The Lost Angel [BxB]

gregorio

The world itself is the bad dream.

'The Bell Jar'
[Sylvia Plath]

♡ ♡ ♡

20: GREGORIO

"You said you were good at this." Rory moaned as Lalo rummaged around in the little cupboard beneath the sink, pulling out all sorts of cleaning products; washing up liquid, bleach, a few sponges, and a couple of tattered old tea towels. Meanwhile, Rory was searching for a mop in the disused pantry where they kept the brooms and dustpans. They had both had way too much coffee in an attempt to calm their nerves, though it may have created the opposite effect. "Finally." Rory mumbled to himself when he found what he was looking for, pulling a mop out of the shadows.

"I never said I was good at this." Lalo rolled his eyes, standing up from his crouching position, arms full of chemical products. "I just said that I had a vague idea what I was doing. But, fuck, Rory, I have no idea how to get rid of a body."

"We could bury it." Rory suggested.

Lalo snorted, "Cute."

"What?" Rory asked defensively, placing his hands on his hips, "Why's that such a bad idea?"

"A body is evidence. We can't just hide it, we have to destroy it."

"Well, how do you suggest we destroy a body?" He questioned dryly. "If we bury it here, no one will find it. You could plant some flowers on the soil above, and who would ever know?"

Lalo shook his head, "The garden's almost finished. I can't just go planting more flowers."

Rory laughed humourlessly, "Are you kidding?" He exclaimed, "You're worried about the aesthetic look of the garden? Really?"

"Tell me — why would I plant a fresh batch of flowers in only one location, this close to summer?"

"Well, then plant them in multiple locations." Rory challenged.

Lalo gritted his teeth, "I can't." He insisted. "It wouldn't make sense. I wouldn't start something new two weeks before my contract is up!"

"Who cares if it 'makes sense'?"

"The cops!" Lalo snapped, "Rory, we can't afford to skip over the little details. The cops look for the stuff that most people wouldn't even think of."

Rory glanced down at his hands for a moment, and then back up at Lalo. "What if we dig up one of the graves out back? We could bury him with Gregorio Hernandez." He suggested.

Lalo shot him down one again, "They've been buried for over a hundred years. The ground is covered in grass and flowers. If we dig it up, the soil will look completely different to the others."

Rory sighed, "We could burn him?"

Lalo shook his head, "The fire wouldn't be hot enough. There would still be body parts that would need disposing of." He explained, absentmindedly lining up the cleaning products on the kitchen table, trying to ignore the fact that Julien was still laying untouched in the other room.

"Well, then, fuck, I don't know." He shrugged in defeat. "You could come up with the ideas, and I could be a total twat about it, if you wanted to do that instead?"

Lalo rolled his eyes, "How about you go back to bed for a bit?" He offered, "You look tired. I can start cleaning up, and when you're feeling a bit better, you can help me—?"

"Are you fucking with me?" Rory snapped back, "Lalo, there is a dead body in my parents' holiday home! And you want me to take a nap?"

"You might feel better afterwards—"

"I'll feel better when we deal with this mess!"

Lalo froze, his fingers lingering over the lid of a bottle of bleach. "The sea." He whispered under his breath.

"What?"

"When we went to the coast, there was a dock, remember?" He said, smiling to himself triumphantly, "We have to hire a boat."

Rory frowned, and then shook his head, "What are you expecting — to show up dragging a fucking body behind us? 'Yes, hi, one boat please. Don't mind the dead guy, we're just here to throw him in the ocean.'" He mocked. "How the fuck are we gonna pull that off?"

Lalo looked up at him with an apologetic expression, "Well, obviously, we won't be holding an entire body."

"W-What?"

"We're going to have to chop him up first."

Rory's eyes widened, skin paled, and eyelids fluttered shut as if he was about to pass out. "I-I think I'm gonna be sick."

"Rory." Lalo grabbed onto his shoulders and held him in place, "It will work." He promised. "If the body is in smaller chunks, we can hide the pieces in our backpacks, and wrapped up in towels. People will just assume we're carrying normal beach stuff; y'know, sun block and bathing suits. There's nothing suspicious about renting a boat on a sunny day. We'll just look like tourists."

Rory was speechless. He felt faint and dizzy and nauseous. He was slowly making his way through the process of fully understanding what he had done. At first, he was in shock. Then, he was angry. Next came panic, and the desperate need to cover up his mistake. And now, realisation was beginning to creep through the cracks of his conscience. "I-It sounds like a good idea." He admitted, despite his repulsion at the thought of doing what needed to be done. "So...who's gonna...?"

"I-I guess we'll do it together." Lalo was confident that if they followed his plan through correctly, everything would be fine. He wasn't, however, confident that he could cut up a human body. When he killed Guryon, the blood was enough to give him a panic attack, and put him under a spell of suffering for months to follow. But to cut a body up, wrap the pieces up in plastic, stuff them into a beach bag, and throw them into the ocean — that was enough to drive anyone to insanity.

"Right..." Rory hesitated, "Do we move him before w-we..." He gulped, "Or should we just...start cutting him up in the foyer?" He almost gagged at the thought.

"I-I guess there's no point spreading the blood around the house. That would just mean more cleaning afterwards." Lalo reasoned. "So, we could leave him where he is, and...and do it there?" He never thought he'd be having this conversation, especially not after he got out of the game, and definitely not with Rory.

Rory hummed in agreement, "I-I'll...um, I'll get the plastic bags and rubber gloves... You get the saw."

Lalo nodded, and headed out to the shed where he kept all his gardening equipment. On his way back into the house, he locked every door and window that led to the outside world — though it was unnecessary since the only time they had ever received a visitor unannounced was when Rory's Mother showed up. And then, of course, when Julien appeared.

With the saw in his hands, and dread in his heart, Lalo murmured, "I can't believe I'm actually doing this."