Nothing says romance like a dead body.

The moist blood beneath his feet squelched with each passing movement, the soles of his shoes staining with scarlet red as he paced back and forth. The smell should have made him feel nauseous, but at this point he had grown sickeningly used to it. He watched with glassy eyes as the last of the blood drained from his victim, his head titled to the side with wonder. There was a certain fascination to watching life leave a human being. It was fragile thing: life. So easily taken, yet so easily given.

He had been a handsome man, it was a shame that fate brought his life to an end. It was the price one had to pay for sneaking up behind him though, not many survived that kind of confrontation. It wasn't like he meant to kill him, of course he hadn't, he wasn't the type to be sexually aroused by killing or death. No, he wasn't a psycho. But, he was a big fan of self-preservation, so naturally the other man's life was cut short the moment he decided to take a knife to him.

Des scuffed his shoes together, knowing that the action would have little effect on the blood now stained against them. He'd have to throw them out even though they were his favourite pair of shoes.

"Tosser," he spat at the man now dead on floor.

Sighing to himself and looking over the body once more, Des tied his long hair into a messy bun and retrieved his phone from where it had fallen from his pocket during the fight. He gave it the once over before dialling the all-too-familiar number and holding the phone to his ear. The person on the other end started with an exasperated sigh.

"What do you want?" Jesse always had that bite to his tone, no matter who he was talking to.

"Is that any way to greet your boyfriend?" Des teased back. He could feel Jesse roll his eyes through the phone.

"At two in the morning, yes. Drop the act, Dessie, this better not be a booty call because I swear I will kill you," his tone was serious, but Des could see right through the act. Jesse loved it whenever he called him, no matter what time and how inconvenient.

"Maybe let's not mention the world 'kill' so casually."

"What have you done?"

"Can you come here? I'm about five minutes from your house, in the alley we made out in on our first date," Des begged and he heard a muffled groan and shuffled movement on the other side of the phone before Jesse hung up the call. Des could only assume that was a yes.

It was funny, Des thought, that Jesse still put up with his impulsive and dangerous behaviour. Jesse could never have known that way back on their first date four years ago, that he would be coming back to exact same spot to help deal with a man his boyfriend had murdered. It wasn't the first dead body that Jesse helped him remove, and it probably would not be the last.

Des let himself pace across the dimly lit alleyway, hoping no one would come down any time soon. It was late, but this was New York – the famous city that never sleeps. Des considered his options whilst waiting for back up. He couldn't bury the man, leaving behind a body means leaving behind evidence. He could always burn him but finding somewhere obscure enough to do that in New York was slim pickings. Then there was just leaving him, taking his teeth, draining his blood and removing his fingers, so they couldn't identify the body and cleaning up anything that could possibly link him or Jesse to the crime scene, but that was risky business and slightly messy and way too much work.

He could have just run and avoided bringing Jesse into it altogether, but Des knew better than to not clean up after his mess. His parents hadn't raised a complete animal.

The faint sound of footsteps startled him slightly, his heartbeat beginning to creep up as a figure made their way into the alley. It wasn't until they passed a streetlamp a fair distance away that the blond hair of the figure illuminated against the light and the identity of the other male was discovered. Jesse caught up to him quickly, light as a feather on his toes as he jogged up to Des and placed a small kiss upon his lips before glancing down at the body.

"My, my, can you just not kill someone for one night, Dessie?" He mumbled, crouching down to get a better look at the man, like a detective in a particularly tedious television show.

"Tell them to stop trying to kill me first," Jesse looked up at him, his hair glowing slightly in the pale moonlight, eyes sparkling. Maybe Dessie shouldn't have been thinking about how good looking he was hunched over a man he'd just killed, but he couldn't help it. "I have a troubled past!" Des defended when Jesse sent him incredulous look.

"You have a troubled present," he mumbled, rolling his eyes. He rose back up to his height – towering over Des, he always had – and shook his shoes slightly to rid them of the blood. It didn't work so well. He sighed again, rubbing his hands over his tired eyes.

"Why is it you always want me to help you bury a dead body?"

"We're not burying him, we're getting rid of him."

"How romantic," Jesse rolled his eyes, sarcasm laced in his tone. Des just smiled widely at him, showing off his pearly whites, and winked.

"Just promise you won't tell anyone, no one can know, Jesse," Des said. He knew Jesse knew all this, that didn't stop him from telling him again, just as a reassurance.

"I know, Dessie, I keep all your dirty little secrets," his eyes were feigning boredom, but his lips formed a small smile. Des knew, just as much as Jesse knew, that these types of things would never leave the two of them.

After all, there was a sort of binding contract that came along with burying a body.