wants to be the one person leftover from that case that Johan found worth turning his attention towards.

Suk steps out, his courage gathered, and walks towards the figure that stands, looking at the cheeses.

He reaches out a hand, touches the thin elbow that is firmly pressed to a shapely side.

There’s a flurry of blond hair, and he stares into the— young woman’s face.

His shocked look must surprise her, because she smiles.

“I’m sorry, sir, do I know you?”

Suk blinks at her, feeling something sink in the pit of his stomach, and he retracts his hand from her elbow immediately, flushing.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, holding a hand up in apology. “I— really thought you were someone that I knew, I, uh, didn’t mean to disturb you— sorry.”

The woman smiles, holding her shopping in front of him. She has none of Johan’s features— her eyes are green. Her nose is too sharp, the cheekbones are too rounded, too pretty.

“It’s alright,” she tells him. “No harm done.”

The girl is blushing, he thinks, and notices that she hasn’t tried to walk away or evade him yet. Suk steps back, awkwardly bringing a hand up to muss the hair at the back of his neck.

“You just— look a lot like someone I know from the back, I’ll let you get back to your shopping,” Suk says, smiling.

“I”m Maria,” she says, holding out a hand.

“Jan.”

“Do you shop here often, Jan?” She says, and he decides that now is the time to leave.

The whole thing has been too bizarre, and he can still smell the strains of that overly familiar perfume, can still feel the apprehension of earlier, as if he is indeed being trailed. Suk ends the conversation as politely as he can, but leaves the woman looking after him, a little confused at his haste to make an escape. He cannot get the scent of that perfume out of his head; it seems to be in every room that he enters, worn by every stranger that he passes. It is in the metro, in the train compartments, in the trams, beneath every shop canopy.

When he goes to sleep at night, that scent drags by, seeping into his dreams.

/////

As if that perfume had crept into his mind and stayed there, lacing through his brain with its pervasive teasing, he dreams of a monster.

Not one to drink heavily on a night in, away from the bar, Suk had had a beer and watched television— skipping through the news and the weather reports. Dinner had ended up being toast and cheese thanks to the aborted shopping attempt, but being the singular occupant of the apartment, it did not bother him. He had resolved to do the shopping the next day, though this time at a less local supermarket; something closer to station, somewhere more cautious.

The sound of claws scraping across the floorboards wakes him.

It’s like the clattering of a cat whose nails need to be trimmed; the fussy clicking leading through the hallway. There’s a scuffling noise at his door and he sees a hunched beast sitting there, its eyes bouncing the light from his window, like an animal’s. It sits in the doorway, its strange, goblin face raised so that their eyes meet. Suk’s breathing hitches and he creeps backwards on his bed, reaching for his light switch.

The light doesn’t work.

The creature stares at him with its beady eyes, a pointed hat on its head, clouds of thin hair flattened beneath it.

It scuttles forwards, beetle-like, and Suk watches it, frozen in place.

It stops, watching him, and they just stare at each other; his own eyes stressed, widened in disgust, the thing’s eyes are dark as ink, like a rodent’s eyes.

It lumbers to the window and lifts it with its strange little goblin’s hands, climbing out, its red hat visible from where it hangs on, and then drops, disappearing.

When Suk wakes up, he goes to the window and finds it unlatched; he had latched it tightly the night before.

The dream sits heavily in his mind, staying with him long after he drinks his coffee and leaves for work, taking the image of that creature with him down the brightly lit street, past the corner shop and the souvenir store, past the tourists in their tour groups and the fashionable ladies of the central plaza. All day in the office he thinks of it, imagines it, hears the sound of those claws clattering across the floor and then the window frame.

(The secret of all detectives is that the majority of his work is administrative; he spends an inordinate amount of time at his desk; he files, and makes phone calls for hours— not quite the brilliant car chases that he’d seen on television— there are none of the shooting matches that he’d acted out for Anna; but they do not tell you this when you apply to the academy).

That night again, he latches the window securely, but goes to bed with a wary feeling in his gut, almost certain that he will see that thing again, that it has seen him too.

/////

It has.

Suk races up the stairwell of the building, skidding across a landing without stopping for breath. The power in the building has been cut— the whole place going dark the second that he had approached it, waving at the receptionist; he races in the dark, skipping stairs— there had been that flash of blond, the scent of patchouli and incense, and he’d known with absolute certainty that Johan was here— he had seen him, had seen the shadow outside his own apartment, in the hallway,

He feels his muscles burn as he reaches the top of the stairwell, bending double, his hands on his knees. His old scars hurt him, and he has to pause, pressing a hand to the point of his shoulder, where the bullet had entered. The reminders of his involvement in that case, of his continued involvement in it— perhaps something that will remain with him for the rest of his life; an emblem that aches with coming rain.

He braces himself, and opens the door to the rooftop, stepping out into the shock of cold.

There is a silence, too hollow to be safe, that greets him when he pauses to listen; it is one of those silences of something purposefully remaining quiet, something that knows that he is there, that is looking at him.

“It’s been a long time, detective. It’s me.”

Suk stands on the rooftop, unspeaking, the wind whipping past him, his coat flapping flag-like about him. The figure is barely perceptible in the darkness; only the gleam of moonlight on blond hair is visible; gives any indication that it is human at all. Suk’s mouth feels dry, he cannot find the words needed to address this thing— he finds his voice is trapped, finds that he can imagine how this goes, can see the edge of the building not too far off. He wishes that he had brought his gun.

“Who are you—“ he shouts against the wind, but he knows exactly who.

“Don’t you remember?”

He remembers; every detail— the perfume stings the back of his throat, he remembers the soft, small hands. How Anna had laughed at his jokes, how they’d walked together all night through Prague. That the heels had hurt her, that he’d offered his arm. He remembers too well, too, the stories from the Red Rose Mansion, of the heart of the matter. He remembers getting shot; the pain of the bullets that had chipped bone and left him with livid marks.

“It’s me. Johan.”

“I— remember,” Suk says. “You don’t have to do this. If you surrender right now, I’ll—“

“You’ll what, detective?” Johan asks, and Suk watches him step towards the edge of the building, looking out at the lights of Prague.

From up here, it is possible to see all the way to the Church of Our Lady before Tyn and the gothic quarter; to the Vltava as it snakes its way through the city. It is a beautiful view, in the day time; Suk has come up here once in a great while out of curiosity, but never again after that. He certainly won’t be coming up here again, he thinks, maybe ever, not after this.

“Just— don’t do anything stupid,” Suk says, hands balling into fists at his sides. “You’ve done enough.”

“You would have taken me home, if I’d let you, is that why you’re angry, detective?” Johan steps forward, but not into any kind of light; he looms, like a spectre, and Suk shrinks back, not knowing what else to do, not knowing how else to combat this person, this force of whatever will that still inhabits that narrow body.

“Yes,” Suk says, his voice grating. “I— liked you.”

He can feel, more than see Johan look at him. The silver ripple of light on that head turns; like a fish’s back beneath the surface of water.

“Yes, you did.”

Feeling a modicum of control returning to him, Suk tries to calm his heart rate, staring at the figure, willing his eyes to adjust to the darkness. The city lights, however, are too bright; he can’t quite seem to focus on Johan’s form— for whatever reason, he’s sure that were he anyone else, he’d be able to see him perfectly well in the gloom.

“There is something I would like to discuss with you, detective Suk,” Johan says, and the voice that Suk had known to be Anna’s is different now, has been changed; it is lower, of course, but there is something in it too— a quality that he had not noticed when they had been speaking in the bar. It is menacing, he thinks, with a feeling of ice in his blood; Johan speaks with a certainty that is frightening; as if he is so sure that he is in control of all aspects of the situation, as if he has already foreseen how the rest of it will go. Suk finds himself sweating through his dress shirt, stepping back, towards the entrance of the rooftop. He could run now, he thinks, he could still make it to a phone and call the station, have back up here in moments. They’d have him, then— he’d be where he belongs, in a cell, safely kept away from people so that he can’t do— this again, whatever this is.

“What— what do you want?” Suk asks quietly, willing his voice to remain even.

“You know, detective, I didn’t have such a bad time with you. I wonder, was it the same for you.”

That voice, he thinks— he feels it deep in his skull; there is an insidious, binding quality to it, and he finds himself unable to step back any further, reluctant to, as if he wanted to hear this.

“You know I did. But then you killed all of those people,” Suk says, finding his voice level now, finally. He hangs onto his anger, the sense of justice that he feels, flimsy but still accessible, even in the presence of Johan.

“You said once,” Johan says, and Suk can hear his shoes on the concrete as he turns. “That the only thing that you believed in— was me.”

“And wasn’t that ironic,” Suk mutters, glaring at the silhouette, anger flaring in him once more. “You were lying to me the entire time.”

“I have had a lot of time to think, detective.” That voice finds its way to him, and he hates that he leans forward, leans towards it. “More time than you can imagine. And I think it is time for us to start over.”

“Start over? What do you mean start over?”

“I mean,” Johan says, and he starts to walk towards him. “Just that.”

Suk shakes his head, shivering in the cold breeze. “I don’t understand, what do you want?”

“I would like to know that too, detective.”

Suk remains quiet.

“Maybe, you can help me figure it out. Didn’t you say once that that was your job? Figuring things out. You are a detective, after all.”

“You’ve been following me,” he says, voice climbing. “You sent those flowers didn’t you—“

Johan stops walking just as he is about to pass by Suk, and he looks at him. They watch each other in the dim light, and Suk sees, for the first time, possibly, ever, the full picture of Johan Liebert. He stares. There’s no monster on the roof with him, he thinks, seeing the young face, the hollow cheeks. His voice trails off, swept away on the wind.

“I’m very glad to see you again,” Johan says.

There’s no response from Suk; he blinks, mute.

“And I will see you once more, very soon, detective, I have a request for you.”

Suk swallows convulsively, unsure of how to proceed. He feels frozen in place; as if moving would shatter something vital, like the lights of Prague themselves would crash down upon them at the slightest shift in the atmosphere. Johan’s blond hair blows across his forehead and into his eyes, and the clothing that he wears seems too large for his frame; as if it were borrowed from someone broader than himself.

“Goodnight, Jan,” Johan says, and disappears; opening the door of the rooftop and closing it behind him, leaving only the syllable of Suk’s name in his wake, the vibration still shimmering in the air.

Suk stands on the roof for a long time afterwards.

When he goes downstairs, it is late in the night— he finds that he is moving mechanically, as if he were not entirely in control of his own limbs. He brushes his teeth, gets into bed, and lies awake. As to why he does not call the police— why the phone sits untouched on the receiver— he cannot say. That voice lingers on in his thoughts, and he wonders, counts the hours as they pass— when he will hear it again, what it will mean for him when he does.

part 2 / a ghost

The next night, he arrives back home after work, having consciously put the incident out of his mind— writing it down to an overactive imagination and a dream that seemed too real, and abruptly drops all of his shopping bags on the floor of the apartment.

“I would like to stay in your house. I hope that’s all right with you.”

A ghost stands in his living room; pale, hands clasped politely before it like a pile of tightly woven twigs.

Of course, he knows that Johan is no ghost, knows that he is something else entirely, maybe. The events of the previous night come back to him immediately, and he knows, with all certainty, that it was no dream.

“Okay,” Suk says, not wanting to move too suddenly, not wanting to turn his back on this thing that seems to consume the air of his apartment with such conscious hunger that he feels himself, too, drawn towards it, like to a vacuum; towards dead space.

Johan smiles Anna’s smile, his eyes as dead as a fish’s, and turns tail— disappearing into Suk’s bedroom, the door clicking shut behind him, the sound of a lock latching.

Air rushes back in, and Suk inhales, deflates; he sinks down onto the couch, his hands jittering.

In the morning, he will have to call the station.

He will have to do it from a pay phone; but of course, he may not live that long with this man in his apartment. However, he thinks, stilling his hands— there is a very distinct difference in their heights and builds; he is the taller, Johan seems as if he has wasted away, as if he is frail. The impression that he got of the man, despite the coat that he had been wearing, was that he was shrunken, just skin and bones.

From behind his bedroom door, he can only hear silence. Perhaps he’s just gone to sleep, he thinks, and stands, not knowing what to do with himself, so he goes to the kitchen, turns on the kettle to make coffee. The polite, strange little voice; so similar to Anna’s but now more distinctly masculine, had caught him off guard once again; stopping him from reacting, staying him in his tracks. There is something curiously breakable about the thing that stood before him tonight, as if the curtain had been drawn aside, the mortal behind the image of the monster revealed.

He is just a man, after all, Suk thinks, and he had been, at one point, that person in the bar; the warm presence that had kept him company night after night, who he had walked through the streets of Prague with, had seen the way she had disguised the limp from where her shoe pained her, had declined his offer for her to take his arm so that he could aid her.

That was Johan, too, he thinks, and sits  back down, hands cupping the black coffee that he’s made himself, knowing that he will not sleep tonight, that he will remain awake, like a sentry, waiting for whatever it is that sleeps in his bedroom to reappear.

/////

He hates the impulse in him that twists in pity when he sees him the following morning.

Johan emerges from his bedroom, and promptly faints right in the doorway.

The body that he lifts, and places on the bed, is barely more than a sack of bones and skin, limp beneath the clothing that he had borrowed from Suk’s drawers. Something about the sickly look in those washed-out eyes, the way the circles around them are purpled and dark— he feels an ice-cold hand place itself on his shoulder as he lays him down, holding onto his sweater so as not to be dropped. He looks different now, in the naked, bright morning light— the fear is gone, as if it had never existed at all; as if it had been only shadows and and tricks of the light that had made him seem terrifying.

What an introduction, he thinks; isn’t anyone’s idea of a good time spending the morning with an old flame? The thought isn’t enough to make him smile, even humourlessly.

Suk is not a cold man. Not by any means. He cannot visit animal shelters without feeling his heart break, he will feed stray cats— he joined the police force in order to do good, became a public servant because while the cop dramas had spurred him, he had thought that maybe he could be a hero. To— someone. To the people (who amount to that vague amalgamation of everyone he’s ever met— like the audience of one of those cop shows). To— anyone at all, really.

Johan’s spindly, pathetic fingers clasp at him and he gently disentangles them from his sweater, his own fingers feeling almost hot against how clammy the other’s hand is. Wispy eyelashes raise and lower, watching him; Johan is not smiling, his face is devoid of any sort of expression at all. He looks out of it, Suk thinks, sitting down on the edge of the bed and watching him for a moment, hearing his breathing start to even out. The shirt that he has borrowed dwarfs him; he looks severely malnourished, if Suk is honest with himself; his skin is pale to the point of being near translucent— dried out and flaking around his forehead and chin. Returning him to the station like this, having him placed under arrest; he can just see the chalky wrists, shot through with their veins— being snapped into handcuffs; he can imagine the marks that they would leave; ones that go straight from raw to bloody because there’s just about no elasticity in the skin that they’d chafe.

He makes up his mind, and reaches to take the throw blanket from the bottom of the bed. He tucks it over Johan.

“I’ll bring you something to eat,” he says, watching him. “I don’t think walking around is going to be on your agenda for the day— I’ll get you— juice, too.” Suk finds that he’s softened his tone towards him considerably; it’s unintentional— he’d wanted to be emotionless, strict in that delivery; to chide him as a warden would a prisoner who stepped out of line. But— he can’t. He can’t not be gentle with him, not when he’s like this.

He reaches and pulls the blanket higher, tucking it around those shoulders, meeting Johan’s eyes.

“Don’t go anywhere.”

There’s a soft noise from Johan’s throat, as if he’s exasperated with him, but the expression on his face changes very little. He stands to leave, glancing back at the man that looks so reduced from when he had even known him as Anna, the beautiful girl from the bar. It’s the same person, he thinks, feeling unsettled looking at him; there’s no difference in their faces at all. That is Anna’s face; the Anna that Suk knew and Johan share everything aside from a wig and a dress— and maybe a spot of mascara. He wonders now, sometimes, if that kiss had actually landed— how would he feel? Would he even be alive now— would it have gone further that night, would he have seen the inside of Johan’s lair? Looking at the man now, he can’t honestly say he feels the danger that he thought would come with being in the same room as Johan Liebert; this is not like yesterday, when he had stood like a haunting in the middle of the room. It is not like the night before that either, when he had loomed towards him on that rooftop.

It’s like a disappointing reveal; the chimera revealed to be a toothless lion; the hydra a garden snake.

He brings him a glass of orange juice and an egg on toast; there’s not that much in the house, he had thought, peering into the fridge— he’ll have to go to the store again if he’s going to be providing for two for the next few days.  What Johan likes to eat, what his preferences are, Suk has no idea. He’ll ask, he thinks, feeling foolish— this is a wanted criminal, though his crimes cannot be proven, and a court trial would fall absolutely flat. There is no way of proving who he is, no way of placing him at any of the crime scenes. He houses an invisible man, he supposes, maybe the most dangerous creature in the world.

Johan takes the plate and glass in his bony hands; Suk holds onto them too, certain that he will just drop them. Their eyes meet, and it’s like looking into Anna’s eyes. The most curious thing of all is that the shock of chemistry that had been there at the bar still stings him now, and he looks down, drawing his hands back.

“Thank you, detective,” Johan says, his voice deeper than Anna’s but not by too much. It’s a very polite voice, Suk thinks, and motions to the plate that he’s left with him.

“Try to eat something,” he tells him, and stands, leaving Johan alone in the room.

Later, Suk knocks on the door of his own bedroom, seeing Johan’s face in the gap of the door when he does; the man is still lying on the bed, that blanket tucked around him.

“I’m going to work,” he says, frowning, and the way that Johan watches him is the most casual thing that he can think of. He feels as if perhaps the man isn’t even looking at him at all, but rather through him, out into the next room or beyond that, through to whatever awful place he seems to keep stored within him.

“Best of luck,” Johan says, and does not move in the slightest; he does not even stir. Suk is somewhat pleased to see that he’s drank the orange juice, and from what he can tell most of the toast is gone, too. Having to explain to his superiors how both the omniscient murderer and that murderer’s corpse have ended up in his apartment would be far too much for everyone.

“Thanks, see you later.” The words are just— automatic; Johan is being polite, and now, so is he. There is no reason to be anything other than civil to each other— Suk is allowing him a place to shelter, to recover (until he can figure out a way to somehow get him to the station without Johan being half dead, and while remaining intact himself— he still is unsure of what the man is capable; there are so many stories).

There are no further replies from Johan after that; he watches as the man turns his head, profile in view now; his eyes shuttering against the pillows on Suk’s bed. Suk closes the door softly behind him, leaving it unlocked.

He checks his face in the mirror on the way out and grimaces; he looks— exhausted. There are dark circles beneath his own eyes; he and Johan will be quite the pair if the days continue like this. He leaves for work, locking the apartment behind him. There’s a spare key on the kitchen table; though from the look of him, he’s sure that Johan will not be going anywhere, not for a long time. It’s as if he had crawled from that hospital bed, straight to Suk’s apartment.

It’s impossible, he thinks, walking along on the cobblestones of Nerudova street; these days it is always crowded with cars and foot traffic— but it had been a good part of town to rent in, and Suk had been happy to find a place that he could afford that was close to the station, and also close to the fashionable old town district that he likes so much. He can’t imagine Johan having walked up the small incline that leads here, not in the middle of the day or night; there were always people out here, surely he would have been seen, would have been flagged down by the odd patrol policeman that sometimes drifted up to get a coffee from one of the cafes that lined the left side of the street. He must have had someone bring him here; after all, he’s heard that Johan never had a shortage of accomplices— so many, in fact, that the crimes were impossible to pin on him.

Being outside, with the sun beaming down on him, however, does lift Suk’s spirits.

The lively jostling of tourists and shoppers making their way up the street distracts him, and he watches the bustle of the tiny souvenir shop, seeing people coming and going; the spate of bad weather is finally giving way to a warmer patch, and Prague is filling up with the early visitors. The building lined street is always something that has impressed him; each facade slightly different from the ones on either side of it; their elaborate cornices and curving, decorative gables lend the whole place a feeling of antiquity; and in the morning sun, they are washed to shades of warm pastel. Passing a bakery, he smells the fresh bread, and, hands in pockets, leaves the Johan dilemma behind him, to deal with later that evening when he arrives back at the apartment.

He’ll pick up some croissants, he decides, maybe, on his way home.

/////

Opening the front door of the apartment, Suk shifts the groceries from one hand to the other, placing one of the bags down on the floor between his feet to prevent it from spilling its contents across the floor of the hallway. He unlocks the door quietly, peering inside first, trying to see if there are any signs of life. He does not know what to anticipate; he’s sure that the man that he had left behind here, this morning, would probably need to sleep for the time that he was at work, that he would be too weak to escape and disappear into the city.

The kitchen and living room are deserted, and he puts the groceries down on the kitchen counter, stopping to listen, hearing only silence, then shrugging his jacket off and draping it over one of the chairs at the kitchen table. Suk walks cautiously towards the door of his bedroom, knocking on it with his knuckles, and waiting to hear any sort of movement from within. Having found the apartment so still, he had almost expected that Johan would be gone; one of those strange, irrational dreams; something that he would always recall, perhaps for the rest of his life, but that would remain an isolated incident, never to be repeated again, only to be thought back on for its strangeness.

There’s the sound of covers shifting, and he opens the door.

Johan sits on the side of the bed, eyes on him. He seems a bit sleep-rumpled; the shirt that he wears is creased, and his hair has become mussed; though barely; it still just hangs.

“Welcome home, detective,” Johan says, monotonously.

“Hi,” Suk says, still taking in the sight of him. He looks at his bare feet on the carpet of the bedroom; so scrawny. Like bird feet.

He feels as if he is intruding, suddenly, even here in his own house. He wonders if Johan can do that— can make you feel the things that he wants you to feel, just by looking a certain way, by tilting his chin just so. He’d known just what to say to have Suk wrapped around his finger, back at the bar, so much so that he’d given away nearly all of the details of the case to him; he’d been so convincing and so pretty— he’d just wanted to make that beautiful girl smile, had just wanted her to think that he was interesting and brave for the work that he did. He’d never expected— well, this.

Johan blinks at him, eyes seeming heavy. That is something else that he’s noticed, just in the brief time of seeing him. There is a feeling of heaviness around him. As if the whole air of the apartment were sinking, the floor, the ceiling. Like a cloud had moved in and was staying there; gloomy, serious. This is not what he had expected from the reports, from what Dr. Tenma had stated. This is so far from the mastermind that he had thought that Johan surely must be. He’d had an image of what he thought he would be like; someone that could disguise himself as such a beautiful girl and then commit untold crimes without leaving behind so much as a slip of evidence. He’d stolen from James Bond films, from the detective shows that he loved since he was a child; he had imagined a super villain— a caricature-like person with Anna’s face. This wan, exhausted person is not what he’d imagined, not at all.

(Of course, he is not so foolish that he does not house a thread of suspicion; Johan could very well be playacting the part of the suffering patient; he knows that the man is good at worming his way into people’s homes, into their lives— he had done it before, and there were deaths to show for it. He wonders if he too, is just like those foolish couples who fell for too-thin limbs, for the sickly looking face. He wonders if this will be the end of him, too).

“I’m going to make dinner,” Suk says to him, leaning against the door jamb in his shirtsleeves. “You should tell me if there’s anything that you can’t eat.”

Johan continues to look at him, as if he hasn’t understood.

“Do you have any allergies?” Suk presses, frowning.

“I don’t know,” Johan says.

They stare at each other.

“Oh.”

Suk fidgets, feeling the need to shift away from the way that Johan’s eyes sit on him; they are not human eyes, he can’t help but think that they feel more like the eyes of something outside of humanity— they look either too directly or too indirectly, sometimes seeing everything, all details, and sometimes not seeing him at all.

“That’s okay,” Suk says to Johan’s continued silence. “That’s fine, I’ll just stick to the basics, nothing too exciting. I’ll bring it to you here, it’s probably better if you stay off your feet, you don’t look so good.”

He thinks that maybe, just maybe there was the smallest twitch in Johan’s features at that last bit, and he wonders how much vanity the man has, if he has any at all. Johan just keeps watching him, blinking now and then like a weird cat. Suk doesn’t leave yet, though he can tell that Johan is waiting for him to do just that, so that he will be left in peace once more.

“I brought you the newspaper,” Suk says, though this feels like a foolish thing to have done now. What use would the man have for a newspaper? Surely he had a whole network of spies that would run around and give him the true information that he needed? What good would a newspaper do him. “I thought you might be bored.”

“Thank you,” Johan says, managing not to sound grateful at all; not sounding like anything, actually.

Suk keeps lingering, and Johan keeps staring.

“Why did you come here?” He asks, the question having simmered in him all day, all night.

“Why,” Johan repeats.

