Archive of Our Own ^beta

It's always been easy for you to stomach slasher movies.

Post-graduation, your beloved friends would constantly pester you, asking you to join them for their gore-ish movie nights, which consisted of none other than A-grade thrillers and horror films.

You recall how your eyes would remain locked on the screen, observing the killer, watching how they move with such ease, such delicacy and ruthlessness. The main character, so sweet and innocent and naive, no matter how far they run, the killer would reach them—reach for their throat, their head, and slice it open with a knife, or an axe, or some other mundane object with a blade.

Your friends would scream. They would jump, yell, screech, flinch at the sight of it, but you didn't. You never did. They always took the liberty of hiding behind you in a haunted house, clung onto you when they felt scared, shivering and sore from running through strung-up props from some human anatomy playset.

You've seen this scene before. It's become a cliche for you. The image of blood, gore, intestines, organs, splattered all over the pavement doesn't make you want to retch, to imitate them and pour your guts out in the nearest bathroom. You've seen worse. For a writer with serial killers for friends, at least.

At least once a week, there's a new message in the server's #killer_shit channel. Sometimes it's Angel, a wide portrait with the lifeless body of a man in a suit, a gunshot wound to his head, pale and eyes rolled back. Sometimes it's Misaki, a selfie with half of their face in it, and a deformed figure of a human in the background, teeth pulled out and fingers cut off.

More often, it's Ronin. He's the reason for why you've built your constitution for such wicked imagery. The unfamiliar shape of a person curled into a satanic circle, carved pentagrams into skin and stomachs gutted out. Bodies hung, skinned, decapitated, bloody and bare and brutal. The first time you saw the absolute crime scene he left behind, your stomach churned, uncomfortable and weary, as if it were the next thing on Ronin's hit list.

Ah, well. You're a writer. You've gotten used to writing your serial-killer protagonist. That's all.

It's mostly a lie. It hasn't always been easy for you to see the familiar maroon-stained weapons and fucked-up corpses.

You swallow the thought back down your throat and into your stomach. Part of you starts hoping that maybe Ronin would kill you, he is in the area after all, but you've passed that obstacle in your relationship a few weeks ago, when you chose to kiss him and all his entirety.

Six years had passed since then. No witnesses, a wrecked crime scene, and the body was never found. A perfect crime. Your perfect crime.

You were afraid it would come up again.

Unfortunately for you, the world is not beautiful, nor kind, nor considerate. It comes up on a simple Tuesday morning. The clock reads 3:33 AM, the Devil's hour. Alas, who else to absolve you of your sin but Lucifer himself?

"Well seeing as how I picked dare last time and almost got caught by the police–" Misaki started, earning a few snickers from the people in the call, "I choose truth."

Ronin was their dealer, an honest mistake on everyone's part. He was unpredictable, impossible to read, especially in games that involved a lot of thinking, as if he saw right through you. Everyone stayed silent, curious as to what crazy idea he'll say next.

"Hey, I'll hit ya up with an easy one this time." His voice rang through your ears, sarcastic and teasing. You ease up after hearing his stupidly hilarious pun and how he'll give Misaki an easy question. "The Devil wants to know if ya had a serial killer experience b'fore you became one. 's all."

"Oh! Actually, there is one!" Misaki exclaimed. “When I was a wee child, back in high school, I think? We had this exchange program, so I got to go abroad for a bit. There was this guy in my class, a massive freaking bully—and when I say bully, I don’t just mean wedgies, oh no. I mean that this guy was a total monster. He beat people up so bad he almost killed them.” Their hands moved as they explained, making the flashback much more interesting than it seemed.

V coughed. “You don’t suppose he’s ever received juvenile detention?”

Misaki shook their head. “No…no, he disappeared.”

You didn’t like where this conversation was headed. “What happened?” you asked, faking your curiosity. You cared much for Misaki, but if they were talking about what you think they were, then maybe you’ve been connected to the Slaughterhouse Losers for far more than you remember. How satirically fateful.

The ravenette continued, brushing strands of their red hair out of her face. “No one really knows. One day, after he beat up a particular student, their name was Eve, nicest person ever by the way, he just…vanished.”

“Eve Eden?” Your voice spilled from your throat, small and yet audible enough for everyone to hear. You curse yourself internally.

Misaki’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, how’d you know?” Their head tilted ever so slightly to the left, “Oh my gosh, don’t tell me you studied there too?”

Your eyes moved back and forth frantically, stopping at Ronin’s web camera. His eyes were deep in thought, calculating and analyzing—analyzing you. You were being observed by a poet, a writer, just as you observed your favorite serial killers in the slasher movies you used to watch with your friends.

“Yeah! Eve used to be my best friend. We’re still in touch too, we watched the Fear Street series not too long ago.” You spoke in a way that made you look tired, eyes weary and voice deliberately faint and slow. You prayed someone would get the message.

“Aww, hey. You sound like you should get some sleep.” Angel replied, your savior, a true angel indeed, biblical and all. After a few grumbles from Misaki, and a huff from V, you pretended to concede and left the voice call.

You had a dream that night. No, not a dream. You don’t dream, and when you do it’s easier to call them visions. They’re prophetic in a way, a calling from the past or the future, a blemish upon your sleeping patterns. You wish they would stop.

