The Stains Beneath Our Skin [mxm] ✔

13.1 | Casper the Cowardly Lion

Eventually, the insides of the house spat them out onto the pretty skin. A long corridor trailed away left and right. This length possessed an understated elegance, ornate lamps studding the wall and a Persian runner over the polished wood. Cain stopped outside a room just down the hall and once he stood aside from the open door, Casper shuffled inside.

Fucking money oozing out of its seams, this study. Mahogany panelled the walls, broken only by two huge windows on either side of a crackling hearth in the far wall, both still showing the dusky blue of the sky. The desk was huge - big as a bed and covered with a sweep of paper and tomes that wheezed dust.

The ghoul went straight over to that, sprawled out on its back with its head dangling over the edge, nails tapping against its reflection in the crystallised glass of the drink's cabinet. It could hardly reach across the gap even with its obscenely long arms.

It was ... nice though. Quiet. A bookshelf smothered the wall to the left and even its sturdy wood seemed to sag beneath the books packing out its shelves. The tomes jammed against each other and spilled out into little piles on the floor. A drift of scrolls adorned the very top. Vanilla and tickling incense filled the air and the heat from the fire crackling between the windows on the back wall engulfed him in a shroud. A larger version of the carpet that had run the length of the hall outside lounged over the floor, thick and sumptuous and soft.

Casper tracked straight across it in his filthy socks to stand in front of the fire. Hot. Closer, the scent of woodsmoke danced beneath his nose. Now he stood in this warmth, the shivers waiting in his bones came out. They wracked his body as he clutched his hands to his chest. Was he even still cold? His wrists were, but ... then why did he shiver so violently?

The door shut. Casper jumped, his heart flying up his throat.

"Do you want anything?" Cain's footsteps tracked muffled across the room toward the desk. His dim reflection passed across the right-hand window and settled on the edge of the desk. "You look cold..."

Casper's tongue moved. Rude of it considering he wanted to stick to surly silence. "I ... I could really use a drink."

"Mm, I think I could use one too." Cain stood up from the desk. The ghoul snatched back its arms before Cain could walk into them. Amber whiskey glimmered in a crystal decanter on a small end table just beside the cabinet. Cain shot him a playful glare over his shoulder as he unplugged the decanter. "Considering your dreadful treatment of my head and general face area."

"I had a dream last night that I dug my fingers under your skin and tore off your face."

Cain's shoulders dropped in the reflection and his sigh filled the room. "I take it that was a good dream."

Two glasses clinked together as Cain set them down and the whiskey glugged out of the decanter. Casper sunk to a crouch by the hearth and the heat licked at the palms of his hands.

"I'm glad it wasn't a nightmare," Cain said.

Casper shot to his feet, spun around with a snarl on his lips. "Who fucking said shit about me getting nightmares?"

The dry tilt to Cain's head told him who. Fucking idiot. Casper hissed a curse and crouched back down by the fire. Not to mention if Cain had come anywhere near the bottom of that staircase while he was having one, he'd have heard him scream. One of the many reasons Casper couldn't live with roommates, all under the bold print heading of GENERALLY DYSFUNCTIONAL JUNKIE. He didn't function with other people in his space. Couldn't cook or eat or shit. Couldn't exist. So he forked out the sky-high rent for a bedsit and forked himself out to pay it.