“Yes,” says Suk, face imploring. “Of all the people involved, why here? Why me? You could have gone anywhere. ”

“I don’t know,” Johan says, chin tilting a little, his expression bland but Suk has the uncomfortable feeling that Johan finds something in this amusing to a certain extent.

“It makes no sense.” He shakes his head. “I don’t understand it at all.”

“Your hospitality is very kind, detective,” Johan says, in that odd moue of his, sounding at once fragile and completely foreign to him. That doesn’t serve as a very good explanation, Suk thinks, and watches Johan with a look of exasperation.

“I don’t know what this is that you’re doing,” Suk says to Johan, narrowing his eyes. “But it better not be anything suspicious.”

Johan just deadpans at him.

“I won’t turn you in now, because you’re sick or— I mean, whatever is going on with you, but— don’t think that I won’t go to the authorities once you’ve recovered. I’m not the sort of man to hide a wanted criminal in my home, I’m sure you’ve guessed that much.” Suk huffs a breath.

“I know you were following me, before,” Suk says, barely pausing. “I know that you sent those flowers to my mother, and the birthday card. I used to hear your footsteps. It was you, wasn’t it?”

There is no response from Johan once again, just that silence, then: “No.”

They watch each other from across the room; Suk incredulous, Johan bemused (though it’s less a look than a sense of bemusement that seeps from him, into the atmosphere).

“I’m— going to make dinner,” Suk says, and decides he’ll have a drink tonight; God knows, he needs it.

/////

One night, a few days later, Suk wakes to the sound of a pitiful retching coming from the bathroom; he lays in his makeshift bed listening, a sudden concern overtaking him. There is no one in the apartment aside from himself and Johan; the man had looked a little off all afternoon, and of course, he had actually been here all afternoon, which was a rare thing for him. More often than not, Johan would disappear for days at a time, going about his secretive business elsewhere, he’s sure. But not today. Johan had sat at the kitchen table, looking oddly shrunken and hunched; Suk had asked him if he was alright, but had been ignored. It seemed as if he had wanted company but without the interaction— or at least that he was not up for any sort of talking.

It goes on for ages; the guy must feel terrible, he thinks, and grimaces, turning over on the couch. The report from the drunk man at Ruhenheim had described a beast with seven heads, he recalls; a terrible monster that had taken hold of his son and intended to eat him alive. There were old documents, too, that described Johan, though they were just speculative and based on gossip, based on rumour spread from city to city. All of them said monster. When he walks back into his own room later, to check in on Johan, he does not see a mythical beast curled in his bed. Johan’s a bit younger than him, he thinks, if the dates that were listed in the report of Anna Liebert and her brother’s births were correct.

“Hey,” Suk says, stepping towards the bed. “Are you okay?”

He hears Johan swallow, and the covers shift slightly. “A migraine, don’t fret, detective.”

The man turns, lowering a shoulder from where it’s been hunched around his chin, looking over it at Suk. He seems a little out of it; bloodshot eyes and that unfocused gaze that lands on Suk but seems somewhat hazy. There is no colour in his face at all; his lips are tinged pale, too this time— he wonders if he ought to call a doctor.

Suk places the glass of water that he’s brought down on the bedside table. “Here.”

“How kind,” Johan says, in that toneless voice. Suk looks down and sees the skeletal latticework of where his hands are folded together on the duvet.

Suk lingers in place, watching the other man’s face, and he exhales a sigh through his nose. That shifts Johan’s eyes to his, and they consider each other from across the room. There is nothing else to say, he supposes; they have nothing to talk about. He thinks of Grimmer, and his false smile. He wonders if that had been the same smile that Anna had worn, that Johan had affected when they’d met in the bar. This blank look, he thinks, maybe this is what the true face of the Kinderheim children looks like, maybe they don’t have any others, just masks.

“Something wrong?” When Johan speaks, his voice sounds tight. The migraine must still be there; after all, Suk reasons, the man was shot in the head twice, in a coma for a year both times. His blond hair has grown back from where they must surely have shaved it for the operation; now longer and hanging lank around his face.

“Nothing, sorry,” Suk says, nodding at him. He pauses, though, then says: “Tell me if you feel sick, I’ll go to the pharmacy for you.”

That uncanny gaze rests on him for a long time before Johan speaks again. “Thank you, I’m going to sleep now.”

“Uh, okay, sweet dreams.”

They watch each other for another second before Suk closes the door behind him, standing outside for a moment, trying to think of what just transpired, still feeling the disbelief at himself for housing this thing; this strange, strange person.

/////

The first thing that becomes clear to him, over the first few weeks, is that Johan is not, actually, a person.

The thing is — he looks just like a person. He speaks like a person, has a voice, and eyes, and has dainty, soft hands, and he keeps his nails short, and he brushes his teeth and combs his hair, leaves clothing lying around— just like a person would. That’s just the thing, though; he does everything he’s supposed to do— he is so good at pretending to be a person, that most people would not guess otherwise. But, he is not. He’s something else.

What, Suk thinks, what is the real question.

But, then again, he’d decided— what difference would that make; knowing what he is. He can’t help but notice small discrepancies, however; there are moments when Johan will move in a way that seems incorrect; like his muscle memory is off, or has been learned wrong; self-taught.

Suk’s life continues much in the same way as it always has; his new roommate is barely around. He’s had to give up his bedroom, and while sleeping on the couch has been an unwelcome addition to his life, the way that Johan had looked, standing in the center of his living room, had made the decision clear enough. Johan is not right, he thinks; and he will turn him over to custody, absolutely, he will— once he is better, and stronger, and no longer in danger of dying in the cold of a prison cell.

The first few days had been very much the same. Johan had stayed in bed, sleeping away the hours that he was at work. He’d return home to find him still there; the man only left the bed to take a shower. He had a feeling that Johan would probably prefer a bath, so he’d run him one at around the three day mark, and the atmosphere of the flat had brightened considerably, for no real reason other than Johan was sitting in a bathrobe, wearing Suk’s slippers, eating dinner with him at the kitchen table. They had eaten in silence, though every so often, Suk, being the chattier of the two, had mentioned seeing something that morning at work; an uncommon looking dog, a back up of traffic in this or that district.

Johan listened to him in that uncanny way; eyes flicking from his plate to Suk’s face constantly, and lingering a little longer than was polite.

After that, Johan had gone missing for two days, returning one morning, while Suk was at work, as if nothing had happened.

Now, he sees him very seldom.

There has been something else, too, and he’s written it down to his imagination. It’s not that easy to ignore, however; this strange series of dreams. It’s barely worth mentioning. Claws on the wood of the floorboards; something that stalks through the house at night, and sits at the edge of his bed; that same creature from that first night.

It’s just a shadow, he’s sure.

Yet the dread that it brings along with it, into those evening hours— it makes him shudder to think of, so he doesn’t; he’s a man of logic— this sort of thing shouldn’t phase him. He ignores it, consciously.

Suk comes back from work, expecting an empty flat. It is; the lights are off, the way that he’d left them that morning. He’d slept on the couch last night once again, even though the bed had been vacated a few days ago. Suk walks through the place, checking to see if Johan’s somewhere; not on the balcony, the bathroom is empty— the living room, the kitchen— there is no sign of him, it seems as if he had never set foot here at all, that he had been simply a figment of Suk’s imagination; a ghost. He does not even see the imprint of his head on the pillow; the bed has been made (though a little messily).

It looks like, he thinks, I have the place to myself. The detective unloads the groceries; he’s been cooking for two each night, even when Johan is not in the house. There is something satisfying in cooking each night— before, he had not done much of it, just a meal here and there, but with another human (or whatever it was that inhabited the human body that Johan was housed in) around, it was a good enough excuse to open one of the recipe books that his mother had given to him when he had first moved in, after graduating from the police academy. It’s nothing impressive; he’s also noticed that Johan’s tastes are startlingly simple; he likes plain food— tends to leave things off to the side if they are over-salted or too flavoursome. This is a new development; in the beginning, he had not touched anything, maybe too nauseated to eat, he thinks, aside from that sliver of toast and eggs that he’d sometimes have in the mornings.

Tonight the menu is as simple as ever: steamed vegetables, chicken, mashed potato. Nothing special, but wholesome; Suk likes the process of cooking— he pours himself a glass of wine while he does it. The empty apartment begins to warm up from where he’s turned on the heating, too; they’re back to a spate of cold weather, and tonight, the rain whips the windows, the wind howling up the street outside; the cobblestones will be slick with the storm; he cannot picture where it is that Johan has gone off to, where he will shelter himself in this weather. It is like— and he thinks this reluctantly— when one’s cat has left the house, and is not back for a few days, during a terrible storm. Johan is not a pet, of course, but the concern feels out of place; there is no way to excuse or characterise it. It’s only been about three weeks, total— they do not speak much, and are still virtually strangers; Suk works all day, and Johan had gone about whatever business it was that he conducted when he disappeared from the apartment, in the beginning, so they had just about no contact.

But still. Something of a routine has cropped up between them. There was the knowledge of another presence in the house, another body other than his own. He wonders if this means that he’s been lonely.

This time, Johan has been missing for three days— last time, he was back after only two. This, the third day, is now starting to cause some concern. He is still not entirely back to himself; maybe he won’t ever be, after that coma. But, he’d been just starting to look less sickly, starting to gain a little weight back. The storm out there cannot be good for him, Suk thinks, skinning a potato, though he does not doubt that Johan is as resourceful as the best of them; he’s probably found someone to take him in, has probably decided against returning to this apartment; it was risky, after all— there was that uncertainty of whether or not Suk would turn him in. The weeks keep passing, and there has been no more talk of them taking that walk down to the police station. Suk has not brought it up, and Johan does not talk much more than is necessary for the odd polite response here and there.

He thinks about how things have been since he allowed Johan in to stay with him— there’s some hope in him that he’s made himself a firm part of Johan’s recovery, of his well— redemption, if it can be called that. He’d hoped that he’d stay a little longer, too. The thought of going to the authorities and turning him in has dimmed; there is no one to testify against him— Tenma and Nina Fortner would not, and without them, there wasn’t a leg to stand on. Also, he thinks, chopping the potatoes, and glancing back towards the entrance way, Johan wasn’t the greatest of all those problems. The corruption went deeper than him; he was— a victim; a result. To put him on trial would be to ignore the fact that the perpetrators had gone without a sentence. The heads of that operation had been cut off, though, and for everyone’s benefit. There is still something in him that wishes that justice could have been done. But— bureaucratic justice is not the same thing as what happens to the bad guys in television shows, not at all.

He’d learnt that the hard way.

The front door handle turns and Suk stops his preparation to look over, hearing the light steps, the coat clumsily slung over the coat rack (Johan can be a little— absent minded at times, he’s noticed), and Johan appears in the doorway of the kitchen, sodden through with rain, his blond hair sticking to his head as if he’d been submerged into a swimming pool, fully clothed. They look at each other from across the kitchen.

“Did you fall in a fountain?” Suk asks.

“It’s raining,” Johan says, as if it weren’t the most obvious thing in the world.

“You don’t say.”

Johan levels a look at him, and Suk breaks into a smile, unbidden— Johan looks miserable, standing there in the kitchen doorway, slowly dripping a puddle onto to the floor.

“Welcome back,” Suk says, putting aside the cooking accoutrements and wiping his hands on a dishcloth. “I’ll get you a towel, sit down.”

Johan mutely watches him, but then does move aside, out of the doorway, pulling out a chair at the table, and sitting. The man always speaks quietly; he’s unfailing in his politeness, but mostly not particularly talkative. He’ll chime in with the odd— Anna-esque remark here and there, when appropriate, but beyond that, Johan seems to lack a fundamental aspect of himself. Suk wonders, finding a spare towel in one of the closets, if the brain injury has done more damage than Johan lets on.

Johan is still sitting in exactly the same spot as he left him; like a mannequin in that chair, his wet clothes hanging off him. He’s been borrowing some things from Suk, here and there— offered to him, of course. Everything is too large on him. Suk notices the way his hands have turned red in the cold.

“Here,” Suk says, reaching out with the towel, and putting it over Johan’s head. He hesitates, uncertain of overstepping here— he errs on the side of incaution and gently dries Johan’s hair with the towel. Blue eyes look up at him from beneath it, and he stops, feeling as if he’s being scolded.

“Sorry,” he says. “You should— get changed.”

“Thank you, detective,” Johan says, his voice light, but Suk feels pulled to look at him again, from where he’d glanced off to one side. Johan’s gaze waits for him; cold and blue as an early morning, but not so cold, he thinks, not so cold as to warrant avoiding. They look at each other there: Suk perched on the corner of the kitchen table, Johan in the chair, head covered by the towel.

He’s beautiful, Suk thinks, and knows so many people before him have thought the same thing. He wonders if any of them lived to tell the tale.

He’s so beautiful, in fact, Suk thinks, maybe it doesn’t matter.

Each lash curls like an ink stroke; just as deliberate. He’s so finely made.

The detective’s heart stops there, and he thinks, with horrible, awful certainty— his attraction to Anna was completely beside the point; a footnote. It did not matter if the name was Anna, or Johan, or anything at all. It was this person, this one, specifically, that had moved him, that had had him back at the bar each night.

Johan notices him staring, of course, and both head and towel tilt. “Everything all right?”

He’s sure that Johan knows exactly, precisely, what he was thinking. Suk reaches to give the towel a final ruffle; hiding that beautiful face from view.

“You’re in time for dinner,” the detective says. “Maybe you should change your clothes first.”

Johan reaches up, taking the towel from his head. He holds it in his hands as if it were some dead animal, the thing hanging between them. When he stands, Suk does too— and the synchronicity of their movements brings them just about nose to nose. The moment draws itself out, Suk looks down at Johan’s lips, because his eyes are traitorous. The smile that curls Johan’s mouth is not one that he ever wore when he was pretending to be that girl in the bar. It’s a different one; but, Suk thinks, stupidly, it’s just as pretty; despite how sharp it seems.

Johan’s look turns more curious, and the moment drags on like a note stretched brittle— until it cracks, and Suk looks away, looks down, and the corner of his mouth pulls to an apologetic look.

“Uh, anyway, I’ll— finish up here.”

“Yes,” Johan says, still looking at him with that direct, brilliant gaze. “You do that.”

Suk can feel Johan’s eyes on him long after the other man leaves the room; can feel them on him for the rest of the time that he stands there, mechanically making dinner; he wonders if sometimes, eyes like that can look at you through walls, through buildings.

From across entire oceans.

/////

Johan returns from the bedroom once Suk calls to him that dinner is ready. That strange air of earlier is still hanging around them, and Suk feels an awkwardness that he had not felt with Johan in the earlier days of their cohabitation starting to overtake him. Maybe it’s also got something to do with the fact that Johan is wearing one of his old college sweaters; which is sort of— a girlfriend thing, if he really thinks about it, and something fundamental in Suk is very pleased at the look of his bony frame in that oversized sweater.

He’s rolled the sleeves up which just makes matters worse, because Johan has thin, bony wrists that make him look more scrawny than he is (though he is— a bit scrawny, actually). The hair that he’s towel-dried now sits in disarray; so different from the usual middle-parted, neatly combed style that Suk is used to seeing on him. There’s something approachable about Johan when he is like this; as if it would be the easiest thing in the world to rest a friendly hand on his shoulder, to smile at him and have him return it. He looks his age, looks like any normal person in his mid to late twenties about to eat dinner at home. Suk watches him pick up his fork and push the food around; Johan eats like a bird, he’s noticed— he picks at things, here and there, only eats when it’s necessary. Maybe years worth of habit, he thinks, maybe it’s none of his business at all.

“You know,” Suk says, shovelling his own mashed potato into his mouth, and talking around it. “It’s been a while since we had dinner together. I had thought you might not be coming back.”

He looks across at Johan, and when the man does not reply, he continues: “I kept thinking you were off dead somewhere in that storm.” Suk motions with a fork, though seems to think better of it, and puts it back down. “You’ll probably think it’s strange, but I’m glad you’re not.”

Those lazy eyes look over at him.

“Have you always been interested in men, detective?” Johan’s expression does not alter for a moment.

Suk, on the other hand, chokes on his dinner.

“Excuse me, what?” The detective coughs into his hand, frowning at Johan. “What makes you even say that?”

“I assume you hide your bisexuality from the other members of the police force,” Johan says, and resumes eating, pausing as he samples some of the vegetables, and then continues. “I could have forewent the wig. Isn’t that funny.”

Suk blinks at him in disbelief. “I don’t think this is the sort of conversation for the dinner table,” he says, feeling defensive, wanting to argue. “It’s also none of your business. For the record, I’ve always liked women.”

“If I had let you take me home that night,” Johan continues, “I wonder if you would have recoiled. I don’t think so, I think you would have kept going.”

“How could you possibly know that,” Suk says, frowning, voice climbing a bit with the heightened emotion in him. “I mean—“ he fumbles for a moment, face reddening. “I mean— who knows if I’d have— Johan, is this really what you want to talk about, can’t you just—“ he motions to the plate. “Eat your supper.”

“That is why you want things to stay as they are,” Johan says. “This is the easiest way. Not so close that you would have to admit to it, but still close enough.”

Suk thinks there’s something sinister now, seeping into the room. Like all sorts of maligned things were creeping from the cracks in the woodwork to settle at Johan’s feet, to slink beneath the table. He feels the other man’s foot touch his own, and he doesn’t jerk his own away, purposefully stops himself and resolves to take back this entire conversation.

“You know what,” Suk says, still frowning, but with something imploring in it; a resolve. “No, I wouldn’t have recoiled, because I liked you. Nothing mattered outside of that, and if you really want to know, I think you’re really beautiful, even now. Which is lucky for you, because you could really work on your people skills.”

Johan goes quiet at that, eyebrows raising very, very slightly.

Suk eyes him nervously, but continues: “I’d like to get to know you, because I think everything that happened was terrible. Even though you were terrible too, I think you could use a friend. No one likes being on their own.”

There’s a very long pause, then, and it drags out between them, only the clock in the hallway breaking it.

“Sometimes,” Johan says, picking up his fork again, as if absolutely nothing had just transpired between them. “You say some curious things, detective.”

“Thank you,” Suk says, and pointedly returns to eating his dinner, ears red.

He feels Johan’s eyes on him after that, but feels that foot gently move away from his own, and he looks over at the other man, who is simply staring at his dinner now.

“Hey,” Suk says, resting a hand on the table, trying to study what he can of Johan’s face. “I don’t mind if you want to ask me things. Just—“ Suk pulls a face. “Try not to make it weird?”

Johan glances up at him, and a look passes over his face; Suk would swear by everything that it is amusement.

“I’ll keep that in mind, Jan,” Johan says, and Suk almost drops his fork at the stupid, intimate use of his first name. He blushes, shrugs.

“Can I ask you things too?” Suk blurts out, and regrets it immediately. He lowers his voice, adding in a mutter: “I need to be able to trust you, okay, it’s only fair.”

“What things would you ask me?” Johan says, leaning a pointed chin into the palm of his hand, elbow on the table, food forgotten.

“I don’t know, just things,” Suk says, frowning.

“Things,” Johan echoes.

“Fine.” The detective sits back in his chair, narrowing his eyes at Johan. Johan returns the look, and one eyebrow lifts as he waits.

“What’s your favourite colour?”

Johan— bursts out laughing.

Suk just about falls off his chair in surprise, and watches as the man’s shoulders shake in mirth, a pale hand covering his mouth. Johan shakes his head, snickering softly, catching his breath.

“Go on, keep laughing,” Suk grouses, shoulders hunching. “Because that was hilarious.”

“Ah, it was funny,” Johan says, and breathes another, quieter laugh once again. That hand falls against his chest, laying there at the center of it, above his sternum.

At the bar— or just after they’d left, all that time ago, Johan had laughed at him there, too— hadn’t he? Just at his antics; he’d been showing off, riding the high of having such a beautiful girl paying attention to him, and also— drunk. This was— the same laugh as that. Suk’s grouchy expression melts, and he smiles, one side of his mouth starting to pull upwards.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he says.

Johan’s head tilts, and Suk watches him, finding that the motion is so poised— he wonders if Johan is aware of every small movement that he makes, of how it looks, of how he presents himself, how he is perceived. He wonders if he’s acting now, for Suk— if this is once again just false. It’s a cruel thing to think, he decides— so what if he is?

“I don’t have one,” Johan answers, that slip of a smile on his mouth once more.

“What?” Suk says. “What kind of an answer is that— which colour do you like more than the other ones. I like blue.”

“I know,” comes the answer, and Johan picks up his fork once more, nibbling on a piece of broccoli.

“You really don’t have a favourite?”

“No. You did say you want to be able to trust me, I did not lie.”

“Okay,” the detective says, but does not seem satisfied with that honest answer at all. “But what if you had to choose one.”

“Blue,” Johan says, giving him a bored look.

“You’re just saying blue because I said blue, and you want me to stop asking you.”

“Very good, detective,” Johan says, smiling, eyes half-lidded.

“Why don’t you think about it,” the detective tells him. “Think about it and come back to me later. I’d really like to know.”

“Fine,” Johan answers. “Is that all you wanted to know?”

“Why did you tell me your sister’s name, that night? You could have said any name, I’d never have seen you again, it didn’t matter.”

“I wanted to.”

Suk winces, looking pained. “You have the most awful answers, they’re not satisfying at all. Are you serious?”

“Would you like me to satisfy you, detective Suk?”

“Johan,” Suk warns, looking even more pained. “Come on.”

“Another question?”

“Fine, uh— your favourite food.”

“So many favourites,” Johan says, index finger dragging across his chin as he leans back, considering Suk. “My tastes aren’t very refined, I liked when you made soup.”

“The chicken soup? Seriously?”

“I said my tastes weren’t very refined.”

Suk sits a little straighter, ears pricked. “My chicken soup from last week— is your favourite food?”

“No, but telling you I do not have a favourite would not have been acceptable. So yes, if you like.”

The detective deflates a little. “Well, fine, I’ll take it anyway though.”

Silence hangs between them once again, and Suk can hear the faint strains of music playing through the wall of the apartment; the neighbours, he thinks, and heaves a long breath, gaze still locked with Johan’s.

There is something about Johan, Suk thinks— there is, regardless of what they talk about, that feeling of being in the room with someone eminent, with someone of great, vital importance outside of this small apartment. The feeling that it is a privilege to sit with him, and have him talk and laugh in the same room. It’s an innate certainty of the man’s superiority, and while it is subtle, it pervades everything— even the way that Johan reaches for his glass of water takes him in, makes him watch. It’s the turn of a wrist and the progression of each joint and knuckle; it looks inhuman, he thinks— he had thought it looked inhuman, learnt, because it is too perfect to be human, too excellent— as if Johan were a species ahead, a hundred thousand years ahead. That’s the thing with people like that, too, he thinks— they are often a contradictory. That sense of terrible eminence is combined here, with an equally great sense of vulnerability; Johan has a softness that he has constructed very carefully, that makes one want to be near him, to comfort him. He’s sure that this is why children like him; he is childlike in so many ways— Suk feels compelled to place an arm around him, to stroke his blond hair, to tell him that all will be well. It is this combination that makes him utterly beguiling, that makes him seem like something so precious— enough to incite greed and jealousy for his time; he’s certain that this is why the denizens of the underworld flocked to him, why he has hoards of people on the internet that discuss him at length, that share little known photographs of him, that sell those photographs for millions and millions of euros. 

They brush their teeth at the same time that night; it does not happen by any conscious choice, it just transpires that way. Suk apologises constantly, navigating around Johan, careful not to touch him, though their shoulders brush in the small bathroom as one or the other moves to fetch a towel or a hairbrush.

Their eyes meet in the mirror.

The moment drags on as they consider each other; Suk wonders if he could ever have conceived of such a scene in all of his years. Here they have landed, though; Johan in pyjamas and borrowed socks, Suk in boxers and a t-shirt. Slowly, each pair of eyes returns, and they stand side by side, brushing their teeth in silence.

/////

One night, he wakes to a creature.

It is not the monster as he knew it the first time that it had appeared to him, however. Something in him knows with absolute certainty that the creature is injured and in pain. It drags itself around, and he thinks that he can see blood on its clothing. It wears the same purple frock from before, but it is more ragged; torn to shreds. He wonders, and then finds himself foolish for wondering, if it got into some sort of fight with a bigger monster. This is not, he thinks, the nightmarish beast with seven heads, nor is it the strange, spooky obluda creature from Bonaparta’s storybook. Or— maybe at one time it had been that great creature; the biblical one, but now it seems to have lost its teeth, its claws seem to have been broken off, leaving only stumpy human fingers.