A punch, a kick, a stab. Dragging a dead man walking. Throwing him across the dirt. Heavy breathing. Blood on balled-up fists. You pull.

There’s a head of hair in your hands. The adrenaline rushed through your veins, giving you strength, supporting you through your justice.

He had to pay.

A flash of white blinded you, and there you saw Eve, fast-asleep in her hospital room, countless needles struck in her skin, once full of color, yet now washed out.

Anger surged through you. You regret nothing.

He drowned that day, in the lake you and Eve used to swim in when you two were children.

You grit your teeth as he struggled in your grasp, opening his mouth to curse you, a fatal mistake. The water simply entered his lungs faster.

When he succumbed to the tide, body filled, you were sure he died, not from you, but from the weight of his own ego.

You burnt his body in the woods. You swept up the remains and buried them in a nearby cemetery. You said your prayers. You left.

When the school investigated his disappearance, Eve covered for you. She said you were in her hospital room the entire time.

The sun woke you up, rays fluttering through your eyes and blinding you. Groggily, you get up and check your cellphone. A message notification greets you. It’s from Ronin.

<goreboy> [08:34]

gmorning darling

hows My favorite writer Doing?

Incoming call from goreboy

→ Yes please …

→ no thanks …

You accept his call, snuggling under the covers and breathing in the scent from the jacket he lent you. It smells like a certain kind of men’s cologne, strong and makes you want to sneeze, but it also smells like grease and iron. You laugh to yourself.

“Whatcha laughin’ at baby?” Ronin’s web camera is open. He’s on his phone too, seeing as how he’s using the portrait function instead of the usual landscape. His red hair is messy, with no beanie to tame it. You stare at him for quite a while, a giddy feeling in your stomach. The devil really does look like an angel.

“Nothing.” There’s a huge smile on your face, and you can feel the heat rushing to your cheeks.

“You free later? Got somethin’ t’give ya.” he suggests, accent slightly seeping through his words. You can tell he’s just woken up with how slow and steady he talks.

“Mm, yeah? What’s the devil gonna give little old me?” you tease, playing into your role as his partner, his darling, his everything. He scoffs on the other end of the line and he gives you a toothy grin, making your heart somersault in your chest.

“Jus’ meet me in Purgatory, darlin’.”

When the two of you meet in the familiar alleyway where your first kiss was shared, you gain the strange feeling of deja vu. Ronin has you up against the wall once more, trapped between his arms and staring at his pretty face.

“Hey.” you whisper, face flushed red.

“Hey yourself.” he whispers back, eyes intense and searching. You worry about what he’s trying to find within you, you worry about how the secrets you’ve whispered to the wind in hopes to rid yourself of them are now caught in his spiderweb.

You shift uncomfortably in his gaze. He knows something. He has you all figured out. Curse you for falling in love with a mastermind.

Ronin slowly moves his left hand to your chin, tilting it upward, making you look at him.

“Got any confessions f’r the devil, little lamb?”

He knows. Your eyes dart back and forth between his face and the space on your right that he’d left open when he moved his hand to cradle your face. There’s a mental debate between your heart and your brain. You wish you could run. You can’t bring yourself to.

Sighing, you grab his hand and lead him through the twists and turns of the alley, reaching the cemetery on the other side. The two of you walk together, hand-in-hand amongst the dead, as if you ruled over them.

At the end of the graveyard, there’s a stone pillar that divides the woods into two paths. You drag Ronin to the path on your right. You still remember, scissors in hand, how far you ran to catch up to him, his hands grasping at the stab wound in his stomach.

You turn left. There’s a field of flowers there, beautiful and serene, and oh-so ironic. You’re about to look back at Ronin when a hand brushes against your ear, placing a flower there. There was something oddly romantic about it. Here you were, showing him your sins, your crimes, your mistakes, and he gladly accepted your insanity, your madness—you.

“I buried him here.” It's half-a-whisper, but the devil hears you nonetheless.

Your lips trembled, guts spilling out to the man before you. “I lured him here. I stabbed him and chased him down.” The events of that day flash rapidly in your mind, making your breathing unsteady and rapid. “I grabbed him by the hair—” You extended your hand, pointing to the body of water in the distance. “—and I drowned him.”

Ronin could only watch as your chest heaved, needing air, needing release. Your mouth, once agape and needing sharp intakes of air, broke into a smile, maniacal and crazy. Your hands reach to cover your lips, but your laugh echoes through the flowers, the trees, the lake, and through the two of you.

Your eyes are bloodshot. Ronin’s eyes are too. His grin matches yours.

“He died egotistical.” You shoot out, a dead look in your eyes that definitely does not match your smile. You wonder if Ronin's surprised at your sudden plot twist in his story—isn't it everything he's ever wished for?

Ronin, upon realizing the severity of the situation, cackles, just as you did, deranged and demented and deadly. He reaches for your face, your expressions complementing each other.

He pulls you in for a kiss. It tastes like concupiscence. You drown in him.

You’re insane. You’re adorable. You’re a devil.

In between kisses, you hear the voice of Lucifer, calling you from hell. "You're perfect."