The Mosaic

Chapter 61 | Midnight Man

AN: I'm sorry I didn't reply to your comments yet -- Uni is crazy right now!

The Midnight Man: a horror movie, about game with a creature known as 'The Midnight Man', who feeds on the childrens' worst fears and ultimately kills them.

It was the eyes.

As tense as Giacinto had been before, pulled tight like a bow string about to snap, now he didn't even flinch. Not when Alessandro pulled the thread tight. Not when he washed alcohol over the stitches. Limp and empty eyed, he could've been a corpse, if it weren't for the flat, too fast breaths.

Deep uneasiness chilled Alessandro's inside, like a gust of winter air rattling his heart, cold settling deep in his bones. Giacinto's eyes could have been sculpted from glass, so striking but so void of life.

Alessandro didn't want to know how many times that scar had been opened to drill such an immediate response into Giacinto. In this moment, Alessandro knew he could have done anything with Giacinto, the Greek would have stayed limp and dead-eyed. As if his soul had left his body to stay sane.

If Alessandro had left a spark of his old self alive, it would've burned down Crete from coast to coast. Bloodied hands would've handed Giacinto sceptre and crown to his kingdom of ash, if it only meant the Greek would never again look like this.

The force of his emotions hit him so hard Alessandro forgot to breathe for a moment. It wasn't like the anger at the church. But if he let it, it would be ten times as destructive. He shouldn't be so surprised at the sudden flood of emotions.

He had always felt strongly about Giacinto. Even if it was dislike, disgust for his mockery and seeming lack of honour – emotions were never the stable force they seemed. They were slippery and wicked, twisting beneath facades and shifting as the treacherous tide, first slow, unnoticeable and then all at once, dragging one out into the deep.

Alessandro had always been too close, his suspicion had driven him too far into Giacinto's heart, had seen the soft boyishness, the crooked grins and old wounds. He thought he was cracking his green eyed riddle, but really he had just grown closer and closer until he was too close.

Alessandro focused on bandaging Giacinto's palms, washing the blood of his own hands and trying not to let the red swirls spreading and fading in the water bowl draw him back into his nightmares.

Some nights, he still woke up with a start, hands dripping blood, and he would run to the washing bowl, scrubbing his skin raw and red, sometimes until he bled, until his chest was too tight too breathe, until the water in the bowl was a sea of thick red. But the blood would never come off.

In the morning, the water was always clear as crystal.

"Thank you." Giacinto wouldn't look at him, flexing his fingers carefully. "You're good at this."

Alessandro wanted to ask so much. "Duelist, remember?" He said instead. Giacinto stayed quiet. 

Alessandro fought the dull throb in his head and the twinge in his eyes. He was so tired.

"You should go to sleep," Giacinto said, still not looking at Alessandro.

Alessandro wouldn't leave to sleep now even if he fainted.

Giacinto must've been watching him after all, because he chuckled at Alessandro's expression. "You have the most stubborn frown-nostril-flare known to mankind."

That sounded more like his Giacinto.

... the Giacinto he knew.

Not that that meant anything, because that Giacinto might very well be an act.