Through his fear, Suk feels a sadness; a despair settle over him, and is uncertain if this originates from the monster, or if it is his own. The pity that overtakes him nearly outweighs his wariness of the thing, and he wants to reach out and place a hand on its ugly, wounded head; its scrappy hair seems thin and unhealthy, as if clumps of it had fallen out. It’s no more a monster than a failed circus attraction; something that has escaped from a cage and has found itself now in a world that it neither understands nor has a place in.

“It’s alright,” he tells it, and watches the beady eyes rise to look at him. “You can stay here if you want.”

It begins to back away, and he imagines that he can see a flicker of its teeth. He can’t be sure, but it seems to have burn marks on its hands; he wonders what it burnt them on— it could have been anything, he supposes, maybe it was cold, maybe it touched a heater, got too near a gas stove.

“Give me your name,” it whispers, but its voice is cracked with disuse, sounding as if it were having difficulty speaking at all. There is none of the feral joy that Suk has always pictured the evil creatures in storybooks to have— it looks as if it could be toppled by a gust of wind, that perhaps, it would collapse to the ground in a pile of ash.

“You can’t have my name,” Suk says. “My mother gave it to me. You have your own name.”

“No, no I do not,” the monster says. “I can make you the bravest officer in the whole of Prague, I can make it so that all of the women in the entire world love you and wish to marry you, so that you can lift buildings with your smallest finger, can withstand bullets that would pierce your skin—“

Suk shakes his head, hearing a note of pleading; something pathetic in the creature’s voice.

“No,” he says, thought this time, gently. “I don’t want any of that, you can’t give me the things that I want, no one can.”

The monster looks puzzled, gathering its clawed, bleeding feet beneath itself and squatting there, on the floor of the living room.

“I can give you everything that you desire,” it says. “I am very powerful and very old. I come from a fairytale land.”

“It’s okay,” Suk says, looking at the shrivelled creature. “Maybe I can figure out what your name is, seeing as you want one so badly.”

The creature looks at him in silence, and despite its hideous, gnarled face and cruel-looking teeth, Suk can sense skepticism rolling off it.

“It’s true!” says Suk, sitting up in his makeshift, couch bed. “I’m a detective, you know— it’s my job to find out these sorts of things about someone. Maybe I’ll be able to think of your name too—“

“I know who you are,” the creature says, and seems to forget the rest of its words. “I know all about you.”

“Well,” Suk says, feeling a modicum of fear start to return. “Then you know I don’t give up easily. We can find your name, I’m sure of it.”

The creature looks down at its creature’s hands, which seem oddly human to Suk, now that he looks at them more closely. They are red from the cold, and pale— skinny, strange little hands.

“My name and my other half are gone,” the creature says. “No one in the world remains to speak my name.”

Suk watches this forlorn thing, and his fear starts to dissipate once more.

“I can’t help you with that unless we figure out what your name is, first,” he tells it, legs crossed now as he sits against the backrest. “But, I’ll call your name for you.”

The creature looks at him with eyes that have turned pale and glassy, as if a film were covering them; as if they were a fish’s eyes.

“You would call me by my name,” it says. “If I tell it to you.”

“Yeah,” says the detective, “of course I will.” Then, muttering; “I knew you were lying about not knowing your name. Why does everyone do that?”

It blinks at him miserably. “What if it is not my real name?”

“I don’t think that’s the point,” Suk says, scratching his head.

The creature continues to watch him, seeming suspicious.

“Will you call to me kindly?” it asks, and Suk wants to laugh in disbelief.

“Very kindly,” he says.

“Fine,” it agrees, and this agreement comes much faster than Suk had anticipated that it would. He smiles at the beast on the floor, finding that something about its form has become unclear; it keeps shifting as though through the surface of water that keeps getting disturbed, as if his eyes were clouded and causing it to blur out of focus. He feels for a second as if it is not a creature at all that he is talking to, but something else— someone else, someone he knows, but barely knows at all.

“My name,” the creatures says, “is—“

The dream, along with the false name are muddied as he starts to wake up; the strange language of the dream is lost to him, and he faintly hears the syllables, but no more of it.

Suk sits upright slowly, feeling a headache coming on, feeling the image of the monster fresh and sharp before him in the living room. The room is now brightly lit by the morning sun; the door to his bedroom is still closed; Johan must be asleep still, he thinks, wanting to go and check on him. The dream had not necessarily been a nightmare, but he feels the urge to look in on the other man regardless, something in him feeling unsettled, as if just the sight of another person would soothe him.

He opens the door slowly, and sees the blond head pressed to his pillow, the blankets bunched around his shoulders. Johan stirs.

“Detective—?” he says, peering at him.

“Hey.”

Johan waits, shifting so that he can look at Suk.

“It’s nothing,” the detective says. “Did you sleep okay?”

“I was asleep when you came in.”

“Oh.” Suk shifts. “Uh, sorry about that. Go back to sleep.”

“I’m awake now, so no.” Johan sits up in Suk’s bed. He looks quite artful as he does; even lounging suits Johan— there is a laziness in the way that he watches the detective, looking softened from sleep, his hair and clothing rumpled. The collar of the shirt that he has borrowed sticks up at a curious angle, and something about him here, like this, in Suk’s own bed, makes him seem so much further from the man that he had met that night on the rooftop. He cannot quite reconcile them outside of the faint air that they both carried; that curious vagueness of speech— the same voice. The contexts feel worlds apart, though; but things are always less frightening once the lights are turned on, once the morning light slants through the room as it does here, now.

Suk comes forwards, sitting on the edge of the bed. Johan looks at him.

“I had a strange dream.”

“Don’t tell me about it,” Johan says, lying back down, though his chin is angled to maintain eye contact. His hair spreads over the pillow.

“What do you dream about?” Suk asks, straightening out a crease in the blankets.

“Detective.” Suk looks up at the address. “Today is your day off?”

“It is,” he answers.

“I need you to do something for me.”

“Sure,” Suk says, probably a bit too enthusiastically, because Johan’s expression flickers for a moment, and something about it makes Suk aware that the man is amused.

“There is a list on that desk, beneath the paperweight. Would you hand it to me.”

The list is written in pencil; in a neat, mercenary cursive.

“These are— illegal, you know. You can’t get them without a prescription.” Suk stares at the list. He looks over at Johan, handing it to him. “I’m not getting you illegal medication, or going to some shady doctor for you.”

Johan reaches out a hand to take it from him, though it falls back to the bed once he has it. That gaze barely even flickers to it. “What a pity,” he says, gripping the page between his fore and middle fingers.

Suk sits back down again, though this time closer to Johan. “Are you feeling sick? I can take you to the doctor. Actually,” he pauses. “I can get the doctor to come here, if you don’t want to go out. What’s— can you tell me how you feel?”

Johan, as he often does, looks exhausted.

“There is an address there. Just go and pick up the package for me, and check the contents. There is nothing illegal about that, detective.”

“No,” says Suk, but he feels bad about it immediately, and his grey eyes seek out Johan’s. “I mean, I’ll get the medication for you, but not like that. You probably should see a doctor anyway. There are some good ones around here, actually, you might like my doctor, he’s a really nice—“

“Detective,” Johan interrupts. “That’s all I required.”

Seeming downcast for a moment, Suk studies the pattern on the rug, then looks back at Johan. “Can you tell me what’s wrong? Your symptoms, I mean.”

Johan remains quiet, just watching him, his hands lying on the bedcovers like a cadaver’s.

Suk exhales, long and put upon. “Okay, give me the list.”

Johan’s hand extends the barest inch, a finger moving so that the page bends towards Suk. The detective takes it and looks through the list of medications again, eyebrows pulling into a frown, a crease appearing between them. He looks at Johan over the top of the page.

“You’re not feeling too well, are you.” It’s barely a question at all.

Johan remains silent.

“I’ll get these for you,” he says, standing, but seems to think twice, and steps closer towards Johan once more. He extends his free hand, and lays the back of it against Johan’s forehead.

“I don’t have a fever,” he says.

“No— no, you don’t.” Suk retracts his hand, feeling the ghostly imprint of where Johan’s skin had touched his own. “You’re sort of clammy though.”

More silence follows.

“You should go back to sleep,” Suk says, and starts towards the door.

“Thank you, mr. detective.” The faint sing-song of that old nickname that Anna, well Johan, had used at the bar when they had first met catches Suk, and he turns to him, expecting to see some sort of mocking look.

But, Johan looks as wan as usual, eyes lazy.

/////

The dream, and then the subsequent conversation with Johan stays with Suk even as he makes his way to the old town to visit his doctor’s offices. The fact that Johan has been laid low by these migraines makes him feel guilty for not noticing; how could he, when there was almost no sign of it? He could have, he thinks, at least asked him— of course there would be some lingering issues after being shot in the head for a second time. It’s a miracle that the man is still alive, that he can even speak at all. He wonders what else it has effected, if his smell or his taste or his sight have suffered. A freezing gust of wind blows down the main road, and he passes the cafe orient and the various designer stores, taking a side road, between the cathedral and a few art galleries, passing one of the Irish pubs, packed with the usual early drinking expat crowd (not to say that Suk has never joined that crowd in his time, when doing the regular Friday night bar hop with his college friends), and finally entering the offices of his doctor.

The appointment itself does not bear recounting.

He lies.

The whole thing sits badly with him as he watches the old man write out a detailed prescription for a host of migraine-related symptoms; sleep medication isn’t necessary, surely, he thinks, wondering why Johan had added to that extensive list of medications that he’d requested. He accepts it from his concerned looking doctor, reading the list, mentally checking off each item that has been listed. The tidy little pencil list sits in his pocket (he’d memorised it on the walk over, reading each item over and over to himself, blind to the traffic as he crossed the bridge, to the boats passing beneath it).

“Thanks doctor, you’re a life saver,” Suk says, giving his best, most chirpy smile.

“You take care of yourself, son,” the doctor says, hands folded on top of his desk. “Give my secretary a call if the headaches persist. These things can become serious.”

“I’ll do that.”

Fortunately, being a detective with the Prague police, his insurance covers the appointment— not that this would have mattered. Those funds that keep appearing in his bank account, as if they were a rental payment, would have covered this and more. He does not touch them, though, does not feel that they are his to touch. He has savings, of course, but the sudden growth in his bank account makes him feel a sense of guilt; he has been framed for taking a bribe before, and he refuses to ever be in a position like that again. The fact that he is almost certain that this money is stolen, somehow (knowing Johan it is stolen through legal methods— which makes it worse to him), makes him even more reluctant to touch it, so instead it sits there, growing, gaining interest.

Johan is sitting on the couch when he gets back home; blown in by yet another gust of strong wind. The whole of Prague seems to be in a state of uproar today; leaves are being swept past the window, birds too. The man looks up at him.

“Hello,” he says, softly, and Suk barely hears him.

“Hey.” The detective takes off his coat and hangs it up, removing the brown packet from his pocket and holding it up. “I brought you something.”

He notices that Johan has taken one of the throw blankets from the bedroom, and has put it over his knees where he sits on the couch. The couch that is, actually, where Suk has been sleeping for the past few weeks.

Suk had envisioned himself being somewhat smug about this acquisition to Johan, but he looks at the dark circles beneath the man’s eyes and can’t bring himself to tease. He runs a glass of water, and brings it over, putting it down on the coffee table beside where Johan sits.

“You’ll need to eat before you take most of these, but if you’re in pain, you can take— uh,” he fumbles with the prescription that has been written out for him, reading off the name of the medication. He sits down in one of the armchairs, frowning at the paper. “Are you going to tell me why you want sleep meds?”

“You are not the only one who dreams, detective,” Johan says.

“Oh. Sorry.”

He imagines Johan waking alone in that room, eyes wide with the afterimage of a nightmare.

“You never said anything,” says Suk.

“Mm.”

Suk slaps his knees, and stands, rubbing his hands together against the chill in the room. “Right, I think I’ll go to the store.” He looks down at Johan, who is still examining the contents of the package from the pharmacy. “Do you want something in particular? I’ll get you some croissants again. I think you liked those, you ate them.”

“It’s cold in here,” Suk adds, belatedly, not getting a response from Johan.

Johan reaches for the glass of water, taking a sip, then returning it, a droplet of the water remaining on his lower lip. Suk examines the view out the window, extremely interested in the sweep of Autumn leaves that are flying past with each renewed gust all of a sudden.

“Johan?”

Pale eyes raise to his own. “It is cold, and yes, croissants would be fine. Is that all, detective?” The coy little smile follows.

“I’ll make a fire before I go. You might have to throw a log on— now and then.”

They consider each other. Suk recalls the blaze of the Red Rose Mansion. The multiple different fires that consumed each home that Johan lived in. The fire in Munich from which he emerged, unscathed. What a terrible idea, Suk thinks. But it’s too late to rescind it.

“That would be lovely,” Johan says.

“Great.”

The fire does, actually, warm the entire apartment up, and something in the crackle and spit of the burning wood cheers Suk’s spirits considerably. Johan looks pleased about it too; his eyes are closed where he sits on the couch; pale, veiny feet emerging from beneath the blanket to stretch towards the fireplace. Suk sits in one of the armchairs for a time before standing to return to the shops, and Johan’s attention follows him as he rises to fetch his coat.

“Detective?”

That thin voice stops him in his tracks. “What is it?”

Johan is quiet after that, as if he had known that Suk would return to the living room at the lack of an answer.

“What’s wrong?” Suk asks, voice soft, taken in immediately.

“I wanted to thank you,” Johan says. “For the medication.”

“Oh.” A hand instinctively reaches upwards, and Suk musses the hair at the nape of his neck, then tucks both hands into his coat pockets. “It’s nothing. You need it.”

“Well, as I said. Thank you.” Johan returns to reading the labels of one of the bottles.

“You’re welcome,” Suk says; watching his profile. “I hope you sleep better.”

“Yes, let’s hope,” comes the quiet reply, following him out as he starts for the front door.

/////

“Have you seen your mother lately?”

Johan’s voice surprises him, and he looks up from where he’s sprawled on the couch, watching a rerun about a week or so later.

“What are you talking about,” Suk says, but then feels a curl of guilt at the abrupt tone he’d taken and adds: “I mean, not this week, why?”

Johan, the resident haunting of the apartment, is not usually around at this particular time of the day. Seeing him here, on a Sunday afternoon, is quite an unusual sight. They have dinner together a few times a week now (a new development), but outside of those times, he hardly is able to keep track of him; a lot of the time, he knows, Johan spends sleeping— he’s noticed that he tires quickly of even the shortest interaction, and will retreat silently, the door of Suk’s bedroom closing behind him.

Johan looks at him evenly, sitting down in an armchair, and glancing at the television, then back to Suk. The look he’s wearing is much the same as the look that he always wears; but Suk feels as if he might be learning to read him a little better than he could at first, that maybe there are sides to Johan that one has to learn, that only begin to show once there is an entire repertoire of Johan’s expressions from which to draw comparison. There is something prim about the way that Johan sits in the chair, Suk thinks, then feels as if it’s a cruel thing to think of someone. He’s an odd person; that goes without saying, but it doesn’t do either of them any good to mock him for it.

“You should visit her,” Johan says, eyes very direct, staring at Suk with that false levity he sometimes affects. Something in the man’s tone does make him take notice (though, he takes notice of everything that Johan says to him; listens for the slightest variation in his tones, waits for the moment that something begins to unravel, even just slightly, so that some of the mystery can be eased, the day that something of him will allow itself to be known).

“Why were you visiting my mother,” Suk asks, voice dangerously neutral.

“Hmm,” Johan responds.

“I need you to tell me,” the detective repeats, the sound on the television muted. “Why you visited my mother.”

Johan’s glassy eyes are on him, divulging nothing.

“It is not so sinister, detective. A conversation. She said to give you her love.”

Suk drops his head into his hands, pinching the bridge of his nose as if to stave off an oncoming headache. He knows, he knows that the situation with Johan, taking him in like this, like a fool— there was no way that the people that Suk loves would not somehow be targeted; there is no way that the ripples of this would not touch them.

“I can’t allow you to visit her again, you can’t.”

Johan watches him, remaining silent for a long time, and the silence drags out between them to the point that it becomes a rift; something neither is able to cross or break. It continues; heavy in the air.

It is Suk who speaks next. “I’m sorry, but you can’t visit her.”

He looks across at Johan, and thinks that maybe he has been the one to project those subtle changes in expression on the man; so desperate to see even a sliver humanity in him, to see something worth redeeming or caring for; anything to excuse the way he swooned over Anna, daydreamed about her and her gentle, beautiful eyes; the same ones that watch him now.

“If you say, detective,” Johan says, hands folded gracefully in his lap.

The odd tacking on of that detective soothes him somewhat; he is easily soothed after all, and a long breath leaves Suk. He does know well enough that Johan says what he wants people to hear, and adheres to rules of his own instead. There is a vacancy about Johan though, that he had not expected; he knows he ought to fear him, fear what he is capable of, but that is just the thing. Johan does not seem capable of all those crimes that were assigned to him (most of them only by rumour and by word of those involved… no concrete evidence existed; not enough to actually take to court). Maybe that is his greatest disguise; he appears as some silken furred, soft creature, but beneath hides all kinds of claws.

Johan is still looking at him, though, and he can’t be sure, but it seems that he has more to say.

Suk waits.

“Your mother,” Johan starts, and Suk is alert as soon as the words leave his lips. “Is very kind.”

“She is,” Suk says, feeling as if he’s on the defensive once again, though he stops himself, wanting to believe that Johan has visited her out of consideration, out of some sort of abstract need for outside company. He had visited her once before, too, and possibly a second time before all of this. She had not suffered for any of those visits; in fact, Johan’s influence on her seemed to bring her to her senses, most curiously of all, and she had mentioned liking him, very much.

She has always been a perceptive woman, Suk thinks (though half of him wonders if this is just his own way of being an apologist for Johan; if he wants to believe this more than he actually does believe it), if she felt safe around him, then there must have been no threat meant on Johan’s part. If she was able to talk to him time and time again, and still speak well of him— there must be some merit to that; to discredit her on that would be ignorant of her character, would do her years of cautious, responsible parenting a disservice.

“She likes you,” he adds, finally, looking across at Johan, whose expression does shift this time, just a little.

He looks pleased, Suk thinks, and wonders if this is all more sad than it is threatening; they do not live their lives in a horror film, after all— Johan is as real as he is. As far as he has been able to tell, Johan is attempting (albeit poorly) to live normally; a human life. There have been smaller signs of this; things that he has seen— there is a strange little collection of belongings in a suitcase, beneath Suk’s bed. He had discovered it through snooping, of course, and felt terrible the second he had opened it. There were photographs and mementos— junk, really; just things that could be bought from a garage sale— as if he were trying to emulate the human need to collect objects that signified memories. He hadn’t been struck by the strangeness of it, but rather by a heartfelt, miserable ache. He’d put the items back in the suitcase, closing it and storing it as it had been stored before; quite well hidden and covered with a jacket, despite how obvious the location had been. There is a floundering feeling to it all, he’d thought, sitting on the floor of the bedroom, wondering why he felt the sudden urge to weep; the testimonies of those at the Red Rose mansion had come to mind immediately; those who had not been rescued— the ones that were doomed to try to copy human emotion for the rest of their lives; forever unable to actually connect with those around them, despite trying to mimic them.

“I’m going to make tea,” Johan says, and Suk has never heard or seen him make tea before, in all their days of knowing each other. “Would you like some?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll do it,” Suk answers, and stands, looking down at Johan who once again seems pleased by this development; the atmosphere has lightened, as if Johan’s mood, though invisible upon his features, had caused the change around them. The offer, he thinks, standing beside the kettle in the kitchen, was Johan’s way of showing gratitude— he’s so sure of it. They tend to keep their distance with each other (as much as is possible in a small apartment), but that sort of thing; asking if he’d like a cup of tea— it’s not a Johan move, not like him at all. Not unless there’s an intention behind it. Not many of Johan’s actions are wasteful; they all have a certain meaning, all are done with an intent.

Johan takes his tea black, without sugar. Suk takes both milk and sugar. He brings both cups back through to the living room, and places Johan’s down on the coffee table, sitting back down to sip his own. Johan puts down the magazine that he was reading, and Suk notices that it’s the TV guide— the one with the channel listings and schedule, not the— interesting one. That’s fine, he supposes, and tries to think if he’s seen Johan watch television of his own accord. He hasn’t.

/////

The next day, he goes to visit his mother.

He’s working a night shift that evening, so the Monday is free— and he visits the corner shop to buy her the yellow roses; they’re a ritual between them— he likes to think that they remind her of their old home, just outside of the city (they had not been able to afford anything closer, of course, on her single teacher’s salary). He’s planning to ask her a bit more about her conversation with Johan; he wonders if this is just the first time that Johan has seen fit to mention to him that he has visited her while they have been sharing the apartment; there are times when Johan has been out of the house that make no real sense— he has nothing to do, no one to see as far as Suk knows, though he does suspect that Johan has remained in contact with some of his more dubious acquaintances.

This is another thing, he thinks; Johan has money.

He takes out his wallet to pay for the flowers. That had been one of the more curious mysteries; Suk’s own bank balance, when he had gone to check it, had climbed dramatically in the past few weeks. It had been subtle at first; just a little more each day— not enough for him to actually take notice. But, having checked this morning, on the way here, he had seen a rather dramatic growth in his personal wealth. There was no explanation for it, though he’d immediately suspected Johan, and when asked, the man had just given him that coy look and disappeared from the room with an airy: “I’m sure you will figure it out, detective”. So, Johan is likely using him as a financial cover, too. Great, he thinks, sighing, and thanking the teller before making his way to the metro station.

At the hospital, his mother sits up in bed, clear eyed, and smiles at him.

“Hello my dear Jan,” she says, and he rushes to her side, watery-eyed at being recognised immediately, feeling all ill-will towards Johan melt, all suspicion of him wither and wilt. She seems, he thinks, hugging his mother, for the first time in a long time— much better. There is something in him that hopes that she will recover from this, that she will not just continue to deteriorate with her disease and that maybe, by some miracle of science, she will be returned to him, and will be able to continue her life in her little apartment, close to his own. He pulls back, wiping his eyes on his sleeve, and she takes his face in her hands, stroking his hair.

“I’m so glad to see you,” she says. “I’ve missed you.”

It’s only been about a week since he last saw her, but that time, she did not know him at all. He’d been a friend of Jan’s, instead her son to her, and she’d talked to him at length about her son, about their home— she had told him about some of her students, too, and he knew the stories but nodded and agreed with her anyway.

“How are you?” He says, pulling the chair in closer, brow furrowed despite his happiness.

“Ever since that lovely young man’s visit yesterday, I’ve been feeling like myself again,” his mother says, smiling at him now; her eyes seem recovered, younger. “We spoke about you, and we spoke about how you are learning to cook. He told me that you make dinner nearly every night, I never thought I would see the day.”

Suk’s eyes widen— the fact that Johan, who is cagey with him on a good day, and simply not around on the rest of them, has expressed this to his mother, having what sounds like a chat with her— well, it’s surprising. He wonders if perhaps the fact that she barely knows him, that he is a stranger to her is what makes it easier for him to talk to her. He wonders if perhaps it is because she is a mother. He knows about the original Anna Liebert, about Johan and Anna’s mother; he knows that somewhere in Johan, there are those old wounds, deeply buried.

“It makes me so happy,” she says. “Hearing that you are at home more often. I remember how you used to go to those bars with your friends, I worry about you Jan, all the time.”

Suk rubs the back of his neck, ruffling his hair. “I mean, I wasn’t at the bars all the time, just here and there, sometimes, I—“

“Every day, when I think of you, I pray that you will settle down, find a nice girl to marry. I’d so love for you to have children, Jan.”

Suk frowns, but smiles soon afterwards, patting her hand. “I promise I’ll settle down eventually, Mom, work’s got me running all over, you know how things can get there.”

“I know, I know,” she says. “You’re a good boy.”

There are no more of those extravagant flowers at her bedside today, he notices; apparently, they’ve stopped coming altogether from what he’s heard after checking in with the nurses. It’s a relief, in a way, though it does make him suspect Johan— it would make sense that he’d kept in touch with Suk’s mother in the weeks before he sought refuge in Suk’s apartment, becoming, as he is now, a spectral feature of the small place. He wonders, instead of dwelling on the fact that the gifts were so blatant, if that was Johan’s way of priming him for his appearance that day— if the man had thought that this would perhaps soften Suk towards him, and make him more likely to permit him to move in and stay with him. It’s something, he supposes, Johan might do— they could have been read as an intimidation tactic too, he supposes, though they were very pretty and very expensive and his mother had adored each individual bunch that she had received.

Just before he leaves, his mother looks at him, once again, with that clear focus. “Take care of yourself, Jan, I almost lost you once, now.”

