In Hell We Dance

Bulletproof

Just one thing remained. I delighted in our world dripping with sin, with lust, but I was playing with a live grenade, and I needed to remove his chance to explode.

For Isaac, that meant that dreaded gun.

I mean a freaking gun! Those metal death machines you see in like, every movie and TV show, not in real life. My life isn't that fricking exciting! Yet in swoops Isaac, and he's dark and elusive, and dangerously seductive, and he's got a gun. To see it in the flesh, like, dude, I got serious chills. Isaac wouldn't hurt me. Until he did. I just can't afford to take that chance.

So the gun's gotta go.

You'd think I'd have found it by now, but in all his dazed scrambling for the thing, he hasn't been thinking straight. I had to wait for him to go to the toilet or shower, or any goddamn moment where we weren't together, and I'd rip through desks, under his mattress, in the kitchen cupboards. Anywhere.

Isaac's room had changed a lot since the days of that blow-up mattress. A low-hanging coffee table by the sofa; a corner shelf to hold more liquor; a grand teak desk with an overstuffed armchair to make him feel all important. Like the actual owner of this place. The compartments were crammed with random shit like gum, cigarettes, half-eaten chocolate bars and sweet wrappers, pens and scrunched up pieces of paper, and one drawer was filled with nothing but candles and matches in case the power ever went off. I bought along these little luxuries, and he hoarded them. The desk and chair I found in a yard sale, and I had to pay the guy to follow me to Hell where we dumped them outside. I said I could manage the rest—I wasn't bringing the poor bastard into the lion's den.

I hated every second I left Isaac alone, but as each day passed, he was a little better, a little more flirtatious, driven—the Isaac I remembered. He channelled it better, and there wasn't a wildness to contain. Just a spark that I could cup in the palm of my hands. The little flame would burn if not handled properly, but so far I was managing.

I'd gone through the desk drawers for the umpteenth time—I'd heard the familiar hiss as water streamed from the shower, and I knew I had fifteen minutes if I was lucky. Enough time to—

"Looking for something that kills?" Isaac murmurs from behind.

My heart catches in my throat. There's no getting out of this. My hand is literally hanging in the cookie jar, still halfway into the third drawer. I turn slowly, chest-pounding, breathing struggling to catch up.

Isaac's leaning against the doorway, only wearing his boxers, gun hanging lazily from three fingers.

His tongue hangs seductively between his teeth, and there's a bored curiosity in those eyes.

"I... I mean I just..."

Isaac pushes off from the frame and takes slow, yet large steps. Behind him, I can hear the shower still running. Bastard. Another step, yet still his tongue is a tease.

As soon as he is before me, he reaches over, shutting the third drawer with a snap. Then he opens the top one, reaching in for the cigarettes and lighter.

"If you wanted a smoke," he drawls, sliding one between his teeth. Lighting it, he inhales, the embers burning in his eyes, and he blows out steady smoke, smiling casually. "could have just asked."

Spinning the cigarette around, he offers it, and I gulp.

"N-no it's alright, I—"

"Connor, Connor," he tuts. "I know you're a good little boy, but all good boys have a wild side. Go on, don't deny it just cause I'm watching."

Inwardly groaning, I take the thing and put it trembling to my lips. I inhale, expecting to double up coughing, but instead, I just feel the whisper of smoke and a slight tangy aftertaste. Just like it was those two lunchtimes in school, sharing one behind the bike shed and keeping on edge for walkabout teachers. Nothing remarkable. Releasing smoke, I grin uncertainly, and that seems to please Isaac.