Something odd in her words makes him take her hand once more, sitting down on the side of the bed, watching the way she stares up at him, that imploring look thinning her mouth.

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me.”

“There are better ways to be happy than throwing yourself in the line of fire, son.”

He smiles. “You’re going to ask me to leave police work again.”

She returns the look, though it’s softer, sadder. “Yes.”

“You know I can’t do that,” Suk says, and they watch each other. He doesn’t particularly want to leave now; he gets so little time with her, there are so few instances when she seems clear like this; awake. But, the hospital’s visiting hours will be over soon, and he will go back home, back to the flat— he’s half sure that Johan will be there when he returns; he’s been around a bit more lately, though just to have dinner and then, usually, they go their separate ways for the evening. Johan shuts the bedroom door, and Suk watches television; he does wonder what Johan does in there— something in him never allowed him to open that door and find out; he does not like to think that he is afraid of Johan in any capacity— but, something within him, something that is more of an instinct, prevents him from looking in on him, from seeing a fraction more than Johan wants him to see. He thinks of that morning, when he’d carried him to the bed, thinks of his human bones, the elbows that had pressed against him. Human, nothing to be afraid of. Brittle.

He will not open that door, though.

“I just want you to be happy,” his mother says.

“I am happy,” he answers, his throat dry.

“And safe,” she says, and her eyes are clouded, but this time not with the fog of the disease.

“I am safe,” Suk says, throat still dry.

She’d slipped back into vagueness after that, but had been teary for the rest of they visit— he’d promised her that he would leave police work to quieten her, weak for her tears, and it had worked for a time, though she had become emotional again soon after.

It unsettles him.

When he walks home that afternoon, towards the metro, he decides to take the longer route and instead walks through all the way through the old city, crossing one of the smaller bridges along the Vltava and walking up towards the castle, enjoying the slight incline of the road that branches off towards his apartment, and trying to forget the unease that had settled within him during that conversation with his mother. Her worry and her insistence had not sat well with him; he tends to take nearly everything that she says seriously now, seeing as she barely has that kind of coherence when they do speak. He buys croissants from the bakery on his way up; he knows he needs to thank Johan— though what exactly for, he can’t be certain of. He’s not sure why his mother seems to get better after she has seen him, why he has his influence over her.

Abstractly, as he walks, he realises that not since a college girlfriend who he had briefly lived with, has he had someone to go home to. Whether Johan is actually there or not is beside the point; he thinks of him in the apartment; his narrowed eyes and his white-blonde hair; now a fixture, as curious and utterly unknowable as he is. Something about that knowledge that the apartment is no longer deserted cheers him from his thoughts of his mother, and he picks up the pace.

/////

And then, the day after that, his mother dies.

The call from the hospital comes early in the morning, and misses him because he’s sleeping in after his shift. They call again later on; the call actually interrupts a peculiarly domestic scene between himself and Johan; Johan had reached the phone first after several rings, and had picked it up— Suk had just about tackled him to retrieve it (who knows what he would say; he couldn’t risk that), but not before he’d answered, and in that thin, mincing little voice said: “Good afternoon, Suk residence,” before handing the phone back over to Suk.

“Sorry about that,” Suk says, reclaiming the phone, an eyebrow raised at Johan, mouth twisted so that he does not smile and give him a reaction that he’ll try to elicit again, “Jan Suk speaking, what can I do for you?”

The remainder of the day does not bear much further comment; Johan watches him as he receives the news, and then makes himself scarce, not seeming to want any part in his cohabitant’s grief.

/////

While Johan is once again the resident ghost of the house for the first day or so; he comes out of hiding around two days later, entering the apartment with a silence that actually causes Suk to just about jump out of his skin when he sees him standing behind one of the couches in the living room. There have been preparations to make; he phoned all of his mother’s friends, some of her old colleagues, he had called in to work and taken a short period of leave to organise the funeral— Suk has not necessarily missed having a roommate, but he’s been so distracted by the menial tasks in the wake of a death, and by his own grief, that he has not been able to think too deeply on it. Which is not to say that he has not abstractly, absently— wondered where Johan has gone. 

“Hello, detective,” Johan says, and Suk looks up.

“Hi,” he answers, dragging himself up straighter on the couch.

“Do you mind?” Johan gestures to the spot beside Suk.

“Uh, of course, sit.” Suk shuffles over, making room, shifting a cushion so that Johan can sit beside him. He can’t think if they’ve ever actually sat on a couch together before.

Johan sits, one leg folded over the other, wearing a nice pair of slacks— he’s dressed up a little; a black turtleneck too. He looks at Suk, and Suk looks back, none of his usual exuberance showing.

“You were away for a bit there,” the detective says.

“I thought you might like some privacy.” Johan folds his hands in his lap, looking over to the television screen that’s flickering silently in the background. The light moves across his face; which is as pale as ever, turned only more pale by the white light.

“It’s okay,” Suk says, entire demeanour downcast. He doesn’t add more than that, and Johan looks at him again. He looks back, finding that he can only project compassion into those icy eyes; he cannot tell for certain if they house any themselves, or if they are even capable.

“What are you watching?” Johan says, voice light in question.

“I was— taking a nap. It’s just some movie.”

“I see.”

They watch the television in silence for a while. Suk finds that Johan’s presence, while unimposing, provides a sort of comfort— it is just the idea of having another body there; though sometimes living with Johan can seem just the same as living alone.

/////

“It’s probably not a good idea for you to come too,” Suk says, stepping into the living room, fastening his cufflinks. “But I don’t want you to think you’re not invited.”

“I won’t impose.”

Funny that, Suk thinks, watching as Johan, who has been sitting in one of the armchairs by the fireplace for the better part of an hour while he’s made phone calls before the funeral, and gotten into his black suit. Impose has been all that Johan has done. But, he thinks, it’s not like he hasn’t just allowed it.

There is a clatter and one of the cufflinks falls to the ground, rolling across the floor to where Johan sits. He reaches down to pick it up, examining the small, gold pin. Johan looks from the cufflink over to Suk.

“Come here,” he says, and stands, beckoning; the way his wrist barely unfurls to summon him over does not allow for any other options— Suk walks across the room, standing before Johan.

A flicker of Johan’s eyes to his own chides him for not raising his wrist; Johan reaches to take it for himself. He pinches the fabric of the shirt between his fingers, and slips the cufflink into the buttonhole, twisting it closed.

“The other,” he says.

Suk complies.

There is something so solicitous about the move; something gentle and jarring in the way that Johan’s gaze is lowered to the cufflinks, the way his lashes fan out and Suk can see them, very precisely, each individual one of them. His movements are sparing; he tightens the second cufflink and removes his touch entirely, looking Suk over.

“Thanks, Johan,” the detective says, tilting his wrist this way, then that. “They’re tricky one-handed.”

“Your mother used to do this for you,” Johan says.

“When I was younger.”

Suk looks off and to the side, throat tight, a sting behind his eyes.

Johan’s hands fold into each other, and he focuses on them instead, on the neat fingernails, how he holds one hand in the other.

The silence drags on between them; the detective’s loss not something either of them wants to broach with the other.

“I will see you this evening,” Johan says.

“I won’t be long, it’s just at the church over by the Waldstein garden. She had a lot of friends, though.”

There’s an answering silence from Johan.

When Suk goes to leave, he’s surprised to find that Johan; who would usually have disappeared into the bedroom by now, or just— disappeared generally (he has a knack for seeming absent, even when he physically present in the house), follows him to the front door.

“I am sorry for your loss,” Johan says, and Suk stares at him for a moment, unsure of how to respond. It’s a little belated, but he finds that something in the way that the other man stands there, looking like a ghostly afterimage in the hallway, his hands folded one over the other, makes the statement feel— not genuine, exactly, but something close to that, a cousin of it— like he does not know how to mean it, but rather feels it ought to be said, and is saying it for Suk’s benefit. He’s starting to think that a lot of their more human interactions are for his own benefit, and he wonders how Johan would be, were he just left to his own devices and alone.

“Thanks, Johan. I appreciate that,” the detective answers, closing the door that he had just pulled open, and turning to face his odd roommate. “You know, you can still come with me if you’d like.”

“I’ll wait here, I think.”

“You’ll— wait?” Suk’s eyes widen, and he smiles, eyes doggish. “I’ll pick up dinner on the way home, we can eat together later if you’d like to.”

“Yes,” Johan says, without a flinch in his expression.

Suk can’t quite tell if he’s doing this to ensure peace in the home, or if he actually wants to see him. It’s— probably some combination of both; he cannot think of any situation where Johan would ever go out of his way to do something that he does not fully want to do.

“Okay, then,” Suk says, opening the front door, a cold gust of wind whistling into the apartment. He watches as it blows Johan’s fringe back, out of his face. “I’ll see you later.”

“Goodbye, detective.”

Suk shuts the door behind him, standing for a moment in the hallway of the apartment building. The faint gladness at Johan’s gesture is— sadly nulled by everything else. He thinks of his mother. Outside the wind starts to screech, as if it were an animal, and he pulls his coat close around him, glad for the weather, glad for its wildness.

The funeral passes as only a funeral can; all in black— he cries, often.

/////

The funeral ends, and once Suk finally manages to get away, it’s late in the evening, and a terrible storm has started up. The rain comes down in sheets, slicing across the street ahead of him; he stops by the grocery store to make good on his promise to Johan, but doesn’t feel any sort of hunger at all at the prospects that sit on the shelves in front of him. He tries to recall what it is that Johan had enjoyed; soup, he’d said. He buys the ingredients for a chicken soup and pays grimly, hunched as he heads back out into Nerudova street, hit by yet another lashing of rain. By the time he’s back at the apartment, he’s soaked through.

Suk drips his way through the lobby, and all the way up the stairs to the third floor. When he finally unlocks the front door and gets back inside, he fully expects Johan to be absent from the apartment; no one wants to be around for the aftermath of a funeral, he thinks, least of all Johan— and besides, he’s far later than he’d said he would be. Inside, the heating of the place has been turned on— he stops as he takes off his sodden shoes and socks, his coat left in a puddle on the floor beside them.

“Johan?” he calls, placing the shopping bags down on the kitchen counter as he enters.

In the living room, he can see that there’s a fire in the small fire place.

Johan sits in the armchair beside it, one leg crossed over the other. He’s wearing socks, and reading a book— these details give Suk a strange moment of unreality; he cannot quite believe what it is that he is seeing— the sheer normalcy of the scene strikes him and leaves him standing there, in the doorway, wet hair plastered to his head. He thinks, just vaguely, back to the time when this had been reversed— Johan had stood here, just as he is standing here now, those weeks ago after he had disappeared. The man in question looks up at him, his gaze held long and with a graveness that he knows that Johan possesses, but has never seen before.

“Bad weather?” Johan asks, as if the storm raging outside were not enough to prevent that question altogether.

“Yes,” Suk says.

“I’ll get you a towel.”

Johan stands, and they stare at each other— this standoff between them goes on for a prolonged few seconds, before Suk breaks it; the corner of his mouth lifting in a humourless smile.

“It’s fine, I’ll get it.”

Johan sits back down, inclining his head in a polite little nod. He returns to the book that he had been reading (something borrowed from  Suk’s own bookshelf, no doubt; though Johan does seem to manage to find all kinds of things that he never knew he owned).

Once dried, with dinner boiling down on the stove, Suk sits down in the armchair on the other side of the fire place. He slumps tiredly, watching the flames in the grate. He feels Johan’s eyes on him, and looks up.

“The funeral,” Johan says, slipping a finger between the pages of the book, and closing it. “How was it?”

There’s a long inhalation from Suk, and he runs a hand through his hair. “I— don’t think I’m sure. It was at that big church.” He pauses. “It was sad.”

“I see.”

Johan keeps looking at him, as if expecting him to continue speaking.

“That’s all,” Suk says, shrugging. “She wouldn’t have liked it. The roof leaked.”

There is an awkward moment between them, after that, as Suk manages to stop himself from actually crying in front of Johan. Johan looks at the fire, pretending not to notice.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Suk blurts out, sitting up suddenly, and causing Johan to look at him sharply. He sobers, and drops his chin into his hands, elbows on his knees. “There’s something about having you here— I was thinking about it when I was walking back. I wouldn’t have had anyone to go home to, but then I thought about you sitting here and waiting for me, and I didn’t feel as—“ Suk clears his throat. “I’m glad you’re living here, you can stay with me as long as you want to.”

Something, beyond Suk’s vision, as he stares into the fire, glints in Johan’s eyes. A certain muscular contraction about his face as he watches the other man. Not a smile, not that at all. Something else. Something triumphant.

The detective, of course, is none the wiser.

“I appreciate that, Jan,” he says quietly, uncrossing his legs, and then crossing them the opposite way. The timer in the kitchen starts to ring, and Suk leaps to his feet.

“Soup’s ready,” he mumbles, and exits, Johan looking after him as he goes.

They eat by the fire; or, for once, Johan eats. Suk stirs his soup with the spoon, frowning at it. He can feel the odd flicker of Johan’s eyes to him, though he ignores it; the strange feeling that the other man is checking in on him unnerves him— he has never been the subject of such an odd and dangerous person’s concern (if it is concern; he reads it as that— in hope). Outside, the storm has reached a fever pitch, the sound of rain on the windows is almost enough to drown out the odd crackle from the fire.

“You are fortunate to have known your mother.”

The words catch Suk unawares, and he looks up at Johan sharply, eyebrows arching. They do not talk about things like this, not usually— their conversations so far have been rather limited and few in number.

Nodding, he places his bowl of untouched soup down on the coffee table. “Yes,” he says, mouth downturned.

“I did not know my mother,” Johan says, after a moment’s hesitation.

The mention of Johan’s own family, the one that he has read so much about— the experiments and the Red Rose Mansion, the records that had been destroyed; the new information that placed her at a retirement home— a hospital, more— in France. Never had he thought that any kind of information about this would be something that would come to him from Johan; he waits in silence.

When nothing more is offered, he nods, stretching his feet out towards the fire.

“You don’t have to tell me anything that you don’t want to tell me,” he says. “I guess she’s the one who missed out on you.” Suk glances over, concerned for a moment that this is an overstep. “I mean— my mom liked you, you know. I know I told you that. She did, though.”

When there is no sort of offence from Johan, he continues: “she was friendly, but she didn’t like everyone. I— like that. That she liked you. I trust her judgement.”

He hears the quiet sound of Johan swallowing, and the clink as he rests his spoon on the edge of his bowl. “I liked her too,” Johan says, and despite the mechanical way that it comes out, Suk smiles. Whether or not the statement is for his benefit, he feels something warm in him; Johan either knows just what he wants to hear, or he is trying, here.

“She always seemed to get a clear head when she spoke to you, I wonder why,” Suk says.

He watches as Johan leans forward in his chair, placing his bowl down next to the detective’s, the sleeve of the pyjama top that he wears pulling to reveal a bony wrist.

“When I asked you the other day if you had visited her,” Johan begins, looking across at him, chin raised a little. He does not add anything more to that sentence, however, leaving it to trail off between them.

“You had a feeling,” Suk says, throat tight. “You knew something wasn’t right with her.”

“Mm.”

“I’m not sure how to thank you for that.”

“No need,” Johan says, his head turning against the dark green fabric of the armchair; the blond of it looking almost electric against the old velvet.

There’s another long silence between them; though this time, there is none of the awkwardness of the earlier ones. The fire hisses and outside, there is rain, and Suk feels warmed by the heat and the curious, insistent presence of Johan in the armchair opposite his own. He wonders if this sort of unimposing companionship is what one feels after one has been married for many years. He wonders if Johan feels this too, and looks at his impassive, marble-white face, and thinks that maybe he will never really know, truly, what it is that Johan thinks.

“Do you want—uh, some more soup?”

Johan stirs, lashes raising. “If you’re getting up.”

“I’ll take your bowl.”

He returns to the kitchen with both of their bowls, standing there for a moment in the doorway, looking back in on the scene of Johan sitting there in pyjamas. He shakes off the strange sense of foresight; whatever this is, he has decided that it will augur well. Johan is reformed, he thinks, there will be no more fires, no more, surely, outside of the safety of that grate. The certainty with which he tells himself this; the way he repeats it, and has repeated it over the passing weeks, again and again— he wonders if he is the one here who wishes to believe it.

/////

“Do you want to go for a walk?”

Suk stands in the doorway of his own bedroom, looking in on Johan, who sits on the bed, cross-legged, reading that same book from the night after the funeral. He’s never quite sure if Johan actually reads; he seems to at the very least take in whatever it is that he’s looking at, but he sits there, still as a statue, eyes unmoving. When he does not think that Suk is watching him, Suk has noticed that he will tend to frown; not in any sort of anger or frustration, but in an effort to focus his vision.

Johan looks up at him, hand paused in the air, where he was going to sweep a lick of blond hair behind his ear.

“A walk? To where?”

Suk shrugs one shoulder, leaning more heavily against the doorjamb. “Down to the river maybe, I just wanted to get some fresh air. Get out of the apartment.”

Johan’s gaze is steady, inviting him to continue.

The detective raises his hands. “Johan, just a walk. Not even a long one.”

There’s a beat, and Johan shuts his book with a little, decisive clap, and climbs off the bed, slipping on his shoes. “Is it raining?” he asks. “Would you fetch my coat?”

Suk glances at the window; there is a heavy bank of clouds, but no rain.

“No, it’s fine, we’ll be back before it even starts.”

When they get outside, the air is warm; heavy with the moisture that gathers just before a large storm. Johan turns to look at him, strands of his pale hair lifted by the breeze, looking like some sort of creature from a far off court; something truly from a fairytale; the spires of Prague lance behind him, and the sky overhead is turning black.

“You said no rain,” he says, looking up. “It’s going to rain in a moment.”

“I said it would be a short walk,” Suk says to him, though any kind of playfulness in his words is swept away by a strong gust of that wind, his own hair blowing into his face, coat flapping.

They make their way down Nerodova street, and Suk sees that the cafes and bars are starting to fill up. It’s late enough in the day that it is time for the restaurants to be open, and the weather is imposing enough for everyone to be flocking to them. The street is emptied of its usual tourists; he and Johan walk elbow to elbow down towards the historical center, towards the castle. He glances over now and then, getting a glimpse of Johan’s profile; the collar of his coat that he has pulled up to his chin, even though it is not as cold as the sky would have one assume.

They turn down a side road and meander past the square; staff are running around, stacking chairs and tables, closing the outdoor umbrellas. Johan takes his arm and gives him a neutral look, though he knows he’s being chided for the whole rain thing. Johan’s light hold causes his arm to stiffen; eager for him to remain there, where he is, so that they may walk together like that down to the river. Suk expects him to pull away, but he does not, and he feels, just for a moment; with that ceiling of grey sky and the empty streets, a powerful optimism, as though anything were possible— just at their fingertips. This is Johan’s magic, he thinks, this is why so many people revere him. The loss of his mother sits on his shoulders like a physical thing, but with that hand in the crook of his elbow, he feels as if it had flapped away like one of the doves in the square.

The buildings part for them; an alleyway of tidy houses opening to the river; they pass the cafe signs, the grocery store where he had first caught sight of Johan. They pass the dusty pink outer wall of the Kafka museum and the pubs alongside it, taking a longer route around, despite Suk’s promised short stroll. Suk chances a touch to Johan’s elbow, swapping sides with him as a delivery van roars up the street, wheels rattling on the cobblestones. He steps down, off the sidewalk as it passes, switching arms so that Johan might retake his right. Suk pauses for a moment when they come to the flank of the Vltava, the river spreading out in a dramatic arc through the center of the city; to the north the dark sky meets the water, and he squints, feeling the slight tickle of rain beginning to fall.

“You were right,” the detective says, giving Johan’s arm a slight shake. “We’ll be caught in the rain.”

There’s a rustle of wind and the scattered willow trees on the lawn, just before the tramway, are kicked up into a flurry of leaves and swaying branches; Johan’s hair blows forwards, into his eyes, and he reaches up, pushing it back.

“Keep going, detective,” Johan says, stepping forwards, towards the bridge. “You convinced me to come along.”

Suk obeys, powerless against that breathy tone. They cross the bridge, and Suk looks across at the parallel line of the Charles bridge, even now with its slew of tourists coming and going from the old town, crossing to get to the palace.

They walk down the length of the bridge; the air heavy with electricity. There is an abrupt flash of lightning, and just like that, as they crest the center of the bridge, half way to the old town, the rain starts. Suk quickens his pace, but feels Johan lag. He looks back, sees him tilting his head upwards to look up at the dark sky, eyes turned just about translucent; the blue lit up, turned white, so that he looks as if he has no colour in them at all, just the creature-like marks of his pupils. Sometimes— not often, but sometimes— he does fear whatever it is that lives in Johan.

“Come on,” Suk says to him, unhooking their arms, and pressing a hand to the small of his back, stepping in closer, glancing behind to check if there are any others who may catch a glimpse of them. Those unsettling eyes gradually flit to Suk’s.

“So worried, detective. They’ll say we’re in love.”

“Stop it, don’t be silly, you’ll catch a cold,” Suk says and shrugs out of his coat, holding it over them both as the rain starts to intensify.

Johan looks at him, his expression falling back to neutral, and he smiles, breathing out softly through his nose. “Put your coat back on, or you’ll be the one to catch a cold.”

Suk listens, grimacing at the rain, and slips back into his coat. Johan retakes his arm, The river and sky seem to melt into each other; the rain gets worse as they finally reach the opposite bank, the road taking them towards the old town. They cross through the main square, and the Gothic church spires that preside over the whole of the old town are stark against the clouds. Johan leans more weight on his arm, and Suk looks at him.

“There’s a cafe we can stop at, just around here.”

“Lead the way, detective.”

The wind howls through the square, whistling, the pastel faces of the buildings seem washed out by the sheets of rain that keep blowing across their path; there are other pedestrians who have been caught in the sudden downpour who have been trapped outside just like Suk and Johan— they shelter in the doorways of buildings, in the awnings of the street side shops. This particular street is flanked by the fashionable, international stores that would be found in any large, cosmopolitan city— they stride past the brilliant shop faces of Swarovski and all of the high end chocolatiers.

“You know what, this is actually a bad idea,” Suk says, hanging back as they walk down Celetna street. Rounding the bend in the road, they quickly come upon the cubist front of the building that houses the Cafe Orient. “What if we see someone I know.”

“Then,” Johan says. “I am your guest from Germany, I’m sure. I’m tired, it’s raining.”

They come to a stop outside the cafe, and Suk looks at him, pained. “Fine, but we’re getting a back table, don’t push it.”

Johan throws him a look over his shoulder as they enter the building, taking the stairs up to the second level next to the cubist museum. The sharp interior (cubist too; it’s quite a landmark— Suk prides himself on being a bit of a man about town) with its mirrors and dark wood flooring always has a sense of airiness; the large widows look out and down the street towards the historical center, and Suk greets the hostess working front of house, before walking them down along the rows of tables to sit at a booth in the back; the small table pushed up against a window, tucked back by the bar. Outside, the rain has started to pour down in earnest; the street has cleared of pedestrians, and the roar against the glass of the cafe’s windows becomes deafening, the insides steaming up, condensation dripping down the glass. A crack of thunder snaps through the sky, and Suk jumps, then cranes his neck to see down into the street. Water has begun to run off the sidewalks and into the gutters, the pavement washed by the storm.

“A fine day for a walk, hmm, detective,” Johan minces at him, cheek cupped in his palm; those heavy eyes watching him from across the table.

“Don’t be so smug,” Suk says. “You were the one who wanted to come along. If you hadn’t I would have been trapped out here in the rain by myself, and you would have been home safe.”

There’s a quiet hum from Johan, whose lashes flicker to the window now too, lips pursed.

A waiter comes over to their table, taking out a pad of paper and tapping a pen against it. “What can I get you both?”

Suk starts to order his regular; their jasmine tea, but Johan interjects, cutting him off.

“A bottle of champagne, your best one. We’re celebrating.” He turns to look at Suk. “Aren’t we.”

Suk— flounders for a moment.

“Uh, I— guess. Yeah.” He shoots a glare Johan’s way as the man jots that down.

“A bottle of Veuve Clicquot and two glasses. Anything else?”

Johan smiles and shakes his head, handing the menu back to the man, and looking across at Suk. When their waiter has gone, Johan leans his elbow back on the table again, chin in hand.

“Quite excessive for a detective’s salary, don’t you think?” He says, slyly.

“About that,” Suk starts, but Johan raises a hand, silencing him instantly.

“It’s all above board, so there’s no need to discuss it,” Johan says, and there’s something beneath his voice that makes Suk feel as if he’s being laughed at. That look very clearly makes a hint at the last time that there had been a bribe involving his name— that awful day that he’d been framed by his superior officers for finding out about their involvement with the secret police. He wonders sometimes, just how much of that Johan knew, and how much of it was his doing. While it would be easy to simply blame it all on him— he knows, even now, that at the heart of it, the entire force was tainted by corruption.

“What is it that we’re celebrating?” Suk asks, as the waiter comes over with an ice bucket, popping the champagne in a way that echoes across the restaurant, causing Suk to jump in surprise.

Johan’s lazy stare finds him, and he reaches out to clink his glass gently against Suk’s.

“I’ll tell you later.”

“No you won’t,” Suk says, but does raise his eyebrows at Johan anyway, taking a drink of champagne.

“You know,” Johan says, and the detective looks over at him in surprise. He’s used to a certain kind of silence from Johan; even now, in the past few weeks, after his mother died. Johan is not quite what he would characterise as chatty. But, today he seems to have quite a lot to say, which is nice, Suk thinks, it’s nice to be able to talk to him more openly, more often. He sometimes finds himself discussing things with him in his head, while Johan is sleeping (and Johan still sleeps a lot; Suk wonders sometimes if he always will, if some part of him has simply grown tired of existence altogether, if he finds it taxing just being awake).

“Yes?”

“We haven’t drank together since we first met, do you remember?” Johan takes a small sip from his glass, and Suk thinks back, trying to recall if this is true. It is, of course; the last time they shared a drink was at the bar when Johan was parading as Anna.

“That feels like a really long time ago,” Suk says, looking down at his drink. “Of course I remember.”

He feels Johan watching him, and offers up a small, faintly lopsided smile. “Did you have fun, back then? I always wondered afterwards if you’d been acting or if all that time we spent together was something you enjoyed.”

Johan tilts his glass this way and that, watching the bubbles of the champagne rush to the surface in a brilliant flurry. “What do you think?”

Suk’s demeanour deflates, and he takes another drink of champagne, looking out of the window at the rainy street, at the drenched balcony outside. “How would I know? I hoped you did. I did.”

A glance in Johan’s direction finds the other man with a catlike, bemused look.

“What?” Suk says, tone climbing.

Johan shakes his head. “You don’t need me to clarify things for you.”

“Yeah,” the detective says, cheek dropping to rest in his palm, studying his glass. “But you could also just tell me.”

There’s a soft breath from Johan, one that sounds like amusement rather than exasperation.

“You made me laugh.”

“I did,” Suk says, as if responding to a reward, brightening considerably. “You think I’m funny.”

“You can be.”

The waiter appears to top up their glasses once more, and Suk finds himself watching Johan again. It’s so easy to fall into that; watching him— he is so uncommonly beautiful; his features are the sort of curious, perfect features that you’d only see in a magazine, on the television; ones that in real life are so striking that you would double back to look at them in the street, would lean out of the window of your car just to watch. Every small expression or gesture is turned into something worth a photograph, or etched forever into celluloid— Suk feels like a hopeless fool for even thinking so, but he expects that he is not the first person in the world to have found Johan beautiful.

Johan orders a slice of honey cake, but when it arrives he takes a bite, coughs, then pushes the plate over to Suk. “Won’t you eat this, I don’t want it.”

“Not hungry?” Suk asks, taking the fork from Johan, and spearing a piece of the cake. It’s perfectly fine, maybe a little sweet. That’s it, he thinks.

“Mm,” Johan says, sipping the champagne instead, almost as if he were trying to rid himself of the sweetness of the cake.

“You really don’t want any of it?” Suk takes another bite.

“No, thank you.”

“Okay, you’re missing out.”

They both stare out at the rain; the storm has not lessened in the time that they have been at the cafe; if anything it has worsened. There is another flash of lightning, and he hears the soft tapping on the table as Johan counts the distance between the lightning and then the thunder. He gets to six before there the thunder rattles the windows.

“It’s close,” Suk says, looking over at Johan. He notes that his fringe has dried now; a little fluffier than usual from where the rain has wet it.

There’s no reply, and Suk looks down, finishing off Johan’s cake.

“You’ve been here before, you mentioned,” Johan says, causing Suk to look up.

“Uh, yeah.”

Johan does that head tilt thing; artfully.

“It’s a popular cafe, Johan, I’ve been here.”

The other man just continues to look at him, and Suk pokes at the crumbs that remain on the cake plate, fork pinched between his fingers.

“I know you’re getting at the interview, and yes, that was here,” the detective says, caving as easily as anything. He wonders, looking at the way that Johan’s mouth curls, if he could get just about anything out of him if he wanted to, cared to— there aren’t many secrets left in Suk; he’s never been a particularly secretive person. His secrets are more— the foolish kind. Wanting a home, a family. To make his mother proud. Missing his mother— terribly.

“What did you wear?”

“Huh?”

“What did you wear,” Johan repeats, sipping his champagne, eyes cast down, lashes shuttered.

“Why would you ask that, don’t you care what I told him about you?”

“No, not really,” Johan says. “This is more interesting.”

“More interesting, since when?” Suk can feel the champagne starting to buoy him; and he laughs, catching himself there— something about this whole excursion has a feeling of unreality to it, as if they were, just for these past few hours, two people other than themselves.

“Are you going to answer?”

“The blue suit,” Suk says, sitting back in his chair, hands raised in question. “And a blue tie— is that— are you happy now? Grey socks, brown shoes. Do you want to know more?”

“Mm,” Johan says, returning his cheek to his palm once more, and glancing about the restaurant, then back to Suk.

Suk cracks further beneath that gaze. “What? It was a nice suit— it is a nice suit.”

“That is true,” he says, chin tilting downward into his palm, so that he looks up from beneath his eyelashes at Suk. It’s not an intentionally flirtatious move; it’s not even conscious from what Suk can tell, but it has the effect all the same.

“I think my answers were fair,” says the detective. “To you.”

“I was surprised when you told him how we met.”

Suk feels himself treading on dangerous territory, as if Johan’s cool, placid look were hiding something deeper; thin ice.

“I’m not ashamed of meeting you.”

“I know,” chimes Johan. “This is very like you,” he adds, a little gesture with his shoulder encompasses the entire cafe, the entire building, Suk’s blue suit that he’d referred to.

“Remind me not to invite you next time we go out,” Suk says, and drains his glass.

He catches Johan’s eye afterwards, and smiles at him.

Afterwards, Suk pays their bill with his card; Johan mills about at his side while he does; a murmured, thank you, detective, annoys him— it’s Johan’s money, after all, most of it at least. It’s better not to ask too many questions regarding that; he knows that it will just lead him on a wild goose chase, that all of these secret funds that belong to Johan are brought in through dubious methods. However, all of those dubious methods are water-tight, infallible. The rainstorm outside has lessened, though Suk feels impervious to any kind of bad weather; it’s the champagne, of course, but he slips a hand to press against the small of Johan’s back as they walk, and doesn’t get shaken off— there’s that, too.

/////

His arms are around Johan, and their mouths meet— finally, at last, the way he’d so wanted to do with Anna, the way he’d tried to, in a hurried, stupid jumble, after she’d been kind to him (after Johan had been kind to him, he thinks, but can’t think that much, because he feels Johan’s arms creep around his shoulders). There’s a small part of him that thinks, suddenly, that if they were to have sex, Johan might kill him afterwards and leave him there, a corpse, like some venomous spider. He berates himself silently for thinking ill of him, and holds tighter, and kisses him more deeply. Johan is the one to pull back, that hand placed at the center of Suk’s chest once again, horribly reminiscent of the time when they had first met. Suk covers it with his own.

Johan’s fingers always seem so fine, he thinks, thumb tracing over them, and he frowns, leaning in, relieved when Johan does not move further back, and allows the landing of another kiss; the thin bow of his lips pressing back in return.

“Your hands are cold,” Suk says, eyelids lowered, their noses inches apart.

“You’ve wanted this for a long time,” Johan says in answer, and Suk’s frown deepens. His eyes snap open to find Johan looking at him; those eyes now like a reptile’s; as cold as his cold hands. There’s the faintest moment when he thinks that his first thought, that first image that he had imagined might be the correct one; first instincts so often are.

Suk swallows audibly, looking at him.

If he is going to die here, by some unexpected twist of fate; a gun pressed to the back of his neck from some unknown employee of Johan’s, a knife to his gut from Johan himself, well, he thinks— at least I’ve died a real lover’s death. Maybe his mother would even be a bit more understanding of that, instead of him being gunned down by a criminal in the middle of a chase, or poisoned by a member of staff trying to silence him.

He heaves a sigh, and wraps his arm more securely around Johan’s waist, head slowly lowering, nose and mouth resting against his shoulder. He can feel the bone there; Johan has knobbly shoulders. The thought causes such a stir of tenderness in him that he tightens his arm for a moment.

“Not so long,” Suk mumbles. “And long enough, I guess.”

This time, Johan is silent. He feels those thin, cold fingers thread through his hair, stroking it as if he were a pet— as if Johan had never touched anyone’s hair with affection before now; the strokes are experimental, executed with such restraint and caution that they might as well just be a passing draft through the apartment. Suk takes that hand that has pressed to his chest, and places it on his shoulder, other arm now, too, encircling.

“There is a house in France,” Johan says, and Suk straightens, touches a hand to Johan’s jaw, raises his head, tilting it so that he can watch his face, and feels the shock of adoration when Johan meets his eyes.

“It is close to the ocean, near a village,” the man continues, and Suk studies him; studies the eyelashes that ought to be washed out and pale, like the rest of him, but that are as black as anything he has ever seen.

“No one has lived there for a long time, and its rooms are empty. There are white shutters. It has a red roof.”

Johan continues: “In the garden, there are trees, and climbing roses, though they are overgrown. From the end of the garden, you can see across to the slope of a vineyard.”

Suk remains silent, listening to him. He hears the quiet intake of Johan’s breath at the man pauses, only to continue speaking.

“There is a gravel driveway in the front, the space for a car. It is not too close to the village, but the walk is pleasant, and on a clear day, you can see all the way to the mountains.”

Johan stares at him, and Suk stares back; he’s not quite sure why he’s being told this, but the intensity with which Johan imparts this keeps him enraptured, arms still secure around the other’s waist, holding him.

“I don’t understand,” Suk says, brow creasing in apology. He strokes a hand along Johan’s side, still giddy with the permission to touch him. “Why are—“

“I want to move there, with you.”

“To— France?”

“Yes.”

Suk hesitates, but then forgets himself in the way that Johan is looking at him, in the shock of how warm he is to touch, and he nods, silently, taking Johan’s hand. “Okay.”

“Good,” Johan says, and pulls his hand from Suk’s grip; that same movement as when a cat’s paw is grabbed against its will and it has to jerk it free. He hesitates though, and replaces it against Suk’s chest. “I thought you might agree to it.”

“You knew,” Suk says, feeling himself flush. “The champagne. That’s the celebration isn’t it.”

“Hmm.”

Their eyes meet again, and Suk wonders how well this has been orchestrated in the background; how much of it he did not know, and how much of it has been planned in secret, all along. Maybe Johan never intended to stay in Prague for very long. But also, maybe, even people like Johan do not want to be alone. But, there’s this too: Johan must have known his hook was in deep enough. Suk would have gone with him in that moment to the darkest depths of Russia. To a hutong in Beijing. Further— to Osaka, to Taipei. Anywhere at all. That’s Johan’s nature, he supposes; people die for him, over him, for his name. Suk supposes that he is not so different nor so unique then, in the long line of men who have allowed Johan to puppet them.

He feels that silken, pale gold head dip, resting on his shoulder, and that move alone stops any second thoughts, disarming all arguments.

“Soon, then,” Johan says, voice muffled, “there are preparations to make.”

He sounds so tired, Suk thinks, and raises a hand to stroke his hair; he rests his cheek there, looking over his head at the still darkness of the living room. Something about the place, as it is now; they have not turned any of the lights on yet, have not turned on the heating— it seems to have died, quietly; turned stagnant. He had loved this apartment when he first moved in; it was his first time being away from his mother’s house. The bookshelf that stands against the one wall houses the quiet history of an inquiring mind (he likes to think this); he’d read all of the Hemingway's and the Fitzgerald's, all of those the sorts of books handed to him by his mother (there is also a James Bond collection, though that and the other detective novels are a lot less— romantic). France, he thinks, and keeps stroking Johan’s hair, feeling the man draw closer, France is a beautiful country, and he had only ever visited when he was very young. There being two of them now, too— it makes sense; this apartment is not quite big enough for two people, and— a garden, that had sounded nice.

He’s already been shot three times. Maybe, Suk thinks, maybe it is time to listen to his mother’s words; he can’t not honour her last wish, after all.

Johan shifts against him, a fall of blond hair exposing his upturned face; Suk looks at him, looks at his eyes and his features and thinks of how beautiful he is here, even in the dim light of the apartment that they have been sharing for the past months. No one this beautiful could be evil, he thinks, though even Suk knows what Tolstoy warned against. It’s more than that; he decides; after all, Tolstoy never met Johan.

“I’m going to trust you,” Suk says aloud, leaning back against the couch cushions as Johan pushes himself to his elbows, lying across him, looking into his face.

“I thought you already did,” Johan says, in that light, shrugging way of his.

“—Oh.”

Johan’s mouth curves, barely.

part 3 / a peaceful home

A needle gets jammed in, fitted between delicate stitches.

Again, again, the same action repeated. Under, around, and over, the repetition becomes easier as time passes; more natural. Of course, he was as good as any seasoned craftsman within the first few hours— patterns are natural to him; picking out the similarities, the theme beneath it— language is like this too; he learnt French with about the same strain as he learnt Latin and Dutch; once you have a feel for the shape of things, then they tend to dissolve at a touch and organise themselves into place.

It’s just a simple knee rug; nothing too exciting, but he intends to go further from here, to set his sights upon loftier goals; perhaps a scarf next, with a purl knit— something in a charcoal to go with the sweater that he has planned. Suk likes patterned things; he will have to experiment with the different wools for that; get them to tie in together, perhaps learn a new stitch, perhaps alternate between two that he already knows. There are endless possibilities; an endless array of things to be created— Autumn will soon give way to Winter, and then the January snows will hit, and they will be housebound, just about.

Johan, of course, is mostly housebound regardless of the season, but this does not bother him.

The home is quite often a place of quiet and solitude; Suk works during the week days, though he walks home around noon so that they can have lunch together. To go out for Johan, of course, would mean that suspicion would be raised in the village; they do not live in a place that has much interest in the happenings of a few years ago, however; this town is more concerned with the smaller details of that week; of the weather, of whatever grape harvest will bring the finest wine, of the sun on the slopes of the hills and the consistency of the soil. But, it was an unspoken decision between himself and Suk, that he would try remain on the property more often than not; usually sitting in the garden. Their backyard borders a field, and though it is overgrown, he can see all the way to the distant hills on the far side, across the high grass. It isn’t a cage— this has been planned over months, and months.

The neighbours are a certain point of interest to him for a while; an old couple— he can barely see them through their windows for the Virginia creeper growing on the walls of the house, but he eyes them as much as he can while he tends the rose bushes (hardly worthy of being called rose bushes; their tiny climbing roses that grow in abundance on the pergola of the back yard; but, they must be equally trimmed lest they overtake everything else with their tendrils).

This too, is a newfound talent; though he is talented at just about anything he attempts. Perhaps calling it a talent is, then, a little moot. It is a pastime, he supposes, something to fill the hours. He takes— pleasure in it, in what might first appear to be simplicity, but is not, actually, quite so simple. There are different plants that grow at different rates, in different areas of the garden. An unequal distribution of sunlight, thanks to an encroaching horse chestnut must also be taken into consideration; were the vegetable quadrants planted in the shade of the chestnut, surely they would shrivel and turn to compost. Suk has a penchant for cooking; Johan does not have the capacity for it, not really, so instead the detective takes on the duty to provide meals. He is also the one who visits the market on his way home from work, so it makes sense for him to plan their meals in accordance with his daily shopping, as he used to back in Prague.

The vegetable garden; a project that he has been working on for the better part of the last few months, has been his most successful endeavour to date. The calculations and care that he had taken to allow for enough sunlight, to place them in careful distance from any other, more invasive species— the little squares with their various types of tomatoes and herbs, had burst with their crop; growing to the point of effusiveness; enough for him to have to expand the four squares of earth to six, so that an even more plentiful harvest could be cultivated. The culinary favourites; basil, thyme, parsley, rosemary, sage, coriander, mint, and fennel, naturally, have pride of place. Around them, the tomato bushes have slowly crept in; so much so that he has had to prune them, letting some of their excess fruit be carted off to the neighbours.

Outside, there is a soft rain starting to batter the windows, and he wonders, briefly but abstractly, where Suk is. The man has that dedicated, doggish spirit that forces him to stay late at work on more than just one occasion during the week; he cannot help but wish to please all of those around him, wanting to go more than just the extra mile, wanting to take on the injustices of the entire world and make them right, or good— Johan wonders sometimes if this, too, is simply a product of this force of good will, if he is the greatest project of Suk’s existence; a creature that does not obey the laws of human nature because it has no human nature. He wonders too, if perhaps they have grown past this, and that now he is simply thinking of Suk because he is used to him crashing through the front door and into the kitchen around this time; carrying more shopping bags than he ought to. Suk always enters in a jumble of accoutrements; scarf, gloves, coat, packets and shopping bags and keys clattering; he does not enter quietly, always with the fuss and uproar of a pack of enthusiastic retrievers, veritably wagging when Johan greets him.

The day’s clippings; the ones that were too whole to be discarded, are sitting on the kitchen counter in a jar of water. It’s a little mixture of some different herb offcuts and a few of the climbing roses that had crept too far along towards the house’s shutters. These acts; these motions— he goes about them with a dutiful sense of making this place into something that he has never had any concept of. What it is supposed to be, what he is trying to achieve— he does not know; he has never had a home. The acts are obscure to him; they hold no weight for him, no meaning—they’re just platitudes; so different from the way that Suk cooks a roast chicken on Sundays, or burns a second batch of tea biscuits. Those acts of his have meaning; they hold everything within them; worlds, nuances— they are acts of service, done out of a place of memories and of nostalgia— maybe hope, too.

The front door opens, and he hears the usual clatter and ruckus of Suk returning home, and Johan gives him several moments before he stands to go and investigate. He is not necessarily curious, but this has become a ritual. They are very routine in their day to day lives, very conscious of how each hour is to be spent. It helps, though he gets the urge to break it from time to time and will retreat into privacy for days on end.

“Welcome home,” he chimes.

“Oh, hi, hey—“ Suk seems surprised to see him, and Johan watches as he deposits his shopping onto the kitchen counter, not making eye contact with Johan again.

Johan does not move.

“How was your day?” He says, mouth forming what he believes will look like a pleasant smile.

“Good, it was good.” Suk is nervous, he thinks, and waits.

The former detective clears his throat, he is holding roses behind his back. This is what is making him act curiously, how novel.

“Uh,” Suk begins, stepping towards Johan now. “I got you something. Yours are better, obviously, but you like flowers, so, you know.” 

He hands over a bouquet of red roses, fresh from the market in their paper swaddling. Suk is flushed, Johan thinks, watching him for a moment before accepting the flowers.

“Thank you, they’re lovely. I’ll put them in water.”

“Oh, great, I’m glad. It’s nothing,” Suk says, his hair is more windswept than usual, and he has a dampness to him; he was caught in the rain on the way home, late because of his foray to the market. The man reaches up to rub the back of his neck, continuing that bashfulness, and hangs around Johan as he unwraps the brown paper, carefully snipping the ends of the flowers.

“What did you do today?” He asks, pulling apart an errant leaf, hair falling forward onto his forehead.

“An assortment of things,” Johan says, breezily, holding up two roses to check the length of the stems, and then cutting the longer of the pair down to size. “I’m sure you can imagine.”

“Oh, cool.” Suk is fidgeting, so Johan reaches and takes the leaf from him; confiscating it.

They lapse into silence as they so often do; Suk refraining from busying his hands with any of the excess clippings, and Johan snipping at stems, turning the flowers this way and that, finding the thorns that need to be removed in order for all of the roses to appear uniform. Being meticulous is something that has always come naturally to him. He has never wished to do a single thing in a half measure unless that half measure was the plan from the beginning, though he too will abandon projects and people with the slightest shift in whim. Sometimes restraint is important, but with small things like this, one has to complete the task to the point of perfection.

It looks better; roses with thorns hanging off them would just be unfitting, and Suk repainted the living room walls last month. There is an order about their living place; though Johan can tend towards absentminded sloppiness, Suk does keep up with him rather well— the man is exceptionally neat; all things find their ways back to their places.

Johan is not one for possessions anymore. His belongings, though few, remain locked away.

Only dragons sit on hoards.

“Is there some special occasion today? I don’t think it’s a holiday,” Johan says, and Suk startles back to attention from where he had been staring at Johan’s hands.

“Huh? No, I just spotted them at the market— it’s a present.” Suk smiles, and Johan glances towards him, seeing that curious, unbridled warmth in the former detective’s face that he wears so brazenly.

“Is that so?” Johan smiles too, though holds no warmth at all. He watches Suk for a moment too long, and the other man looks down instead, bottom lip protruding in affected thought while he examines the wood grain of the countertop. The silence between them drags out after that.

“I like them.”

Suk looks up.

Johan stands, holding the flowers in his pale hands. Their eyes meet over the bunch of unremarkable red roses.

“Good,” Suk says, brightening; if he were a dog, Johan is certain he’d wag. “I thought you might.”

The conversation withers there, though happily so— Suk is pleased with himself, pleased with the praise, and he goes upstairs to change into a t-shirt, leaving Johan in the kitchen to contemplate the flowers as they sit in an enamel jug (more frequently used for water, now repurposed). He has received many gifts in his life; he has had many admirers; all sorts— very rich men and women, some much older than him, some younger. Politicians, gangsters; he seems to draw gifts towards him, and to such excess. As if these things will win more than a few moments of his favour; as if it would ever be more than simple politeness. He has received watches and signet rings and heirlooms; things that people would not dream of giving away, things they have gone to their safes to fish out, have looked at a final time and decided no, this I will give to Johan. His accrued wealth from all of these gifts is rather vast, fortunately for him, and rather well hidden. People like to give you money if they want to keep you close, keep you in their pockets; great sums of money. His name was spread in the right circles, throughout them, catching the attention of men who would prefer him kennelled. But, these fools all assumed he wanted money or power; that this would keep him caged.

Well, it did not, though he now certainly does have a lot of money, and has gotten rid of a lot of useless objects.

Who has the time to sell a Rolex? Certainly not him.

But, anyway, these people all had something in common; they all wanted something from him. His silence, his attention, his approval. They loved him, wished to be closer to him. He sees this here, too, in this house, under this roof.

The roses catch his straying attention as a petal drops down to the table; perhaps he was rough when he cut their thorns from them. Perhaps they are simply just old roses, and will have to be thrown out soon.

Johan knows what Suk wants, of course. That is no great difficulty to fathom. He’s known it since he pretended at being Anna; wore the expensive wig that mimicked his other half’s long hair so well. He knew when he saw that tall blond man shopping for instant meals and beer at the little grocery store near Nerudova street back in Prague, and they made eye contact which Suk was unable to hold. He still can’t, Johan muses, leaning his elbows on the kitchen counter and pressing a finger to the center of that lost petal. Suk is shy around him even now, after months of this cohabitation of theirs. He is tentative in all things where Johan is concerned; though sometimes he is not and then only becomes more reluctant. It did not bother him with the others, it does not bother him now.

He’s certain that Suk must think of that fateful kiss almost daily. As for his own feelings on it, or whether they are the borrowed, second-hand feelings that he has gathered from the man that he lives with— well, he cannot be sure. They have not repeated the action again.

There is simplicity in this, he thinks, hearing the shuffling of Suk upstairs; the closet door creaks terribly and is in need of oil; he will remind him to purchase it tomorrow, when he leaves for work. There is no doubt as to his standing with Suk— it is too easy to interpret him; the man does not house great, unfathomable depths, nothing dark or traitorous lurking curled in him somewhere. He is simply finds the face that he had been attracted to in that bar still attractive; the gender did not change the draw he had to Johan, it changed nearly nothing for him, it seems.

/////

Johan’s room is forbidden territory. Suk does not dare to even so much as look into it; as if a line of salt keeps him from crossing the doorway. The door is always ajar; and the warm light from the bay window falls across the wooden floor. Suk sees no more than that, however, and he knows that entering any further than that would be an encroachment upon a privacy that is not only none of his business; it is dangerous to touch, but laid like a trap. Was— once dangerous; he is still alive, after all. This is different from the room that Johan had stayed in back in Prague; that had been Suk’s own bedroom— he’d felt a certain annoyed entitlement to go inside (despite the guilt).

Johan moves about the house like a trapped ghost at night; Suk hears his footsteps on the boards that creak, can tell when he moves down the stairs into the living room. He always pauses outside of Suk’s door; which too, is left ajar— Johan’s shadow crosses his carpet and then it is gone, just about every night. He wonders sometimes if each night he narrowly cheats fate, and that each day that follows is borrowed time; a testament to a good mood that could last years or dissolve in days.

Suk’s door stays ajar at night, too. What other future does he have now; of course it stays open. He wonders if one day the invitation will be accepted, and Johan will steal into his room at the dead of night, and he’ll feel the bed dip. Wonders, if this will mean an ending for him, or if it will just mean a body settling in against his own beneath the covers, as he has always so hoped for.

One night, that shadow appears, and he sits up, turning on the light.

For a moment he thinks that this may be, finally, the monster materialised, from all of those nightmares back in Prague.

There’s a very short second when that light hits Johan’s pale eyes, and Suk is certain that they reflected it back at him, like the lenses of a cat’s eyes. They look at each other, Johan visible through the slat of the open door. The silence draws out; long and narrow— heavy with all kinds of things that Suk cannot even begin to name.

“Are you okay?” he asks, frowning across at Johan, a hand spread uselessly against the duvet cover of his bed.

“Quite well,” comes the reply, and they keep staring at each other, fixed there.

“You know,” Suk starts, feeling himself grasping at straws, feeling that strange atmosphere that Johan brings to spaces starting to recede. “If something were wrong, I’d like for you to tell me. You can—” he hesitates, then: “you can tell me anything.”

Something in that might sound demanding coming from anyone else, but Suk softens it in every way it is possible to be softened; the strange coexistence and in recent weeks, strange peace between them, blurring the edges.

Johan just continues looking at him; and he looks the same as he always does; still as stone.

There is a chorus of crickets drifting through the open window; loud across the garden, and he watches as that sliver of light that streaks Johan’s eyes flickers when he glances towards it, then back to Suk.

“Goodnight, Jan,” he says, and the tenderness that Suk is certain that he has imagined when Johan speaks his name leaves with Johan, disappearing down the staircase, off to run his infernal errands; whatever they may be.  Johan does not speak with tenderness; and if he does, it is because that is what he wants you to hear, because that is what will draw you to him; Suk knows that, but it changes nothing.

“Goodnight,” Suk says into the empty room, to the empty hallway.

Sometimes, he thinks, laying back down and turning off the light, things take time. He’s never owned a cat, but he knows that they’re fickle creatures. You can have one in your house for years and barely know of its presence, and then one day, out of nowhere, it can decide that it’s taken a liking to you, and it will never leave your side; always an affectionate, insistent shadow. Johan has some feline qualities, he’s decided (not really, though— seeing as he’s only barely human even on good days), it’s probably just a question of patience. The thought of being removed from him for the rest of their foreseeable lives (provided Johan does not simply grow bored of their routines here and disappear permanently) well— it’s a little lonely, if he’s honest with himself. He’d always wanted a significant other— has always imagined himself growing old with someone he loves and cares for. They’d kissed that fateful day after they’d walked home along the river, but not again.

He thinks of the child alone in that house, thinks of the fires.

Even monsters get hungry, he supposes, and wonders what it would be like to hold him here, in bed; if that would be unwelcome.

////

Knitting gives way to a new hobby; of course it does. He abandons it half way through an extravagant scarf that had been intended for Suk; the man has quite enough of them— Johan has no one other than himself to distribute these projects to, so they all ended up being  knitted in the various blue shades that Suk was fond of, so that he might wear them.

“Detective,” he chimes, from the top of the stairs one morning, as Suk is about to head out the door to work. “I will be taking over the unused spare room.”

That address is enough to stop the man in his tracks, and he doubles back, head appearing from around the wall. “The spare room? Go ahead, but for what?”

He believes that he can see a blush on Suk’s cheeks at being called detective.

Suk is no longer a detective, of course, he works at the local school. There is no need to work at all; they could quite easily lead lives of hobbies and leisure, but Suk insists upon taking not even so much as a cent from Johan. So, each morning he dresses smartly, as perhaps he would have were he still a detective, and walks down the narrow cobblestone street with his briefcase to the tiny junior school that’s located near their house. He is good with the children; Johan has seen it (of course he has; there is not much that he does not see); he talks to them as if they are adults, does not dumb himself down for them. It appears that they like him for this. Suk enjoys this work, perhaps as much as he enjoyed being a detective, from what Johan can surmise. His mother had died shortly before they left the country (one week, in fact), and Suk had taken strain. Perhaps teaching honours her memory.

When Johan doesn’t deign to answer, he hears Suk linger in the passageway, hears a quiet exhaled breath.

“I’m going! I’ll see you later,” Suk calls, and then, to a flicker of amusement in Johan, the man waits.

Johan remains silent for a time, to see if he will grow bored of this little game and simply go on his way as he usually does. They aren’t really ones for fastidious greetings; Johan greeting Suk upon his return home is a new thing. The roses that Suk gave him have long since died and been thrown into the compost heap, but they were, it seems, the first in a very long line of various flowers. By the third bunch, he kept one of the offcuts and pressed it between the pages of an old German dictionary. It is a human thing, he thinks, to keep mementos. He engages in this process as frequently as he can, now, since they left Prague. Something in it seems necessary, though futile.

Suk is still waiting downstairs, so Johan, having drifted down the upstairs hallway, returns, watches him.

“Take care,” Johan says, voice not pitched to carry.

Suk hears him, of course he does, and brightens, their eyes meeting. “You too, uh, enjoy your day.”

You too, Johan thinks, what an odd way to respond to that. He will remain at home; there is no need for him to take care. Suk is up and out the door after that, and Johan makes his way back down to the living room. The spare room, as they refer to it, is actually a small study that connects to the large, open-plan living area. It has no real function, and they’ve used it as a storage facility for the time being. Between the two of them, there is no much to store, though, so it just houses a desk, a chair, and a few stacked picture frames, devoid of any photographs. Suk’s mother’s possessions were put into storage in Prague; he had some of her furniture moved with them down to France, of course; their dining table is hers. They had briefly talked about making it into a study, but neither of them have had much need for that, and Suk isn’t really the study type. His French CD’s are all played on a walkman, and he’s heard him practicing in his room in the evenings. He speaks French as if it were German; which is unsurprising, but nevertheless, an amusement.

There is not much in the small study to clear out; he places recently acquired paper and materials down on the desk, finds an unused jar for the pens and paintbrushes. As a child he’d told stories; as an adult, now, he will do the same. The monster’s life is not over simply because he has gone into hiding, and the readers of Bonaparta deserve to know the truth. The monster has a name now (or at least a temporary one); his life is much altered. There have been so many developments, however, since the end of that book— he barely knows where to begin. There are whole unpublished stories to work through; events to transcribe. The monster’s life will continue, he decides, as it should. He has maintained a good relationship with a contact in Vienna, who has access to a distinguished publisher; the only thing that he awaits now are the manuscripts which Johan will provide.

The lines come easily; he washes his brushes out between swathes of colour; the pages absorb it and it spreads like a spiderweb through the water.

The creature slouches through the pages; going about its monstrous business. The awakening monster leads directly on from the sleeping one; its little hat replaced upon its head as it wakes. He draws its monstrous fingers, giving them claws; the monster takes up its own paints in the story, and tries to paint  a bird that will never quite sit still. He paints its tiny house that it must squeeze its body into, but that it loves with its goblin heart as much as it is capable of loving something. The monster goes on a trip to the seaside. The villagers learn its false name and begin to call it by this, they bring it baskets of bread and fruit. It learns the names of all of the birds in its garden, and all of the people in its village. It starts to forget it was once nameless, its claws grow blunt. The stories continue; though the pages take a very long time to paint; he is more detailed than Bonaparta in his sketches; his eyes are sharper— each feather of each bird of paradise that visits the monster’s garden becomes a watery art piece in itself.

Each of the villagers becomes distinct; more so than they were in Bonaparta’s work. There is a man with black hair, a blind man, and another monster hidden amongst them. There is a man with blond hair, and he pauses over the eyes; the specks of grey that comprise them looking kind, even there, on the page. The resemblance is not so strong that it would be recognised; it can be allowed.

His desk is pushed right up against the window so that the last of the afternoon light can be taken advantage of, before he has to resort to the desk lamp. The wisteria grows around the entire home; it dips into that window, the tendrils of it laced against the glass. The shadows lengthen and he hears the front door; spending all day indoors at a task is not so characteristic of him; he has been taking less time to visit the fringes of that border land; he does not find himself crawling back inwards to the abyss. Perhaps he has been distracted; Suk is a considerate housemate but he is also very present— there is no escaping when he calls him down to dinner, though he used to simply ignore him.

There’s a soft knock at the door.

“Welcome back, mr. detective,” Johan calls to him, as the door opens and they look at each other from across the room. The detective thing is becoming more commonplace; the reaction it gets never fails to provide a certain sort of entertainment.

“Hi,” Suk says, leaning a shoulder against the doorjamb. “Are you painting?”

Johan, who is quite obviously painting, is not one for answering stupid questions.

“Can I see?” Suk asks, and then walks over, hand hovering above Johan’s shoulder instead of actually touching it. It settles there so gradually, and so slowly that’s he certain Suk is hyperaware of it. They do not touch each other, not unless it’s an accident. This is a novelty. Such power the nickname mister detective holds.

“Wow.” Suk tilts his head while he looks at the drawings. “These are really good, you’re a real talent, you know. These could be a professional’s.” He continues to examine the painting, murmuring a second, more quiet wow, hand a solid presence on Johan’s shoulder.

“Is that a bird?” It is a bird.

“Mm, yes,” Johan answers, “I see you have not lost your investigative abilities.”

“These are really great, Johan,” Suk says, and Johan looks at the pictures himself, too. They are rather polished; but of course they are.

Johan reaches to touch the tips of his fingers to Suk’s hand, a silent command to remove it, and he stands, chin tilting to examine the former detective’s face.

“You smell like a field,” he tells him, noting there’s a grass stain on his elbow.

“Oh, yeah, I coached soccer today,” Suk says, grimacing, glancing down at the material of his suit. “Those kids are fast.”

Johan smiles; just that very faint curve of a cat’s mouth, but he watches Suk stumble over himself at it, hand automatically reaching to muss the hair at the back of his head, noting that it doesn’t take much to make him stammer his words. Suk starts to make as if to leave, stopping as he gets closer to the door and looking back at Johan.

“I’m going to start on dinner,” he says, looking forlorn in the way that only Suk manages, and Johan knows immediately that the former detective wants company.

“A moment,” Johan says, returning to his drawing. “I’ll be right there.”

It takes so little to make the man happy, Johan muses, examining his brushes, scrutinising their tips and carefully placing them back down on the table in a neat row. The jar he collects; its water has become a mottled purple from the various colours. He can hear the clamour of pots and pans; Suk will have rolled his sleeves up to his elbows by now; he can hear the packets rustling, the thunk of a wine cork being pulled from the bottle.

He leaves the paints and brushes where they are; he’ll tidy them later, maybe.

/////

Today, he has finally decided to tackle the final corner of the garden that has remained untended; he raises one of his gloved hands to wipe at a bead of sweat, looking down at the now potted beds. Gardening is much more physical than painting or knitting; there is less thought in it; more action. His trowel hits a rock and then there is the procedure of digging around it; of dislodging it from the earth around it. There is a final bed to be planted, and then he will break for the day; their garden is the most impressive in the street, and while they like to live quietly, so as to preserve the tentative peace that they both so enjoy, he knows that Suk houses a very specific pride amongst the other teachers in the staffroom about their garden.

The new shrubs are planted, covered; he springs them from their plastic sheathing; Suk takes detailed notes on what he wants from the nursery— occasionally Johan will go himself, but he does so enjoy having the former detective do things for him. It seems to give Suk a sense of purpose, too; he likes to be of use, when he can be, he likes to come home, touting his purchases and tell Johan all about the different people that he saw on his way home, discuss the goings on of the various families that he knows through the school. Village life suits him, Johan thinks, though he is finding more and more that Suk is suited to almost anything; he is an easy going person— he gets along with just about anyone, can strike up a conversation with ease about nearly any topic, and will talk and talk for hours if he gets rolling on a particularly good one that he knows a thing or two about. He remembers from the bar (so long ago, he thinks, it seems like thousands of years in the past, a different life), just how much the man had been able to talk.

There’s a rattle of the French door that leads out to the patio, which leads down a short flight of slate stairs to the gravel path that winds through the vegetable garden. Johan looks up, removing his gardening gloves; he’s wearing one of Suk’s old shirts to garden in— between the two of them it’s usually Suk’s shirts that suffer; he does not seem to mind though, and gives them up freely. Johan thinks that perhaps he likes seeing him wearing them; it must be some sort of possessive thing, not that Suk has all too many complexes like that.

Suk’s dressed in his suit; he’s got his jacket slung over an arm though as he picks his way through the flower beds towards Johan.

“Well hello there,” the former detective says, beaming at him. “Look at you. All— dusty.”

He looks as if he had a better word in mind, but decided against using it.

“Hello Jan,” Johan says, casting a look back at him, over a shoulder.

“Hi,” says Suk, raising a hand to wave at him, despite being only a few feet away. “What did you plant today?”

“Mm.” Johan hums, and steps closer to him, tongue wetting his lower lip as he gestures to the various beds. “Coriander. Those, there. You used the basil last week so more of that, too. There. Do you see?” He looks at Suk, hand extended towards the rows of herbs, and Suk squints at the beds.

“Oh, great, that’s very helpful. Basil.”

“Yes,” Johan says, and looks at him. “Basil.”

“Are you ready to break for lunch?” Suk asks him, and Johan watches him closely, catching the way that he keeps staring whenever he seems to think that Johan can’t see him.

“Yes, you’re staying?”

“Yeah, I have a story for you too.”

“Oh,” Johan says, gathering up the gardening tools and handing them to Suk. “Carry this for me.”

Of course, as always, Suk obliges, and carries the equipment; he grabs Johan’s sun hat too, putting it on his own head. There’s a very soft scoff from Johan behind him, but when Suk looks over his shoulder at the other man, the expression has been carefully filed away.

Over their lunch of sandwiches (Suk is notorious for bringing back all kinds of things on his walks home from school; today it was cheese from one of the families’ farms; he’s a beloved teacher— there seems to be an endless stream of gifts), Johan sits back in his chair, going quiet on their conversation.

“What?” Suk eyes him.

“Did you forget? You mentioned a story.”

“Oh, that.” Seeming happy that this has been brought up at all, the former detective stands, and goes to rifle through the other packet that he had left on the kitchen counter, taking out a bottle of wine that he had talked up to an unbelievable degree, and placing the baguette that he had bought next to it. After those two, comes another paper-wrapped package.

“Look what I found today.”

Johan reaches out and takes it from him, knowing what it is the moment he sees the shape of it. “Ah.”

He strokes a hand over the surface, removing the paper.

The Sleeping Monster’s cover looks up at him; the creature in its bed in muted watercolours.

“You’re famous,” Suk says, leaning on the back of Johan’s chair with his forearms. “There was a stack of these in the bookstore this morning. It looked like they were selling well, too. I saw three people walk out with a copy.”

Johan leans back, paging through the book. “Not famous,” he says. “This is a pseudonym.”

“I know, but— you know what I mean. We know.”

“Yes,” he murmurs, voice just shy of a whisper.

“Aren’t you pleased?” Suk asks, and Johan can feel him smile. “Maybe you should sign it. Just this one.”

There’s a long exhalation from Johan, and Suk laughs at him, and sits back down, elbow on the table, jaw held in his palm as he watches Johan’s face. “I read it this morning, it’s a good story. Funny,” he says. “I had expected you might do something a bit more— well.”  Johan flips a page. “You know— darker.”

“Mm.”

“We should celebrate tonight,” Suk says. “You’re a published author.”

Looking up, Johan catches Suk’s eye. There’s that air about the former detective today; he can see it— the man wants attention, wants his approval, wants— something from him. This is the face that would bend over backwards, jump through hoops for him if he knew it would get him even the slightest smile out of Johan. He’s getting to know the various faces that Suk wears; even better than he had originally thought that he knew them. They’re slightly more varied than he had thought they were— he’s become fond of most of them.

“All right,” Johan says. “Do you have something in mind?”

Suk’s countenance brightens further. “Not really, but we’ll make an evening of it. Come with me to the market and we can buy some champagne.”

“I have some errands to run after lunch, but I will meet you in town once I’m finished.”

Suk is still veritably elated, and Johan watches him. The man’s exuberance works well with the children that he teaches; becoming a teacher had been something that had just about fallen into his hands— the tiny local school had just lost one of its best German language teachers to an early retirement (yes, he thinks— retirement. Of course that is what they are calling it), and Suk’s qualifications had met the requirements (with the slightest embellishment, not that Suk ever needed to know about that). Of course, the former detective had been emotional about the entire idea— a nod to both his mother and father, complying with his mother’s wishes for him to leave the police force— it had been perfect.

As he sees Suk out the door again, they hesitate.

Suk leans in, bracing a hand against his side, and kisses him on the cheek.

“Congratulations on your book,” he says, quietly, looking at Johan with the grey eyes that have come to house the entirety of Johan’s human lifetime. “I’ll see you later.”

“Jan,” Johan says, and Suk turns to look at him as he heads down the garden path. He holds a hand up in a wave, standing in the doorframe of their home.

Suk waves back, and jauntily.

“Promise to meet me at the fountain in the main square, okay?” He hears Suk say, as he closes the front gate.

Johan watches him on his way; eyes following his back as he rounds the hedge, disappearing down the path by their neighbour’s house; his blond hair a golden spot in the sun.

/////

Jan Suk is a bit of an animal lover. Of course, Johan knows that he prefers dogs, however, he seems to have no true preference between house pets, and will bend down and scratch the ears of whatever errant stray or flea-addled feral cat that lumbers into his path. Johan himself has no particular feelings towards animals (Johan does not have many particular feelings, however— or at least none that fall upon the scope of what most people can understand; he feels things, but they are also a creature’s feelings, and exist somewhere out on that barren plane of land. There is, however, a house there, now— their house sits in the middle of that border place, with its harsh winds; he cannot seem to find his way inside it, nor can he find a way to remove it). Anyway, lately, Jan has been feeding a few stray cats that frequent the area (true strays; they won’t allow anyone near them— though they tolerate Johan, for whatever reason, sensing a kindred beast). Their shopping list has grown to include tins of cat food, and he sometimes will hear the former detective making conversation with these ugly cats from out of the kitchen window.

They are a menace to the garden; of course— they scratch in the flower beds, and he has had to fence these areas off, lest they perform their unspeakable acts in them. Suk seems to have named them all, he notes, though Johan himself is not able to distinguish one from another; they watch him with their tiny, beastly eyes, and he watches them back.

The feral cats are becoming a nuisance, so instead, Johan resolves to solve the issue himself. He cannot dispose of the cats of course— Suk would know immediately and likely not forgive him. The true solution comes to him as he walks to the village one afternoon, and passes the neighbour’s garden. These particular neighbours are not friends of theirs (they, of course, as a pair, do not have any close friends— Suk is the one who is the village heartthrob, of course, and everyone loves him), in fact, a vague rivalry has begun to creep up between their households. The wife, who had at first seemed pleasant, has shown herself to be quite a fiend; he has watched her from between the hedges. It has nothing to do with the fact that her rose bushes; the ones that border their house, have grown in both beauty and size compared to the ones he so carefully tends, but perhaps this too is a factor.

He sees their large, white cat lounging just outside of the front gate, in front of the hedge. She, a stupid creature, purrs when she sees him; she has the self preservation of an overly socialised toddler, so she walks right up to Johan, and winds around his legs in greeting.

When Suk returns home from work later on that afternoon, he stops in his tracks, standing in the hallway and looking in towards the living room.

“Johan, is that a cat?”

“Astute of you, detective.”

Suk steps towards where Johan and the cat are both sitting on the couch. He crouches down, placing his briefcase with his teacher things on the coffee table.

“I mean, whose cat is that.”

“Your cat, do you like her?” Johan says, tone vague, one leg crossing over the other. He’s already had to change his sweater after picking the creature up, and her white fur has begun to stick to the cushions on the couch, and the fabric beneath her. The animal purrs when Suk comes closer, and sticks her flat, hideous face out to receive the affection that he gives her.

“Johan, her address is on her collar, we don’t own this cat.”

“A small oversight,” Johan says, and reaches to unbuckle the collar, dropping it over the back of the couch.

The cat does not seem to be bothered by any of this, and rolls over onto her back.

“We have to take this cat back,” Suk says, stroking her belly. “What if they’re looking for her.”

“Mm,” Johan answers, already getting up from the couch, a hand touched to the top of Suk’s head in parting. “What a pity,” he says. “I think she’s fond of you already.”

Suk crouches there, looking down at the cat, who is none the wiser to any of the events occurring around her. He reaches to pick her up, and she clings to his shirt, digging her claws into him. Suk grimaces, and looks over at Johan.

“Did you want a pet? Why didn’t you say anything?” He asks, in that hopeless, imploring way of his that he affects whenever he thinks that Johan has been keeping something that he deems vital and important from him.

Johan pauses in the doorway to the kitchen, looking at the picture that the man makes. He suits this sort of life, Johan thinks— Suk looks very much like the man of a household from many years ago; he strikes a handsome figure in his well-cut suit, and with his briefcase on the table beside him. Maybe, he thinks, looking at him, this is the sort of thing that Suk has wanted his entire life; he can see the man aspiring to a home like this, to having a place to return to. He wonders if the man’s image of it through the years was that of the nuclear family— if he envisioned himself with a wife and children, a large golden retriever and a group of close family friends. He watches as Suk and the cat look at each other; the creature having made itself quite at home in his arms, her long, powdery fur covering him; the suit is a nice charcoal, too; which just makes things that much worse.

“You want a pet,” Johan says to him.

“No I don’t, I have you.”

“I’m not your pet.” Though, Johan does smile at this.

Suk’s eyes meet his own, and the former detective is smiling too. “You know what I mean.”

“Well, let her stay for a while, there’s no point in taking her back just yet.”

“She probably wonders what she’s doing here, Johan, we can’t just steal someone’s cat.”

The cat, on the other hand, looks content where she is, and Suk glances at her, adding: “She is cute.”

“I can dispose of her if you’d like.”

“Johan,” Suk warns, and holds onto the cat.

There’s a quiet laugh from Johan, who exits to the kitchen, and Suk places the cat back down on the ground, where she flops uselessly, limbs in the air. The look that she sends his way is unsettlingly familiar; narrowed, lazy eyes; ones that house strange, unsettling depths — as pale as anything.

/////

The move to France seems to have inspired a cultural revolution in their home. Suk’s interest in cooking, which before had been rather basic German and Czech fare, and was more of a necessity than an interest at all, has taken on a new and distinctly local edge. He had picked up a few cookbooks from the bookstore in town, and despite still being perfectly incompetent in French, Suk has begun to improve himself greatly in the art of French cuisine. Johan’s taste tends towards bland; he eats whatever is put before him; nothing is met with any relish, and he embodies the long revered trope of simply eating to fuel his body. He did politely hack up an over-salted bite of meat once, handing it, in a tissue, to Suk to dispose of, not having broken eye contact with him for so much as a second throughout the process. With that incident put firmly behind them, Suk had taken to greater caution in their food preparation; now, he seems to be more at home with the process of cooking for two people— Johan can tell that before, he had only cooked for himself, on the occasions that he did not visit his mother and cook for her there, at her apartment. Their meals in Prague were simple; nothing like his latest endeavours.

The kitchen frequently smells inviting in the evenings, once Suk has returned home from work, and while in the first few months of their living together, even here in Southern France, Johan had made himself scarce; preferring to dwell in silence and thought, these days, he tends to wander down the stairs and into the kitchen to spectate, often giving Suk a fright with his quiet steps, appearing abruptly. Johan has always been an excellent conversationalist, even with Suk, initially; he had known just how to entice him— Suk is an easy one; his wants are simple. But, he finds himself refraining now, in this new phase of life. Perhaps it is out of a misplaced respect for his housemate; he does not wish to be false with him. It is, too, maybe that he no longer needs to charm; his circumstances have been reduced to an easy sort of harmony; the likes of which he has never been able to exist in. Suk is charmed regardless, it seems.

Proximity has done that for them.

It’s a warm evening tonight; the leaves have begun to discolour and a different collection of birds have begun to trickle into the garden’s trees. Himself and Suk have taken an interest in the animal life of the garden as a means to make conversation (Suk pushes this, as too much discussion of the neighbours makes him jumpy, for some reason), and the acquisition of a bird watching manual has made it a common, shared pastime— even if they are both laymen when it comes to more obscure dove species.

Johan sets the outdoor table (his helping more with regard to these nightly routines is also a novelty; but, the menial chores are features of a human life, so he had taken to them, secretly coveting these actions that require no emotional attachment— they permit a tenderness from him that does not have to be felt). He places down the knives and forks— these had been a pricey acquisition from an antique store in town— however, they were quite the bargain. He had managed to barter them down to half the price, and could probably have had them given over as a gift were it not for Suk’s intervention.

“You know,” Suk says, leaning his chin in a palm and looking out across the stretch of lawn that leads from their patio to the short fence of the perimeter. “Sometimes it’s nice to eat in a restaurant, I miss that, I often used to. Remember when we went to the cafe in Prague?”

Johan continues politely dissecting his steak, cutting the pieces into even smaller pieces. He takes a delicate bite, pale eyes sliding across to watch Suk.

Suk smiles at him, but he gives him no answer, waiting to see if the request will come by itself, without his prompting. Let the man work up the nerve to invite him out, let him do it himself.

“There are a few bistros, near the town square,” Suk continues, reaching to take a sip of his wine, then holding the glass, swirling its contents contemplatively. “I’m sure just once wouldn’t hurt. No one knows us around here.”

Not true at all. Actually, Suk has garnered himself some attention from the female population of the village. A handsome Czech man working at the primary school; he is friendly and warm— women seem to like him. He knows that Suk is also talkative (though not in any way that would bring them danger; he’s noticed that he keeps many things vague; he protects Johan— he sees this), and people find him amusing; he has that easy camaraderie, whether the person he’s talking to be a superior at the school, or the local dry cleaner. Suk, with his appealing, kind eyes, and his height (which is tall enough to remain attractive, but not so tall as to intimidate) has become a rather talked about attraction in what was before, a very sleepy French village in the middle of the Southern countryside.

Johan tilts his head at the man, eyes washed out in a slat of sunlight filtering through the wisteria branches. “You want to go out for dinner. Should I consider that a date? Are you hoping that we can take things further? Oh my, detective.”

Suk chokes on his wine for a moment, but plays it off well enough, uttering a soft cough and dabbing his mouth. “Don’t say it like that, it’s not— I just want to have dinner with you, away from home. And yes, it’s a date, what else would it be.” The former detective frowns terribly into his wineglass before taking another, longer drink than before.

“Fine, but tell me well in advance so that I can prepare. No one likes dates sprung upon them,” Johan says, his droll expression turned only stranger by the way his mouth curves. “Would you like for me to be Anna for you? I’m sure you would.”

“No,” Suk says, and it’s fast enough that Johan considers him for a long moment. “No, just you and me. Like normal, but, you know— out.”

“Like normal,” Johan repeats, voice vague. “This is normal, hm.”

He can feel Suk looking at him, and know that there is a gentle sort of sympathy rolling off him. The man is so easily taken advantage of and fooled, duped into doing as Johan asks. He’s gullible and adoring; as he always was. He does not anger at Johan’s invasive questions, instead answers with a compassion that circumvents them altogether, and with such staggering honesty that Johan sometimes is forced to admit that perhaps he has been defeated in his original intent.

In the garden, the sun is beginning to dip low behind the distant hills, and the shadows are lengthening. The nights have become colder in the passing weeks, and he’d heard Suk cleaning the old fireplace in the living room several days ago.

“Well,” Suk says, and places his knife and fork together in the center of his plate. “I’m happy. I think a date would be nice. It’s good to get out of the house. We can go for a walk afterwards like we did back in Prague when we first met.”

He says it so flippantly that it sounds as if they were once sweethearts who courted for a time before settling into married life. Johan has no place to weigh in on where the comment about being happy came from. He wonders how Suk perceives him; if he thinks that Johan stays here because he is caged, because he has nowhere else to go. It is not that at all, of course; he simply has nowhere better to go. He could go anywhere, do anything; he could worm his way into a great inheritance, or become the advisor to a king. People want to do things for him, wherever he goes. Suk is no different. But— he has chosen to stay with Suk. That is the difference. Long term. The old expiration date was usually a year, after that another dead body would turn up, and Johan would move on. He has never protected a house before, never had the need. He finds himself thinking that if some detectives from the city were to ring their doorbell, he would find a way to ensure that they would never return.

There is no use in arguing, he decides, and looks over at Suk again, watches as his soft fringe is moved by the breeze. “The navy suit,” Johan says, in that odd little monotone. “Wear that one.”

The wine makes Suk quick to blush, and Johan watches him closely, noting that he’s got a dusting of freckles over the bridge of his nose from being out in the sun. He’s taken to gardening too, though mostly just doing the weeding when he sees a patch growing in the gravel of their front path. His hair has bleached slightly too. The women in the village must be very much in love with him, Johan thinks, imagining that even in the school there must be the odd colleague here and there who wishes that he would invite her out with him. The strength of his infatuation with Johan must be significant, he thinks, as he has only ever seen Suk politely decline any invitations other than the odd sojourn to the local establishment with coworkers.

“Okay,” he answers, and Johan watches a faint smile quirk at the corner of his mouth; he has these curious moments of rakishness— he’s sure that he is unaware of them, but they are thrown about with the carelessness of a film star. He does this naturally, though, he’s certain of it. “You look great in everything, I mean, but that black s—“

“I know which one you like,” Johan says, finally reaching to take a sip of his own, nearly untouched wine. He always would drink at the social gatherings in Prague; but alcohol is a depressant, so the effect of it is so minimal that he might as well be drinking for the flavour alone.

“Oh, you do, do you?” Suk says, and he looks pleased, Johan thinks.

The former detective gives him the flicker of a sidelong glance; it’s a little suggestive, but that is about as suggestive as Suk gets. He has never tried to kiss him again after that night in Prague— the second one, the kiss that did land, not the first, failed attempt back when he was masquerading as Anna. Suk seems to see this arrangement between them as long term. Perhaps comparable to marriage, even. It’s as if the man had been living in hopes of finding a partner, someone to share his time with, and Johan had flitted back into his life at just the right moment, finding him during a vulnerable spot; his mother had been dying at the time, and making a fixture of himself. The whole thing works well enough for Johan, too.

“Well,” Suk continues. “Then, it’s a date. I’ll tell you when, and maybe we can take the car— actually.” The former detective squints at garden, and Johan looks too, waiting. “I wanted to take a drive, maybe we could go down to the coast this weekend and look around.”

Suk adores driving, Johan has noticed. Which is just as well, seeing as Johan has grown accustomed to being driven around by various private drivers and taxis. Their car; a purchase made by Johan sits in their driveway underneath a tarp (it just so happened to be the same car as the one in the detective series that Suk was so fond of; of course, a coincidence, nothing more sentimental than that. It had caused all sorts of issues upon delivery, however, as the detective seemed incapable of simply accepting a gift. He’d waved his hands and declared it “too much, Johan”, and instructed him to take it back immediately. Johan had calmly murmured something to him about their funds being perfectly healthy, and that if Suk were not going to drive the car, then it would just become an ornament to decorate their front drive. It took very little to convince him to go out and examine it himself (the wonders of that manipulative little pet name), and then to take it for a ‘spin’ (Suk’s words) around the nearby hilled area, where there were several uninterrupted stretches of road. Suk loved it, and Johan was just pleased to have a driver, and that had been that). The thing is, regrettably, a very bright red, and a bit of an eye-catcher when they do take it out.

Hiding in plain sight has always been Johan’s modus operandi, however, so the sight of the car does not bother him at all. Suk is the one of them who has become more paranoid, he thinks, amused, and he wonders if this is because of his attachment to their life here.

“Whatever you like, “ Johan minces, lowering his eyelids at Suk.

Suk clears his throat at that look. “Uh, can I take your plate?”

“Mm,” Johan hums, then stands too, clearing their glasses. The wine is still unfinished and he glances down at it, then at Suk. “You mentioned a film you had wanted to watch. I’ll put this in the living room?”

This, and the talk of a date seems to have cast a permanent blush over the former detective’s cheeks, and he looks from Johan to the bottle of wine, and their glasses, then back to Johan.

“Yes, yeah, definitely, do you want to watch it with me?” He says, and Johan wonders if their plates will make it to the kitchen sink at all.

“Yes,” Johan answers, expression bland.

“Cool,” Suk says, and beams at him, motioning with the plates in his hands towards the kitchen. “I’ll just— put these— in the sink and then we can watch it.” The man stands there for a moment, smiling at him, and Johan can’t help but find him terribly amusing in his eagerness. “Don’t go anywhere,” Suk adds, over his shoulder, and Johan doesn’t deign to answer.

He gathers up the wine bottle and both of their glasses; the rims pinched between his fingers, clinking. He catches Suk looking over at him as he finds a spot on the couch that suits him, and turns his head so that their eyes can meet. The detective looks back to where he’s scrubbing a plate, doing a very poor job of pretending that he had not been looking at all.

When Suk emerges from the kitchen, lingering in the doorway, there appears to be a small conflict. Normally, if they were going to sit in the living room, Johan would position himself in the armchair closest to the window. It’s not a favoured spot, necessarily, just the one that he tends to gravitate towards. Suk takes the couch. Today, Johan sits on the couch, right in the center of it.

Suk steps closer, his brows doing that oddly endearing little wrinkle that they tend to do when he’s embarrassed or feeling awkward.

“This seat taken?” he asks, gesturing to the spot next to Johan.

“It isn’t,” Johan says, sparing him a vulpine smile.

“Great, wonderful.” The former detective doesn’t sit down, watching Johan cautiously.

“Sit, detective,” he says, shifting over slightly, sounding as if he were speaking to a pet.

Suk sits. One of his hands falls onto Johan’s knee. They both look at it.

“Sorry,” Suk says, and removes his hand, Johan can just about feel the grimace that follows, and he looks at him, their shoulders pressed together.

“Put it back,” Johan says.

Suk stares at him, blinking stupidly. “What? Are you sure— I mean—“

“I don’t mind, detective,” Johan turns back to look at the blank screen of their television, eyelashes lowered to half mast. He feels Suk’s hand very gently re-settle on his knee, forearm resting just above his thigh, hears the click of the man’s throat as he swallows.

It’s around half way through the movie when Suk puts an arm around him, and just a little longer than that before he feels the dead weight of the former detective’s head on his shoulder, hears his breath even out. The position must hurt; his neck will be stiff when he wakes up and then he’ll be cranky and miserable. They’re not like this, usually; they give each other a polite berth— they have separate bedrooms, different schedules; Johan knows that Suk wishes they were closer, he knows, he remembers the kiss that had sealed their move to France, that had promised so much more than had actually transpired between them. It’s not that they are stuck in place; it’s just that there is no clear way forward. Their understanding is very much one-sided; Suk is so easily read, and Johan is not. However, Johan thinks, looking at the blond head that is wedged against his own, perhaps he is not being quite fair. Suk understands more, sometimes, than he thinks. He has a pervasive kindness that allows him in further, coaxes more— no one is that fortunate, though there have been so many people over the years who have tried to be taken into his confidence. Suk has pushed for nothing.

“Wake up,” Johan says, giving the man’s arm a shake. He removes his shoulder slowly, shrugging it, and causing Suk to sit up abruptly.

“Did I fall asleep, what happened, did they catch him?” The former detective looks at Johan, a little cross-eyed, squinting. He’s still mostly asleep, Johan muses, mouth twitching.

“I’d like to sleep in your room tonight,” Johan says, chin tilting upwards. He shifts away from Suk, and picks up their glasses, taking them to the kitchen.

Suk sits on the couch, exactly as Johan left him, not moving a muscle.

Johan leaves their glasses in the sink, and lingers in the doorway for a moment. “I’m going to take a bath.”

“Uh, okay,” Suk answers, sounding vague.

From here, Johan can see that the man’s hair is mussed from where he had been sleeping, one side of it sticks up much higher than the other, and it has stayed there. He disappears upstairs, running the bath.

Later, wearing pyjamas (a matching set, in an off-shade of blue), Johan walks down the corridor, into Suk’s bedroom. He watches as the former detective collects a fresh t-shirt from one of his drawers, picks up a pillow.

“With you in it, Jan,” he says, eyes narrowed, smile curving.

“With— oh, you meant together?” Suk looks at him, the foolish expression on his face causes Johan to, very abruptly, spit a laugh.

Suk puts the pillow down, very quickly. The man glances around, then back to Johan. “I’m just— I’ll go shower. You— I’ll see you back here. In a second.”

Johan watches as Suk walks to the bedroom door, then pauses. He turns back to Johan, face having brightened considerably; he can tell that the man wants to smile, but that he’s trying to keep a relatively controlled expression, probably for fear of scaring Johan off with his enthusiasm.

“Bye,” Suk says, the corner of his mouth finally permitted to crook upward.

“Bye,” Johan says, voice lilting upwards, as if in question.

“Okay, just a second.”

Pulling the covers down, Johan slips beneath them, shifting over to the opposite side of the bed. There is a photograph of Jan’s mother beside it, and he looks at her for a moment, no particular emotion passing through him at seeing her face. She had been pleasant enough to speak with, if not a little dull. He had not disliked her, though; she had been a good mother to her son, she had loved him deeply and until the very end of her life. Nothing like his own, now also losing her mind in that home somewhere in France— he had gone to see her after he’d recovered slightly from his hospital escape, but had not necessarily lost his nerve at the entrance to the place, but rather had lost all interest in ever meeting her. The name that she had given him was not something he particularly wanted; whatever it was, whatever shape it took, would have been robbed of all meaning for him. Just a word; he’s still the nameless creature, there is no turning back from that; those claws were never retractable, despite the fact that they are now blunted. Suk says his false name so kindly, though. Sometimes, it needn’t be a false name at all— the upward, then downwards tone of Suk calling him down to dinner sometimes, just sometimes, is enough to placate him. As the months have passed by them, leaving them both here, in this lull, he has felt something in him begin to uncurl; as if it had been held tightly, wound against his sternum. He has been sleeping better, more deeply— and he used to be such a light sleeper; he woke up at the slightest footstep, the slightest creak of a hinge or door handle. He had needed to be alert, though, it had saved him and Anna time and time again.

There’s the click of the bathroom light, and then the sound of clothing being tossed into the laundry hamper. He hears as Suk moves through the house; he goes downstairs and turns the lights off there, locks the door to the patio. Finally, the man shuffles back up the stairs, hesitating only briefly before climbing into bed beside him.

Johan turns, facing him, Suk’s sleepy face close to his own. He blinks, looking at him, examining the way his hair is out of shape now, from the shower; still falling forwards scruffily. The man radiates heat.

“Hey,” Suk says, not making any moves to touch him. “Were you sleeping?”

“No.”

“Oh.” The conversation is stilted. Suk feels awkward, he can tell. He does not want to impose, maybe, does not want to do the thing that he wishes he could.

It is Johan who moves closer, experimentally, and rests a hand against Suk’s side. It takes no more than that to invite him in; the unexpected envelopment in the former detective’s arms causes him to tense, just the most minute amount, before he relaxes, feeling Suk’s nose and mouth press to his temple, the man’s arms wind around his waist. Maybe, he thinks, feeling the man’s chin hitch so that he can kiss Johan on the cheek, maybe he would destroy any women that Suk wished to date. Maybe, if he were to meet someone at the school, or at the market, maybe he would put aside his reformation, and put an end to their lives. Johan’s arms creep around Suk’s back in return, and he shuts his eyes, breathing in the soapy scent of him; these things that have become familiar— the shampoo that they both use, the washing detergent that their clothing smells of.

“Are you comfortable?” Suk asks him, fingers staying respectfully on the outside of his pyjama shirt, rather than slipping beneath it, as he’s certain the man would like to do.

Johan considers the question, the physical nature of it. The answer is simple.

“Yes, very.”

And, he is. Suk is the warmest thing has has lain with; a trusted thing— something so familiar that he has become a fixture, a point of reference. The fifth, and most vital of the cardinal directions, levitated above the others, marked in quiet letters as home.

“Good,” Suk says quietly, cheek pressed to Johan’s hair, his fingers moving slowly against his back. Suk, he thinks, will do anything for him; he has given him this much— but, where Roberto’s loyalty was that of a follower to a cult leader; a worshipper to an idol, Suk’s is different. It is not entirely unconditional, it has boundaries. The man himself has boundaries. Were Johan to coldly tell him to leave, he is certain that he would turn tail and leave. Blind faith does not keep him here.

“What is it,” Johan starts, head tilting against the pillow, eyes touched by the light of the hall. “That makes you stay?”

The voice that he asks in seems harmless, but he sees the way that Suk pulls back a bit to look at him properly, as if he had the sort of face that would reveal anything more than exactly what he wishes to reveal. Sometimes, though, he does wonder. What is it that Suk can see, if he sees anything at all. Are there tells that perhaps even he, the great illusionist himself, have not noticed?

Johan smiles his wan little smile, but Suk doesn’t echo it.

“You know,” Suk says.

“I see through you, detective,” Johan says, eyes gleaming.

“Good,” Suk murmurs, shuffling back in, leaning to drop his face to the crook of Johan’s jaw. “I’ve been honest with you, you should be able to see through me.”

“Anyway,” Suk continues, and Johan can feel his warm breath against his neck. “I wanted to ask you something.”

There’s a silence as Johan waits, and it becomes clear after it drags on that Suk wants a verbal response. Tiresome, he thinks.

“Yes?”

Suk pulls back again, head on the pillow, his honest, doggish eyes on Johan’s. “Who was your favourite character? In the movie.”

“Excuse me?” The subject is so far off from what Johan had initiated, that this time, he is the one to blink at Suk.

“In the movie.” Suk tugs the blanket higher up over Johan’s shoulder, then his own. “You watched more than I did, who did you like?”

Casting his mind back to the film that they had watched earlier, Johan tries to think of which character was his— preferred one. There were many characters, all of them motivated by different reasons. The cannibal serial killer, the strong, rookie female cop. He looks across at Suk for a time, watching the eagerness on the man’s face, wondering at how he can move so easily from one subject to another, how he can take this in his stride so well. Perhaps, he thinks, he just wanted to talk like this together, more than anything. Suk asks him things often; it is still jarring, still a cause for thought. He has never been required to have preferences in his entire life.

“The lady— detective,” Johan answers, expressionless. “She shared some characteristics with you. I liked that.”

Whether or not Agent Starling actually did share any significant characteristics with the former detective Suk, is another matter entirely. Johan can tell from Suk’s reaction that this was the answer that he had been hoping for. The man brightens.

“I guess she was pretty heroic,” Suk says, smiling at him. “Do you think I’m heroic?”

“No,” Johan answers, but it seems that the damage is already done; Suk’s arms are around his waist, and he’s drawn in once more.

/////

They take a drive down to the coast one afternoon, and it’s a scorching, sun-washed day in late Autumn— the kind that promises an Indian Summer, so Suk takes the top off of the old car and they drive through the dusty hills with their ground brush and shrubbery, while Johan half listens to the man’s chatter over the breeze. They crest the series of hills that lead down to the ocean; at least the car battery stopped giving trouble after it had been replaced; the procedure to get it started had resulted in Johan putting his seat back and going pointedly to sleep, while Suk bent over the engine, looking like a car mechanic as he tried to figure out how to check the oil gauge. Of course, not being a mechanic, they had ended up calling the local shop in the village, and their drive had been postponed to this weekend instead of the previous. The postponement had not bothered Johan (though not much these days actually bothers Johan), who had simply left the heavy lifting of their suitcases to Suk, and returned inside to continue his nap in the bedroom.

They wind up getting a hotel room; just a small, local one in a family owned pension hotel. At first they had planned on only a night or two away from home, but the days stretch out lazily into a week.

Suk walks out to the edge of the veranda, his feet bare against the flagstones, and Johan sits up in bed, watching his back as he does. He’s wearing one of those linen shirts; like a fisherman, he thinks— he’s gotten even more tanned from the sun out here on the coast; he’s looking practically provincial at this point. The group of old women who mind the small general store just down the road from their hotel already know him and have become unreasonably attached to him— of course, Suk indulges them, as he does all people that like him, and they only seem to like him even more for it. The small fishing port that they’ve landed up in has been filled with all sorts of boats; the mackerel fishing boats are out in force each morning, dragging their catches in each day.

They’ve been lovers now for a while; ever since that night that Johan had invited himself into Suk’s bed. He has not left; his bedroom has stood open to the air ever since then, and Suk’s effusive, labrador-like happiness at their new sleeping situation has made it clear that the arrangement works well for both of them. It turned out that Suk had no reservations about sex with men, despite not having partaken in it before (he’d had a string of girlfriends through college; but he had been serious about everything that came to love or romance, and had grown up on far too many movies to be anything other than a hopeless romantic; experimentation was not really his thing), and things had gone as they usually tend to go with those sorts of activities; the physics were not complicated. Suk had figured it out easily enough.

He supposes that they were, maybe, lovers long before this, too. The relationship had been consummated though, for whatever that was worth.

“Johan,” the man calls, looking over a shoulder at him, then back to the view. “Come look.”

“What is it, detective,” he says, folding over a page of the book that he’s borrowing from Suk. It’s one of those very— predictable sort of masculine reads; a lot of hunting, a lot of elephants in Africa and issues with ones’ father. It also happens to be set in France, which, he thinks, is just like Suk to have brought along for their little oceanside foray.

“Just come and see.”

Put upon, Johan rises, pulling on the nearest pair of pants and one of Suk’s t-shirts. He joins him at the balustrade, standing beside his shoulder and squinting out at the heat haze above the ocean. “What?”

“Look, boats.”

There are, as he says, boats.

“I see.” Johan watches Suk instead, catching his eye as the man looks at him sidelong. He can’t help himself and laughs; which is still a rare thing and it gets Suk’s attention right away.

“Alors,” Johan says. “Les bateaux.” He motions towards the boats with his chin. “Detective.”

“I’m not speaking French with you,” Suk grumbles. “You’ll make fun of me and then you’ll say something weird and laugh. Just look at the boats.”

“How else will you learn?” Johan smiles; that thin, little smile— and Suk glares at him.

“You’re really beautiful and I can’t concentrate on anything you say at all,” Suk says, wrapping both arms around Johan’s waist and sticking his nose and mouth into the crook of Johan’s neck, muffling his words. “Especially when you speak French, so let’s not.”

There’s a soft snort from Johan.

“We should go out and have a swim later,” Suk says, still talking against Johan’s skin. “I’ll get sunblock for you from the front desk.”

Through the gaping neck of the fisherman’s shirt, Johan can see the fine looking scars of those gunshots. He watches as they move with Suk’s breathing; he knows that they have exit scars too— he had traced his hands over them last night, and many nights before now. They’re marks that he likes; as if his own hands had left scars on the man. They cement Suk as his own, as something that he has touched himself, had a hand in. The tip of an index finger finds Suk’s chin, and Johan taps there gently, beckoning him to raise it. He does, and they look at each other; though Suk immediately tries to go in for a kiss, causing Johan to move his head.

“I’m hungry,” he says, covering the former detective’s mouth with a palm. “Let’s have a late lunch at the cafe, and then I’ll watch you swim.”

“You have our whole day planned,” Suk says, leaning away to free himself from Johan’s grip, one hand closing around his wrist and playfully trapping him. “I’ve never seen you this proactive, I think I’ve found something that Johan Liebert likes.”

“And that is?” Johan pulls on his wrist, though there’s no give from Suk.

“Vacations, they agree with you.”

“Oh my, detective, how astute of you,” Johan narrows his eyes, hand going limp in Suk’s grip.

The man tries to kiss him again, and this time he allows it, arms slipping over his shoulders to lazily wind around his neck, tasting the coffee that he’d been drinking; black from an enamel teacup that he’d let sit on the railing. He thinks of how cold he had been in Munich, in Prague; all the time that wind, the rain. He thinks of the rain in Ruhenheim, then all the storms in Prague after that.

Suk’s sun-warmed, slightly tanned skin, and the blinding glare on the white walls of their hotel feel so far from that; years ahead— hundreds of them. As if this were a different life from then, as if Tenma and Anna, and everyone else that he has ever known all belonged to a closed, shut novel that has been placed carefully on a shelf; bookmarked but untouched. He feels Suk’s fingers in his hair, stroking it back behind his ears, thumbs against his cheeks, and he opens his eyes, looks into the soft grey that has become as familiar to him as anything.

“Let’s go and have lunch,” Suk says, and then the man beams at him, pulling him into a hasty embrace before stepping away, and back into the room to find his shoes. Johan watches him; the way he walks— he feels the monster in him arch like a cat in the sun, and he goes to join him, to find his own shoes.

A short time later, they sit at the cafe; just around the corner from their hotel. There are a few low tables, but they choose to sit at the counter by the window so that Suk can look out at the fishing boats (a fascination; he’s sure that the man is going to take an interest in fishing next— he can only imagine how that might go). The catch of the day is the only thing on the menu outside of eggs, and so that’s what they order; there’s water or wine to drink, so they go with the latter— it is a vacation after all, Suk had said, and Johan just looked at him blankly, not particularly here nor there on the subject of day drinking.

“So,” Suk says, happily accepting the skin from Johan’s fish. “If you could go anywhere, where would you go.”

“I have a better question,” Johan says. “If I were an insect, would you love me.”

Suk frowns at him. “An insect?”

“Yes, insect.”

“But you’re a person.”

“My species isn’t the point of the question.”

Suk frowns enormously and drinks his wine, cheek dropped into his palm. “If you were an insect I’d make you a little— garden. You love gardening, so.”

“If you were forced to kill me, would you cut me in half?” Johan’s eyes, light as they are, are intent upon the other man.

“I’m not going to cut insect Johan in half, no,” Suk says, giving him a dour look. “Why are you bringing up murder, this is a nice cafe.”

“If you were forced to, though,” Johan says, smiling.

“No,” Suk says again. “I told you already, I’d make you a garden. It’s a bit hard to love a insect, though, but if I could have proof of your— sentience.”

“Ah,” Johan says, sipping his own wine. “Very romantic, detective. You pass the test.”

“That was the strangest conversation, Johan,” Suk says, reaching over to pat him on the cheek. “You say some really weird things sometimes, I can see why they publish all your books.”

“Hmm,” Johan says, and returns to eating his fish.

“Okay.”

He looks over. “Okay?”

“I have a question now,” Suk says, and reaches to push his fringe back into place. Johan notes that it has grown a bit, that it looks very pleasing like this; Suk’s easy on the eyes— he’s well aware of it. “What’s your favourite colour?”

“Blue,” Johan says, without hesitation.

“What? But that’s the answer you gave last time. You promised you’d think about it.” Suk accepts another piece of fish skin that Johan forks over.

“I did think about it, mister detective, and I do not remember promising anything.”

Outside, the crying of gulls rises in a chorus, and they both look— watching as a ramshackle truck passes by on the small road.

“I have another question,” Suk says, and Johan can feel the man’s eyes on the side of his face, watching him closely. The sound of this question; preempted by that serious look, is not good.

“Go ahead,” Johan says, leaning his chin daintily in his palm now too, ignoring the waiter that comes to refill their glasses.

“I think you need to have your eyes tested.”

Johan raises both eyebrows at him. “That was not a question.”

Suk shifts in his seat, pushing the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows, forearms exposed. “Well, would you have your eyes tested? You just— still get those headaches, and sometimes when you read you make this face, like you’re concentrating but you’re also in pain. I’ve been worrying about it for a while now.”

To top it off, Suk reaches over and places a hand on Johan’s upper arm. “I’ll go with you if you want.”

There’s a quiet breath of laughter from Johan, and he reaches to pat Suk’s hand. “I’ll have my eyes tested if you insist on it. I didn’t know I made a face when I read.”

“You do,” Suk says, and gestures to his own forehead. “You get this little line here, like a frown, you squint, too.”

“Such flattery, detective.”

“I just don’t want you to be in pain,” Suk says, cheek smushed when he leans back into his hand, head tilted so he can look at Johan. “Besides, you’ll look great in glasses.”

“Considering I was shot in the head twice, glasses may be the least of my concerns.” Johan’s smile does not waver at all.

“Well, that’s all I wanted to tell you. It wasn’t a question though, sorry, I’ll take a penalty drink.” Suk finishes the rest of his wine.

They wend their way down to the beach after lunch, and Johan sits on the low wall nearby as Suk goes to swim. He reconsiders quickly enough, returning to inform Johan that the water is freezing, and dripping all over him to reinforce this point. They spend the rest of the evening on the veranda of the hotel, under the wisps of a grapevine; the tendrils of it hanging down towards them, the strands curling in on themselves. The sky turns a hazy burnt orange, and Suk comes forward to loop an arm around his shoulders.

“Let’s go home tomorrow,” the former detective says, following Johan’s line of sight out to sea.

Johan turns to him, looks at his handsome face; the strong, square jaw line, the way he still raises his brows in a hopeful slant every time he talks to him. Heavily, Johan’s eyes shutter, and he leans against him, feels Suk’s nose and mouth rest against his temple, breath warm against his hair.

“Yes, let’s do that.”

The thought that there is a concrete idea of home waiting for them, back through the winding countryside roads, back on the fringes of their village with its fountains and uneven cobblestones— that home is not the loose idea of an apartment that once burnt down; well, it will never lose its novelty. Johan feels self-congratulatory at how well he had chosen the individual to reconnect with; he could have gone to his sister, to Tenma, to any one of the people that he knew— they would all have taken him in, all would have bent to him and sheltered him. People tended to do the things that he wanted them to do. Suk is no different, of course, but his terrible, creature’s fondness for him makes him elevate the man above all of the others— surely he is the most beautiful human to ever live upon the earth, the most kind, the most amusing. There were many human lifetimes to choose from; he could have found Anna— they would have been monsters together, once again, maybe. Tenma; his fatherly doctor— but Tenma would not live for him the way that Suk does; Tenma makes none of Jan’s exceptions— the former detective may have his morals, but he is a lover at his core; those morals do not quite extend to Johan— Suk is willing to turn a blind eye where he is concerned. He knows that he tries to justify it, but that sometimes there is no justifying it, and that seems to be just fine too.

There is this: Suk loves him.

And, there is this, too: in whatever capacity that he is able, he loves him back.

That night, he allows Suk to pull him into bed, raising his arms so that the former detective can slide the shirt he wears over his head, meets his mouth when he leans in close, fingers finding their way into that blond hair, and gathering him in even closer still. Sex was an act that had a goal in mind to him; particularly when he was younger and less aware of how the idea of it could be used, rather than the act itself— he knew that it could manipulate, that it could pull people in towards him, could trick them into thinking that they were in love, into the confessions that they would die for him, that they would do anything to remain at his side (there is this advantage of his, however; it is the advantage of so many apex predators— they are beautiful, and silken furred, and look soft to the touch— no one knows what it is that they hold until it is too late for them). It’s far more simple, when it’s himself and Suk, though; they are a good fit, so to speak; the former detective’s tastes are uncomplicated and he is adoring and gentle. There is never anything beyond it other than wishing to be closer; and he enjoys that they lie together in the sheets afterwards, and Suk, the eternal loverboy, says all sorts of ridiculous, ardent things, and kisses him over and over again.

He watches the line of the man’s back as he sleeps; the strong muscle of his shoulders; and then, there, the exit wound from that gunshot— one of three other, similar marks across his body. They are a bit alike in this, he supposes, reaching out a hand to cover the raised, pale flesh with his palm. He has similar scars beneath his hair; Johan likes that they are matched in their scars— Suk even has one more than his count.

In his sleep, the former detective shifts, raising his head, to look at Johan. He’s definitely still sleeping, Johan thinks, amused, and reaches to stroke his fringe back from his forehead. Suk mumbles something, and lies back down, an arm around Johan’s middle, and he breathes out a quiet huff of amusement at him. It is nothing, after that, less than nothing, to lie back down, and give in to his easy warmth.

/////

With Suk away at work for the majority of their days (though without any real need to work other than a duty-bound soul that feels as if he were atoning for the ridiculous sum in their bank account by accepting a teacher’s salary), Johan finds himself left to his own devices frequently. Of course, he spends a lot of his time in his studio; there are always deadlines that he sets for himself— he works quickly and efficiently; none of his pictures are particularly extraneous— each water colour drawing depicts the scene that it is intended for, and beyond that, the details are sparing. The monster that walked from Bonaparta’s books, straight into his own has taken on a separate life; it inhabits Ruhenheim, its village, and its day to day life consists of its adventures amongst the villagers— the stories range from espionage to the more delicate themes, to the implied pages where the monster attempts to emulate the humans, where it humorously fails again and again, where it collects things; a pocket watch, a stolen bicycle.

When he grows bored of painting, there is always the garden; there are endless small tasks to accomplish there— and where he once would have slept through the day (the coma, the wound in his head; he had found himself sleeping more than he had ever slept in his life in his earlier days at the Prague apartment with Suk— it surprised him, his own weakness always surprised him, though he did not deprive himself from the rest that he craved, even if he could tell that it made the detective worry about his wellbeing), he now finds value in those waking hours.

He finds it easy to fill his days at the house; and of course, once Suk is back for the evening, they spend time together. This is a novel thing, too— actively seeking someone out is curious to him, the wish to be in their company constantly— he finds that it is a novelty to him; he thinks of the former detective many times throughout the day, finds himself picturing his face, even when he is going about a menial task such as weeding the flower beds, or cleaning his brushes. The image of Suk doing something or other will come to him from nowhere, and he will find himself checking the time on the wall clock in the kitchen to see when it is that he will be returning home. He has never been so tethered to a life other than his sister’s— it is a different thing though, he thinks; himself and Anna are halves of a whole being; Suk is entirely outside of himself, something that he has found, something vital, though, now.

Today, he locks the doors of the house behind him, standing in the road outside for a moment to look back at it.

He wonders, sometimes, how it would be to simply leave it, and never return. How he could shake off this humanity that has been given to him, that he has borrowed for this lifetime, and return to being as he was, as he is— the monster again, to terrorise and burn his way through the rest of his revenge, to clear himself from recent memory and get rid of all of those people who have looked upon him. Suk, he thinks, would probably be in that category— he would have to kill him, if this were the case. Surely, if he left, only to see him again, he would find himself as weak and brittle as a child when confronted by those foolish, grey eyes. He looks at the house; at the wisteria that creeps along the gutters of the roof, of the warm, red tiles that have started to gather moss.

Ruhenheim, he thinks, was that place that Bonaparta had found himself in; a monster surrounded by a village, finally tamed. He wonders if this is the fate of all monsters, if they end up in a version of Ruhenheim; he wonders why he simply cannot walk away from it; the path that leads into the mountains, and would take him far away, to Switzerland, or to Germany, or beyond that, to Spain and Italy— he wonders if this means that he has been collared, if he has lost his feral nature.

Of course, he and Anna are the only two monsters left in this world— he can no longer feel the claws within him, can no longer feel the sharpness of the teeth that he knows are there, that he houses. They are not gone, though, they just wait.

Johan turns, and once more heads down the small road that will lead him into the village. The houses that line it are far apart still; the one that he purchased is one of the largest in the area— he had chosen it carefully for its position; the fact that it is secluded with large, old trees in the garden, with enough space for two people to live comfortably, for them to be able to avoid each other if they wished it. He has always valued his solitude; this has not changed after taking on a companion— but he likes to be able to choose to be around the former detective if he wishes it, likes to know that if he wanted to, he could avoid him, could once again become the haunting of their home. But, he does not avoid him, not anymore; there is no more need for such space, though they both like it, particularly after their time spent sharing the apartment in Prague, which, while it was a perfectly nice apartment, was not quite the right size for them.

The area is well kept, for such a rural neighbourhood— they are in the company of those who own expensive Summer homes; their usual places, the apartments that they live in are in the bigger cities such as Paris and Nice. Johan wonders, as he walks, if he mentioned to Jan that there are a series of apartments in Paris from which to choose. His banker has invested a good amount in properties, and they sit open, furnished with antiques, but unoccupied. Perhaps, he thinks, it will be a surprise— he can suggest another vacation; the last one, which was more of a spur of the moment thing, was not unpleasant.

The village square comes into view slowly; he takes a different route today, and comes up through the fields that lie to the West; there may be the holiday house owners, but there are also the local farmers who have lived here for generations; he likes the slight wildness of the place— that it is not all polished lawns and trees trimmed into circular topiaries; the landscape is somewhat dry, and the Summer heat can become quite brutal. He hears the fountains of the village before he sees any of them.

The tiny art supply store is well stocked, always, he’s found. The village was once the home of several famous painters, and despite this being a fact of several decades ago, it seems that no one in the entire place has ever forgotten about this particular aspect. Johan walks through the rows of paints, selecting a few that he had noted were starting to run low. The man who runs the store must be very old, he thinks; he sports a white beard, and his hands are gnarled and ink stained when he packs the items into a paper packet.

“See you next week, Johan,” he says in French, smiling at him, and raising a hand as Johan exits the shop.

“And you,” he answers, though his French is accented with a Parisian lilt, rather than the more rustic, Provençal drawl of the shop keeper. “Please tell your wife that we enjoyed the apricots very much.”

On his way home, he heads towards the school, taking a detour on a whim. It is troublesome, sometimes, the curious urge that he gets to see Jan Suk’s face— he has not known anything like this before, not in his lifetime; that fierce wish to speak to someone, to be near them. It leads him all the way along the main road, up the hill and over, rounding the small collection of houses that congregate at the school’s perimeter. It should be around time for lunch break, he thinks, checking his watch and making his way around to the other side of the road. The school’s main field comes into view shortly after, and he hears the ruckus of shouts. There is a football game going on, as always, and Johan walks up to the low fence that surrounds it.

Suk is front and center, sticking out terribly from the group of kids; he’s taken off his jacket and rolled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows. The lot of them are sweating in the midday heat, and Johan leans his elbows on the fence, watching as the group run this way and that; no real sense in the whole procedure. He can’t make out who is playing which position— Suk seems to shift between defence and attack, and once in a great while, he runs back to help the small boy at the goalposts too. No wonder he stays so fit, Johan thinks, watching the man sprint to a girl who has fallen over. He checks her knee, pats her on the head, and returns to his position.

The game starts to die down, and he can see that Suk has spotted him.

He, and a few of the children trot over, ball tucked beneath his arm.

“Hello, you,” Suk says, raising his other hand to shade his eyes from the glare, his breath a little uneven from the match. “What are you doing here, I thought you’d be at home?”

“Passing by,” Johan says, and smiles at the children. “I saw your game, though I could not tell who won.”

“We did—“ one of the boys chimes in, before Suk cuts him off.

“It was a tie.” The former detective smiles. “Everyone wins.”

“That’s stupid,” the girl says, and Johan looks at her.

“Listen to your teacher,” he says, and glances at Suk.

“Johan’s boring,” the girl says, and Suk laughs aloud at her, sending the kids back off to the rest of the group. He steps closer, looking Johan over.

“Apparently you’re boring,” he says.

“Apparently so,” Johan answers, and reaches to dust a spot of grass off the shoulder of Suk’s shirt. “How hands-on you are.”

“I’d get fat if I didn’t participate,” Suk says, reaching to pick grass from his hair. “They give me a run for my money, this lot.”

“Ah, yes you would.” Johan laughs at him then, then exhales, long and fondly, eyes fixed on Suk’s. “Try to get away early, I’ll see you at home.”

“See— see you at home,” Suk says, and they look at each other for a long moment, before the former detective turns to round up the bunch of kids; most of whom who have flopped down on the field in the wake of their football game.

Johan watches him go, then turns to return back along the road towards the village, hearing the shrieks of the children as they chatter to their teacher.

/////

“Johan, are you ready? Come on, the reservation is for seven,” Suk calls, and Johan makes him wait longer for it.

He takes his time, meeting his eyes in the mirror and smiling at himself, seeing the corners of his mouth lift, watches the expression, how real it looks. He fixes his clothing a final time, then sits down on the bed for a while, just to ensure that he has taken more than enough time. It wouldn’t do to have Jan thinking that he can snap his fingers and have him at his heels at the slightest whim.

The reaction is satisfactory when he does finally make his appearance, though.

“W—wow.”

Johan stands at the foot of the stairs, and Suk blinks at him, mouth open.

“Meet standard does it, detective?” Johan says, stepping towards him, heels clicking on the flagstones of their kitchen floor. He reaches up to swipe the long hair of the wig over his shoulder, raising his chin; delicately painted mouth curved upward.

Suk comes towards him, and he’s wearing that little— frown, that he does sometimes. It’s a perplexed look, from what Johan can tell, and it looks nice on him; it’s soft, like so many of his expressions, and makes him want to, inexplicably, reach a hand up to smooth it out.  He feels the man’s hands cautiously settle on his waist, and he allows it, his own gravitating to Suk’s elbows. The way that the former detective exhales and leans in, face close to Johan’s, is the move of a lover— nothing less.

“You don’t have to do things like this, you know,” he says. “Not for me.”

Johan smiles, one-sided, eyes heavily lidded when he leans in, a smudge of lipstick gashing Suk’s cheek. “It’s not for you.”

Suk pulls back, just a little, and they look at each other.

“I hope it’s a little for me,” he says, though he smiles when he does, and takes one of Johan’s hands in his own, and raises it in what is possibly the most courtly gesture that has ever been exacted upon Johan in his life. He kisses the back of his hand.

They don’t take the car; the village square is a walk that both of them regularly make, and the car would kick up all sorts of fuss, though they have done it before (usually when buying furniture from the smaller shops that do not deliver— the fact that it is the most impractical car that they could have bought has been an issue here; tables were not built to be loaded into a two seater sports car). The narrow streets are very scenic, particularly in the early evening, when the light starts to mellow into its warmer tones; Suk’s skin and hair have taken on a honeyed tone— he’s still got that tan from the school’s sports day.

“I would have bought you uh— a dress, if I’d known,” Suk says, and Johan can hear the embarrassment in his voice at this whole playful little charade, though he clearly is appreciative, as he should be.

“Mm, I found this in a boutique in town, I told them it was for my sister.”

Suk is quiet for a time, placing a hand in the small of Johan’s back, his thumb moving there affectionately.

“You miss your sister, don’t you?”

“My sister and I are never far from each other,” Johan says, and catches Suk looking at him sidelong as they walk. He doesn’t add more than that for a time, watching the storefronts that they pass, the quiet roads of their village (and he does— has come to think of it as their village, because it is). Most residents of this place are either holiday house owners, who are only ever around for a few months of the year, or some locals, who have been here for generations. The town is famous for its fountains, which lend the place a certain coolness during the heat of Summer; their sound whispers through the whole village, and Suk had loved it instantly.

Johan winds an arm around Suk’s, removing that hand from his back, but instead walking closer, as they never did when they first knew each other, back when he had pretended to be Anna. Suk seems to enjoy this; his arm steadies, bent at the elbow in a way that makes Johan think of far more formal occasions; gentlemen in suits and tuxedos. Suk wears a Summer suit this evening; a pale linen paired with a soft loafer; he’s looking very much the Frenchman these days, though it is handsome on him— the casual finery is far from his more businesslike dress from his days as a detective.

“I do miss my sister,” Johan says, and Suk turns to him, surprised to hear from him after the conversation about the real Anna Liebert had died in the water.

Suk’s other hand crosses to press against Johan’s, where it’s caught in the crook of his elbow. “I’m sure she misses you too. I bet she’d love to see you.”

There’s that sidelong look from Suk again, Johan notices, as if he doesn’t quite know how to tread in this territory. He is glad for his caution; there’s a gentleness about it; a respect that he appreciates.

“I will see her again, one day,” Johan says, and his mascara-slicked lashes flicker, eyeing Suk’s profile. “We were created as one creature, you know that.”

Suk’s thumb strokes over the back of his hand, and the former detective is quiet for a while, watching the charming rows of houses pass them by, the window boxes overflowing with well-tended flowers and greenery, each pair of shutters painted in either the customary green or white.

“Why don’t you write to her? I’m sure she’d love to get an email from you, just to hear that you’re—“ Suk looks at him, as if checking on his expression for permission to continue; he continues regardless. “I’m sure she’d like to hear that you’re happy.”

Happy, Johan thinks. Is he—? Perhaps that is too strong a word, he decides, lashes lowering. He is content. He lives in a Ruhenheim of his own creation, just like the thief. He thinks of sitting at the desk in the room downstairs, with the window that looks out at their garden. Of evenings when they sit on the veranda and eat dinner together. When the vegetable garden turns a particularly bountiful harvest. When Suk falls over things in the living room.

He feels his monster’s chest rumble with that contentment, deep within him, fast asleep. Perhaps he is happy, he thinks, and considers what he may feel were he to lose this. The house on fire. Suk dead. He has seen so many houses go up in flames, and he has seen so many bodies. So many people have died over him, for him, at his behest— he wonders at what that would look like, if it were Jan, and their home now. Of course, there is not even a wisp of regret, but the image of their home in flames— the home he has actively helped create— their garden and the ridiculous car, the bench that Suk had made and repaired many times now.

He dislikes the thought of that. He’d like to remain here.

They’ve got a table near the back of the restaurant; it’s French— there are not many places around such a small village that are anything but that, there are only a handful of restaurants as it is, and often, during the colder months, they are closed.

Suk steps up to pull Johan’s chair out, and they exchange a look as he does. Both smile, though Johan’s is the more sly.

There is a bit of a stir in the restaurant; a few of the patrons have craned their necks to look over at who has walked in; the pair always call attention to themselves— usually because they are two handsome young men; one fine boned, fine featured, the other handsome in the most classical way possible. Tonight it’s Johan’s long blond hair that’s getting all of the attention. Suk glances in their direction, quite pointedly too. Johan’s lip twitches.

“Starting a fight for my honour, detective?”

“If they keep staring at you like that, yes,” Suk says, throwing another look back over his shoulder at the pair of old men sitting at the restaurant’s bar.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Jan,” says Johan, but it’s only barely chiding, and he stretches a hand across the table, palm up. Suk reaches over to take it without hesitation, thumb stroking over Johan’s palm. They watch each other, and Johan’s eyes; the watery colour of them, gleam with something iridescent in the candle light; it’s a trick of the light, surely, but— they gleam all the same.

“What made you decide to— dress up?” Suk says, leaning forwards on an elbow so that they can speak, conspiratorially sliding towards Johan, almost pushing his wine glass over in the process.

“Whim,” answers Johan, and he reaches across to smooth one of Suk’s eyebrows into a tidier formation with his thumb. “You like it.”

“I like everything about you.”

“Oh do you.”

Suk gets that look on his face; the one that is painfully ardent. “Of course I do.”

“I’m teasing you. I know that.”

The warmth of the detective’s gaze hits him, and Johan examines his face. He wonders at how those kind eyes will age; if they will gather fine lines around their edges. He wants to see that, he thinks, maybe he will, many years from now. Suk will likely be handsome well into his fifties still; maybe age would even improve him. That his human lifetime could be coloured by an attachment to another living person is still novel to Johan; Suk has become a focal point in so much of his daily life— his routines are shaped by Suk’s routines, they have come to inhabit their space together with such ease.

And, after all that business of names: is Jan not just the Czech variant of Johan? Jan's name is his own. There is significance in this, to him; a lick of fate to their meeting, to their separate but matched names; twins from a shared root. He cannot hate his own and care for Suk's; feeling does not work this way, not when their names' etymology makes them a bonded pair.

After all: names are important.

/////

At the other end of the restaurant, there is an old couple having dinner together. They have lived in the village for their entire lives; they met at the school that Suk teaches at now. Neither of them left the village, like many of their school friends, even when their own children grew up and moved off to Toulon and Paris to find work. The woman alerts her husband when the pair walk in, and they both glance their way.

“What a beautiful couple,” she says, watching them. The blond girl has a slim, bony frame, and her husband— or boyfriend; probably boyfriend, she thinks, pulls out her chair for her. The pair exchange a look, and it’s clear in that moment, just then, she thinks, that they are very much in love.

“Just like us,” her husband says, though she can tell he’s being facetious, because neither of them was ever particularly attractive— or at least, not like those two who have just come in.

“I wonder where they’re from,” she says. “They look like Northerners.”

“Germans,” says her husband. “I heard them talking earlier. The man can’t speak a word of French. Maybe they're Czech, even.”

“The girl is beautiful,” she sighs, watching her.

“The guy looks a bit like that actor that you liked,” says her husband, watching him. “What was his name? The American.”

“No he doesn’t, he’s much more handsome.”

“He looks just like him; it’s the chin.”

Beneath the table, she notices, the girl and her boyfriend have linked their fingers; the man leaning his elbow on the table. To be young, she thinks, and to be as happy as that. Something about the girl seems a little odd, though, she thinks, returning to her meal and her husband’s lined face. She cannot quite put her finger on it, feeling a bit drunk from the wine.

It had been an afterimage, rather than anything certain; as if the temperature of the restaurant dropped, as if the windows burned. She does not want to look at that girl, that person, again, she decides, thinking that there must definitely be something in this batch of wine. It was as if something that was not a girl, not a person at all sat at that far off table. Something that made her spine crawl; her instincts telling her to run. Something horrible, and evil and furred and clawed; its eyes alight.

Something biblical; something monstrous.

At that back table by the bar, the former detective leans over, mouth nudged and then pressed to Johan’s.

And the monster’s burning eyes close in contentment.